TheClueless wrote:
The long and short of it is, that Nalifan feels that there's one overriding rule that everyone below Ao (IE: everyone) on Toril *has* to follow. "Obey. Or else."
The Clueless
Imperial Overlord wrote:To live in Abier-Toril is to live under one rule: obey or you shall feel my fist. The followers of Bane are naked in their espousal of such a rule, but it applies to all. The gods fear Ao who rules not out of consent of the governed or superior wisdom, but naked might. Mortals that do not worship a god go to the Wall of the Dead, to be eternally interred, or become the prey of fiends. To avoid that fate one must worship a god and to be a god's worshipper is to have your fate after death determined by that being.
Worshippers of the gods of good will undoubtedly pipe up at this point about how worthy their respective lords and ladies and the causes they champion and all that other nonsense. That's irrelevant, although its nice for them that they found an agreeable tyrant because that's what every mortal Toril has to do: choose the divine tyrant they can best live with or ascend to godhood.
So where does this leave us poor mortals? We should look to blind Tyr as our example. Questioning Ao made him a cripple, albeit still a divine one. The current order will stand until overthrone by something powerful enough to break Ao and what comes in its place maybe worse. The first sign Toril has of a reborn Illithid Empire will probably be Illesine eating Ao's brain and I can say with confidence my enjoyment of Ao's death will be short lived. We mortals need to understand this and only this is the highest law: obey or feel my fist. The vaunted gods of good are Ao's obedient dogs and the only care he has for justice is that the portfolio be filled.
So choose your god carefully. Be respectful of your betters. Crush your enemies. And never succumb to the delusion that the universe works according to any high minded moral philosophy you happen to cling to.
-Nalifan D'Azurentien
It's much better this way
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Okay, due to popular opinion, Ao is going to get what will hopefully an epic chewing out by his boss in the next chapter. Also, the set up for House Baenre getting fucked over.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
The lady have servents that follow her around and help run her city. Where did they come from? Were they people that worshipped her or are they perhaps people that she encountered in her city and survived the tasks she give them.
"There are very few problems that cannot be solved by the suitable application of photon torpedoes
Xon wrote:As Academia Nut had already demonstrated, living in Abeir-Toril without at least 6 ranks in player character levels is practically suicide. And that is squarely to blame on the magic system, specifically the Goddess of the Weave with a fucking death wish and Lord Ao for putting her there.
I wouldn't go that far. Admittedly all three goddesses of magic (the Weave) did screw up. (And that's not counting the fact that at least two of them - Mystra and Midnight - were unaware of Shar's Shadow Weave.) But you can't lay it all of the shoulders of the three individuals in question.
Mystryl (Goddess of magic #1) basically didn't think that anyone would be able to come up with magic that would let them take the Weave away from her. At least, not without being wise enough to realize that this - if they were unable to properly control the Weave - would be a *Very* Bad Thing.
Karse, unfortunately, proved that she was being too optimistic.
Mystra (Goddess of magic #2) made her big screw up, IMO, by not realizing just how serious Helm was about following Ao's orders not to let any of the Gods off Toril until he said otherwise. (When I'm feeling nice, I just put this down to the affects of her time as Bane's prisoner and torture-puppet.)
Instead of trying to get a coalition of other gods to help her take out the Three (Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul), or even just getting Helm to swear that he'd pass on her information to Ao, Mystra decided to try to fight her way past Helm.
Avatar of a goddess that's just been freed from her captivity and torture vs. God who is *acting within his portfolio.* Gee, I wonder who would win.
Midnight (Goddess of magic #3) was - as much as I liked the character, and her eventual feud with Cyric - a screw up waiting to happen.
What Ao (in character) was thinking of, when he decided to give the Magic portfolio to a good-aligned individual, is still beyond me. While a better choice (IMO) than an evil-aligned individual, he *had* to know that sooner or later Midnight would try to encourage good - or at least neutral - magic use. Needless to say, this attempt didn't end well.
The kindest interpretation I have for Ao's decision is that he realized that Shar would soon be revealing her Shadow Weave to the world, so - between her and a good-aligned goddess of the Weave - magic would still be "balanced" over all.
(I'm going to ignore Midnight's murder because I still feel it was a Plot Device. And not a well thought out one either.)
Depending on where 'souls' go when they die, Sigil not having a 'wall of faithless' (it is specific to Abeir-Toril) maybe a plus.
After the Time of Troubles, there was *no* way that any of the gods would way do do away with the Wall made up of non-believers. Remember, Ao directly tied in the power of the gods (of Abeir-Toril) with the number (and power?) of their worshippers at the end of the ToT.
Given that, I can't imagine anyone - except for the most naive individuals around - expecting the gods to want to give the Faithless or the False any breaks at all.
The Clueless
Last edited by TheClueless on 2008-10-15 04:13am, edited 1 time in total.
True, but I was trying not to distract people from this awesome story by posting paragraphs from another awesome story. The fact that I might encourage people to (re) read the Nalifan stories *might* have had something to do with my posting the link to the story too I suppose.
Academia Nut wrote:Okay, due to popular opinion, Ao is going to get what will hopefully an epic chewing out by his boss in the next chapter. Also, the set up for House Baenre getting fucked over.
On one hand, I didn't care much for the idea of there being a level above the Overpowers. It seemed too much like TSR was trying to appease the fundies who (still) think that D&D equals devil worship by showing that the pagans are really monotheists. It's just that they're too stupid/ignorant, so they just don't *know* they're really monotheists.
On the other hand, your cosmology in this story pretty much shoots that notion in the groin with a Bolter, so I can't really get my anger flowing. Plus, the idea of Ao getting his nose shoved into the mess he's made on the carpet is appealing.
As an aside, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Ao is just the Overpower for the star system that Abeir-Toril is a planet within. And that his boss is the Boss of the galaxy (maybe even the universe) that this star system is a part of. (Starjammers, anyone?)
Screwing around with house Baenre.... Wow, you really *are* tossing Toril's timeline in the blender and setting it to 11, aren't you? Then again, given my opinions on 4th Ed D&D in general and the "new and improved" Forgotten Realms for the 4th Ed, I won't complain about that.
Still, I'm going to hope that Gromph and Liriel Baenre manage to survive. Personally, I liked Liriel more than Drizzt, in regards to what a non-evil drow (of noble blood) would be like. And I sometimes think of Gromph as being like Nalifan (one of my favorite drow characters to read about); only Gromph never got out from under mommy's thumb in time to understand that the Lolthite drow are wasting their strength by being so short-sighted.
But if they have to die for the story, then they have to die.
TheClueless wrote:Mystryl (Goddess of magic #1) basically didn't think that anyone would be able to come up with magic that would let them take the Weave away from her. At least, not without being wise enough to realize that this - if they were unable to properly control the Weave - would be a *Very* Bad Thing.
Karse, unfortunately, proved that she was being too optimistic.
Mystryl was guilty of the high crime of wishful thinking, and given god-like powers she had that should be punishable by death.
The kindest interpretation I have for Ao's decision is that he realized that Shar would soon be revealing her Shadow Weave to the world, so - between her and a good-aligned goddess of the Weave - magic would still be "balanced" over all.
Ao is ultimately responcible for the mess the Goddess of Magic had made, as he is the asshole who setup the entire system.
After the Time of Troubles, there was *no* way that any of the gods would way do do away with the Wall made up of non-believers. Remember, Ao directly tied in the power of the gods (of Abeir-Toril) with the number (and power?) of their worshippers at the end of the ToT.
Given that, I can't imagine anyone - except for the most naive individuals around - expecting the gods to want to give the Faithless or the False any breaks at all.
One way to look at it is that D&D gods where always limited by the overall belief in thier pantheon/themselves, it is just Lord Ao has some many souls he could afford to prop-up how much power they had. Hence why Lord Ao could dump them into Avatars when banishing, they simply where borrowing the power from Ao to begin with(and the portfoliles to begin with, that much is outright stated).
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
In the next chapter, you will learn a bit more about the cosmology of the Open Door multiverse and you will see the explanation for who Ao's superior is in this story, even though it will be very non-canon.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't Mystryl have noticed the research going into the damned spell that ended up destroying everything? I mean, seriously, you would think that "Hey, those mortals are making a spell that could be used to depose us!" would have come up as an item at a meeting of the gods at some point.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Academia Nut wrote:Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't Mystryl have noticed the research going into the damned spell that ended up destroying everything? I mean, seriously, you would think that "Hey, those mortals are making a spell that could be used to depose us!" would have come up as an item at a meeting of the gods at some point.
3rd or earlier D&D dieties alternate between some wierdass limited omniscience where any action affect's thier domain (ie gain/loss power, grant/revoke favours to worshippers) and requiring explicit observation from an actual Avatar to notice shit.
The best way to treat it is; the actual mechanics of being a diety are run by the actual divine body which actually has the god-like powers. This is supported by what happens with aborted divine children aka abominations and when a a god 'dies' and leaves an actual corpse. The mind/personaility is practically possessing this body by the consent of Ao, which explains how you can play mix&match using mortal souls and plug them into existing gods.
And also explains why the god manage to fuckup so much, they aren't the original owners of the divine bodies they are using and haven't bothered to actually learn how it actually works and just go by instinct. IMO, Mystryl didn't notice the research because she simply didn't know how to understand what her divine senses where saying because she didn't understand the research without her concious mind (aka the body didn't have any instincts for it)
As for why the gods had (personal)divine magic during the Time of Troubles, you have to be really retarded to be doing something for centuries and not pick up the very basics.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
Ah, that theory actually works well with what I plan on doing next, although considering the the oldest gods, this probably indicates that Ao was a very poor teacher at first and eventually just gave up. If I have my history right, Mystryl was always a god as she was created out of the magic from Shar and Selune when those two were first fighting. In fact, considering that little primordial spat, one gets the idea that Ao's attention to the multiverse is very... erratic, to say the least.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Self-taught magic gods (which also manage time...), ugh. Explains the mess I guess.
You could always chuck in that the divine body has a tendancy to latch onto a mind/soul, and just have a random getting ascended to god-hood by accident. Especially when you consider, divine bodies practically replicate via asexual budding (voluntary or otherwise) and can have entire aspects suddenly gaining independance if you rip them out of another god a stick a mind in it.
Shar & Selune would effectively be the result of Ao doing some gardening and cutting himself and forgetting to cleanup the blood which spontaneously evolves into an independant living being when some mortal soul got sucked into it.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
In this chapter I make good on my word that cool fan art gets you an appearance. I hope Rask likes what I came up with, although I didn't have much to work with. And Ao gets owned.
Chapter Forty-three: Calm before the Storm
Leaving the room behind, Lars was surprised when one of the mages approached him quietly, away from where Aruvixa could hear. He was a strange one amongst an often eccentric breed, a specialist at summoning forth swarms of scuttling spiders, and it was rumoured, other, stranger entities. He had undergone a ritual scarification, leaving his face marked with lines that suggested the outline of a spider, and he often had several of his pets crawling about his body at all times, hidden beneath his deep robes.
“Rask?” Lars asked quietly.
Nodding slowly and oddly, the strange wizard said, “Yes… yes… I would speak with you of… things… yes, things.”
Stepping into one of the many secluded alcoves, Lars peered intently at Rask and asked him, “You wanted to talk about something?”
“Yes… yes… I have been considering you… you are not a demon… no… no, you are something different. At the least… you are not a tanar’ri… no… you are at least an obyrith… a primordial demon… yes… but I think you are something else… yes… I think you are from not the Abyss but the Far Realm… yes…” Rask explained in his oddly sibilant speech.
Lars looked at him blankly and asked, “And what of it if I am?”
Smiling, Rask replied softly, “The Spider Queen holds no place in my heart… no… no… and yet I do not wish to end up in the Wall of the Faithless… no… so I have been making pacts with other powers… yes… powers from beyond. If I am damned… I would wish to choose my hell… yes… yes. I had thought that perhaps the madness of the Far Realm would suit me for my afterlife… yes… but now I wonder if perhaps… perhaps… my lot would be better off with you… yes… yes.”
Lars blinked and then he asked, “Are you asking me to claim your soul?”
“One day perhaps… perhaps… I would serve you until that day though… yes… yes… I would serve well. Do you like my work?” Rask asked, reaching into his robes and pulling out a tiny chitinous horror, what appeared to be a daemonic spider, all eyes and fangs and hooked legs. “I have long enjoyed the company spiders… yes… but as I have learned of their alien minds I have found a greater need… yes… need… for further refinements to their forms.”
Then we should speak more privately. I do not seek followers, but I do seek aid for my ward Skuld. You understand that she has a spell binding her by pain of death to Aruvixa?
Rask nodded quietly.
Then assist me in helping undo what has been done. I do not trust that you are not some plant for her, but even she should realize that this is my goal. So all I wish is that you find me information on what might undo the spell, and I shall judge from there.
Nodding, Rask said, “Yes… yes… most prudent. I shall see… yes… thank you for your time.”
Returning the horrific spider to his robes, Rask bobbed his head and slipped away, leaving Lars to consider the implications of all of this.
Wandering out into the halls, he noted that a curious entourage was arriving at the gates, a trio of drow with minds that his standard psychic senses bounced off of. They immediately glanced up and stared right at him.
So this is the creature.
Most interesting.
His face passive, Lars replied psychically. I see, so there are a few psychics in this place.
Indeed.
Sighing, Lars headed for the audience hall. Aruvixa would probably want him in attendance for this one.
Jarlaxle discovered much to his amusement that he was in audience with the very recently ascended matron mother of House Roreril. It was to his amusement because such a previously minor house now had the resources to actually start making offers to Bregan D’aerthe, and because for once they probably knew more about his organization than he theirs, due to the fact that over the past few months any spies he sent tended to end up vanishing without a trace.
And here he was now, in an audience with Matron Aruvixa and an envoy from House Oblodra, a very curious meeting made all the more curious by the creature standing next to Aruvixa’s throne. To all outward appearances he was a surface dwelling human dressed in some very snappy clothing, but Jarlaxle could feel his enchanted eye patch warding off near constant psychic intrusions. At first he thought that the creature was actively trying to break into his mind.
Then he realized that the damn thing was probably just automatically doing it. The psychics from Oblodra were looking rather ruffled all at the same time, indicating it could either attempt to peer into all of their heads simultaneously or that psychic senses were as automatic to this creature as vision was to any being with eyes. Either way, it indicated a great deal of power.
“Ah, my guests, I am so glad you could make it,” Aruvixa said everyone had finished arriving. “I do hope that you are currently wondering why exactly I have both of you here at the same time.”
Neither party accepted the bait, although House Oblodra obviously bristled at being invited at the same time as the male mercenary company leader.
“Lars, please show them the claymore,” Aruvixa said.
Nodding, the strange creature picked up what was most definitely not a sword, but rather looked like a sort of slightly convex box and brought it before them. He said, “It’s been disassembled so you can see the inner workings.” He then lifted off the top plate to reveal hundreds of silvery spheres closely packed together, held in place by a sort of resin.
“What… is it?” The representative from the third house asked.
“It is a claymore anti-personnel mine, although most of the words have different meanings from what you probably expect them to mean,” Lars stated.
“Tell them what it does,” Aruvixa replied wickedly.
“This current model is somewhat underpowered in comparison to a true claymore as ideally we would want to use some form of plastic explosive, but we have been able to make due with other forms of high explosive. The current configuration fires seven hundred steel balls at approximately three times the speed of sound in an effective lethal cone approximately fifty yards wide and two yards tall at fifty yards. The maximum range is roughly two hundred yards with this model,” Lars explained.
Jarlaxle caught on first. Every little ball in there had the potential to wound or outright kill anything it hit, and it had a spread bigger than the cone of fire of a great wyrm red dragon. Against a formation it could cause dozens of casualties as those murderous little balls cut through flesh and bone. House Oblodra also quickly caught on. You always brought wizards to a battlefield not because of their ability to do area damage, but to counter the enemy’s ability to do so. This couldn’t be countered; it was ‘just’ alchemy.
“How many do you have?” Jarlaxle asked nervously.
“Two dozen,” Aruvixa smirked. “At the suggestion of my demon, we started producing these at the first possible opportunity due to the fact that they are excellent defensive weapons, especially against large numbers of enemies. Also, tell me Lars, what is the range on the howitzers?”
“The long range howitzers, when loaded with high impulse propellants rather than the more plentiful black powder shot, are capable of hitting any point in Menzoberranzan from the House Roreril compound, although ranging shots with solid slugs enchanted for location are recommended to conserve the high explosive rounds,” Lars reported sharply.
“How many howitzers do we have capable of doing that?” Aruvixa asked.
“We currently have three built, with the primary limiting factor being the production of the ammunition for them. Currently we have a dozen high explosive shells for each howitzer, along with two high explosive armour piercing shells and several incendiary shells in production. We also have enough propellant for two dozen solid shots spread amongst the howitzers, and if we switch to black powder we have enough propellant and shot for four hundred rounds, although the range is significantly reduced,” Lars stated crisply.
The smug look growing over her face, Aruvixa asked, “And the effects of an anti-magic field on all of these devices?”
“None whatsoever. We have already checked during live testing, the presence or absence of magic has no effect on the shells,” Lars replied.
“So a force bunkered in a compound protected by anti-magic fields could, theoretically, bombard any target in Menzoberranzan and have relative impunity?” Aruvixa asked.
“Most certainly. The only viable methods of attack would be massive swarm tactics and/or psychic powers, which are not affected by anti-magic fields. Thus strategy would be to either align with any such force or neutralize them before engaging in any military venture,” Lars replied.
Enlightenment dawned on the envoys from House Oblodra. “You wish our aid in destroying another house?”
“And the aid of Bregan D’aerthe, well known for their skills. Perhaps you should ask your matron whether or not she would like to rule Menzoberranzan, with House Roreril as number two?” Aruvixa asked, beaming broadly. “With the failure to capture that rogue Drizzt and his subsequent destruction of the House Baenre chapel, I do not believe the First House retains enough of the Lady’s favour to stop our combined forces.”
Jarlaxle frowned. This had the chance to be spectacularly good for him or extraordinarily bad. He would have to think long and hard about which side to throw his weight with, because if he chose wrong the consequences would be catastrophic.
Before he could reply, a sudden look of confusion passed over Aruvixa’s face and she said, “I am sorry… something just came up. Lars, go check the perimeter immediately.”
Jarlaxle wondered what had spooked the young matron, although he suspected it would make choosing his side easier.
Ao had not exactly planned on doing what he did, but damn if his underlings had not really pissed him off this time. When he found who had stolen the Tablets of Fate, he would ensure their punishments were…
Ao blinked as he realized he was being summoned. Only one creature in the entire multiverse had that power, and they had already had their centennial discussion just a few decades ago. Ao had been planning on contacting him early to enact the changes he planned after this latest mess, but being contacted in turn early was rather unexpected.
Slipping away to a far corner of his realms, one that no being in the entire multiverse but he knew about, Ao waved his hand and engaged the link that connected him to his distant superior officer.
A holographic image appeared in the middle of the hidden chamber, showing a large, imposing face set with many lines that could be described of as wise, and a large patch concealing the empty eye socket.
“Ao, I have a job for you, one that needs your utmost attention,” the Almighty proclaimed.
“Umm… can it wait? I’m kind of in the middle of a management issue with my underlings and…” Ao said, a sinking feeling filling his soul.
“Ao! This isn’t something that can wait. One of my daughters has gone missing, you hear me? She got sucked into the Void,” the Almighty exclaimed.
“That’s… unfortunate,” Ao replied nervously.
“She was protected by a creature from the Void. We know that she survived, and by their trajectory we are almost certain that she landed within your domain. Find her,” the Almighty ordered.
“Are you sure that she landed here, because I’m really quite busy at the moment and-” Ao said before he was cut off.
“I said find her! I know how incompetent you’ve been with your own creations, but I swear, if you don’t find my little girl, the first thing I’m doing is cutting off your access to the Yggdrasil codes you need to run your little bubble of stability in the Void. The second thing I’m doing is finding a way to announce that whoever finds her and keeps her safe and sound gets your job. The third thing is to get a battalion of Valkyries and Einherjar, mount up on Sleipnir, and find you so I can shove Gungir so far up your ass it will knock out teeth. Do you hear me Ao? I’m talking old school, face smashing, blood eagling wrath of the Norse here Ao. Do you understand me? I have put up with your shit for millions of years, and I am not going to let you screw this up. Not with my daughter on the line. Now, I don’t care what you do, find her and protect her until I figure out a way to get her home. She should be travelling with a creature from the Void, I want him alive and well too. My baby Skuld however gets top priority,” the Almighty roared.
Ao remembered the old days, when he was still a subordinate to the Almighty, before the Sundering and Ao’s displacement. He remembered what the Almighty was capable of when he got riled up.
“I’ll do it right away. But you do know that all divine senses are blind to entities such as your family…” Ao began before trailing off at the glare from the Almighty.
“I don’t care what you have to do, find her. Put up a bounty for your petty gods to squabble over. Put up a bounty for the mortals, I don’t care,” the Almighty ordered.
“Ah… about that…” Ao said.
“Ao…” the Almighty growled. “I swear that if it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t been able to physically get to you, I would have smacked some sense into you a long time ago, starting with the mess you made with Shar and Selune. Well now we know it’s possible to cross the Void, so you had better start shaping up or I’m bringing you home to where you were an office clerk! Shape up!”
“Yes sir,” Ao grovelled.
“And find my daughter!” The Almighty roared.
“Yes sir,” Ao begged.
“I’m going to expect frequent updates on this one,” the Almighty stated.
“Of course sir,” Ao replied, still cowering.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Academia Nut wrote:Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't Mystryl have noticed the research going into the damned spell that ended up destroying everything? I mean, seriously, you would think that "Hey, those mortals are making a spell that could be used to depose us!" would have come up as an item at a meeting of the gods at some point.
I'm going to add my two cents to what Xon's already posted here.
Remember that the (D&D) gods (at least of Toril) - at least as of third edition - basically were aware, at some level, of all actions that involved their portfolio.
For Mystryl, that means she was aware of anyone casting a spell that involved Toril's Weave. Including clerics of other gods. All over the world. Likewise with research into new magic spells and/or items. And with other "magic related" activities and actions.
Also keep in mind that not only was Netheril known for the power of it's archmages, but it was normally for everyday citizens to at least know a few minor cantrips. Not to mention the Phaerimm vs. Netherese conflict going on at the time.
With all of these factors taken into consideration, it's (IMO) believable that even a Greater diety might not be able to "read" all the details on what was going on in their portfolio, due to the information overload. Mystryl would certainly know Karse was working on a new spell. She might have also known that it was a very high level spell. But unless she acutally decided to focus a portion of herself specifically on what Karse was doing, I could see her not knowing what Karse was up to ahead of time.
(As for your statement that none of the gods of that time knew what Karse was up to, I doubt it. According to 3.x source material two of Netheril's floating city states survived - one in Selune's divine realm, and the other on the Plane of Shadows. I doubt that Selune wouldn't have warned Mystryl of what Karse was up to. Shar, on the other hand...)
Still, unless Ao made some changes to divine abilities/senses between Mystryl's death and Midnight becoming the third goddess of the Weave, Mystryl had the ability to work around this limitation. While Midnight's experiment in keeping evil from using the Weave didn't end well, it showed the the goddess of magic could specifically block access to the Weave, on a large scale. (I can't recall if it was done by detecting the alignment of the user in question and/or the spell they were trying to cast.) As such, it would (IMO) follow that this kind of "filter" could be applied to other parts of diety's portfolio.
Academia Nut wrote:Ah, that theory actually works well with what I plan on doing next, although considering the the oldest gods, this probably indicates that Ao was a very poor teacher at first and eventually just gave up. If I have my history right, Mystryl was always a god as she was created out of the magic from Shar and Selune when those two were first fighting. In fact, considering that little primordial spat, one gets the idea that Ao's attention to the multiverse is very... erratic, to say the least.
Even more damning is the reason *why* Shar tried to destroy Selune way back when. Selune had offended her by *turning on the sun* in Toril's star system.
If Ao is responsible for the creation of Toril's star system, this little fact doesn't say much about his "world building" skills. Either that, or he's even lazier than I am.
You know that discussion that was going on over at SB regarding how the 'balance between good and evil' in the AMG universe? I don't think that balance has anything to do with morality. Nothing happens without cause or reason. And as "The Almighty" and "Ao" have some knowledge of the Immaterium, perhaps the whole reason behind that balance has more to do with "not creating any new daemons who will cause a shitload of trouble for us by killing all life in the universe" than it has to do with "morality."
This is sickening... You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet! Prepare yourselves!
Oh, it goes beyond that. The Almighty and Ao both know about the origins of Chaotic Space and the Great Wall, the creation of which set up the conditions for daemons and worse things. There are reasons OMG Heaven had no idea about anything outside their section of the multiverse and why the Far Realm is generally regarded as all that's out there if you go too far in D&D.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
Aranfan wrote:So, does this mean Skuld has the power to smack down Ao?
I think it means that Skuld has more indepth knowledge of the 'Yggdrasil code' than Ao does, but is currently cut off from it or anything even remotely like it at the moment.
This is sickening... You sound like chapters from a self-help booklet! Prepare yourselves!
Academia Nut wrote:Leaving the room behind, Lars was surprised when one of the mages approached him quietly, away from where Aruvixa could hear. He was a strange one amongst an often eccentric breed, a specialist at summoning forth swarms of scuttling spiders, and it was rumoured, other, stranger entities. He had undergone a ritual scarification, leaving his face marked with lines that suggested the outline of a spider, and he often had several of his pets crawling about his body at all times, hidden beneath his deep robes.
Given the facial markings, and the spider theme, Rask here most likely has at least one level in the Arachnomancer prestige class (from the 3.x Underdark sourcebook).
Not a bad prestige class to take, if you're an evil sorcerer or wizard in a Lolthite drow community, given the some of the reverence that they give to spiders rubs off on you. Even if you're male.
“Yes… yes… I have been considering you… you are not a demon… no… no, you are something different. At the least… you are not a tanar’ri… no… you are at least an obyrith… a primordial demon… yes… but I think you are something else… yes… I think you are from not the Abyss but the Far Realm… yes…” Rask explained in his oddly sibilant speech.
I'm not even sure if the Far Realms would be "out there" enough for it to consider a daemon to be "one of the guys". But, it's the closest match that I can think of from the viewpoint of someone limited to D&D cosmology.
I also wonder if any one else in Menzo. has reached the same conclusions as Rask yet.
Smiling, Rask replied softly, “The Spider Queen holds no place in my heart… no… no… and yet I do not wish to end up in the Wall of the Faithless… no… so I have been making pacts with other powers… yes… powers from beyond. If I am damned… I would wish to choose my hell… yes… yes. I had thought that perhaps the madness of the Far Realm would suit me for my afterlife… yes… but now I wonder if perhaps… perhaps… my lot would be better off with you… yes… yes.”
Oh my. Is Lars going to help Rask worship the four gods of (new style) Chaos, or is this his first worshipper?
Either way, I think this is the first pebble in an avalanche that will either reshape Toril's drow. Or bury them.
“One day perhaps… perhaps… I would serve you until that day though… yes… yes… I would serve well. Do you like my work?” Rask asked, reaching into his robes and pulling out a tiny chitinous horror, what appeared to be a daemonic spider, all eyes and fangs and hooked legs. “I have long enjoyed the company spiders… yes… but as I have learned of their alien minds I have found a greater need… yes… need… for further refinements to their forms.”
I think you meant "the company of spiders". Unless this is part of Rask's way of speaking.
Given his comments here, Rask (IMO) either has at least a level in the Fleshwarper prestige class (from the 3.x Lords of Madness sourcebook) or the Alienist prestige class (from the 3.x Complete Arcane sourcebook). Given his intrests in the Far Realms, I'd say that Alienist is the most likely choice.
<Snip!>
I'm guessing that Jarlaxle's spies were caught by Lars, as they weren't expecting to deal with psychic powers?
I'm also guessing that Lars - and probably Skuld - are now mostly wearing Commissar style clothes as a default? I wonder if they'll start a fashion trend in Menzo?
“It is a claymore anti-personnel mine, although most of the words have different meanings from what you probably expect them to mean,” Lars stated.
Ouch. Even if Lars and Skuld left Menzo (one way or another) right this very second, they'd have still have started a series of events that would shake things up locally. Because even if they haven't taught any of Aruvixa's underlings anything, knowing that something *can* be done is a big step towards being able to do it yourself.
“Most certainly. The only viable methods of attack would be massive swarm tactics and/or psychic powers, which are not affected by anti-magic fields. Thus strategy would be to either align with any such force or neutralize them before engaging in any military venture,” Lars replied.
If you don't mind me asking, at least for this version of Toril, how are playing the magic vs. psionics debate out? Given what occurs with House Oblodra and the illithid, the ToT did *something* to psionics on Toril, which forced the various psychics to have to re-learn how to access their powers after the gods were allowed to leave Toril. And the official 3.x FR suggestion was to treat it as Weave-based magic, only different. (So a Weave-based dispel magic worked perfectly fine against psychic powers, and vice versa. And a Shadow Weave-based dispel magic worked about as well against psychic powers as it would against a Weave-based spell, and vice versa.)
Before he could reply, a sudden look of confusion passed over Aruvixa’s face and she said, “I am sorry… something just came up. Lars, go check the perimeter immediately.”
I'm guessing, given the rest of this chapter, that Ao's just kicked all of the gods - except for Helm - out of the appartment building?
Strangely enough, I hope that Aruvixa's able to keep House Oblodra from not taking full advantage of the Time of Troubles when they had the chance to *own* Menzo.
“Ao! This isn’t something that can wait. One of my daughters has gone missing, you hear me? She got sucked into the Void,” the Almighty exclaimed.
So the "My Goddess" universe has subordinate universes/realities? Interesting. Given the other comments in this conversation there can't be many of them.
Much more interesting, IMO, is the fact that Daddy Dearest seems to be keeping his cards close to his chest, since even his system administators - his own flesh and blood - didn't know that their reality was just part of an even bigger multiverse.
“I said find her! I know how incompetent you’ve been with your own creations, but I swear, if you don’t find my little girl, the first thing I’m doing is cutting off your access to the Yggdrasil codes you need to run your little bubble of stability in the Void. The second thing I’m doing is finding a way to announce that whoever finds her and keeps her safe and sound gets your job. The third thing is to get a battalion of Valkyries and Einherjar, mount up on Sleipnir, and find you so I can shove Gungir so far up your ass it will knock out teeth. Do you hear me Ao? I’m talking old school, face smashing, blood eagling wrath of the Norse here Ao. Do you understand me? I have put up with your shit for millions of years, and I am not going to let you screw this up. Not with my daughter on the line. Now, I don’t care what you do, find her and protect her until I figure out a way to get her home. She should be travelling with a creature from the Void, I want him alive and well too. My baby Skuld however gets top priority,” the Almighty roared.
... He's still a good father, though.
I, for one, can't *wait* for the conversation between Himself and Ao when Ao has to tell him that Skuld accidentally knocked Lars up.
“Ao…” the Almighty growled. “I swear that if it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t been able to physically get to you, I would have smacked some sense into you a long time ago, starting with the mess you made with Shar and Selune. Well now we know it’s possible to cross the Void, so you had better start shaping up or I’m bringing you home to where you were an office clerk! Shape up!”
Something tells me that, no matter what happens, Ao's blissful days of near independance from the Head Office are nearly over.
Thank you for another great chapter. I'll be eagerly awaiting more!
Academia Nut wrote:Oh, it goes beyond that. The Almighty and Ao both know about the origins of Chaotic Space and the Great Wall, the creation of which set up the conditions for daemons and worse things. There are reasons OMG Heaven had no idea about anything outside their section of the multiverse and why the Far Realm is generally regarded as all that's out there if you go too far in D&D.
I think that it's pretty obvious that the series of events that have led to the Stilleto ending up in the (an?) nBSG universe was part of Tzintchi's plots to find out more about the multiverse. But, given the last chapter and your comments here on it, I'm starting to wonder if Lars is the primary tool in this particular endevour, and the Stilleto is either a stalking horse or just an added bonus.
Before I start on a lengthy answer/rant to Robo Jesus' post, I'd like to say a few things about this fic. Firstly, I found myself wondering how Tzintchi and co. were going to wage war on the C'tan and Necrons... so I'm interested in seeing how everything ties into that, and when and how they will actually launch their campaign against the Necrons. (Bonus points if they "drag" the Tyranids into the Necron's domain, and make the Necron's believe the newChaos are an extra-galactic [if not *dimensional*] threat!) I'm also curious as to what will happen with the original WH40K universe; I realize the new Chaos wants to stay the hell away from that place, but still... Maybe they could pay a visit to the medieval-era of Warhammer Fantasy Battle?
Secondly; it wasn't until Academia Nut explained about Chaos on SpaceBattles.com that I understood that these guys weren't necessarily being presented as a bunch of people that can do no wrong. That is to say; I started reading this fic and thinking "oookkaay, this is a lot different from how I remember Shinji and co. being in Thousand Shinji.. honestly, why are these jerks the protagonists?" The fic made it seem like you were on board with how these guys were acting. I see now that's not the case, but while readers will be able to see from their actions that Chaos aren't as good as they think they are, it will seem like you, the author, support Chaos in full. Or at least that's the problem I had when reading this. I kept on reading hoping to see Chaos get punched in the face, or to see the bigger plot in the midst of a megacrossover.. megacrossover tend to sacrifice actual plot and characterization in favor of wish-fullfillment and "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we added another universe/pop culture reference in here?!" There comes a time when you start cussing out the rules of "if you believe it it's true" and "any fictional worlds can be crossed; just get your dimensional/universe hopper!"
Hope I managed to get my criticism across in a way that makes sense.. Sorry if it just reads like a complaint. I'll admit right now that I preffer Thousand Shinji to this, but I still want to read more. I just hope you're including worlds for plot/characterization, not just because of some odd form of wish fullfillment.
Robo Jesus wrote:You know that discussion that was going on over at SB regarding how the 'balance between good and evil' in the AMG universe? I don't think that balance has anything to do with morality. Nothing happens without cause or reason. And as "The Almighty" and "Ao" have some knowledge of the Immaterium, perhaps the whole reason behind that balance has more to do with "not creating any new daemons who will cause a shitload of trouble for us by killing all life in the universe" than it has to do with "morality."
Um. It occurs to me that keeping a "balance" of events between "good stuff happening" and "bad stuff happening" is a better way of creating powerful emotions, and thus fueling demons. Besides, much like you'd rather have good people and good things happening, if any warpbeings could form at all, it'd be best if they were formed out of good emotions... rather than an odd mix of goodness and evil..
And what makes daemons more powerful than the beings that are already in power in those worlds? Belldandy could destroy Earth *accidenally* when going all out. The deities ruling over their domains might as well be the anologues to daemons/warpbeings...
My complaint about "balance of good and evil" was broader in scope than AMG anyhow. It applied to any world or situation where authors/godlike beings were stupid or cruel enough to believe in a "balance" of good and evil. And what you wrote in your post implies that the makers of DND and the OMG universes purposefully created a "balance between good and evil" so that Games Workshop wouldn't sic daemons and the 4 warpgods on them. -_-
Read the "balance between good and evil" section on tvtropes.. some of the "better" ideas authors have had about morality, is that if good doesn't have some sort of evil to fight, the formerly good guys will.. turn into evil tyrants. While still being good. This being some kind of contradictory example of them being "too good." It doesn't work that way; if the Holy Order of the Lawful Good Knight Templars turns into a bunch of borderline Lawful Stupid/Evil tyrants... they're not good anymore.
My point is that trying to "balance" good and evil or chaos and order makes about as much sense as "balancing" the COLORS red and green. Even if I switched "black and white" it still doesn't make sense to use the word "balance" unless I was trying to paint/color some kind of really weird black and white mirror painting.. one of those abstract ones, and I had to be exact about how much color I used.
There is cause and effect; action and consequences. Morality usually comes when civilization progresses enough that people are easily fed, sheltered, e.t.c. and are educated and have time to think.. "Good" is usually measured by the quality of life civilization/government can provide, and morality by how closely nations' governments and citizens can follow widely accepted rules of behavior. (General rules being things like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," "don't be an asshole" that sort of stuff, before going into cultural/philosophical specifics.)
There shouldn't even be such concepts as "good versus evil." There are people who have goals that would screw over other people, and their opponents are those people who have realized that if they don't do something, they're going to be screwed over.
People have agendas, not puppy-killing quotas to meet.
On a semi-related note, I've finally managed to start playing Warhammer Online.. I rolled up an Archmage on Avelorn, hooray.
I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.
I think an important thing to think about is the bibilical story from Genisis. Before man ate from the tree of knowledge, he was one with the animals. Once he had eaten from the tree of knowledge, he had become like God.
In other words, without Good And Evil, you're nothing more than an animal. Knowledge of both good and evil gives free will. With the capacity for both, you now have the ability to make choices.
Actually, without giving too much away, I can say that the explanation in this story for the balance issue has more to do with long term survival than an actual moral system based on balance. Essentially the 'balance' is more to keep both Heaven and Hell in line and to keep from killing each other and destabilizing reality than it is because both are somehow 'necessary'.
Also, while it is true that newChaos here has my sympathies, I still recognize that they are quite monstrous and they are not some paragons of virtue. Also, they're intentionally uncomfortable to a lot of the ways we look at good and evil because they aren't like D&Ds alignment system. They won't eat puppies just because they can, but neither will they be all rainbows and kittens. They can do both good and evil, and both great good and great evil. Sometimes at the same time. They live in a universe where action and intent determine morality, not alignment with cosmic forces.
Finally, do remember the number of times where Ao's mismanagement and incompetence have blown up in his face. He seems to have a major ego problem, so expect him to try and hide the fact that he has a superior officer and expect it to backfire on him.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
You should play Planescape Torment, where Alignment is determined by action. And the PC starts out as True Neutral but can become any alignment depending on his actions, which you decide.
Ah, Torment, fun game. The spell effects, especially the level 9 stuff, are so ridiculously awesome. When the spell animation takes longer to complete than casting the spell while not making you feel like you're in a Final Fantasy game, you know the devs did their work. Celestial Host and Mechanus Cannon (I think those are the names) are particularly awesome. Celestial Host has an outsider from every good aligned plane take a turn shooting the target, while Mechanus Cannon has a giant (as in railway giant) cannon pop up in mechanus, the plane of law, open up a portal to the target and blast them with a giant shot. There's also another spell that opens up a hole to the Abyss, throw the target inside, have demons chew on it for a while, and then if there's anything left they spit it back up.
Such an awesome game. I love just talking with the NPCs.
I love learning. Teach me. I will listen. You know, if Christian dogma included a ten-foot tall Jesus walking around in battle armor and smashing retarded cultists with a gaint mace, I might just convert - Noble Ire on Jesus smashing Scientologists
