| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Realms Voyager |
Posted - 12 Dec 2017 : 05:14:42
There are some things that are about as final as can be in the Forgotten Realms such as:
1) if your soul is devoured by Dendar the Night Serpent then according to the sourcebook Powers and Pantheons not even a greater god can restore that soul to life or the afterlife
2) a soul is also permanently destroyed if it is devoured by Kezef the Chaos Hound
3) falling into a sphere of annihilation which is "a hole in the continuity of the multiverse" I think is not reversible even by a wish (please correct me if I am wrong) , does anyone know if divine intervention can restore the individual ?
4) Its harder for a character to escape being taken by the mists of Ravenloft into the Demiplane of Dread than escaping from Tartarus (which is supposed to be the prison plane of the multiverse) itself.
5) An insane eladrin (actually she was an elf , I loathe 4th edition for so many reasons and just one of them is the way they try to confuse elves with eladrins) fell through a portal that led to the Far Realm. The Far Realm is supposed to be outside the entire multiverse and also to be "beyond time" so its as extremely final a fate as can be.
There is a 7th level clerical spell granted by the Mulhorandi god of knowledge Thoth called time warp that allows the caster (or someone else) to travel into the past as far back as two minutes so it is a very limited form of time travel. It does allow the traveling person to have memories of what will happen if the former course of action is followed so if for example a friend of the cleric of Thoth is taken by the mists of Ravenloft the cleric could use the time warp spell to go back in time and plane shift both himself and his friend to some Outer Plane (say the Outlands where Thoth has his divine domain) since the mists of Ravenloft can't reach into the Outer Planes.
If the cleric of Thoth has a friend who is a mage that is devoured by Dendar or Kezef or falls into a sphere of annihilation the cleric can travel back in time and tell the mage to teleport them both away from that place. Even if his friend falls trough a portal into the Far Realm (which is "beyond time") this could still be avoided by traveling back in time and teleporting away. I have a question , I think that the time warp spell has a casting time of 8 (8 what ? does anyone know how many seconds that is ?) so does the two minute range of time travel of the spell start to count from the beginning of the casting of the time warp or the end ? If the casting time is two minutes or longer the spell would be pretty much useless.
The only entities that MAYBE could not be avoided with this spell would be Mystra (since she is the Mother of All Magic and unofficial keeper of the timestream) or some time god such as the elven god Labelas Enoreth (whose avatar can touch someone and return any time traveling being to its own time no matter the method used for time travel) or some being who supposedly can transcend time such as Pandorym (the entity from beyond the local multiverse summoned by the Imaskari wizards to threaten or kill the Mulhorandi gods). A noble time elemental probably could not be avoided by this spell since all time elementals exist in multiple times simultaneously and they can travel forward , back ward and sideways in time at will (I assume that sideways means into alternate time streams).
Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
Kind regards
Realms Voyager
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| 8 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 17 Dec 2017 : 14:40:56
quote:
Originally posted by The Masked Mage
As for the sphere of annihilation goes there is no guarantee that the result is necessarily permanent destruction. In fact, I recall in old D&D that was one possible means for a 36th level immortal (think greater god) to transcend immortality and become a old one (think over-god like Ao).
I for one enjoy temporal paradoxes and loathed every time TSR or Wizards tried to create rules that would make them impossible, as though random campaigns messing around with time would somehow invalidate their timeline more than all their ridiculous reboots. Star Trek side note, I loved when Q messed with time in order to make Piccard alost wipe out earth with his temporal shenaningans.
That in mind, there are numerous other more powerful means of time travel that could push this further beyond the few moments in the past situation right to any time ever in history. Keeping with the old empires theme, you could go back to the ancient past through the Font of Time and undue the destruction of some of the gods in the Orcgate war for example. What would the realms be like then? :P
As a DM, I can actually say I like their attempt to at least control time and have it "fight back". The reason I say this is I don't have to "think" through all the changes that might happen because a player goes back in time and kills Manshoon when he's a kid. I'd rather it be that some other being pops up takes over unless you're careful.
I actually at one point wrote a big storyline piece for my character that revolved around this concept. He had found some studies on time interaction, and in it basically he viewed time as like a hungry beast. It wanted its deaths and it disliked change. So, in his own past, he'd turned very dark because his wife was killed accidentally by a paladin. However, he couldn't double his own lifeline. So, he got another mage to go back in time and rescue her (I forget what it involved... maybe a simulacrum and an illusion over another dead body in the funeral home... so that his old self wouldn't change because his young self still thought his wife died). I then did the "the only way I can protect my wife from my enemies is to send her away where I don't even know where she is and make everyone think she's dead" after someone tries to use her against me back in the present. |
| The Masked Mage |
Posted - 17 Dec 2017 : 05:21:47
As for the sphere of annihilation goes there is no guarantee that the result is necessarily permanent destruction. In fact, I recall in old D&D that was one possible means for a 36th level immortal (think greater god) to transcend immortality and become a old one (think over-god like Ao).
I for one enjoy temporal paradoxes and loathed every time TSR or Wizards tried to create rules that would make them impossible, as though random campaigns messing around with time would somehow invalidate their timeline more than all their ridiculous reboots. Star Trek side note, I loved when Q messed with time in order to make Piccard alost wipe out earth with his temporal shenaningans.
That in mind, there are numerous other more powerful means of time travel that could push this further beyond the few moments in the past situation right to any time ever in history. Keeping with the old empires theme, you could go back to the ancient past through the Font of Time and undue the destruction of some of the gods in the Orcgate war for example. What would the realms be like then? :P |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 15 Dec 2017 : 19:42:14
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
The real trick here is to figure out where those 'completely destroyed' souls really go. They got to go somewhere, and its got to be 'outside the constraints of the normal (D&D) universe'. And of course, what happens to the soul of someone you go back and preemptively kill before their born? (like, you know, you find out the day their mom & dad met and then run one of them over with a truck). Is there any way to access that soul? I would think that's a much more final 'erasure' than even Styx or one those Elder Evils could pull off. And what happens to YOUR timeline when you get back? Is there an Inevitable waiting to kick your arse? 
-The law of conservation of energy. In a fantasy world like D&D, it'd be a lot easier to adjudicate how that'd work with a spirit/soul, as opposed to the real world where you can't. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 15 Dec 2017 : 00:16:23
According to Buffy the Vampire (S)layer (I think I watched maybe 3 episodes, but this was one of them), the universe recognizes a 'death', even if the death is somehow 'undone' (or a clone is formed, etc). Buffy died and a new slayer was activated, and then she was brought back (through science - they used those paddles on her) but the second slayer remained activated. Technology literally f... messed with magic. I wouldn't be 100% certain about the Kezef/Dender thing either, because we don't know what rules the 'magical physics' of the universe do have to follow, and time may not always be one of them (in the case of souls). On the other hand, there can only be one 'copy' of soul at any one time - the 'immortal soul' is inviolate, which is probably why people go nuts - their soul is now stuck between two different people. And Souls (I happen to believe) ARE one of those things they do NOT have to recognize time. Only things that can physically decay, like our bodies, need be aware of time. It should be theoretically possible to 'call forth' the spirit of someone who is still alive... now wouldn't THAT be interesting? 
But things like the River Styx, and those Elder Evils - they literally 'erase' the immortal soul, so I would imagine that was it - finito.
Its probably what happened to those dwarves that were being cloned by the Deepspawn - one soul spread among many bodies. Thats just not gonna work (Liches have been known to split their souls as well - Lord Voldemort did it). I recall a couple of character that had to 'share a soul' in a Xanth novel as well.
In Marvel comics, Doctor Doom fought the Beyonder in the original storyline with the Beyonder (Secret Wars), and much later on, when the Beyonder returns (comes to Earth), he has another encounter with Doctor Doom. However, DD does not recognize the Beyonder or remember anything about him, and the Beyonder surmised that Doom was 'not available' (he was planes-hopping at the time) when Secret Wars happened, so he must have taken him from some moment in the future, and thus determined that moment was NOW (so at their second encounter he sent Doom back in time to meet him at the Secret Wars). Not D&D, but an example of a nigh-omnipotent being still having to follow the rules in regards to time (because he was involved himself both times, it would have created a paradox if he killed him before they even fought in the SW). Of course, that must mean there were two Dooms operating at the same time, but since the original Doom was 'not available' to a guy like the Beyonder, he must have been well outside those normal constraints (like in another Quantum Universe... maybe he bought Braniac some pants). 
But we can use that in regards to the Far Realms - another copy of the person CAN exist in Far Realms...if we use Marvel Comics logic (because that's a completely different universe with its own, unique set of rules). So like Sleyvas says, if you are in a different timestream, you can literally break all the rules.
Or like how I used to che... err... 'creatively play' Animal Crossing. You played the game on the Game Cube, but if you also had a gameboy, you could store your charaater and take him to a friends village (enter another Game Cube... or just another memory card, really). But the thing I liked to do is go to this little island you could only visit on the Gameboy. Then I'd drop all my stuff on the grounds, save, and go back to the Game Cube (after NOT having saved before leaving). Then Resetti would yell at you (he seems to think that was cheating, poor little mole). And the after getting an earful, you're game would start and you'd still have all your stuff... plus all your stuff was still laying on the ground at the island (which you could go back and get). I duped all my rare items over and over - I was very rich. LOL
So, games use a certain logic, and when I did something the game 'couldn't see' (the Gameboy in this scenario acted as an alternate universe), things got duplicated. If games have to work that way, so does the universe... because this is all one great big simulation anyway. And D&D is just a simulation within a simulation.
The real trick here is to figure out where those 'completely destroyed' souls really go. They got to go somewhere, and its got to be 'outside the constraints of the normal (D&D) universe'. And of course, what happens to the soul of someone you go back and preemptively kill before their born? (like, you know, you find out the day their mom & dad met and then run one of them over with a truck). Is there any way to access that soul? I would think that's a much more final 'erasure' than even Styx or one those Elder Evils could pull off. And what happens to YOUR timeline when you get back? Is there an Inevitable waiting to kick your arse? |
| Lord Karsus |
Posted - 14 Dec 2017 : 23:38:25
-I would imagine it would take a lot of preparation, prayer, ceremony, etc. in casting the spell, meaning the casting time would be a while. At the same time, it says that you can only go back and change something that happened up to eight minutes I think it was, so if that's the case, I guess it wouldn't be a massive all-day ritual to cast it. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 12 Dec 2017 : 16:06:36
Souls can also be destroyed (reformatted?) when consumed by or transformed into fiends. Night hags (in the lower planes) can destroy souls, as well.
It's possible to escape the Demiplane of Dread through use of some exceedingly rare scroll or planar portal. Which is basically made "available" when the Dark Powers seem to no longer want a particular character to remain. At least in theory.
Mystra, I think, lacks an independent essence. She instead permeates the Weave itself, it's effectively her "body", and the fatal collapse of either is catastrophic for both. So I think it would be impossible to truly destroy Mystra's soul without also irrevocably destroying the Weave.
Wishes which bring back the dead and lost (or which unfairly kill the living) might always function by means of a "parallel world" wherein the person wished for (or against) is affected as desired. Time travelling could arguably also work on this principle, not so much changing the world-as-it-is as shifting into a slightly-different-world-that-also-is.
Amaunator's clergy (in Ancient Netheril) claimed their god was the god "of all time" - another one of those questionable translation things which hinges on exact interpretation of scripture wording. Time and time travel appear to be part of Mystra's portfolio, but she's never confirmed it and never denied Amaunator's claim. Chronomancers visiting the Realms through Temporal Prime have a tendency to observe Amaunator and Mystra equally, just to be safe, and nobody else really ever time travels except those Mystra allows to cast the 10th level time travel spell, lol.
Ptah, I believe, also has the ability to move through time. Although he has little presence in the Realms. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 12 Dec 2017 : 15:19:44
quote:
Originally posted by Realms Voyager
There are some things that are about as final as can be in the Forgotten Realms such as:
1) if your soul is devoured by Dendar the Night Serpent then according to the sourcebook Powers and Pantheons not even a greater god can restore that soul to life or the afterlife
2) a soul is also permanently destroyed if it is devoured by Kezef the Chaos Hound
3) falling into a sphere of annihilation which is "a hole in the continuity of the multiverse" I think is not reversible even by a wish (please correct me if I am wrong) , does anyone know if divine intervention can restore the individual ?
4) Its harder for a character to escape being taken by the mists of Ravenloft into the Demiplane of Dread than escaping from Tartarus (which is supposed to be the prison plane of the multiverse) itself.
5) An insane eladrin (actually she was an elf , I loathe 4th edition for so many reasons and just one of them is the way they try to confuse elves with eladrins) fell through a portal that led to the Far Realm. The Far Realm is supposed to be outside the entire multiverse and also to be "beyond time" so its as extremely final a fate as can be.
There is a 7th level clerical spell granted by the Mulhorandi god of knowledge Thoth called time warp that allows the caster (or someone else) to travel into the past as far back as two minutes so it is a very limited form of time travel. It does allow the traveling person to have memories of what will happen if the former course of action is followed so if for example a friend of the cleric of Thoth is taken by the mists of Ravenloft the cleric could use the time warp spell to go back in time and plane shift both himself and his friend to some Outer Plane (say the Outlands where Thoth has his divine domain) since the mists of Ravenloft can't reach into the Outer Planes.
If the cleric of Thoth has a friend who is a mage that is devoured by Dendar or Kezef or falls into a sphere of annihilation the cleric can travel back in time and tell the mage to teleport them both away from that place. Even if his friend falls trough a portal into the Far Realm (which is "beyond time") this could still be avoided by traveling back in time and teleporting away. I have a question , I think that the time warp spell has a casting time of 8 (8 what ? does anyone know how many seconds that is ?) so does the two minute range of time travel of the spell start to count from the beginning of the casting of the time warp or the end ? If the casting time is two minutes or longer the spell would be pretty much useless.
The only entities that MAYBE could not be avoided with this spell would be Mystra (since she is the Mother of All Magic and unofficial keeper of the timestream) or some time god such as the elven god Labelas Enoreth (whose avatar can touch someone and return any time traveling being to its own time no matter the method used for time travel) or some being who supposedly can transcend time such as Pandorym (the entity from beyond the local multiverse summoned by the Imaskari wizards to threaten or kill the Mulhorandi gods). A noble time elemental probably could not be avoided by this spell since all time elementals exist in multiple times simultaneously and they can travel forward , back ward and sideways in time at will (I assume that sideways means into alternate time streams).
Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
Kind regards
Realms Voyager
Interesting question..... Let's start with the somewhat easiest. Casting time of 8 was for earlier editions. However, if we accept the idea that a round is 6 seconds... theoretically this spell takes 4.8 seconds to cast. Not that it matters much.
I'd say the dendar/kezef thing is correct.... go back, stop them from getting eaten. The one where people go to different planes.... hmmmm, that puts a jigger on things. Personally, I'd say yes, it would work. However, we do have to remember that each plane has its own timestream, and manipulating one doesn't necessarily mean manipulating both. You might end up with some conundrum where you actually kind of like "clone" someone unintentionally. You know, kind of like the episode of star trek where two Cdr. Riker's were made. According to 1e/2e lore, this means they'll either both commit suicide or one will within a week (during which time, both are progressively going more mad).
Hmmm, so picturing this... lets take it further. Some Thothian mage does this once and saves a friend that "went" to the abyss. So afterward, his friend is schizo for say 10 minutes. He does some research and sure enough his friend was on the other side and he did a mad dash of killing things before dying himself 10 minutes later.
So, the wizard thinks "Man, I got a great new trick". So, he wants to kill some lord of hell. So, he captures or coerces something powerful (for giggles, let's say a tarrasque) to help him and preps several gate spells and several time warps. He sends the first tarrasque through and then jumps back 2 minutes and informs the tarrasque to just wait. The tarrasque in hell devastates its way through the outer planar domain, and the wizard watches it while grinning the whole time... oh, this is gonna be great.... then the tarrasque is killed. So, he opens another gate and sends the tarrasque through again, and when the tarrasque forms on the other side.... does a paradox form? After all, the creature's lifeline has ended on this plane.... but it ended a few minutes prior.. so there's no ovelap... but you have "waited out" the upstream influence of the previous death and have compounded it by "recreating" the creature again. In essence, the Thothian mage is F'ing with destiny in hell, and it all starts when he creates the portal.... which links back to his own plane... which means when a paradox forms (if it forms), it could cross planar boundaries.
As I said, interesting question to think through. |
| sfdragon |
Posted - 12 Dec 2017 : 09:52:30
I've heard that too escape the demi planes of dread was to either beat its lord OR to demand the lord of the demi planes of dread to be returned home....
but then I only know of 2.
one is nuts, namely mordenkainen and the other is Lord Loren Soth who is quite dead now. |
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