| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 15 Oct 2006 : 21:46:17
I have been really bothered by certain conflicting dates related to the Dawn Cataclysm.
The story begins "Tyche found herself embroiled, along with the rest of her circle of deities, in a war between the gods resulting from the actions of a current paramour, Lathander. Always fickle with her favors, Tyche kissed the Morninglord with misfortune and wandered off to explore the Realms."
The story ends with "When Tyche returned home, she came across her dear friend, the goddess Selūne, waiting to speak with her. Also waiting for her were Lathander, who wished to regain her affections, and Azuth, who had come to mediate the dispute between the two." whereupon Selune splits Tyche into Beshaba and Tymora.
I had always taken the begining and the end of the myth to be contemporaneous. But my current thinking is that the end of the begining and end of the myth are vastly separated in time. She left before the Dawn Cataclysm, but was split long after, say around 600-800 DR.
Azuth seems clearly to already be a deity by the end of the tale. But in Secrets of the Magister it says that Mystra founded the office of the Magister in response to the Dawn Cataclysm. Before Azuth had ascended to godhood. We don't know when Azuth was installed as Magister, but we know the second magister was appointed in 136 DR. Presumably this was close to the date that Azuth ascended.
If the war between the gods happened a good while before 136 DR, before Azuth became the first Magister and before he ascended, the myth can still track if the splitting of Tyche part of the Myth happened much later, after Azuth ascended, even as late as the fall of Myth Drannor in 714 DR.
I think the key to understanding the Dawn Cataclysm is not to think of it so much as a historical event, but rather as a mythological explanation for the merging of disparate human cultures (and their pantheons) into a unified Faerunian super-culture (and concomitant super-pantheon).
Prior to the fall of Netheril and Jhaamdath, humans were isolated into distinct regions and cultures, each with its own separate proto-human pantheon. We are told in Faiths & Pantheons that the 4 major human civilizations and pantheons before the DC were: the Talfiric people (Western Heartlands), the Netherese (Anauroch), Coramshite, and Jhaamdathans (Vilhon Reach).
Following the fall of Netheril, there was an exodus of the Netherese into the North and places south. After Jhaamdath fell, there was a diaspora of Jhaamdathan survivors who spread out around the Sea of Fallen Stars and also to parts west and north.
The Dawn Cataclysm would have begun in a region where Lathander was prominent (he started it) and where the Talfiric cultures were mixing and clashing with the Netherese and Jhaamdathan settlers, and their languages, cultures and religious ideas. It would have begun before 136 DR but only after Chondathans had time to migrate to the area.
If Lathander was the sun god of the Talfiric pantheon (we know he was worshipped back in Athalantar) then the DC probably began in the Western Heartlands. And right around the start of Dale Reckoning, we see that the Chionthar river valley was indeed the kind of melting pot we are looking for, a hot spot for the melding and clashing of cultures and ideas. We know that Netherese had communities along the Chionthar river, as well as Talfiric peoples and we know the Chondathans were spreading into the area.
So looking in Brian's fantastic Grand History for dates to support the founding of Chondathan/Jhaamdathan settlements in the area, I saw that the Shadowking was founding his empire of Ebenfar begining in 34 DR, and that this involved a consolidation of all these diverse peoples and communities in the Chionthar region.
My current theory is that the Dawn Cataclysm echoes in some fashion the unification of the Ebenfar empire. "As above, so below" or so they say. I am not saying that one is the cause of the other, but that just as the people were forced to merge, so too were the gods forced to merge and the Dawn Cataclysm was the shake out from all this merging.
If so then the actual war-of-the-gods part of the Dawn Cataclysm took place sometime between 34 DR and 136 DR. Of course, there may not have actually been a real war between the gods. This might have just been a myth made up after the fact to explain the merging of the pantheons.
Gods have a somewhat fictional aspect to them in that their personal history and continuity can be altered (even retroactively) by the belief of their worshippers. That is why I say that the war might not exactly have happened as an event, but rather that people began to repeat and come to believe the story of a god-war, which made it "true" with respect to the gods. Assigning dates to mythological events would seem thus to be more of an application of fuzzy logic (a range of dates) because it relies more on believers' perception and consensus than on the dating of tangible events.
If the war part of the myth happened before 136 DR, that still allows for the second part of the myth, the splitting of Tyche to have happened before 714 DR.
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| 14 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Mumadar Ibn Huzal |
Posted - 21 Oct 2006 : 19:41:39
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I still don't see it. Why would it be said that the DC presaged the fall of Myth Drannor if Myth Drannor wasn't around when it happened? Why would people then make that connection? It's never presented as a prophecy or anything -- we just have that oft-repeated bit linking the two events. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if the two events are linked in some way, then they both had to be in existence at the same time. Especially since nothing we know of the DC does link it in any other way to Myth Drannor...
I can dig a prophecy. But I'm not seeing the DC as a prophecy.
It depends on when the sources from where the statements about the presaging come were written. If the authors were looking back, they might have come to the conclusion that the DC could only have been presaging the fall of MD. We have been reminded several times that like Volo's guides, not all publsihed documents on the Realms are 100% accurate and true.
All in all, I kind of like the explanation Gray wrote down in the start of this thread. It somehow sounds right and fits with general human nature combined with religion. |
| Faraer |
Posted - 21 Oct 2006 : 00:43:56
Let's have more (past, past!) divine events that are properly divine/sacred, thus outside of time and interacting with time in strange, unpredictable ways.quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
I am coming to see the DC as just a myth or a metaphor for what was going on with the merging of Faerunian cultures.
I'd be careful of reducing mythological events to linear 'explanations' of parts of their meanings. Enough of that going on already. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 05:09:44
Perhaps.
Another alternative... Maybe what we're dealing with here is just one loremaster's or scholar's opinion looking back on history and linking the two events themselves. It may be that the "oft-repeated bit" indicates that the fall of Myth Drannor is simply a useful event in history scholars and loremasters note after the outcome of the Dawn Cataclysm. In other words... saying the "DC presaged the fall of Myth Drannor" may simply be nothing more than a scholar's way of referencing such an event with respect to other great events that were to come later. And thus, doesn't really specifically relate to any particular prophecy regarding the DC.
This, of course, may not be the case. Given contradicatory references to the DC itself, and its supposed nature as "presaging" the fall of Myth Drannor, there may actually be a prophecy involved. I think it really depends on how much purchase you give to the word "presage." Maybe it was never about actually linking the two events together as part of some all-encompassing prophecy, it was more about just noting that two great and cataclysmic events happened a few centuries apart.
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 03:44:38
I still don't see it. Why would it be said that the DC presaged the fall of Myth Drannor if Myth Drannor wasn't around when it happened? Why would people then make that connection? It's never presented as a prophecy or anything -- we just have that oft-repeated bit linking the two events. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if the two events are linked in some way, then they both had to be in existence at the same time. Especially since nothing we know of the DC does link it in any other way to Myth Drannor...
I can dig a prophecy. But I'm not seeing the DC as a prophecy. |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 03:03:02
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I've never said that the DC had to happen right before Myth Drannor's fall. But I do have a hard time with the idea that the DC presaged MD's fall -- which is emphasized in more than one place -- and yet could have happened before there was a city named Myth Drannor.
Presage
noun
1. a presentiment or foreboding.
2. something that portends or foreshadows a future event; an omen, prognostic, or warning indication.
3. prophetic significance; augury.
4. foresight; prescience.
5. Archaic. a forecast or prediction.
verb (used with object)
6. to have a presentiment of.
7. to portend, foreshow, or foreshadow: The incidents may presage war.
8. to forecast; predict.
verb (used without object)
9. to make a prediction.
10. Archaic. to have a presentiment.
Prophecies about events, people and places have occurred for a long time. Nostradamus, anyone? And he wasn't a patch on Auguthra the Mad or Alaundo. I don't think that an early Dalereckoning dating for the DC is invalidated by the fact that Myth Drannor wasn't in existence at that time.
-- George Krashos
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 02:54:57
I've never said that the DC had to happen right before Myth Drannor's fall. But I do have a hard time with the idea that the DC presaged MD's fall -- which is emphasized in more than one place -- and yet could have happened before there was a city named Myth Drannor. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 01:27:36
I've been thinking about this myself, thanks to a little past prodding from George...
Consider this:-
"Tyche split into Tymora and Beshaba during the Dawn Cataclysm. This is mentioned in a couple of places... So the Dawn Cataclysm must have happened in 8th Century DR -- from 700 to 799 DR, somewhere in there..."
Now, as I've come to realise, we have no absolute notion that this statement is completely true. As such, Tyche splitting into Tymora and Beshaba does not completely nor logically lead to the belief that the Dawn Cataclysm must have happened in the 8th century DR.
In a similar regard, I'm starting to think that maybe too much emphasis is being place on the word 'presage'. Specifically, 'presaged' does not usually equate with the idea of temporal immediacy. In other words... the DC may not have occured just before the fall of Myth Drannor. But rather, it occured quite some time before the fall of Myth Drannor.
Recall also that George did personally re-write that particular section about the Schism in the FRCS. As I recall, before his re-write, that section on the Schism in the FRCS was ALL about the DC. George tells us that the writers didn't want to ruin the endless debates and threads that were to come so they changed it a little... writing something different.
From that perspective... the preferred date for the DC could then very well fall earlier than the 8th century DR... perhaps even in the early 100s DR or so, with the first real ramifications filtering through a few centuries or so later.
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| George Krashos |
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 00:58:18
It wasn't the Conspectus. I think it might have been the seriously flawed (and now ignored) Netheril Timeline handout. Oh, and all you DC junkies are forgetting Moander. When did the elves of Cormanthyr trap him with High Magic and how does that fit with the general events of the DC?
-- George Krashos
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| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 00:38:30
But what about the repeated references to the Dawn Cataclysm having presaged the fall of Myth Drannor? Myth Drannor didn't even exist as such until well after the second Magister was picked... That's why I've always favored the later date. |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 15 Oct 2006 : 22:47:13
I have the conspectus too, and I also cannot find the date. This leads me to believe the handout that Eric refers to was something different from the conspectus. Maybe an earlier draft or some other marketing pamphlet that was different from the conspectus that you and I have. |
| Brian R. James |
Posted - 15 Oct 2006 : 22:24:36
Funny this is, that I have the Forgotten Realms Conspectus and I cannot find the Dawn Cataclysm mentioned on it anywhere. Someone please point me in the right direction. |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 15 Oct 2006 : 22:13:50
Oh, also that date in the hand out was 161 DR according to this FAQ:
http://www.candlekeep.com/fr_faq.htm#_Toc16090483  |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 15 Oct 2006 : 22:12:13
Well, I mostly accept your idea that the DC happened outside the timestream. I just think it can be narrowed down a bit. And I am still trying to understand it in terms of its effects on the people down below. And I think the Tyche split should be decoupled from the Godwar part of the myth, and viewed as two separate events.
I am coming to see the DC as just a myth or a metaphor for what was going on with the merging of Faerunian cultures. Clearly the merging was going on at different times in different places, and took place over the course of many years, even centuries. And if you see the story of the DC as a myth made up by clergy (after the fact) to explain why gods rose and fell, switched portfolios and even died as a result of all this merging, I think that helps explain why the DC is so hard to pin down.
I do think that the Netherese exodus and the Chondathan diaspora coupled with the consolidation of the Ebenfar empire along the Chionthar were powerful catalysts for the DC, and Ebenfar, especially, I think merits more thought. |
| ericlboyd |
Posted - 15 Oct 2006 : 21:54:54
quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
Lots of well-researched, well-thought-out stuff ...
Or, the Dawn Cataclysm happened outside the timestream and cannot be dated. ;-)
--Eric
PS Of course it was actually dated once, in a poster handed out a GenCon. I forget the date though.
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