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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
 Posted - 27 Nov 2005 : 18:26:51
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Alright, I started cogitation upon this a long time ago, and I had a semi-successful thread discussion this as well. I have been looking to create an in game explanation for any changes in cosmology and slight deviations in history since 2nd Edition became 3rd. I have more or less pieced together my thoughts, and I was going to post them here.
Once again, I would love to hear all of your opinions and suggestions, but I am just presenting MY version of why things changed and how they work now. This is neither an attempt to say that WOTC really assumes the same thing that I have pieced together, nor is this a comment about the virtue of any new structure that might have replaced an old one. This is solely about what is in canon, and what could have happened to make 2e canon and 3e cannon congruant with one another.
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 27 Nov 2005 : 18:28:04
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Of the Fraturing of the Universal Harmony, Freying the Threads of the Universe (et al.)
At one point in time, all of the known worlds resided within the same universe. Each was separated by a vast sea of darkness, so far apart that not even the gods themselves could cast their power across the expanse.
Within this universe were several regions ruled over by families, or pantheons, of gods, and each of these pantheons had at their head one being removed from the rest, beyond even their power to affect, whose occupation was to make sure that the harmony of the universe was maintained.
Within one of these regions, a rift occurred, for whatever reason, none will ever know. The rift opened up into a realm of madness and chaos that did not know laws for physicality or magic, just randomness and change. This realm seeped into the unsuspecting region, and destroyed it, warping, changing, and nullifying as it went. Even the gods of this region succumed to the taint.
Though it was millinea later, eventually the pantheonic heads noticed this taint from beyond, and met to discuss it. As they viewed it destroy yet another pantheon and its head without so much as a slowed advance, the Overgods, as they had customarily called, decided that they must take action.
Each Overgod would remove his domain to another reality, a reality of flowing scintilating liquid energy. They would create crystal spheres to protect their worlds, and within these spheres, and in this alien environment, the taint of the plane of madness would never touch their worlds. Unknown to the rest of the Overgods, one overgod died in the effort of creating his crystal sphere, and the Overgods of two other realms split in two. One of these dualized Overgods was also infected with the taint of the Realm of Madness before the work on their crystal sphere was completed.
For untold ages this solution worked. Then events on various spheres and planes that connected to them began to conspire against the grand plan of the Overgods. It is difficult to gague what happened first, but several occurances began to cut across various planes of existance. One of the most important issues was the entry of a deity into a region of the Outer Planes that had been sealed against the divine, that subsequently weakened planar boundaries across the various realities. The second issue was the misguided actions of one goddess in one plane that cause more damage than anyone had forseen.
When this goddess sought to harness the power of one of the dualized Overgods, the one tainted with the essense of the Plane of Madness, she shifted her region of influence into the First Reality, the one abandoned millinea ago and now infected with chaos and madness, the home of no gods. Years before this, she had found a path to the First Reality, and made a pact with the goddless monstrosity dragons that lived on one of the as yet unmolested worlds.
When the goddess moved such a massive region into the First Reality, utilizing the energies in line with the Plane of Madness, she essentially called the attention of the various unspeakable creatures to her. But instead of attacking the newly transplanted worlds, the creatures flowed through the weakened planar boundaries into the crystal domains within the liquid energy. While the energy itself was anethema to the creatures, corrupting the inside of the spheres did not harm them at all.
The Overgods gathered to discuss this turn of events, and decided that the would all work together, exerting massive effort, to split the First Reality into many alternate realities. They were reluctant to do this since if they failed, all reality would fall apart, and if they succeeded they would have to rework some of the history of their realms, and communication between them would become much more difficult.
Some of the Overgods did not survive their endevor, and some realms ceased to exist. Any creatures that had dual natures, such as gods that could manifest avatars and planar entities that could manifest aspects, ended up being recreated in every reality in which their avatars or aspects existed.
The First Reality ceased to exist, replaced by multiple realities. The Overgods left the semblance of the crystal spheres upon the plane of infinate flowing energy to act as a portal to the new realities, though the spheres are only visible from the flow of energy. Thus the plane of energy remained as a means of transport between the various new realities in a manner that was safe from the creatures of the Madness Plane. Dispite this, old pathways and rivers of energy within the plane shifted, changing familiar routes.
Where history changed, even the gods did not remember what had come before, though three were whispers and artifacts of the past that did not fully heal. Much mischeif occurred in places where the gods found regions of reality that did not heal properly.
In the reality that is home to the world known as Toril, there were several spots of reality that were damaged. Some of this is revealed in the underlying symbology of the rewritten reality known as the Metatext, and some of this is deliniated on the artifacts known as the Tablets of Fate. In fact, while it is commonly believed that Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul sought the Tablets of Fate to rewrite their positions of importance in the pantheon, Bane was also looking for a means to seize Mystra's power, and Myrkul had glimpsed at the notations on the remaking of the universe on the tablets, thus piquing his interest in them. None of the gods shared their special interest with one another.
The event known as the Dawn Cataclysm also has it roots in the remaking of the universe. Lathander had been consulting Denier on the references in the Metatext about spots in the universe that were damaged. Lathander had decided to used these holes to travel throughout time to strengthen good and reorder how the universal balance worked. He enlisted the goddess Tyche to aid him, but Moander, god of corruption, was drawn to this damaged portion of reality because of Lathander's powerful outpouring of energies.
Moander started to use this hole in reality to remake Tyche in his image, but Lathander split her in half, keeping her from becoming wholly a creature of perversion and chaos. Moander tapped more of the power, but found himself overwealmed with its chaos and madness, and fled himself.
When the spot in reality kept unravelling, Lathander did not know what to do, and enlisted Murdane, goddess of reason, to aid him. Murdane sacrificed herself to nullify the madness and chaos, thus ending the event. Lathander, while saddened by the events, still hopes to find more of the holes in reality to exploit and put his plan into place once again. |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 27 Nov 2005 : 19:03:00
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| Hm . . . while it still makes sense to me I just realized that I essentially blamed everything on Takhisis and Vecna . . . is my Realms bias showing? |
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Crennen FaerieBane
Master of Realmslore
USA
1378 Posts |
Posted - 27 Nov 2005 : 19:57:10
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C'mon - you know it's alright to blame Tahkisis - even Raistlin did it. 
However - you should leave Vecna out of it... those Liches always have great defense attorneys!
Seriously though, that is a pretty good explanation - I just worry that it opens up yet another avenue for another change. I mean, it could have the Realms change again - especially with Lathander planning something new.
C-Fb |
Still rockin' the Fey'ri style. |
Edited by - Crennen FaerieBane on 27 Nov 2005 20:01:06 |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 27 Nov 2005 : 20:04:53
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I think this is a worthy pursuit. An in-game explanation would be a good thing. Unfortunately, while I know much of FR and planescape cosmology, I know little of Greyhawk and Krynnish mythologly. I know next to nothing about Vecna or Takhisis.
Although I do know they tried to tie Vecna into the cosmology changes in the module Die Vecna Die! (was it?) But that module is usually heavily scorned and ignored with regards to canon. I don't know how much of it can be rehabilitated to link to an in-game explanation.
I think your idea of linking it to the Far Realms is a good one. I have always been partial to cosmic horror and lovecraftian elder evils.
If it were just Toril alone, I think the Sundering offers an intriguing possibility for an answer. It is said in several places that the effects reached both forward and backward through time. It might not have just sundered the continent but maybe the crystal sphere of Realmspace. That would necessitate repairs to the cosmology and to the timeline.
The Dawn Cataclysm too presents an intriguing possibility. As does the metatext. And also Lathander's Deliverance (or Second Dawn Cataclysm) In fact, maybe Lathander already initiated his Dawn Cataclsym around Shieldmeet of 1372 DR which so damaged the weave and the timeline that Ao had to do the massive reboot and fix everything.
Maybe Lathander's Deliverance was like a virus or a buggy program that crashed Ao's server. And Ao had to get a new one, recovering and upgrading the files as best he could. The change in cosmology could be just a massive server migration.  |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 28 Nov 2005 : 02:38:24
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Yeah, I was basically going with Vecna entering Sigil, which should not happen, as the means by which the planar boundaries were weakened. Since you aren't too aquainted with Krynn, what happened with Takhisis is that at the end of the Chaos War (where the chaotic overgod named . . . well, Chaos) Takhisis appeared to cut and run before the other gods, but it was later shown that she had left early to draw up energies that she was storing to move the whole planet somewhere that the other gods couldn't find it, thus making herself the only god of Krynn.
Glad you liked the Far Realm overtones. I kinda like there being a plane outside of all of the cosmologies that touches all of them as well, and not in a good way!
I also wanted to explain a little better how the gods involved in stealing the Tablets of Fate were thinking. It was revealed in the Shadows of the Avatar books that Bane was looking to take a shot at Mystra, so I wanted to give Myrkul an alterior motive as well, this being finding the references to the previous reality on the Tablets of Fate. That would only leave poor Bhaal taking it at face value that just by having the Tablets that they might become more powerful. |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11829 Posts |
Posted - 28 Nov 2005 : 14:50:02
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| yeah, but the tablets of fate explained the changes from 1e to 2e... then we'd have to have something similar for the changes from 2e to 3e. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Fletcher
Learned Scribe
USA
299 Posts |
Posted - 06 Dec 2005 : 22:42:13
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| Wow. I like the way you wrote the about the reset button. I think I might use parts of this as random information for my knowledge hungry player (pries of Oghma). |
Run faster! The Kobolds are catching up! |
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My Grand Unified Theory of Toril's Reset Button
