| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Power2the1 |
Posted - 28 Nov 2010 : 01:36:48
Hello everyone, I seek your sagely knowledge. I have been thinking about the event in the Alabaster Staff novel, how a cleric had the body of Gilgeam and resurrected him form the staff.
I was scanning for relevant information in the the FaP book, FRCS, and the like, but nothing there mentioned using a powerful item (like the Alabaster Staff) to bring back a god. Its mentioned that unless some godlike 'essence' or body is availble, then a god could be bought back through prayer, and iirc only prayer and worship could do this.
So, my questions are:
1) Why was Gilgeam not brought back in his body with normal powers of a deity and full intellect, etc... but instead he was a mummy-like huge/colossal being retaining "urges" and "some memories" of his fall at the hands of Tiamat? Was the staff not powerful enough to bring back a fully intact deity?
2) If an item is not powerful enough, would there need to be thousands of prayers directed at him plus months/years worth of recuperation as his powers grew until he was fully whole again?
I hope someone can explain the process and/or methods of resurrecting a deity to me. Thanks in advance for any insight to all this! |
| 14 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Quale |
Posted - 03 Dec 2010 : 11:17:48
he must have kept some of the stuff, or he smoked it all |
| Knight of the Gate |
Posted - 02 Dec 2010 : 02:41:27
quote:
Originally posted by Quale
it'd be interesting if his body was stuffed with that plant of immortality from the Epic of Gilgamesh
Well, if you follow the Epic to its logical FR conclusion, the herb would be how Gilgeam achieved immortality in the first place, I would think.
EDIT:Whoot, just realized I just passed 500 posts! |
| Quale |
Posted - 01 Dec 2010 : 20:58:00
it'd be interesting if his body was stuffed with that plant of immortality from the Epic of Gilgamesh |
| Knight of the Gate |
Posted - 30 Nov 2010 : 22:58:31
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
LOL - so what we have there are the divine equivalents of physical undead and immaterial undead.
Zombies and ghosts, on a 'godly' scale. 
So if you combine a Vistige with a Hunefar, would you get something akin to a divine Lich? (or vampire for that matter - physical, Intelligent, Undead.)
Maybe that's how Orcus came to be the way he is - someone shoved his vestige up his Hunefar's butt. 
And now (after the explanations) I'm seeing the Alabaster Staff as some sort of greater Artifact that contains the ritual for Greater Mummification (there are at least two 'tiers' of mummy, canonically), which can be applied to the corpse of any truly great* individual.
*And by 'truly great', I mean someone that received some type of worship during it's life, which any 'god-king' does). Ergo, it would re-animate the remains of any being of at least DvR 0.
Two things: 1) That's crazy evil, and I like it a lot.
2) I had been thinking that maybe Gilgeam had stored a bit of his essence in the Alabaster Staff- just enough to animate him, but not enough to bring him back. Either that, or maybe it *was* enough to resurrect him, but the caster who brought the staff had other ideas. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 30 Nov 2010 : 22:04:04
LOL - so what we have there are the divine equivalents of physical undead and immaterial undead.
Zombies and ghosts, on a 'godly' scale.
So if you combine a Vistige with a Hunefar, would you get something akin to a divine Lich? (or vampire for that matter - physical, Intelligent, Undead.)
Maybe that's how Orcus came to be the way he is - someone shoved his vestige up his Hunefar's butt.
And now (after the explanations) I'm seeing the Alabaster Staff as some sort of greater Artifact that contains the ritual for Greater Mummification (there are at least two 'tiers' of mummy, canonically), which can be applied to the corpse of any truly great* individual.
*And by 'truly great', I mean someone that received some type of worship during it's life, which any 'god-king' does). Ergo, it would re-animate the remains of any being of at least DvR 0. |
| GazzaM |
Posted - 30 Nov 2010 : 21:35:07
A Hunefer is an undead creature, animated remains of a dead god. Not truley divine yet one of the most powerful undead.
A vestige is a dead being whose soul does not go to the Fugue Plane, instead, stuck in a form of limbo somewhere else (and this somewhere else remains unknown). To people with the ability to bind, vestige grant powers. Vestige cannot affect our world, they can be summoned and bound, but thats about it. |
| Power2the1 |
Posted - 30 Nov 2010 : 19:43:28
Heres an excerpt from the book, when Gilgeam is first raised:
He aimed the Alabaster Staff down at the corpse at his feet. A massive weave of supernatural energy
reached forth and caressed the wrapped body.
"Arise!"
The oil-soaked bindings that wrapped the corpse burst asunder in a brilliant flare of light, flying apart
with such force that shreds of the canvas flew across the room. Kehrsyn blinked several times to clear her
eyes, and she saw the former corpse standing at Zimrilim's feet, shreds of oiled grave wraps still clinging to
his skin.
He was tall, well over six feet, with a powerful, military build. Long, flaxen hair, limp and gray with dirt,
hung in damp clusters over his shoulders, and a matted beard covered his chest. His skin was the pale blue
of the dead and had a wrinkled, desiccated appearance.
His eyes were white and dead, yet even as Kehrsyn looked they began to glow with an evil inner light.
Something akin to intelligence began to show through, even though the surface of the glassy eyes remained
dull. As she watched, the animate corpse flexed his arms, and huge muscles rippled beneath the dead skin.
A sound like creaking leather came as the large muscles strained against the skin, then the flesh covering
the muscles split asunder and the undead thing—for he was clearly far more than a zombie—finished his
flexing with a grimace that looked part pleasure, part pain.
He bowed his head and flexed his shoulders, and the skin split down his spine. Wherever the skin pulled
apart, the layer beneath showed golden, glowing with a soft radiance. The thing groaned—there could be no
other word for the deep, burbling utterance that came from his dead lungs—and as he straightened up, he
seemed to have grown a foot taller and expanded to twice his original size.
The dirty, matted hair began to wave in an ethereal wind.
Kehrsyn stared in frank amazement at the creature's naked body. The powerful muscles rippled with
crisp definition. The lines of the face, jaw, and brow were handsome, even beautiful, without a trace of
femininity. Each move was executed with the grace of a dancer. He would have struck her down with
desire, had it not been for the dead eyes and the slack, hanging mouth.
"Gilgeam!" hissed a dozen voices in the room, as the priests shrank back in fear.
The animate corpse of the slain god turned to face them, head swaying back and forth like a scenting
tiger.
And when Tilgath, a preistess of Tiamat found out:
"Gods, no ..." Tiglath gasped. "You—you're jesting!"
"He must have kept the body hidden all these years, and he used this ancient magical wand and these
potions and—"
"Zimrilim," echoed Tiglath, still with a tinge of disbelief, "resurrected Gilgeam?"
Demok shook his head and replied, "No, not resurrected. More like ... animated. Mummy, perhaps."
"Yeah, like that," said Kehrsyn. "He was all wrapped up and stuff, and he just ripped his way out of the
wrappings and grew in size and—"
"Fiery hells," swore Tiglath, "he... animated... a god? To be his pawn?"
"Yep," said Demok.
Tiglath put her hands to her head as if to keep it from exploding under the pressure of that new
revelation.
"He must be mad ..." the priestess said, speaking primarily to herself.
"Well, yeah," said Kehrsyn.
"To even think of forcing a dead god back into its corpse is ... is unconscionable. Only the very highest
undead would be capable of holding Gilgeam's intellect. Such an act... even creating a greater undead being
... it would excise the higher levels of the corpse's mind, leaving only the basest and most violent processes
in place." She looked up at Kehrsyn and Demok, as if remembering their existence. "That's the basis of
animation, you know. You take a human and stimulate only the basest, most animalistic desires, their
simplest instincts of hate and hunger. It makes them easier to control and ensures their hostility if they are
encountered out of one's control. Doing that to a divine being like Gilgeam would be insane. Think of all of
the heinous acts he committed in his life, when he had some semblance of self-control! How much more,
then, when his higher brain is wiped away, leaving only a vague sense that nothing is right within his own
mind!"
_____________________________
Thats about as detailed as the books gets with what exactly Gilgeam is described.
Knight of the Gate, I am thinking as you do, because I am wanting to start an online chat based FR campaign set in Unther. I am wanting a nice plot based around portions of this book and source material as perhaps bringing Gilgeam back with a different portfolio and perhaps bringing back portions of the Untheric Pantheon...or something like that :-) |
| Markustay |
Posted - 30 Nov 2010 : 02:03:02
So whats the difference between a Hunefar and a Vestige? |
| Knight of the Gate |
Posted - 29 Nov 2010 : 20:55:10
It should be noted that the Hunefer (as detailed in the ELH) is what happens when the last glimmer of godly power residing in the corpse of a deity animates the corpse; that sounds a LOT like what you're referring to here. The interesting part of this is that, even if the deity is 'resurrected' fully through the prayers of the faithful or the intervention of a greater Power, the Hunefer is not necessarily affected; it may, in fact, work to bring the resurrected god down out of jealousy that the god has the 'life' which is denied to it.
Hmmm... this sounds like a pretty cool plot idea.... |
| Markustay |
Posted - 29 Nov 2010 : 19:59:13
A fragment of a god could still appear 'whole' - it has just been 'lessened' to great extent (in power, and therefor in stature).
I have some theories about Phylactories and godly domains (they are basically the same - just enormously different 'power-levels'). In the Harry Potter novels, there is a phylactory-like item called a Horcrux, which is able to hold just a piece of someone's 'soul'.
This sounds a lot like the Hunefar from ELH, but the D&D variant is obviously of a much higher capacity (the godly equivalent of a Horcrux). In fact, if we had some sort of power-meter (DvR?), it could be said that mortal phylactory is only capable of holding a certain amount of 'soul energy' (Radiant?), and that the Hunefar would be the result of a deity using one of those 'lesser receptacles' (because a phylactiory can hold the complete soul of a mortal, but not that of a god).
So the Alabaster Staff becomes a phylactory (Hunefar), only capable of holding a small portion of Gilgeam's 'godly essence'.
We have canon precedents for this situation - Karsus' essence was divided into three pieces (that we know of), and Mystra used to 'stash' bits of her godly essence inside her Chosen (so that each one became a Horcrux/Hunefar for her). I also find it interesting (in a related way) that Halaster did not die in a conventional manner - his soul was fragmented (leaving room for a come-back, me thinks).
The staff may have been an item closely associated with the god - either a relic (holy artifact) or something carried by his chosen (if he had any), and a portion of his energy may have been placed within the staff on-purpose (in the same manner as creating an Avatar), or by accident (the death of the Chosen may have caused that person's essence to bound with the staff they were holding).
Either way, the piece of the god's essence that was in the staff was probably there before that deity died, and as I said, this may have been on-purpose to allow for a 'come-back' (which also has several precedents in canon lore). Gods tend to be smart-enough not to 'put all their eggs in one basket', as it were.
So long as a remnant survives somewhere, it can receive worship and eventually 'bloom' into a reincarnation of the original deity (I sight Bane as an example of this).
At least, that's how I'm seeing these things unfold. |
| Power2the1 |
Posted - 29 Nov 2010 : 17:19:41
I do not think that the novel referred the the him under that specific name (hunefer), but that sounds pretty close to the description, save that Gilgeam was whole in body, not just a fragment.
So basically, magic weapons aside, a seemingly dead deity can be brought back by a growing number of faithful worshipers? Does any source book say how long this takes or how many worshipers are required? |
| Knight of the Gate |
Posted - 28 Nov 2010 : 07:07:09
I've not read the novel, but what you're describing sounds like a hunefer (ELH), which is a mummy-like 'fragment' of the deific essence. It's quite powerful, but can't be said to be fully sentient. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 28 Nov 2010 : 03:10:01
Well met, P2the1 ...
Tethtoril's Bookshelf (here at Candlekeep) has an interview with Edward Boyle about his Alabaster Staff novel. It is only the first (of four?) books in the Rogues Series ... I haven't read any of these tomes, so I don't know if your question is answered therein.
It wouldn't be the first (or last) time in Realmslore that deities have "broken the rules". The properties of the Alabaster Staff itself were probably designed more to serve the needs of the novel than those of the game. |
| Alystra Illianniis |
Posted - 28 Nov 2010 : 02:04:54
If this worked on Gilgeam, I know of another good candidate for this. Maybe some Eilistraeeans should get hold of it....
Edit: somebody needs to cage those gremlins... |
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