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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
 Posted - 07 Oct 2008 : 22:44:30
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Hmmmm... You guys got me thinking, now.
You know how when a 'prime' dies they go to the 'afterlife' (outer planes)? You know how their 'mind' makes a pit-stop in the Astral, but the soul continues on to whatever 'reward' (or punishment) they are headed to? Then, of course, if they get ressurected they stop by the Astral and pickup their mind (memories and what-not) on the way back to the Prime.
What if... it works the other way around for Outsiders? 
At least those from the Inner Planes. In a weird sort of way, an elemental being 'dies' when it travels to the Prime, so it leaves it's mind in the astral (or Ethereal?) on the way to being summoned.
Thats kind of scarey, in a way - every time you summon an elemental, it dies a little inside (Okay, not exactly, but it sounds poetic that way).
I would like someone with a good set of 'Planer Teeth' to try and tackle this - is Gray Richardson around?  |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 07 Oct 2008 22:45:17 |
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Jakk
Great Reader
Canada
2165 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2008 : 01:23:58
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quote:
Originally posted by Hoondatha
In the 2e book The Inner Planes, it's said that on the planes the elementals are just as smart as humans, but when they're summoned to the Prime they become "mindless brutes." This would imply that the very process of pulling an elemental from its home reduces its intelligence. No mention is made about what happens when the elementals come back to their home, but my guess would be that their Int goes back to normal.
This arguably makes any kind of elemental summoning evil, in that it strips intelligence from those summoned. Not that that's stopped countless generations of summoners. On the other hand, you wouldn't know this unless you've travelled the Wheel and actually met elementals in their home, which opens up the whole "is it evil is you don't know it's evil?" can of worms.
Relating this to the OP, you could logically extrapolate that removing an elemental from their home in any way robs them of most or all of their intelligence. That doesn't solve the moral question of creating golems, but rather broadens it to include all methods of summoning.
I wouldn't say that the summoning is stripping them of their intelligence (that's domestication, which is not instantly reversible). What the summoner is doing is constraining their intelligence in the manner of a dominate person/monster spell or similar magic; that's why it's instantly reversible when the summoned creature returns home. As a result, the summoning isn't inherently evil unless the summoner has encountered the creatures on their home plane and knows that they are more intelligent than they behave when summoned. Of course, as a responsible good-aligned spellcaster, you have the duty to consider all ramifications of your actions, and if you don't know what a summoning does to the target creature, you shouldn't use it, right? |
Playing in the Realms since the Old Grey Box (1987)... and *still* having fun with material published before 2008, despite the NDA'd lore.
If it's comparable in power with non-magical abilities, it's not magic. |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2008 : 07:09:34
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If I remember right, outsiders (usually) are their souls. There is no soul/body duality. When they are slain, they cease to exist, their soul doesn't go someplace else.
Except, well, I think the soul-stuff of an outsider, the incarnum, or residuum, or quintessence, or whatever you want to call it, gets absorbed by the plane where it is. It becomes "one with the universe", unless it goes on to some other existence of which we are not aware. But they don't have afterlives.
Oddly, summoned creatures, are said not to die. Rather if they are slain before the duration of the spell ends, then they pop up back wherever they were in their home plane and continue with what they were doing. I don't think this has ever been fully explained or explored. It's as if they don't really leave their home plane but their consciousness gets highjacked to animate a virtual reality version of themselves on the Material Plane. It's as if they are playing a WOW virtual LARP. I don't know if they actually disappear from their home plane or just slip into a temporary narcoleptic coma. On the Material Plane a material body is appears for them, presumably crafted by the spell, and their consciousness or spirit possesses it and animates it for the spell duration.
This lore about summoned creatures not really dying was clearly thought up for the metagame reason of avoiding moral quagmires about slavery and compelling good or unwilling creatures to fight to their own death. But the in-game ramifications are interesting and fun to think about. Note that this is only for summoned critters and not ones that are gated in, who then have an actual presence on the Material Plane and can thus be killed for real.
You know, it could be argued that elementals are a lot like dybbuks and loumara and other possessing spirits. The elemental could be seen as an animating spirit that is immaterial and bodiless, and just composes its body on the fly out of material it possesses that it finds on the plane of its origin. Kind of like that giant rock monster in Galaxy Quest. It wasn't made of rock, exactly, the rocks were just caught up and suspended within it's energy field.
Now that I think about it, it could be that all elementals are just one race, simply animating whatever substance is around them, so that on the Plane of Fire, an elemental was a "Fire" elemental, and water elementals were made of water because that is where they came from. Water may simply be the substance that water elementals are used to animating, they are skilled at it, know how to do it, comfortable animating H20. Similar to being left handed or right handed, you can't write well with your off-hand, but if you practiced with it, or lost the use of your dominant hand, you could retrain yourself to use the other one.
Which begs the question: if say a fire elemental fell through a portal into the plane of Earth, and it's fire body burned out or exhausted its fuel after a time, could it learn to animate rock instead? Or would it just die?
Is the substance that an elemental can animate "set in stone" if you will. Can they switch it up? Or are they stuck from birth with the one element? Is it a racial/genetic thing? Or a learned/nurture thing? Well, the existence of genasi seems to point in favor that there is a genetic, inborn component. So I don't know if my theory flies. But it is an interesting question.
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Jakk
Great Reader
Canada
2165 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2008 : 09:19:46
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quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
This lore about summoned creatures not really dying was clearly thought up for the metagame reason of avoiding moral quagmires about slavery and compelling good or unwilling creatures to fight to their own death. But the in-game ramifications are interesting and fun to think about. Note that this is only for summoned critters and not ones that are gated in, who then have an actual presence on the Material Plane and can thus be killed for real.
You know, it could be argued that elementals are a lot like dybbuks and loumara and other possessing spirits. The elemental could be seen as an animating spirit that is immaterial and bodiless, and just composes its body on the fly out of material it possesses that it finds on the plane of its origin. Kind of like that giant rock monster in Galaxy Quest. It wasn't made of rock, exactly, the rocks were just caught up and suspended within it's energy field.
Now that I think about it, it could be that all elementals are just one race, simply animating whatever substance is around them, so that on the Plane of Fire, an elemental was a "Fire" elemental, and water elementals were made of water because that is where they came from. Water may simply be the substance that water elementals are used to animating, they are skilled at it, know how to do it, comfortable animating H20. Similar to being left handed or right handed, you can't write well with your off-hand, but if you practiced with it, or lost the use of your dominant hand, you could retrain yourself to use the other one.
Which begs the question: if say a fire elemental fell through a portal into the plane of Earth, and it's fire body burned out or exhausted its fuel after a time, could it learn to animate rock instead? Or would it just die?
Is the substance that an elemental can animate "set in stone" if you will. Can they switch it up? Or are they stuck from birth with the one element? Is it a racial/genetic thing? Or a learned/nurture thing? Well, the existence of genasi seems to point in favor that there is a genetic, inborn component. So I don't know if my theory flies. But it is an interesting question.
Actually, I like that hypothesis... if elementals are simply a binding life force surrounded by whatever element happened to be at hand when they formed their body, it would neatly explain the coalescence of the Elemental Chaos... but I'm still outraged by the end of the Blood War.  |
Playing in the Realms since the Old Grey Box (1987)... and *still* having fun with material published before 2008, despite the NDA'd lore.
If it's comparable in power with non-magical abilities, it's not magic. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2008 : 19:34:29
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Your musings are a pleasure to read, as always, Gray.
quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
Well, the existence of genasi seems to point in favor that there is a genetic, inborn component. So I don't know if my theory flies. But it is an interesting question.
I think that there is a 'basic building-block' lifeform for the Elemental Chaos (the Elementals), that are just animating spirits as you say, but then there are 'higher-ups', like the Dgen, Monoliths, and the Elemental Lords (which have more permanent, 'physical' forms, and have an invested intrest in theiir element). The 'higher-ups' would be the ones breeding with mortals.
Now, to take that a step further, we could assume ALL planes have this very basic lifeform - this 'spirit' that is able to manifest itself physically. The power of such manifestations would depend on the power (level) of the spitit (they would gain experience just like any PC would over time). What that means is that these spirits are willing to be summoned, so that they can gain experience and become even more powerful - perhaps even becoming one of the 'lords' of their home planes.
Whats interesting is that this shoe-horns nicely into older lore concerning Lemures and Manes, which would be the basic building-blocks (spirits) of the lower planes (now the Nine Hells and the Abyss). In fact, Fey (Kami) could very well be the physical manifestations of the Prime Material, with Will-O-Wisps perhaps being the most basic (and unintelligent) form.
So in essence, all these 'spirits' would be able to manifest physical forms dependent upon their own power level, and would become the 'missing link' between 'material' and sentient life.
I love thinking about this stuff. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 08 Oct 2008 19:36:21 |
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Golems slavery or no?
