| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 20 Jan 2024 : 21:02:36
There seems to be scant information regarding the pre-pre history of the Realms with most of the information to be found limited to the 4e campaign guide(?).
I’m really curious about time though and what these ancient eras were like. Is Toril (or at the time Abeir-Toril) as ancient as the real world? Did dinosaurs appear millions of years ago like here on earth or were they around mostly during the time of the Serpent Kingdoms and Sarrukh?
Does Toril have a Jurassic period? A Devonian period? Was it just the primordials and gods at that time and did they do nothing but wait around for millions of years? Was this the time of the spellweaver and illithid empires? Aboleth and their ilk?
I know some of the answers to these questions but I’m wondering what Ed thinks particularly. I can’t imagine a magical universe with very clearly ambitious and free thinking entities existing where nothing goes on for entire epochs of time.
Edit: Just wanted to mention my brain is going here because I’m thinking of a magical mishap occurring that sends my PCs WAY back and I don’t know what for them to expect. The Blue Era seems kind of weird if you have a waterworld with primordials like Maegera running around but whatever. Instead, I might have them find a preserved ruin that predates even the Days of Thunder. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Azar |
Posted - 05 Feb 2024 : 23:40:23
Take this for what it's worth (I think it was included for the creep factor and not based on any official material the developers consumed): in the Baldur's Gate CRPGs, Doppelgangers will refer to the PC and his followers as "primates". Then again, they will cry out this insult no matter the party's composition (be it entirely Human, Elven, Gnomish, Dwarven, Halfling or some mix). Furthermore, there's a bit of descriptive text that appears in the second title...something like "The hairs on the back of your neck stand up."...that will appear even if the PC is an Elf, so I think a bit of artistic license was in play.
As for my opinion on the matter...The Forgotten Realms (Faerun, in particular) is fantasy escapism generally modeled on Western quasi-medieval mythology. Because language influences thought and thought can shape immersion, there will be no mention of "evolution", "genetics", "electromagnetism", "osmosis" and the like in my campaigns. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 05 Feb 2024 : 23:25:54
quote:
Originally posted by Dalor Darden
Or that the world of Threnody is where the elves came from...
Possibility... at the same time... and I'd have to review Evermeet isle of elves... but I want to say that it was the gold elves that came from Tintageer and ... I want to say it was the ilythiiri (sp?) that were worshipping Kiaransalee... and I want to say there were hints that they didn't have the same origins. That being said... long time, memory ain't great.
EDIT: did a little research... found the reference to Kiaransalee... links below... my summary after. But they didn't BRING worship of Kiaransalee with them, so my memory was faulty on that.
[url]https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kethryllia_Amarillis[url]
[url]https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Haeshkarr[url]
[url]https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ilythiir[url]
So, may have been wrong on the Ilythiiri side with linking Threnody seems like it was
Kiaransalee was already a god, so Threnody already dead
Kethryllia the moon elf went to the demonweb pits chasing a demon named Haeshkarr who had captured her lover, where she met Kiaransalee
Kiaransalee apparently "helped" Kethryllia find the demon, but only if she'd call out to Corellon. Calling out to Corellon attracted Lolth's attention, who had her followed back to Toril.
Lolth came to Toril and took an ilythiiri named Ka'Narlist as her lover and bore him children, seducing him away from the worship of Ghaunadar.
So, this would have all been in the -24400 to -24500 DR timeframe.
|
| Dalor Darden |
Posted - 05 Feb 2024 : 17:55:14
Or that the world of Threnody is where the elves came from... |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 05 Feb 2024 : 15:11:00
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I theorize that the gold and moon elves did not come directly from the plane of Faerie.
We see in Evermeet that they are fleeing the destruction of their home, and they clearly felt going to another world entirely was better than trying to go to another spot on the same world... But planes can't be destroyed that readily (if at all) and we know that Faerie is still around.
So I theorize that there was an earlier migration from the plane of Faerie to a Prime world that the elves also called Faerie, in honor/remembrance of their original home -- Faerie 2.0, if you will. And it was this Prime world that was being fled from in the beginning of Evermeet.
Over time, the refugee elves and their descendants conflated the plane of Faerie with the Prime world they called Faerie, eventually forgetting that the two were separate places.
The more I've heard people espousing this concept, the more I've come to like it. I also like the idea that "Evermeet" coming over from "Faerie" wasn't pulling the land from the feywild... but rather from this other world.... and that the elves didn't reaize it, but THEY were the source of the original issue that made them have to flee that world as their High Magic went awry (maybe time flowed different between the two "crystal spheres" / "wildspace systems" ... or they tried to grab their home island BEFORE it got destroyed)
I would also point out too that in that same Evermeet novel, there are references to Kiaransalee worship long ago (I'd have to pull out the book to find the references though). Kiaransalee arose to godhood by destroying all/most of the life "on the planet of Threnody". It could easily be written up that spacefaring or planehopping elves came to Toril and brought worship of Kiaransalee with them from another world as well. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 05 Feb 2024 : 14:28:10
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
Sorry fellow Sages, I cannot check my sources right now but I'm pretty sure there were elves on Toril well before the Seldarin worshipping one appeared.
quote:
Originally posted by varyar
I've been digging into Grand History of the Realms and you're correct - the first elves in Toril (green and dark elves) worshiped the powers of Faerie/Feywild, not the Seldarine (that came later with the gold and silver elf survivors of Tintageer, even though that was part of Faerie, too - the Evermeet novel is explicit on both parts).
Yeah, but still happens after the time of the Creator Races. Specifically, in the Age of Dragons/Giants. Which means that there cannot be elves predating sarruth and the not-australopithecus.
Not sure of the point here.. but just to point out, it very well could be that SOME elves simply came to be here (i.e. godly creation of a race, rather than migration). The fact that they didn't immediately rule the world doesn't mean much if they stayed in one area, weren't immediately gifted with magical knowledge, etc... It very well could be that there were some early elves that were "born of the world".
It also may be that in the dark annals of elven history that we find out that they BRED their way into the world. What do I mean by that? In a somewhat similar way to the tiefling's "breeding true"... elves were noted for a time to "breed true". One could in theory see a small tribe of elves with less moralistic views breeding a generation of half elves THEN breeding those into "full elves" in the next generation.
Not saying any of this is true.... just throwing out some oddball ideas that people might be interested in playing with. |
| varyar |
Posted - 04 Feb 2024 : 21:10:50
One thing I've always wondered is who attacked Tintageer? The novel doesn't given any hints, beyond the fact that they were powerful enough to destroy the city/island/realm. A rival faction from Faerie (whichever version!) or some infernal power or what? |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 04 Feb 2024 : 05:09:51
I theorize that the gold and moon elves did not come directly from the plane of Faerie.
We see in Evermeet that they are fleeing the destruction of their home, and they clearly felt going to another world entirely was better than trying to go to another spot on the same world... But planes can't be destroyed that readily (if at all) and we know that Faerie is still around.
So I theorize that there was an earlier migration from the plane of Faerie to a Prime world that the elves also called Faerie, in honor/remembrance of their original home -- Faerie 2.0, if you will. And it was this Prime world that was being fled from in the beginning of Evermeet.
Over time, the refugee elves and their descendants conflated the plane of Faerie with the Prime world they called Faerie, eventually forgetting that the two were separate places. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 28 Jan 2024 : 04:58:45
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
Right, sorry, I'm still foggy. But this discussion on elves made me realise that the fey are indeed supposed to be around as one of the creator races (and they created those first elves).
They are not interlopers and they are at least contemporary to the Sarrukh and Batrachi, so maybe they emerged as spirit loci? Embodying in a way the essence of the wildest, most untamed places on Toril (Rashemen-telthor style)? Already there and spontaneous or birthed by the dreams of Chauntea?
We know both in Faerun and Kara-tur the untamed natural places are full of "spirits", old Toril must have been even more "natural" and untouched, so makes sense for lots of spirits/fey to be around
Nothing to be sorry about, my friend. We are all lore nerds here, 
Anyways, the GHotR says that the fey Creator Race summoned those first green elves from Faerie (aka the Feywild). So, they didn't created them. Seems that these elves are still the children of Corellon (as official materials say all elves are creations of Corellon), even if they didn't worship him as a god yet (as the Seldarine didn't existed yet at the time)
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
With that being said, here’s a follow up question. Say your wand of wonder blows up in a wild magic zone or whatever weirdness occurs to send a whole party back 100000 or 1000000 or 1000000000 years ago. What do they see?
If I had to do something like this IME, I would do something akin The Shadow Out of Time, with the original ancient aboleths of Xxiphu fighting against flying polyps and some equivalent for the Great Race of Yith. |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 28 Jan 2024 : 00:37:12
This whole discussion makes me wish for a GHotR prequel.
With that being said, here’s a follow up question. Say your wand of wonder blows up in a wild magic zone or whatever weirdness occurs to send a whole party back 100000 or 1000000 or 1000000000 years ago. What do they see? |
| Demzer |
Posted - 27 Jan 2024 : 19:30:16
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
Sorry fellow Sages, I cannot check my sources right now but I'm pretty sure there were elves on Toril well before the Seldarin worshipping one appeared.
quote:
Originally posted by varyar
I've been digging into Grand History of the Realms and you're correct - the first elves in Toril (green and dark elves) worshiped the powers of Faerie/Feywild, not the Seldarine (that came later with the gold and silver elf survivors of Tintageer, even though that was part of Faerie, too - the Evermeet novel is explicit on both parts).
Yeah, but still happens after the time of the Creator Races. Specifically, in the Age of Dragons/Giants. Which means that there cannot be elves predating sarruth and the not-australopithecus.
Right, sorry, I'm still foggy. But this discussion on elves made me realise that the fey are indeed supposed to be around as one of the creator races (and they created those first elves).
They are not interlopers and they are at least contemporary to the Sarrukh and Batrachi, so maybe they emerged as spirit loci? Embodying in a way the essence of the wildest, most untamed places on Toril (Rashemen-telthor style)? Already there and spontaneous or birthed by the dreams of Chauntea?
We know both in Faerun and Kara-tur the untamed natural places are full of "spirits", old Toril must have been even more "natural" and untouched, so makes sense for lots of spirits/fey to be around |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 27 Jan 2024 : 01:29:13
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
Sorry fellow Sages, I cannot check my sources right now but I'm pretty sure there were elves on Toril well before the Seldarin worshipping one appeared.
quote:
Originally posted by varyar
I've been digging into Grand History of the Realms and you're correct - the first elves in Toril (green and dark elves) worshiped the powers of Faerie/Feywild, not the Seldarine (that came later with the gold and silver elf survivors of Tintageer, even though that was part of Faerie, too - the Evermeet novel is explicit on both parts).
Yeah, but still happens after the time of the Creator Races. Specifically, in the Age of Dragons/Giants. Which means that there cannot be elves predating sarruth and the not-australopithecus. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 27 Jan 2024 : 01:09:35
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead
My take on it is that Earth is the ultimate human homeworld for all humans in the D&D multiverse. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense for some humans to come from Earth (the Mulan) and others not; we'd have to imagine parallel evolution and other things that starts to generate headaches real quick, in a Battlestar Galactica finale "we didn't think this through properly" kind of way.
Didn't they fixed that by saying humans where among the first inhabitants of Sigil, and that's why they became so common in the multiverse? That's what they said in the 5e Planescape sourcebook. |
| varyar |
Posted - 27 Jan 2024 : 00:35:38
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
Sorry fellow Sages, I cannot check my sources right now but I'm pretty sure there were elves on Toril well before the Seldarin worshipping one appeared.
I've been digging into Grand History of the Realms and you're correct - the first elves in Toril (green and dark elves) worshiped the powers of Faerie/Feywild, not the Seldarine (that came later with the gold and silver elf survivors of Tintageer, even though that was part of Faerie, too - the Evermeet novel is explicit on both parts). |
| Demzer |
Posted - 27 Jan 2024 : 00:29:26
Sorry fellow Sages, I cannot check my sources right now but I'm pretty sure there were elves on Toril well before the Seldarin worshipping one appeared.
Also, on the pre-humans, is this the Sarrukh going "What? You cannot create a new race just to scratch behind your ears?!? You must be an ape ... stupid animal ... why am I even ... oh wait, you can scratch other parts ... stand still ...." or are there other sources?
Because I'm also quite sure that humans were regarded as the late blossoming 5th creator race.
... man I hate not having the time to check my sourcebooks ... |
| Werthead |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 22:40:22
quote:
So, you can accept that the humans that were brought to serve the Imaskari came from Earth, that their gods followed them, that the Egyptian gods are real... and thus their mythology might be real in that "they created humans from tears of Happiness"... but you can't accept that those multiplanar godly entities might not have created similar beings on other worlds? Or that other gods might not have created similar beings using the same form of magic?
The whole D&D cosmology does teeter on the edge of collapse when throwing things like that into it (also Gothic Earth being a thing, presumably a separate world to Actual Earth, but both being incredibly similar to one another).
It's just personal preference. I'd rather a single origin rather than saying, "well they created them here...and identical creatures here...and here." Dragons seem to predate the creation of Toril so seem to have a different point of origin, the elves definitely don't come from Toril, neither do orcs, so they seem to be okay with having a single, and different origin to simply loads of them existing at different places in the multiverse just because (and who knows what's up with the dwarves). The alternative, which would have been my preference but the ship sailed on that forty years ago, is Earth simply not existing in the D&D multiverse, at all.
It's also one of those things I doubt they're ever going to make a formal canon ruling on. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 22:27:35
quote:
Originally posted by Mournblade
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
*this also opens a new topic, though unrelated to the one at hand. And is that if humans were ape-like by the time of the sarrukh, it seems that they also "suffered" a process of rapid evolution like the dragons, to get to their current homo-sapiens status. Unless the humans of the Realms aren't homo-sapiens — though, they are still evolved apes, canonically...
Its quite obvious by the timeline alone that Natural Selection is not the origin of species. It is basically stated that the Sarrukh manipulated the pre-humans magically.
Trying to explain anything scientifically in a D&D world usually fails. Nothing will stand up to that scrutiny.
I think the same. However, evolution has been used officially to explain stuff in the setting, specifically about dragons (see the 2e Draconomicon). So, there is that. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 20:48:40
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead
My take on it is that Earth is the ultimate human homeworld for all humans in the D&D multiverse. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense for some humans to come from Earth (the Mulan) and others not; we'd have to imagine parallel evolution and other things that starts to generate headaches real quick, in a Battlestar Galactica finale "we didn't think this through properly" kind of way.
With that in mind, I imagine proto-humans were brought to Toril very early on by the Creator Races possibly for the sheer hell of it, and then other "proper" humans, probably from our Stone Age, came to Toril a bit later to settle in Katashaka (and their descendants later settled Keltormir), and other humans from Earth were enslaved by Calim and brought to Toril when he arrived, then the Imaskari brought a bunch more. That would also explain the relatively low population numbers of humans until after Calim and then the Imaskari brought a whole ton over. One of the benefits of that is that we know bringing things over from Earth (a completely different multiverse, let alone universe) often involves time displacement, so you could have hominids from a million years ago and modern humans from just 30,000 years ago co-existing.
So, you can accept that the humans that were brought to serve the Imaskari came from Earth, that their gods followed them, that the Egyptian gods are real... and thus their mythology might be real in that "they created humans from tears of Happiness"... but you can't accept that those multiplanar godly entities might not have created similar beings on other worlds? Or that other gods might not have created similar beings using the same form of magic?
When it comes to magic and gods... I can accept a LOT of stories. I think that's what I find untenable... that someone believes that our science must be true, while still wanting to allow for magic to also be true. I would even accept that OUR world isn't without magic... its just most of us don't know how to use it because we've just lost the ability. After all... supposedly portals work...
I'll even throw in some other options.... The Masque of the Red Death campaign features the concept that an Egyptian Pharaoh attempted a ritual that called the Red Death to the world. The Red Death then started corrupting or killing all practictioners of magic, to the point that most in the world don't know that magic is real. One could have it that the Imaskari came to THIS world to steal their slaves after its arrival, but before it had locked down this "demiplane". Thus, they could say that they found a world without magic, even as they used magic to get there and force people into slavery. In fact, they may have brought their own magic "sources" so that they didn't draw upon the corrupted magic of gothic earth. Also, the act of the Egyptian Pharaoh's ritual that entrapped the red death in their world... it may have also entrapped the gods, which may have been why it took them so long to get to Toril. The Imaskari's god barrier that they created may somehow be TIED to what makes travel out of Gothic Earth next to Impossible, which may even mean that the Red Death invading the world is somehow tied to them. Now, would I do this particular storyline? Nah. But it's an idea. |
| Werthead |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 20:34:16
My take on it is that Earth is the ultimate human homeworld for all humans in the D&D multiverse. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense for some humans to come from Earth (the Mulan) and others not; we'd have to imagine parallel evolution and other things that starts to generate headaches real quick, in a Battlestar Galactica finale "we didn't think this through properly" kind of way.
With that in mind, I imagine proto-humans were brought to Toril very early on by the Creator Races possibly for the sheer hell of it, and then other "proper" humans, probably from our Stone Age, came to Toril a bit later to settle in Katashaka (and their descendants later settled Keltormir), and other humans from Earth were enslaved by Calim and brought to Toril when he arrived, then the Imaskari brought a bunch more. That would also explain the relatively low population numbers of humans until after Calim and then the Imaskari brought a whole ton over. One of the benefits of that is that we know bringing things over from Earth (a completely different multiverse, let alone universe) often involves time displacement, so you could have hominids from a million years ago and modern humans from just 30,000 years ago co-existing. |
| Marc |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 17:03:01
In my games I imgined Forgotten Realms reflected what happened on Earth, only much more fantastical. After the release of the GHotR I had to make some adjustments. So e.g. the Hadean period would have elementals and primordials (older than that would be shadevari in the void), followed by primordial slime, possibly creatures like oozes, aboleths, and maybe even sharns. After that I picture aquatic fungi and plants, batrachi (parallels amphibians in Devon), sarrukh (Jurassic), then aearee. Shadow epochs are times of Shar's attempts to end all life, they are similar to Earth's extinction events. |
| Mournblade |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 16:25:39
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead
I think D&D and Forgotten Realms are very close to achieving "broken canon" status, where a fictional world's backstory has been so messed around with by retcons that it's on the verge of no longer being tenable, not helped by contradictory statements on canon by different people in the know (see also Ed's reported legal agreement with WotC, which he believes means that anything he says on the Realms is canon and confirmed by contract, and he used that to directly challenge Crawford's statement that all pre-5E stuff is non-canon and Crawford did not respond).
It's getting to the point where maybe the same view should be taken as towards Doctor Who's canon: everything that has ever been published or officially released is canon, and the contradictions should be taken on board as either evidence of misreporting, someone lying or even someone mucking around with the timeline (not unprecedented in the Forgotten Realms!).
It already has. As it is if a concept doesnt have its origin in a source before 4e I don't use it. There are some concepts from 5e realms that I will incorporate if it uses a pre spell plague bit of lore logically and respectfully.
I throw out anything Spellplague derived though. |
| Mournblade |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 16:20:16
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
The thing is, if we go by the Grand History of the Realms, humans shouldn't exist at the time. The ancestors of humans were still ape-like humanoids (australopithecus? homo erectus? ergaster?) by the time of the sarrukh empires, so it would make no sense having full humans before that time. And elves first came to Toril after the Days of Thunder. Whatever existed in the time of the -36k DR or before, it was pretty different to what we currently know.
*this also opens a new topic, though unrelated to the one at hand. And is that if humans were ape-like by the time of the sarrukh, it seems that they also "suffered" a process of rapid evolution like the dragons, to get to their current homo-sapiens status. Unless the humans of the Realms aren't homo-sapiens — though, they are still evolved apes, canonically...
Its quite obvious by the timeline alone that Natural Selection is not the origin of species. It is basically stated that the Sarrukh manipulated the pre-humans magically.
Trying to explain anything scientifically in a D&D world usually fails. Nothing will stand up to that scrutiny. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 15:26:34
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
<snip>
Anyway, back to the original "what was there before" I'm not sure I would go for a watery-planet age.
I'm thinking more an "aboleths in the waters/underdark and spellweavers/thri-kreen on land" time. With humans as random fodder everywhere (already multiplying a lot, mating with everything that roughly fits, being used as slaves and food and occasionally spilling out of forests or wherever, orc-horde style) and a smattering of wild/wood elves in the forests is what I would go for Toril's ancient past. And a lot of beasts, big animals, random monsters.
Yeah, I'm not big on the original story that "the whole world was water". I like there being landmasses... maybe smaller with more under the water. I also am VERY favored of what you just said there of spellweavers/thri-kreen on the land (and not necessarily thri-kreen per se.. but multi armed insect humanoid brutes)... and throwing in that their civilization is failed here due to their attempt in the past. Seethyr and I both have discussed using that in Anchorome, and I like it. Especially since spellweavers are noted for using crystal "technology" of sorts... maybe the Sarrukh and later cultures use of magic (and often using gems to power magic) relates back to them trying to reverse engineer spellweaver knowledge and inadvertently stumbling onto other ways of doing things.
I know I'm probably in a minority here too... but I'm also very favored of there being a world that was more advanced before Toril in the "crystal sphere" or "spelljamming domain" of realmspace .. or whatever 5e calls it now. That planet I like to be Coliar, and I like it to not JUST be lizard men, aarakocra, and dragon.... but rather "sauroids", "bird folk", "strange dragons... including feathered ones", and possibly long ago involving some conflict with Phoenii, dragons, and a different planetary sphere on fire like a sun.
In this concept, the "sauroid" races may have travelled here (including the "Old Ones" ... https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Old_One ) after their world of Coliar got shattered somehow. The "dragons" that the primordials are said to "ride" may have also come from there. Then the later arrival of the Aearee can be of similar origin. I will note here as well "earthmotes" and "earth islands" ... pretty much the same thing.... and both similar to a dwarven spelljammer that flies through space... and they don't necessarily need to be fast.. but they might rain stuff like rocks down on a planet underneath. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 15:01:55
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
The thing is, if we go by the Grand History of the Realms, humans shouldn't exist at the time. The ancestors of humans were still ape-like humanoids (australopithecus? homo erectus? ergaster?) by the time of the sarrukh empires, so it would make no sense having full humans before that time. And elves first came to Toril after the Days of Thunder. Whatever existed in the time of the -36k DR or before, it was pretty different to what we currently know.
*this also opens a new topic, though unrelated to the one at hand. And is that if humans were ape-like by the time of the sarrukh, it seems that they also "suffered" a process of rapid evolution like the dragons, to get to their current homo-sapiens status. Unless the humans of the Realms aren't homo-sapiens — though, they are still evolved apes, canonically...
OR the humans came from elsewhere and BRED with the existing human like races that were here.... which given human proclivities I'd not rule out.... or the humans that are documented were from one area and there were OTHER humans elsewhere. Not saying I know the truth... just throwing out some possibilities. I mean, we have so many options once you start throwing in planar travel, spelljamming, magical mutations, etc.... |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 14:43:21
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead
The gods hanging around for 4 billion years - without anyone worshipping them but they don't "starve" to death from a lack of worship in the meantime - is pretty implausible.
I would just like to point out that "death from lack of worship" was apparently a new rule set by Ao after the ToT, to make deities actually care for and engage with their flocks and not simply threat them as fodder or giving them for granted. Deities were quite resilient before that, with most of the known-to-be-perished gods being killed/subsumed by another god.
Also the first(?) goddesses of the human pantheon that we know about (first generation Selune and Shar, and second generation Chauntea and Mystryl) are more akin to cosmic forces/primordials than 4E deities,so I bet they could sit around alone/with each other (which is basically the backstory of Selune and Shar) for quite some time without problems.
Actually, Shar misses the time it was only her and her sister so badly she wants to destroy everything to get back then ...
Retcons abound though, with later things having gods die due to lack of worship prior to the ToT (but then again... its the "sages that know" that report this information... and we all know that those guys are idiots).
My PERSONAL thoughts on this matter... take it as you will... gods didn't DIE due to lack of worship necessarily... but they damn sure became inanimate. Starved and unable to act, and maybe even turned into vestiges and trapped elsewhere, but not DEAD. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 13:43:27
The thing is, if we go by the Grand History of the Realms, humans shouldn't exist at the time. The ancestors of humans were still ape-like humanoids (australopithecus? homo erectus? ergaster?) by the time of the sarrukh empires, so it would make no sense having full humans before that time. And elves first came to Toril after the Days of Thunder. Whatever existed in the time of the -36k DR or before, it was pretty different to what we currently know.
*this also opens a new topic, though unrelated to the one at hand. And is that if humans were ape-like by the time of the sarrukh, it seems that they also "suffered" a process of rapid evolution like the dragons, to get to their current homo-sapiens status. Unless the humans of the Realms aren't homo-sapiens — though, they are still evolved apes, canonically... |
| Demzer |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 13:22:52
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead
The gods hanging around for 4 billion years - without anyone worshipping them but they don't "starve" to death from a lack of worship in the meantime - is pretty implausible.
I would just like to point out that "death from lack of worship" was apparently a new rule set by Ao after the ToT, to make deities actually care for and engage with their flocks and not simply threat them as fodder or giving them for granted. Deities were quite resilient before that, with most of the known-to-be-perished gods being killed/subsumed by another god.
Nope, death for lack of worship was always the case even before Ao "created" that law. Ed Greenwood said once that Ao "creating" that law was an inside joke reference to Ao actually knowing nothing about how the Realms worked.
https://x.com/TheEdVerse/status/1530630214820175878?s=20
Ah gotcha, I didn't remember that lore snippet, thanks for reminding me.
I would still put the original goddesses (Selune and Shar) and their first offsprings (Chauntea and Mystril) higher up in the food chain than run-of-the-mill deities that came after. But it's probably a matter of personal taste.
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
Ao is useless
Always has been (insert astronauts meme here).
LOL, well played!
Anyway, back to the original "what was there before" I'm not sure I would go for a watery-planet age.
I'm thinking more an "aboleths in the waters/underdark and spellweavers/thri-kreen on land" time. With humans as random fodder everywhere (already multiplying a lot, mating with everything that roughly fits, being used as slaves and food and occasionally spilling out of forests or wherever, orc-horde style) and a smattering of wild/wood elves in the forests is what I would go for Toril's ancient past. And a lot of beasts, big animals, random monsters. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 05:48:14
quote:
Originally posted by Seethyr
Ao is useless
Always has been (insert astronauts meme here). |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 04:29:55
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead
I think D&D and Forgotten Realms are very close to achieving "broken canon" status, where a fictional world's backstory has been so messed around with by retcons that it's on the verge of no longer being tenable, not helped by contradictory statements on canon by different people in the know (see also Ed's reported legal agreement with WotC, which he believes means that anything he says on the Realms is canon and confirmed by contract, and he used that to directly challenge Crawford's statement that all pre-5E stuff is non-canon and Crawford did not respond).
It's getting to the point where maybe the same view should be taken as towards Doctor Who's canon: everything that has ever been published or officially released is canon, and the contradictions should be taken on board as either evidence of misreporting, someone lying or even someone mucking around with the timeline (not unprecedented in the Forgotten Realms!).
That’s the game I’ve always run. “It’s all canon” is the shockingly simple fix to Crawford’s diametric opposite that 5e has adopted. It’s not easy to do, untangling all the knots and snags, but imo worth it in the end. Even with this mess, we all love it for a reason and parts shouldn’t just be thrown out. |
| Werthead |
Posted - 26 Jan 2024 : 00:15:26
I think D&D and Forgotten Realms are very close to achieving "broken canon" status, where a fictional world's backstory has been so messed around with by retcons that it's on the verge of no longer being tenable, not helped by contradictory statements on canon by different people in the know (see also Ed's reported legal agreement with WotC, which he believes means that anything he says on the Realms is canon and confirmed by contract, and he used that to directly challenge Crawford's statement that all pre-5E stuff is non-canon and Crawford did not respond).
It's getting to the point where maybe the same view should be taken as towards Doctor Who's canon: everything that has ever been published or officially released is canon, and the contradictions should be taken on board as either evidence of misreporting, someone lying or even someone mucking around with the timeline (not unprecedented in the Forgotten Realms!). |
| Seethyr |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 20:36:07
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead
The gods hanging around for 4 billion years - without anyone worshipping them but they don't "starve" to death from a lack of worship in the meantime - is pretty implausible.
I would just like to point out that "death from lack of worship" was apparently a new rule set by Ao after the ToT, to make deities actually care for and engage with their flocks and not simply threat them as fodder or giving them for granted. Deities were quite resilient before that, with most of the known-to-be-perished gods being killed/subsumed by another god.
Nope, death for lack of worship was always the case even before Ao "created" that law. Ed Greenwood said once that Ao "creating" that law was an inside joke reference to Ao actually knowing nothing about how the Realms worked.
https://x.com/TheEdVerse/status/1530630214820175878?s=20
So the Time of Troubles accomplished nothing. Ao is useless |
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