Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Verderben 01-14-08, 09:45 PM	Hello. What information is there about the enigmatic Keepers besides that which is written in their entry of the Fiend Folio? I have read some suggestions in various message boards that they originate in a different reality. Is this idea canonical? What sort of reality is this? I would appreciate any sort of information about the Keepers, in-game as well as the inspiration behind their creation. Thank you very much and have a pleasant day!
Flame_Drake 01-14-08, 11:24 PM	Shemmy wrote a very good article on the Ecology of Keepers for Dragon before it went the way of the Dodo, I can't remember what number it was though. Stealth pokes the arcanaloth with pointy stick to update Storyhour 1. Drake
Shemeska the Marauder 01-15-08, 12:38 AM	Ecology of the Keepers Dragon 353 Besides the FF entry though and the Ecology, they first appeared in the 2e Planescape Monstrous Compendium II, and had a tangential mention in 'Dead Gods'. As for where they came from, it's an open question I suppose, but the implication is that they're from another reality. Not another plane mind you, but another reality altogether. Consider the multiverse of the Great Wheel and the Far Realm each being their own, self-contained such 'realities', all of which might be conceptualized as individual bubbles of concrete, calcified probability atop of literal ocean of metaphysical froth in the deep ethereal. That reality might have been preexistant, or it might itself have been created from nothing by the Keeper's creators, assuming the most common myth of their origin is correct. The legend differs on if he created them, found them and called them, or made himself an embryonic reality that allowed for their creation in the first place. http://arcanofox.foxpaws.net/shemmysmile.gif Also, if you're interested, I've got some material that got cut for space considerations from the final version of the article.
Shemeska the Marauder 01-15-08, 12:42 AM	Stealth pokes the arcanaloth with pointy stick to update Storyhour 1. Life is not being kind to me unfortunately. I've worked 7 days in a row, nothing less than 10 hours a day, and I'm on call for day 8 and likely to be stuck in my lab past midnight for it tommorow. However I'm about halfway to an update being done. There will be one this week.
Taeldrin Laesrash 01-15-08, 01:12 AM	Good luck with the work. Please put up the unposted material.
Shemeska the Marauder 01-15-08, 01:36 AM	The following are various bits of material that were cut out of the article during the editing process before it went to print. This bit was removed from the 'History of the Keeper' section: "Some stories claim that the keepers resulted from the first, abortive attempt by the gods to create inevitables, or a flawed attempt to mimic those beings of Law by a deity of Chaos. Others claim that a long dead god of secrets created them, and that now alone and abandoned, they perpetually seek to uphold their creator’s tenets even as that god slips further and further into oblivion. Still others claim that the keepers are some form of living illusions, or even sentient protomatter, first spawned and given true substance and definition within the Deep Ethereal, either by intent or by mistake." The following section was cut entirely: "Alternative Keeper Origins Arcane Experiments: Other legends claim that the keepers were the creations of Areya Fenthellis, 1st disciple of Shekelor, and last Factol of the Incantifers, a magic obsessed planar faction that was ultimately destroyed at the height of their power. Her creations still live on however, and so might she, still locked away in exile within the Mazes of the Lady of Pain. Fiendish origins: Several archfiends have been linked to the creation of the keepers as servitors, among them Corin, the Lord of Espionage of Baator’s Dark Eight, as well as a long litany of noble Baatezu within the courts of Dispater and Levistus. The most intriguing name linked to the keepers however, is one that is barely remembered: Larsdana Ap Neut, the designer and first lord of Gehenna’s Tower Arcane. A monstrously powerful arcanaloth and yugoloth lord, she may have created the keepers in secret, just before she was killed or imprisoned by her protégé, Helekanalaith, the current holder of her former position. Even beyond her race's obsession with secrets, the title she created and held within the yugoloth hierarchy was, quite suggestively, that of Keeper of the Tower. Deific Creations: The keepers might be the creations of a deity of secrets, possibly ancient servitors of Vecna, Shar, the now dead Maanzecorian, or a forgotten deity whose corpse drifts unlamented through the silver void of the Astral. Alternatively, the keepers could be creations of Mnemosyne, the imprisoned Titan of Memory, wishing to gather secrets and knowledge outside the bounds of her prison in Carceri." The following was cut from the Physiology section: "Hints of any further detail into keeper anatomy are slim, given the beings’ rarity combined with their propensity to dissolve when killed or captured. Still, two sources of information exist. The first is an obscure book titled ‘Songs of Scream, Saw, Silence’, of either Yugoloth or Tanar’ri origin, which details in exquisite and macabre detail, the still living vivisection of nearly two hundred separate species of mortal, and includes a portrait of and a footnote on a creature bearing a close resemblance to a keeper. Referred to only by a numerical designation, likely a catalog notation from the book’s original source, the resemblance is uncanny. The volume describes the being as ‘a nuisance’ and speaks of it as an ‘eater of secrets’, adding ‘Let it choke on ours’. Ultimately the book’s fiendish author laments that while he took steps to preserve the creature’s form, nearly all detail was lost during its attempts to commit suicide. What he recovered though seemed to suggest that the keeper’s body cavity contained a non-homogenous protoplasm-like liquid, composed of several immiscible, sequential layers, surrounded by a protective membrane: the creature’s glossy skin. The only other source of detailed information comes from a series of torn and reassembled pages, supposedly discovered sewn into the backing of an unrelated tome purchased in the extraplanar city of Sigil. Regardless of its origin, the pages of this second source are decorated with elaborate illustrations intermixed between passages of cramped, coded writing in an apparently artificial script. Though the writing remains undeciphered, the diagrams confirm a number of the claims of the previous fiendish author, except that this second source performed its examinations on a willing subject, possibly one still in the process of forming or growing. The document indicates that the outermost layer of liquid or other material closest to the skin can aggregate and differentiate into other structures, the source of the keepers’ minor metamorphic ability. The next layer down apparently functions in a hydraulic capacity, forcing itself against gravity and giving the keepers their oddly articulated motion. Unfortunately the second source abruptly stops in mid sentence of its coded script, with any additional pages either misplaced or destroyed. Ultimately the sources leave behind tantalizing suggestions, but nothing firm, nothing pinned down and cataloged, no secrets left open to the light, only a situation that perfectly suits the keepers’ secretive nature." And finally there was a 'D&D Origin of the Keeper Sidebar': Unique to D&D, keepers first appeared in the 1995 Planescape Monstrous Compendium II by Richard Baker. Later, the 1997 module ‘Dead Gods’ mentions the keepers when Tenebrous (recently mentioned in the 3.5 Tome of Magic) pondered approaching them for information about the lost Wand of Orcus. In 3rd edition D&D, the 3e Fiend Folio reintroduced the keepers, finally bringing their mystery to a new generation of games and gamers alike.
Flame_Drake 01-15-08, 02:01 AM	Life is not being kind to me unfortunately. I've worked 7 days in a row, nothing less than 10 hours a day, and I'm on call for day 8 and likely to be stuck in my lab past midnight for it tommorow. However I'm about halfway to an update being done. There will be one this week. :eek: That sucks Shemmy, don't kill yourself to get that story done, get some sleep instead. Did you post that extra stuff on Planewalker, I don't remember seeing it before? Drake
Shemeska the Marauder 01-15-08, 02:37 AM	Did you post that extra stuff on Planewalker, I don't remember seeing it before? Drake Yes, it was posted on the planewalker forums.
Verderben 01-15-08, 07:05 PM	Thanks so much! I find the idea of "calcified probability" in the sea of possibility, or ethereal, to be highly fascinating! Did you create this idea? Are there any other sources that contain similar ideas about a kind of "metacosmos" like this? Finally, are there any other non-Lovecraftian entities that hail from other realities like the Keepers? I like Lovecraft, but tentacles and slime get old after a while. Thanks again and have a wonderful day!
Shemeska the Marauder 01-15-08, 07:49 PM	Thanks so much! I find the idea of "calcified probability" in the sea of possibility, or ethereal, to be highly fascinating! Did you create this idea? Are there any other sources that contain similar ideas about a kind of "metacosmos" like this? The idea of the ethereal as the realm of manifest probability or undefined potential was how it was presented in 2nd edition, most fully in the various Planescape sourcebooks, and especially in the 'Guide to the Ethereal' sourcebook, which specifically covered the ethereal plane. It's still there in 3e, but most 3e material either ignored the ethereal, or treated it superficially. The notion of a metacosmos is an idea I run with certainly, and there basis for it was there in the 2e material, and to a lesser extent in 3e material, if you read between the lines somewhat. It's never really said outright anywhere, but it's handily inferred from the 2e sources on the Keepers, Dharculi, the Chososion, and the 2e/3e sources on the Far Realm. Finally, are there any other non-Lovecraftian entities that hail from other realities like the Keepers? I like Lovecraft, but tentacles and slime get old after a while. Thanks again and have a wonderful day! The Keepers and potentially the Chososion are the only ones that come to mind. Most others are Far Realms inhabitants, and those have been rather monolithic in the slime and tentacled crowd. The primordial representatives of the abstract alignments might potentially be interpreted as having come into the Great Wheel from some outer, transcendant and preexistant reality, outside of the concept of space and time. But that's a bit of a stretch, even if it's an interpretation I'm inclined to use in my own stories. Of that type, only the baernaloths are named, with the earliest LN, CN, and NG representatives being unknown or unnamed. But with those beings, I wouldn't place whatever reality they would have come from as one of those nascent universes within the ethereal deep. It would be something else entirely, detached from physical existance as much as possible.
Verderben 01-16-08, 07:27 PM	Thanks again! I am starting to wonder what it would say about the accepted version of the Great Wheel cosmology if the Ethereal is, in fact, beyond the multiverse. Furthermore, I was also wondering about how the evidence for this metacosmological theory compares to that for the one that proposes that the Far Realm itself is more than a "mere" multiverse but the metacosmos in which all other multiverses are bubbles. Finally, I was wondering what indications there were for the primordial alignment exemplars coming from a transcendent reality, as well as what this transcendent reality might be like. Does this reality compare to the fifth level of reality posited by the Ravenloft campaign setting to which deities go beyond when they transcend?
Shemeska the Marauder 01-16-08, 07:39 PM	Furthermore, I was also wondering about how the evidence for this metacosmological theory compares to that for the one that proposes that the Far Realm itself is more than a "mere" multiverse but the metacosmos in which all other multiverses are bubbles. The idea of the Far Realms surrounding the Great Wheel cosmology is really only present in material that primarily talks about the Far Realm itself, and oftentimes it's language that's more trying to be a Lovecraftian pastiche than addressing cosmology in D&D. Finally, I was wondering what indications there were for the primordial alignment exemplars coming from a transcendent reality, as well as what this transcendent reality might be like. Just a particular interpretation of the baernaloth creation mythos from 'Hellbound: The Blood War' and 'Faces of Evil: The Fiends'. It's really just me taking than angle for the most part I think, rather than it being hinted at elsewhere in anything printed. Does this reality compare to the fifth level of reality posited by the Ravenloft campaign setting to which deities go beyond when they transcend? Sadly, I'm not that familiar with that idea.