afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VII

[afroakuma]

Was there any further lore on the Oeridian God of War Stratis outside of Chainmail? He's been an interesting subject to me when I first learned about him but information was always hard to come by on him or the part of Oerth that was created for the short lived miniature game reboot.

Chainmail is pretty much it, any information to him would have been published peripheral to Chainmail.

Are there any Ur-Priests of note? I am not exactly expecting a planar organization that sponsors and assists Ur-Priest, but I am finding the lore on them as a concept rather scarce. I'd figure that the Athar would have been all over them as a concept.

I'm not sure the Athar would jive with ur-priests; ur-priests despise the gods, but siphon power from them (and other creatures) to go about their lives. The Athar would find this kind of dependence on the false powers, even through thievery, to be anathema; the beliefs of the Athar cause divine magic to fail, revealing it to be paltry and fraudulent. Ur-priests, for better or worse, still use divine magic.

[FēlīxPersōnārum]

I imagine that Athar probably appreciate ur-priests as a case-in-point for the gods being undeserving of worship, if they can’t even protect the rewards of that worship from theft.

[Thurbane]

Was there any further lore on the Oeridian God of War Stratis outside of Chainmail? He's been an interesting subject to me when I first learned about him but information was always hard to come by on him or the part of Oerth that was created for the short lived miniature game reboot.

He gets a few mentions in Dragon 285 in an article relating specifically to Chainmail, but nothing substantial.

[Afghanistan]

I figured I would ask here before I make a thread, but what domains do you think Jazirian would offer to a Cleric of them?

[Eldan]

From what i remember, Jazirian was a deity of the Family, Peace and Learning. And the Couatl saw him as a sort of god behind the gods, with some connections to fate and purpose?

So, Law, Good, Community, Family and Knowledge primarily, with arguments to be made for Creation, Destiny, Mysticism, Oracle, Scalykind and because they are the Oroboros, possibly also Renewal and Time.

[Tzardok]

From what i remember, Jazirian was a deity of the Family, Peace and Learning. And the Couatl saw him as a sort of god behind the gods, with some connections to fate and purpose?

So, Law, Good, Community, Family and Knowledge primarily, with arguments to be made for Creation, Destiny, Mysticism, Oracle, Scalykind and because they are the Oroboros, possibly also Renewal and Time.

Hi Eldan. I don't think we saw each other since the forum shut down. How are the devil worshipping elves coming around?

Regarding Jazirian's domians, I think as the racial god of a psionic race one could also make an argument for the Mind domain.

[ShurikVch]

I already asked similar question short time ago, but still:
Spire of Outlands;
magic suppression;
would it affect grafts?

Normally, it was said "grafts aren't magic items, and can't be suppressed", but Spire negates even completely non-magical poisons...

Also, even if grafts would be negated - how far it will go? Say, fireball from Eye of Flame is obvious no-go, but how about the ability score bonuses? Or, maybe, grafts would stop working altogether (making them useless for a time)?

[Tzardok]

This opens up another question: What happens if a graft is grafted on something opposed or incompatible? Like, for example, a fiendish graft on a celestial, a water elemental graft on an ifrit or a plant graft on a gelugon? Most likely the process will just fail and the graft is rejected, but maybe...

Edit: Another question for something completely different: would it be appropriate to replace a shadow dragon's spellcasting with a shadowcaster's mysteries?

Edit edit: Now I'm imagining dragons who natively use all those alternate magic systems: invocations, binding, truenaming, martial initiating... any extant species that would be appropriate for replacing native spellcasting through one of those?

[Bartmanhomer]

I have a question. Are there any Dragon Deities before Io. Like does Io have a mother or father?

[Tzardok]

I have a question. Are there any Dragon Deities before Io. Like does Io have a mother or father?

No. If you go by Afroakuma's creation story (told in the fifth planar questions thread), Io and Rhiannon are the oldest deities. Not the oldest dragon deities, the oldest deities of all. They formed at the beginning of creation, after the clash between Dragon (pure creation) and Draeden (pure non-existence), when Draeden surrendered.

[ExLibrisMortis]

This opens up another question: What happens if a graft is grafted on something opposed or incompatible? Like, for example, a fiendish graft on a celestial, a water elemental graft on an ifrit or a plant graft on a gelugon? Most likely the process will just fail and the graft is rejected, but maybe...

Edit: Another question for something completely different: would it be appropriate to replace a shadow dragon's spellcasting with a shadowcaster's mysteries?

Edit edit: Now I'm imagining dragons who natively use all those alternate magic systems: invocations, binding, truenaming, martial initiating... any extant species that would be appropriate for replacing native spellcasting through one of those?

There's an incarnum dragon, and the Wyrm of War sovereign archetype from Eberron gets initiating (Tiger Claw only). Arcane casting and psionics are covered by chromatic/metallic and gem dragons respectively. Divine casting is covered by certain dragon PrCs (Dispassionate Watcher of Chronepsis, for one). I don't know of an invocation-using/binding/truenaming dragon, but Ashardalon is a vestige, so presumably a Disciple of Ashardalon could be a binder?

[Bartmanhomer]

What if Astilabor was Insane and join forces with Garyx? Just hear me out what if the Dragon Deity Astilabor suffers a mental disorder to cause her to go insane which she made her allegiance with her brother Garyx. There will be a big change in her portfolio and outlook to her insanity. So what do you think?

[afroakuma]

I figured I would ask here before I make a thread, but what domains do you think Jazirian would offer to a Cleric of them?

Jazirian's not really supposed to have clerics per Monster Mythology, as they grant divine powers to all couatl; however, I might do something like:

Air, Community, Couatl*, Good, Knowledge, Law, Protection.

Couatl Domain
Granted Power You may rebuke or command avian creatures as an evil cleric rebukes or commands undead. Use this ability a total number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.

1st - feather fall
2nd - detect thoughts
3rd - fly
4th - poison
5th - true seeing
6th - banishment
7th - ethereal jaunt
8th - greater spell immunity
9th - freedom

I already asked similar question short time ago, but still:
Spire of Outlands;
magic suppression;
would it affect grafts?

Normally, it was said "grafts aren't magic items, and can't be suppressed", but Spire negates even completely non-magical poisons...

Also, even if grafts would be negated - how far it will go? Say, fireball from Eye of Flame is obvious no-go, but how about the ability score bonuses? Or, maybe, grafts would stop working altogether (making them useless for a time)?

I would say based on the negation of poisons (and the fact that while not magical in a spell-like fashion, many run on supernatural power of some stripe) grafts would fail at a similar threshold. While a graft would not physically separate (unless bound only by magic and not something like stitches, etc.) it would provide no benefits of any kind. The power integrating the graft to the host body in a useful way is suppressed to the point that even, say, a graft of scaled skin that provides a natural armor bonus no longer offers meaningful protection (the attached flesh sags and is limp and dry, making the protection brittle and useless, for example).

This opens up another question: What happens if a graft is grafted on something opposed or incompatible? Like, for example, a fiendish graft on a celestial, a water elemental graft on an ifrit or a plant graft on a gelugon? Most likely the process will just fail and the graft is rejected, but maybe...

I'd impose circumstance penalties on the checks required to make the "item" and add an appropriate spell requirement with an increase in cost commensurately, if trying to make a graft on an incompatible body. Protection from good to make a fiendish graft bind to a celestial, protection from energy to put a plant graft on a gelugon, etc.

Edit: Another question for something completely different: would it be appropriate to replace a shadow dragon's spellcasting with a shadowcaster's mysteries?

Could be fun.

Edit edit: Now I'm imagining dragons who natively use all those alternate magic systems: invocations, binding, truenaming, martial initiating... any extant species that would be appropriate for replacing native spellcasting through one of those?

Only one that comes to mind would be battle dragons using maneuvers.

I have a question. Are there any Dragon Deities before Io. Like does Io have a mother or father?

Nope.

What if Astilabor was Insane and join forces with Garyx? Just hear me out what if the Dragon Deity Astilabor suffers a mental disorder to cause her to go insane which she made her allegiance with her brother Garyx. There will be a big change in her portfolio and outlook to her insanity. So what do you think?

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to answer that...

[Efrate]

Now I want to replace or augment Ashardalon's casting with a bunch of binding, and have him bind himself and 3 other vestiges. It makes a bit more sense as to why he would be at the front of souls. Witch Hunters are your patrons and give you the quest, the death salad assassin instead is one of them...I might have a new campaign.

[ExLibrisMortis]

[...] the death salad assassin instead is one of them...I might have a new campaign.

The psionic sandwich trick is pretty famous, but I haven't seen it used in campaign building like this. Keep up the good work!

[Elves]

What is everything known about Kiaransalee, and what are all the stories she's involved in?

All I can find is a short FR wiki page and some involvement in an Orcus module.

[ShurikVch]

the death salad assassin instead is one of them...

Death Salad?
Knowledge Arcana #9:

A bizarre, bowl-shaped mass of rotten vegetables slick with some strange putrid liquid slides along the ground, leaving a trail that reeks of rancid milk. Strange bits of red and yellow - perhaps the remains of tomatoes and carrots - stick out of its body here and there.

[Thurbane]

Someone statted up a Caesar Slaad over at the Enworld forums (which was also a user/forum member's name).

[afroakuma]

What is everything known about Kiaransalee, and what are all the stories she's involved in?

All I can find is a short FR wiki page and some involvement in an Orcus module.

I mean, that covers a great deal of material. She's also statted up in Faiths & Pantheons. If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to address them.

[Elves]

I mean, that covers a great deal of material. She's also statted up in Faiths & Pantheons. If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to address them.

I'm looking for a summary of the story content. What are the stories/modules/plotlines she's involved in and what does she do in them.

[Dalmosh]

Are the Vaati likely to have been involved in locking in/coding the spell-like abilities of the genie races?

Can you think of a better in-universe reason why efreet can't bestow wishes to other genies?

[Tzardok]

An incidental aside to my earlier question: Do you have any idea why planar dragons don't have native spellcasting? Draconomicon only says that they lack the affinity to sorcery that material dragons have, but it doesn't give any reasons about the why.

[afroakuma]

I'm looking for a summary of the story content. What are the stories/modules/plotlines she's involved in and what does she do in them.

Her largest impact happens prior to the events of Dead Gods, when she kills and supplants Orcus, resulting in the events of that module; however, her own influence in that module is limited to dispatching a few agents to stop the PCs from retrieving the Wand of Orcus, and outside of that she plays no part. The cult of Kiaransalee are the central villains of City of the Spider Queen, in which they plot to turn a drow city into an army of undead to bring to bear against the Dalelands.

Outside of that... she's got nothing much, really.

Are the Vaati likely to have been involved in locking in/coding the spell-like abilities of the genie races?

"Limiting" moreso than anything else, would be my guess, as the vaati would have wanted to ensure they understood the scope of their servants' powers.

Can you think of a better in-universe reason why efreet can't bestow wishes to other genies?

It's really supposed to be that none of them can; in point of fact, none of them are supposed to be able to grant wishes except to a native of the Material Plane, and a genie "wish" is supposed to be considerably more limited than an actual wish spell (which along with limited wish is basically intended as a stand-in for "can replicate an effect of another spell of your choice"). The limitations on genie wishes, per the best sourcebook on genies, is as follows:

• A genie's wish takes place in the moment; it can neither alter the past (though it can affect the results, e.g. healing a wound sustained in battle, repairing something broken) nor decide the future (though it can put in place conditions which will predispose an outcome, e.g. magically enchanting weapons to make one side more likely to win due to having superior equipment).

• A genie's wish cannot alter the abstract; it cannot, for instance, "make you a prince" because the definition of a prince goes beyond the scope of what the genie can reasonably accomplish. What it can do is create the associated trappings; a genie can dress you in silks, provide you fine horses, hire you servants, even give you a coat of arms, but if we check in on Aladdin we find the limitations very quickly:

Jafar: Just where did you say you were from?
Aladdin: Oh, uh... much farther than you've traveled, I'm sure.
Jafar: Try me.

Just because he's got the visuals doesn't mean he's actually the prince of anywhere. Jafar himself runs afoul of this one later on with his first idiotic wish:

Jafar: I wish to rule on high as Sultan!

...which gets him the Sultan's clothes, and gets the palace transplanted to the top of a mountain, but he immediately figures out that neither of these things confers rule when Jasmine immediately backtalks him.

• A genie's wish cannot alter the true feelings of a creature, though they can cloud them magically via enchantment. A genie is unable to deceive more than one creature at a time with a mind-affecting wish (though an illusion can deceive however many, they can't mass charm person or mass dominate).

• A genie's wish cannot create a permanent magical item wholecloth, though the genie can (and will) steal such an item away from wherever it might exist, provided the genie could get there and back. A genie's wish can produce a temporary or one-use magical item, including a scroll of up to 8th level. A wish cannot provide more wishes.

• A genie's wish accomplishes only a single action or condition. The example provided is that one can wish that a genie gather the ashes of a dead comrade and restore them to life (this would be one wish), but could not wish that a genie restore a comrade to life and bring the group safely to a nearby oasis (that would be two). Simply making a run-on sentence or throwing "and" between everything in an attempt to make the wish a single continuous clause doesn't work; the genie can and will partially fulfill the first however many (three, traditionally) reasonably discrete elements and call it a day.

• A genie's wish can improve an ability score, but cannot directly provide levels or experience. If one wishes to be "more powerful," or say "the most powerful sorcerer in the world," the genie may attempt to fulfill this by stealing magical items that will provide "power."

• A genie's wish can grant skill ranks and some feats with few prerequisites (Weapon Specialization is specifically identified), though a genie cannot confer abilities to a character outside the scope of what their current talents permit (the genie cannot make a noncaster into a caster, or confer sneak attack to a barbarian, or the ability to turn undead to a wizard).

• A genie's wish is not a wish spell; while the genie can functionally effect magic of up to 8th level (as a wish could) in fulfillment of its task, the genie must actually personally fulfill the wish - teleporting to where a hoard of gold is, with a sack, to fill it and return, for instance. A genie capable of providing a limited wish to another is restricted to doing so only for natives of the Material Plane.

• A genie's wish may take a form the genie doesn't actually know, even if undesirable. The genie will attempt the most expedient method to the fulfillment of the wish and may not be aware of attendant negative consequences that may befall the wisher.

• By the nature of certain genies, the magic that empowers them to perform the service of a wish is inherently problematic. A wish from a dao, for example, will always result in ill for the wisher. That's not even a choice the dao can make. A wish from an efreeti is reviewed by their superiors, who will want to ensure that the efreeti has done their due diligence in making the wish go sour.

What this suggests to us is that genies were empowered to do service to Material Plane beings for specific purposes, likely an arrangement of the vaati which has been perverted over millennia to involve genies being bound into artifacts and released contingent on fulfilling what was likely at one time a rite of gratitude or covenant of alliance in the later periods of the War of Law and Chaos.

An incidental aside to my earlier question: Do you have any idea why planar dragons don't have native spellcasting? Draconomicon only says that they lack the affinity to sorcery that material dragons have, but it doesn't give any reasons about the why.

I don't have the time to delve into this massively at the moment, but the long and the short of it is that dragons are heavily tied to the magic of the Material Plane; Material Plane arcane magic is in a very meaningful sense draconic magic, changed around a bit. Planar dragons don't have the same role in a magical ecosystem as Prime dragons do, because on the Outer Planes they are reflections of dragonkind rather than being pillars of the earth.

[Tzardok]

I don't have the time to delve into this massively at the moment, but the long and the short of it is that dragons are heavily tied to the magic of the Material Plane; Material Plane arcane magic is in a very meaningful sense draconic magic, changed around a bit. Planar dragons don't have the same role in a magical ecosystem as Prime dragons do, because on the Outer Planes they are reflections of dragonkind rather than being pillars of the earth.

Thank you.

Regarding genies, which one is this:

the best sourcebook on genies

I'd like to look up the effects other genies have on their wishes likes this:

• By the nature of certain genies, the magic that empowers them to perform the service of a wish is inherently problematic. A wish from a dao, for example, will always result in ill for the wisher. That's not even a choice the dao can make. A wish from an efreeti is reviewed by their superiors, who will want to ensure that the efreeti has done their due diligence in making the wish go sour.

I hope to extrapolate effects for those genies who didn't exist before 3e (Qorrash, Khayal, your own creations from page 39).

[afroakuma]

Thank you.

Regarding genies, which one is this:

Secrets of the Lamp.

I'd like to look up the effects other genies have on their wishes likes this:

I can handle that for you quickly: nothing is mentioned. Had it been, I would have added it to the pile.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I don't have the time to delve into this massively at the moment, but the long and the short of it is that dragons are heavily tied to the magic of the Material Plane; Material Plane arcane magic is in a very meaningful sense draconic magic, changed around a bit.

When you do have a chance, could you expound on this a bit? I know about the sorcery connection, Draconic being used for magical writings, dragons being among the first casters, and so on, but the "pillars of the earth" bit implies there's some more fundamental lore I hadn't heard of before.

[Tzardok]

When you do have a chance, could you expound on this a bit? I know about the sorcery connection, Draconic being used for magical writings, dragons being among the first casters, and so on, but the "pillars of the earth" bit implies there's some more fundamental lore I hadn't heard of before.

I think it has to do with the ancient war of Dragon and Draeden. Dragon was creation incarnate and went on to become Io and create dragons. One could say that the world of Dungeons and Dragons is fundamentally built on dragons.

[enderlord99]

I think it has to do with the ancient war of Dragon and Draeden.

Speaking of which... was that the same conflict as the War of Law and Chaos? If not, were they distinct-yet-simultaneous conflicts? If not, which came before the other?

[Tzardok]

Speaking of which... was that the same conflict as the War of Law and Chaos? If not, were they distinct-yet-simultaneous conflicts? If not, which came before the other?

Huh, strange. I could have sworn that you already asked that question in this thread, but I can't find it.
Dragon vs. Draeden came first. It was existence vs. non-existence. When Draeden surrendered, the planes were allowed to form, to come into being.
Law vs. Chaos happened an indeterminable time later. It was about reality vs. irreality, wether there would be some kind of order to the multiverse or not.

[enderlord99]

Dragon vs. Draeden came first. It was existence vs. non-existence. When Draeden surrendered, the planes were allowed to form, to come into being.
Law vs. Chaos happened an indeterminable time later. It was about reality vs. irreality, wether there would be some kind of order to the multiverse or not.

That's what I figured, but the fact that Afro once said "The War of Law and Chaos was the primordial conflict of reality" which... I didn't consider that "reality" could be a different thing from "existence."