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Thread: DnD Head Canons

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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Scots Dragon View Post
    Ah, but this is kinda backwards.

    All rodents are avatars and aspects of the Lady of Pain.
    ... she's also unbeatable.

    I just figured out the Lady of Pain.
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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    The lady of pain is obviously a mass delusion. Everyone is actually seeing Mr. Scruffles, a perfectly normal cat that the zeitgeist of the city is going to incredible lengths to protect.

    As for the disappearances and mazes and anti-god stuff, the city just kinda does that.

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    The Lady of Pain is a contrivance that allows the Planescape setting to exist. I mean, that's what she is in world. Somebody brought up that it would be cool if Planescape existed and all of the gods kind of murmured in lukewarm agreement and are all insisting that there is totally a Lady of Pain who can stop gods. All this so they could hear Homer Simpson voice a modron.
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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    The Crimson Sphere (the crystal sphere containing Athas and the Dark Sun Campaign) is located in a space where all phlogiston rivers flow away from it. You can exit the sphere, but you can't come back (except through a portal at the center of a flame ring in Krynnspace that dumps your now-ruined ship in the upper atmosphere of Athas).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    The Crimson Sphere (the crystal sphere containing Athas and the Dark Sun Campaign) is located in a space where all phlogiston rivers flow away from it. You can exit the sphere, but you can't come back (except through a portal at the center of a flame ring in Krynnspace that dumps your now-ruined ship in the upper atmosphere of Athas).
    To be fair, I think most people in the setting would be happy with a one-way ticket out. I hear the other spheres have water.
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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Luccan View Post
    To be fair, I think most people in the setting would be happy with a one-way ticket out. I hear the other spheres have water.
    Therefore it's actually the other way around.

    You can get trapped on Athas very easily. Escaping? Not so much.
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    Given the German / Russian influences on Karrnath, I now imagine this being their national anthem.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Azuresun View Post
    Given the German / Russian influences on Karrnath, I now imagine this being their national anthem.
    But with Zombies doing the dance?

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    Quote Originally Posted by King of Nowhere View Post
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    Currently they have 23 days, and counting. The extra days are all called monday, because everyone hates mondays.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scots Dragon View Post
    Therefore it's actually the other way around.

    You can get trapped on Athas very easily. Escaping? Not so much.
    additional thinking: when the githyanki stuck their noses out of their portals on athas and looked around at the endless dessert, psionic superhuman population, immortal sorceror kings and souped-up dragon they not only decided that they had someplace more important to be but also that they'd rather these guys didn't get out and actively blocked of any means of creating portals

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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by a_flemish_guy View Post
    additional thinking: when the githyanki stuck their noses out of their portals on athas and looked around at the endless dessert, psionic superhuman population, immortal sorceror kings and souped-up dragon they not only decided that they had someplace more important to be but also that they'd rather these guys didn't get out and actively blocked of any means of creating portals
    The Gith (not Githyanki, just Gith) are actually a fairly common enemy on Athas.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    The Gith (not Githyanki, just Gith) are actually a fairly common enemy on Athas.
    Not to be confused with the Pirate Gith that sail around Wildspace. Pirate Gith are supposed to be an offshoot of the Githyanki/Githzerai race that fled into Wildspace instead of the Astral plane when the big split happened.

    I think Athasian Gith might be distantly related to the other Gith, but I don't really remember how.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    Not to be confused with the Pirate Gith that sail around Wildspace. Pirate Gith are supposed to be an offshoot of the Githyanki/Githzerai race that fled into Wildspace instead of the Astral plane when the big split happened.

    I think Athasian Gith might be distantly related to the other Gith, but I don't really remember how.
    I always figured they were Gith who got stuck... like, they looked for a Prime world to raise their kids on, and then realized they couldn't leave. So you have this group of incredibly inbred gith, stuck on the Prime Material.
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    Quote Originally Posted by a_flemish_guy View Post
    additional thinking: when the githyanki stuck their noses out of their portals on athas and looked around at the endless dessert, psionic superhuman population, immortal sorceror kings and souped-up dragon they not only decided that they had someplace more important to be but also that they'd rather these guys didn't get out and actively blocked of any means of creating portals
    They live in dessert?
    I did not know that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    They live in dessert?
    I did not know that.
    Their homes are made of Sandies.
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    Necromancy is the art of soul manipulation.

    This may seem obvious, but it has specific ramifications for Animate Dead, and the many proponents of the "Good Necromancer."

    See, Golems and other animated objects don't use necromancy. They all use Conjuration or Transmutation. So there's got to be something specific about animating corpses that sets it apart from binding elementals or sewing movement into a suit of armor. To me, the answer is that when a skeleton is animated, the soul that once inhabited it is torn from its final rest, in whole or in part, and bound to the decaying remains, forced to carry out the caster's wishes. They are subjected to metaphysical torture until their release.

    This is why necromancy, and animating the dead in particular, is evil.

    (I guess the way to test this theory would be to cast "Clone," die, then attempt to animate your own corpse? RAW, I believe that works fine, so there's evidence against my theory...)
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr paradox View Post
    Necromancy is the art of soul manipulation.

    This may seem obvious, but it has specific ramifications for Animate Dead, and the many proponents of the "Good Necromancer."

    See, Golems and other animated objects don't use necromancy. They all use Conjuration or Transmutation. So there's got to be something specific about animating corpses that sets it apart from binding elementals or sewing movement into a suit of armor. To me, the answer is that when a skeleton is animated, the soul that once inhabited it is torn from its final rest, in whole or in part, and bound to the decaying remains, forced to carry out the caster's wishes. They are subjected to metaphysical torture until their release.

    This is why necromancy, and animating the dead in particular, is evil.

    (I guess the way to test this theory would be to cast "Clone," die, then attempt to animate your own corpse? RAW, I believe that works fine, so there's evidence against my theory...)
    Does it means that when I cast animate deathless on a rat it takes the soul of the rat and use it to animate the deathless?
    Does it means that rat souls are as much valuable as any other soul?

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    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Does it means that when I cast animate deathless on a rat it takes the soul of the rat and use it to animate the deathless?
    Does it means that rat souls are as much valuable as any other soul?
    Er. Doing some quick research.

    So, deathless are a positive energy equivalent to undead from the Eberron setting specifically, and "Animate Deathless" is a homebrew spell from this forum, posted about six years ago?

    That's... kind of its own headcanon, isn't it?

    To answer your question, I would say that a rat soul is as valuable as a rat deathless. Given that the homebrew spell in question both excludes sapient creatures and produces a notably weaker creature than Create Deathless does, it seems to indicate that a rat soul would be weaker than other souls.

    That said, I'm not sure how one would judge the relative strength of souls.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr paradox View Post
    Er. Doing some quick research.

    So, deathless are a positive energy equivalent to undead from the Eberron setting specifically, and "Animate Deathless" is a homebrew spell from this forum, posted about six years ago?

    That's... kind of its own headcanon, isn't it?

    To answer your question, I would say that a rat soul is as valuable as a rat deathless. Given that the homebrew spell in question both excludes sapient creatures and produces a notably weaker creature than Create Deathless does, it seems to indicate that a rat soul would be weaker than other souls.

    That said, I'm not sure how one would judge the relative strength of souls.
    I am sorry I meant create deathless which is not homebrew but from the book Eberron campaign setting.
    Create deathless have no restriction on what it can animate and always create the same kind of creature.
    Last edited by noob; 2019-12-11 at 09:52 AM.

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    Ioun, patron goddess of librarians (and of magic if you’re like me and use the Dawn War pantheon as your go-to), is an ascended mortal; she took on the mantle of “goddess of magic” when the old god of that domain was slain. She found his spellbook, copied the spells into hers, and ascended as an unintentional side effect, making her one of the more approachable deities in the pantheon.

    Shardminds aren’t the products of some “Living Gate” falling apart, but what happens when the crystalline stars fall to earth. Their natural psionic resonance collects memories, language data, and such from passers-by until the combination creates a sort of identity construct which it then embodies.

    There are no giraffes on any of the normal Primes because they are, in fact, Far Realm brings domesticated by nature deities - you know, the kind that are kept out of meetings because they “smell” and “might bring another hydra to the meeting” and “don’t understand why clothes are a common decency” and so on. Most Primes simply don’t have the required gods for the task of creating a stable breeding population.
    Last edited by JBPuffin; 2019-12-11 at 11:03 AM.

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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    I am sorry I meant create deathless which is not homebrew but from the book Eberron campaign setting.
    Create deathless have no restriction on what it can animate and always create the same kind of creature.
    I don't know that the "Strength" of a given soul is strictly relevant to the headcanon. More interesting is that Deathless retain the memories they had in life, suggesting that there is indeed a connection between their present state and the soul they had in life.

    Aside from that, Deathless are a part of Eberron specific lore, and not D&D lore generally.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr paradox View Post
    I don't know that the "Strength" of a given soul is strictly relevant to the headcanon. More interesting is that Deathless retain the memories they had in life, suggesting that there is indeed a connection between their present state and the soul they had in life.

    Aside from that, Deathless are a part of Eberron specific lore, and not D&D lore generally.
    In point of fact, deathless were introduced in the 3e Book of Exalted Deeds well before the ones in the 3e Eberron Campaign Setting. At least that's the earliest incarnation that I'm aware of. That and a few Eberron books are the only places they were printed though so it's certainly an understandable error.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    In point of fact, deathless were introduced in the 3e Book of Exalted Deeds well before the ones in the 3e Eberron Campaign Setting. At least that's the earliest incarnation that I'm aware of. That and a few Eberron books are the only places they were printed though so it's certainly an understandable error.
    Well, shut my mouth!

    It's certainly fair that there's plenty of material to contradict my headcanon. It's mostly the thing that makes sense for the often stated position that Necromancy is evil, plus the thematics that eem more potent that way (Death is the natural order, defying death is an act of mortal hubris, death is larger than ourselves, the undead as a symbol of a decrepit and monstrous past, relying on undead labor as visual metaphor for slavery).
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    All Cure spells and other similar healing spells are in the Necromancy school.

    As they always hould have been. And as they were back in the older editions.
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    The Human racial deity (possibly now a vestige, such as Amon, Balam, Naberius, or Orthos) developed the ambition to attempt to contact what some Athar now refer to as the Great Unknown, and the other deities absolutely panicked, believing that if such a thing did exist that if it were made aware of them that it would destroy them (or at least ruin their fun), so they attempted to wipe the human deity out of existence (with questionable success). They allow the modern Athar, who may have been inspired by an old legend of this event, to exist only because they don't have access to the sheer, ridiculous power required to attempt the ludicrous 13th level spell/ritual (borrowing from what I've heard of old concepts of epic magic that afaik were far beyond 3.5 "epic magic") that the original attempt entailed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr paradox View Post
    I don't know that the "Strength" of a given soul is strictly relevant to the headcanon. More interesting is that Deathless retain the memories they had in life, suggesting that there is indeed a connection between their present state and the soul they had in life.

    Aside from that, Deathless are a part of Eberron specific lore, and not D&D lore generally.
    Value != strength.
    I talked about soul value.
    Not about soul strength.
    Any soul is valuable through the ability to be turned into the soul of a deathless if you consider necromancy puts the soul of the corpse within the created creature.
    Essentially any soul of a dead creature can suddenly become a good aligned soul full of good intentions.
    Last edited by noob; 2019-12-13 at 07:43 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by lightningcat View Post
    All Cure spells and other similar healing spells are in the Necromancy school.

    As they always hould have been. And as they were back in the older editions.
    Related: "Necromancy" concerns positive and negative energy. If the spell involves that, it's at least part necromancy.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera View Post
    In point of fact, deathless were introduced in the 3e Book of Exalted Deeds well before the ones in the 3e Eberron Campaign Setting. At least that's the earliest incarnation that I'm aware of. That and a few Eberron books are the only places they were printed though so it's certainly an understandable error.
    Adding into this, though they were never clarified as 'Deathless' as such, since they precede the term, the Forgotten Realms has had something similar floating about for ages.

    There are elven pseudo-liches called Baelnorns, which cannot be turned and serve as powerful lorekeepers and protectors of ancient elven secrets. They are generally lawful good, and date back to the AD&D days.
    Last edited by Scots Dragon; 2019-12-13 at 01:45 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
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    The FR also had plenty of nonevil human liches, who were usually referred to as archliches.
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    The Ring of Sybiris was built to keep the Dal Quor from infecting other realities' dreams.

    Or to seal away whatever weapon the Giants used to break their predecessors.
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