The IFCC Master Plan: Speculation

[PLD]

We all likely know these guys will return but what do they really want?

We know they want conflict.
We know they want to unite the Lower Planes Races.
We know that their plan does not involve releasing the Snarl or the Planet in the Rift (because V speculated both of those as motives).
We know that a victory for Hel was a victory for them.
We know that they like to have a guy on every team.
We know they have a special artifact.


We also know that Outsider's go nuts if memories of the previous worlds aren't wiped.

What if the IFCC avoided the mind wipe? They wish to destroy the world and then use the artifact to protect the Lower Planes from the wipe.

I also think the plan is bigger then that. They have a guy on every team. But they seem unable to get leverage on team evil.

But perhaps they do. We have never seen the Dark One. Not even Redcloak has spoken to him.

The Dark One is purple. So is Director Nero.

Perhaps the Dark One is an artificial construct of the IFCC and the whole plan is their doing?

Thoughts?

[Fyraltari]

They have a guy on every team.

They don't though. They had Sabine on the Linear Guild, and V on the Order's if you count them. No-one on Team Evil, no one with any of the Scribblers, no-one with the Azurites, no-one on Team Hel. No-one anywhere else.

Perhaps the Dark One is an artificial construct of the IFCC and the whole plan is their doing?

They couldn't create a brand new divine quiddity and I seriously doubt they could fake one well enough to fool Thor, Loki, Tiamat and Rat.

Edit: With that said, the idea that the Dark One may have cut a deal with the IFCC/is working with them is intriguing, but I don't see what either party would get out of it.

[PLD]

They couldn't create a brand new divine quiddity and I seriously doubt they could fake one well enough to fool Thor, Loki, Tiamat and Rat.

Edit: With that said, the idea that the Dark One may have cut a deal with the IFCC/is working with them is intriguing, but I don't see what either party would get out of it.

We know the IFCC collects souls. And that non-aligned Clerics like the Creed of Stone can do stuff without a Quiddity-producing God. Masterminds like the Fiends can easily create a god for a brief period.

The Dark One cutting a deal has obvious benefits for both sides. Having an actual god unbound by the Divine Conventions would provide the IFCC a lot of protection for their master plan. The Dark One benefits too, if the IFCC can somehow give him enough Souls so that he survives the "winter" without a world.

From a Doylist Perspective the Fiends are rather disconnected from the main plot. Either an alliance with or being The Dark One, puts them more into the frame.


In addition, it would be more impactful if Redcloak sides with the Order IN SPITE of his plan actually having a chance of working. If he can actually "win" but still chooses to reject this victory. Because at the moment, the story of Redcloak siding with the Order because he has no options, isn't as narratively satisfying.

[Laurentio III]

We know the IFCC collects souls. And that non-aligned Clerics like the Creed of Stone can do stuff without a Quiddity-producing God. Masterminds like the Fiends can easily create a god for a brief period.

This is a conjecture, not a fact.

[Metastachydium]

They had Sabine on the Linear Guild,

Also Qarr later on.

and V on the Order's if you count them.

I'm inclined to do so, personally.

No-one on Team Evil,

Until proven otherwise, I'll continue to treat the roaches as possible IFCC agents.

no one with any of the Scribblers,

Who are mostly dead alongside their teams, so…

no-one with the Azurites,

I'd argue that insofar as they are relevant to the Directors' designs, the Azurites and the Order really aren't separate teams.

no-one on Team Hel.

There was no need; she was effectively working for them, free of charge.

No-one anywhere else.

Not that there really are other relevant factions (except maybe the Vectors, but when Sabine made that comment, Qarr was embedded with them).

They don't though.

But yeah, Sabine was clearly hyperbolic there, I'll readily give you that, my pedantry notwithstanding.

We know the IFCC collects souls. And that non-aligned Clerics like the Creed of Stone can do stuff without a Quiddity-producing God. Masterminds like the Fiends can easily create a god for a brief period.

Yeah, no. Canonically, only mortals are capable of creating new gods and it takes a lot more than souls.

[Laurentio III]

Until proven otherwise, I'll continue to treat the roaches as possible IFCC agents.

I second this.

[PLD]

I forgot about the Roaches. They’re probably the pawns of the IFCC.

The Dark One being a creation of the IFCC is maybe less plausible. But I’m not ruling it out

[Crimsonmantle]

We also know that Outsider's go nuts if memories of the previous worlds aren't wiped.

What if the IFCC avoided the mind wipe?

They don't seem nuts to me.

[Laurentio III]

The Dark One being a creation of the IFCC is maybe less plausible. But I’m not ruling it out

The spontaneous ascension of a mortal to godlikeness is very rarely, so much to be almost unheard.
On the other hand, sponsored ascensions are almost trivial.
The Dark One could have been secretely sponsored by the IFCC. Still a stretch, but more likely.

Request: I searched the part about mind-wiping outsiders, but can't find the page. I'd like to check it. Someone?

[Metastachydium]

Request: I searched the part about mind-wiping outsiders, but can't find the page. I'd like to check it. Someone?

Here you go.

[Laurentio III]

Here you go.

Perfect, thanks.
So, Thor states that outsides get a bit nuts, and as Thor is not stranger to englishman's understating, the wording sound as such. So I'm assuming that they GO crazy and IFCC members seem supersane.
Plus, they have memories of their youth in this same stick world, so I not inclined to believe they skipped the mind purge.

[Coppercloud]

I'm inclined to think the IFCC will at some point possess Vaarsuvius empty body. They pretended it was forbidden by their contract, but I'm not sure we can trust them on this, even though it was Lawful Evil director Lee who said so. If they can do such a thing, it was clearly in their best interest to lie so that Vaarsuvius doesn't leave the Order or commit suicide, and instead remains their unwitting pawn until the very end.

[Rrmcklin]

We know the IFCC collects souls. And that non-aligned Clerics like the Creed of Stone can do stuff without a Quiddity-producing God. Masterminds like the Fiends can easily create a god for a brief period.

Why does collecting souls in anyway imply they can "fake a god"? The gods do not give their follows their Quiddity for power, and clerics from organizations like the Creed of Stone simply tape into power that has already existed. It's a basic thing in D&D that even a non-player like me knows about. The two concepts have no relation and it's really strange to take two completely unrelated concepts and then come up with a conclusion that isn't related to either of them.

The spontaneous ascension of a mortal to godlikeness is very rarely, so much to be almost unheard.
On the other hand, sponsored ascensions are almost trivial.
The Dark One could have been secretely sponsored by the IFCC. Still a stretch, but more likely.

Request: I searched the part about mind-wiping outsiders, but can't find the page. I'd like to check it. Someone?

Sponship by other gods. Context makes it clear that's what Thor means, and besides that the idea that non-divine beings can sponsor divinity brings up more question. I understand you're not actually saying this is likely, but I felt the need to point out why it's even more unlikely.

[Laurentio III]

Sponship by other gods. Context makes it clear that's what Thor means, and besides that the idea that non-divine beings can sponsor divinity brings up more question. I understand you're not actually saying this is likely, but I felt the need to point out why it's even more unlikely.

I agree, but let's take a look at facts.
Sponsorship is not a strict requirement, as the Dark One ascension has been accepted by the gods with a little surprise, but not stupor.
At the same time, a mortal can't ascend by sporsorship alone, or at least is not kosher in the gods book. You have to be worshipped by other mortals already, otherwise I suppose you'd lack faith and you'd be an hollow deity.
And, sponsorship is not damaging to the donor pantheon, or at least noone ever mentioned it this way, and it would be a pretty important info.

So, the Dark One has enough recognition by goblinoid to be allowed to ascend, and a sponsorship by a pantheon would close the deal, but they didn't intervene.

Now, let's speculate that the IFCC holds enough divine power to promote an already prime candidate. They for sure have the souls, and those are power. They have the knowledge, apparently, and the plans. Promoting mortals is a thing they do (Vaarsuvius is a minor example), and long range plans are for sure their bread.

All they need is a mean, and we just don't know if the have a mean or they don't. So an answer carved in the stone is not to be provided, but I'd say that it's at least workable.

Let's just add "IFCC could have sponsored the Dark One ascension" as a minor conspiratory theory.

[hroþila]

I take "sponsorship" to mean being somehow infused with the sponsoring gods' quiddity to amplify the candidate's own divine power (gained from worship and the like), which is why the elven gods have the same quiddity as the rest of the Western Pantheon. If this is correct, then the IFCC couldn't have possibly sponsored the Dark One for the simple reason that they have no quiddity.

[Laurentio III]

The Dark One apparently made his own quiddity, so a new quiddity can be made. Nothing bar the IFCC to create/acquire a new quiddity, or at least are more qualified than a goblin warlord.
I repeat, they have souls to spare and the knowledge.

[hroþila]

The Dark One apparently made his own quiddity, so a new quiddity can be made. Nothing bar the IFCC to create/acquire a new quiddity, or at least are more qualified than a goblin warlord.
I repeat, they have souls to spare and the knowledge.

Of course a new quiddity can be made, by getting so much worship and dedication etc from mortals that your divine power increases above a certain threshold, which is infinitely easier to do if someone else lends you their quiddity, which dilutes your own potential quiddity and makes you develop that of your sponsor. None of which would apply here. And even if the IFCC could somehow develop a new quiddity in a lab (and chose not to infuse themselves with it for some reason), which is already extremely dubious, it's not at all obvious that they'd be able to infuse a newly deceased mortal with it, even if they had access to his soul.

The IFCC have souls, and they have knowledge, in general, but having knowledge and having the knowledge to do something in particular are very different things. Belief is necessary for ascension, and you can't force even an enslaved soul to believe in something.

[Laurentio III]

The IFCC have souls, and they have knowledge, in general, but having knowledge and having the knowledge to do something in particular are very different things. Belief is necessary for ascension, and you can't force even an enslaved soul to believe in something.

You don't need. Devotion is something the Dark One already have, plenty. What it needs is a little of divine spark.
I'm suggesting that if any no-divine source of divine spark is present, than the IFCC could have access to it.
And it HAS to be present somewhere, else che Dark One couldn't exist.

To sum: Can a mortal became a God without a pantheon sponsorship?
• No -> The Dark One is a fake
• Yes -> The Dark One is a god.

[Yes] Is it possible to make a new quiddity?
• • No -> The Dark One is a false purple god
• • Yes > The Dark One is a true purple god

Now, my conjecture: in the strenous and extremely rare process of becaming a new god with a new quiddity, could have the IFCC provided help, eventually in secret?
I say it's possible. It took several billions of world just to have a quiddity, for sure it's not an easy task.
I'm not saying "The IFCC pushed a button and a new god was born".
I'm saying: it's possible that they received the soul of a famous, worshipped and rebellous goblinoid, one who was channeling the faith on milions of living goblinoids, and they said: "Guys, let's make it a god. It's almost there, it's just a matter of pushing him in the right direction".

[Peelee]

I repeat, they have souls to spare and the knowledge.

What knowledge? The knowledge how to sponsor a deity? There is zero evidence of that. The knowledge that it can be done? I have the knowledge an internal combustion engine can be built, but that doesn't mean I can build one.

Also, we don't ever know how it's done. Does it require soul power? Unknown. If so, how much? Do they in fact have the souls to spare? Unknown.

This theory hinges entirely on unknowns that are assumed to be possible based on nothing except that it would be convenient for the theory.

[Laurentio III]

This theory hinges entirely on unknowns that are assumed to be possible based on nothing except that it would be convenient for the theory.

I myself presented it as a stretch, so I'm not going to argue about the lack of elements of proof. There aren't.
I'm just saying: self-promotion to godlikeness is so incredibly rare that happened once in billions of worlds, no god expected it, and they are almost sure it could not present itself again.
And I suggest: if it's nearly impossible to happen spontaneously, could have been aided by an external source?

If so (and we are already in the unhinged realm or theories) the IFCC have power, knowledge (an unquantified amount, surely more that mortals) and possibly ends for doing it.

I'm not going to put more than a single dollar on this theory but, this is the forum where you discuss theories for fun, so...

[brian 333]

It diminishes the goblin's story to have the pivotal event of their history be something given to them by a non-goblin. They go from being the Apple creators to being the Samsung guys. (Does Samsung make anything they invented themselves?)

As it stands, the goblins made their own destiny and because they did it can't be taken away. A gift can also be taken back.

[Peelee]

It diminishes the goblin's story to have the pivotal event of their history be something given to them by a non-goblin. They go from being the Apple creators to being the Samsung guys. (Does Samsung make anything they invented themselves?)

.... I've got some bad news for you about Apple.

Spoiler alert, for all his technical intelligence, Steve Jobs was best as a marketer.

[brian 333]

.... I've got some bad news for you about Apple.

Spoiler alert, for all his technical intelligence, Steve Jobs was best as a marketer.

Argh! My worldview, crushed by exposing the myth for a fraud!

Yeah, Wozniak built on the work of others and used parts he purchased from Radio Shack, while Jobs sold what was made. However, they did it themselves.
And they kept on creating new things and selling them for quite a few years.

Having TDO ascend via a licensing agreement with the IFCC makes the goblin contribution meaningless and converts their struggle for a place at the grown-up table into a petty scheme to destabilize the world for no purpose than to destabilize the world.

The theory as presented turns the goblins from active agents in creating their own destiny into tools being used by others for purposes having nothing to do with goblin equality.

[Peelee]

Argh! My worldview, crushed by exposing the myth for a fraud!

Yeah, Wozniak built on the work of others and used parts he purchased from Radio Shack, while Jobs sold what was made. However, they did it themselves.
And they kept on creating new things and selling them for quite a few years.

Oh, I'm not knocking what they accomplished, thats nothing short of amazing.

Well, maybe I'll knock a little of what they accomplished. Like the Apple III, where the official company line was "Eh, just drop it and maybe that'll work".

[SlashDash]

I don't see the logic of a connection between the Dark One and the IFCC - considering they pretty much ruined his chances.

V was going to stop Roy from destroying Girard's gate. That is they used their calling on V.
To make sure that Roy destroys it.

If Roy had not destroyed the gate, I think it's safe to say that as powerful as Tarquin and his gang are, Xykon and Redcloak are still a bigger threat - and the heroes were already at a weak point as it is.

[brian 333]

Have to admit that a fight between TE and The Vector Legion would have been awesome, but TVL was scattered and Malack was dead by the time TE arrived. All we had was Tarquin and Laurin, with Durkula on the side.

[gbaji]

I don't think the IFCC had anything to do with the Dark One's rise to godhood. They are outsiders. Manifestations of the astral planes and thus merely conceptual constructs (with sentience, but still). The Gods are also manifestations of concepts, but much much more powerful. They have Quiddity, the IFCC do not. Quiddity is literally the cosmic power to manipulate the energies of the prime material plane to create things. While the IFCC may manifest spells and powers that derive from such creations (say in a world where the gods created magic), they don't generate those creative energies themselves. The Giant's cosmology is interesting in that there is a kind of feedback between what the gods have created and their own power (and even the powers that outsiders can wield). Bit of a chicken and egg question there, but if we just accept that it "is", then gods gain power from the souls of the creatures they create and which fall under their respective purviews (which tend to be alignment based).

The IFCC administer the disposition of souls that go to their respective outer planes, but they do not "own" those souls, nor would they have any ability to use them to create a god, let alone one with a unique quiddity. And any other powers they possess derive specifically from whatever combination of creative choices the gods made in this particular world. In the next one they may manifest in different forms with different powers and abilities (but would still, presumably exist since they are outer plane beings and not prime material plane beings).

My speculation about apotheosis is that when a powerful enough mortal gains sufficient worship via their acts *and* fills some niche that isn't currently filled by an existing deity, then the gods most closely aligned with that mortal may infuses them with divine power and make them a god. This is presumably how the Elven gods came to be, and the various demi-gods we saw at the godsmoot. The gods aren't going to create a new god that already represents some combination of ideas that an existing god already represents (they'd have to share, right?), and frankly no matter how well thought of someone is during their life, if they are conceptually identical to an existing god, the worship would go to the god that this person best personifies. He might be raised up as a special spirit or right-hand whatever to said existing god, but would always be thought of as "great and powerful person who was really devout to his god and represented him perfectly, so eat your wheaties and follow our god and you could be favored like him", and not as a god himself.

TDO is unique in that his area was already unfilled (leader of the goblins) *and* the goblin kind themselves were created specifically in this world to be cannon fodder, with no gods representing them pantheon wise. Thus there was no god who was even close to aligned with TDO when he gained all this support and worship. Normally, absent divine intervention one probably couldn't acquire divinity, simply because of the concepts I mentioned previously. Too much of the worship of a mortals actions would also fall to existing gods that the mortal was aligned with in some way, and not enough to the mortal himself (the mortal will always be seen as a representation of qualities that already exist in a god that his followers believe in and probably worship to some degree). In the case of The Dark One, there were no where else for that divine worship to go, so it all went into him. Since he wasn't part of any existing pantheon, he created a new quiddity as a result.

This does not preclude the IFCC at some point guiding TDO in his path to becoming his own god. And maybe even intentionally causing a new quiddity to form as a result. I'm not sure what they gain from doing this though. I'm pretty sure goblins who died prior to TDO's rise still went to their respective alignment afterlives, so they still managed them anyway. Now when goblin souls are tortured or whatever their soul power goes to TDO instead of to some collection of other evil aligned gods, but again, how does that benefit the IFCC? And if it was some sort of powerplay or agreement with TDO, then you'd think they'd want to keep the world going as long as possible so that TDO can gain as many goblin souls to power him as possible so they'd have more possibility of him actually being powerful enough for them to get something back for all their efforts.

Seems like they want the gates to be destroyed, or at the very least want to hasten the destruction of this world. That seems counter to any deal they may have with TDO, since that would only weaken him and hasten his destruction. Could still involve him in some way, or could have something to do with the snarl, or some other as yet unknown aspect of the whole "gods destroy the world" process.

[MetroAlien]

arguing about whether the IFCC had a hand in the Dark One's rise is putting the cart before the horse, regardless of whether it's true or not.

It doesn't help answering the question of what their goals are.
I'm saying that because it seems extremely unlikely that the Dark One is a major part of their plans at all.

As far as I can see, they seem to be acting in orthogonal directions to each other.
While there may be intersections on their respective paths, for now it looks more like coincidence than design.

I don't remember any dialogue linking the two together, but feel free to remind me.

[gbaji]

Yeah. That's true. I just find the discussion of apotheosis and how gods and mortals interact in the Giant's world fascinating from a game/story world construction point of view.

The IFCC's motives need not be as grand as we think. It could literally be as simple as they've become aware of the snarl and the cycle of world destruction and the wiping of outsider memories during that process and just want to preserve themselves in some way through said process. The "artifact" and "vessel" they mentioned could just be some means of storing their memories/personality/whatever in preparation for said wipe. It could also be that their plan requires that the gods destroy the world rather than it being destroyed via release of the snarl for some reason, and that's why they may be pushing things in that direction (explains their position on Hel's gambit at least).

[TRH]

I'm inclined to think the IFCC will at some point possess Vaarsuvius empty body. They pretended it was forbidden by their contract, but I'm not sure we can trust them on this, even though it was Lawful Evil director Lee who said so. If they can do such a thing, it was clearly in their best interest to lie so that Vaarsuvius doesn't leave the Order or commit suicide, and instead remains their unwitting pawn until the very end.

I don't think they're going to do that, as such, but I'm standing by my prediction that since the deal was worded such that V would spend allotted time with each of the directors to discharge the soul debts, Lee or Nero will come to the Prime Material as part of their deal, and smash the final Gate once it's been located.