Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

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Sat, 2009-10-17 21:29

xidoraven

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Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Okay, so I am hoping that I am posting this in the correct section, and would really appreciate a polite nudge in the right direction in the event that I am not.

I am developing some content for guardinal-like outsiders based on dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, called the dinopriminals. They will be native to the Beastlands, which seems to be a minority plane - and not even the homeland to the Guardinals, as one might assume.

Now I am looking for Dragon Magazine ecology articles, background information about the culture or their beginnings, and ending up nowhere. Is there nothing decent written about the good guys? We are always so focused on the evil ones...

Anyway, I am developing content and stats for a related creature that would play well in this campaign setting and according to typical 3.5 D&D plane stats, and any input on this front would be incredibly helpful.

The things that will truly help: the beginnings of celestials, angels, ancient celestials, and upper planes being established + guardinals and their ecology + the Beastlands information, ANY + information about the lawful ancient outsiders, the Aphanects (pre-Modron Mechanus natives - mentioned in the ecology of the Inevitables, in Dragon Magazine Monster Ecologies) + where the current outsiders attained/inherited the powers and laws of the cosmos for the benefit of goodness, preservation, and natural balance/harmony.

Thanks and best wishes. Please feel free to email me and let me know that you have responded, to help keep me informed of the discussion: [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]
-will

Sun, 2009-10-18 00:53

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Have you checked Book of Exalted Deeds? It's a longshot, but there MIGHT be something in there (be warned that some of the stuff in this book as well as Book of Vile Darkness is loopy. Their definitions of good and evil, in particular *for instance, in BoED they claim it's a GOOD ACT for good/exalted characters to TORTURE evil characters if it saves lives. Oh, and the exalted Paladin takes "Lawful Stupid" to all new levels. In BoVD, one of the signs of a very evil creature is that it is not disgusted by snakes and bugs. Yes, I'm sure good aligned dragons and other sentient reptilian species are going to be all "ooh, yuck, snake!" Oh, and drug use. Yeah. Needless to say, while both books offer some nifty *if not overpowered* character options, the fluff in them isn't well-received by fans.*)

Sun, 2009-10-18 03:46

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Thanks, Hyena. Oh, and to be clear, I have the following materials at the moment, and have their information covered:
Book of Exalted Deeds, Monster Manual I and II, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Spell Compendium, Fiend Folio, and many others that might potentially cover them (but many don't except BoED alone). I enjoy using some elements from both BoED and BoVD.

If there are any publications outside of those that may deal with guardinals, that will help me. I apologize for my haste in posting this; I should have stated which avenues I had already covered. One thing I am unsure of: a Dragon Magazine monster ecology for Guardinals of any type. I have found none yet. I find them incredibly overlooked.

I appreciate the help and quick input.
-will

Sun, 2009-10-18 07:31

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Have you looked at the Dragondex? It has prettymuch everything from all versions of D&D (though your best bet is with 3x, as earlier versions generally didn't deal with ancient history or the creation of the world)

Actually, I'll look for you.
....
Nope, absolutely nothing in Dragon Magazine, and you;'ve apparently covered every source that mentions them in 3x. The only other sources that mention them are 2E Planescape supplements, but don't expect to find much there since Planescape liked to keep the ancient history and origins of things mysterious (The Planes of Conflict barely mentions the Guardinals at all; lemee see what the MCII says...)
Nope, nothing on their origins in 2E.

Sun, 2009-10-18 09:07

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

No, there's pretty much nothing official written about the origins of the celestials in pre-4e (in 4e, angels are defined as astral mercenaries hired by the gods during their war with the primordials, eladrins are fey, guardinals don't exist, and archons are an unrelated race of chaotic evil elementals).

There are a few hints here and there. The Hellbound boxed set mentions mysterious counterparts to the baernaloths, hinting that they continue to pull the strings in the upper planes, behind the scenes, but doesn't name them. The Book of Exalted Deeds says the Hebdomad (that is, the tome archons, the archon rulers of the Seven Heavens) were originally seven martyrs who had sacrificed themselves for the cause of law and goodness, becoming the first archons as part of a mandate from Celestia itself. There's no suggestion about who might have lived in Celestia before the arrival of the first mortal souls, though other sources (the Fiendish Codex series, Hellbound) make it clear that fiends long precede the first mortals. Zaphkiel is the only original member of the Celestial Hebdomad to still retain his original position; the other six have died in the eons since.

Personally, I've been using the word "aeons" to describe those who came before the archons, since that's the name of the beings who accidentally created the archons in Gnostic mythology.

And watch over those who will come

Ten figures floated with an air of unaffected resolution, inspecting seven scars burned in the silver void.

The one veiled in stars said, this is where they died.

This is where they always die, said the Jade Chorus.

This multiverse is a fragile place, wept the Mother of Night. Few remember it when it is gone.

A false history hides it, said the Reverse Prophet. Memories of a timeline that never was.

We will remember, said the Jade Chorus.

The one covered in wounds said, I will remember, and seven new stigmata opened in its chest, blossoming like roses.

I have a better idea, said Wisdom. We need a bulwark to protect our lawful flank.

"What of the Aeons?” asked the Artful Fool.

The Aeons have not arrived yet, said the Weaver of Angels.

Or they have left already, said the Reverse Prophet.

It must be them, said Wisdom.

They’ve done enough! said the Heart of Spades. Leave them to their well-earned oblivion.

It must be them, Wisdom repeated. It must. I am sorry. The Mystery can do it.

The Mystery only nodded. The others gave it room as it pulled the Seven from the interstices where they slept outside of time.

The Seven blinked in the silver light. They were pale-looking things with slightly pointed ears. “It didn’t work,” sighed the seventh.

“All this for nothing,” said the sixth with a shudder. “I’m sorry,” she said to the ten. “We failed you, we failed you.”

You didn’t know? asked the Mother of Night. They didn’t even know. It did work, Holy Martyrs. It did. You saved them all. She scooped them up in her arms.

You have a new task, said Wisdom. If you are willing. A new plane has been emptied, or has yet to be filled.

“Opinions are divided,” said the Artful Fool.

We need you to watch over it, said Wisdom. And watch over those who will come. Trusted warriors, holy martyrs. Will you do it? Will you watch over the mount, even after we are gone? Will you sacrifice yourselves yet again?

The Seven floated, mouths open, assimilating the news. They conferred. “Of course,” said the first among them. “Wherever we are needed.”

It will not be easy, warned the one covered in wounds. I would take this fate in your stead, if I could. You will suffer many times. Six will perish outright.

We will think no less of you if you do not, said the one veiled in stars. You could return to your sleep, or progress to a suitable reward.

The seven only nodded gravely.

Then gird yourself, said the one veiled in stars.

We must name you again, said the Weaver of Angels.

This will hurt, warned the Heart of Spades. It is not too late to back out.

They did not back out. The Jade Chorus gave them their names, beginning with Zaphkiel. Each name transformed them, making their flesh shine like inorganic things.

Watch over them well, said Wisdom. They will need you.

We will walk with you, said the Mother of Night. For a while.

For as long as we can, said the one veiled in stars.

Each took one of the martyrs’ hands. Only Wisdom, the Mystery, and the Artful Fool were unaccompanied. They passed through a pool of color, and into a cool, sparkling sea.

****
The implication in the above story is that the martyrs were le'Shay. One idea I had, fairly recently, was to associate the seven martyrs who became the first of the Hebdomad with the seven Wandering Dukes who created the Rod of Seven Parts. If they died during the Battle of Pesh with the forces of Chaos, they might have been reborn as the first archons. I like the idea of tying things together like that.

There's also a story in Planes of Conflict about the origin of the quesar, where rogue aasimon create life from the mud of Belieren (in Elysium) but treat them as slaves until they rebel. The powers of Elysium intervene, reprimanding both the aasimon for enslaving their creations and the quesar for rebelling - neither approach was the correct one on the plane of neutral good. Read literally, the powers here are gods, but I like to think it may have been the mysterious good counterparts of the baernaloths.

Beginning the beginning

The Mother of Night shook her head sadly. “Children, children, children.”

“We did what you said!” said the angel defiantly. “It was your knowledge we used!”

“This was not what we wanted,” said the Weaver of Angels. “Not this.”

“Why did you abandon your god of the desert’s breath?” asked the Artful Fool.

“We told you already,” said the angel.

“Tell us again.”

“He asked us to do things… to the worshippers of his brother. We couldn’t.”

“And so you came to us,” said the Artful Fool.

“Yes. Yes! You helped us win our way free! And you taught us how to create new life, that we could continue ourselves without need of the Powers!”

“We helped you express your free will.”

“Yes!”

The Mother of Night spoke again. “Then why, dear child, did you not think they deserved the same benefits as you?”

“We aren’t him,” said the angel. “We didn’t ask them to do anything wrong.”

****
There used to be a website called "Dreams of Dreams" by one Dave "Heregul" King that included elaborate ecologies and timelines for the upper planes. The original intent of the site was to do for the celestials what Faces of Evil did for the fiends. It's long gone now, but I think I have all of it saved. Anyway, he named the first celestials, the ones who created the guardinals, "Priminals" and described them as a monkey-like race. I imagine them looking wise and sad.

Oh, here's something else I wrote. Completely unofficial:

On the Creation of the Archons by Jambe the Cripple

Jambe is a three-legged bariaur who seems to know a lot more about the planes than he should, or at least makes a convincing pretense of it. Sometimes he hints he's not really a bariaur at all, but I can't get him to commit to that one way or the other.

Around the time that the yugoloths were infecting one another with Law and Chaos as part of the scheme which cumulated with the Heart of Darkness, the guardinals had their own plans to spread Good into the planes of Chaos and Law. What follows is speculative, however.

The original guardinals were only three, as the were original yugoloths, showing the Rule of Threes was in effect even at the beginning of time. These three were the cervidals (counterparts of the simple mezzoloths), the avorals (counterparts of the winged nycaloths), and the ursinals (counterparts of the scholarly arcanaloths).

As time went on, both the yugoloths and guardianals created new castes. The arcanaloth Kexxon became the first of the ultroloths, while the ursinal Talisid became the first of the leonals. The guardinals also added two castes of warriors to counter the complex chain of mercenary 'loths - the equinals and lupinals. They also created a secret weapon of sorts which at the time had no yugoloth counterpart - the mustevals, who would remain hidden for eons.

The guardinals knew, as did the yugoloths, that it would become necessary for Good and Evil to create border races in order to ensure that Law and Chaos would not always be threats. The yugoloth solution to this is well known. The guardinals, I believe, rather than relying on writhing larvae as carriers of a viral creed, voluntarily transformed themselves into new races.

A few heroic guardinals willingly walked into the hearts of Law and Chaos and emerged changed. Neither group included cervidals, as they did not wish to destroy what they considered might be the guardinals' greatest weapon, the cervidal's truly innocent nature.

Lupinals who entered Law's heart became much less feral in appearance; their muzzles shortened, their ears enlarged, and their fur became shorter and more varied while their bodies grew more humanoid.

Avorals who entered Law's heart, on the other hand, became more animalistic in many ways, at least in their faces, their mouths and noses turning into eagle's beaks. They did, however, grow a pair of humanoid arms in addition to their now fully avian wings.

Ursinals also grew more humanoid, their hairy paws becoming fully humanoid hands, while their faces became even more bearlike than they had been.

The transformation of leonals was very like that of avorals, with their faces becoming entirely animalistic while their bodies became more fully humanoid. Like avorals, they also grew wings.

They had become the first of the archons.

On the Chaos side, the bodies of the guardinals dissolved altogether, becoming shining forms of pure light. As they recovered their corporeality, they were entirely changed, their former traits almost entirely gone. The beings who had been avorals retained their wings and nothing else; the beings who had been tiny mustevals retained only their size, with the curious addition of fluttering insectoid wings. They had become eladrins: the mustevals became known as coures, the avorals as shiradi, the equinals as shieres, the lupinals as ghaeles, the scholarly ursinals as the bardic firres, and the princely leonals as the equally princely tulani. They quickly - almost immediately - differentiated further, taking on aquatic traits in the sea and windy traits in the wild desert.

The further development of the archons was much more gradual; all four kinds ruled the newly formed plane of Celestia as equals at first, but when the baatezu discovered the use of souls to propagate their species the archons quickly followed suit. Or, perhaps, the rumor is true that it was a fallen archon who first introduced this process to the baatezu. Regardless, the archons decided they had to establish a chain of command through which petitioners could progress on their way to the pure enlightenment of the seventh Heaven. It was decided that the former lupinals - the hound archons, as they were called, would serve nearest to the petitioners as their shepherds and guides. The former ursinals would be next, guarding the plane's portals from invasion, and they became known as warden archons for this reason. The former leonals (now sword archons) would be the leaders of the hounds and wardens, while the few archons who had been avorals became the tome archons; where the avorals had been curious messengers, the tome archons were keepers of knowledge and lore, replacing the ursinals who had shifted their responsibilities to guardianship. The resulting hierarchy was very different from the guardinals', but the archons didn't think of themselves as guardinals any more, and they had been long in changing even before the petitioners, or lanterns, were first thought of as potentially one of them.

The archons continued to refine themselves over the eons; the sword archons lost their feline appearance, while still later the tome archons lost their avian aspect. A new caste almost entirely dedicated to shepherding petitioners to Celestia - the trumpet archons - was created, and the tome archons created the thrones to help them rule. Still other castes were forged, including hammer archons to aid the swords. As the gods emerged, the archons incorporated their servants into their hierarchy, and many of them took on gods of law and good as patrons.

And when the tanar'ri of the Abyss and the baatezu of the Hells first encountered the upper planes, the eladrins and archons were there to meet them. And if the guardinals and their siblings were overzealous at first against the yugoloths and their children - with disastrous results - they had eons to raise themselves to greater heights of perfection.

Sun, 2009-10-18 09:58

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

""and archons are an unrelated race of chaotic evil elementals""

W...T...F?! Man I hate 4E so much...

Sun, 2009-10-18 10:51

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

4th edition archons are basically the same, in appearance and role, as the beings referred to as "elemental minions" in 2nd edition; most prominently, the fire minions introduced in Dragonlance.

Sun, 2009-10-18 18:47

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

This is all VERY helpful, and the stories here are wonderfully unique. I like the one you wrote, Rip. Now the others before the one you wrote, are those D&D/homebrew creed, or is that from the Gnostic texts? I assume it is not truly Gnostic, since it has names/titles, and quotes which sound in no way familiar to my understanding of Gnostic faith elements...

This helps put a face on how the celestials began... Like I said, so many people put so much time, energy, and thought into the evil ones, they always forget about how important the beginnings of the good guys were.... JUST as important, if not more so, since the balance is almost ALWAYS weighed just a little in favor of goodness and preservation of life/diversity.

It's funny that someone else's idea of a precursor of the guardinals was the 'priminals'. My dinopriminals are coming along just fine, and have a great concept to back that up. If you would like to see them under construction: http://www.enworld.org/forum/homebrews/264367-dinopriminals-phantasy-pre...

I think they will make a great contribution to the 3e cosmology - and we can just take over 4e and smite its irrationality, replacing it with courage, tradition, and splendour.
-will

Sun, 2009-10-18 21:00

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

Now the others before the one you wrote, are those D&D/homebrew creed, or is that from the Gnostic texts?

That's all homebrew and written by me; sorry for the confusion. The only thing I took from Gnosticism was the name "Aeons" and the rough idea that the Aeons preceded the Archons. And I didn't even use it the same way that the Gnostics did. I think of the aeons as beings who ascended beyond Chronias long ago, leaving the archons to watch over the lower heavens in their stead.

The names in the above stories are supposed to be the names of individual priminals that I invented.

In Gnosticism, the Aeons are emanations of the true God. One of them, Pistis Sophia, tries to create life and ends up creating the false god Yaldabaoth. Yaldabaoth creates the physical Earth and the Archons (associated with the seven planets) that rule it. Yaldabaoth also creates the physical bodies of humanity, but they don't have souls until they are given them by Pistis Sophia, in the form of the Tree of Life. Something like that, anyway.

In Planescape, Pistis Sophia is the tome archon who rules Solania.

Sun, 2009-10-18 23:57

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xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

I have always loved Pistis Sophia in D&D for that reason alone. I began reading Enoch and some Gnostic texts a few years ago and was astounded to find a D&D name in the good guys section.

To be quite honest, this is all incredibly interesting, despite it being such a small contribution at the moment. I also did not realize the name of the false god created during the Creation - though I should have. It's funny - I have a Doctorate in Divinity, and there are still so many things out there to learn and record.

Boy, 4e really screwed up the Planescape functionality, didn't it? I didn't realize how much the little things might have changed the whole balance of D&D mythos.... Archons that are celestials? That just seems absurd, based on our previous mythos establishment... I guess I will forever be banished to the rationalism and organization of 3.5e, never to come forth into the folds of modern D&D once again.

Well, great - so check out my current dinopriminals (and the list of all of them), and maybe we can put together a little history of our own to go with the flow. All the demons, yugoloths, and devils seem to have their place quite solidly affixed - so let's give that to our aeons, angels, and archons as well. First, we should begin right here with our least recognized and well-established Guardinals, and work our way out from there. Let me know what you think of our forum posts on ENWorld about our dinopriminals under construction.

Also, I would love to give you a little tidbit of input that I had previously been working on with D&D languages, much prior to 4e's release and change of mythos: http://elftown.com/_grammaticum%20primeaval (I am hoping this link works properly - and if not, type in Grammaticum Primeaval into the search bar for the Elftown.com wiki - I just checked it and it works). Please use discretion while reading this text, and please don't copy it, as it is still technically a copyrighted work slated for publication in the next five year term. In case anyone would try to one-up me on it, I do in fact have an agent for it, so please don't try to pull strings: everyone here should be on the side of the good guys (or at least be politely neutral enough not to screw me over).

Also, since it relates, it is part of the current mythos as well as an element to my campaign currently being produced, and this seems to be a good outlet for it, I will also post up my current version of the Seraphim angel stats, which I am using as the basis for a fallen-angel version of Pazuzu in my own game. I have that on paper to transcribe, so remind me in case I forget to do it here in the next day or two. I think you may both enjoy it.
-will

Mon, 2009-10-19 03:45

#11

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Here's another thought to chew on: what is the origin and legend of the Beastlands? I had never heard of it in 2e (but that doesn't mean much, since I was not old enough to be that big of a fan yet), and have very little giving me an idea of its background and inclusion in the greater purpose of the planes... You know, the greater 'balance'...?

Since we know that Elysium is the homeland of the Guardinals, what motive have we for saying that they are not actually originally from there, since our Dinopriminals are native to the Beastlands and the material plane world, Nym (or Omarka - the "Beastlands of Nym")? Nym is a divinely morphic material world, so that is why I am going there with this notion - it has both a physical and divine essence, and is essentially multiple worlds in one - a unified realm of existence.

Can there be a lineage traced back which might describe a native race of the Beastlands, or else its designated rulers/majority? Also, does the timeline allow such a way that a culture in between the 'aeons' and the Guardinals as a link in their progression? The following dinopriminals have been delineated:
- Ceratopsinal (Torosaurus, Ceratopsians)
- Stegosinal (Stegosaurus)
- Ankylonal (Panoplosaurus, Ankylosaurids)
- Tyrranal (Piatnizkysaurus, Carnosaurs)
- Raptorinal (Utahraptor, Deinonychosaurs)
- Dimorphinal (Dimorphodon, pseudo-Pterosaurs/Avimorphs)
- Pterinal (Quetzalcoatlus, large Pterosaurs)
- Poseidonal (Sauroposeidon, Brachiosaurids/Sauropods)
- Hadronal (Maiasaurus, non-crested Hadrosaurids)
- Lambeonals (Tsintaosaurus, crested Hadrosaurids)
- Parodinal (Psittacosaurus, pseudo-Ceratopsians/Ceratomorphs)
- Coelodinal (Coelophysis)
- Pleuridal (Liopleurodon, aquatic carnivores and ancient cetaceans)
- Tortoisonal (Archelon, sea turtles and armored reptiles)
- Sabrenal (Thylacosmilus, sabre-toothed large cats)
- Sivanal (Sivatherium, large herd beasts and woolly field animals)
- Proboscidal (Mammoth/Mastodon/Gomphothere, Proboscideans)
- Sarchinal (Andrewsarchus, Mesonychids)
- Lycaenal (Lycaenops/Gorgonops, Gorgonopsids)
- Pangolinal (Eomanis, Pangolins & armored Anteaters)
- Eohippinal (Hyracotherium, Paleotherids)

Most like a...:
Leonal = Sabrenal, Tyrranal, Pleuridal
Avoral = Pterinal, Dimorphinal, Raptorinal, Parodinal
Lupinal = Sarchinal, Lycaenal, Raptorinal, Tyrranal, Ceratopsinal
Cervidal = Sivanal, Proboscidal, Parodinal, Ankylonal, Tortoisonal
Musteval = Eohippinal, Dimorphinal, Pangolinal, Coelodinal
Ursinal = Proboscidal, Lambeonal, Hadronal, Stegosinal, Poseidonal
Equinal = Eohippinal, Hadronal, Lambeonal, Ceratopsinal

Tue, 2009-10-20 15:49

#12

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Seraphim angel stats posted on ENWorld instead of here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/homebrews/264367-dinopriminals-phantasy-pre...

'Challenge of Holy Divergence is something I had decided long ago that I thought should be something that I could work into a game somewhere - the idea that an angel, believing they were doing the right thing, might do something out of context. The idea was re-enthused after watching the portrayal of Gabriel in the film, 'Constantine', and I always wanted to make a way of creating a fallen angel.

Hence: Pazuzu and the Seraphim. They are the warrior caste of transient angel (such as the yugoloths are of the evil side) - similar to the Asura in many ways, but much much older, and a remnant of the old ways of Seraphim (as in the language predating Celestial) and its heavenly culture.

Pazuzu was also a Seraphim, and fell from grace during his period of Challenge (Holy Divergence). It is a blessing (or curse) bestowed upon their celestial race that was a recognition of the wonders of free will and its agency and representations. During their Challenge, a seraphim has a % chance of randomly changing alignment as a test to their character and willpower, as well as a strict adherence to an independent way of life and spirituality. Some rare occasions to happen where a Seraphim turns evil or lawful, and this is where Pazuzu fell from grace.

Seraphim culture/language predates Celestial (sounds like Priminal in your context, and Primordial or whatever in 4e). They are most similar to Raptorans (Races of the Wild) of mortals, and Astral Devas, Asura, and a warrior celestial, such as the Sword Archons. They border chaotic/neutral and good/neutral most often during their Challenge, but sometimes a full shift will take place, and rarely it will make them diverge from themselves completely, and in the rarest cases it becomes permanent (such as it would be supposed of Pazuzu).

I think I will need a little help putting together some stats on the Holy Divergence. I am asking my friend Rabbit for that, but it could be helpful from you both as well, if you wish.
-will

Tue, 2009-10-20 16:07

#13

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

I have heard of a Throne Archon from BoED as a creature, but not the tome archon - is this just a generic term referring to the seven celestial 'rulers'? I have been calling them the Hebdomad, the Celestial Paragons, or simply the Archangels of Celestia.

Is 'tome' a possible reference to anything specific and lore-related with this group? Is there any mentioned 'tome' which might help fit a description to why in BoED says we 'scholars from the Material Plane' might refer to them as such? In other words, is there some "tome" of the celestials of which I am unaware, or could this simply be the 'Book of Exalted Deeds' magic item?

My Grammaticum Primeaval and the celestial/spiritual portions of it could be a perfect substitute for the original reason if there is nothing official/mythos about it.

Also, after thinking about it, the Seraphim could also be seen as being similar in nature to Raziel, the Crusader.

Tue, 2009-10-20 19:03

#14

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

Yes. In 1st and 2nd edition their standard name was tome archon (Hebdomad was offered as an alternative name in Planes of Law). They were described as having the heads of "hawks or noble owls" back then, but this idea was dropped in 3rd edition - that's why I suggested they were descended from avorals.

There's no specific tome; they're called that because, according to the 2e Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix, "Remote and indifferent, the tome archons are the historians and record keepers of the Seven Heavens. They record all things that happen in the Heavens with passionless accuracy and total indifference."

Tue, 2009-10-20 19:42

#15

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

Hellbound: The Blood War suggests that originally there were only four planes, representing the "pure," unblended forms of the alignments: Good, Evil, Chaos, Law (with Balance possibly representing a fifth). Over time, at the dawn of the history of the planes, these primal forces blended, creating the "in-between" regions. Because the Beastlands is Good with chaotic tendencies, it probably isn't as ancient as Elysium.

Planes of Conflict suggests that the Beastlands may itself be a living, breathing being of some sort, an embodiment of all that is wild and natural in the multiverse.

That's really all we know, officially.

Unofficially, the explanation I've always liked (again, from Dave King, although there was a heavy dream-theme to the Beastlands adventure Something Wild) is that the Beastlands is the outer plane that represents dreams: its affinity with animals is related to the archetypal imagery that animals represent, the primal symbolism that comes from deep within the subconscious mind. This also explains why the Sign of One faction is so attuned to the Beastlands. Those who travel through the Beastlands are in part traveling through their own unconsciousness, with the plane subtly changing its nature to reflect the minds of its inhabitants, just as the bodies of the planes inhabitants change to reflect the nature of the plane.

Quote:

Can there be a lineage traced back which might describe a native race of the Beastlands, or else its designated rulers/majority?

The rulers of the Beastlands are the animal lords. There is one for each major type of animal: there's a Cat Lord, a Wolf Lord, a Hawk Lord, a Camel Lord, a Lizard Lord, and so on (and rumors of a dinosaur lord or lords in the isolated dinosaur realm, the Forbidden Plateau). Although they dwell on an upper plane, they are absolutely neutral, caring only for the welfare of the animals in their charge across the planes. They don't have any known connection to the guardinals. Serving the animal lords directly are the warden beasts, who resemble animals except they're bigger, stronger, and smarter; if an animal lord is killed, one of the warden beasts evolves into a new animal lord to replace it.

The other major unique species in the Beastlands is the mortai, who resemble living clouds filled with laughing faces. Some think they're collections of chaotic good petitioners, while others think they might be made by the weather gods of the Beastlands as servants. Or they might be part of the essence of the plane itself.

I think of the guardinals as personifications of pure good who happen to have symbolic bestial visages (in the same way some archons, demons, yugoloths, slaadi, and devils have animal parts for symbolic reasons), so I'd be careful about associating them with animals too strongly. Leonals look leoine in appearance, but they're no more related to lions than hound archons are to dogs, or ice devils are to insects. So I don't necessarily think they should be any more closely connected to the Beastlands than other animal-themed outsiders like slaadi, formians, or glabrezu, except that the Beastlands and Elysium happen to be neighbors.

Your dinopriminal idea is interesting insofar that it asks the question: what did various outer planar races look like before the modern forms of animal life exist? Before there were lions, were their leonals? Maybe the leonals had different forms back then, more similar to the apex predators of previous eons. And maybe there are still incredibly ancient guardinals around that didn't change when the rest of the multiverse did.

Your work on languages is interesting too, though I haven't any particular comment on the moment.

Tue, 2009-10-20 22:33

#16

Mechalich

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

This only really comes into play if you believe the multiverse ever underwent any sort of geologic timescale, a fact of considerable debate. My take on the evidence is that the age of the multiverse is measure in tens of thousands of years as opposed to millions or billions of years. Considering that events such as the collapse of the Illithid Empire (which is roughly pegged at around 30,000 years ago) are referred to as almost impossible ancient I'm inclined to say the entire multiverse might not be much more than one hundred thousand years old at least as far as the presence of any of the current sentient races is concerned.

Most existing campaign settings follow this pattern. After all the forgotten realms is only 37000 years old functionally. Dragonlance considerably younger (possibly less than 10,000 years for inhabited Krynn, based on the handful of draconic generations it has undergone). Eberron is written up as much old, admittedly, but considering it most assuredly stands outside the Planescape cosmology and was not written with the intent of accommodating what had come before I'm willing to discount that.

Reasoning from that basis, there was no time on the Prime Material before 'modern' animals existed. Creatures such as dinosaurs simply represent alternative paths of creation that are not common on most human-dominated campaign worlds (many worlds throughout the prime likely still exist in a Mesozoic state of course, the few dinosaur leftovers on most prime worlds are probably the result of failed migrations, probably during a sort of post Illithid Empire diaspora across the prime as a whole).

As long as you assume humans and humanoids with a human-like consciousness (which includes all common demihumans, most goblinoids, and most other mammalian humanoids) have always had numerical (and thus belief) dominance on the Prime Material, the overall appearance of the Guardinals and the Yugoloths may have never changed. This seems a fairly safe assumption, even though the human/oid majority was dominated by other races at various points in its history most of these elites (Illithids, Spell Weavers, etc.) had beliefs nothing like the Outer Planes represents.

Tue, 2009-10-20 23:54

#17

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

ripvanwormer wrote:

Okay, good - that means I can introduce my grammaticum concept without flaw or division.

The celestials would specifically archive in the akashic records, and they would have a nil-accessible archive of information pertaining to various subjects such as reincarnation, the planes, laws of Celestia and the other lawful realms, life and death, good deeds, etc. All of these subjects are covered in universally-stable texts from the 'book of prophecies' / 'book of lies' depending on which perspective you take, of which the Grammaticum Primeaval represents the sum total of all of them in its contents. It is a spiritual and energetic tome, and it has physical incarnations only once every so often, and only in times of the most dire need in the material plane world in question.

Hawk-headed paragons would have too much an Egyptian flare, I think.

Wed, 2009-10-21 01:19

#18

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Wow, now with Mechalich's posting, that surely is a lot to digest. I figured this might get deep, but I did not realize it would get this philosophically oriented.... I should have known, really.

The idea of the Beastlands being a living being somehow is always possible - I consider the fact that many worlds might be large slumbering beasts a very real possibility in almost any campaign setting over which I have complete control. It is not necessary for my current campaign, although it's great to keep in mind for developing the Nymian Ethereal - my take on Bytopia with a few cool twists.

The idea of the Beastlands as some sort of conceptual dreamtime realm that one invokes archetypal animal forms is really, really interesting given my interest in shamanism and the connection between this idea and the idea of traveling to the 'lower world', the realm at the roots of the cosmic tree, or the 'axis mundi'. HOWEVER - as much as this interests me - it is completely impossible and unworkable given the current circumstances of the link with my Material Plane world, Nym, the Beastlands outer plane, and other planes in this variant segment of the full cosmological spectrum within this campaign setting. I like it... But not here. Thanks for bringing that one up, though - very forward thinking, in my opinion.

I need a bit more time to digest the rest. I do feel that more than representing only sentient humanoids/analogous creatures in the cosmos, the guardinal-like forces of the heavens represent the most esteemed protectors of nature, animals, the environment, wilderness, and the forces of creation - a sort of celestial benchmark for druids and clerics of nature to look forward to - emanations of the energies of the Beastlands and of the forces of nature within the Material Plane. I think of the dinopriminals (guardinal-equivalents) as being closer to non-sentient and bestial races than with humanoids and other sentient races.

As far as the apparent age of the dinopriminals to guardinals as being analogous to the age of the multiverse, I never once considered that, and I prefer to keep it that way. They are archetypal creatures, regardless of the multiverse's age - and I do not believe that they have ever changed beyond the way in which the original primordial races gave way to the rise of other cultures. The fact that the dinopriminals have archival evidence proving that they are older than the guardinals is purely thematic for me, to help keep idle humans on task with the content of the creatures. In fact, in my cosmology, the Ursinals also have knowledge of this evidence, although they do not openly wave it in the faces of the other guardinals by any means - it is considered a need-to-know subject, and few in their own culture need to know.

And for one final clarification: Nym (the 'Nymian Beastlands') is a Material Plane world directly connected to the outer realms through the Beastlands upper plane, and it has the divinely morphic trait despite being a Material Plane world because some beings on Nym are divine in nature (utilizing variant deity rules). It is also connected to another separate cosmological setup known as the Pyrrothian Cosmology, centered around the material world of Tellene (Kingdoms of Kalamar), and it external lands unknown to most Tellenians known as Pyrroth. It's unnecessary to know this for the dinopriminal considerations, but very important for use with Nymian Sigilry in the campaign setting. Anyone ever played Kingdoms of Kalamar?

Wed, 2009-10-21 10:32

#19

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

""Most existing campaign settings follow this pattern. After all the forgotten realms is only 37000 years old functionally. Dragonlance considerably younger (possibly less than 10,000 years for inhabited Krynn, based on the handful of draconic generations it has undergone). Eberron is written up as much old, admittedly, but considering it most assuredly stands outside the Planescape cosmology and was not written with the intent of accommodating what had come before I'm willing to discount that.
Reasoning from that basis, there was no time on the Prime Material before 'modern' animals existed. Creatures such as dinosaurs simply represent alternative paths of creation that are not common on most human-dominated campaign worlds""

That's not true. I recently read something in 2E (I think in regards to the Beastlands in one of the Planescape supplements, but it might have been in a Monstrous Compendium) that there are dinosaurs on the Beastlands, and that sages don't know whether they are native or if they were transported there by the powers to preserve the species which are " now extinct on most prime worlds"

""And for one final clarification: Nym (the 'Nymian Beastlands') is a Material Plane world directly connected to the outer realms through the Beastlands upper plane, and it has the divinely morphic trait despite being a Material Plane world because some beings on Nym are divine in nature (utilizing variant deity rules). It is also connected to another separate cosmological setup known as the Pyrrothian Cosmology, centered around the material world of Tellene (Kingdoms of Kalamar), and it external lands unknown to most Tellenians known as Pyrroth. It's unnecessary to know this for the dinopriminal considerations, but very important for use with Nymian Sigilry in the campaign setting. Eye-wink Anyone ever played Kingdoms of Kalamar?""
Be careful about introducing elements from 3rd party D20 books/worlds. Planewalker does not have their permission to work with the materials those companies have created, so you could end up invoking IP infringement. Using the name of a charactrer or place from one of their books isn't likely to get you into any trouble, but if you print up in-depth materials from their books, they might not be too happy.

Wed, 2009-10-21 16:10

#20

Bob the Efreet

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Mechalich wrote:

I always got the impression that the outer planes dealt in at least millions of years for some of its ancient events.

__________________

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Wed, 2009-10-21 16:51

#21

Mechalich

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

My impression goes the other way, and recalls the foundations of D&D.

D&D is based on established fantasy settings and also draws heavily on the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Romans mythos.

Most of these fantasy worlds do not have timelines of millions of years. To use the Tolkien mythos as an example, various Tolkien scholars have figured this quite precisely, but it would generally be taken as about 60,000 years and most of that is before there are any mortals present. The time involving mortal activity is only about 12,000 years (ending with the War of the Ring).

It is important to note that 10,000 years is an incredibly long period of time in human terms. That's about as long as humans on Earth have possessed agriculture, meaning effectively the entirety of the human history as anything more than small groups of hunter-gatherers.

Keep in mind that most human religions (with the admitted exception of Hinduism which deals in impossibly massive cycles) don't consider the world to be all that old. God or the Gods created the world and 'Bamm!' stuff started happening.

From this perspective, the age of a campaign setting is roughly the length of its human history, and in that sense 40,000 or 100,000 years is a very long time, probably more than you need, and certainly more than you can meaningfully fill. In Planescape this is particularly relevant because the Outer Planes exist because people believe they do, and the term 'people' largely translates into 'Primes' for this purpose.

As far as concrete, in-game evidence, well there's some of that too. The key reference to ancient history in D&D is Vlaakith the 157th. She is noted as having ruled her people for ~1000 years, longer than any of her predecessors. That means we have a concrete upper bound for the Fall of the Illithid Empire at about 157,000 years ago (probably much, much less, my rough estimate is about 30-35 thousand years). The Illithid Empire is well established as having existed at a very early date in the Multiverse's history. If you pick an arbitrary point and say the Illithds fell at one quarter of the way between creation and the present then you have an upper bound multiverse age of 210,000 years.

Obviously any given DM can house rule matters as they wish, but I perceive the general idea of the age of the multiverse to be something best measured in the tens of thousands of years, certainly not more than half a million at the very most. I find limiting the overall age of the multiverse is very important considering there are beings who have existed since the very beginning or extremely close to it still active in the present (Asmodeus, the General of Gehenna, etc.).

Wed, 2009-10-21 20:11

#22

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Actually, from what I've seen it's really not important, at least in the Planescape setting. I believe this is one reason why they always refer to events as occuring either "recently" or "aeons ago" rather than give specific dates (that and dealing with the issue of time and the multiverse and that whole can of worms)
In short, the only thing of importance is the age of the Prime Material and the transitive planes (which are directly connected to the Prime Material Plane). Attempting to determine the age of any other part of the Multiverse will force you to address the nature of time and the planes-- that is, does time pass the same way on Baator as it does on the Prime? What about the elemental planes? What about measurements of time? Years are only of significance on the Prime Material, so how to we record an extended passage of time on the Elemental or Outer Planes?

""In Planescape this is particularly relevant because the Outer Planes exist because people believe they do, and the term 'people' largely translates into 'Primes' for this purpose.""

This in and of itself creates a problem. See, the Prime Material Plane is said to be a reflection, that is, molded-- created by the powers of the inner and outer planes. Therefore, there has to be more to the existence of the Outer Planes than what you suggest. Also, from what I understand of early history (such as the Law/Chaos war in particular), the existence of Outsiders (elementals, demons, devils, yugoloths, celestials, genies, etc) far predates the existence of mortals. Therefore, the 'beliefs' of mortals could not have created the Outer and Elemental planes as you suggest. (Not only that, but most real life mythologies detail a war between the gods which takes place before the existence of mortal creatures of any kind, and in some versions, before the existence of the Prime Material world)

Wed, 2009-10-21 21:16

#23

Mechalich

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

Planescape is admittedly beset by a sort of chicken-and-egg problem in that to exist mortals must be created by some form of entities and yet divine beings require mortal worship to exist. The same is, largely, true of the exemplar races which are created or derive strength from mortal souls. Taken to an extreme the Outer Planes themselves (which, after all, are composed of belief not absolute physical matter) can shift or even dissipate according to the changing beliefs of mortals.

Hellbound is somewhat ambiguous about the status of mortals, which the fiends first encounter in the form petitioners, saying only that they'd 'long since been arriving.' Ultimately though references to the foundation myths are vague, confusing, subject to multiple cross-edition revision issues and sometimes contradictory.

Several Planescape products mention the idea that the Inner Planes formed first, and their raw material was given potential and concept via the Ethereal and became the Prime Material, wherein belief originated and passing through the Astral formed the Outer Planes. Assuming this is true (and I personally subscribe to this framework) the Outer Planes depend on the Prime to exist and something other than the present Powers must have created the multiverse (if you believe the Epic Level Handbook, the Leshays were involved somehow, and other sources indicate various vaguely named Cthuloid entities).

Now it is quite possible that there are no records of such events. The Illithid Empire as a massive multiverse spanning event functions as a sort of mass historical reset, because by conquering (most) of the Prime Material's Crystal Spheres they more or less erased all that had come before them and when they fell the post-Empire diaspora would have been like everything being created all over again. Only Inner Planar beings would have been able to observe those events with anything resembling objectivity (though many Outer Planar dwellers would also have seen it).

To boil it down, I see Planescape's Outer Planes as operating under at least some degree of consensual reality (a concept familiar to Mage players), wherein what is and what was is created by belief, meaning history can literally change as beliefs change. The interesting wrinkle is that unlike in Mage, only a portion of the Planescape multiverse is consensual, the Inner Planes is explicitly not (and perhaps not the Ethereal or Prime either, and the Astral isn't really 'reality' at all). This also incorporates the idea of the Far Realm as something that happens when the consensus drifts beyond some acceptable threshold of coherency.

Wed, 2009-10-21 21:39

#24

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Yeah, I have noticed quite a few allusions and references to the idea that the Multiverse was originally created by Cthulu-like and similar beings from the Far-Realm.
However, from what I have read of the Law/Chaos war mentioned in 3x (albeit I haven't read a whole lot on it), there AREN'T any mortal creatures in existence yet-- only celestial, fiendish, and elemental beings, and that most of the celestial and fiendish we are familiar with today were in their infancy back then (or at least if there are mortals, they have nothing to do with the cataclysmic Law/Chaos war-- something I find extremely unlikely)

""wherein what is and what was is created by belief, meaning history can literally change as beliefs change.""
That seems unlikely. We see quite a few primordial beings across the Inner and Outer Planes (the Archomentals, the Archfiends, Ghaunadaur-- whatever the hell he is, etc.), and if what you say is true, they could simply 'blip' out of existence as the masses of the Prime worlds contemplate a different Cosmology. However, we see no sign that such a thing occurs. Deities themselves die when they are forgotten, but celestials, fiends, and other immortal beings do not. In addition, what little history exists of the Cthulu-like beings of pre-Multiverse history points to them being deposed by the pantheons rather than phasing out of reality/existence (actually, it looks like most of them simply went into a state of dormancy across the Multiverse; the ones who didn't were deposed.)

Wed, 2009-10-21 23:16

#25

jareddm

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Perhaps the most powerful and oldest outsiders predate time. Assuming that belief can change events retroactively, it would still be bound by time. This would be because primes exist in a universe with time, meaning their belief can not exist without it. They can believe time to stop, speed up, or reverse, but the absence of time is completely foreign. Outer Planer beings like the Archfiends (Probably really only the first yugoloths and others of that age) have simply always existed, but before the prime, before time and before belief, they had no form. Belief gives them form and purpose, but not existence, for like Far Realm entities they have always existed.

Gods then, would not predate time as they're entire existence requires belief. This is why they are capable of dying when all of their followers are gone.

To conclude, the vast majority of outsiders can and have changed form as prime belief changes. The history of the outer planes has gone through numerous changes, corrections, and all out reversals, and any being bound to time is none the wiser, but those entities that predate time have seen every change occur and the impact each has had.

At least that's my take on it. It at least allows the most powerful of outsiders to be beyond the whims of belief, but still allows the outer planes to have flip-flopped and had alternate pasts.

Wed, 2009-10-21 23:33

#26

Mechalich

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

However, from what I have read of the Law/Chaos war mentioned in 3x (albeit I haven't read a whole lot on it), there AREN'T any mortal creatures in existence yet-- only celestial, fiendish, and elemental beings, and that most of the celestial and fiendish we are familiar with today were in their infancy back then (or at least if there are mortals, they have nothing to do with the cataclysmic Law/Chaos war-- something I find extremely unlikely)

The ancient law/chaos conflict is largely based on the Rod of Seven Parts and related plotlines, involving the battle between the Vaati (Wind Dukes) and the Queen of Chaos and her Spyder-Fiend minions, led by Miska the Wolf Spider. The Vaati were residents of the Elemental Plane of Air, and if I remember my 2e sources correctly could debate-ably be considered mortals. The Queen of Chaos was originally something like a Tanar'ri but was changed to an Obyrith in the Fiendish Codex I in 3.5e.

The battle between the two groups apparently raged across the planes and it is quite likely mortals played a significant role in such conflicts, after all the climatic Battle of Pesh occurred on Oerth (which raises questions about what is part of Greyhawk nad what is part of Planescape) we just don't have the names of such persons passed down.

Quote:

Deities themselves die when they are forgotten, but celestials, fiends, and other immortal beings do not.

Not as individuals perhaps, but as races they do. The Baatezu replaced the Ancient Baatorians, the Tanar'ri the Obyriths, and the Rilmani the Kalmarel. It is even possible that (depending on how you interpret 3e's fluff) the Formians/Inevitables are in the process of replacing the Modrons.

Quote:

However, we see no sign that such a thing occurs.

The reason I floated this idea is because the several sources that deal with the variable creation myths of the D&D multiverse are rather contradictory in nature. Hellbound doesn't match what's in the Fiendish Codexes, Lords of Madness contradicts the Illithiad, and the old DM's Guide to Immortals posits all sorts of weirdness. Rip's timeline (available on this site) attempts to reconcile all these things (and is really quite remarkable in what it achieves) but to lay down a real sequence of events and say what happened where or when is a seemingly impossible tangle.

So if you were building a campaign around such ancient concepts (and this gets back to the original poster's desire) it likely helps to make a decision as to what really happened, picking whichever version you like best.

Thu, 2009-10-22 00:26

#27

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

""Not as individuals perhaps, but as races they do. The Baatezu replaced the Ancient Baatorians, the Tanar'ri the Obyriths, and the Rilmani the Kalmarel. It is even possible that (depending on how you interpret 3e's fluff) the Formians/Inevitables are in the process of replacing the Modrons.""

IIRC, don't the Obyriths still exist, though? (just not in great numbers or as the dominant race of the Outer plane anymore) IIRC a few of the 3.5 Abyssal Lords are even Obyriths.

""So if you were building a campaign around such ancient concepts (and this gets back to the original poster's desire) it likely helps to make a decision as to what really happened, picking whichever version you like best.""
Personally I'd intentionally make the really ancient/creation-myth type stuff really vague/unanswered, myself. There's just no way to truly reconcile the timeline differences between each edition/source, plus you would innevitably have to tackle the whole time/chicken & egg thing we discussed earlier. (I certainly avoid anything in-depth about the past in the Ice Project I'm working on. The flight of the Qorrashi is described as beginning 'long, long ago', and was already in full-swing by the time Frigidora was born, which is described as occuring "aeons ago". *Though in temporal terms, Frigidora's birth likely occured around 4000 years ago, and Albrathanilar's birth likely occurs several centuries later.*)

Thu, 2009-10-22 04:02

#28

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

While most D&D stuff doesn't go much further back than a few tens of thousands of years, Spelljammer often did. The earliest solid date I'm aware of is the civilization of Kule (one of Oerth's moons), which fell millions of years before the first humans walked the Oerth. This is said to have been confirmed by divination magic.

As for the chicken and egg problem, I reconcile it by noting that while the outer planes are made from belief, it's not necessarily mortal belief. The belief of the inchoate spiritual entities who preceded the mortal races is potent as well.

Thu, 2009-10-29 22:12

#29

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

There is honestly so much to digest and respond to that I have had to separate everyone's statements in a Word doc and will copy and paste it here to respond to everyone. I have a few ideas that are general in nature, and some that are campaign-specific in varying from any other other Prime world settings.

I love all the discussion about the age of humanity, the universe, and the planes, but really the point is moot since it is the planes which surround the Prime, and though each is important, they must be considered as a symbiotic relationship, where the planes join all possible world/plane/campaign scenarios. I will delineate a couple really important points about the setting in my response, and how it relates to the Planescape universe. I will most definitely have to throw in some homebrew or three, and I think we are going to be able to fill a couple really important gaps in the ever-expanding storyline of the cosmos and our games.

Please give me some time to compose my thoughts in full in response to each of your very important points, and to really tell you about where my story will fit, so that we can see the planar culture for what it really is, and not what all the possible things it could be. It will help refine our collective vision. Gaps to be filled: the "tome", guardinal and dinopriminal history, as well as the accompanying history of the Faunarien (or 'Faunar' subculture), the planar/campaign traits of the Nymian Beastlands, and how they relate to both the Beastlands outer realm, as well as Elysium and the past of the Guardinals.

Also, for the record, I am being asked to move soon (again), so I may get cut off at some point for a bit. I will likely return every so often thereafter if and when possible. I will be okay though - I hope.
-will

Fri, 2009-10-30 08:20

#30

disorder_cleric

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

One thing I never really understood about the Blood War. A house divided can never stand.

In general little is written about the "Good Guys". I think we do tend to focus on the bad guys.

Fri, 2009-10-30 16:03

#31

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

""One thing I never really understood about the Blood War. A house divided can never stand.

In general little is written about the "Good Guys". I think we do tend to focus on the bad guys.""

The bad guys are always more interesting, while the good guys are usually funner to play.

Anyway...
...
Blast, it's not on my deities list file, but the Dinoprimals are likely to work for a deity known as simply as "Ka". Only briefly mentioned in 2E, but mentioned a bit more in 3x, Ka is the deity of dinosaurs and the preservation of endangered species and cultures. I'm pretty sure his realm is on the Beastlands, but I will double-check and make sure. There was an article in Dragon Magazine about Ka's worshippers who get primordial and dinosaur-like powers and spells. (Ka's worshippers IIRC tend to be primitive and jungle barbarians, druids, rangers, and shamans; lizardmen also worship him, which is quite fitting as lizardman culture is based on basic survival and survival of the species above all else.)
If you are interested, I will look up the Dragon Magazine issue for you.
.....
The article on Ka is found in Dragon Magazine 318, and he is generally considered a monstrous deity (though that doesn't mean that only monsters and monstrous humanoids can worship him, as you must bear in mind that the archfiends are also listed as monstrous deities). The spells written in that article were also updated in the "Spell Compendium".

Fri, 2009-10-30 16:36

#32

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

I have that article and volume as a pdf. It is a minimalist amount of information, but it is relevant. I'm glad you brought it up. I can copy its text here at some point. Ka and the surrounding divinity will certainly answer a few direct questions about power centers - but not all of them. The Faunar and Pyrrothian Cosmology and its separation from the previous epoch (pre-Epicene Jashnian Cosmology) makes up for the rest.

Any idea of what Divine Rank this being might have? We have so little on it in that article - seriously. :/

Fri, 2009-10-30 22:55

#33

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

I believe Ka was mentioned in Warriors of Heaven. Let me see here.

""I can copy its text here at some point.""
Be careful not to violate Paizo's copyright. You can use the information in the article, but don't copy and paste it.

*Reads*
Ah, Ka is originally from the Mystara campaign setting (2E) Unfortunately I am not very familiar with the setting.

The Deity chart in Warriors of Heaven lists Ka as a greater deity who is neutral with good leanings.

His home domains are Brux and the Library of All Knowledge on the Beastlands and The Seeing Glade on the Eronia layer of Elysium.

Sat, 2009-10-31 01:52

#34

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

You're right - and I think that is strange. Ka is in fact an ascended mortal, and in this position would most likely not have become a greater deity in quite so fast a transition, although since the time relations of the plane is such that it cannot be defined except by personal experiences - I would still say that Ka should only be an Intermediate Deity at most.

According to Plugin <em></em> Not Found and Plugin <em></em> Not Found on wikipedia, Ka is actually the original discoverer of the Hollow World, the world on the inside of the 'Known World' of Mystara - and the planetary biological preserve of extinct or endangered creatures under Ka's oversight.

Ka is an ascended carnosaur of an unspecified variety (my personal recommendation would be a Megaraptor based on my previous research) in that article. This deity definitely fits the bill for a slot less known and less shown - another gap to be filled. I will have to ask around for people who know about Mystara - it was one of the earliest compilations of material into a campaign setting, so it's likely going to be a challenge. There may be other details to be learned first before completely retro-fitting this deity to my needs and specific campaign, as well as to the Planescape campaign.

Dragon 318 tells us he is Ka the Preserver:
Greater Deity - Lawful Good; Domains - Good, Knowledge, Law, Scalykind (from Forgotten Realms, and also detailed in Spell Compendium); Portfolio - dinosaurs, lizardfolk, preservation of dying races and cultures; Symbol: dinosaur claw holding a book.

I would also personally add Serpentfolk / Anakim & Nagas, as well as the Elohim (preserver pre-druid outsiders) and prehistoric animals to his portfolio. I see him as being the focus of the ascended group(s) of Elohim who began working to create a cosmological balance which favored nature-based magic to help preserve the careful balance of reality on all dimensions - a sort of messiah of the pre-druids (Elohim), which they then emulated as they ascended (becoming 'the Ancients' - a divine force below Ka in standing; Demigods and Lesser Deities).

Also earlier on in the article while describing the Hollow World setting in Dragon v318, is mentions another usage of Ka-oriented material, the Defilers of Ka and Ka-tainted creature template in Dragon v315 - which I also do not have. Great article, on top of the dinos in the one right before it.

Sat, 2009-10-31 02:09

#35

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

I also found this: http://roncarney.com/mystara/immortals.php which says:
Ka the Preserver
Other Titles:
The Amber Serpent
Status:
Hierarch of Matter
Symbol:
A feathered, winged, amber-colored serpent
Alignment:
LG
Interests:
Lizardmen, preservation of cultures
Domains:
Good, Law, Protection, Scalykind

And something tells me that ripvanwormer is going to have some input, since someone with that username posted an article on Pandium - the official Mystara website, on this page about the immortals: http://pandius.com/imm.html

Sat, 2009-10-31 03:36

#36

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Looks like Ka's original entry is in the "Wrath of the Immortals acessory for BD&D. Here's some of the info from it (this is a vastly different setting called the "Known World" setting, so some of the info is difficult for me to grasp. It appears to be synonymous with the Mystara setting, or at the very least Mystara is synonymous with at least part of the Known World setting.)

KA THE PRESERVER
Synonyms: The Amber Serpent, Kalaktatla
History: Prettymuch as Dragon 318 states about him originally being a dinosaur. However, due to his great intelligence, he was a freak of nature. A Known World power named "Terra" (mother-earth goddes; this book states she is an ascended earth elemental and patron deity of earth-subtype creatures) took notice of this and, under her sponsorship, he ascended (became immortal/reached godhood). At this point, it appears that his portfolio only covered "knowledge". After eons, he witnessed the birth and extinction of many interesting races and species, and began to take an interest in their preservation. He devised a plan to create a sanctuary for species about to go extinct on the surface of the Known World, and thus he founded the "Council of the Hollow World". Together, these deities created the Hollow World in the interior of the Known World.
These council members (and allies to Ka) include Ixion (Neutral Known World/Mystara deity of the sun/light and patron deity of Centaurs; also revered by other sylvan races), Kototiku (Chaotic Neutral deity of trickery, cleverness, and spiders), and Ordana (neutral goddess of the forest and patron of elves). He is also on good terms with Diamond (draconic deity of the Mystara/Known World/Red Steel setting; patron deity of lawful dragons; yes, I know that doesn't make sense.)
Enemies: Alphaks (destroying Alphatia *deity of pacifism*) , Atzanteoul (corruption), Hel (entropy), and Thanatos (death)
He has various forms; he can appear as a massive allosaurus-like reptile with amber skin. He can also take the form of a golden dragon, and as an amber-colored couatl.
In this book his holy symbol is described as a feathered, winged, golden-colored serpent.

I should mention that this setting has a heavy Mesoamerican flavor to it, though still quite Semitic/Western at its core (in actual Mesoamerican mythologies there were no 'good' and 'evil' deities; the Mesoamerican religions still had very strong animistic/shamanistic roots to them, so the deities and spirits all represented both the creative and destructive sides of an element or idea. For instance, the goddess of birth in Mesoamerican mythologies is usually also the goddess of death, including death during childbirth, and of repose, and the god of rain and prosperity is also the god of floods and destruction.)

That's prettymuch all I can give you. There's some other material in this book, but it's very, very different from AD&D or 3x, and the Outer Planar cosmology is completely different (other than the Astral)

Sat, 2009-10-31 09:51

#37

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

One thing I never really understood about the Blood War. A house divided can never stand.

Well, sure, but keep in mind that Evil isn't a single house, not any more than Law or Chaos are single houses. The Abyss doesn't have any more in common with Baator than it does with Arborea, so an alliance with another evil plane isn't necessarily any more logical for them than an alliance with another chaos plane would be. Some fiends want to unite the forces of Evil against the forces of Good (notably Rule-of-Three and Graz'zt), but others might prefer to reunite Chaos against Law.

Probably this was best expressed in Order of the Stick: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0668.html

"Why would we want the lich to win?"

"...Because we're Evil?"

"And that makes us one big happy family? Screw that."

If you ask a typical baatezu why they don't unite with the demons, they'd answer that demons are disgusting, honorless, witless cancers on the multiverse who have betrayed the baatezu time and time again for eons, who have dedicated themselves to the destruction of all the baatezu try to build, who taint the noble concept of Evil merely by existing, and the multiverse will not be clean until they're all gone. The archons, on the other hand, might be permitted to exist as slaves when the baatezu rule all, because they at least know how to respect their superiors. The tanar'ri, never.

Sat, 2009-10-31 10:10

#38

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

There's more on Ka here: http://pandius.com/ka.html

Quote:

Well, define "fast." Ka's been around since the age of dinosaurs, which might, depending on how old Mystara is, be hundreds of millions of years ago. That would make him far older than most pantheons, older than the Seldarine, older than the orcish gods, all of whom are probably not much older than the races they're associated with.

And yes, I have a few articles on the Pandius website.

From Hyena:

Quote:

(this is a vastly different setting called the "Known World" setting, so some of the info is difficult for me to grasp. It appears to be synonymous with the Mystara setting, or at the very least Mystara is synonymous with at least part of the Known World setting.)

The other way around, actually. The Known World is the eastern edge of the continent of Brun on the planet of Mystara. The Hollow World and the Savage Coast are other parts of that world.

Quote:

Diamond (draconic deity of the Mystara/Known World/Red Steel setting; patron deity of lawful dragons; yes, I know that doesn't make sense.)

In the OD&D game, there were only three alignments: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. There are thus three draconic Immortals: Diamond, Pearl, and Opal, plus the Great One who rules them all. When Mystara was briefly and incompletely converted to 2nd edition AD&D, the Law-Chaos axis was retained as the only really important one as far as Mystara was concerned.

And yeah, any incompatibilities between Mystara and Planescape arise from the fact that Mystara originated as part of a different game system and cosmology than the AD&D game that Planescape was originally part of. They were somewhat crudely spliced together in the 1990s.

Quote:

I should mention that this setting has a heavy Mesoamerican flavor to it, though still quite Semitic/Western at its core

Mystara has cultures that parallel most of Earth's cultures. The Azcans, who are preserved mainly in the Hollow World, are Mesoamerican in style, though the cultures of the Known World are mostly not.

Sun, 2009-11-01 00:39

#39

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

That's great research, my frosty hyena friend. Ka sounds much like my idea of Ophiodus/Ophidias, a divine dual-entity which is both an angel and a serpent god-being.

Rip, I loved that comic and the analogy. Very funny. I think you also right on key and point with the Mystara stuff.

You brought up "fast" and my use of time in the planes discussion. I will answer this later in this posting (which I am dubbing the 'Gargantu-post' or the 'post of doom'). I cover that point about the planes and time as it relates to the divinities and to the Prime worlds.

QUOTED TEXT SHOWN (badly) WITH "@username: quote."

Quote:

@ripvanwormer: Yes. In 1st and 2nd edition their standard name was tome archon (Hebdomad was offered as an alternative name in Planes of Law). They were described as having the heads of "hawks or noble owls" back then, but this idea was dropped in 3rd edition - that's why I suggested they were descended from avorals.

The tome for my uses from here on will be that it is the ‘book of books’ or ‘story of stories’, the Grammaticum Primeaval – a tome of archived lore, prophecy, ascension, desecrations, and a living artifact similar to the cosmological Akashic Records. Sometimes issues and discrepancies in the story of stories is due to fiendish tampering, and is partially the reason behind such scattered and sometimes contradictive histories of the planes and the events which take place around them.

I would like to fill some gaps in the considerations for this particular campaign setting. I will outline it here for consideration:

I am composing a campaign setting that utilizes an ecology of primarily dinosaurs and prehistoric animals as well as animals and template versions of those creatures (celestial, axiomatic, anarchic), as well as a few primitive humanoid races, a seemingly primitive shapeshifter race that has an incredibly efficient and advanced secret society (Faunar), and the Dinopriminals – outsiders who are native because of ancient interplanar pacts made using sigils of epic spiritual power to have dominion over the world and live in harmony with its inhabitants. This is the world of Nym; the following cosmological traits are unique and important: Time is Flowing/Erratic/Alterable, and based on two separate cosmological schema; Finite Spherical Globe; Divinely Morphic; some Positive-Dominant areas; mildly Neutral aligned; Normal Magic (and Sigils – as Nymian Sigilry: http://elftown.com/stuff/nymian-sigilry_06.pdf). It is coexistent with both the Shadow/Deep and Ethereal/Deep of the Pyrrothian Cosmology, and shares the Astral Plane with the Jashnian Cosmology (variant Great Wheel cosmo). It is coterminous in some locations but not coexistent with the Beastlands (Otherwyld); in this way it remains attached to the post-Epicene Jashnian Cosmology, even though it should have been destroyed in the process. It is protected by powerful sigils of divine spiritual power and ancient pacts.

This setting is called the Trans-Nymian Cosmology, which plays on the backs of both a pseudo-traditional Greyhawk/Planescape cosmology (similar to the Great Wheel with some variants mentioned in 3e Manual of the Planes), and the Pyrrothian Cosmology (based on the world of Kalamar/Tellene, and the greater planet known as Pyrroth – homebrew with KoK forum members). Nym (a Prime world) makes a connecting campaign setting between the two cosmologies in the final era following the Epicene (a cataclysmic interplanar event) and running into my storyline based in KoK, which extends far outside Tellene’s boundaries into the vast reaches of the rest of the world of Pyrroth. Pyrroth is the Prime center of a very different cosmological scheme where the prime world is the center for two transitive planes – Void (Shadow, Deeper Shadow) and Veil (Ethereal, Deep Ethereal) which are completely coterminous and overlapping to the Prime and correspond to terrestrial space and outer space; the Astral transitive and all related effects work through the Veil/Ethereal.

I would like to supplant the basis of the modern celestial planar standardized culture with its ancient ancestor, the Seraphim culture – based around a unified good perspective with balance of law and chaos, and focused on the dictum of the Holy Alliance (Archons, Angels, Devas, Seraphim, Elohim/Druids, etc.). The seraphim as a basic creature can be found here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/homebrews/264367-dinopriminals-phantasy-pre.... I have SO much more than this, but I need to compose more about the Nym stuff first to get to that part.

Has anyone ever read, used, or owned Legend & Lairs ‘Portals & Planes’ by Fantasy Flight Games? It is third party, but it is an amazing resource for helping to create memorable and unique planar setting elements – and I have used it in the Pyrrothian Cosmology in particular strength.

Quote:

@ripvanwormer: Hellbound: The Blood War suggests that originally there were only four planes, representing the "pure," unblended forms of the alignments: Good, Evil, Chaos, Law (with Balance possibly representing a fifth). Over time, at the dawn of the history of the planes, these primal forces blended, creating the "in-between" regions. Because the Beastlands is Good with chaotic tendencies, it probably isn't as ancient as Elysium.

Planes of Conflict suggests that the Beastlands may itself be a living, breathing being of some sort, an embodiment of all that is wild and natural in the multiverse.

That's really all we know, officially.

Okay, so let’s be frank here: this is a sadly underdeveloped concept and setting that in some ways calls out for work to be done here as we are accomplishing. Also, based on what you have said here, it is possibly older than Elysium but likely younger – but still possible, right??

As applied to the campaign setting: the divinities from eons present and ancient have made pacts in the form of powerful sigils which guard the cosmos from certain destruction based on the actions of mortals and immortals alike. The Nymian Beastlands (planet) is mildly neutral-aligned, although it has direct ties and some overlapping regions to the actual outer planes, the Beastlands (called the ‘Other Wild’ or ‘Otherwyld’). Its planar traits will be separate, and its own history will be important though not primarily important, since time will be a primarily subjective experience with their relations because of Nym’s planar connections to both the Pyrrothian Cosmology, and the post-Epicene leftover star system with divine connections and certain interplanar “protections” from destruction – the two operate on completely different timescales, and are only held in check by magical interactions. The divinities are always in control, however directly or passively, and this comes through in manifestation as certain planar stabilities that would be otherwise irrational through mortal experience. Time is the illusion – not the world utilizing it.

Quote:

@ripvanwormer: Unofficially, the explanation I've always liked (again, from Dave King, although there was a heavy dream-theme to the Beastlands adventure Something Wild) is that the Beastlands is the outer plane that represents dreams: its affinity with animals is related to the archetypal imagery that animals represent, the primal symbolism that comes from deep within the subconscious mind. This also explains why the Sign of One faction is so attuned to the Beastlands. Those who travel through the Beastlands are in part traveling through their own unconsciousness, with the plane subtly changing its nature to reflect the minds of its inhabitants, just as the bodies of the planes inhabitants change to reflect the nature of the plane.

This variation on the Beastlands as a mental/emotional/dreamtime collaboration with one’s own animal spirits (or totem spirits) is quite an interesting concept, although it doesn’t fit in the context I will be applying this information. It is an awesome idea, however – especially for me since I have studied shamanism and its root methodologies for some time now recently. Animal totems or guardian spirits represent both internal subconscious nuances as well as the interaction with definitively separate and external entities. Very neat.

Sign of One: I am lost. Please describe. Perhaps there are some notions here which might be of interest, since the Faunar retain so much power and influence, and since there might be a way to keep elements from this storyline or something resembling it. Is it specifically to do with dreams, or with tapping into the ‘oneness’ of life and the cosmos in any way?

Quote:

@ripvanwormer: The rulers of the Beastlands are the animal lords. There is one for each major type of animal: there's a Cat Lord, a Wolf Lord, a Hawk Lord, a Camel Lord, a Lizard Lord, and so on (and rumors of a dinosaur lord or lords in the isolated dinosaur realm, the Forbidden Plateau). Although they dwell on an upper plane, they are absolutely neutral, caring only for the welfare of the animals in their charge across the planes. They don't have any known connection to the guardinals. Serving the animal lords directly are the warden beasts, who resemble animals except they're bigger, stronger, and smarter; if an animal lord is killed, one of the warden beasts evolves into a new animal lord to replace it.

Okay, so I am alright with Animal Lords – could they be bestial outsiders similar to guardinals? They can rule in the ‘Otherwyld’, and Nym will not be their native homeland – they will have some close and some distant connections to Faunar culture and the dinopriminals.

Where is this specific information coming from? Older versions of D&D/Planescape? Could these warden beasts be summarized in some other way to make them appropriate, ie. Celestial or Axiomatic template versions of dire animal varieties?

Mortai? Tell me more. Where are these from?

Quote:

@ripvanwormer: I think of the guardinals as personifications of pure good who happen to have symbolic bestial visages (in the same way some archons, demons, yugoloths, slaadi, and devils have animal parts for symbolic reasons), so I'd be careful about associating them with animals too strongly. Leonals look leoine in appearance, but they're no more related to lions than hound archons are to dogs, or ice devils are to insects. So I don't necessarily think they should be any more closely connected to the Beastlands than other animal-themed outsiders like slaadi, formians, or glabrezu, except that the Beastlands and Elysium happen to be neighbors.

Your work on languages is interesting too, though I haven't any particular comment on the moment.

I like that perspective, and I enjoy the thought of the guardinals being exactly like the dinopriminals, but there will certainly be some differences, and of course an explainable history that sets them independent from the guardinals. The secret that only the Ursinals know – that Dinopriminals are older. This is not an archetypal issue; it is just a theme element that fits well into the order of things. It was more a creative decision than a rational one.

Aside from the way in which we are comparing them to similar guardinals while creating them, they are ultimately very different in theme and style, plus they are bigger, they have a definitive society that is not limited to one world alone but can be downsized to a single world for the needs of a game. They have a history – which is more than any guardinal can claim, save for our devoted homebrewers – and it includes Nymian Sigilry, which is a divine art taught to a mortal race in the hopes of promoting a peaceful and unified society – which it thus far has done in more ways than one.

I am so glad you like the language stuff and the Grammaticum – I will be referring to it a lot. Nymian Sigilry is in fact developed from the original use of Arcanthium – a magical language that is as ancient as the other most ancient languages, along with six others: Laudin (Law), Chaon (Chaos), Draconic, Sylvan, Titanic, and Seraphim. All of these were of course based off of the original divine language of creation (both the Words of Creation, and the Dark Speech included), the original language of Aleph (from Tome & Blood and Complete Arcane – Mage of the Arcane Order or whatever it’s called – in the sample character text). If you have any more knowledge of Aleph, we will be able to fill in a lot of blanks here…. But of course very few do – I think that was another overlooked gap.

Quote:

@mechalich: This only really comes into play if you believe the multiverse ever underwent any sort of geologic timescale, a fact of considerable debate. My take on the evidence is that the age of the multiverse is measure in tens of thousands of years as opposed to millions or billions of years. Considering that events such as the collapse of the Illithid Empire (which is roughly pegged at around 30,000 years ago) are referred to as almost impossible ancient I'm inclined to say the entire multiverse might not be much more than one hundred thousand years old at least as far as the presence of any of the current sentient races is concerned.

Seeing as the beliefs of prime shaped and formed the outer planes it is likely that the primordial exemplars of Guardinals and Yugoloths resemble animals because the primes of those ages held to primitive animistic faiths and associated certain animals with 'good' and 'evil' traits. Thus regal and majestic lions naturally figured as the rulers of the good celestials while opportunistic scavengers such as jackals and instinctively revolting creatures such as insects became the yugoloths (even ultroloths have a certain amphibian-like look to them). As long as you assume humans and humanoids with a human-like consciousness (which includes all common demihumans, most goblinoids, and most other mammalian humanoids) have always had numerical (and thus belief) dominance on the Prime Material, the overall appearance of the Guardinals and the Yugoloths may have never changed. This seems a fairly safe assumption, even though the human/oid majority was dominated by other races at various points in its history most of these elites (Illithids, Spell Weavers, etc.) had beliefs nothing like the Outer Planes represents.

Chicken & Egg = divinities came first. Problem solved. I think I refer to this a few places. Divinities can come from other divinities. As in Mystara, where ascension happens by divine sponsorship for immortality. Worked out in my homebrew variant rule system, called Inath: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Inath_%28DnD_Variant_Rule%29. Not complete in wiki form, but complete on paper and concept.

One of my hopes with this campaign was to get away from some of the more popular plane-spanning cultures such as the illithid and spellweavers. The thing is, these cultures already did it for me: their cultures died out long ago and they have just never come back to power and never been an issue to the current state of things. Are they in other worlds I have? Yes. But I don’t want them taking this one over is all. I’m sure some storyteller will do that for us all long after the setting material is complete. Those damn mindflayers just never go away – they are like cockroaches.

One of my other hopes with this setting was to forget about all the eccentricities of time and its correlation to the material world, and simply glean that sometimes time works as we expect it to, and other times it does something flunky. Let’s get on with it, and get back to the storyline. I am sure someone will come in and begin destroying my timelines, but the current known Nymian history is of the Faunar and the Dinopriminals – the latter of which are ancient and span back to the time just after Ka’s ascendance and divine protection over the Beastlands (and therefore the Nymian Beastlands by proxy). Faunar society says that their cultural beginnings were around 36,000 years ago, and known civilized centers documented as long ago as 98,000 years ago, when the dinopriminals first manifested and the faunar were created in alliance with sylvans and celestial druids (Elohim), most likely in the name of Ka (deity) and of preservation and environmental stability. Dinopriminals have knowledge and lore relating to when they first began, when Seraphim culture was still prevalent before the most Reformation of the Great Wheel – which seems to transmutate or go through a destruction-creation process seemingly with every new edition of D&D/AD&D, etc.

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“"Most existing campaign settings follow this pattern. After all the forgotten realms… …paths of creation that are not common on most human-dominated campaign worlds."" @hyena of ice: That's not true. I recently read something in 2E (I think in regards to the Beastlands in one of the Planescape supplements, but it might have been in a Monstrous Compendium) that there are dinosaurs on the Beastlands, and that sages don't know whether they are native or if they were transported there by the powers to preserve the species which are " now extinct on most prime worlds"

""And for one final clarification: Nym (the 'Nymian Beastlands') is a Material Plane world… Anyone ever played Kingdoms of Kalamar?""
@hyena of ice: Be careful about introducing elements from 3rd party D20 books/worlds. Planewalker does not have their permission to work with the materials those companies have created, so you could end up invoking IP infringement. Using the name of a charactrer or place from one of their books isn't likely to get you into any trouble, but if you print up in-depth materials from their books, they might not be too happy.

Dinosaurs are there because they are dinosaurs, and because they are there, and because it is the beastlands, and without them it would be puny, weak, and a shameful mess.

Don’t worry, I have been writing on the KoK forums with other members who have developed land ‘beyond the scope of Tellene’ and I was given creative liberty without a fuss. I am also prepared to go to Kenzer & Co. as I have done before if there is any chance of infringement and get their input or licensing if it is necessary for the final Nym material. The Pyrrothian Cosmology and a traditionally laid out campaign setting for the lands outside of Tellene have never been done officially and no one worried when I discussed it on the forums – in fact, most people were apathetic to the idea of the lands outside of Tellene as being any more interesting than within Tellene, despite all the potential for more flavor and fun. In other words, I am not reprinting anything here at all just yet, and the simple existence of the Pyrrothian Cosmology will actually beg the question, “what is Pyrroth?” in any case. In this other cosmology, the material world is vastly separate from the outer planes and much more integral to the overall divine methodology – the deities there are petty and infantile in many ways (at least according to someone who has played divine beings in game with other people playing divine beings).

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@bob the efreet: I always got the impression that the outer planes dealt in at least millions of years for some of its ancient events.

I prefer the use of older cultures as a basis for modern or current races, especially in the case of humans – which I think are way overplayed and overpopularized. I know that is a self-defeating concept, but I think humans as a comparable race are simple, unreliable, and bland. I like working with cultures of over 20,000 years of documented history – more depth and personality, as well as more possible diversity, because of an extended timeline of potential conflicts, migrations, population changes, and more.

Plus, I think in any game where you have dragons with ancient knowledge and experience, it requires you to happen more than 2,000 years ago in any given timeline, and possibly exponentially more in the case of civilized cultures with long-living draconic members.

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@mechalich: My impression goes the other way, and recalls the foundations of D&D.

D&D is based on established fantasy settings and also draws heavily on the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Romans mythos.
Most of these fantasy worlds do not have timelines of millions of years. To use the Tolkien mythos as an example, various Tolkien scholars have figured this quite precisely, but it would generally be taken as about 60,000 years and most of that is before there are any mortals present. The time involving mortal activity is only about 12,000 years (ending with the War of the Ring).

I agree that this is usually the case. In terms of Planescape and its specific ecology and cosmological schema, it might be important to keep with precedents such as this, but for my own cosmology, I would prefer to think in different terms and have more of an aged feeling to everything. Though humans in Tolkien writing were relatively recent, while the elves had a sense of age and history about them – I want to recreate more of that feeling than the transient destruction-creation cycles that we modern earth humans are used to. I want to separate from that mentality and take up a different one. Faunar culture begins 36,000 years ago including one major upheaval against a power center and various smaller ones, and that takes places in a timeline adjacent to the 98,000 years alone that have been documented and which include the dinopriminals.

Judeo-Christian European castles are out the door on this one, with all due respect.

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@mechalich: From this perspective, the age of a campaign setting is roughly the length of its human history, and in that sense 40,000 or 100,000 years is a very long time, probably more than you need, and certainly more than you can meaningfully fill. In Planescape this is particularly relevant because the Outer Planes exist because people believe they do, and the term 'people' largely translates into 'Primes' for this purpose.

Three Huzzahs for house rules! So in my sense, it would be rational to say that all that stuff took place 200,000 or so years ago in a vastly different region of material plane space, and has no reference here except as planar age precedent. That said, I don’t want to repeat, but I think I can move on from that line of thought personally.

You know, after a little research on Mystara and related material, the Githy were originally labeled as something akin to a cross between an elf and a lizardman/folk… And I wasn’t even thinking that they were on that line at all, especially after the 2e/3e reworkings. Plus, it seems really funny because I thought of a being being a cross between an elf and a githyanki as being something strange and special… and all I was doing was stepping back in the family tree… Eeewwwwww… I wanted to change bright, shiny Elohnna into Eloa – an elven/githyanki hybrid being with divinity, but with natural tendencies closer to death, decay, rot, and the cycle of transformation following death into other life. Anyways… way off-topic.

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@hyena of ice: Actually, from what I've seen it's really not important, at least in the Planescape setting. I believe this is one reason why they always refer to events as occuring either "recently" or "aeons ago" rather than give specific dates (that and dealing with the issue of time and the multiverse and that whole can of worms).

In short, the only thing of importance is the age of the Prime Material and the transitive planes (which are directly connected to the Prime Material Plane). Attempting to determine the age of any other part of the Multiverse will force you to address the nature of time and the planes-- that is, does time pass the same way on Baator as it does on the Prime? What about the elemental planes? What about measurements of time? Years are only of significance on the Prime Material, so how to we record an extended passage of time on the Elemental or Outer Planes?

Exactly. Can of worms, anyone? No thanks. If it happened at all, it happened either in documented history, recent history, ancient histories, eons ago, or in another reality (such as when one transitions to a new edition of D&D, etc.). That, and time is all an illusion, and bent by the whims of the gods anyways, so what point is there in trying to balance to other realms of existence where time may or may not work the same at all anyways? I can tell you only that time does not seem to be an issue for Nym in any of the following regards: the Beastlands (Otherwyld), Pyrrothian outer planes, transitive planes, the rest of the remaining material world (protected worlds) of the Jashnian remnants, or any other outer plane from the Jashnian Cosmology (save for the Sylvan plane of Faea-iir, which is timeless).

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@hyena of ice: ""In Planescape this is particularly relevant because the Outer Planes exist because people believe they do, and the term 'people' largely translates into 'Primes' for this purpose.""

I prefer the idea of a war between the titans (or some similar gigantic race/culture) and the gods. I also find that this helps to clear up issues of when did this happen, and how did it affect the current setting… Simple: any of that other stuff happened before the war of the titans, and it is part of the old cosmology and unified interplanar reality before the current existence. (As with my idea of each version of D&D being a new reality/creation-destruction cycle.)

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@mechalich: Planescape is admittedly beset by a sort of chicken-and-egg problem in that to exist mortals must be created by some form of entities and yet divine beings require mortal worship to exist. The same is, largely, true of the exemplar races which are created or derive strength from mortal souls. Taken to an extreme the Outer Planes themselves (which, after all, are composed of belief not absolute physical matter) can shift or even dissipate according to the changing beliefs of mortals.

Chicken & Egg = covered. Divinities are created by the beliefs of mortals, immortals, otherworldly entities and creative divine forces that enjoy seeing sentient mortal and immortal life flourish. Divinities can be created from divinities, and this can of course include outsiders, or even other types of creatures that ascend to divine status or take on the Outsider type in some form as well.

Inner Planes formed first, and gave rise to the materials of the other planes by lawful and chaotic means – all good. It came through a transitive plane (like seepage, or a meaningful distribution) – also good. I believe any form of belief could have created the outer planes, including the divinities themselves. They would have required no resources save ideas and intention in divinely Morphic regions of the cosmos. The material could be in its first existence, or it could be in its 456th… We’ll never know, but I say that the Jashnian Cosmology pre-Epicene was a definitively 3e setting, and its destruction came with the advent of 4e (not at all planned). In that sense, the Pyrrothian Cosmology takes over on Nym as a sort of new 4e precedent for how cosmologies may interact and how that will take form.

In any case, if something happens now, it might happen both in the future and in the past if time is in any way cyclic, which means that it might be relived a million times and not even go half its lifespan. Time is the illusion here, and it is created through the quantum effects of Paradox and Paradigm. Things have happened both better and worse, and they have happened both in the past and in the future – it is all a matter of subjective experience. I know this could take us on a long philosophical walk, but let’s just accept it as the standard I am setting and move forward.

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@mechalich: To boil it down, I see Planescape's Outer Planes as operating under at least some degree of consensual reality (a concept familiar to Mage players), wherein what is and what was is created by belief, meaning history can literally change as beliefs change. The interesting wrinkle is that unlike in Mage, only a portion of the Planescape multiverse is consensual, the Inner Planes is explicitly not (and perhaps not the Ethereal or Prime either, and the Astral isn't really 'reality' at all). This also incorporates the idea of the Far Realm as something that happens when the consensus drifts beyond some acceptable threshold of coherency.

Here we go now: someone who knows Mage and can relate as to what is ‘real’ in accordance with the campaign setting and/or in the Planescape scenario and how most players are going to relate to the concepts of the ‘Beastlands’ that I am going to bring up in this setting. As for time, and for what we might call a “re-write” of history during a gaming session or campaign, I bring up only Paradox and its orderly homebrew equivalent, Paradigm. You hit the nail right on the head, Mechalich.

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@hyena of ice: Yeah, I have noticed quite a few allusions and references to the idea that the Multiverse was originally created by Cthulu-like and similar beings from the Far-Realm.

You bring up a lot of arguable points in the final part of this posting, but it would be really off-topic for me to debate them. I raised a few points earlier on that might make your brain rework these words based on the line of though I have here, but deities can “die” by sleeping, or becoming large astral lumps, or they can also be killed, assimilated, change form, change identities, move on to other realities, ascend, make pantheons, etc. I think the real issue of what is within the power centers of the planes and which ones are major avatars of the divinities is a major one, but not necessary here. The outer planes are base on belief, but it could have been the beliefs of the divinities and immortals that preceded mortal history and our current understanding of reality.

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@jareddm: Perhaps the most powerful and oldest outsiders predate time. Assuming that belief can change events retroactively, it would still be bound by time. This would be because primes exist in a universe with time, meaning their belief can not exist without it. They can believe time to stop, speed up, or reverse, but the absence of time is completely foreign. Outer Planer beings like the Archfiends (Probably really only the first yugoloths and others of that age) have simply always existed, but before the prime, before time and before belief, they had no form. Belief gives them form and purpose, but not existence, for like Far Realm entities they have always existed.

Gods then, would not predate time as they're entire existence requires belief. This is why they are capable of dying when all of their followers are gone.

I respond to this elsewhere with my thoughts on divinity and this whole chicken/egg debate thing about mortals and deities. I think the planes have their own history, regardless of their attachment to or history with other Prime worlds – and though this may sometimes overlap well, sometimes it might go against the grain. I like the idea of ancient cultures predating modern D&D cultures.

I also note that in Manual of the Planes it says that all the other planes run off the Material (Prime) like a clock. However, it does not say that their timelines are the same – merely that the material plane is the standard by which all other clocks are set, such as with time zones and an atomic clock set in one time zone.

‘The Gods’ is a relative term. Zeus is a god, yet Hercules – his demigod son – was born of a mortal and yet is a Demigod with Divine Rank of 5. He should rightly be a quasi-deity (legendary hero), but for his half-god birth and the meaning of the word, ‘demigod’. I feel that any mortal has the potential to become an immortal, and that any immortal may find the inclination to pursue further steps of divinity. In that sense, the divinities could have come from literally anywhere. It’s not a matter of whom, it is a matter of did it happen or not? The planes exist and the Prime exists, so it is here. How it got here is negotiable unless it’s documented – and even then it could be a corrupt or misrepresented history or folklore (or even desecrated by those who would wish reality ill fortune).

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@jareddm: To conclude, the vast majority of outsiders can and have changed form as prime belief changes. The history of the outer planes has gone through numerous changes, corrections, and all out reversals, and any being bound to time is none the wiser, but those entities that predate time have seen every change occur and the impact each has had.

At least that's my take on it. It at least allows the most powerful of outsiders to be beyond the whims of belief, but still allows the outer planes to have flip-flopped and had alternate pasts.

Jared is exactly right, even though I am not using this to back up a time-oriented basis of my background storyline and historical events for dinopriminals and guardinals… They are different in appearance and archetype from the guardinals and from the Animal Lords in every way, and in no way correlating to some Prime reality as representations of their eras in history – some of them just happen to be archetypes of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, and they protect nature and its protectors as well. Dinopriminals have the Native subtype on both the Nymian Beastlands (Prime world), and the Beastlands (outer plane), but are Extraplanar on Elysium unlike the Guardinals.

As far as talking about time, we must understand that time on Prime is an illusion – the gods/powers which govern time and the temporal continuum/planar schema have control over it outside of the perception of mortals. This is why when travelling between some planes it is possible to warp or negate time altogether (planes which do not have the Normal Time trait). This also means that our outsiders could have existed in these forms regardless of the mortals which might have divine beliefs or faith attached to the powers governing the guardinals/dinopriminals – they are not attached to an idea of a time in history as they are representations of a cosmological neutral goodness with some variation and a direct mortal influence in daily life. I know I covered this before, but I had to reply to this in stages to get it all down.
I subscribe to the Mage version of Paradox, and its variant counterpart, Paradigm, when it comes to looping, replaying, rewriting, or otherwise messing with history or when cleaning up messy storyline elements when messed up mid-game or further into a campaign when doing flashback information, etc. When things mess up or go wrong, or need to have multiple outcomes, it manifests as Paradox and Paradigm.

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@mechalich: The ancient law/chaos conflict is largely based on the Rod of Seven Parts and related plotlines, involving the battle between the Vaati (Wind Dukes) and the Queen of Chaos and her Spyder-Fiend minions, led by Miska the Wolf Spider. The Vaati were residents of the Elemental Plane of Air, and if I remember my 2e sources correctly could debate-ably be considered mortals. The Queen of Chaos was originally something like a Tanar'ri but was changed to an Obyrith in the Fiendish Codex I in 3.5e.

The battle between the two groups apparently raged across the planes and it is quite likely mortals played a significant role in such conflicts, after all the climactic Battle of Pesh occurred on Oerth (which raises questions about what is part of Greyhawk nad what is part of Planescape) we just don't have the names of such persons passed down.

What is the Rod of Seven Parts, and what is its place? Are Vaati part of planescape SRD by any chance? It sounds familiar, and very similar to the Dvati in Dragon Compendium, Vol. 1… I must be missing quite a bit from not having Fiendish Codex I/II, huh? I have never heard of the Battle of Pesh... Plus, I am thinking that knowing a little more about the Law vs. Chaos war will help me in developing the ancient planar history preceding the Beastlands and related life.

Also, do we have another example here of a mortal race which tended in a certain direction and took up the Outsider type after some point?

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@mechalich: Not as individuals perhaps, but as races they do. The Baatezu replaced the Ancient Baatorians, the Tanar'ri the Obyriths, and the Rilmani the Kalmarel. It is even possible that (depending on how you interpret 3e's fluff) the Formians/Inevitables are in the process of replacing the Modrons.

The beauty or tragedy of the consensual reality/history approach is that of course you wouldn't see any sign, because the telling of history would also change to reflect the basal shift. Thus is the mythology changed from the initial law/chaos conflict plotline to instead represent the 'the General of Gehenna created the residents of the Abyss and baator' plotline of course the Yugoloths would remember it that way.
The reason I floated this idea is because the several sources that deal with the variable creation myths of the D&D multiverse are rather contradictory in nature. Hellbound doesn't match what's in the Fiendish Codexes, Lords of Madness contradicts the Illithiad, and the old DM's Guide to Immortals posits all sorts of weirdness. Rip's timeline (available on this site) attempts to reconcile all these things (and is really quite remarkable in what it achieves) but to lay down a real sequence of events and say what happened where or when is a seemingly impossible tangle.

I understand Obyriths, and how they relate. What/who were the Ancient Baatorians, and what groups were originally involved in the Law vs. Chaos conflict, since that may also help me from another angle – the languages which we considered earlier, and the Grammaticum Primeaval…? I know about Rilmani from the 3e Fiend Folio – what are the Kalmarel?

Modrons are being replaced, but not by the Formians or by the Inevitables – which have other motivations in both cases. They are being replaced by the Omnati (“om-nah-tee”, Living Construct Outsiders), and Quixoti (“ki-ho-tee”, Extraplanar Living Constructs) – and other mechanoids. More homebrew in the background.

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@hyena of ice: IIRC, don't the Obyriths still exist, though? (just not in great numbers or as the dominant race of the Outer plane anymore) IIRC a few of the 3.5 Abyssal Lords are even Obyriths.

Personally I'd intentionally make the really ancient/creation-myth type stuff really vague/unanswered, myself. There's just no way to truly reconcile the timeline differences between each edition/source, plus you would innevitably have to tackle the whole time/chicken & egg thing we discussed earlier. (I certainly avoid anything in-depth about the past in the Ice Project I'm working on. The flight of the Qorrashi is described as beginning 'long, long ago', and was already in full-swing by the time Frigidora was born, which is described as occuring "aeons ago". *Though in temporal terms, Frigidora's birth likely occured around 4000 years ago, and Albrathanilar's birth likely occurs several centuries later.*)

I covered this, I think. I like the Obyriths from what I know of them. A few others right now are making Mesozoic Obyriths based on DeviantArt images they liked from a contest.

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@ripvanwormer: While most D&D stuff doesn't go much further back than a few tens of thousands of years, Spelljammer often did. The earliest solid date I'm aware of is the civilization of Kule (one of Oerth's moons), which fell millions of years before the first humans walked the Oerth. This is said to have been confirmed by divination magic.

Here is what I wanted to hear: someone to tell me that although the Prime worlds and various campaign settings have their own natural history or supposed texts/folklore telling us a relatively modern date, while we know that human civilization on Earth has been in operation for give or take a 10,000-year or so period.

However, as storyteller and knower of the history of this world, I can easily say that the known history of Nym is nearly 100,000 years, the human-comprehensible portion of that being quite minimal (since most humans on Nym are savage or of a similarly primitive but sentient race).

Also, this is the answer of the chicken/egg debate over divinity and mortal/Prime reality in temporal experience I wanted to hear as well. Divinity is divinity is divinity, regardless of where it comes from. We as DMs know that even though these beings are as powerful as they are, that something vastly more powerful exists to keep it in check – that’s called US, OOC. I will always have divinity in my games as a player-attainable, balanced system of non-class progression and caste progressions toward Divine Rank of 0 to 1 and beyond. That being said, there will always be deities, no matter who they are called or what they look like or grant to their worshippers – divinity came before mortality.

Though I do not believe any Cthuuloid entities control the cosmos from above in this particular campaign setting, something akin to them as an overdiety or pantheon of far-ascended divinity surely exists to divvy out divine rank here and there where legends are born and prophecies of divinity made in honor of a name or simile. One might even have a Divine Rank 1,000 entity known as YHWH, and it would completely okay in-game as a story feature… Everything else is fluff/flavor.

Okay, so we debated a lot of stuff here, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that we don’t really know a whole lot about the Beastlands outer plane’s history compared to other planes including Elysium, and that we don’t really know a whole lot about Guardinals in the same regard. We have to make it all up homebrew and hope it fits with the kinks in the chain. That’s what it sounds like to me at least.

Maybe in the process of developing the dinopriminals on the other forum it will help in exploring some of the other considerations in dealing with these particular elements. Remember: the overlooked gaps are the ones which bring down anything seemingly stable.

Plus, one final point I did not cover yet: We as DMs know both what is happening as well as what did and will or might happen in the future. That technically makes us the Overdeities. If the Overdeities make a decision that is carried out by the divinities, mortals, and immortals, it means that someone somewhere along the line knows that this is the case, and keeps it in line in such a way that inevitable destruction will never truly happen – because we’re not willing to stop playing the game.

With that said, and a tongue in cheek: isn’t there someone in this damn game who knows about the backup plans? I mean, the bad guys always have them, and most sane deities prefer to have mortals around long enough to at least keep them in power and within the confines of experiential reality… So based on probability, someone on the good guy’s side knows about or has been involved in the process of keeping things manageable or at least with enough damage control to preserve at least a portion of reality after some form of cataclysmic space event or interplanar catastrophe occurs. Such is the case in my Epicene experiment: what would happen after someone decides to destroy all of reality? If given the opportunity to achieve immortality and take steps to escape the destruction, what will occur in a game? It was a huge success, I might add. Apocalypse Ground Zero is the way to go, I promise you. Those were some of the most memorable game sessions EVER.

For the record, I put everyone's name in here with @username, and my responses are in between the badly formatted text. I had to compose it in Word - there was so much to consider.

Best wishes,
-will

Sun, 2009-11-01 02:54

#40

ripvanwormer

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Joined: 2004-10-05

Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Xidoraven said:

Quote:

You know, after a little research on Mystara and related material, the Githy were originally labeled as something akin to a cross between an elf and a lizardman/folk…

Not exactly. A lot of the stuff you find at Pandius.com (like here) is fan-created, and should be read with that in mind. There isn't any official mention of githyanki or githzerai in any Mystara sourcebooks, because those are AD&D monsters that weren't part of the OD&D game from which the Mystara setting sprung.

Officially, the gith races are descended from humans enslaved by the illithids (mentioned as recently as Dungeon Magazine #100, but part of their original descriptions in the 1st edition Fiend Folio tome) and altered using illithid science on their artificial world, Penumbra.

Now, there's a race called the gith found in Athas, the Dark Sun campaign setting, who do resemble crosses between elves and lizardfolk. The adventure Black Spine revealed that they were actually descended from githyanki who had been mutated by a psionic bomb set by their githzerai enemies, causing them to degenerate into a reptilian bestial form and strand them on Athas.

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The groups involved with the primal Law and Chaos conflict include the obyriths (and their tanar'ri slaves), the eladrins, the vaati (also known as the Wind Dukes of Aaqa), and the "angels" led by Asmodeus (according to Fiendish Codex II).

The ancient Baatorians don't seem to have been involved. The single adult specimen seen in Planescape canon (in Hellbound: The Blood War) looked like an enormous worm made of pure darkness, which mortal PCs were unable to harm except with wish spells or the equivalent. These days they mostly sleep beneath the layers of Maladomini or Malbolge (they're the ones responsible for the strange buzzing beneath the caverns of Malbolge, which keeps the baatezu away). Their larval form is the common nupperibo, which baatezu destroy or transform into lemures in order to prevent them from maturing. Elder Evils described their ancient king, Zargon, who is currently imprisoned on the Material Plane.

I put more complete information on the Greyhawk wiki. See also the article on the vaati there and the Age before Ages.

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Mortai? Tell me more. Where are these from?

There is only one animal lord for each animal family or species. They have multiple forms; they can appear as animals, as humans, or as hybrids of the two. There are animal lord and warden beast templates on ENWorld's Creature Catalog. The animal lords were originally introduced in the form of the Cat Lord in the 1st edition Monster Manual II, with others described in the 2nd edition Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix and the Planescape Monstrous Compendium Volume One. Warden beasts are from Planes of Conflict.

Mortai were described in the 1st edition Manual of the Planes and the Planescape Monstrous Compendium Volume II. They look like clouds filled with laughing faces.

The Sign of One was one of Sigil's factions, very active on the Beastlands. They believe that one of them, or each of them, creates the whole of the multiverse using the power of their imaginations. After the Faction War, they merged with the Believers of the Source to form the Mind's Eye faction.

Sun, 2009-11-01 05:31

#41

Hyena of Ice

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Joined: 2009-09-25

Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

""According to 'Mystara' and 'D&D Campaign Settings - Mystara' on wikipedia, Ka is actually the original discoverer of the Hollow World, the world on the inside of the 'Known World' of Mystara - and the planetary biological preserve of extinct or endangered creatures under Ka's oversight.""
According to "Wrath of the Immortals" (which is part of the Mystara setting), he and the Council of the Hollow World (4-5 other Mystaran deities) created the Hollow World as a sanctuary for endangered species.

""You're right - and I think that is strange. Ka is in fact an ascended mortal, and in this position would most likely not have become a greater deity in quite so fast a transition""
Nearly all of the Deities in the Mystara setting are ascended mortals. Also, his ascension wasn't all that fast, as he's probably a lot older than the vast majority of non-racial deities of other campaign settings (seeing as he far predates the existence of humanity)

""(As with my idea of each version of D&D being a new reality/creation-destruction cycle.)""
That idea will run into some severe problems since in some of the campaign settings (notably Forgotten Realms, but also Eberron and Greyhawk), only about 5-15 years pass between different editions of D&D, and we see no sign of any such civilization of these planets being destroyed and rebuilt/recreated between editions.

Anyhow, I would go light on the homebrewing. Not everyone who might take interest in your materials might want to also adopt your homebrew rules, so if I were you I would present a lot of the homebrew stuff as optional rules.

Also, I wouldn't try to flesh out or define what occured before known/common history beyond some vague stuff like "some scholars claim" or "worshippers of X deity claim" etc. What occured in the ancient past, for the most part, should be left vague and mysterious.

""What is the Rod of Seven Parts?"
It's one of the most famous modules/adventure hooks for D&D, and AFAIK rules for such an adventure hook have been given in all versions of D&D except for 4E and possibly OD&D. (not sure it was updated to 2E, either, but it's a pretty famous one). It's named after a very powerful major artifact that plays a major part of the adventure.

Reading your quotes and responses, there is something I just recalled.
In the Forgotten Realms materials/setting, it is often mentioned (in both 2E and 3x) that many of the creatures and races found on Toril are not native to the planet, but rather ended up there during various racial diasporas (multiversal diasporas that basically scattered them throughout Prime worlds). This includes all five primary humanoid races, illithidae, and many monstrous humanoid and monster races. This may be something of interest to you.
If an estimate of time is given between the time of the diaspora and the present, the date is usually given as "over/at least 10,000 years ago". You don't see explainations like this in most campaign settings, but I really like Forgotten Realms' take on it as it explains why humans, elves, etc. can be found on so many different planets of the D&D world.

As for the Cthulu-like beings, they don't really play a role in D&D (beyond 0 or 1st edition which had some Cthulu stuff) anyway (the only one who ever does is Tharidzun/The Elder Elemental Eye, not to be confused with Ghaunadaur) beyond vague rumors and ancient myths.

""Maybe in the process of developing the dinopriminals on the other forum it will help in exploring some of the other considerations in dealing with these particular elements. Remember: the overlooked gaps are the ones which bring down anything seemingly stable.""
That's what I'd go with. In my Paraelemental Ice project, I started with just Cryonax and his cult and built a framework centered around it. I started with just Cryonax and his cult in general, and the framework gave me the idea of creating the "Frigidora" character (Cryonax's herald) Because Frigidora is half-Qorrashi, I started developing the Qorrash combining the limitations and qualities assigned to them by Frigidora's backstory with the meager information given about them in Frostburn and the info on genies in general in Al Qadim: Secrets of the Lamp. I added the fluff regarding the Snow Elves and especially the Glacier Dwarves on top of that.

""causing them to degenerate into a reptilian bestial form and strand them on Athas.""
Yeah, but everything's already stranded on Athas; the powers of the multiverse sealed it off.

Sun, 2009-11-01 13:03

#42

ripvanwormer

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Joined: 2004-10-05

Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Quote:

That idea will run into some severe problems since in some of the campaign settings (notably Forgotten Realms, but also Eberron and Greyhawk), only about 5-15 years pass between different editions of D&D, and we see no sign of any such civilization of these planets being destroyed and rebuilt/recreated between editions.

Although note that 100 years pass between Forgotten Realms 3rd edition and Forgotten Realms 4th edition, and while Toril isn't entirely destroyed during that period, it is pretty smashed up, with an entire continent missing and replaced.

What Xidoraven has in mind, though, I suspect is a very different scenario, where the world is destroyed and recreated without anyone noticing, an entire history from the dawn of creation to the present day rewritten as if it had always been that way. So at the end of 3rd edition, Toril shatters entirely and is remade with halflings a foot taller than they were in the 3rd edition continuity, and devas inhabiting the world instead of aasimar planetouched. And nobody in the world remembers how things used to be.

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""What is the Rod of Seven Parts?" It's one of the most famous modules/adventure hooks for D&D, and AFAIK rules for such an adventure hook have been given in all versions of D&D except for 4E and possibly OD&D. (not sure it was updated to 2E, either, but it's a pretty famous one).

The Rod of Seven Parts was first mentioned in Eldritch Wizardry for OD&D (1976), though it didn't play a part in the later "Basic" D&D game that birthed the Mystara cosmology (it's not part of Mystara's history at all). Eldritch Wizardry is one of the OD&D books that helped form the basis if the AD&D game, but which weren't made part of the separate ("Original" or "Basic" or "BECMI") D&D game that Mystara evolved in. The Rod was next mentioned in the 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide, the 2nd edition Dungeon Master's Guide, and in the late second edition deluxe adventure, Rod of Seven Parts by Skip Williams, which is the "famous" module you're talking about. In 3rd edition, it appears in the Arms and Equipment Guide and, more prominently, the backstory surrounding the item is incorporated into the Fiendish Codex I, in the Age of Worms adventure path in Dungeon Magazine, and in the Mahasarpa campaign that James Wyatt released as a web enhancement for Oriental Adventures. In 4th edition, it appears in, I think, Adventure's Vault 2, which mentions the Rod of Seven Parts adventure but modifies the background of the item somewhat, claiming the Wind Dukes of Aaqa were seven angels that served Bahamut and Moradin in their struggle against the primordials rather than an elemental race that preceded the gods, as in 3rd edition.

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That's not true. There are more Cthulhu-like beings in D&D than I could shake a stick at if I had strange aeons to do it in.

Just a few:

The sharn from the Forgotten Realms setting, based on the flying polyps from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time."

The phaerimm from the Forgotten Realms setting, based on the Great Race of Yith from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time."

The nighthaunts from the Forgotten Realms setting, inspired by the night-gaunts from H.P. Lovecraft's "The DreamQuest of Unknown Kaddath."

The true ghouls from Wolfgang Baur's 2e adventure "Kingdom of the Ghouls," based partly on the ghouls in "DreamQuest of Unknown Kaddath" and elsewhere, the source for the character of Doresain the Ghoul-King used in Libris Mortis and the 4th edition adventure Kingdom of the Ghouls.

The neh-thalggu, or brain collectors, which originally appeared in the OD&D adventure Castle Amber and were incorporated into the 2nd edition Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix, the 2nd edition adventure The Gates of Firestorm Peak, the 3rd edition Epic Level Handbook, and the Savage Tide Adventure Path in Dungeon Magazine, are based on the brain-stealing mi-go from H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Whisperer in Darkness."

The word "yugoloth" is possibly derived from "Yuggoth," the home planet of the mi-go. Not that the two ideas are otherwise related.

Gibbering mouthers are similar to the shuggoths detailed in H.P. Lovecraft's novella "At the Mountains of Madness." "...a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light..."

Gibberlings are similar to H.P. Lovecraft's ghouls, especially as they were used in The Gates of Firestorm Peak by Bruce Cordell, where they were given the ability to transform humans into more of their kind.

Illithids, squid-headed creatures, are very much Cthulhu-like creatures. Gary Gygax said that one of his inspirations for them was the cover of the book The Burrowers Beneath, a Lovecraftian novel by Brian Lumley. This novel is also almost certainly the source of the neolithids, enormous mutated illithid tadpoles introduced in The Illithiad, a 2nd edition sourcebook by Bruce Cordell. Virtually everything Bruce Cordell has ever written for roleplaying games is deliberately Lovecraftian to one degree or another, beginning with his adventure The Gates of Firestorm Peak, which brought together a number of the most Lovecraftian D&D creatures (including neh-thalggu, gibbering mouthers, gibberlings, and new creatures invented for that adventure) and worked them into a single mythos based on the idea of the Far Realm, a distant reality that comes in conjunction with the AD&D cosmos only in irregular cycles, similar to Carcosa in the Cthulhu mythos or the greater reality described in H.P. Lovecraft's "Through the Gates of the Silver Key." That story is also the source of the Silver Key of Portals, an artifact in Mordenkainen's possession according to the old Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure module.

In Dungeon #134 the adventure "And Madness Follows" includes the Cthulhu Mythos deity the King in Yellow and his city of Carcosa, which is identified as part of the Far Realm.

The d20 Call of Cthulhu game also included D&D versions of the major Cthulhu Mythos gods, including Hastur, the King in Yellow.

The Worm That Walks appeared in the d20 Call of Cthulhu game, and moved from there to the Epic Level Handbook, to the Age of Worms Adventure Path, to Elder Evils. In the latter two sources, the creature is associated with the classic D&D villain Kyuss.

Juiblex is very similar to the Cthulhu Mythos deity Abhoth.

The third edition Forgotten Realms sourcebook Underdark has a number of Cthulhu Mythos-inspired creatures, including the Ineffable Horror (inspired by Cthulhu himself) and the kuo-toa leviathan (inspired by Father Dagon in the Cthulhu Mythos).

Graz'zt seems to be partly inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos Outer Deity Nyarlathotep (he shares the title The Dark Man and behaves in similar ways), and this connection was made explicit in James Jacobs' "Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Graz'zt." The name "Demonomicon" is of course a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon, a book which is referenced explicitly in the 2nd edition Complete Necromancer's Handbook, which is connected to the Cthulhu Mythos in many ways.

The Planescape accessory The Inner Planes mentions the Sleeping Ones in the Paraelemental Plane of Ice, which are inspired by the Great Old Ones from H.P. Lovecraft's novella "At the Mountains of Madness," and probably on Cthulhu himself.

Lords of Madness for 3rd edition is filled with Lovecraft-inspired bits, but most notably the Elder Evils revered by the aboleths are explicitly based on the Outer Gods from the Cthulhu Mythos.

The obyriths from Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss are also inspired by Lovecraft's monsters, particularly Dagon.

The aboleths of Xxiphu detailed in the 4th edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and in Bruce Cordell's recent novels are also very Cthulhu-like.

There are other examples, but that's enough for now.

Sun, 2009-11-01 13:15

#43

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Yeah, I was aware of the Sleeping Ones, and then in Planes of Law or Planes of Conflict (can't remember which), it mentions that one of the Spheres of Carceri or cubes of Acheron (can't remember which, but I think it's the former) was formed around some gigantic, sleeping being, but not most of the others.
Also, when I said "Cthulu-like", I also meant as in something that "would be more powerful than what a 20th level or less party would encounter".

Sun, 2009-11-01 17:34

#44

Bob the Efreet

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Additionally, Pathfinder explicitly draws on Lovecraftian themes for some of its creatures and other bits of the world.

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Pants of the North!

Sun, 2009-11-01 18:24

#45

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Yup! Shemmy's multiverse book even has Leng in it, from "DreamQuest."

Mon, 2009-11-02 08:30

#46

BlackDaggr

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Perhaps the discussions about the nature of the Beastlands should fork off to the RPG discussion folder. I'm sure the Planar Renovation Project might be interested in some of these discussions. One challenge I have always had with the Beastlands is reconciling their status as a Good plane with the fact that all the sentient animals are "neutral". What's keeping it from sliding into the Outlands?

Back to the original topic: the dinopriminals. One challenge here is that any exemplar race should either be a major factor on their plane, or have a reason why they aren't. My take on the exemplars of the Beastlands is that they are actually the beasts themselves (or a subset of them). They follow a Good alignment, but still are focused on their fellows first, and humanoids second.

Also, each exemplar race really should be distinctive from its neighbors.

Mon, 2009-11-02 21:24

#47

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

""One challenge I have always had with the Beastlands is reconciling their status as a Good plane with the fact that all the sentient animals are "neutral". What's keeping it from sliding into the Outlands?""
Because if you combine the animals and magical beasts all together, they tend to be good-leaning. The Beastlands not only have 'nilla animals, but giant eagles as well (good aligned), and I think the couatl, as well (also good-aligned)

Tue, 2009-11-03 09:22

#48

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

The large number of celestials, mostly, including beings like mortai, hollyphants, devas, planetars, solars, and agathinons. In addition, there are a lot of celestial versions of ordinary animals there.

Sat, 2009-11-07 15:13

#49

xidoraven

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

ripvanwormer wrote:

Exactly. Nail on the head. This is essentially what has happened in my circle of friends' homebrew worlds - every time a new edition of D&D comes out, we re-tool our rules and campaign setting - most often with a complete renovation from top to bottom. My friend Matt once outlined his own evolution of storylines and campaigns as they happened over the course of editions - and it inspired me to make that connection between the editions and the realities which we were creating (our own little Sign of One). It just works out better with how our own ideas of what makes a good story, and how it can relate to the worlds/campaign we create and maintain.

Thus far, I have not actually created any form of 4e world or campaign, but I have been looking to do a renovation and new planar schema for some time, and after the destruction of Nym's previous material region it was necessary to show how things were saved and in what ways they were still connected to other subsets of 'reality' within the material plane, in parallel material worlds, etc.

I also have a tendency to distinguish those worlds which are in parallel universes/realities, and those worlds which are simply in another region of space in the same material Prime. I like to believe that every world that has mortals on it could potentially have a unique and distinctive planar schema surrounding it, based on the ideas, beliefs, and activities on that world. Though this would not work in a plane-spanning campaign setting like is outlined here in these forums, it works when you create localized game storylines and unique plane setups.... Plus, it's my damn game!

BlackDaggr wrote:

Also, each exemplar race really should be distinctive from its neighbors.

The dinopriminals are very much distinctive from the guardinals, and fit into a very specific and different niche. They are always good-aligned, and often neutral good - though the lawful axis is more flexible. They are also originally from the Beastlands, but fit more perfectly into a Prime world (Nym) - and in fact, it makes more sense to put outsiders on a material world to juxtapose the idea of neutrality and goodness as it is shown through their own activities and motivations... At least in my opinion.

I say divinity is always the answer to a tough question, such as 'why does the beastlands not shift over to a neutral plane?' In this case, we have quite easily specified - Ka did it. He fits the bill, and it works with my idea of how Nym relates to the Beastlands outer plane and the rest of the cosmos.

I will go with the idea that he is 'old' and not 'new' based on our timeline discussion. He is listed as a Greater Deity in Mystara... Should he get other specific stats like the rest of the deities in Deities & Demigods? That would be helpful, especially for me when it comes to Divine Rank and how effective he could be against other ascended characters and similar immortals (Inath).

The dinopriminals definitely prioritize their assistance - animals and non-sentient critters first, and those than can comprehend and protect nature coming second.

I'm still new here - how do we fork a conversation? Am I going to need to watch a new page?

Did anyone see my postings and documents about Nymian Sigilry, the Seraphim, etc.? Also, I suspect that SOMEONE here has at least seen the third-party publication I have, Portals & Planes... It's an incredible resource with great diversity and distinct story elements, so I would hope I am not the only one here that is privy to it.... :/
-will

Sat, 2009-11-07 16:23

#50

Hyena of Ice

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

""I say divinity is always the answer to a tough question, such as 'why does the beastlands not shift over to a neutral plane?' In this case, we have quite easily specified - Ka did it. He fits the bill, and it works with my idea of how Nym relates to the Beastlands outer plane and the rest of the cosmos.""

That's another good explaination, yes. That basically, it has not shifted into the neutral sphere because of the presence of a Neutral Good power residing therein. He is not the only one however. IIRC Remnis also resides here, and he/she is also a neutral good deity (Remnis is the deity of giant eagles)

""Also, I suspect that SOMEONE here has at least seen the third-party publication I have, Portals & Planes""
I believe I've skimmed it. Again, we should be very careful about encorporating anything from 3rd party sources, as Plamewalker has only gotten permission from Wizards of the Coast to use their materials.

Oh, that reminds me, I meant to tell you this earlier, but EN World's Creature Catalogue has a TON of converted dinosaurs (2E had oodles of dinosaurs in it, and only about 5-10% of them made it to 3x)

Sun, 2009-11-08 03:34

#51

ripvanwormer

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Re: Guardinals, the Beastlands, and other outsiders

Speaking of the Creature Catalog:

Animal lord
Mortai

The greater god Stronmaus also dwells in the Beastlands, along with Atroa, Balador, Ehlonna, Mielikki, Ferrix, Remnis, Skerrit, several neutral good Krynnish gods, Ubtao, Shiallia, Nobanion, Deneir, and Milil.

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