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Tyranthraxus
Senior Scribe
Netherlands
423 Posts |
 Posted - 02 Jun 2010 : 17:19:38
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Fellow scribes, is Abeir another planet in Realmspace or is it an alternative material plane?
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Sill Alias
Senior Scribe
Kazakhstan
588 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jun 2010 : 17:23:40
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| Was not it the other part of Toril, forgotten an isolated? |
You can hear many tales from many mouths. The most difficult is to know which of them are not lies. - Sill Alias
"May your harp be unstrung, your dreams die and all your songs be unsung." - curse of the harper, The Code of the Harpers 2 ed.
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Tyranthraxus
Senior Scribe
Netherlands
423 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jun 2010 : 17:29:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Sill Alias
Was not it the other part of Toril, forgotten an isolated?
All I know is that Abeir is Toril's sibling world and not connected directly to each other. |
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Cleric Generic
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
565 Posts |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 00:40:12
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| Abeir, as a stand-alone world, is a retcon, never before mentioned -- in the Old Grey Box, the planet where the Realms was found was called Abeir-Toril. Abeir was added to the name just to make it the first entry in the Cyclopedia of the Realms. Most subsequent sources -- including those that mentioned the other planets of the solar system, such as Realmspace -- just called the world Toril. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 00:54:53
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Although I like the idea that Abeir travels in the same orbit as Toril, but on the exact opposite side of the sun, the simple fact is it would have been discovered by Spelljammers. I once theorized that it is still possible - that Abeir has a 'cloaking device' that renders it invisible to outsiders (and vice-versa), but thats really stretching things.
However, Abeir's weird silver sky could be said to either be that 'shield', or the planet is not in another prime-material plane at all, but rather trapped in the mists (some strange pocket plane, or perhaps even within the plane of Ravenloft). Does anyone know if stars or any other phenomena is mentioned in terms of Abeir? Not returned Abeir (Laerakond), but the actual planet from whence all these refugees have returned?
The strange sky is mentioned in canon, and I think it would be kinda cool if they had no stars or anything - maybe not even a sun - just a dimming and lightening of the silver sky.
I try not to think about Abeir too much, but when I do, I'd like to at least think it isn't just another medieval fantasy knock-off. |
"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 03 Jun 2010 00:56:58 |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 01:06:21
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And a little from Ed, also:-
quote:
As I understand the in-house designers' explanation, the twin planet of Toril, called Abeir, approached and then "phased through" Toril (the primary cause of the Spellplague/sundering of the Weave) and then kept on going. Rather than the two planetary bodies physically colliding and destroying each other, they shredded each other's magical fields (so Toril lost its Weave, but not its magic, because there was still chaotic, raging magic in the wake of the "pass-through," which gradually subsided into ripples, and then slowly calmed down to a "new norm" ). However, some lands were "swapped" (Abeiran lands like Laerakond and the land of the Dragonborn being gained by Toril, and Maztica and some Faerunian locales shifting over to Abeir).
The two planets then "moved on" (apart) in their endless circling dance around each other, each changed.
So yes, in uncounted millenia to come [*cough* in time for 5th edition *cough* or whenever a DM wants to change major things in their own campaign), this could all happen again.
There.
THE Secret laid bare.
love to all,
THO
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Razz
Senior Scribe
USA
749 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 01:15:23
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Moved towards Toril from where, is the question. It seems as if it was in Realmspace all this time, but hidden from view by all from within and without (hence the Silver Skies, a way to keep the inhabitants of Abeir from ever thinking there was something "else" out there and a side-effect of whatever powerful magic hid it from view from all others outside).
My first thought was the Astral Plane, but that doesn't work. One can't bump into another planet from the Astral Plane, it's the space between planes after all.
Another question would be planar travelers. Why didn't planar travelers from both planets interact? Then again, maybe they did, with the two planets so distinct in cultures that neither realized one was simply a separate twin of the other, and neither realizing they were in the same Crystal Sphere. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 01:53:27
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It could have been the astral. 
Two primary planetary bodies passing through each other, even if on different planes, could easily cause such magical havoc. After all, the damage was all 'magical', not gravitic or tectonic*, ergo it makes some sense that they could indeed effect each other greatly when only seperated by the Astral (which has a way thinner 'membrane', I'm thinking, then most other planer boundaries).
This has of a precedent in canon, although not FR canon - in Eberron, the world is effected by how close other planes are in conjunction with the primary.
*such things did occur, but they were a side-effect of the Spellplague - the magical wave of chaos that spread across the land. They were not, as far as I know, caused by anything 'physical'. |
"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 03 Jun 2010 01:55:04 |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 02:43:02
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| I've speculated in the past that the merging of Abeir and Toril [for that brief period in the Spellplague] was somewhat similar to what occurred between the multiple Earths in DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths -- whereupon two [or more, in the case of DC] worlds actually came to occupy the same point in space and time and began to merge. Their physical, temporal, and spatial realities would all be affected by this planar merging. History, lives, races, and setting continuity itself would also be impacted upon. To the point where both worlds -- Abeir and Toril -- would eventually be forced to again split apart and exist as two separate worlds. Only this time, far more intimately connected than they had been in the previous age, as a result of transposed and transferred aspects between them during the temporary merging. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 03:34:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Razz
Moved towards Toril from where, is the question. It seems as if it was in Realmspace all this time, but hidden from view by all from within and without (hence the Silver Skies, a way to keep the inhabitants of Abeir from ever thinking there was something "else" out there and a side-effect of whatever powerful magic hid it from view from all others outside).
My first thought was the Astral Plane, but that doesn't work. One can't bump into another planet from the Astral Plane, it's the space between planes after all.
Another question would be planar travelers. Why didn't planar travelers from both planets interact? Then again, maybe they did, with the two planets so distinct in cultures that neither realized one was simply a separate twin of the other, and neither realizing they were in the same Crystal Sphere.
I don't think fantasy physics can be stretched enough to have two planets nearing each other in the same orbit without catastrophic (as in, planet-rending, with both worlds shattering from gravitational stress) effects on both. Both worlds would be rendered lifeless long before they could actually occupy the same space.
That also ignores the fact that for this to happen, one would have to be traveling faster than the other -- which would kick it into a different orbit, precluding such an impact.
No, I think both worlds were in slightly different dimensions. That's the only explanation that makes sense -- as much as any aspect of this retcon can make sense, that is. |
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Edited by - Wooly Rupert on 03 Jun 2010 03:37:42 |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 04:09:49
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
No, I think both worlds were in slightly different dimensions. That's the only explanation that makes sense -- as much as any aspect of this retcon can make sense, that is.
I should probably add that my above ramblings about multiple worlds occupying the same temporal and spatial area takes Wooly's interpretation, slightly, into account.
In my view, both Abeir and Toril occupy their own individual [yet, similar] planar resonances within the scope of Realmspace. These resonances, once of the same form, are now ever so slightly out-of-synch with each other -- as a result of Ao's creation of Abeir [perhaps borrowing, somewhat, from the creation matrix he used to generate Toril] -- and their neighbours. The Spellplague, perhaps, allowed for a kind of brief synchronisation between the two disparate worlds -- with the resulting transposing of elements from one world to the other occurring on a level that isn't as easy to quantify on a strictly Realms-physics based approach.
The resulting separation of worlds following the Spellplague, may simply have been a consequence of the two individual resonances, acting on inherent physical/planar/temporal mechanisms within each domain, repelling each other.
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Edited by - The Sage on 03 Jun 2010 04:13:43 |
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Alisttair
Great Reader
Canada
3054 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 12:37:09
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Wizards should release an Abeir campaign setting - Maztica included  |
Karsite Arcanar (Most Holy Servant of Karsus)
Anauria - Survivor State of Netheril as penned by me:
http://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/172023 |
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Kno
Senior Scribe
452 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 13:24:37
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It appears that the Steelsky would be better explained as a part of a pocket-dimension, a demiplane or a weird crystal sphere without the vacuum of space that usually surrounds the planet?
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z455t |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2010 : 14:18:30
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From Ed's post over at Loremaster.org, Abeir appears to be in a pocket universe a little bit larger than Abeir. This pocket universe is located in roughly the same location as Toril, but dimensionally out of phase with each other. During the Spellplague, Abeir came back into "phase" with Toril and the planets briefly occupied the same physical reality (to some degree) causing displacement of landmasses and physical features.
It does not sound (from Ed's comments on the matter) as if Ao, or the Primordials created any celestial bodies for Abeir. The pocket universe appears to have been a cold, black space without any sun or stars. Some of us have speculated that the Steelsky which appears over Returned Abeir is what served the planet Abeir in lieu of a sun, giving light, and perhaps warmth so that life could survive. Alternatively, it is possible that Abeir might have been able to see Toril's sun and stars through the edges of its pocket universe in the manner that people on the Ethereal Plane can peer into the Material Plane. Although, if they do have a Steelsky blanketing the planet, this might have obscured any such view.
See this thread here for a discussion on the matter: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/21077089/Planes_of_FR?pg=1
See this thread for Ed's comments on Abeirspace: http://www.loremaster.org/vbinterviews.php?do=showinterview&id=6 |
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Snowblood
Senior Scribe
Australia
388 Posts |
Posted - 07 Jun 2010 : 14:43:08
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| sounds like another WOTC 5th edition safety valve to me.......as in what if it all goes pear shaped.....we have another outclause..... |
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Abeir's relation to Toril
