afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VIII

[Dalmosh]

In Afrocanon, what is the connection between the Black Abyss demiplane (Dragon 353) and the Slaadi?

[Laughing Dog]

Can't believe I forgot to check Manual of the Planes. Sorry about the long response time, and thanks to those who answered.

While I'm here, I figure I'll ask a few questions and pick some brains.

1.) While I know about Aasimar, Tieflings, Mechanatrixs (Mechanatixi?); is there a chaos-aligned Planetouched race? If not, why not?
2.) In Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer

Spoiler: Spoiler warnings, For a decade and a half old game

Show

It is revealed that Myrkul is clinging to (un?)life on the Astral Plane because of the Spirit Eater Curse causing a fear, which in turn sustains him because he created it. Is this just something the writers pulled out of their rears, or could a god feasibly survive in such a manner?

3.) What would happen if someone (or something) was in the middle of traveling through a portal/rift/some-other-type-of-hole-in-the-realities when it was suddenly closed?

[Metastachydium]

Mechanatrixs (Mechanatixi?)

Mechanatrices?

is there a chaos-aligned Planetouched race?

Chaonds (MM2) and cansins (Dragon no. 297).

[Kuulvheysoon]

Can't believe I forgot to check Manual of the Planes. Sorry about the long response time, and thanks to those who answered.

While I'm here, I figure I'll ask a few questions and pick some brains.

1.) While I know about Aasimar, Tieflings, Mechanatrixs (Mechanatixi?); is there a chaos-aligned Planetouched race? If not, why not?

The Zenythri (MM2) are also law-aligned planetouched, and presented as the natural counterpart to the chaond.

[Thurbane]

Zenythri are quite popular for the "Lesser Planetouched" option dues to their stat mods.

Now that I think about it, it's a little odd that there are two Lawful based Planetouched.

Is this a full list of official Planetouched? I'm not sure I would count Half-fiends etc. including specific varieties like Durzagon or Draegloth. I believe Genasi are technically Planetouched, according to the RoF and MoF listings.

• Aasimar (G): descended form Humans and Celestials
• Chaond (C): descended from Humans (?) and Slaadi
• Fey'ri (CE): descended from Elves and Demons
• Genasi, Air: descended from Humans and natives of Elemental Plane of Air
• Genasi, Earth: descended from Humans and natives of Elemental Plane of Earth
• Genasi, Fire: descended from Humans and natives of Elemental Plane of Fire
• Genasi, Water: descended from Humans and natives of Elemental Plane of Water
• Maeluth (LE): descended from Dwarves and Devils
• Mechanatrix (L): descended from Humans (?) and natives of Mechanus
• Shyft (N): descended from Humans (?) and natives of the Ethereal plane
• Tanarukk (CE): descended from Orcs and Demons.
• Tiefling (E): descended form Humans and Fiends
• Wispling (E): descended from Halflings and Demons
• Zenyhtri (L): descended from Humans (?) and natives of Mechanus (?)

Honourable Mentions:

• Baphitaur (CE): descended from Minotaurs and Tieflings

[Caelestion]

The elemental kin are typically spelt genasi.

[Tzardok]

Demiplanes canonically only exist on the Astral and the Etheral. Could being able to support demiplanes be a trait of transistory planes in general, meaning the Shadow and the Ordial could have them too? Any idea what those would be or look like?

Also, if you are feeling up for inventing things whole-cloth, could you flesh out the "Deep Mirror", the part of the Plane of Mirrors that is inhabitated by the Nerra instead of consisting of little corridors?

[afroakuma]

In Afrocanon, what is the connection between the Black Abyss demiplane (Dragon 353) and the Slaadi?

I'm going to ask you to bring this question back in about a week so I can touch on it with a hopefully better brain.

2.) In Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer

Spoiler: Spoiler warnings, For a decade and a half old game

Show

It is revealed that Myrkul is clinging to (un?)life on the Astral Plane because of the Spirit Eater Curse causing a fear, which in turn sustains him because he created it. Is this just something the writers pulled out of their rears, or could a god feasibly survive in such a manner?

A dead god isn't irretrievably dead; receiving sufficient worship or a powerful jolt to kickstart them back into existence both work, at least for a time. In the case of Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul, each of the Dead Three set plans in motion to anchor their essences to something in order to cheat death. Myrkul's plan was probably the weakest of the three (though there's plenty of room for argument) but it would essentially work to keep some mote of the god "active" despite them being functionally dead.

3.) What would happen if someone (or something) was in the middle of traveling through a portal/rift/some-other-type-of-hole-in-the-realities when it was suddenly closed?

Depends on the portal or rift in question. Some might collapse in a way that shunts a traveller to one side or the other; some might eject travellers out into a different place entirely; some may allow the travel to complete, but in a warped or harmful way; annnnd of course the one you were almost certainly gunning for, some might just slice the traveller in two.

Demiplanes canonically only exist on the Astral and the Etheral. Could being able to support demiplanes be a trait of transistory planes in general, meaning the Shadow and the Ordial could have them too? Any idea what those would be or look like?

Demiplanes can form on the Astral and Ethereal because of the specific nature of each of those planes. The Ordial Plane could never support demiplanes because it is the Plane of Proof - what is, is, and what is not cannot be. The Ordial moreso than any other plane is (conjecturally) pretty darn intractable. Conversely, the Plane of Shadow is essentially the plane of what else is - it's not meant to be its own thing, but to reflect in a certain way a different thing that exists. It's closer to the Plane of Mirrors than to the other Transitive Planes. It's plausible that powerful magic could shape a "demiplane" from Shadow, but the result would be problematic and deeply unstable - imagine shadow conjuration producing genesis and having even the boundaries of your created plane being only quasi-real. Most likely, shadowcasting would be involved.

Also, if you are feeling up for inventing things whole-cloth, could you flesh out the "Deep Mirror", the part of the Plane of Mirrors that is inhabitated by the Nerra instead of consisting of little corridors?

See my response to Dalmosh above. I'm not in an excellent headspace right now unfortunately.

[Tzardok]

Thank you for the answer.

It now itches me to make a new path of shadow magic with Umbral Genesis as the capstone. Hmm... anybody suggestions for what the level 7 and level 8 mystery could do?

Also, rules-wise Genesis is exclusively on the lists for wizards, sorcerers, clerics and psions. Any other users of mystical powers known to have created demiplanes? Wu jen or truenamers for example?

[Thurbane]

Also, rules-wise Genesis is exclusively on the lists for wizards, sorcerers, clerics and psions. Any other users of mystical powers known to have created demiplanes? Wu jen or truenamers for example?

Not sure if any other classes have their own equivalent, but a dip into Wyrm Wizard should be able to get access to Genesis for other casters.

[Tzardok]

Does Diinkarazan have any worshippers at all? Or are his status as a racial god and Ilsensine's curse the only things keeping him from fading away?

[afroakuma]

Does Diinkarazan have any worshippers at all? Or are his status as a racial god and Ilsensine's curse the only things keeping him from fading away?

He does... sort of. There are small breakaway dwarven cults that worship weapons and other forces, and some few of these are actually paying their worship to Diinkarazan through his mantle of heedless vengeance. He's also effectively the god of hating the derro (much in the same way as Urdlen is the god of hating gnomes and Lolth is the goddess of hating drow) and so those who truly steep themselves in a desire to expunge the stunted and twisted offshoot race may inadvertently venerate him. More broadly, the natural hate and vengeful feelings of derro continue to give him strength, in no small part thanks to Ilsensine's curse on him. As is to be expected, the mind flayer god engineered a marvelously vindictive situation to continue to repay Diirinka and his minions for having once stolen into his realm - the power of Diinkarazan survives despite all of the factors working against it, and the Mad God continues to use this power to randomly spawn avatars and other projections that go on wild killing sprees through derro communities.

[Laughing Dog]

A dead god isn't irretrievably dead; receiving sufficient worship or a powerful jolt to kickstart them back into existence both work, at least for a time. In the case of Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul, each of the Dead Three set plans in motion to anchor their essences to something in order to cheat death. Myrkul's plan was probably the weakest of the three (though there's plenty of room for argument) but it would essentially work to keep some mote of the god "active" despite them being functionally dead.

Ah, thank you.

Depends on the portal or rift in question. Some might collapse in a way that shunts a traveller to one side or the other; some might eject travellers out into a different place entirely; some may allow the travel to complete, but in a warped or harmful way; annnnd of course the one you were almost certainly gunning for, some might just slice the traveller in two.

Actually, I kind of just assumed that last one. I was/am more interested in the others. Thank you for the reply.

[Dalmosh]

Hello, if you're inclined to speculate on the Black Abyss, that would be cool. The paragraph reads like the author is trying to drop exciting adventure hooks for players, but Ygorl and the Vaati are pretty obscure references to have just chucked in there without providing some context and direction.

[Tzardok]

How shameless. I would've waited until Wednesday before reminding him of our requests.

[Dalmosh]

Guilty as charged, sir

[Sharqking]

Is there ever any mention of an Underdark subrace of merfolk? Or any other primarily underwater humanoid besides like kuo-toa and vampire stingrays?
Do merfolks have an evil diety if a group of them were to be evil? Or would they worship just turn to something like Sekolah?

[Tzardok]

I don't think there are "undermerfolk". Other sapient races in the Underdark's seas should be kopru, aboleth and possibly anguillians.

There aren't any evil racial gods of merfolk. I would assume that evil merfolk would pay worship to one of the local evil sea gods like Umberlee, Zeboim or Yeathan before turning to the racial gods of another evil race, and I would think that of the evil racial gods Panzuriel would be the most attractive, followed maybe by Piscaethces before Blibdoolpoolp, Sekolah or Ixzan are chosen.
Also, there is always the chance of directing your worship to an archfiend. Dagon and Demogorgon are favourites of water dwellers.

[Dalmosh]

Aboleths make Skum to fill that role in their domains.

[Tzardok]

If I cast Incarnate Construct on a grisgol, what happens to the soul in the phylactery? Does it die, and the ex-grisgol gains one of its own? Is the soul somehow transformed into a soul for the ex-grisgol? If so, would the ex-grisgol show qualities and personality traits of the lich, maybe even become a reincarnation of it?

[unseenmage]

If I cast Incarnate Construct on a grisgol, what happens to the soul in the phylactery? Does it die, and the ex-grisgol gains one of its own? Is the soul somehow transformed into a soul for the ex-grisgol? If so, would the ex-grisgol show qualities and personality traits of the lich, maybe even become a reincarnation of it?

Same question buy with an animated Thinaun Steel dagger containing a soul. (That is also conveniently humanoid shaped.)

Or worse, a brace of said daggers containing a soul each all wired or welded together into a single appropriately shaped animated object.

[afroakuma]

If I cast Incarnate Construct on a grisgol, what happens to the soul in the phylactery?

Nothing, grisgols are immune to incarnate construct. As are stone golems, for that matter. Mark of a badly-written spell is when it doesn't work on the very things it's supposed to target.

Assuming you can make it work somehow, then we get into undefined territory, because as noted above, incarnate construct was written by a monkey. It doesn't even address what happens to the elemental animating spirit of a normal golem, let alone more complex issues. For that, we'll need to get into some inferential territory, and it starts with that outsize XP cost. We can examine awaken to determine that the XP cost of "upgrading" a soul is 250 XP; awaken undead upgrades multiple negative energy animi for the same cost, but isn't actually providing them with new functionality so much as reconnecting functionality that used to be there. Awaken sand also works on something inanimate, costing only 500 XP, but creates a construct - not actual life - with the Earth subtype, suggesting the XP expenditure is needed to convert the caster's positive energy into fuel for an earth elemental animus.

None of these is really cognate to what incarnate construct/awaken construct do, because a big part of that effect is the explicit creation of life where there was none. The question, then, is what does the spell require of the animating force? To that end... while it doesn't specify, that technically gives us a window for inference, because the spell doesn't seem to care whether the construct is animated via elemental spirit, trapped soul, divine blessing, psionic will, or just pure clockwork. If it has the construct type, which is pretty all-encompassing, incarnate construct works on it. This suggests that the spell outright replaces the original animating force, whatever it may be, with a new living soul (5000 XP being a pretty reasonable cost to do that wholecloth) created from the caster's own. A trapped elemental spirit would become unbound and released back to its Inner Plane of origin, a psionic force would dissipate, and so on.

Grisgols present an unorthodox case, however, because they use a physical object for their animation which contains a soul that does not in and of itself possess or control the body. Where powerful magics combine without specificity, it's uncertain what might happen, but some of the possibilities:

• The lich's soul coexists with the new soul in the living body and overtakes it, being more powerful and experienced, extinguishing the new soul and giving the lich control over the body. Whether some body part still serves as a container for the soul itself or whether the lich loses their "lichdom" in that particular sense is up in the air.
• The lich's soul coexists with the new soul in the living body but cannot overtake it, becoming a dark presence within the new lifeform that may occasionally find ways of manifesting its hateful feelings. Again, up in the air as to whether destruction of this body would be good for the lich or bad for it; likely total destruction of the body would also destroy the lich for good, while mere death of the body would allow the lich's soul to animate it as a temporary undead host.
• The spell transforms everything else of the grisgol's body, as it doesn't need to use anything present in the body for animation. The untransformed object containing the soul of the lich may reside within the body like a grotesque tumor, or emerge to appear fused into the living flesh. In the "tumor" case, the lich would, as above, have no control over the body inherently but may find ways to exert a dark influence. If emerged from the body, even odds as to whether the lich is able to control the body for as long as it remains attached, or possesses no control as in the above.
• The transformation would destroy the lich's vessel. The lich is entitled to a saving throw and spell resistance (separate from the grisgol's own) to prevent the spell from succeeding.

In the general case, where the transformation is not reversible and preservative (unlike flesh to stone, which specifically has stone to flesh as an out and also specifically notes that it does not result in death) and does not leave a discrete object (as transmute metal to wood does, which does not strip magical properties) it would be considered destruction of the host vessel, dispatching the bound soul to its final rest. I feel this is the most boring outcome, but it's also the easiest by far.

Same question buy with an animated Thinaun Steel dagger containing a soul. (That is also conveniently humanoid shaped.)

Quite a trick given that it doesn't work on something animated via animate objects, but this one is actually easier. When a thinaun weapon is destroyed, the soul is released, and soul trapping is an inherent property of the material rather than something conferred via ensorcellment. Thus, when thinaun is transmuted into another material of any kind (see transmute metal to wood, again), it becomes incapable of retaining the bound soul, which is released. Even if later turned back into thinaun, it still lost the properties of the metal while it was something else, in the same way that iron turned into wood would not remain magnetic, or gold turned into wood would be insufficient as a material component in spells (at least those requiring gold. Gold-turned-wood is probably valuable for something else in its own right).

Or worse, a brace of said daggers containing a soul each all wired or welded together into a single appropriately shaped animated object.

Same gag as the above.

[Tzardok]

The majority of the Athar direct their worship to the Great Unknown, right? And sustained worship directed at something that isn't a power and isn't secretly sponsored by one can birth an appropriate power. What would happen if the Athar's worship caused the power called the Great Unknown to come into being?

[Thealtruistorc]

Who were the first deities and where did they come from? Did mortalkind need to exist for deities to rise to power or was the potential for worship enough to cause some to spring into existence? If folks could point me towards good sources on this info, I would be grateful.

[Tzardok]

Canon is, as far as I know, mostly silent on that matter. There are few legends, like the story of the Pact Primeval, but they are just that: legends.

Afro once wrote a story how life and gods on the Prime came to be. It begins here, on page 41 of the Planar Questions Thread 5.

[Bohandas]

The majority of the Athar direct their worship to the Great Unknown, right? And sustained worship directed at something that isn't a power and isn't secretly sponsored by one can birth an appropriate power. What would happen if the Athar's worship caused the power called the Great Unknown to come into being?

Related: Is Great Unknown just the DM?

[Tzardok]

Related: Is Great Unknown just the DM?

The way it is described it resembles either an impersonal source of divine magic from which all divine spellcasters draw power or the typical monotheist deity: omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Related: Is Great Unknown just the DM?

I feel like the Great Unknown is more on the level of an overdeity, like Ao. Theoretically omnipotent and creator/master of an universe, but still a god like any other, who can disappear or change form (Cask of the Great Unknown), and lend spells to their followers, contrary to the DM, who has no real existence in-game and would most probably be represented by the Luminous Being more than the Great Unknown.

[Eurus]

Speaking of deities getting power all sneaky-like from things that aren't intentional worship, is there any way to counteract that? Or even determine for sure if it's happening? It seems rather unfair, when you think about it...

[afroakuma]

The majority of the Athar direct their worship to the Great Unknown, right?

Yyyes, but not in the same way that the faithful of a deity do. It's more akin to venerating a principle than a god.

What would happen if the Athar's worship caused the power called the Great Unknown to come into being?

Essentially it cannot - the Athar's belief is one that cannot meaningfully coalesce as a new distinctive power, because part of that belief is that what they venerate has no need for belief.

But then again, who's to say the Great Unknown does not in fact already exist?

Who were the first deities and where did they come from?

We don't officially know, but my own conjecture is that the first deities were proto-entities of life and magic that became the draconic deity Io and the ancient fey progenitor Rhiannon.

Did mortalkind need to exist for deities to rise to power

"Rise to power" is a bit vague here. If you mean to exist at all, then no - the emergence of the most primordial deities came about as a result of cosmic principles clashing at the dawn of the multiverse. There weren't many but that was enough. If you mean "to become as numerous/powerful/influential as they are currently," though, then yes absolutely mortals were needed.

Related: Is Great Unknown just the DM?

Apart from the PCs, isn't everything?