| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Erik Scott de Bie |
Posted - 14 Oct 2012 : 17:43:14
This poll is to get a sense of what people want in regard to having a deity over magic, or whether people's priority is getting Mystra (the character) back. Which is more important to you? A god of magic and/or Mystra? Please explain yourself below!
Note that Mystra doesn't have to come back in any particular previous incarnation. She could be the same deity as before, or someone totally new. What's your preference?
Cheers
EDIT: Poll options reworded to avoid the appearance of bias. Basically the responses are supposed to be these:
1. Yes Mystra, Yes Goddess of Magic
2. Yes Mystra, No Goddess of Magic
3. Maybe Mystra, Yes God/Goddess of Magic
4. No Mystra, Yes God/Goddess of Magic
5. No Mystra, No God/Goddess of Magic
6. No opinion
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| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Sightless |
Posted - 28 Mar 2013 : 00:28:01
All valid points, and I thought of some of them as I was writing my post.
I guess I'm just trying to rationalize something, that just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 27 Mar 2013 : 21:58:43
quote:
Originally posted by Sightless
Given that statement, giant space hamster, perhaps Ao didn’t want a Goddess of magic, perhaps he saw something for the weave, which was being prevented by Midnight, something that may, or may not have happened yet. Perhaps Midnight was disrupting the balance too much and Ao simply allowed everything to happen in order to correct that balance.
If it had been stated that Ao blocked the ascension of a new goddess of magic, that would have been an entirely different issue. But that is not what's stated -- we were explicitly told that Shar was the one who blocked it. Since Ao is the only one with that ability, this does not make sense.
And honestly, if Midnight was a problem, Ao should have let her die and then promoted a new Mystra. |
| Sightless |
Posted - 27 Mar 2013 : 21:42:09
Given that statement, giant space hamster, perhaps Ao didn’t want a Goddess of magic, perhaps he saw something for the weave, which was being prevented by Midnight, something that may, or may not have happened yet. Perhaps Midnight was disrupting the balance too much and Ao simply allowed everything to happen in order to correct that balance.
Now, regarding middle ground, the most compromising view I can come up with is having Midnight’s vestige become part of the weave, and then the weave can become a semi-sentient force of nature. This is the view I’ve preferred since hearing of the time of troubles and the first death of mystra. It’s a view I shall always prefer. I don’t personally see her as necessary for the setting, although I wont deny her popularity. That in itself isn’t enough to bring her back to me. Helm was vary popular for a while, and with the exception of What Errik is doing, Helm is dead as can be.
(By the way, recently read Downshadow and loved it).
Do I think that constently killing Mystra’s is a sign of poor imagination, yes, the first two, I could understand, and made sense, this last one didn’t. Helms death didn’t make sense to me either, nor has several other Gods/goddesses that they’ve killed along the way. Simply bringing them back, to me, will only exasterbate, not fix the problem. The Realms has, and should remain, an evolving place. How individuals react to that, how they grow with the realms, is what makes them heroic characters. I’m sorry Ed if this comes across as crass, or uncouth, and while I understand to some degree why you are doing it, I hope in a way that Elmenster doesn’t succeed in bringing Mystra back. For one, I would find seeing how Elmenster deals with the loss of Midnight, and how he goes on with his life, as a far more compelling story than the return of Mystra. If changes in the system need to be made, then one could easily say that the alteration is some new dynamic within the weave itself, or in Ao’s handling of the weave, or something like that. Finally, and even though this might come across as heartless, although that’s not my intent, I look forward to the day when there isn’t a Drizzt, or an Elmenster, and both writers have turned a new page and brought into being new characters, who I have no doubt they will create quite well, in the Forgotten Realms. It is my dearest hope that I have expressed myself, or how I perceive the realms, and how I hope the realms to be, others might not appreciate this perception, and I understand, and ho0pefully folks will read this and perceive the spirit in which it was intended. Thanks for your time, that is all.
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| Chosen of Asmodeus |
Posted - 27 Mar 2013 : 20:20:00
quote:
Originally posted by The Red Walker
quote:
Originally posted by Chosen of Asmodeus
quote:
Originally posted by The Red Walker
for me it's as simple as it's not the realms without Mystra....i feel she is integral to the setting.
And for me, Mystra represents everything that is wrong with the realms.
I suppose there really isn't a middle ground on this one.
I would say if your ready to take a positon of your stay in touch with the realms if there is no Mystra vs. I'm outta here if she is back.....then no there is no middle ground.
But if you avoid novels that feature her and excise her(or diminsh, change ..whatever works for you) from "your realms"...there is limitless space in the middle.
Then no, there really isn't a middle ground.
Because I don't feel that I should be the one to excise her from "my realms" any more than you feel you should be the one to add her to "your realms". |
| The Red Walker |
Posted - 27 Mar 2013 : 15:33:25
quote:
Originally posted by Chosen of Asmodeus
quote:
Originally posted by The Red Walker
for me it's as simple as it's not the realms without Mystra....i feel she is integral to the setting.
And for me, Mystra represents everything that is wrong with the realms.
I suppose there really isn't a middle ground on this one.
I would say if your ready to take a positon of your stay in touch with the realms if there is no Mystra vs. I'm outta here if she is back.....then no there is no middle ground.
But if you avoid novels that feature her and excise her(or diminsh, change ..whatever works for you) from "your realms"...there is limitless space in the middle. |
| Chosen of Asmodeus |
Posted - 27 Mar 2013 : 14:06:53
quote:
Originally posted by The Red Walker
for me it's as simple as it's not the realms without Mystra....i feel she is integral to the setting.
And for me, Mystra represents everything that is wrong with the realms.
I suppose there really isn't a middle ground on this one. |
| The Red Walker |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 23:58:43
for me it's as simple as it's not the realms without Mystra....i feel she is integral to the setting. |
| Arcanus |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 21:50:58
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Lilianviaten
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave?
Because she is popular and a hell of a lot of people miss the weave magic.
I think it has less to do with the Weave and more to do with people perceiving her as a part of the setting, and in particular a part of the setting that was removed in a manner many find objectionable.
They go hand in hand.
Mystra is the Weave, yes -- but people wanting Mystra back isn't because they love the Weave. It's because they like Mystra as the deity of magic.
People do love the weave and all that it brings to the realms.
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 16:50:05
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Lilianviaten
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave?
Because she is popular and a hell of a lot of people miss the weave magic.
I think it has less to do with the Weave and more to do with people perceiving her as a part of the setting, and in particular a part of the setting that was removed in a manner many find objectionable.
They go hand in hand.
Mystra is the Weave, yes -- but people wanting Mystra back isn't because they love the Weave. It's because they like Mystra as the deity of magic. |
| Chosen of Asmodeus |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 16:19:29
quote:
Originally posted by Dennis
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Lilianviaten
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave?
Because she is popular and a hell of a lot of people miss the weave magic.
I think it has less to do with the Weave and more to do with people perceiving her as a part of the setting, and in particular a part of the setting that was removed in a manner many find objectionable.
Killing Mystra is like killing Drizzt. It will never be a permanent death.
No, but a man can dream.
A man can dream. |
| Arcanus |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 14:27:32
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Lilianviaten
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave?
Because she is popular and a hell of a lot of people miss the weave magic.
I think it has less to do with the Weave and more to do with people perceiving her as a part of the setting, and in particular a part of the setting that was removed in a manner many find objectionable.
They go hand in hand. |
| Dennis |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 14:01:37
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Lilianviaten
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave?
Because she is popular and a hell of a lot of people miss the weave magic.
I think it has less to do with the Weave and more to do with people perceiving her as a part of the setting, and in particular a part of the setting that was removed in a manner many find objectionable.
Killing Mystra is like killing Drizzt. It will never be a permanent death. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 14:01:29
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Sightless
quote:
Originally posted by MrHedgehog
Why would Thoth in particular take over magic when there were other deities of magic other than him?
Your parden, I don’t know about all the Gods/Goddess in the FR universe. I’ve not read through Faiths and Pantheons yet, and I don’t deny that another individual could have served the same function, so the question in a general sense still stands, why didn’t God X be given the job? And to whom do you think should have given the position?
In-setting, a factor would be that Thoth is not a Faerûnian deity, and Ao doesn't let deities bounce from pantheon to pantheon. Also, though it was never explained, we were told that Shar somehow blocked the ascension of a new deity of magic. How she did something that only Ao could do was never explained; so far as I know, they never even referenced the fact that she couldn't do that.
I asked the same basic Thoth question years ago, and you always get different answers. The idea came around again with Cyric being denied magic. The same thing came up when something happened to Kelemvor and suddenly noone was dying in the realms? There were other deities of the dead in the world, some even in Faerun just in racial pantheons. This is one reason why I'm thinking the idea of all deities coming back could be a good thing. No more absolute power like that. It would be different in a smaller world like Dragonlance with a set Pantheon for everyone. But larger worlds with racial pantheons, regional pantheons, and thereby a lot more plots going on just don't fit that shoehorn model. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 12:13:23
quote:
Originally posted by Sightless
quote:
Originally posted by MrHedgehog
Why would Thoth in particular take over magic when there were other deities of magic other than him?
Your parden, I don’t know about all the Gods/Goddess in the FR universe. I’ve not read through Faiths and Pantheons yet, and I don’t deny that another individual could have served the same function, so the question in a general sense still stands, why didn’t God X be given the job? And to whom do you think should have given the position?
In-setting, a factor would be that Thoth is not a Faerûnian deity, and Ao doesn't let deities bounce from pantheon to pantheon. Also, though it was never explained, we were told that Shar somehow blocked the ascension of a new deity of magic. How she did something that only Ao could do was never explained; so far as I know, they never even referenced the fact that she couldn't do that. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 12:08:11
quote:
Originally posted by Arcanus
quote:
Originally posted by Lilianviaten
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave?
Because she is popular and a hell of a lot of people miss the weave magic.
I think it has less to do with the Weave and more to do with people perceiving her as a part of the setting, and in particular a part of the setting that was removed in a manner many find objectionable. |
| Sightless |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 11:51:36
quote:
Originally posted by MrHedgehog
Why would Thoth in particular take over magic when there were other deities of magic other than him?
Your parden, I don’t know about all the Gods/Goddess in the FR universe. I’ve not read through Faiths and Pantheons yet, and I don’t deny that another individual could have served the same function, so the question in a general sense still stands, why didn’t God X be given the job? And to whom do you think should have given the position? |
| Arcanus |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 10:20:55
quote:
Originally posted by Lilianviaten
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave?
Because she is popular and a hell of a lot of people miss the weave magic. |
| Lilianviaten |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 04:45:51
As for Mystra, I think 4e dropped the ball with this one. How do they justify needing her back when Toril has had 100 years to adapt to spellcasting after the collapse of the Weave? |
| Lilianviaten |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 04:35:43
quote:
Originally posted by Dennis
Let Mystra stay dead, and feed Shar to Asmodeus' dogs. The Weave and the Shadow Weave can work just fine without them.
Never fear. Based on my interpretation of the Twilight War trilogy, I think Mask is going to return and knock Shar off her high horse in The Godborn. Of course, I can't say that with certainty, but I would bet money on it. |
| MrHedgehog |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 04:11:14
Why would Thoth in particular take over magic when there were other deities of magic other than him? |
| Sightless |
Posted - 26 Mar 2013 : 02:17:11
For those of you that are waiting on my Thayan stuff, I appreciate your patients, I’m still working on it. Life just threw me another kinda of bad curve ball and it took me a bit to deal with it. With that said, I wish to pose something that’s been nagging me for a while, something that doesn’t quite make sense. Why didn’t Thoth take over as the God of magic when Midnight died? In fact, why didn’t Ao give him the position in the first place after the Time of troubles? Because of the empires of the east, he’s an established God, so yeah, not understanding things here. |
| Dennis |
Posted - 23 Dec 2012 : 08:09:00
Let Mystra stay dead, and feed Shar to Asmodeus' dogs. The Weave and the Shadow Weave can work just fine without them. |
| Victor_ograygor |
Posted - 22 Dec 2012 : 10:52:04
Bring back Mystra as the Goddess of Magic
Please... lol
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| Entromancer |
Posted - 20 Dec 2012 : 18:45:31
I don't think its necessary to have a god for natural processes such as decay etc. That can happen regardless, so long as Toril's got plenty of decomposers. I think we do need Mystra back. If she returns, I'd like her to be strictly neutral. Sometimes she would order her chosen to act in favor of a force that some might deem evil and other times work for a force that some would deem good. Plus working in favor of forces that fall within shades of gray.
Basically I think she should be a sort of Cosmic Balance since magic shouldn't be good or evil on its own; it should be whatever its caster wishes it to be/wields it to be. |
| Arcanus |
Posted - 19 Dec 2012 : 22:55:47
Bring back Mystra for me. She is integral to the setting imo. As for some other gods in some way maintaining the weave until Mystra's return, hmm. Afaik the portfolio of magic is unclaimed, this may be why these other gods have done a bit of a botched job of it, making magic the way it is today. Eg. I'm no mechanic but I can do simple jobs to fix problems on my car. I would have no idea how to rebuild an engine though.
The realms needs stable and dependable magic and Mystra is the best way to achieve this.
Ed has always said that there is more than one kind of magic in FR, the weave was just the easiest way to tap into it. Personally I would prefer Mystra to govern all magic (save divine). It makes the setting (for me) make more sense.
Reading through the pages of this thread I see some comments regarding the gods abilities in exercising their portfolio. Eg,decay still going on when the god of decay perished. The gods only direct these forces of nature, they are not the well spring from which these forces spew forth. When a god dies then the measure of control they had over there portfolio dies with them.(For example) Things like decay may behave oddly for a while but they will continue, and we all know what happened to magic when Mystra died!
Oh yes, someone said that people couldn't die during the ToT. Now if I remember correctly, actual death continued but the souls of the dead were stuck on the fugue plane because the gods had been cast down and they were unable to take their worshipers on to the afterlife. (I could be wrong about that, it was a long time ago lol) |
| 4uk4ata |
Posted - 16 Dec 2012 : 14:42:31
I'd like to see Mystra not so much as a goddess whose portfolio is magic, but as essentially the sentience of magic, which kind of acts like a deity and is mostly accepted as one. That is how I perceived the original Mystra, and I liked it a lot more than her opposite numbers from other settings. |
| sfdragon |
Posted - 16 Dec 2012 : 06:26:43
atleast I was vague with my spoiler..... |
| Chosen of Asmodeus |
Posted - 16 Dec 2012 : 00:00:38
You know, in retrospect I don't mind Cat's death so much. What I mind more is her treatment prior to her death- crippled and made barren so she and Drizzt couldn't have any kids, made a wizard and then not do anything with it up until she died- was a waste of her character up until her death.
But killing her when they did, how they did, I get it. She was going to die in the time skip of old age, anyway; killing her the way RAS did made the spellplague more impactful because it took something away from Drizzt on a personal level. It's the difference between watching a hurricane devastate a city on tv and living through it and losing someone to it.
Going back to Mystra and the Weave; the weave doesn't function without Mystra, but magic does- it functions differently than it did with Mystra there, but it still functions. I wonder if post-spellplague magic is magic au naturel, the way it's supposed to be, and Mystra and the Weave are artifical constructs- for lack of a better word- that were imposed on magic to make it function differently. |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 15 Dec 2012 : 22:20:35
Also, just because Deneir ATTEMPTED to merge with the Weave doesn't mean he was successful. What Cadderly saw in his last vision of the god isn't neccessarily what actually happened, but an interpretation of what Deneir was trying to show him. In other words, he may have TRIED to hold it together, but apparently he failed, which would mean he was destroyed along with it when it collapsed. Corellon and several other deities apparently attempted to do the same thing, but none were successful. Without Mystra, it could not hold together. End of story.
sfdragon- Yeah, I nkow what happened to Pwent- I have a couple of the FR comic books where Drizzt and Dahlia first encountered him post-vamp transformation. I was surprised, but not overly so. Pwent was bitten before he died- why WOULDN'T he have been turned? *shrugs* But I was referring to his "death", which was, at least, heroic. As for Bruenor, he DID die, and is in Iruladoon with Cattie and the others, so for now at least, he is certainly dead. Whether he STAYS that way remains to be seen. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 15 Dec 2012 : 20:07:39
quote:
Originally posted by Tarlyn
quote:
Originally posted by Aldrick
Novel's aren't authoritative; so they aren't the best source for lore unless you're looking for details on what actions a specific viewpoint character took. Here is what the 4E FRCG has to say on the matter...
I was unaware that WotC has actually made an official statement that source books are more cannon than novels. Is there a source that statement?
There isn't a statement saying they are more canon... WotC canon doesn't have degrees of canonicity, like Star Wars canon does. For the most part, it's either canon or it's not, and very little of what is published by TSR or WotC falls into the "not" category.
Novels and source material have always been canon, since they started publishing the Realms. |
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