PDA

View Full Version : Gamer Humor Post your crazy RPG theories!



Inevitability
2016-07-28, 08:08 AM
Everyone has them: weird theories on what the Lady of Pain really is, or what really happened on the Day of Mourning. This is the place to post them!

I'll start:

The feywild, material plane, and shadowfell are the same place, just different places in time. The exact chronological order is material --> fey --> shadow.

First, there is the material plane, the 'day'. Magic is present, but not omnipresent. Wildlife is mundane, but supernatural creatures exist.

Then, there is the feywild, the 'evening'. In this age, magic is everywhere. Nonmagical creatures have been driven to extinction by their supernatural brethren, and so have the less magical races. It should be noted that elves and gnomes, both races associated with magic, are prevalent in the feywild. The fey are former humanoids who have transcended their mortal bodies with powerful magic.

The fey's chaotic nature and decadent lifestyle, however, eventually causes their cities to crumble. When that happens, the Shadowfell is born, a realm of eternal night where only the undead survive.

More evidence: owlbears, allegedly created by a wizard on the material plane, have been around in the feywild for ages, according to that world's residents. The various planes also share major landmarks, just twisted by the magic prevalent in that time.

Hopeless
2016-07-28, 10:27 AM
Exalted.
Galactus-like entity arrived devoured the Earth however a portion survives inside merging with remains of other worlds that was devoured.
The previous Elders of the resulting society convert members of the various races into suitable servitors creating the vampires, chaotic faerie, lycanthrope, etc however the first human Vampire goes very badly wrong creating the first Exalted leading to the inevitable epoch shattering war that ended up killing most of the Primordial elders and creating the current regime.
That first Exalted turned down becoming the Solar Exalted God, but did so because he figured out a way to counter the curse... Unfortunately the other exalted refuse to relinquish their positions of power to put the regular non-exalted to replace them... thus bringing on the downfall of the Solar Exalted as the Sidereals remain blind to what's really going on!

OldTrees1
2016-07-28, 10:49 AM
1)
There are 26 inner planes (not my theory but one I have adopted):
6 primary: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Positive, Negative
12 secondary (bordered by 2 primary)
8 tertiary (bordered by 3 secondary)

These 26 planes form a shell. But what is caged inside & why?

2)
There is the planes of the great wheel, the outlands, & the planes connecting the wheel to the outlands (mildly neutral planes). However that would give us a topless cylinder shape. What is the missing plane that is located on the other side of sigil from the outlands?

Amaril
2016-07-28, 11:10 AM
Don't Rest Your Head is really a game about mental illness. The Mad City and the Nightmares aren't real at all--it's all just a delusion brought on by sleep deprivation, and whatever stress or trauma caused said sleep deprivation. To "win" and escape the Nightmares, you have to face whatever is troubling you and overcome it, at which point you manage to regain your hold on reality and are free of your Awakening.

(Maybe not the most out-there theory--I think the book itself actually suggests this as a possibility somewhere--but I still think it counts.)

JeenLeen
2016-07-28, 03:03 PM
In oWoD Mage, belief shapes even the most fundamental actions. Walking was once a Correspondence teleportation spell; having a two-story house was once a Correspondence 5 stacking location ability.

Evidence: basic stuff like fire or weaving clothes together doesn't work in at least one umbral realm. Pointy sticks don't either, I think, though a club does. Whose to say it didn't a while before walking became more than magic?

nedz
2016-07-28, 03:26 PM
The number of planes of chaos (Limbo) is non-deterministic - it's just that most of them are very small.

UndeadArcanist
2016-07-28, 04:32 PM
the githzerai and githyanki are actually elves twisted by the illthids. This is why they both have high dexterity, high wisdom or intelligence, thin frames, high cheekbones, pointed ears, and long lifespans. This, of course, brings up the question of what, if anything, happened to the enslaved drow?

ExLibrisMortis
2016-07-28, 07:05 PM
In 3.5:
The elemental planes are arranged around the material like the faces of a cube, rather than a circle.
Opposed faces are like the the positive and negative poles of a battery. Fire versus water, air versus earth, and positive versus negative. These currents cross in the material plane, which is balanced, but different outer planes have different amounts of various currents. Deities use the currents closest to them; the orientation of their outer plane is important in the 'economy of power'.
Like electrical motors, you can run a living being 'backwards', which is what an undead creature is. I suppose you could do the same thing with, say, fire element creatures, but I don't know a matching template for that.
Ascending to godhood requires you to create a new outer plane (or kill a deity and take over); this got progressively harder as more outer planes were added, because the connection of each outer plane to the inner plane power sources got thinner with each new outer plane, reducing the benefit of having such a plane.
The first outer plane wrapped all around the inner and material planes; the second pushed the first aside, and started the first struggle over the inner plane power currents.
This first struggle just happened to be aligned across the positive/negative axis, which is also what the first created species were fuelled by, respectively. This is why negative energy is considered 'evil' and positive 'good', at least by living creatures, even though the planes themselves are neutral. There are negative energy planets where it's the reverse. It's all cosmological politics. Later planes have divided up this struggle, but the fire/water and air/earth struggles just never got as serious, after the first two deities took their positions.
Fire and air get along fairly well, as do water and earth; they more or less represent the chaotic/lawful axis (although that is an in-universe cultural construct, like the good/evil axis).

Eh... it's got it snags and holes, but I'm still working on it.

RazorChain
2016-07-28, 11:48 PM
I am a player character in the game Humans & Households, that makes you forumites only minor NPC's.

Kami2awa
2016-07-29, 01:26 AM
The Deep Ones in Call of Cthulhu and humans are the same species, and humans are the "axolotl" form.

They can interbreed with each other, with the offspring eventually becoming more Deep Ones. The act of interbreeding activates otherwise dormant genes in the offspring that leads them to develop fully into Deep Ones. This means that, given the right stimulus, any human might mature into a deep one.

Misereor
2016-07-29, 01:33 AM
I am a player character in the game Humans & Households, that makes you forumites only minor NPC's.

So as another player I'm curious. Does my real crappy "Casual Sex with Supermodels" stat reflect the campaign tone or just an unlucky character creation roll?

Kami2awa
2016-07-29, 01:57 AM
I am a player character in the game Humans & Households, that makes you forumites only minor NPC's.

To turn this around, all the D&D worlds are actually within a hyper-realistic VR setting in the future. This explains many of idiosyncrasies of the game (abstract hp, Vancian casting, colour-coded dragons, NPCs being statted completely differently to PCs in some editions) which are simply programmed into the world because the programmers (or their marketing committee) wanted them.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-29, 02:31 AM
So as another player I'm curious. Does my real crappy "Casual Sex with Supermodels" stat reflect the campaign tone or just an unlucky character creation roll?

Don't worry, it's a dump stat.

2D8HP
2016-07-29, 04:22 AM
My theories aren't crazy at all!
Just because those blind fools at the Mages Guild roll their eyes, and won't admit the truth!
I'll show them! All show them all!

First, the half-elves, and half-orcs among us show that elves, humans, and orcs are in fact the same species! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?481829-Why-the-Sentient-Species-Don-t-Make-Mutts)
Humans are actually descendents of long ago Elves and Orcs.
Don't walk away! In your hart you know it's true!

Also the reason Elves have low light vision like Dwarves and Gnomes, is because they too originally lived underground. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475794-Drow-the-original-Elves) Clearly these rumors of "Dark Elves", sometimes called "Drow", point towards the inescapable conclusion that "surface" Elves are in fact descended from Elves who were exiled from the Underdark because they were insufficiently badass! And in fact the day star bleached them! That is why Wood Elves who lived under the shade of their forest homes are darker hued. Either that or the reliance on magic among the so called "high elves", makes them both lazy and pasty!

In fact this overuse of Magic by some may doom us all!
The ruins of the Ancients all around, in the wastelands and underground shows the truth!
Long ago the Elves
used up all the magic causing the fall of their civilization! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?487606-Magic-Lost-and-Reborn)

Overuse of Magic in one place leeches the Mana from the Earh, leaving desolate wastelands in it's absence!
The ancestors of the Elves having squandered all the magic fled underground, with a few remnants learning to survive in a world without magic. Yes humans and orcs! The Orcs who infest the ruins are the savage descendents of the Elves too stupid to leave. We humans are the descendents of those who didn't hide underground, or stupidly stay amongst the ruins, but instead pioneered new lands and made new tools.
Why else would it be humans who invented the crossbow, the plow, sailing ships, and windmills? Only in times without Magic would anyone bother to build such things! That's why so many of us still toil on the land and in our smithies, instead of just learning Wizardry, were not too stupid to learn Spellcraft! Nay, deep in our souls we feel the warning that it can't last!

That is why these tomb robbing Adventurer's have lately been finding magic items littering the ruins. For centuries there was insufficient environmental Mana for those items to be worth picking up!
That is why there are Sorcerers now born among us when previous generations had none!
The return of Magic to the wastelands is why suddenly all these magicsl monsters now infect our lands! Do you think our ancestors could have survived long if they'd always existed?

We have forgotten and grown soft!
We must conserve what Magic is left and learn from the Gnomes ways to make wonders without the Arcane arts. Too much reliance on and use of Wizardry will doom us!

We must learn to grow our on food and distill water, without relying on Create Food and Water Spells, and if these Magic-User's continue to waste the Magic away in trivial goals, we must learn to fight off without spells, the bears, wolves and other beasts that threaten us, else we fall to claws and fangs!

Take these pamphlets and spread the word before it's too late!

bulbaquil
2016-07-29, 06:30 AM
The real world is a persistent campaign setting. The first game was actually set during Charlemagne's time, and it involved elves, dwarves, dragons, etc., the standard fantasy tropes; all history prior to that point is simply in-world lore created as a backdrop for that campaign and the future campaigns in the same setting (which spanned most of medieval times). However, fairly recently the group expressed interest in playing in a James Bond-style modern espionage game (not Shadowrun), which requires a somewhat modern world. The GM thought it would be cool to have it take place in the future of the same setting, so he bumped the timeline forward (this is also the reason why we didn't industrialize sooner - we were still NPCs in a medieval fantasy world!).

Where are the elves, dwarves, etc. now? Well, as part of the modern update, during the chaos of the Thirty Years' War, the elves all packed up and used a teleportation circle to get to Tau Ceti, having decided that it would be best to leave the world before the humans obliterated it and to come back later. As part of their "leaving no trace" policy, they identified and magically hid all the evidence of supernatural creatures (including fossils etc.); the "dinosaur from the Jurassic" you see in the museum was actually a dragon slain by a knight in 1297. (Magic does weird things to time, carbon dating, and the like, and as magic can only be detected by magic rather than by technology...)

Currently we are gearing up for a gritty post-apoc-style game to be set in 2115. We are part of the historical backstory of the game.

Inevitability
2016-07-29, 07:12 AM
Like electrical motors, you can run a living being 'backwards', which is what an undead creature is. I suppose you could do the same thing with, say, fire element creatures, but I don't know a matching template for that.

3.5 had the necromental template in Libris Mortis. It sounds like it'd fit.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-07-29, 10:28 AM
3.5 had the necromental template in Libris Mortis. It sounds like it'd fit.
Huh, I thought a necromental was an elemental infused with negative energy, but that's not actually what it says - it's literally an 'undead elemental', without any reference to positive/negative energy (although the Undead type means it's healed by negative energy, rather than cold, as would be appropriate). Nice find!

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-29, 10:36 AM
The elemental planes are arranged around the material like the faces of a cube, rather than a circle.
Opposed faces are like the the positive and negative poles of a battery. Fire versus water, air versus earth, and positive versus negative. These currents cross in the material plane, which is balanced, but different outer planes have different amounts of various currents. Deities use the currents closest to them; the orientation of their outer plane is important in the 'economy of power'.
Like electrical motors, you can run a living being 'backwards', which is what an undead creature is. I suppose you could do the same thing with, say, fire element creatures, but I don't know a matching template for that.




I really like that -- at the very least as a "three-dimensional metaphor" for non-Euclidean interplanar mechanics, it works FAR better than the wheel or circle or stack layers, I think.

Telwar
2016-07-29, 09:35 PM
Primarily for 3.5, but works in 4e, 5e, and previous editions too:

Fireballs (and other AoE spells) are not actually explosions.

Evidence: Take your average 10' radius fireball. Put a 15 x 15 creature on one side with all 9 of its squares in the blast radius. Then, take its identical twin sibling and place only one square of its base in the "explosion." They both take the same amount of damage, despite the variance in exposure to the "blast."

Argument: Clearly, if this were an actual explosion, the target fully engulfed would take far more harm from the "explosion" than the other target that was much less exposed.

Therefore, the AoE "explosion" is not an explosion. Instead, I posit, when the spell reaches the target coordinates, it automatically surveys the area in its detection radius, and forms an attacking penetrator for each valid target in its radius. The nature of this mechanism is unclear; it may be a nearly-physical item, it may be a gate to an appropriate dimension whose physics match the aesthetics of the spell, it may be nano-gnomes in appropriately-colored hats flinging themselves and their underpants at the target, whatever. In any event, instead of having an undodgeable wavefront, you have a spread of "attacks" that automatically hit no matter how fast you are, unless you're preternaturally able to avoid these "attacks" (i.e. have evasion). The "explosion" or "blast" is merely a special effect used to overawe the masses.

The targeting mechanism for this effect can be hacked using metamagics, and also can have parts pulled out and used on their own (such as a true seeing spell, which uses part of the targeting matrix to nearly unerringly identify anything despite effects the target is using to hide.

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-29, 09:49 PM
For some reason, Bane, the Lawful Evil god of Tryanny, Fear and Strife and general BBEG of the Forgotten Realms Pantheon lets a shrine of Tymora have a shrine in his most holy and controlled of cities. She's not a literal goddess of freedom, but she does support a large and powerful organization devoted to overthrowing tyrants, you know, like all of Bane's followers.

Why does he do this? He's got a thing for blondes. Sure, her sister is hotter but she'll probably max out all of the divine credit cards and has white hair. I believe that in 4th edition, he ends up marrying Loviatar, who is another blonde. The succubus who fathered his child was probably also a blonde.

Gentlemen prefer blondes, even when they're evil, apparently.

THEChanger
2016-07-30, 01:09 AM
My all time favorite conspiracy is the Burning Hate Conspiracy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?443306-quot-Pelor-the-Burning-Hate-quot-(from-Wizards-forum)) from 3.5.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-30, 01:18 AM
Therefore, the AoE "explosion" is not an explosion. Instead, I posit, when the spell reaches the target coordinates, it automatically surveys the area in its detection radius, and forms an attacking penetrator for each valid target in its radius. The nature of this mechanism is unclear; it may be a nearly-physical item, it may be a gate to an appropriate dimension whose physics match the aesthetics of the spell, it may be nano-gnomes in appropriately-colored hats flinging themselves and their underpants at the target, whatever. In any event, instead of having an undodgeable wavefront, you have a spread of "attacks" that automatically hit no matter how fast you are, unless you're preternaturally able to avoid these "attacks" (i.e. have evasion). The "explosion" or "blast" is merely a special effect used to overawe the masses.

Ah, so basically a precision-guided EFP cluster munition, labeled as HE to evade arms treaties.

Telonius
2016-07-30, 01:26 AM
My pet theory: Vows of Poverty were originally thought up by a Falxugon. The victim would swear loyalty to Baator, and give over all their material possessions, for a bunch of stuff that looks exciting at first but turns out to leave them worse off than before. The idea was shot down by his commander, on the grounds that nobody would be dumb enough to take that kind of a deal. In a fit of mischief, the Falxugon put the idea in the suggestion box of a Lawful Good temple.

Belac93
2016-07-30, 11:01 AM
Why are healing spells evocation school? Because they are literally taking the reverse effect of the damage, and applying it. So when they cast cure wounds on someone who was damaged with a fireball spell, they are taking the residual magic in the air, and applying it to healing. That is why you can't affect someone who is at full hit points. There is no energy to heal them with.

Jay R
2016-07-30, 11:36 AM
Gods and Creation in my current world:

There are two gods called together The Uncreated. Separately, they are The Lord and The Lady, and nothing is known about them.

Their first children were the sun, the earth, the oceans, and the winds. These four are either the creators of our world, or the stuff of which it was created - it's not clear which. They are, of course, the essence of the four earthly elements, the embodiment of the elemental planes, and the structure of the world. There is a fifth one, representing the quintessence, but since that cannot exist on our changeable and imperfect world, he/she has no influence here.

They have an abundance of names. The Sun God, for instance, is known as Apollo, Aten, Ra, Tonatiuh, Surya, Helios and many others. Similarly, every earth goddess is known to be the true earth, born of The Lord and The Lady - even those with known other parents, or those with no parents, like Gaea. Attempts to question the logic of this are met with the sacred chant, "Hakuna heigh-ho fragilistic bibbidy chim-cheree," which has been variously translated as, "It is not wise to question these mysteries, which are beyond the knowledge of our world," or "Die, you heathen scum, die!" In practice, there is no significant difference between the two translations.

The children/creations of these four are the only gods who will answer prayers or interact with the world directly. They include all the pantheons that have ever existed.
Except Lovecraft.

The Lord and The Lady have been identified as the embodiments of Good and Evil, or Law and Chaos, or Male and Female, or Light and Darkness, or any other opposing concepts.

Wars have been fought between those who believe they represent Good and Evil, and those who insist on Law and Chaos.

Wars have been fought between those who believe The Lord and The Lady hate each other with a hatred surpassing any passion on earth, and those who believe that they love each other with a love more true than any mortal could ever know.

Wars have been fought between those who know beyond all doubt that The Lord is Good and The Lady is Evil, and those who know beyond all doubt that The Lord is Evil and The Lady is Good.

All of the above will be available knowledge to the players. Here is what they will not know.

No arcane or divine magic will successfully find out any fact about The Lord and The Lady. I have three answers, all completely true, and mutually incompatible.

1. The Lord is Fate, and The Lady is Luck. Neither can exist without the other, and each action in the world, from a sneeze to the fall of an empire, is a victory of one of them over the other.
2. They are Yin and Yang, and the heart of each beats in the breast of the other. They represent complementary, not opposing, forces. Each is in fact all of the universe except the other, but neither one represents any specific principle (not even male and female), and whichever one represents goodness in one situation might be the evil in another. Together, they represent wholeness and balance
3. They are the Creators - the mother and father of the world, which they birthed and/or created for some great purpose which is not yet fulfilled.

No mortal can comprehend the true nature of any god. Therefore the image, history, and culture of any god are the simple stories people tell themselves about the gods, to comfort themselves into believing they know something.

Do you believe that your god is a Norse, hammer-throwing warlike thunder god with a red beard? Then that's what you see in your visualizations, and those are the aspects that your god shows to you.

So do you create the gods by your belief, or does the god who most closely resembles your belief respond to your prayers in the form you expect, or are they merely your own hallucinations that always occur as a side effect when invoking divine magic? One wise sage, Chicxulub the Philosophical, actually asked this question. He is said to have discovered the true answer after sixty years of study, prayer, and meditation, on March 23, in the year 643.

Incidentally, the largest impact crater ever discovered is the Chicxulub crater, which appeared on March 23, in the year 643. (Many have entered this crater to explore it. None have returned.)

Oh yes, and the fifth child of The Lord and The Lady, representing the Fifth Element? It turns out that he's not the stuff of the heavens, but of the hells. His children and descendants are all the demons, devils, and daemons. His creations are the evil spirits of the underworld. No, he's not out to conquer the world or destroy it or anything of that sort. He just likes to see war, strife, and pain.

nedz
2016-07-30, 12:51 PM
Why are healing spells evocation school? Because they are literally taking the reverse effect of the damage, and applying it. So when they cast cure wounds on someone who was damaged with a fireball spell, they are taking the residual magic in the air, and applying it to healing. That is why you can't affect someone who is at full hit points. There is no energy to heal them with.

Surely they are evoking Positive Energy? Seriously you can fluff almost any spell as being in almost any school.

KillianHawkeye
2016-07-30, 01:39 PM
Vampires and their vulnerability to the classic wooden stake.

Well in D&D 3.5, a Vampire's damage reduction is only penetrated by silver weapons. A small piece of wood couldn't possibly actually hurt one. Wouldn't it be funny if this wooden stake "vulnerability" was really the result of a massive campaign of misinformation perpetrated by the vampires and their mind-controlled servants? Garlic and running water probably don't do anything to vampires either, but after the humans bought the wooden stake thing, they wanted to see how much farther they could take it. :smallamused:

OldTrees1
2016-07-30, 03:49 PM
Surely they are evoking Positive Energy? Seriously you can fluff almost any spell as being in almost any school.

For example:
Abjuration: ???
Conjuration: Conjure Positive Energy
Divination: ???
Enchantment: Make you think you are healthier (warning, not effective on some subjects)
Evocation: Create Positive Energy
Illusion: Make reality pretend you are healthier (warning, lower efficiency and does not work on self)
Necromancy: *Cough* *Cough* Control over life & death remember?
Transmutation: Minor short duration regeneration
Universal: ???

nedz
2016-07-30, 05:11 PM
Abjuration: Endure Pain; Protection from Bleeding / Infection (OK this one's a hard sell)
Conjuration: Conjure Positive Energy *Cough* *Cough* 3.5
Divination: Improved First Aid
Enchantment: Make you think you are healthier (warning, not effective on some subjects) - HP are an abstraction, also Hypnotism
Evocation: Create Positive Energy
Illusion: Make reality pretend you are healthier (warning, lower efficiency and does not work on self) - Shadow magic - you can do Shadow Conjuration so this is possible in 3.5
Necromancy: *Cough* *Cough* Control over life & death remember?
*Cough* *Cough* in AD&D all healing spells were Necromantic
Transmutation: Minor short duration regeneration
Universal: See above

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-31, 02:02 AM
There's some sort of spirit or curse that keeps whisking away the shirts of the male iconics in Golarion, that's why in some releases no one with a Y chromsome appears with one despite the fact that their female couterparts seem to have mastered this strange shirt-based tecnology. Valeros is too drunk to either care or notice.

goto124
2016-07-31, 02:23 AM
There's some sort of spirit or curse that keeps whisking away the shirts of the male iconics in Golarion, that's why in some releases no one with a Y chromsome appears with one despite the fact that their female couterparts seem to have mastered this strange shirt-based tecnology. Valeros is too drunk to either care or notice.

Valeros himself has a shirt! Okay, a breastplace with abs, but that counts right?

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-31, 02:34 AM
Look at Mythic Adventures and other renditions done after the first few books. The only dude with a shirt on in that entire book is Buff Grandpa and the Shirt Curse even took his sleeves off. Clearly in one of the earlier books they did something to cause them to gain the Shirt Curse...

GPuzzle
2016-07-31, 02:39 AM
4e, Points of Light:

Ioun was the goddess that opened the Living Gate, the one that closed it, and has become a freaking beacon for psionic abilities as she irradiates those changes in the mind thanks to the corruption latching on to her.

Inevitability
2016-07-31, 08:14 AM
4e, Points of Light:

Ioun was the goddess that opened the Living Gate, the one that closed it, and has become a freaking beacon for psionic abilities as she irradiates those changes in the mind thanks to the corruption latching on to her.

You're just making me like Ioun more. :smalltongue:

bulbaquil
2016-07-31, 08:32 AM
Look at Mythic Adventures and other renditions done after the first few books. The only dude with a shirt on in that entire book is Buff Grandpa and the Shirt Curse even took his sleeves off. Clearly in one of the earlier books they did something to cause them to gain the Shirt Curse...

Clearly the Shirt Curse is a clever revenge for the Chainmail Bikini. "You made us fight skimpily for no reason; now it's your turn to fight skimpily."

GPuzzle
2016-07-31, 10:39 PM
You're just making me like Ioun more. :smalltongue:

She's basically Athena with arcane and psionic magic thrown into the mix.

What's not to love?

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-31, 10:45 PM
Clearly the Shirt Curse is a clever revenge for the Chainmail Bikini. "You made us fight skimpily for no reason; now it's your turn to fight skimpily."

That's a strange implication if the male members of the Iconic Pathfinder adventuring party forced the others into the chainmail bikini. Did Valeros just steal their armor when they were all bathing? I would imagine that Amiri would have a thing or two to say about that, primarily 'What's your AC?'.

GPuzzle
2016-07-31, 10:54 PM
Forgot about this one which is also great from D&D 4e's Points of Light setting:

Jarret, from the Twiceborn Leader Paragon Path (Warlord MP) is actually an Ardent but no one ever noticed.

Arbane
2016-07-31, 11:37 PM
That's a strange implication if the male members of the Iconic Pathfinder adventuring party forced the others into the chainmail bikini. Did Valeros just steal their armor when they were all bathing? I would imagine that Amiri would have a thing or two to say about that, primarily 'What's your AC?'.

Fun fact: According to the NPC Codex's stats for the iconic PF characters, Seoni (the tattooed sorceress in the red dress) has a better AC than any of the heavy-armor wearers.

goto124
2016-08-01, 06:48 AM
Perks of being a Charisma-based class, duh :smalltongue:

Inevitability
2016-08-01, 10:12 AM
She's basically Athena with arcane and psionic magic thrown into the mix.

What's not to love?

Don't forget the holy combat librarians.

Inevitability
2016-08-03, 03:16 AM
New one: elves don't need to sleep any less than the other races. They just figured out lack of sleep doesn't actually give mechanical penalties, then quit doing it altogether. To make sure other races didn't find out, the elves told all it was because of their innate immunity to Sleep spells.

However, their deceit is slowly being exposed. Half-elves, who share the elves' innate sleep resistance but not their deceitful upbringing, sleep normally while still being immune to Sleep spells. Soon the elvish lies will be revealed!

2D8HP
2016-08-03, 08:28 PM
Soon the elvish lies will be revealed!

When it comes to surface dwelling so-called "Elves", as the Drow well know, "Elvish" and "lies" are redundant!
Learn the truth (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475794-Drow-the-original-Elves)!

DMfromTheAbyss
2016-08-03, 09:00 PM
Corellon the Greater God of the Elves is really Link of the legend of Zelda fame. All the games are various re-tellings of his rise to godhood, the elven creation myth and his face down with who would become the one eyed god of the orcs...

His horse's name is Epona (A god of horses)

His symbol is a crescent moon, it's on his shield and on all the puzzle blocks he pushes.

He kills a giant dark pig demon guy by stabbing him in the face, and saves/is saved by a love interest using magic to distract him. (Sehanine Moonbow=Zelda/ Ganon = Gruumsh)

He gains or shares ultimate power when he wins (triforce=godhood?)

Someone just has to sneak up on the greater God of the elves and say in Navi's voice "Hey listen" to see if he twitches...

Lord Torath
2016-08-04, 01:24 PM
Here's the Link (and yes, consider the pun intended): Hey Listen (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiwqbXDsKjOAhUGy2MKHQuvBG8QtwIIHjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DTR 9phsC4enE&usg=AFQjCNFkIRed8ztetSv_dmM7JzzyTYYXPg&sig2=OK9GHa3ZUWbVOLqCJC0qew)

Jallorn
2016-08-08, 03:48 AM
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but: Illithid are actually from the future, the end of time specifically. Over time, Humans evolved into Illithid, the world started to end, so the Illithid decided, "I don't want to die, let's use our incredible arcane and psionic might to travel back in time and rule and live good lives then."

Don't believe me? Elan are the first step towards Humans becoming Illithid.

Inevitability
2016-08-08, 05:48 AM
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but: Illithid are actually from the future, the end of time specifically. Over time, Humans evolved into Illithid, the world started to end, so the Illithid decided, "I don't want to die, let's use our incredible arcane and psionic might to travel back in time and rule and live good lives then."

Don't believe me? Elan are the first step towards Humans becoming Illithid.

The first part of that is actually canon, I believe. Not too sure about elans, but they would make a logical 'missing link'.

OldTrees1
2016-08-08, 07:08 AM
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but: Illithid are actually from the future, the end of time specifically. Over time, Humans evolved into Illithid, the world started to end, so the Illithid decided, "I don't want to die, let's use our incredible arcane and psionic might to travel back in time and rule and live good lives then."

Don't believe me? Elan are the first step towards Humans becoming Illithid.

Illithids rely on a fresh stock of vanilla humans in order to produce true illithids rather than half illithids(from other animals) or become adult neothelids. Furthermore the larval form of the neothelid is so phenotypically distant from humans that one would presume the genomes are distant enough that it would take a really long time for them to evolve from a single common ancestor. Long enough that one might expect the then modern vanilla humans to be similarly different from current humans. This would raise the question of why those future larval neothelids would be compatible with a form of human not seen for many an eon.

"Humans undergo speciation where one side evolves into tadpoles that can undergo ceremorphosis and the other side remains unchanged during the eons that evolution takes" just doesn't sit right with what I learned at college about evolution.

As for canon: Illithids are from the future and their empire in critically threatened (although nothing I read said end of time) and still are larva that underwent ceremorphosis on a human. They did travel back in time to prolong their empire (the rebellion and splitting of the gith happens in the past but after the time travel from the illithid point of view).

Inevitability
2016-08-08, 08:05 AM
"Humans undergo speciation where one side evolves into tadpoles that can undergo ceremorphosis and the other side remains unchanged during the eons that evolution takes" just doesn't sit right with what I learned at college about evolution.

Change isn't necessary in evolution, merely possible. Coelacanths and humans share a common ancestor, but coelacanths are not that different from this primordial fish while humans have changed greatly over the course of 400 million years.

It is possible that one part of humanity lived a relatively stable existence where lack of direct threats meant there was no evolutional pressure to change, while another part that did experience strong natural selection slowly evolved into mind flayers. If the mind flayer branch of the tree of life didn't split into several different species (or if said species all went extinct) then humans would indeed be the most compatible host for their larves.

Belac93
2016-08-08, 08:38 AM
Change isn't necessary in evolution, merely possible. Coelacanths and humans share a common ancestor, but coelacanths are not that different from this primordial fish while humans have changed greatly over the course of 400 million years.

It is possible that one part of humanity lived a relatively stable existence where lack of direct threats meant there was no evolutional pressure to change, while another part that did experience strong natural selection slowly evolved into mind flayers. If the mind flayer branch of the tree of life didn't split into several different species (or if said species all went extinct) then humans would indeed be the most compatible host for their larves.

But the mind flayer branch would need some sort of food source during that time (unless they just suddenly didn't depend on brains). Their odd eating habits would appear slowly, and then normal humans would begin evolving to counteract this.

The reason Coelacanths haven't evolved much is because they don't need to. But what if one branch of then evolved to suck out the brains of the other? The other would evolve to do something about it.

Inevitability
2016-08-08, 09:02 AM
The reason Coelacanths haven't evolved much is because they don't need to. But what if one branch of then evolved to suck out the brains of the other? The other would evolve to do something about it.

Still not necessarily. After all, mind flayers are intelligent creatures: even moreso than humans. They could've abducted a small number of 'normal' humans to feed on, breeding them to ensure new brains are always available.

The main human population wouldn't be noticably affected by a one-time large abduction, especially if the abductees are carefully picked to prevent culling or sparing of certain traits. Similarly, as long as all members of the 'breeding stock' have equal chance of reproducing, no evolution will take place there. By only eating the brains of the old and infertile (which are by RAW more delicious to mind flayers), no selection will occur.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-08, 09:06 AM
"Illithids are humans from the end of time, come back to escape their doom" makes for good horror, and bad science.

OldTrees1
2016-08-08, 09:28 AM
Change isn't necessary in evolution, merely possible. Coelacanths and humans share a common ancestor, but coelacanths are not that different from this primordial fish while humans have changed greatly over the course of 400 million years.

It is possible that one part of humanity lived a relatively stable existence where lack of direct threats meant there was no evolutional pressure to change, while another part that did experience strong natural selection slowly evolved into mind flayers. If the mind flayer branch of the tree of life didn't split into several different species (or if said species all went extinct) then humans would indeed be the most compatible host for their larves.

My post was well informed and knew that change is not necessary, merely highly likely. Rereading my post might highlight that. Do remember that genetic drift, rather than just natural selection, is also a force to consider.

Since there is no evidence in canon for this improbable event, it being one of the other theories for the origin of the neothelid larva is more likely. Even the "neothelid evolved from illithidae".

Bohandas
2016-08-08, 09:43 AM
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but: Illithid are actually from the future

This is explicit canon as of Lords of Madness


"Illithids are humans from the end of time, come back to escape their doom" makes for good horror, and bad science.

I prefer to assume them to be githyanki from the end of time and to specifically make use of the bad science from The Beginning Was The End: Knowledge Can Be Eaten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_Was_the_End) (minus the stuff about psychic power being suppressed of course)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-08, 10:45 AM
This is explicit canon as of Lords of Madness



I prefer to assume them to be githyanki from the end of time and to specifically make use of the bad science from The Beginning Was The End: Knowledge Can Be Eaten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_Was_the_End) (minus the stuff about psychic power being suppressed of course)

That book... all of the whats...

Jallorn
2016-08-08, 11:38 AM
In defense of Illithid evolution, it's not an entirety natural process. It's an intentional reshaping of a subset of humanity using magic and stuff. Remember how humans become elan is also not natural. Illithids are an extension of that process.

OldTrees1
2016-08-08, 12:23 PM
In defense of Illithid evolution, it's not an entirety natural process. It's an intentional reshaping of a subset of humanity using magic and stuff. Remember how humans become elan is also not natural. Illithids are an extension of that process.

Ah. That is much more plausible. So add psionic potential by turning into elans and then work towards a parasitic tiny larval form rather than a medium biped form? Were the Elder Brain the masterminds of such a long plan and where did the Elder Brain tyrants come from?

Inevitability
2016-08-08, 02:19 PM
Ah. That is much more plausible. So add psionic potential by turning into elans and then work towards a parasitic tiny larval form rather than a medium biped form? Were the Elder Brain the masterminds of such a long plan and where did the Elder Brain tyrants come from?

I like to think the first elder brains came into being as some kind of psionic attempt at creating a supercomputer. Like all sentient supercomputers, it turned onto its creators and enslaved or killed them.

The elder brain may then have created more of itself and moved these beings to distant places where they'd be able to build armies in peace. They may even have mutated humans into mind flayers directly.

Jallorn
2016-08-08, 02:21 PM
I like to think the first elder brains came into being as some kind of psionic attempt at creating a supercomputer. Like all sentient supercomputers, it turned onto its creators and enslaved or killed them.

The elder brain may then have created more of itself and moved these beings to distant places where they'd be able to build armies in peace. They may even have mutated humans into mind flayers directly.

Or perhaps they're functioning as they should, bringing unity and prosperity to its people. It's just that they, and therefore the Elder Brains, don't care about anyone else.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-08-08, 03:08 PM
Ah. That is much more plausible. So add psionic potential by turning into elans and then work towards a parasitic tiny larval form rather than a medium biped form? Were the Elder Brain the masterminds of such a long plan and where did the Elder Brain tyrants come from?
Some thoughts about tadpoles and evolution:
1) Elan are made, they did not evolve naturally. If we draw the elan-illithid line, we have established precedent for manually guiding evolution.
2) Elans are immortal, so there's not much need for sexual reproduction, and sexual selection is less effective than it would be in a regularly-reproducing species.
3) Lords of Madness mentions that the tadpoles are preyed upon by elder brains, selecting for strength, speed, and ability to avoid the elder brain's anger.

The proto-illithid, guiding their own evolution, decided to select for powerful psionic abilities. These abilities happened to correlate with decreased fertility. This was considered a useful thing, because the proto-illithid were immortal. Since few of them died accidentally, the population was growing beyond the capacity of the planet to sustain them. Much later, however, proto-illithid began exploring space and colonizing new planets. As their sphere of influence increased, they were spreading their physical representatives thinner and thinner. Knowing the new planets would provide plenty of space for more of their species, the proto-illithid looked for a way to reactivate the old human-style reproduction system.

Reactivation of the human-style system proved tricky, but possible. From the first moment, human-style pregnancy turned out to be physically impractical. Illithid are and were not built for child-bearing, being thin and having a narrow pelvis. In addition, proto-illithid found the process of reproduction unappealing. Illithid don't like intimacy, they don't like to be vulnerable, and they don't want to be stuck with infants to look after.

The gradual streamlining of reproduction to involve less sex, pregnancy and, in general, attention for offspring, eventually led to the birth of the first larvae. Early generations of the 'new elan' were small humanoid-style babies, but with large heads and thin and soft skulls. Later generations lost more and more body structure, ending up as almost pure brain, even without any senses or limbs. Each generation required more and more time in external birthing pools to fully mature into a proto-illithid.

At some point, the proto-illithid decided to cut out the whole pregnancy stage, and progress to what is essentially IVF. At some other (unrelated) point, they found that the time to mature could be cut short by providing a raw substrate for the tadpole to base its body on. These two changes led to the first modern illithid, born via illithid tadpoles, a larval stage ('pregnancy'), and implantation ('birth'). Selection occurs in birthing pools, where larvae hunt larvae. Illithid eat brains because they did so as tadpoles.

Elder brains can fit in in various ways. It can be that dead illithid brains were originally fed to tadpoles, but some turned the tables and started preying on tadpoles, other discarded brains, and eventually everything else. More in keeping with the illithid spirit, I think, is the idea that elder brains were created. Research on tadpole mutations led to ulitharids, various discarded hybrids, and eventually small elder brains, who then self-promulgated their dominion, using their prodigious mental powers.

Elder brains consider themselves the final step in evolution towards perfection - evolution which, by definition, had to be guided, observed, and intellectually considered, to be truly perfect. That means elder brains consider it a good thing that they were designed - it makes them more perfect. Not that they're grateful - after all, it's in everyone's best interest that they exist.


Right. I hope that's useful :smallbiggrin:.

Bohandas
2016-08-08, 08:56 PM
I like to think the first elder brains came into being as some kind of psionic attempt at creating a supercomputer. Like all sentient supercomputers, it turned onto its creators and enslaved or killed them.

The elder brain may then have created more of itself and moved these beings to distant places where they'd be able to build armies in peace. They may even have mutated humans into mind flayers directly.

It's not an attempt to create a supercomputer, it's an attempt to create a god. Union wih he elder brain strikes me as in many ways similar to union wih a deity as described in On Hallowed Ground

Bohandas
2016-08-08, 09:03 PM
Also:

*The regulators are the reason why technology doesn't seen to advance and why you can't conjure gold and other rare metals. They've cursed the world to prevent a repeat of doomsday device activations that accompanied the Battle of Pesh.

*Pesh was not on Oreth, it was another entire planet in Greyspace that got turned into the Grinder in the course of the Battle of Pesh

*The Obryiths were proud that the Tanar'ri turned on them

*The demons see the Blood war not as a war but as a sport

*Olidammara's armadillo form was his original form, Zagyg just forced him back into it

*Yeenoghou is female but people get confused because hyenas

*The Lady of Pain did 9/11

ExLibrisMortis
2016-08-20, 07:50 PM
Some thoughts about tadpoles and evolution:
Nobody has anything to say about illithid evolution?

New schism in the Greyhawk University theology department: on one side, those who claim that the gods are sentient concepts, and on the other, those who claim that the gods are sentience attached to concepts.

The first interpretation holds that the death of a deity would erase the concept, making it impossible to think or discuss the concept. That means you can't know what deities have died - you can't know what is not part of the concepts your knowledge is expressed in. It also means that you can't assume a new portfolio knowing what it is - the concept was literally nonexistent, before you became that concept.

For example, if Moradin died, you wouldn't just be unable from thinking or saying 'dwarf', but also 'short beardy mining fellow', anything else that might be labelled 'dwarf', and all related concepts in Moradin's portfolio. All of Moradin's portfolio would be as foreign to you as the Realm Past the Far Realm (which doesn't exist/breaks the fourth wall). Not only would you not know why there should be a portfolio 'dwarf', you would not know there could be a portfolio 'dwarf'. There is no way to deduce anything that would lead to 'dwarf' - it is not part of the conceptual space anymore.

I have no idea what that would do to dwarves. Presumably, they'd be wrapped helically around an axis.


The second interpretation holds that the death of a deity would merely 'free' the concept of any sentience imposed on it, which may be good or bad - who knows. It's much simpler, at least.

Inevitability
2016-08-20, 11:53 PM
Nobody has anything to say about illithid evolution?

New schism in the Greyhawk University theology department: on one side, those who claim that the gods are sentient concepts, and on the other, those who claim that the gods are sentience attached to concepts.

The first interpretation holds that the death of a deity would erase the concept, making it impossible to think or discuss the concept. That means you can't know what deities have died - you can't know what is not part of the concepts your knowledge is expressed in. It also means that you can't assume a new portfolio knowing what it is - the concept was literally nonexistent, before you became that concept.

For example, if Moradin died, you wouldn't just be unable from thinking or saying 'dwarf', but also 'short beardy mining fellow', anything else that might be labelled 'dwarf', and all related concepts in Moradin's portfolio. All of Moradin's portfolio would be as foreign to you as the Realm Past the Far Realm (which doesn't exist/breaks the fourth wall). Not only would you not know why there should be a portfolio 'dwarf', you would not know there could be a portfolio 'dwarf'. There is no way to deduce anything that would lead to 'dwarf' - it is not part of the conceptual space anymore.

I have no idea what that would do to dwarves. Presumably, they'd be wrapped helically around an axis.


The second interpretation holds that the death of a deity would merely 'free' the concept of any sentience imposed on it, which may be good or bad - who knows. It's much simpler, at least.

If it's the first, wouldn't it be extremely likely some deities got killed off in the past? We just wouldn't be able to notice any of it because they'd be completely erased from the world.

Heck, even their killer would probably have forgotten what they did.

Bohandas
2016-08-21, 12:31 AM
Nobody has anything to say about illithid evolution?

New schism in the Greyhawk University theology department: on one side, those who claim that the gods are sentient concepts, and on the other, those who claim that the gods are sentience attached to concepts.

The first interpretation holds that the death of a deity would erase the concept, making it impossible to think or discuss the concept. That means you can't know what deities have died - you can't know what is not part of the concepts your knowledge is expressed in. It also means that you can't assume a new portfolio knowing what it is - the concept was literally nonexistent, before you became that concept.

For example, if Moradin died, you wouldn't just be unable from thinking or saying 'dwarf', but also 'short beardy mining fellow', anything else that might be labelled 'dwarf', and all related concepts in Moradin's portfolio. All of Moradin's portfolio would be as foreign to you as the Realm Past the Far Realm (which doesn't exist/breaks the fourth wall). Not only would you not know why there should be a portfolio 'dwarf', you would not know there could be a portfolio 'dwarf'. There is no way to deduce anything that would lead to 'dwarf' - it is not part of the conceptual space anymore.

I have no idea what that would do to dwarves. Presumably, they'd be wrapped helically around an axis.


The second interpretation holds that the death of a deity would merely 'free' the concept of any sentience imposed on it, which may be good or bad - who knows. It's much simpler, at least.

One issue is that in the Greyhawk setting several deities have been killed, including some deities of things that still exist (such as Maanzicorian, god of Mindflayers [well, one of two])

Jallorn
2016-08-21, 01:12 AM
One issue is that in the Greyhawk setting several deities have been killed, including some deities of things that still exist (such as Maanzicorian, god of Mindflayers [well, one of two])

Two solutions: first, the possibility of a mantle continuing if there's someone else willing and able to take it up, even possibly including the slayer of the god, but more often the child of a god.

Second, that things once covered by a now-deceased god's mantle persist, but become anathema to reality. Aberrations, then, are such beings, Mindflayers therefore having once been a part of reality, but now only they know this loss.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-08-21, 07:55 AM
One issue is that in the Greyhawk setting several deities have been killed, including some deities of things that still exist (such as Maanzicorian, god of Mindflayers [well, one of two])
Right, so it's not really the Greyhawk University theology department, it's just me. Happy now that you have exposed my terrible secret :smallfrown:?


If it's the first, wouldn't it be extremely likely some deities got killed off in the past? We just wouldn't be able to notice any of it because they'd be completely erased from the world.

Heck, even their killer would probably have forgotten what they did.
Yes and yes. It's possible that nobody even knows what killing a deity really does... that's a nasty trap to spring on your players. Combine with a freed Pandorym and you have the end of the universe (again).

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 07:59 AM
Nobody has anything to say about illithid evolution?

New schism in the Greyhawk University theology department: on one side, those who claim that the gods are sentient concepts, and on the other, those who claim that the gods are sentience attached to concepts.

The first interpretation holds that the death of a deity would erase the concept, making it impossible to think or discuss the concept. That means you can't know what deities have died - you can't know what is not part of the concepts your knowledge is expressed in. It also means that you can't assume a new portfolio knowing what it is - the concept was literally nonexistent, before you became that concept.

For example, if Moradin died, you wouldn't just be unable from thinking or saying 'dwarf', but also 'short beardy mining fellow', anything else that might be labelled 'dwarf', and all related concepts in Moradin's portfolio. All of Moradin's portfolio would be as foreign to you as the Realm Past the Far Realm (which doesn't exist/breaks the fourth wall). Not only would you not know why there should be a portfolio 'dwarf', you would not know there could be a portfolio 'dwarf'. There is no way to deduce anything that would lead to 'dwarf' - it is not part of the conceptual space anymore.

I have no idea what that would do to dwarves. Presumably, they'd be wrapped helically around an axis.



Frankly, that's a non-starter as a concept. It would invalidate invention and imagination and creativity entirely. Nothing would ever be possible that wasn't already possible.

And it leaves one with the question of how anything had ever come into being -- if a concept can't exist without a god, where did even the concept of gods come from?

nedz
2016-08-21, 11:11 AM
Yes and yes. It's possible that nobody even knows what killing a deity really does... that's a nasty trap to spring on your players. Combine with a freed Pandorym and you have the end of the universe (again).

But Deities are just stat-blocks. You kill them, and then you gain XP.

Belac93
2016-08-21, 11:13 AM
Frankly, that's a non-starter as a concept. It would invalidate invention and imagination and creativity entirely. Nothing would ever be possible that wasn't already possible.

And it leaves one with the question of how anything had ever come into being -- if a concept can't exist without a god, where did even the concept of gods come from?

Not unless you killed the gods of imagination, invention, and creativity. Gods are created by their worshipers, or at least people paying attention to them. So if someone creates something new, a god will appear that is the god of that thing.

The concept of gods came from the god of gods, who created them-self (by god of gods, they are not the god who creates gods, they are the god of the concept of gods. And the concept of gods creates gods).

GorinichSerpant
2016-08-21, 11:44 AM
My theory is that the idea that mindflayers are beings from the future is actually a hoax or a misunderstanding or something. The horrid truth is that mindflayers are a completely natural part of the world, the predators of humankind. They have evolved alongside the humanoid races and fill the ecological niche of eating up all the psychic energy that is produced by humans going around. They also managed to con everyone into thinking that they have a space empire somewhere around the corner.

Inevitability
2016-08-21, 01:04 PM
To add to the mind flayer theories:

The vestige Dantalion is said to have been king over a vast 'celestial empire' of humans. However, no proof of its (former) existence has ever been found. With vestiges being timeless, there is the possibility that the empire in question hasn't existed yet, though.

Dantalion grants his binders several abilities, such as the ability to read thoughts, force others not to attack them, teleport, or access vast stores of knowledge. He manifests as a mutated face on the binder's torso.

Basically, Dantalion is (or was, or will have been) a knowledgable being able to read minds and influence thoughts, ruling over a future extraterrestrial empire. It is not human, yet inevitably tied to humankind. It appears only as warped flesh that has to feed off a humanoid host. Does that remind us of anything? (http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/2/2b/Mind_flayer_-_5E.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141017090646)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 02:13 PM
Not unless you killed the gods of imagination, invention, and creativity. Gods are created by their worshipers, or at least people paying attention to them. So if someone creates something new, a god will appear that is the god of that thing.


Which is not in keeping with the concept that I was responding to -- that everything comes from a deity and if you destroy that deity then that thing disappears. So without a god of X, no one can ever again even think of X, or anything that would be the same as X. According to this concept, if you kill the deity of song, and no one will ever sing again, no one will remember song, and no one can ever invent song again. The very existence and concept of song becomes an impossible nothing.




The concept of gods came from the god of gods, who created them-self (by god of gods, they are not the god who creates gods, they are the god of the concept of gods. And the concept of gods creates gods).


"After that, it's elephants all the way down."

Infinite recursion is not an answer.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-08-21, 03:16 PM
Frankly, that's a non-starter as a concept. It would invalidate invention and imagination and creativity entirely. Nothing would ever be possible that wasn't already possible.
Well, no, it's not, and no, it doesn't. The third: yes, but that doesn't make it a non-starter - it's what is exactly the case right now. You can't think outside 'concepts', by definition of what a concept is (at least the definition I'm using for this purpose), yet we have a concept 'concept beyond our thought', that is, we can consider the possibility that the reach of our thinking is smaller than the possible reach of thinking in general. That would imply that there could be beings capable of reasoning about things we (mortals, humanoids, whatever subgroup you want) are literally unable to understand in any fashion, which is very suitable for fantasy, especially Lovecraftian aliens.


And it leaves one with the question of how anything had ever come into being -- if a concept can't exist without a god, where did even the concept of gods come from?
Quite. That's what the theological department I is am having this discussion for. Do you need a thing (Platonic realm?) with a complete lexicon of every possible concept to make the world 'work', or can you eliminate concepts at-will? Note that this is all in-universe only; in real life, I would say you definitely can't delete concepts like that.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 07:05 PM
Well, no, it's not, and no, it doesn't. The third: yes, but that doesn't make it a non-starter - it's what is exactly the case right now. You can't think outside 'concepts', by definition of what a concept is (at least the definition I'm using for this purpose), yet we have a concept 'concept beyond our thought', that is, we can consider the possibility that the reach of our thinking is smaller than the possible reach of thinking in general. That would imply that there could be beings capable of reasoning about things we (mortals, humanoids, whatever subgroup you want) are literally unable to understand in any fashion, which is very suitable for fantasy, especially Lovecraftian aliens.


Point was, if the death of the deity "of a thing" means that thing can no longer exist and that not even the concept or idea of it can exist... then that thing is lost forever, and nothing can get it back. That would also imply that nothing can exist or even be conceived of / imagined that doesn't isn't already part of the "concept space" of an existing deity.




Quite. That's what the theological department I is am having this discussion for. Do you need a thing (Platonic realm?) with a complete lexicon of every possible concept to make the world 'work', or can you eliminate concepts at-will?


Anything that allows a concept to exist separate from its "existential deity" would also appear to negate the very notion of an "existential deity", wouldn't it?




Note that this is all in-universe only; in real life, I would say you definitely can't delete concepts like that.


Quite.

Slayn82
2016-08-21, 07:07 PM
Octopus are highly intelligent creatures that have a nervous system so developed that parts cut out are able to move independently, and reproduction involves forcibly dillaceration of the partner flesh to implant their eggs in their bodies. There are related that people eating octopus very fresh had the tentacle burrowing in their mouths and implant the eggs.

Some rich guy was getting fancy trying seafood, and got the honour of becoming the first Illithid. Blame the GM food.

Jallorn
2016-08-21, 07:19 PM
Point was, if the death of the deity "of a thing" means that thing can no longer exist and that not even the concept or idea of it can exist... then that thing is lost forever, and nothing can get it back. That would also imply that nothing can exist or even be conceived of / imagined that doesn't isn't already part of the "concept space" of an existing deity.

Not entirely. The nature of divinity is creation from nothing. The divine are the source, and so do not have a source, other than that which is equally or more divine. Usually. Consider the mythologies that begin with a single creator god (usually goddess) such as the Grec-Roman Gaia. Solitary, she births the sea and the sky (Ouranos or Uranus) and with him as the father, she births the titans, among other children.

Now, you can explore an interesting aspect of this, that if, perhaps, such solitary and truly divine creation is limited to the original god or goddess, and she dies, you have a divinity in fear of dwindling as they can no longer replace their lost members.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-21, 07:28 PM
Not entirely. The nature of divinity is creation from nothing. The divine are the source, and so do not have a source, other than that which is equally or more divine. Usually. Consider the mythologies that begin with a single creator god (usually goddess) such as the Grec-Roman Gaia. Solitary, she births the sea and the sky (Ouranos or Uranus) and with him as the father, she births the titans, among other children.

Now, you can explore an interesting aspect of this, that if, perhaps, such solitary and truly divine creation is limited to the original god or goddess, and she dies, you have a divinity in fear of dwindling as they can no longer replace their lost members.

Side note -- Gaia is not, in fact, the "original creator goddess" of Greek or Roman religion. Despite what's often taught in "Greek mythology" sections in schools, the Greeks never had a single unified clear-cut religion, it was a giant inter-tangled syncretic mess. Khaos, Nyx, Erebus, etc, all would seem to predate Gaia in many versions of the "creation story" of that religious mashup.

Jallorn
2016-08-21, 07:46 PM
Side note -- Gaia is not, in fact, the "original creator goddess" of Greek or Roman religion. Despite what's often taught in "Greek mythology" sections in schools, the Greeks never had a single unified clear-cut religion, it was a giant inter-tangled syncretic mess. Khaos, Nyx, Erebus, etc, all would seem to predate Gaia in many versions of the "creation story" of that religious mashup.

Fair enough. The model is still, however, valid.

Bohandas
2016-08-21, 08:09 PM
Primarily for 3.5, but works in 4e, 5e, and previous editions too:

Fireballs (and other AoE spells) are not actually explosions.

Evidence: Take your average 10' radius fireball. Put a 15 x 15 creature on one side with all 9 of its squares in the blast radius. Then, take its identical twin sibling and place only one square of its base in the "explosion." They both take the same amount of damage, despite the variance in exposure to the "blast."

Argument: Clearly, if this were an actual explosion, the target fully engulfed would take far more harm from the "explosion" than the other target that was much less exposed.

Therefore, the AoE "explosion" is not an explosion. Instead, I posit, when the spell reaches the target coordinates, it automatically surveys the area in its detection radius, and forms an attacking penetrator for each valid target in its radius. The nature of this mechanism is unclear; it may be a nearly-physical item, it may be a gate to an appropriate dimension whose physics match the aesthetics of the spell, it may be nano-gnomes in appropriately-colored hats flinging themselves and their underpants at the target, whatever. In any event, instead of having an undodgeable wavefront, you have a spread of "attacks" that automatically hit no matter how fast you are, unless you're preternaturally able to avoid these "attacks" (i.e. have evasion). The "explosion" or "blast" is merely a special effect used to overawe the masses.

The targeting mechanism for this effect can be hacked using metamagics, and also can have parts pulled out and used on their own (such as a true seeing spell, which uses part of the targeting matrix to nearly unerringly identify anything despite effects the target is using to hide.

Well it's already clear it's not an explosion anyway because it doesn't push or move things.

Inevitability
2016-08-27, 02:26 PM
The reason Eberron's deities don't ever intervene in the world (as opposed to those of Greyhawk and the FR) isn't that they're uncaring or nonexistent. They're legitimately unwilling to invest resources into the world.

Think about it: Eberron is continuously threatened by eldritch horrors from beyond space and time, rival gods, ancient superweapons, fiendish overlords, some other group of eldritch horrors, and cultists of the setting's literal incarnation of evil. Spending time and effort cultivating worshippers just isn't worth it if they can all disappear so quickly, especially when considering there's other worlds that aren't on the brink of destruction.

The same theory applies to Dark Sun, except the gods left entirely there and sealed the place up for good measure.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-08-27, 04:23 PM
The reason Eberron's deities don't ever intervene in the world (as opposed to those of Greyhawk and the FR) isn't that they're uncaring or nonexistent. They're legitimately unwilling to invest resources into the world.

Think about it: Eberron is continuously threatened by eldritch horrors from beyond space and time, rival gods, ancient superweapons, fiendish overlords, some other group of eldritch horrors, and cultists of the setting's literal incarnation of evil. Spending time and effort cultivating worshippers just isn't worth it if they can all disappear so quickly, especially when considering there's other worlds that aren't on the brink of destruction.

The same theory applies to Dark Sun, except the gods left entirely there and sealed the place up for good measure.
Hmmm... a setting-hopping campaign with 'failed worlds' and 'not (yet) failed worlds' would be interesting. Is there a grand corrupting force, moving from world to world, or are the creator deities just that sloppy?

comicshorse
2016-08-27, 06:13 PM
' Fading Suns'. The reason the suns are fading is because the 'Stars are Right' and the Old Ones return is upon us

Hopeless
2016-08-28, 05:38 AM
What if both Dark Sun & Eberron are located behind enemy lines?

Dark Sun is so devastated and desolate its been closed off by both sides as a dead system, whilst Eberron actually managed to fend off the invasion but is thought lost by its gods?

The Mournland event may have given all those eldritch entities second thoughts about simply flooding Eberron and are being careful as they were effected even worse by that event!

Bohandas
2016-10-30, 09:05 PM
All modrons are aspects of primus. Primus is the only modron. It's a subtle difference from the traditional understanding but still differs enough.

bulbaquil
2016-10-30, 10:23 PM
Meshing together several theories:

The reason that deities often seem not to interfere directly in a world's affairs very much is because they can sense the exasperation evident in their most devout adherents (read: clerics) having to spend all their time traveling with a group who pays no heed to said deity except when they want the healz. Non-interference is basically their passive-aggressive way of saying, more or less, "notice me kōhai!".

Katrina
2016-10-31, 01:54 AM
Vampires and their vulnerability to the classic wooden stake.

Well in D&D 3.5, a Vampire's damage reduction is only penetrated by silver weapons. A small piece of wood couldn't possibly actually hurt one. Wouldn't it be funny if this wooden stake "vulnerability" was really the result of a massive campaign of misinformation perpetrated by the vampires and their mind-controlled servants? Garlic and running water probably don't do anything to vampires either, but after the humans bought the wooden stake thing, they wanted to see how much farther they could take it. :smallamused:

Tangent: You should check out Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, specifically the Black Court Vampires. :smallwink:


My Theory of Eberron is that the deities are actually one of many groups that the Dragons have tricked into whatever recurring doom their Prophesy is supposed to ward off. First it was the Gods, then it was the Giants, then it was the Goblins, then it was the Orcs, and next it will be the Humans. The Dragonmarked are part of the system. Designed to raise a young and relatively magically powerless society up from nothing to make them just strong enough to perform the ritual without having the knowledge required to see that they are actually just averting the disasters for a time.


Also relating to the craziness mentioned earlier, one of the Vestiges is specifically called out as having been punished for a ritual only slightly different from that the Elan use. I believe he is referred to as the First Elan. Don't know if that is Dantalion though, it has been a long time since I looked over that and I was more into Shadowcasters.

Inevitability
2016-10-31, 04:02 AM
Also relating to the craziness mentioned earlier, one of the Vestiges is specifically called out as having been punished for a ritual only slightly different from that the Elan use. I believe he is referred to as the First Elan. Don't know if that is Dantalion though, it has been a long time since I looked over that and I was more into Shadowcasters.

It's Arete (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070119a).

EccentricCircle
2016-10-31, 05:40 AM
In fourth edition Wizards made the controversial decision to change the way the planes worked. Replacing the great wheel cosmology with the world axis.

My theory is that nothing really changed, because nether of these systems for thinking about the planes accurately represents what is actually going on out there. They are models of how the planes interact, and how they might be "arranged". However the planes are parallel dimensions, not physical places. They aren't actually arranged in 3D space at all.

Further I think that the great wheel was a model produced by planar beings. It is based around alignment, and inter connectivity. Conversely I think that the world axis model was developed by primes. It puts a lot more focus on planes that interact with the material, and isn't nearly as concerned about how the various inner and outer planes are arranged. Primes have a harder time comprehending the planes than Planar beings, so they can't imagine the elemental and material planes coexisting, so they imagine the elemental chaos. I think the Chaos does exist, but it is the places where one plane bleeds into another, the regions that are often defined as quasi elemental planes.

Basically mortals can't comprehend the planes to try to come up with a way of thinking about them in euclidian terms. These models are the result, and the differences between them say more about the people producing the models than they do about the planes.

I think Eberron's default cosmology works quite well here as well. In this world the important thing is how the manifest zones respond to esoteric changes in the planes, which mortals comprehend as movement. Orary like models have the same property.

I think there is a fair bit of evidence for this in canon. But I'm not sure it has ever been said outright, particularly not where the world axis was concerned.

Inevitability
2016-10-31, 10:33 AM
I think the Chaos does exist, but it is the places where one plane bleeds into another, the regions that are often defined as quasi elemental planes.

5e defined the Chaos as pretty much this, except the elemental planes started to blend together at their 'outer borders' the furthest away from the Prime, with all four planes merging there.

Bohandas
2016-11-02, 01:17 AM
They should have just retconned 4e as having not happened and not even bothered trying to incorporate anything from it at all into later editions.

If any of you play the Postal series by Running With Scissors, the way they opened Postal: Paradise Lost by dismissing the entirety of its predecessor as having been nothing more than a bad dream is emblematic of the kind of total retcon that needs to happen here

Inevitability
2016-11-02, 01:55 AM
They should have just retconned 4e as having not happened and not even bothered trying to incorporate anything from it at all into later editions.

If any of you play the Postal series by Running With Scissors, the way they opened Postal: Paradise Lost by dismissing the entirety of its predecessor as having been nothing more than a bad dream is emblematic of the kind of total retcon that needs to happen here

4e had good parts too! I personally liked how they incorporeated the Feywild and Shadowfell into 5e: the Plane of Shadows always felt random to me.

Also, the warlord is an awesome class and should've made it to another edition.

2D8HP
2016-11-02, 07:46 AM
4e had good parts too!
[..... ]
Also, the warlord is an awesome class and should've made it to another edition.I've no personal experience with it, but I think I read that 4e had a version of the Ranger that sounded awesome, maybe the best since 1e.

Inevitability
2016-11-02, 08:49 AM
I've no personal experience with it, but I think I read that 4e had a version of the Ranger that sounded awesome, maybe the best since 1e.

They're pretty awesome (also, they're the best at doing damage of all classes), but there's one main problem: they're boring. The 4e ranger is a class that approaches 3.5-martial levels of monotony, with 'I Twin Strike' being the only thing a player will typically be saying during combat.

...But other than that, they're pretty cool.

Bohandas
2016-11-03, 12:10 AM
In any case it's one of the reasons I will never update to 5e.

Grey Watcher
2016-11-03, 12:29 AM
My all time favorite conspiracy is the Burning Hate Conspiracy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?443306-quot-Pelor-the-Burning-Hate-quot-(from-Wizards-forum)) from 3.5.

Honestly, I like Burning Hate Heresy so much I really, really, really want it to be canon.


I am a player character in the game Humans & Households, that makes you forumites only minor NPC's.

I'm reasonably sure that life is a CRPG, and I'm an NPC. Heck, at my job, I've got a pretty limited dialogue tree when people call.

Grey Watcher
2016-11-03, 12:40 AM
The number of planes of chaos (Limbo) is non-deterministic - it's just that most of them are very small.

OK, running with this particular pair of scissors: every time mortal/non-Epic magic creates a plane or a demi-plane or a swanky mansion or an extra-dimensional broom closet, it's actually just staking claim to a sub-plane of Limbo and rewriting it to suit the spell in question. So when you tried to store it in that Bag of Holding, you put the Axiomatic Warhammer into the plane of purest Chaos. Have fun!


Abjuration: Endure Pain; Protection from Bleeding / Infection (OK this one's a hard sell)
Conjuration: Conjure Positive Energy *Cough* *Cough* 3.5
Divination: Improved First Aid
Enchantment: Make you think you are healthier (warning, not effective on some subjects) - HP are an abstraction, also Hypnotism
Evocation: Create Positive Energy
Illusion: Make reality pretend you are healthier (warning, lower efficiency and does not work on self) - Shadow magic - you can do Shadow Conjuration so this is possible in 3.5
Necromancy: *Cough* *Cough* Control over life & death remember?
*Cough* *Cough* in AD&D all healing spells were Necromantic
Transmutation: Minor short duration regeneration
Universal: See above

All this healing magic, you should get that cough looked at :smalltongue:


Illusion: Make reality pretend you are healthier (warning, lower efficiency and does not work on self) - Shadow magic - you can do Shadow Conjuration so this is possible in 3.5

Using a shadow magic to recreate blazing radiance kinda breaks my brain. Norman, coordinate!

Joe the Rat
2016-11-03, 10:08 AM
Using a shadow magic to recreate blazing radiance kinda breaks my brain. Norman, coordinate!Shadows are what you get when light is blocked by something opaque. You cannot have shadows without light... Something something shadow healing. My brain isn't quite limber enough to fill in the blanks right now.

darkrose50
2016-11-04, 07:01 AM
5e D&D economics = people must have been beaten stupid into a post-apocalyptic dark age

[1.0] It would seem that the default 5e D&D rules (especially the lack of economic rules) suggest a setting that is relatively primitive and post-apocalyptic compared to how it once was. Society must be crumbling, and people must be beaten stupid into a post-apocalyptic dark age. Trade routes are likely primitive, dangerous, filled with monsters, and filled with bandits of various races. People likely do not trade much. Education, economics, technology, and society have severely regressed.
[1.1] There is a lack of infrastructure to create, distribute, trade, buy or sell magical treasure. No agents, no collectors, no auction houses, and no shops. There are no individuals, or groups of wizards creating magical items for profit. There are no groups of people recovering old magical items to sell. No one is offering bounties on magical treasure. No one wants magical treasure. Magical treasure is worthless. It really is not treasure.
[1.2] Magical treasure screams valuable and wanted. An economy not involving magic treasure where there exists such a thing as magical treasure is quite mindboggling.

[2.0] For magical items not to have an economic impact, at all, is quite telling.
[2.1] Perhaps the base setting is post-apocalyptic, and somehow this did not drive demand up.
[2.2] Perhaps education is far and few between, and somehow this did not drive demand up.
[2.3] Perhaps the trade infrastructure is non-existent, and somehow this did not drive demand up.
[2.4] Perhaps trade routes are non-existent, and somehow this did not drive demand up.
[2.5] Perhaps trade routes are full of monsters, and somehow this did not drive demand up.
[2.6] Perhaps no one has figured out that magical treasure is useful and/or valuable.
[2.7] Perhaps no one has figured out a way to profit via selling (a) magical items, that (b) are treasure.
[2.8] Perhaps everyone is under a curse to not want to buy magical items.
[2.9] Perhaps people do not want magical treasure, thus making magical treasure non-treasure.
[2.10] Perhaps everyone is just too damned stupid.

[3.0] Magical items are an advanced concept requiring a great deal of magical education, study, and practice.
[3.1] Society was once able to produce magical items, and was more advanced than it is now.
[3.2] Coins are used in the economy. This seems as if would be a somewhat advanced economic concept, and it is likely a holdover from an earlier pre-apocalypse age, and many are likely from bygone civilizations.
[3.3] Ruins are sporadically scattered in the wild that contain riches of old lost civilizations.
[3.4] Apex predators roam ruins, and are not kept in check by civilization.
[3.5] Coins made of precious metals may be recovered in the ruins. Coins can be used for trade.
[3.6] Magical items may be recovered in the ruins. However due to being beaten stupid into a post-apocalyptic dark age no one has figured out how to profit from the magical item trade.

[4.0] I am simulationist. It is my goal to have rules that are internally consistent with the setting.
[4.1] It would seem that the base rules would not fit the base setting of Forgotten Realms.
[4.2] A retiring adventurer should have people constantly begging him to sell his magic sword to them. People should be envious and jealous over his magical sword. Nobles would be offering to trade the privilege to marry one of their daughters in exchange for a magic sword (or in order to have a hero in the family with a magical sword). People not caring about the magical sword means that the magical sword is non-treasure, and causes the mystery of magic to evaporate.
[4.3] In reality players do not care that the game world is not internally consistent. Players do not seem to care if there are no people in a setting acting like people via buying, selling, and items that are (a) magic and (b) treasure.
[4.4] For reasons that seem exceedingly paradoxical, people want D&D magical treasure not to be valued as treasure, but to not be valued as treasure at the same time.

Below are common arguments for this (a) magical treasure existing, (b) not being desirable, (c) but somehow still be valuable paradigm (outside of the people have beaten stupid into a post-apocalyptic dark-age theory that is).

[5.0] The concept of people not being able to afford a magical item is beyond ludicrous. Economics are supply and demand. Saying that no one wants to own or could afford a magical treasure defies the concept of supply and demand in an economy.
[5.1] If a magic item is worth X, and no one can afford X, and no one wants to buy the magic item, then the magic item is not worth X.
[5.2] This would be like saying since I found a jet airplane and a sport car that no one could afford to buy them, but yet they would be worth buckets of money. Except of course we know that people own items like aircraft and sports cars, they want them, they are treasure, and treasure has value.
[5.3] If I could find fighter jets from long past civilizations (perhaps alien flying sorcerers) laying around that were as good as or better than the aircraft the Air Force or Navy uses, then you can count on them buying them. If the military would not buy the aircraft, then the research and design folks at a company that makes the military's aircraft would.
[5.4] What merchant would not want a flying carpet? What king, queen, duke, duchess, prince, princes, captain of the guard, or bodyguard to the princess would not want a magical sword?
[5.5] The idea being universally true is not logical.

[6.0] The concept that people would always just buy something cheaper is not how economics work.
[6.1] Sure the merchant can hire a fleet of ships, or a bunch of men, and not buy a flying carpet. Instead of building aircraft carriers America could just build a bunch of smaller boats, and hire a bunch of mercenaries to fight for them instead. Rich folks could just fly on a plane like everyone else instead of buying their own plane. Movie stars can just buy an outfit at Target, and not spend thousands of dollars on clothing. Why would people wear expensive jewelry, and not just buy costume jewelry? Because they can, it is a status symbol, and it is fun to do all these things.
[6.2] Why buy a Porsche 911 when you could buy a Toyota Corolla? Ergo no one buys Porsche’s.
[6.3] That argument is not very logical.

[7.0] No one trusts magic items.
[7.1] There are no trustworthy mages to vouch for a magical items authenticity.
[7.2] No one can tell if a magic item is real or fake.
[7.3] There are no magical merchants that would hold a magic item in escrow for a year-and-a-day to make sure the item is genuine before selling the magic item at auction, and then paying the owner a cut of the profit.
[7.4] Nor is anyone willing to work as a middleman for an auction house, give the owner money now, and collect payment later from the auction house.
[7.5] No one is willing to take the risk, and offer insurance that the magical item is real.
[7.6] This seems unlikely to be universally true in all settings, and especially not Forgotten Realms setting.

Waffle_Iron
2016-11-04, 11:35 AM
The targeting mechanism for this effect can be hacked using metamagics, and also can have parts pulled out and used on their own (such as a true seeing spell, which uses part of the targeting matrix to nearly unerringly identify anything despite effects the target is using to hide.

That's actually how magic missile was invented, the auto targeting evocation was divorced from the AoE somatic induction. Unfortunately this didn't allow for the appropriate number of material component connective sigils, and the whole thing was recombined with a pure force damage incantation, and voila!

Bohandas
2016-11-04, 12:16 PM
Do vampires really have no reflection, or is their reflection just invisible.

goto124
2016-11-04, 12:26 PM
Do vampires really have no reflection, or is their reflection just invisible.

Since reflections are virtual images (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_image) to begin with, what is an invisible reflection?

Wasn't the idea that vampires have no souls, and mirrors reflect your soul, thus mirrors reflect the vampire's lack of a soul?

Inevitability
2016-11-04, 01:00 PM
Do vampires really have no reflection, or is their reflection just invisible.

True Seeing would reveal the reflections in that case, wouldn't it? I don't recall any official material saying it does.

Bohandas
2016-11-04, 01:24 PM
Since reflections are virtual images (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_image) to begin with, what is an invisible reflection?

Wasn't the idea that vampires have no souls, and mirrors reflect your soul, thus mirrors reflect the vampire's lack of a soul?

I think originally it was something like that IRL, but it apparently isn't in D&D or else zombies and many constructs wouldn't reflect either

Bronk
2016-11-29, 07:38 PM
Nobody has anything to say about illithid evolution?

I like your theory, but I think it could be simplified by having the elans themselves be the precursors to the Elder Brains, who then create illithid tadpoles separately as food, a source of brain material, and servants (who themselves create more servants).

In that case, the missing step of the ritual that creates an elan could have been the reason that when the Netherese mage Ioulaum attempted to transform himself into an elder brain, he was only able to become an undead version.

Hawkstar
2016-11-30, 01:53 AM
Pelor, Erythnul, Zarus, and Olidammara are all the same God, wearing many masks, with his one true goal being the domination of Humanity over the world. How? Simple. Zarus (The original), decided he was going to make the most truly optimized race ever to fit into the rules of the world. Looking at cosmic alignment, he made his race... completely free of restriction to cosmic alignment. They thrive better than any other race in Good environments, while being morally pliable enough to not disrupt them - but enough of a moral wildcard that one 'rogue agent' CAN and WILL commit an atrocity to create power gaps that humans are adapt at filling. Cult of Erythnul spreads around the world, sometimes hits a non-human power center, causes chaos, knocks out the existing power structures, gets wiped out. Everyone loses, nonhumans lose more. The Church of Pelor comes in, helps rebuild and establish harmony again. Everyone wins, humans win more. Rinse and Repeat on a whole bunch of scales. Humans are good at surviving through adversarial times, great at capitalizing on opportunities, and incredible at recovering during prosperous times. But there's nothing any Good race can really do about them. The child of the greatest saint may grow up to be an irredeemable fiend. The child of an irredeemable fiend may grow up to be an unparalleled saint - and there are a LOT of these dramatic intergenerational shifts between humans.

He actually HATES the "Church of Zarus", because it's completely counterproductive to his goals, by trying to unify humanity under the Take Over The World banner - which humans cannot hold for long (But are good enough at playing the Form An Empire To Take Over The World that, once the Empire is overthrown, the survivors remain, and establish Human power centers. Hell. The Humans probably are the biggest players in overthrowing the Evil Human Empire) Zarus wants human domination of the world by all means possible, though largely "Infiltration and Ingratiation". The Church of Zarus is making the Gruumsh mistake of trying to turn humans into a monolithic threat non-humans can eradicate without qualm. Also - he deliberately hid himself (As Human Creator God) from the world to keep humans from artificially constraining themselves to the Racial Theocracy that inhibits the influence of Dwarves and Elves, and made his new Churches all-inclusive to allow humans to better work with non-humans.

RedMage125
2017-01-01, 12:41 PM
My theory (which I am pretty sure is correct), is about Vecna's phylactery. That is, to say, I think I know where it is.

According to Greyhawk lore, Vecna is not only an ancient lich, he is, in fact, the first lich. He was one of the authors of the Book of Vile Darkness, he ruled an empire, etc. And, most important to this theory, he CRAFTED the sword which he eventually granted to his vampire Lieutenant, Kas. Now, by 3e standards, Vecna was, by all accounts, an epic level wizard. And Kas was a Fighter. We all know that epic level wizards have so many defenses that physical threats pose no threat to them at all. Even taken by surprise, after one round of combat, the wizard would have no problem obliterating said Fighter, right?

So...how did Kas manage to cut through all of Vecna's protections enough to sever his hand and eye?

The answer is, of course, that Vecna's own protective spells recognized the sword Kas was using as a part of Vecna himself, so they cut right through every magical protection on him. Because the Sword of Kas is (or contains, perhaps as a gem in the hilt) Vecna's phylactery, and thus his soul.

Newtonsolo313
2017-01-01, 01:59 PM
illthids are part of one of those strange time loops with no beginning and end like the elder scrolls or jujus from homestuck
they go back in time because they run out of humans to supply their empire and then end up setting up the same exact empire which runs out of food and so on.

Khedrac
2017-01-02, 03:38 AM
My theory (which I am pretty sure is correct), is about Vecna's phylactery. That is, to say, I think I know where it is.

According to Greyhawk lore, Vecna is not only an ancient lich, he is, in fact, the first lich. He was one of the authors of the Book of Vile Darkness, he ruled an empire, etc. And, most important to this theory, he CRAFTED the sword which he eventually granted to his vampire Lieutenant, Kas. Now, by 3e standards, Vecna was, by all accounts, an epic level wizard. And Kas was a Fighter. We all know that epic level wizards have so many defenses that physical threats pose no threat to them at all. Even taken by surprise, after one round of combat, the wizard would have no problem obliterating said Fighter, right?

So...how did Kas manage to cut through all of Vecna's protections enough to sever his hand and eye?

The answer is, of course, that Vecna's own protective spells recognized the sword Kas was using as a part of Vecna himself, so they cut right through every magical protection on him. Because the Sword of Kas is (or contains, perhaps as a gem in the hilt) Vecna's phylactery, and thus his soul.

Err, certainly not by using that sword - I thought the lore on the sword of Kas was that when he turned on Vecna the sword completely failed him - becasue Vecna had made it with safeguards it was useless against him...

Misereor
2017-01-02, 04:37 AM
I had one that turned out to be true.
That the Chronicles of the Black Moon comics were based on a D&D campaign set on the far side of the Greyhawk continent.
Still haven't confirmed that Haazel Thorn was based on Iuz, but I'm pretty sure he was.

RedMage125
2017-01-10, 12:54 AM
Err, certainly not by using that sword - I thought the lore on the sword of Kas was that when he turned on Vecna the sword completely failed him - becasue Vecna had made it with safeguards it was useless against him...

No, he cut out Vecna's Eye and severed his Hand with the Sword of Kas.