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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Why did no one mention this part of the moonbladr history when i was musing over an evil origin to moonblades. Its perfect.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

The crux was that malkizid engineered the creation of Evermeet (from GHoTR), and therefore the moonblades may have been engineered secretly by his agents as well. Thus giving the blades an overt goodly origin but a secret evil purpose.

I had suggested that the whole king maker ritual had been a farce or a corruption called early by malkizid to further divide the elves (which could be the blades true purpose), and that such an event may happen again and choose another king to cause more strife.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Firstly lets leave the gods out of a debate because for every god you say wont allow it, i have 10 evil gods who will do anything to make it happen. Gods dont do anything, they are like management, they just take the credit.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Sorry Elaine, i should have been clearer as the question wasnt really directed at you, but to other scribes that contributed to a scroll i had created about moonblades long before the dms guild began.

The crux was that malkizid engineered the creation of Evermeet (from GHoTR), and therefore the moonblades may have been engineered secretly by his agents as well. Thus giving the blades an overt goodly origin but a secret evil purpose.

I had suggested that the whole king maker ritual had been a farce or a corruption called early by malkizid to further divide the elves (which could be the blades true purpose), and that such an event may happen again and choose another king to cause more strife.

People didnt like the idea, stating it outright contradicted canon, but no one mentioned the quote above which fitted my idea perfectly.

Anyways, ill stop hijacking the scroll now. My apologies.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Well if you can detail which part of the ritual they performed or in the words of Troy "and how many armies will the gods provide", they it makes sense to discuss that participation.

But if Ethlando and the other high mages performed the ritual then the gods involvement is theoretical.

That wasnt my point though really. The argument is always that the gods wont allow it but i can point to gods that will allow it. So who wins. If i can name more gods that will provide their power to allpw something bad then surely the evil gods win. Either way saying xxxx god wont allow it is a poor argument, they allowed the crown wars, they allowed the corruption of the starym blade, they allowed the fall of myth drannor, the destruction of rystall wood, the destruction of uvaeren, the unleashing of ityak elfeater, the death of zaor.

If the gods in their mysterious ways would allow all that destruction and interfering of their plans then why not allow the moonblades to go a bit wonky.


I can only conclude from the sheer number of horrible events that have occured, that either the gods are powerless (either because they are metaphysical beings and can take no direct actions, or because any other number of myriad gods oppose their actions), or they dont like or care about their subjects all that much.

Either way the gods do not allow it seems an inconsistent argument at best because they are so fickle you just dont know what they will allow.

Therefore for sanity reasons alone they are best left out of it. If i can find a plausible way to use the moonblades for evil then why should it not be possible. And using peoples own goodie two shoes tendencies against them is a deliciously evil way to corrupt a purpose.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Then it must be our definitions of active that differ. Corellon's faithful servants helped make the moonblades and gather together the clans in cooperation so the ritual would bind all elves together.

Whereas malkizid and his followers planted the detail of the original idea on some forgotten parchment in a vyshaan ruin and then left a clue pointing to the location of ancient lore.

No one was inactive and i dont doubt agents of the seldarine carefully guarded the place where the moonblades were made and the ritual was performed (just as the servants of lolth were trying to infiltrate and sabotage things). But Corellon didnt turn up and cast the ritual, nor did gruumsh himself turn up to smash the puny elves, nor lolth cast her own anti ritual to deliberately corrupt things. If such events happened with actual divine beings turning up and stomping all over the place in their size 9000 shoes then everything would just turn into 1385 every day.

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The priests involved in this ritual invoke their gods' attentions and patronage to the working, while the High Mages perform the ritual to bind the summoned power to the items. Sometimes, the gods themselves directly infuse powers into the items that are not invoked by the priests or High Mages, and these often become the relics of that god's religion.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Unless of course gods are all powerful and can cast magic through planar boundaries.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

But it doesn't follow the rules. If gods break the rules then the immersion is also broken. And a god that can do anything from anywhere seems pretty all powerful to me.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal


As long as people stop telling me that god X wont allow Y to happen then I will stop pointing out the inconsistencies and deficiencies in the current deific model as touted by WoTC (Cyric stabs Mystra. The second sundering. Shar and Lolth in their umpteenth attempt to destroy the world.).

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

The original argument was that I reckon I have a plausible way to make the Moonblades service evil (without actually changing anything about them). And the counter argument was that the gods wouldn't allow it. If they aren't all knowing and all powerful and can't find anything wrong with the whole thing (because it is the same as before; a series of blades designed to pick the best possible ruler for the elves) then how or why would they stop it short of just waiving their hands and instantly knowing that there was something wrong in the world.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

There are many many reasons.

Just a few include:

In order for a settinh to work as a gaming world it has to allow for the suspension of disbelief. There have to be rules to the setting that are followed in order for players to understand and be immersed. Deities actually wandering around breaks that immersion. A deity operates through avatars, an avatar is usually powerful enough to disintegrate an opponent at a touch or glance. Just witnessing a gods appearance would probably be enough to kill a mortal yet it doesnt happen.
An avatar is usually immune to most forms of attack yet these gods wandering around seem to be as frail as paper.
If you had 9 or 10 avatars at your disposal why would you do anything in person and would it even be possible to occupy a 3 dimensional body and still keep track of all your other responsibilities (including up to 10 avatars for treater gods).


A gods appearance in person is yet another step on the ladder of 'escalating pew pew guns for coolness'. It began with chosen, then avatars, then gods in person and overgods. And now we are stuck with novels and supplements that involve a daily grind of the world being threatened by super beings and the mortals seem to have to clear it all up despite gods just wandering around interfering in their favourite toys and people and ignoring everything else.



Number 3 is that almost every event involving direct deific involvement has been spectacularly mishandled. The powers and abilities are way off, with gods being offed by mortals. Gods behaving in ways completely contrary to their supposed personality, and acting in ways that makes no sense for a god to act.
For instance lolths silence, lolth goes silent, lets most of her worshippers die, eilistraee acts schizophrenically bizarre. And in the end the whole line of events must have been so bad it was completely ignored by any future line of product.
Dont get me started on the events of 1385 when the deities involved suddenly turned into the Brady bunch.
In general anything involving a god acting in person usually portrays that god as incredibly stupid and short sighted (mielikki and all orcs are evil), such that i regard anything involving gods as a really bad episode of home and away.


And finally. Ed doesnt use the gods in this way. They are behind the scenes movers and shakers, manipulating events by proxy rather than turning up directly. If a god ever did turn up in his games i bet it would be an avatar and not the actual divinity.

I much prefer Eds original vision to the travesty that WoTC serves up.





If a god ever did turn up directly i imagine he would be in serious danger. While he is on the mortal realm who is looking after his divine realm, who is seeing to the affairs of his followers, who is furthering his divine plans, who is controlling his avatars and manifestations.

Furthermore if a god is killed on the mortal realm what happens. A demon or devil is banished for years (or destroyed depending on edition). At the least it would probably take a while for the shattered divinity to gather himself togethwr and retreat home. Meanwhile his enemies get to wreck his plans in his absence.

Thus if a god ever did come to the prime in person then every enemy god that hears of such an event would also turn up to try and kill him.
Thus its much safer to send an avatar.

It makes no sense as far as the rules are concerned and it makes no sense as far as the motivations of a super intelligent divine being is concerned to turn up in person.


Thats the short version. There is lots more. Am i the only one that dislikes the gods turning up in person and doing everything themselves (leaving nothing for PCs to do).

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