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see
Learned Scribe
235 Posts |
 Posted - 02 Dec 2021 : 05:36:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by see
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
but this multiversal thing is far larger in scale than anything they've done before. By opening up the possibility of parallel universes with echoes present in each, they're throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie.
This isn't opening it up any wider than the infinite number of alternate Prime Material Planes in the 1987 Manual of the Planes (pages 117-119). Which, among other things, explicitly included alternate Primes with a Temporal Factor of 0, which meant "Continents, life, and society similar to home plane. Individuals who resemble companions exist, though their actions, attitudes, and alignments may vary from those of the traveler's Prime plane."
Yeah, but that book didn't explicitly say there are full-on duplicates on each world or that they could kill each other to get stronger. Also, that was a possibility that was never touched on again, while this is saying it's definitive and pushing the concept hard.
Hell of a difference between "there could be something similar, somewhere" and "there are definitely multiples out there, they can be communicated with or worked with, and killing them makes an echo stronger."
In the 1987 Manual of the Planes it was established that there are infinite numbers of alternate Material planes in a "Polyverse", which includes alternate Primes full of close echoes of all the beings of your home plane (every Temporal Factor 0 alternate Prime), plus alternate Primes that were very similar to your world but offset in time (all the alternate Primes with negative Temporal Factors).
In Fizban's, it is established that dragons, and quite specifically only dragons (because of dragons' unique link to the material plane), have a mysterious link to dragons on other prime worlds that they may or may not resemble, whose actions might have an effect on the dragon, and that they might be able to absorb for power.
I do not understand how anyone could conclude that the first is somehow less "throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie" than the second. The Manual of the Planes set up every variant of the parallel universe trope plus de facto time travel. Fizban's just says that any given dragon on Toril is (at least theoretically) linked to a dragon on Oerth. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36784 Posts |
Posted - 02 Dec 2021 : 11:08:30
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quote:
Originally posted by see
I do not understand how anyone could conclude that the first is somehow less "throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie" than the second. The Manual of the Planes set up every variant of the parallel universe trope plus de facto time travel. Fizban's just says that any given dragon on Toril is (at least theoretically) linked to a dragon on Oerth.
Because Manual of the Planes was quickly replaced by Planescape, which did not have that idea, and because every other page of the book wasn't pushing the idea hard, and because the design teams for that book and for this book are very, very different.
Manual of the Planes did not take that idea and make it canon for all published D&D worlds, and it did not explicitly lift an idea based on the concept from a mediocre sci-fi movie and not only say it's possible but that it has already happened more than once. And the earlier book was not written by a design team willing to toss aside any other creative views -- including established canon -- for their own views, or by a team willing to insert anachronistic pop culture elements or inside jokes into a setting for the hell of it.
Also, Fizban's does not say this is limited to dragons -- it doesn't address whether or not it extends to other sentient beings at all. It does, however, extend the idea to dungeons.
So why it Fizban's more expansive? Because they make the idea canon for every setting and run hard with it, and the book has already started mining movies and comic books for ideas based on it. |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 02 Dec 2021 : 18:39:48
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| You say "established canon", as is such a thing existed nowadays. |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 16 Dec 2021 : 02:50:54
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Bringing this topic up again, is there anything about the Underdark below the Old Empires area? If you know me (lol), I'm specifically interested in places in the Underdark below Unther/Tymanther.
At this point, I don't care if it's fanmade, as the books I have and the Wiki seem to imply there is nothing worth mentioning in these areas. |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
Edited by - Zeromaru X on 16 Dec 2021 02:51:36 |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11749 Posts |
Posted - 16 Dec 2021 : 23:33:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
Bringing this topic up again, is there anything about the Underdark below the Old Empires area? If you know me (lol), I'm specifically interested in places in the Underdark below Unther/Tymanther.
At this point, I don't care if it's fanmade, as the books I have and the Wiki seem to imply there is nothing worth mentioning in these areas.
Not official, but with drow and trolls in the riders to the sky mountains, I'd definitely put some links there. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 01:25:51
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| I have found nothing, so I guess I'm going to steal stuff from the 4e Underdark book. |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11749 Posts |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 02:16:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I have found nothing, so I guess I'm going to steal stuff from the 4e Underdark book.
There is the area under the capital (its undercity where the lamia were).
Then this from Old empires which I was mentioning before.
The eastern portions of the Riders to the Sky have mostly been cleared, though some bandit and outlaw tribes use them as bases to wage raids on Unther and Chessenta. The western portions, along the edge of the Winding River, are much wilder. There are troll villages, and duergar inhabit underground caverns.
Half-drow who were exiled from Yuirwood long ago are rumored to live among the trolls.
One thing to bear in mind is that lots of the area is very low lying (Unthalass flooded a lot). Therefore digging down more than a few feet might hit water (a problem we have down here where I live, thus noone can have a basement). Granted, that should in theory make the underdark in most places pretty impossible except under mountainous areas, but it might be why there isn't much of an underdark presence in this one. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 05:04:12
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| Good to know. This gives me an idea of what could be below there. Abolethic and kuo-toan stuff, me thinks. |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11749 Posts |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 13:12:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
Good to know. This gives me an idea of what could be below there. Abolethic and kuo-toan stuff, me thinks.
could make sense if you accept the abolethic sovereignty thing that was just off the coast of Chessenta. Could also link back to the time when the batrachi ruled in this region (as they DID have a civilization there after the Sarrukh). Some have even hinted that the portals of the Imaskari relate back to portals they studied of batrachi origin.
Also, with the land rise and great rift, its always been my story that something slammed into the earth of the shaar and basically shifted the whole region askew. There's a lake in the Great Rift as well, but we don't exactly know HOW it gets continually refilled, but it basically causes the river Shaar to flow out underground and then come out the side of the landrise (This is why I have a river valley where the cliffside city Peleveran was). If the water of the inner sea were going underground, some going to the great rift, going to the river shaar, and eventually ending in the shaar.... might make sense. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2021 : 01:19:01
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Well, you have to take into account that not all aboleths like the Abolethic Sovereignty. The FRCG even says that the aboleths native to Toril are scared of the ones from the Sovereignty, and some even oppose them. That said, Xxiphu makes more sense in the Glimmersea (the sea just below the Sea of Fallen Stars) than below Unther or Tymanther. This would explain why nobody has seen the monolith in the early 1490s: the Sovereignty is doing something in the Underdark, something that even the drow fear.
Anyways, I've been reading the 4e Underdark sourcebook, and so far, the only place that makes sense without too much work is Hraak Azul, a living fungal forest that moves across the "shallows" region of the 4e Underdark, the equivalent to the Upperdark/Middledark. It's filled with all kinds of monsters, some unique (like occasional dragons), and its main inhabitants are tribes of troglodytes who worship Torog (Ed has said Torog do exist in the Realms, so here we go!). I imagine Hraal Azul will be moving around the whole Old Empires area cyclically, and even around some lands of the Shaar, visiting Tymanther just by the time I need it for my campaign.
I'm also thinking about putting a dwarven citadel below the Smoking Mountains, near the point where I put Ustraternes (another 4e location, this one related to the dragonborn), but I'm not that creative about dwarven stuff... |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
Edited by - Zeromaru X on 18 Dec 2021 01:24:02 |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 07 Apr 2022 : 03:58:17
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I was thinking about my next campaign set in the Old Empires (5e, new set of players), and it occurred to me "what if Messemprar, instead of being fully destroyed or sent to Abeir, was sent into the future during the Spellplague?" I mean, that was one of the many consequences of the Spellplague: some stuff got frozen in time until the late 1400s, when they were released from the blue fires. And I guess the Second Sundering must have forzed that "defrosting" in any stuff that wasn't defrosted at that time.
I mean, it's a good idea to have Messemprar without recurring to handwavium, and it allow us to use the older material on the place just as written: for the people of Messemprar, time didn't moved for a century. They were still in 1385 and after blinking they are in 1487. The ruins mentioned in the 4e materials were those places that weren't affected by the Spellplague (not all of the city was frozen in time, but most of it was). It also gives us a foil to Gilgeam and his Untherites. More variety to play an Untheran that is not an escaped slave or a racial supremacist.
Any feedback would be appreciated, as always. |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
Edited by - Zeromaru X on 07 Apr 2022 04:01:20 |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 12 Apr 2023 : 20:14:27
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My players want to re-start the campaign after a long hiatus, and they want to visit Messemprar, a place I'm not that familiar with (despite having read The Alabaster Staff). This made start thinking on what to do with Messemprar, as in canon the status of the city is undecided.
I don't like the idea of "it went into Abeir and now has returned as if nothing happened", that's the usual answer the current canon give us. I'd like to see consequences for past history, that's what gives verisimilitude to a fantasy setting.
So, I was thinking that perhaps the Spellplague may have suspended the inhabitants of Messemprar in stasis, and they were released in the Second Sundering. This way, we can use Messemprar as it was in 3e. Obviously this means I have to work on their current status, their stance on Gilgeam and the Untherans in Unthalass, etc.
As always, ideas are welcome! |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11749 Posts |
Posted - 13 Apr 2023 : 14:51:57
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I look at it this way... we know SOME things went to the Feywild .... we know SOME things went to Abeir .... so I don't have a problem saying that some places went to other worlds, other planes, etc....
Now, along those lines... I personally also have no problem with sending Messemprar even to other campaign worlds. For instance, in Mystara there is the "hollow world", which brings cultures there and keeps them in a kind of stasis (they still function, but they don't significantly change). They could have gone there (not necessarily great, but its an idea worth a ponder... putting them near the Nithians could be interesting).
Another idea might be that there was a temple of Ptah in the city (and despite some things, there ARE references to Ptah's temples in the realms) and he pulled the city to the original world where the Mulan people were stolen from (which may or may not be earth... I prefer not). This may not even have been of his knowledge and could have been something like a failsafe on an artifact like the ship of the gods which carried the gods to Toril. They wouldn't even necessarily have gone to the original home world... they could have had their bit of land and its surrounding territory transferred into wildspace and hooked onto something like a very large asteroid. Without spelljamming vessels they may have been trapped there for a bit, but you could just as well have them come back with several flying pyramids and turn their little section of the world into people aware of spelljamming.
That all being said, we do know that a good portion of Unther went to Abeir, and we also have some references that the Untheric peoples were being lorded over by the Mulhorandi.... so anything you do should be relatively small scale. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 13 Apr 2023 : 21:26:46
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I like the idea about Ptah. Actually, we can use both ideas and say that the artifact brought half of the city to the Astral Plane (timeless place, so the untherans there wouldn't have aged). I say half of the city, so the other half are the ruins that canonically existed in the place during 4e. Then, during the SS, Ao brought back the city (that was semi-restored by the untherans during their timeless stance in the Astral). Now, the Messemprar untherans have to deal with a guy they though they had rid off in the past.
Though, it makes me wonder why Ptah would care about the untherans and did nothing about the mulhorandi. |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11749 Posts |
Posted - 14 Apr 2023 : 21:49:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I like the idea about Ptah. Actually, we can use both ideas and say that the artifact brought half of the city to the Astral Plane (timeless place, so the untherans there wouldn't have aged). I say half of the city, so the other half are the ruins that canonically existed in the place during 4e. Then, during the SS, Ao brought back the city (that was semi-restored by the untherans during their timeless stance in the Astral). Now, the Messemprar untherans have to deal with a guy they though they had rid off in the past.
Though, it makes me wonder why Ptah would care about the untherans and did nothing about the mulhorandi.
Again, I would say it has to do with the artifact itself and Ptah putting an "anti-theft" ward on it. That being said, it might not have even been just Ptah. If we were to say that the artifact were the Galley of the Gods, then its believed that this artifact was created by an Untheric god Enki who CHOSE to NOT come to Toril with the other Untheric gods (or rather, he chose not to split off a portion of himself into a separate manifestation). So, maybe Enki put a ward on it that prevents the ship from leaving "this reality"... as Abeir is in some other weird phase of the universe. Enki was a god of knowledge, crafts, but also rivers and earth (so he would have been a bit redundant with Ishtar... which may have been why he didn't come). So, throwing it out there, the galley of the gods may have been a joint creation of Enki and Ptah to make a ship which could sail the astral seas.
So, in this idea, maybe the people of Messemprar come back, but with a fervent worship of Ptah and Enki as gods of craftsmanship, wildspace, etc.... and maybe they taught their people in the meantime to not like Gilgeam. The first thoughts I have there would be "and they have a lot of artificers", but I think their crafting should be more of crafting wood, stone, cloth, paper, etc... Maybe some of their people are the wizards that have pet books from one of the 5e sources. I also like them coming back using magic in the form seen in the DM's guild book "Priestess: Ancient World Divine Class"... basically they have to sacrifice to and be near a divine idol of their deities to get their spells, and some learn to animate these idols for really really short spans... and the idols have to be bigger and more extravagant to get back higher level spell slots. I picture something where golems carry horse sized idols on a metal sled following priests around the countryside. Not a requirement mind you, but something to make a change that will definitely be something people may not be used to. The reason why they maybe have to use this innately weaker form of divine magic is because Enki and Ptah both are not officially sanctioned realms gods, and they're using this method to bypass Ao's strictures. Just a thought. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Vinzor Burrow
Acolyte
8 Posts |
Posted - 15 Apr 2023 : 23:28:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
So, I was thinking that perhaps the Spellplague may have suspended the inhabitants of Messemprar in stasis, and they were released in the Second Sundering. This way, we can use Messemprar as it was in 3e. Obviously this means I have to work on their current status, their stance on Gilgeam and the Untherans in Unthalass, etc.
As always, ideas are welcome!
Gilgeam did form a pact with Grazzt, so that could easily be seen as evil, regardless of what his intentions were |
Signed,
Vinzor Burrow of Chavyondat |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2023 : 00:29:37
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The new Ed video has unveiled a lot of info that will benefit my campaign. Glolmarra will definitely will be part of my campaign, as I always wondered what was located in the Underdark below the Old Empires. Also, weird like undeads and a super blue dragon!
https://youtu.be/fGDt-VLY1Ms |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11749 Posts |
Posted - 30 May 2023 : 18:34:49
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quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
The new Ed video has unveiled a lot of info that will benefit my campaign. Glolmarra will definitely will be part of my campaign, as I always wondered what was located in the Underdark below the Old Empires. Also, weird like undeads and a super blue dragon!
https://youtu.be/fGDt-VLY1Ms
Thanks... so notes on the "super blue dragon"... name is Meirytraukkrul (Meer for short) and when the Untheric manifestation of Ki (goddess of Nature) lay dying during the orcgate wars, devoured the manifestation's torso. She gained the ability to basically phase through earth and see through it while doing so, summon a half dozen "monsters" every round to fight for her, regenerate 4d4 hit points a round. She also gains some bit of Ki's personality. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2457 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2024 : 06:37:43
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A bit of update on this, but Erin Evans ran an special adventure set in Tymanther in 2020, known as the Qal Contracts Murder. Long story short, there is a series of murders in Djerad Kethendi just the same day the dragonborn are celebrating their Qal (marriage) contracts. There are some details about the city of Djerad Kethendi, and some stuff that affects the future of clan Kanjentellequor, but the stuff that I found most interesting is that:
1. Erin killed Gilgeam off-screen. Basically, the dragonborn behead him in some battle and that was all, lol. His followers fled to the ruins of Messemprar. The adventure takes place after this event.
2. By the end of the adventure, the players found the vestige of Inanna, and there is a hint that maybe Inanna would be fully revived and added to the "Tymantheran pantheon" (currently, just Bahamut, Enlil and Tiamat). - I think sleyvas would be interested in this, lol
For those interested, the game was recorded on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyC4csDIdRQ
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Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11749 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jul 2024 : 01:32:46
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| Hmmm... I am interested, but I don't want to sit through 4 hours of this. What I wonder is how does she portray Inanna. From what I've seen, treatments of Inanna are very different. Any point I should fast forward to? |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Tymanther and Unther post-SS and other stuff
