This is kind of a follow-up to a previous post. In it, I mentioned that while the Sigil timeline seemed to have moved forward only a hair (enough time for the Mutual Trade association to form, for instance), time in Toril had been pushed foward about 100 years. I then commented that Arwyl Swan's Son, the leader of the Sons of Mercy, would be shocked at the changes in his homeworld. Someone then pointed out to me a WOTC Forgotten Realms article with Arwyl being about 150 years old! So apparently in the Forgotten Realms universe, Sigil has also moved forward 100 years. But this seems to contradict the 4E DMGII version of Sigil, since a number of characters that are listed as alive there would have died off of old age. (Unless you assume they all became vampires or liches or somesuch...) So there are TWO Sigils??? - One for Toril and one for the baseline campaign? How do you suggest handling this descrepancy?
Help with 4E's Toril/Sigil timeline?
Our earlier discussion on this topic is here.
The article on the Mercykillers in Dragon #370 isn't a Forgotten Realms article specifically, although it mentions that Arwyl Swan's Son is from Toril (and that he's over 150 years old). It also mentions that Alisohn Nilesia's daughter is in charge of the Sodkillers, so it's at least a generation in the future, quite possibly more.
There's only one Sigil, and what time it is in Sigil depends on what time you want to play. It's the same as the Forgotten Realms. There's only one Toril, but you can play it before the Spellplague or a century later. It doesn't matter what edition of the rules you want to play - set your campaign in whatever time you want.
It's not a contradiction to write about more than one era of a campaign setting. In the Forgotten Realms, the Arcane Age campaign describes Netheril thousands of years ago. Pool of Radiance was set in 1350 DR. For Duty & Deity was set in 1370 DR. The Spellplague is 1385 DR. 4th edition FR takes place in 1479 DR. None of these things are contradictions, only progressions of a consistent timeline. And Sigil would be different in each of those eras. But there aren't five different Sigils, just Sigil in five different periods of time.
If Sigil as described in the Planescape Campaign Setting was considered "current" in the 2nd edition era (and it was: see the novel Tymora's Luck, for example, which had Sensate factol Erin Montgomery Darkflame in it), then it only makes sense that Sigil would have advanced 100 years in the time that the Realms advanced 100 years. Because everything in the Realms canon is still considered canonical unless explicitly contradicted, then this is still true in 4th edition.
This isn't inconsistency. It would be inconsistent if 100 years passed in the Forgotten Realms and zero time passed in Sigil, but they decided to be consistent instead. Sigil is different a century later. Waterdeep and Calimshan are different a century later, too. All cities connected to the Forgotten Realms campaign are different a century later. This is how it should be.
Dungeon Master's Guide II wasn't a Forgotten Realms supplement, so it doesn't have to account for the Forgotten Realms timeline. It's a supplement for the generic 4th edition World, which can be linked to any time period in Sigil they want to link it to. Again, there's no inconsistency or contradiction here.
I don't see your problem.
My problem is that the Sigil in DMGII is set just after the Faction War (which is fine), but the Forgotten Realms has moved 100+ years into the future. So they are no longer in sync (yes, I could use the future Sigil that's set in LE 109, but then most of the NPCs I like would have died of old age!) It's not a contradiction per se, but it is a pain in the butt. Well, it is what it is, so I guess I'll drop the subject...
Oh, and sorry if I've been a pain or anything, I really don't mean to be! Thanks for the comments...
Yeah, that's a pain in the butt with the Forgotten Realms in general, though, isn't it? I mean, most Forgotten Realms PCs, at least the human ones, will have mostly died off, even the ones you like.
The best solution, it seems to me, is to not set the Forgotten Realms 100 years in the future. Why not run the campaign setting in some other era?
Or you could use the timeline incompatibilities as a plot.
A group of adventurers from Toril goes to Sigil for a bit, but when the return its a 100 years earlier or later than when they left!
What happened? Who is responsible? Are they the only ones affected, or are there more temporally displaces adventures out there? Can they reverse it? Are they interested in reversing it?
Isn't Sigil out of the official Realms cosmology (though there are gates to it) in 4e? If so, maybe time in Sigil flows differently than in the FR multiverse. Perhaps time in Sigil is relative to creatures from different multiverses (meaning that if you came in from a pre-Spell Plague FR, the time you would spend in Sigil would correspond to the time of your original Pre-Spellplague timeline, and the same for a Post-Spell Plague character), and that you would be spit out in your original timeline modified, of course, by the time you spent in Of course, this would also leave for some interesting paradoxes with a character possibly meeting with his ancestor, but such is the nature of the planes...
I guess someone at WotC simply doesn't give a fiendish damn about such things...
"La la la, I'm a girl, I'm a pretty little girl!"
--Bel the Pit Fiend, Lord of the First (in a quiet hour of privacy)