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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11852 Posts |
 Posted - 11 Oct 2017 : 23:01:49
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So, I was thinking about the part where Karsus died and he petrified into a rock. That made me think about the fact that he is one of the few gods whose rock "god body" didn't go to the astral. That made me think about the fact that all the mythallars died at that time. Then I was thinking about the fact that Chosen are these "batteries" that are set aside to story Mystra's power.
That made me wonder... before Mystra decided to put her extra faith energy in people... did Mystryl put her "faith" energy into Mythallars? Were Mythallars maybe like her "backup batteries", and the reason they failed is she had to call the energy out of them to survive?
Just throwing that out there as an idea to discuss.
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2017 : 00:49:50
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not sure about the chosen being batteries as Larloch was a chosen of Mystryl.
but as far as I understood the mythallers were batteries that tied into the weave |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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Storyteller Hero
Learned Scribe
USA
329 Posts |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2017 : 05:11:48
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I also think of mythallars as "power converters" - but more specifically as "engines", not as "transformer stations". I think of the Weave as the "fuel" while the "medium" is the mythallar construct itself.
They draw magic energy (from the Weave), somehow "filtering" or "amplifying" or "remodulating" it as radiated quasi-magic energy (which distorts the local Weave or suppresses it under an elevated "noise floor", thus impairing elven racial abilities, inhibiting phaerimm reproductive biology, etc).
So I don't think of mythallar failures being caused by burning out from electrical oversurge, I think of them being more like any other engine shutting down after its source of power/fuel is cut off. I think probably more like "slowly grinding down to a halt" than like "sudden shorting/arcing overload" ... but it's hard to say since most mythallars were destroyed. Probably destroyed primarily by the violent crushing impact of a fallen mountaintop city-enclave, since the Sakkors mythallar survived a "softer" impact on water, but no real details exist. I assume that the Weave failure lasted long enough that, at least in the moments the enclaves crashed, the mythallars were essentially inert non-magical items (which could be damaged or destroyed as easily as any other normal non-magical item) - consider that other known Weave failures always had lasting effects which took years to restabilize, during which magical items do not function reliably (if at all).
I note that the Sakkors mythallar needed some special attention to restart, though it's unclear whether this magical (and psionic) energy was needed to kickstart or bootstrap it to a self-sustaining "ignition point", to continually recharge/repower it, to repair damage to it, to modify it to operate in new (post-Netheril) conditions, or to simply provide an extra boost so the enclave could be levitated from the ocean floor to the surface (à la Stargate: Atlantis). The "tools" (people) used to reactivate Sakkors were discarded and apparently no longer needed after Sakkors hit the skies again.
I also note that Mephistopheles was bound (temporarily) by Telamont. Mephy thrashed about violently while attempting to break his shackles, and the movements of his struggles were mirrored by the entire Shade enclave violently jerking and keeling through the sky. But then again, Mephy is an arch-fiend subservient in power only to Asmodeus, he may not be a proper deity but he certainly could command god-like powers which bend, stretch, or defy the normal rules. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 12 Oct 2017 06:32:54 |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11852 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2017 : 12:16:54
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True, they did act more like the "weave tap" that converted weave energy into shadow weave energy. However they converted weave energy into "quasimagical" energy, which was used to power "quasimagical" items.
Hmmm, I guess that opens up another theoretical question. We have mythallars that produce quasimagical "fields" that can power magic items, but only in a localized area. We have udoxias that produced lets call it "psionic energy" in a localized area and imprinted the ability to use certain psionic gifts on any intelligent being in range. We have mythals that produce... lets call it "mythal fields"... in a localized area that have a very broad scope of what they can do to items, people, etc... We have faerzress which is an "underdark radiation" which has a particular affect on dark elves, but can be turned to other uses. Any others?
Almost makes me think of a lot of this like nuclear reactors or radioactive material.... almost like the next thing we might see is a tesla coil powering things with a quasi version of electricity.
On a broader scale, we have a "demon weave" that was attempting to be formed. We have the "shadow weave" that existed after Karsus' Folly. Any others?
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11852 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2017 : 12:36:23
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Hmmmmmmm..... talking about the tesla coil just opened up an idea in my head.
Lantan just came back from 100 years elsewhere (probably Abeir). The SCAG says that they're offering many "shield guardians"... or basically golem-like constructs. What if they developed the "lightning coil" while in Lantan and also had developed a battery that can hold a charge long term by using certain specific minerals. What if they've sold these constructs with the knowledge that they need to be exposed to a "lightning coil" periodically to recharge. But whenever the battery totally dies and they get recharged, they can be "reprogrammed" to respond to a new master. Thus, they may be insinuating spies and assassins into the houses of wizards along the sword coast, but doing so by selling these constructs on the cheap with an addendum that says that they will periodically need "servicing" by Lantanese experts.
In this, I note that the time between Ben Franklin and Nikola Tesla's various discoveries was only roughly 140 years, and the realms has been familiar with electricity in the form of lightning magic for a long time (granted lightning magic works different than electricity, but what I'm describing above may not be "electricity" based but rather this odd variation known as "lightning" energy in D&D) |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
Edited by - sleyvas on 12 Oct 2017 12:41:40 |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2017 : 13:11:14
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I've always thought magical constructs could be viewed as a form of pollution, like discarded plastics or even nuclear waste, it can last centuries or millennia or many epochs, mostly benign but sometimes actively toxic.
Invisible and unbreakable "windows" hovering immovably in mid-air, once features in now long lost and ruined structures, created by high magic before the first elven empires and still enduring even after multiple Weaves and Goddesses have fallen. All manner of magical items, clothing, arms, uniquely customized and attuned to long-dead individuals, magically indestructible, impossible to recycle or repurpose. Permanent portals, gravity fields, light sources all created long ago which now occupy random (sometimes inconvenient or downright hazardous) places. Drifting spheres of annihilation, magical pools of bubbling lava, poisonous lighthouse beacons, countless other indestructible and indelible magical phenomena dotting the landscape. Untold piles of magically ageless and basically useless items, areas, and spells. Not to mention such momentous things as phaerimm life drain which forever changed half of Faerun into a barren desert, nor malfunctioning and "insane" mythals, nor wild zones and dead zones and blue storms, nor cataclysmically bouncing and bashing entire continents and nations and peoples/races between two separated worlds.
There might be other crashed mythallars, intact but inert/dormant. Although it doesn't make much sense for the Shadovar to have gone so far to sunken Sakkors (and to control the kraken Ssessimyth) if a closer mythal could have been recovered.
D&D's "post-apocalyptic" Dark Sun setting demonstrates an extreme where magic has consumed and depleted and defiled the entire world. FASA's Shadowrun game had an interesting organic magic system - the best "telesma" (materials for enchanting) were natural and virginal, as close to pure nature as possible, untouched, untainted, gathered and crafted by the magician's own hand - while artificial or processed things, things contaminated by separation from nature or machines or processes or technologies or even by simple handling by others, were less suitable - as if the whole world was itself somehow contaminated by (meta)humanity's faith in hard science vs living magic, a form of "magical pollution" or "defiling" caused not by the presence of any magecraft but by the prevailing consensus-belief and world views in the mundane masses. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 12 Oct 2017 13:18:17 |
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Faith Batteries & Mystra
