Post/Author/DateTime	Post
18DELTA 11-02-07, 12:39 AM	Ok I just picked up the New Bruce Cordell novel "Star Deep". So what is the Cerulean Sign?:D The novel is set in the Forgotten Realms. I would post this in the FR forums, I just dont want it turning in to a flame war. Its a very interesting novel. Thanks!!!:D
sciborg3 11-02-07, 08:32 AM	the c. sign is a symbol passed on from antiquity that is anti-aberration. It's believed to be the holy symbol of a god who died or vanished but dedicated itself to combating these unnatural beings. its also the name of the orgamization dedicated to fighting those said aberrations.
Bull-of-the-Pit 11-02-07, 12:12 PM	Lots of info about it in the "Lords of Madness".
18DELTA 11-02-07, 12:24 PM	Thanks!:D
WombleHunter 11-02-07, 01:03 PM	Yeah, try Lords of Madness. It's a minor magic item and there's a PrC all about it too.
goldomark 11-02-07, 01:18 PM	Just curious. Why would such a trivial subject evolve into a flame war?
18DELTA 11-02-07, 03:36 PM	Because of whats happening to the Realms.:( I had never heard of the Cerulean Sign being in the Realms until I started reading Star Deep by Bruce R Cordell. I had heard of the Sign, I didnt Realize that the Realms had it too. I dont have Lords of Madness, So what does it do in a generic sense. Does it keeps the Far Realms at bay? In the book Star Deep its used in conjuction with the Abeir-Toril mystery. Meaning it holds Abeir back! Its the Realm of the aboleth soverignty(sp). The Traitor is trying to call the aboleths back, so he is imprisoned in a dungeon called Star Deep. Its a part, yet seperate from the Star Elf Realm in Faerun! So is this lore consistant wiht established lore? The Orc King spoiler said that an aboleth empire is in Faerun after the spellplague. So when the spellplague hits would the Creulean Sign FAIL? Unleashing Abeir on Toril! Possibly? :eek:
Talisman 11-02-07, 07:53 PM	"The cerulean sign is an ancient symbol said to embody the purity of the natural world, and as such is anathema to aberrations."--Lords of Madness. It exists as a spell (invoke the cerulean sign) that sickens and otherwise inconveniances aberrations; as a magic item (that grants a bonus to saves, AC, etc. against aberrations); and as the focus of a prestige class (Keepers of the Cerulean Sign; focus: spellcasting and putting the thumpin' on aberrations). http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/lom_gallery/88169.jpg
Shemeska the Marauder 11-02-07, 08:17 PM	Let's not kid ourselves here. It's HP Lovecraft's Elder Sign. The illustration even looks like a weeping willow version of HPL's own depiction of it that kinda looks like an evergreen branch.
18DELTA 11-03-07, 01:12 AM	So originally, in core who, or what created it? Was it created before time, after time started? I just want to know more about it. In what sourcebooks is it in besides Lords of Madness? Is it a 3.5 development, or has it been around through many versions of the game and lore? It essentially keeps the Far Realms at bay? What would happen if it Fails? The Lords of Madness would be unleashed on the Casmos, right? Yes , No?:) Thanks for the replies peeps! It is greatly appreciated.:D
Ryyam 11-03-07, 01:26 AM	In the Lovecraftian universe the Elder Sign was created to imprision/banish the 'Great Old Ones' - Cthulhu, Hastur, Y'Golonac, etc. - by their enemies the 'Elder Gods'. Maybe the Cerelean Sign was created by the Elder Elves - the 'discoverers' of the Far Realm - to battle the alien monsters that they unleashed? PS: before someone spanks me - I know Lovecraft himself didnt come up with Old One/Elder God war - it was his followers
ripvanwormer 11-03-07, 08:15 PM	So originally, in core who, or what created it? Was it created before time, after time started? We don't know. A race or deity that has long since vanished (it could have been the Elder Elves, or it could have been something else - maybe a rogue Far Realm entity?). It also suggests the sign predates the gods. It focuses the power of the natural world, so we might assume it must have been created at some point when the natural world existed (that is, probably after time began). In what sourcebooks is it in besides Lords of Madness? That's the only one. It essentially keeps the Far Realms at bay? Not by itself. Whatever race or deity that created it is now destroyed, so it didn't protect its own creators. It repels aberrations, but they can still get past it if they try hard enough (or there would be no aberrations in the world at all). Other groups are still necessary to bolster it. Most inhabitants of the Far Realm probably don't care about the known, temporal cosmos one way or the other, and would ignore it regardless. There's also Bolothamogg, a Far Realm entity who exists to protect the Far Realm from the known planes, fearing they might contaminate the "true reality" beyond. So some natives of the Far Realm openly fear and avoid the near realms. Some find it toxic. The Lords of Madness would be unleashed on the Casmos, right? Possibly, if you wanted to play it that way. Taking Lords of Madness literally, though, all we know that it does for sure is empower the Keepers of the Cerulean Sign prestige class, giving them the power to detect aberrations, dispel their magic, ward portals from them, backlash against their mental domination, and destroy them with a word. Certainly, it's a powerful weapon against aberrations of any type (not just Far Realm natives), but it's not necessarily the only thing keeping them from devouring reality.
ZeroSD 11-03-07, 08:27 PM	Let's not kid ourselves here. It's HP Lovecraft's Elder Sign. The illustration even looks like a weeping willow version of HPL's own depiction of it that kinda looks like an evergreen branch. Yes, definitely Lovecraft-based. Cerulean is even the opposite side of the color wheel of Yellow, and the yellow sign is the sign of some big bad nasties in Lovecraft verse (which D&D would classify as Aberration gods). So of course cerulean sign = anti-aberration, yellow sign = pro-aberration.
Zousha_Omenohu 11-03-07, 11:12 PM	Not to quibble, but blue is opposite yellow on the color wheel. Cerulean is just a lighter version of blue that they decided to use in the book because cerulean just sounds that much cooler than blue. At least in my opinion.:rolleyes:
sciborg3 11-03-07, 11:33 PM	this elder sign? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Sign seems not so tree-like.
18DELTA 11-03-07, 11:35 PM	Thank you Rip, and folks.:tiphat: So when was the first time that the Far Realms was mentioned in D&D lore?:)
Talisman 11-04-07, 12:28 AM	Thank you Rip, and folks.:tiphat: So when was the first time that the Far Realms was mentioned in D&D lore?:) I believe 'twas in Gates of Firestorm Peak, a 2nd Ed adventure with a very Lovecraftian feel.
Shemeska the Marauder 11-04-07, 01:23 AM	this elder sign? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Sign seems not so tree-like. Lovecraft's drawing of it in his letters was (I've got a copy of that collected volume on my bookshelf). This is what it looked like: http://www.hplovecraft.com/life/pics/eldersign.gif Derleth's version was different *insert my own generic grumblings about Derleth*
ripvanwormer 11-04-07, 09:04 PM	Not to quibble, but blue is opposite yellow on the color wheel. Orange is opposite blue. Yellow is opposite purple (a primary color is always opposite a secondary color; the primary colors are each 120 degrees apart, and therefore can't be opposite one other). And yes, I'm quibbling. And to get more on topic, yeah, Gates of Firestorm Peak was the first mention of the Far Realm. And the holy symbol of Boccob looks like Derleth's version of the Elder Sign; I don't know if that means anything, but Boccob is said to have a big problem with Tharizdun.
Talisman 11-04-07, 09:45 PM	Cerulean is even the opposite side of the color wheel of Yellow... QFT, emphasis mine.
18DELTA 11-04-07, 11:34 PM	Thanks!!!:D So is Tharizdun from the Far Realms?
Zousha_Omenohu 11-05-07, 10:42 AM	Orange is opposite blue. Yellow is opposite purple (a primary color is always opposite a secondary color; the primary colors are each 120 degrees apart, and therefore can't be opposite one other). And yes, I'm quibbling. Whoops! If only I'd payed more attention in the unit on paintings in my Fine Arts Appreciation course, instead of waiting desperately for the unit on music!:rolleyes: I'm not sure if Tharizdun is a Far Realms entity, since he is a god, and the beings of the Far Realm are much more like Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth, to continue with the Lovecraft references. Tharizdun just wants to destroy everything. The entities of the Far Realms, if allowed into our reality, would make the entire pantheon go insane, bleed their brains out through their ears and contort their bodies into a disturbingly pretty macrame before enjoying their livers with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti.
aelryinth 11-05-07, 12:53 PM	The Age of Worms has a whole city of abandoned Aboleth stuff, lit by pillars of purple fire coming right out of the Far Realms. There is also a Dungeon Adventure dealing explicitly with the King in Yellow, and a demented bard putting together a play where he tries to get an entire city sucked into Hastur's realm (Hastur! HASTUR! HAAAASSSTTTUUURRR!) The illithids, the kaorti, and that red/white/black race of beings who are in the Ethereal all have Far Realm connections somewhere. ===Aelryinth
ripvanwormer 11-05-07, 01:15 PM	The Age of Worms has a whole city of abandoned Aboleth stuff, lit by pillars of purple fire coming right out of the Far Realms. There is also a Dungeon Adventure dealing explicitly with the King in Yellow, and a demented bard putting together a play where he tries to get an entire city sucked into Hastur's realm (Hastur! HASTUR! HAAAASSSTTTUUURRR!) The illithids, the kaorti, and that red/white/black race of beings who are in the Ethereal all have Far Realm connections somewhere. ===Aelryinth The ethergaunts have no connections to the Far Realm. They're natives of the Material Plane who moved to the Deep Ethereal for ten thousand years or so. Erik Mona, who created them, has confirmed this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=7659937&postcount=33). A pretty complete list of things with vague connections to the Far Realm is in this thread (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=448354). QFT, emphasis mine. Yellow and blue are 120 degrees apart, and therefore on the same half of the circle - they would only be on opposite sides if they were 180 degrees apart. There are ways to divide a circle in half that would result in those points ending up in different halves, but a circle is radially symmetrical, not bilaterally symmetrical, so there wouldn't be anything objectively meaningful in those divisions. By any definition that matters, anything less than 180 degrees is in the same semicircle. Technically, the opposite of Cerulean Blue is Venetian (Mars) Red (http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color16.html), or a mixture of Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber, depending on the brand of paint you're using. Thanks!!!:D So is Tharizdun from the Far Realms? Lords of Madness suggests he might be, though there are other possibilities.
sciborg3 11-05-07, 11:02 PM	The entities of the Far Realms, if allowed into our reality, would make the entire pantheon go insane not boccob, nerull, vecna, pale night, obox-ob, dagon, mystra, ygorl, ssendam...
Zousha_Omenohu 11-05-07, 11:28 PM	not boccob, nerull, vecna, pale night, obox-ob, dagon, mystra, ygorl, ssendam... Why not? They are residents of one reality and as a result are succeptible to the maddening qualities of the powers-that-be in the Far Realms. The entities of the Far Realms (if Lovecraftian fiction is the inspiration) could grind all the entities you describe into a very fine powder with just the very tiniest tip of their apendage, at the same time. And the ultimate downer is? They wouldn't even notice it. To understand my reasoning, please read this article (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.CosmicHorror).
18DELTA 11-05-07, 11:50 PM	Well they already put a bullet in Mystra head, so she cant go insane.
Zousha_Omenohu 11-06-07, 12:16 AM	Well they already put a bullet in Mystra head, so she cant go insane. Death is meaningless to such entities. They could bring Mystra back and make her dance naked through a ruined city, blasting chipmunks all over the world and chewing on Elminster's head, without even thinking about it. You cannot stand against such power. You cannot even comprehend! THE END TIMES ARE NIGH!! OURS IS DESERVED DAMNATION!!! /insane apocalyptic rant
Terraneaux 11-06-07, 02:43 AM	Well, one of the things about DnD is that it is *fantasy* interacting with the alien, cthulhoid beings. Similarly to the Hyborian Age in REH's works, the age in which DnD's action takes place is an age of Hope and Heroes (or Antiheroes). There are beings who can stand up to the Far Realm beings and wrap their collective butts around their collective shoulders.
sciborg3 11-06-07, 09:54 AM	Nothing about the Far Realms has been anything that can't be in the deepest Pits of the Abyss. And that's two removed from the insane chaos of Limbo. As such, I suspect there are many gods that can interact with the Far Realms and survive. As for my insignificance, I already live in a universe experiencing heat death in a cold, empty void. Getting eating by a world-spanning crustacean is, if anything, more meaningful. As for being afraid, again eaten by mega-lobster beats having my memories exploited by a demon prince or a succubus making me commit adultery. Well they already put a bullet in Mystra head, so she cant go insane. qua? (maybe PM me the answer please so no spoilers for others? thanks)
18DELTA 11-06-07, 10:09 AM	qua? (maybe PM me the answer please so no spoilers for others? thanks) "A Grand History of the Realms" will answer that question for you. "1385 The Year of Blue Fire". :)
Thanael 11-06-07, 11:52 AM	Yellow and blue are 120 degrees apart, and therefore on the same half of the circle - they would only be on opposite sides if they were 180 degrees apart. There are ways to divide a circle in half that would result in those points ending up in different halves, but a circle is radially symmetrical, not bilaterally symmetrical, so there wouldn't be anything objectively meaningful in those divisions. By any definition that matters, anything less than 180 degrees is in the same semicircle. Really? Than because of symmetry anything more than 180 degrees is also in the same semicircle. It follows that opposite side of the circle == exactly opposite spot. I'm not so sure that thats the best definition... Anything greater than 90 degrees and smaller than 270 works as a good definition "other side of the circle" for me. (i.e. dividing the circle into 2 halve by the right angle of the radius of where you are)
Thanael 11-06-07, 12:29 PM	qua? (maybe PM me the answer please so no spoilers for others? thanks) I think he's referring to 4E news from Great History of the Realms. Mystra is dead? Did I miss something? When did that happen? According to GHotR, not until 1385. A unified attack of some sort by Cyric and Shar, manages to destroy the meddlesome midnight, and lay low the weave. This is the spellplague we have been hearing so much about, though we still have no idea how this effects us, or the realms at large.--from this thread: Mystra is Dead (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=928206)
ripvanwormer 11-06-07, 05:38 PM	Really? Than because of symmetry anything more than 180 degrees is also in the same semicircle. Yes, of course; that's basic geometry; anything more than 180 degrees on a circle is also less than 180 degrees. This is so obvious I didn't think it bore mentioning. The issue is, in fact, very simple: if two points can fit in the same semicircle, they are on the same "side" of the circle. While it's possible, as I said before, to divide the circle in ways that would arbitrarily separate them, there is no objective meaning to such a division. Referring to "the other side of a circle" has only one meaning that would be readily apparent to any objective observer. A circle is, after all, round. The "other side" of a circle is the point 180 degrees away, no "more" and no less. If we were discussing a square, or some other shape that had actual sides, or a circle that had commonly understood boundaries (as our Earth does) this wouldn't necessarily be the case, but a color wheel can be arranged with any color on top. In fact, many of them are constructed so that they spin. Besides which, the phrase "other side of the color wheel" has a specific meaning in color theory - you're describing the color's complement. The original poster was speaking as if blue had some special relationship with the color yellow that it doesn't have with the color red; that's not the case, as both red and yellow are equidistant. The Cerulean Sign has no closer a relationship with the Yellow Sign than it would with a Scarlet Sign (such as the one in the heraldry of the Scarlet Brotherhood?). And the complement of Cerulean Blue is closer to red than it is to yellow. Now, hypothetically, there might well be three such Signs, named after each of the primary colors (not that Cerulean Blue is exactly a primary color). This is an interesting idea, and perhaps we can wax philosophical about the nature of the Scarlet Sign and what it means in the context of the Yellow Sign and the Cerulean Sign. But the Cerulean Sign and the Yellow Sign do not and cannot bear a binary relationship in any way supported by the color wheel. This makes sense - the color wheel is all about trinary relationships, after all.
Zousha_Omenohu 11-06-07, 07:14 PM	Well, one of the things about DnD is that it is *fantasy* interacting with the alien, cthulhoid beings. Similarly to the Hyborian Age in REH's works, the age in which DnD's action takes place is an age of Hope and Heroes (or Antiheroes). There are beings who can stand up to the Far Realm beings and wrap their collective butts around their collective shoulders. But the whole point of these kinds of beings is that you can never hope to defeat them and believing that it is even remotely possible is the worst delusion you can ever hope to have. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, the Old Ones will be again! It's not a matter of if it will happen, or even when it will happen, but a matter of whether you should continue to live believing in your false hopes, or just lay down and die to spare yourself the trouble. Hopelessness and madness are the name of the game. Perhaps I'm just taking this whole thing too seriously, but the whole point of the Cthulhu Mythos is that there are things out there that we are not meant to know about, because to know about them would basically render all existence meaningless. Again, the article can explain it better than I can.
sciborg3 11-06-07, 10:33 PM	Perhaps I'm just taking this whole thing too seriously, but the whole point of the Cthulhu Mythos is that there are things out there that we are not meant to know about, because to know about them would basically render all existence meaningless. Again, the article can explain it better than I can. No, I read the article and you convey the position accurately. My point is that ultimately the Old Ones would make existence no more meaningless than it is under thermodynamics. Now we can argue about information as the key to evolution transcending entropy as some intelligent design adherents believe (note I'm not talking politics but genuine theology) but really at face value heat death sucks. The Old Ones only make things more meaningless if we attach meaning to some super distant future, that one day everything will be gone. But are such beings really more scary than an earthquake or a supernova or the black hole in our galaxy's center? Scary to me is a child soldier that can't be rehabilitated, or that I could be as easily tempted into genocide as others have been. That's why fiends scare me - not just what they can do to me but how they might, in fact, change me...