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When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

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Mon, 2013-04-29 10:44
#1
Dalmosh
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When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

Was he
#1 a primordial horror sealed away by the Protogenoi before the Outer Planes were really formed?

or

#2 something present throughout most of the ancient Law/Chaos War and vanquished by the combined might of the new Gods of the mortal Races.

Existing canon seems a bit contradictory about this - and I am trying to develop some ideas about the Primordial Abyss at the moment. I have never paid any attention to 4th ed. stuff, except possibly if it doesn't conflict with classic stuff.

So if the latter is the case, what do you think His role was during the Law/Chaos War, and what was his relationship with the Obyriths and the Abyss in general for that matter?

I am toying with the idea that Tharizdun was a major enemy of Baator long before the fall of Ahriman and the rise of the Baatezu. This conflict weakened the Ancient Baatorians so severely that they were driven into hiding deep in the pits of Baator - never really recovering enough to become a major interplanar power again, and subsequently playing a greatly diminished role in the Law/Chaos War.

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Tue, 2013-04-30 07:39
#2
cromlich
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Re: When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

My take is that the Protogenoi are just from the Greek pantheon, but I guess Greyhawk also had equivalent powers and Tharizdun was one of them. His corruption probably happened hundreds of millions years ago, times when aboleths, elder things first appeared, after the first contact with the Far Realm.

Or alternatively, maybe his relationship with the Abyss comes from being interested in the draeden around which Abyss grew around, draedens despise all elemental material.

Wed, 2013-05-01 20:58
#3
ripvanwormer
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Re: When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

Tharizdun was already long since bound by the time of the war between Law and Chaos, if one is to believe the Monster Manual IV (for 3.5). That book said that the Elemental Princes of Evil are too young to remember the war between the gods and Tharizdun, and the Elemental Princes of Evil were definitely involved in the Law-Chaos war according to most recent accounts of the conflict (including Dungeon #129, Dragon #347, and Dragon #353).

In 4th edition's Demonomicon, Tharizdun (under the guise of the Elder Elemental God) allied himself with the primordials in an attempt to reclaim the shard of pure evil (created by the obyriths) that had formed the Abyss. The gods caught him and imprisoned him before he could succeed. With Tharizdun's followers in disarray, the Queen of Chaos chose that time to rally Miska the Wolf-Spider and the other demon lords and princes of elemental evil to her cause. So the conflict known as the War Between Law and Chaos in earlier editions only properly begins after Tharizdun's defeat.

Tue, 2013-05-07 05:15
#4
cromlich
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Re: When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

Does that mean elemental powers like Kossuth, or the dharum suhn are older than the Elemental Princes of Evil?

Tue, 2013-05-07 20:10
#5
Dalmosh
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Re: When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

Definitely so... Kossuth is REALLY old. He (in my understanding at least - assuming version #1) is that he was one of a group of very strong primordial powers embodying physical processes, that were in their original states, independent of belief - because they far preceded mortal life. Those that survive have mostly evolved into something much closer to normal Gods.

I seem to think the shadow deities of Faerun and the Greek pantheon (Shar and Nyx, respectfully) are beings of this ilk too. I probably drew that from Hyena of Ice's content though - who has written quite a bit about this stuff...

Wed, 2013-05-08 04:18
#6
cromlich
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Re: When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

Yeah, Faerun at the beginning has the shadevari, and Leshay probably. Also the sharns have interesting origins, this is from Dragon #373

Quote:
The sharns alone stand sentinel over this world of bones and ruins. Having achieved his ends, Tharizdun abandoned this universe eons ago. So mighty had the mad god become that he shed his divinity in a grand apotheosis, becoming something beyond a god -- something perverse and outside the known.

The sharns remained as the sentient remnant of all Tharizdun had destroyed and abandoned -- a collective of merged consciousnesses. For a time, forsaken and alone on a dying world, this chaotic amalgam watched and waited. It's unclear whether curiosity or boredom drove it to act, but soon the roiling amorphous form of pitch-black "sharnstuff" began to move across the brittle landscape. Something within drove it to explore and catalog the dying world.

Fri, 2013-09-20 23:00
#7
Dalmosh
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Re: When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

I don't know how canonical this is, because I don't read much 4th ed. but an idea I have come across a few times is that the formation of the Elemental Eye and its four princes of elemental evil involved some kind of subversion, destabilization or rearrangement of a precursory balancing force in the elemental planes - some kind of Omnimental proto-god. Maybe that is just something from Hyaena of Ice's content though.
Does anyone have any ideas about this?

Would this imply a connection between Tharizdun and Omnimentals, or more likely Unravellers - which seem to have a little in common with Tharizdun's role in the cosmos back then?

What actually are Omnimentals anyway, and what is their relationship with the other elementals?

Sat, 2013-09-21 03:31
#8
cromlich
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Re: When was Tharizdun at large during Planar history?

Omnimentals are the descendants of magically created elemental beings. They've been created, by some kind of magical fusion, after all other elementals had appeared. They aren't anything ''proto'', my guess is that proto-elemental beings would have ethereal traits, or made of negative-positive energy (or shadowstuff?). Unravellers appear more like it, I'm not sure if Hyena of Ice meant those unravellers from Planar Handbook, who seem to appear as a reaction to something, not proto, or the unravellers from Mongoose's book Epic Monsters. I know that the elemental planes structure changed before, for example fire was not the opposite of water, was that when the elemental evil first appeared? There also could be a connection between the Sleeping Ones (The Inner Planes page 72) and Tharizdun. I also wonder about the animental humanoid race (from PS Monstrous Compendium page 14) who are rumored progenitors of genies.

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