Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zousha_Omenohu 09-10-07, 01:43 AM	I found this on the Bioware forums for Neverwinter Nights. The original poster, Yuan-Ti's Revenge gave me permission to post his/her question here in hopes of getting some accurate answers from those who know the planes and their lore the best. I was wondering if the Knowers are canonical to WotWC in terms of the Nine Hells of Baator. The "Ancient Baators" referenced to in "The Manual of Planes" in the six layer of Baator appear to be far more sinister then the Knowers. I understand Gygax based the Nine Hells of Baator on Dante's Inferno, so it seems like the concept of Cania once being separate from Baator is more of Bioware's idea, but I could be wrong. The Knowers are two characters you encounter in the third chapter of the Hordes of the Underdark storyline. The Knower of Places, who knows the location of everything in the multiverse (or so it seems), and the Knower of Names, who knows the True Name of every being in the multiverse, but may not use that knowledge to control said individuals. Any and all help that you can render will be greatly appreciated of course. Thank you!:) (Yuan-Ti's Revenge is not a member of these boards, so that is why I am relaying his/her question in his/her stead. If I have made a faux-pas, please alert me and I will remove this with all expediency. Thank you again!)
420 09-10-07, 01:55 AM	If your question is whether or not you can consider video games licensed and approved by TSR/WotC as canon I will quote the Wikipedia entry for D&D canon: There is no single "official" canon for D&D. From the very beginnings of the game in the 1970s through to the present, the issue of canon has been left up to each individual Dungeon Master, who runs the game session for the other players. The Dungeon Master is free to determine which published materials (adventure modules, novels, sourcebooks, video games, comic books, etc.) are canonical in his or her own campaign, and how the various D&D rules apply to that campaign. I certainly consider the Knower of Names and the Knower of Places as canon, especially considering the relationship to Mephistopheles. -420
Eye of the Beholder 09-10-07, 02:12 PM	Can't say I know much about the Knowers (though they sound like pretty cool ideas), but my understanding of the Ancient Baatorians isn't that they came from elsewhere, but that they controlled Baator before the baatezu arrived. About the firmest description we get of the ancient baatorians comes from a side encounter in the 2nd ed. adventure Hellbound: The Blood War: "Before the baatezu inhabited Baator, the plane was home to beings even older than the fiends. It's wrong to call the original residents 'creatures', really because they're actually essences o powers and beliefs from an unimaginably ancient age." In the adventure, one of the creatures takes the form of 'a light absorbing void' that sucks away either light (rendering the characters invisible, for some reason) or life energy (levels) before either leaving the cavern or going back to sleep. The creature can't be affected by anything but a wish. According to 2nd ed. Planescape (specifically Tales from the Infinite Staircase) the ancient Baatorians arise from the plane spontaneously, in the form of nupperibos, and the baatezu just never let them advance past that stage. The ancients frozen in Cania are remnants from a much earlier time, frozen in the ice the way we might find mammoths frozen in glaciers. The difference being mammoths are mortal, so we know they're dead. With the ancients one can't be so sure. 3rd ed (specifically the first fiendish codex) hinted that the ancient baatorians might be creations of the baernoloths, while the baatezu (in the second fiendish codex) are creations or followers of Asmodeus, a fallen general/demipower of Law. The nupperibos then become just demoted baatezu, and the ancient baatorians aren't mentioned in Fiendish Codex II at all. (IIRC, it was mentioned on either the podcast or the D&D website that they got cut out for lack of space.) But there's still something frozen in the ice, according to the 3rd ed. manual of the planes, so go figure. Suffice to say, 'canon' is a moving target.
420 09-10-07, 03:05 PM	Neverwinter Nights Hordes of the Underdark spoiler warning! Just to clarify my above statement a bit. According to FC:II Mephistopheles is one of the few contemporaries of Asmodeus (along with Dispater), not a creation of his. According to NWN:HotU the Knower of Names is a former consort of Mephistopheles, an Ancient Baatorian that fell in love with the archduke, against the wishes of the other Ancient Baatorians, when he first arrived in Cania. Eventually Mephistopheles suspected her of treachery (or possibly punished her for being loyal) after a failed coup by his generals and imprisoned her in ice. A few interesting facts from HotU (aka Spoilerific!): * Ancient Baatorians don't have an alignment and really don't comprehend such notions as "law" and "evil". (Suggesting that they predate the current alignment system.) * Ancient Baatorians seem to still be alive for the most part, just exiled to the furthest reaches of various layers of Baator. * Mephistopheles's True Name is "Thra'axfyl the Ambitious" Finally, I think I remember reading somewhere that Ice Devils (Gelugons) are actually Ancient Baatorians that became Baatezu. However, that could be just a product of my fevered imagination because I can't find it now. -420
Thegans 09-10-07, 03:49 PM	[COLOR="Red"] Finally, I think I remember reading somewhere that Ice Devils (Gelugons) are actually Ancient Baatorians that became Baatezu. However, that could be just a product of my fevered imagination because I can't find it now. -420 Not yet that's a change that's apparently going to happen in 4th edition. Well actually they were yuggoloth or something like that according to it but close enough. See this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=915330) thread. Well then again you might be thinking of something else.
420 09-10-07, 05:53 PM	Not yet that's a change that's apparently going to happen in 4th edition. Well actually they were yuggoloth or something like that according to it but close enough. See this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=915330) thread. Well then again you might be thinking of something else. That was it. Damn, 4th edition is already intruding on my lore-sponge! -420
Shemeska the Marauder 09-10-07, 08:54 PM	I was wondering if the Knowers are canonical to WotWC in terms of the Nine Hells of Baator. The "Ancient Baators" referenced to in "The Manual of Planes" in the six layer of Baator appear to be far more sinister then the Knowers. These "Knowers" don't appear anywhere outside of NWN, and the game's take on the Ancient Baatorian's also doesn't necessarily fall into line with the books that have touched upon them (though it derives from them obviously with its own unique take on the topic, and I certainly can't fault them for doing so). Depending on the source, the Ancient Baatorians are either the original LE fiends who were displaced by the Baatezu (who were yugoloth creations), or the Ancient Baatorians were the original LE fiends who were created by the baernaloths (original NE fiends) and then displaced by the baatezu who were fallen/corrupted LN beings who arrived to LE by way of Law rather than Evil. The seeming consensus on the topic in light of FC:I, FC:II, and subsequent touches on the primal lower planes in other sources seems to lean towards the Ancients being baernaloth creations, though the particulars of this creation (intentional or not, controlled or not, etc) is solidly open to interpretation (as I would prefer it to be).
Zousha_Omenohu 09-13-07, 01:22 PM	I see. I think I'll link this to the NWN boards so Yuan-Ti's Revenge will have easy access to it. Thank you all very much!