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Barastir
Master of Realmslore
Brazil
1607 Posts |
 Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 15:35:19
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| Nice, thank you very much! |
"Goodness is not a natural state, but must be
fought for to be attained and maintained.
Lead by example.
Let your deeds speak your intentions.
Goodness radiated from the heart."
The Paladin's Virtues, excerpt from the "Quentin's Monograph"
(by Ed Greenwood) |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jul 2013 : 17:22:45
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quote:
Originally posted by Quale
You mean the shadevari, not the malaugrym. Yeah, I guess it's possible with magic, I just find it hard to believe, the Sundering spell would be even more ridiculously overpowered. I think it was subtle, like the butterfly effect, e.g. change a small magma flow in the past. I wonder for how long elves planned Evermeet to exist, will the plate tectonics slow down or stop (that would kill the magnetosphere). In some planar timelines I've seen, the le shay are older than the multiverse, I like your idea cause they don't appear alien enough to be that old, not like the sharns.
PRECISELY how I see Fey/Elven High Magic working - you perform a ritual to achieve a required result ("Save us!"), and the magic uses the Temporal prime (timeline) to find a moment when the least amount of change would produce the required result (in the future). This is how Elves are able to create such insanely powerful results - the magic actually doesn't need all that much power - it has time on its side. To destroy an enemy, maybe all they need do is shift a single pebble a million years in the past (which leads to an undersea earthquake, which creates a Tsunami, etc). However, diverting the main timeline is both draining and risky, which is why they rarely do it (and why the results are usually catastrophic; the 'cure' is often worse then the disease). Just like any 'wish-related' magic, you have to be VERY careful how you word things - the more you rush the ritual, the more likely you will get results that are not at all what you wanted.
Fey seem to have a natural predilection for time-based phenomena. 
As for Shadevari, I think thats just a very general term for 'pre-Sundering' beings, which should include all the Creator races. I don't think thats how it was originally meant, but thats my fix for it. That 'Shadevari' encounterd in the Shadowking novel was really a Batrachi/proto-Sladd entity (so it fits into the greater category of 'Shadevari', along with many other things that haven't been detailed). Liken it to our term 'antideluvian'; things that existed before The war of Light & Darkness. |
"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 04 Jul 2013 17:25:20 |
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Quale
Master of Realmslore
1757 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jul 2013 : 20:08:28
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In my campaign the le shay also had such chronomantic powers, additionally they'd built artificial worlds similar to the megaliths from Mystara, that could work with the Sundering going to -71 000 DR, reshaping the Earthmother.
Those were only aspects of the shadevari, I think the real shadevari were primordials, their true form is incorporeal, from the shadowstuff and the ethereal proto-matter Ao used to form the crystal sphere. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2013 : 01:20:20
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Yeah, the originals were probably something far more primal, but I think as the centuries have gone by, it became a term used for any sort of pre-godwar being (so the creature in the novel wasn't a 'true' Shadevari, but was a type of creature that dated from an extremely early, pre-Sundering, time period, so its not really a misnomer, either).
I wouldn't count it as an aspect, because despite all its power, it still wasn't nearly powerful enough to be counted as something the other description of Shadevari (from F&A) seems to imply. I think its just one of those terms that went from being a specific type of something, to being a general, umbrella-term for the whole category.
Yeah, I'm completely in-love with the idea that all fey (and Elven High) magic is temporally based - it not only explains a lot, but its a pretty cool twist. One might say that fey literally 'live on borrowed time'. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36968 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2013 : 04:02:38
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
quote:
Originally posted by Quale
You mean the shadevari, not the malaugrym. Yeah, I guess it's possible with magic, I just find it hard to believe, the Sundering spell would be even more ridiculously overpowered. I think it was subtle, like the butterfly effect, e.g. change a small magma flow in the past. I wonder for how long elves planned Evermeet to exist, will the plate tectonics slow down or stop (that would kill the magnetosphere). In some planar timelines I've seen, the le shay are older than the multiverse, I like your idea cause they don't appear alien enough to be that old, not like the sharns.
PRECISELY how I see Fey/Elven High Magic working - you perform a ritual to achieve a required result ("Save us!"), and the magic uses the Temporal prime (timeline) to find a moment when the least amount of change would produce the required result (in the future). This is how Elves are able to create such insanely powerful results - the magic actually doesn't need all that much power - it has time on its side. To destroy an enemy, maybe all they need do is shift a single pebble a million years in the past (which leads to an undersea earthquake, which creates a Tsunami, etc). However, diverting the main timeline is both draining and risky, which is why they rarely do it (and why the results are usually catastrophic; the 'cure' is often worse then the disease). Just like any 'wish-related' magic, you have to be VERY careful how you word things - the more you rush the ritual, the more likely you will get results that are not at all what you wanted.
That's an interesting idea... And it really works when you consider the fact that elves are one of the only races with a deity of time. |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 06:12:48
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Here's a thought: what if the Sundering was an endothermic reaction, absorbing latent kinetic energy (heat) from the environment to power the work of shifting continents about. And this heat sink drew off more and more heat energy as it radiated backwards through time.
Going forwards in time, it looks like Toril is warming. But the reaction is proceeding backwards through time, so in the direction that the spell is progressing, Toril is getting colder as the spell gathers the power it needs.
Or alternatively, Toril cools simply as a side effect of the spell, with the environment just balancing the equation. Sort of a Newtonian equal and opposite reaction. Like when compressed gas escapes suddenly from a container, it cools the container and the surrounding area. That's the principal refrigerators are based on.
Anyway, the point is, perhaps it was the Sundering that caused the Shadow Epoch.
In fact, if the Sundering was radiating backwards through time, culminating with a terminal/initial tectonic event that saw either a plate separation that allowed lava to bubble out from between them, or one plate piling up ontop of another, creating the Firepeaks through the process of orogeny. If Dendar were imprisoned in the crust of Toril beneath the Firepeaks, or alternatively the violence of their creation opened a planar rift to either the Barrens of Doom and Despair (Toril's Tartarean prison plane where Dendar might have been imprisoned at the time) or Dendar's cave in the Fugue Plane (where Dendar is known to currently reside), the Sundering could have accidentally released Dendar just as a side effect of the final stage of the spell.
A spell that cracked the crust of Toril like an egg at a distant point backwards in time, an inflection point, which, from that point forward began to push the fragmented crust into the current configuration.
Dendar appears to be the cause of the Shadow Epoch. But is actually just a side effect of the end result of the spell, when viewed with the arrow of time reversed. But when seen from the perspective of mortal beings, observers who live in the normal forward in time direction, who see Dendar appear and then the Shadow Epoch happens, it's natural for them to assume causation. |
Edited by - Gray Richardson on 09 Jul 2013 06:16:03 |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 06:31:31
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Further, if the Sundering, as either its primary mechanism of continent propulsion, or just one of any of its means of tectonic engineering, foamed the magma in the mantle beneath and between Toril's tectonic plates, injecting air into the liquid stone to expand it, pressing the plates into the desired directions, this could have pushed up the continents above the sea.
It could have also foamed the bedrock of those continents, making them porous, like a sponge, or Swiss cheese, leaving huge air pockets and tunnels, vast caverns measureless to man...
The Sundering could have been responsible for creating Toril's Underdark.
Did any Drow at all participate in the Sundering ritual? I know the Dark Elves were excluded, but even if only a few or just one participated in that spell circle... If so, then how ironic! Were the Drow to have inadvertently created the vast underworld they would later be forced to retreat into after their curse and their descent.
In fact, if so, maybe it was some quality of the magic that was channeled through those Drow that caused the spell to go awry or at least different from expected.
Even if no Drow participated, it's still an interesting notion that it could have been the Sundering spell that helped to create the Underdark. |
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Barastir
Master of Realmslore
Brazil
1607 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 12:03:48
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| And maybe the ritual was also intended to create an environment for the Dark Elves' banishment. |
"Goodness is not a natural state, but must be
fought for to be attained and maintained.
Lead by example.
Let your deeds speak your intentions.
Goodness radiated from the heart."
The Paladin's Virtues, excerpt from the "Quentin's Monograph"
(by Ed Greenwood) |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 14:10:58
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Whoa.
The Sundering as a ritual intended to create, not just a piece of Heaven for the elves on Toril, but a Hell as well.
I like it. |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 14:26:08
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You know, if Evermeet contains a piece of Arvandor, some essence, or some fundamental link to the Elven heaven, could it be, then, that the Underdark contains some essence of the Elven infernal counterpart? Whatever that would be. A forgotten Elven Hell, a place of astral interment or imprisonment from their cultural psyche that has been forgotten, or subsumed, or appropriated into a more modern concept by Llolth or Ghaunadaur?
A piece of the Demonweb Pits, perhaps? Or part of the Deep (Dismal) Caverns? A piece of Ghaunadaur's Cavern of Slime? Or maybe the entirety of this former (hypothetical) elven Hell plane, or demi-plane, was sucked into the Underdark, dissolved in the process of creating the cavernouss expanse, incorporated like an ingredient, and, since it's now been gone for millennia, afterwards completely forgotten by the elves.
Could that be responsible for the mysterious radiation known as faerzress? |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
12194 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 15:08:42
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quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
I assume that Toril’s Blue age most closely parallels Earth’s Paleozoic Era, from the beginning of the Cambrian Explosion to the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event. Or from about 541 million BC, to 252 million BC, lasting approximately 289 million years.
I like the Cambrian as a starting date, because that's when early molluscs, including gastropods, cephalopods and bivalves first appeared in Earth's history. In Toril's Blue Age, the octopoid aquatic creator race came to prominence, so that it's important that octopi could be around.
And during the first half of Earth's Paleozoic Era, Earth, like Toril, was also a water world. Earth did have land, but vertebrate animal life had not crawled out of the seas until the middle of the Paleozoic, when lobe-finned fish began to venture onto land in the Devonian, becoming amphibians. Amphibians evolved into primitive reptiles in the Carboniferous, and by the end of the Permian you had a diverse speciation on land including synapsids, cynodonts, and early archosaurs. The Permian also saw the return of reptiles back to the oceans as mesosaurs, the first marine reptiles.
I don't know if any land pushed up above the waves by the end of Toril's Blue Age, or if the Blue Age was exclusively marine. By the end of the Paleozoic Era on Earth, Pangea had formed. I suggest that the One Land began to form by the end of the Blue Age, and may have been around for a little bit before the world iced over. In fact, I can think of a zillion theories where the rise of land might be linked to or even the cause of the Shadow Epoch. I'd like to assume there were, at the very least, if not a proto-continent, then some islands around for vertebrate life to evolve on by the end of the Blue Age.
Earth's Paleozoic Era ended with the Permian-Triassic Extinction event which killed off 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species. The causes for the extinction are not known but include such theories as climate change, meteor impacts, release of methane into the atmosphere, coal fires, and other catastrophes.
On Toril, instead of the Permian-Triassic Extinction, the sun is swallowed by Dendar, causing the Shadow Epoch, which I suggest most closely parallels the Marinoan Glaciation during Earth's Cryogenian period, a time also referred to as "Snowball Earth." The Marinoan Glaciation lasted from 650 to 635 million BC or about 15 million years long.
I am going to assume, for the basis of conjecture, that Ed Greenwood's statement about the geographic age of Toril is correct. To reiterate, he said in his November 1, 2006 post that “As for the geological age of Toril, we don't know for sure. However, I can say that the eldest elves and dragons who've considered the matter, and the best-informed human sages ditto, all tend to hold opinions that suggest Toril is twice as old as the Age of Thunder... or perhaps a LITTLE less.”
If that's accurate, then I guestimate that the geological start date for Toril would be around -71,375 DR. Or we could round to -71,000 DR to account for the "LITTLE less."
Assuming that the suggested evolutionary timeline advocated by Toril’s sages, via Ed Greenwood, is correct—and that’s a big assumption; Toril’s evolutionary history may have taken millions of years as did Earth’s, we don't really know for sure—but assuming it’s correct, then that would mean it took Toril less than 36,000 years to accomplish what for Earth required about 304 million years.
Let's round down to 30K years, allowing 5,000 years slack to account for an evolutionary period that was comparable to earlier ages of Earth's history, when life was limited to microbial life. A ratio of 30 thousand years to 300 million years suggests an evolutionary correspondence of 1 Toril year to 10,000 Earth years. That assumes a 1 to 1 mapping, and not a logarithmic scale.
So, 15 million years, becomes 1,500 years, which puts the Shadow Epoch glaciation from roughly -36,000 DR to -35,000 DR (give or take).
At 289 million years for the Paleozoic Era, in Toril time, that would be about 28,900 years, which gives us a rough dating from -65,400 DR to -36,500 for the Blue Age, leaving about 5,600 years to play with, either at the beginning of Toril's history to account for periods comparable to Earth's earlier stages, or on the hind end that could account for a longer period during or after the Shadow Epoch.
I cannot stress enough that this is all just ballparking, just back of a napkin estimating. Using a different correspondence ratio could lengthen or shorten the Blue Age. Likewise the Shadow Epoch. Using a logarithmic correspondence would change things up further. And that's assuming that Earth and Toril's geologic histories are even comparable. Assuming a different age for Toril altogether would throw all these conjectures out the window, but there's no other age estimate to work with, so despite all the many variables and assumptions, this is my best guestimate at the moment.
I understand that you guys are trying to make a Earth to Toril comparison scientifically, but the one thing that throws all of this wonky is the simple fact that magic screws with all science. A lot of races probably simply came to be not through evolution, but rather "the gods created them" or "they transported here magically". So, what may have taken us millions of years, could have been handled by a simple magical portal to transplant species. In fact, another thing that should be kept in your minds is that there are other planets and moons within realmspace, and that portals exist between them and Toril. Its normal that the people of Toril consider it "the center of the universe", but to the gods "is that necessarily true". We don't know when these other worlds were created, nor what their life forms were like during this age. We do know that they can and do support life though. I only state this to keep it in the forefront of your thoughts and not the backside, as I know you KNOW this information in your head, but its not necessarily information that you may be processing when performing your postulations. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
12194 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 15:13:17
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| ok, just reading your next section, good I'm glad to see your putting the magic back into the evolution of Toril. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
12194 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 15:16:28
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>>And interbreeding between members of even vastly different species in a magical universe seems much more likely to produce viable offspring that would be ruled out by the vagaries of >>DNA and combinatorial genetics as proscribed under the laws of our own physics. How did the first peryton come about anyway...
On the peryton, per canon, Malar I think created it on the Moonshaes.
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
12194 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 15:40:17
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| On the idea of plate tectonics driving the separation of the continents.... it could also be other magical factors. For instance, if a small portal to the plane of water were to open within the middle of a section of earth, the resulting pressure could cause the continents to experience earthquakes. Similiarly, a small portal to the plane of earth or fire opening in the ocean could result in magma spilling out and forming a small island without the need for volcanic "hot spots" in the core of Toril. Finally, I know I'd mentioned some of this in this thread earlier, but the death of elemental interlopers would leave behind their base element, which would eventually "degrade" to something more like a pool of water, a chunk of rock, a section of clean atmosphere, an area of melted ice, etc.... |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
12194 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 18:13:23
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As long as we were discussing the formation of Toril, I figured it would be of interest to take a look at the other planets. At the same time. I pretty much took each planet and looked at its general nature, size, moons, and if there seem to be indigenous population, what that population was. The planets Anadia, Garden, and H'Catha I'd say could be left out of the conversation due to sheer small size or lack of major indigenous population and distance from Toril. Of the others, 2 of the planets (Karpri and Chandos) are primarily water worlds, one being slightly smaller than Toril and the other being larger than Toril. Karpri would seem to have lots of intelligent sea creatures, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of portals between Toril and this world.... nor would I be surprised if there was still significant traffic between this world and Toril to this day (and the surface world simply doesn't know about it). Chandos' life forms are almost totally bestial fish (some of which may have developed magical abilities), but I also would not be surprised to find aboleths in its depths.
On the other side of Toril is Coliar, a "world" made up of a huge number of earthmotes and filled with what may be many of the remnants of the creator races.... the question that pops in my head is whether all these floating earthmotes were previously one world that maybe exploded.... and maybe as a result these races fled to Toril. If the world DID explode, could it be that a large chunk of this rock filled with maybe dragon eggs slammed into the Ice Moon Zotha and crashed to Faerun?
Finally, there's Glyth.... which is so alien and far away that I'd pretty much prefer to keep it separate from Toril's prehistory. Whether its illithids are indigenous or simply travelers who settled there is unclear, and I'd be inclined to say that they are interlopers.... though how long they've been there... maybe a few centuries, maybe dozens of millennia.
Planet Anadia - moons - none
Planet Size B - 10-100 miles in diameter
NOTES: indigenous population of some kind of insect/reptile hybrid (anadjiin) that look like "alien" from the movie kinda and some kind of gremlin'ish thing (plainsjan).
Planet Coliar - moons - none
Planet Size G - 40,000-100,000 miles in diameter
NOTES: islands of land around an air core (earthmotes). Reptile and bird species, predominantly Lizardmen, dragons, and aarakocras
Planet Toril - moons 1 plus "Tears"
Planet Size E - 4,000-10,000 miles in diameter
Karpri - moons - none
Planet Size D - 1,000-4,000 miles in diameter
NOTES: water world, frozen poles, seaweed equator. Indigenous population appears to be giant insects, giant arachnids, arctic predators of various sorts, telepathic dolphins, huge whales. Possibly the Shalarin that migrate to Toril came from here. There's also some transplants (aquatic elves, eyes of the deep, some gnomes)
Chandos - moons - none
Planet Size F - 10,000-40,000 miles in diameter
Notes: water world with irregular shaped rock formations like marbles that constantly move and reshape the surfaceland. Most of the population is intelligent, magical fish
Glyth - moons 3 plus rings
Planet Size E - 4,000-10,000 miles in diameter
NOTES: warm planet, acidic rain and smoke atmosphere, surface covered in fires and a weird gelatin. Interior riddle with caves and illithids.
Garden - moons 12
Planet Size A - Less than 10 miles in diameter
NOTES: small earth nodes held together by a giant plant (Yggdrasil's Child).
H'Catha - moons 2
Planet Size C - 100-1,000 miles in diameter
NOTES: flat world, central mountain. Beholder transplants. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
12194 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2013 : 18:59:02
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Just another thought that comes to mind about Coliar and the possibility that it exploded. The distance between Coliar and Toril is between 100 - 300 million miles. Assuming 200 million miles at time of explosion just for a middle ground...
So, the shadow epoch occurred, during which the "sun disappeared from Toril's sky". What if the cloud of detritus from Coliar's explosion actually blotted out the sun from Toril's sky. What if this is what caused the shadow epoch? What caused Coliar to "explode" (primordials fighting maybe)?
So, the Sarrukh creator race appear in the age of Thunder around -35000 DR and the Batrachi around -33500 DR. What if the Sarrukh were reptile men who escaped magically from Coliar... maybe without realizing how.. maybe on purpose. Not stuck on this idea, but it bears at least looking at.
Four thousand years later in -31000 DR we have the Tearfall. If what smacked the ice moon Zotha was a missile from Coliar (or several such), then it travelled the 200 million miles in 4 thousand years, so it was travelling at 50,000 miles per day (2083 miles per hour). Also noting that around this time is when the Aereee empire arose... and noting that Coliar is filled with Aarakocra. So, perhaps some of the Aarakocra survivors also came along with this from Coliar. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Quale
Master of Realmslore
1757 Posts |
Posted - 12 Jul 2013 : 09:52:43
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quote:
Originally posted by Gray Richardson
Could that be responsible for the mysterious radiation known as faerzress?
In my games it did, the faerzress was a sort of anchor/foundation that bound Arvandor to the Prime, made from the earth nodes. I wonder are there giant ruins on Evermeet. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 12 Jul 2013 : 13:56:18
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I have it where the Faerzress are corrupted earth Nodes - ones that have 'gone cancerous' (because all the worlds were once part of the First world (plane), and consist of bits of the dying body of Imaar (Ymir). The only thing that keeps the rest from deteriorating is the 'Light of Gaea' (the power of life itself, which merged with the dying Ymir, so that both are now in a sort-of comatose state).
The corruption was begun by Cthon, who has been working toward the destruction of the universe since the dawn of time itself (and beyond). Anything living near 'pockets of corruption' slowly gets corrupted (gets CE). The Drow are the best (worst?) example.
My assumption is that there are also corrupted bits of Fire, Air, and Water Nodes.
Hmmmmm... water nodes... maybe those are our Moonwells/"Pools of..."? 
Folks have tried to 'corrupt' those before, in both the Moonshaes and around The Moonsea (and once again, we see a recurring 'Moon' theme). Maybe once they've been corrupted (alignment-altered), the Moonwells become known as "Pools of..."
An example of corrupted fire Nodes - the 'fire swamps' of the High Moor (and those may be getting a new name soon - I 'reimagined' them awhile back for something...)
I suppose corrupted Air nodes could just be pockets of 'Wild Magic' (remember that stuff? Remember how awful it seemed, back before we got Plague-touched stuff? Wild Magic seems pretty lame by comparison, now). IMG, 'Wild Magic Zones' are more like Eberron's Mournland, so it works well as 'corrupted Air'. |
"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 12 Jul 2013 13:58:22 |
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Before the Days of Thunder—the Prehistory of Toril
