Post/Author/DateTime	Post
getyourspotusa 09-20-05, 12:28 PM	Has anyone proposed this yet? I know (hope) we will never know for sure the REAL cause of the Mourning, but it would be great to hear what all the citizens of Eberron might think/rumor/dream/hope/fear/suppose/etc. what caused the Mourning. There are some obvious ones, (Like the Cyrans trying to create something 'wrong' with the warforged...) (not that there's anything wrong with Obvious...) but I'm sure people can come up with some really cool ones...
The Forgotten Traveler 09-20-05, 04:05 PM	1: A mad artificer makes a horrible mistake when trying to channel souls from Dollurh into a sword to make the ultimate weapon, and the power of the souls destroys Cyre...
yossarius 09-21-05, 02:22 AM	Yes, this has been done before, but I couldn't find the old thread. Oh, well. 2) The Mourning (IMHO) is much to powerful (and large) an effect to have been caused by one person, even if it was a Daelkyr or one of the Lords of Dust. Cyre had an area of about 1,020,000 square miles. The dead-gray mists are about 100ft high. If the Day of Mourning was the result of an epic spell, its area of effect was 28,435,968,000 10 foot cubes. The size of the spell effect alone would add 140 to the Spellcraft DC. (And that doesn't even consider working out each effect.) It seems likely to me that the Mourning was caused by an extremely violent interaction of simply too many magical effects (like a really huge version of mixing potions, a la 2nd Ed rules). If that's true, it would seem to follow that, if one could identify every magical effect that fusde together to create the Mourning, one might find a way to unravel them, eventually reversing the effect. I've done a bit of thinking on this matter; these are some of the magical effect I think were part of the initial wild magic disaster: It seems to me that the facts that wounds don’t heal, dead flesh doesn’t decay, and metal doesn’t rust (or at least, weapons & armor don't rust) are related. At first I thought this was the result of some kind of Protective or preserving magic that covered the whole kingdom, but I'm not so sure of that now. Perhaps, instead, it is a limited alteration in how time passes in the Mournland. That is, maybe things (or people) don’t age in the Mournland. Yes, there is absolutely no ink on this topic, but doesn’t it seem to logically follow these previous facts? It could be a result of the Mourning, rather than one of the effects that caused it, but who knows? Healing magic doesn't work in the Mournlands. No other type of magic is effected this way. Why? (Excluding the obvious meta-gaming reason "because that's what makes it dangerous.") Suppose Cyre had come into the possession of a Creation Pattern related to healing, and the mass manufacture of healing potions and wands were the only thing keeping them being completely overrun by their enemies. If that happened, I'm sure someone might have tried to find a way to neutralize such an advantage, and might have used it on a day when Cyre was most vulnerable, such as a day when there were major battles all over the country. Undead are randomly created in the Mournland with frightening regularity. Exactly how many Karrnathi corpse collectors were in Cyre that day? If a great deal of Karrnnathi soldiers fell in battle early that morning, or the night before, they might have been trying out some new form of mass create undead spell. The Mourning doesn't seem to have started in one place and then spead, nor does it seem to have effect the whole country at once. Rumors say the dead-grey mists were first sighted “boiling out of the royal palaces of Vermishard in Metrol," while other rumors say “Something terrible occurred in or near the city of Making which may or may not be the beginning of the Mourning." Metrol & Making were nowhere near each other. Apparently, Metrol is still there; it's just changed. On the other hand, Making, which was in the middle of what is now the Glass Plateau, is probably no longer there (or if it is, it's probably too horrible to imagine). What happened at these two places were probably not initially related, but once their effects reached each other, they might have merged into something much worse than either effect. The Glass Plateau. Seems reminiscent of a nuclear explosion, doesn't it? Or maybe a volcanic eruption of massive proportions. And the possiblity that it might have started in the city of Making, the headquarters of the House of Cannith. Bad news, there. It's not hard to imagine the former head of the House working on some elderich machine, powered by hundreds, even thousands of bound fire elementals, maybe, to do anything from manufacturing super-powered warforged (the origin of the Lord of Blades, perhaps?) to trying to create a new manifest zone. Metrol. What happened there? Some kind of uber-cloudkill-like effect, maybe? Instead of a normal spell that has a set area of effect, maybe it was powered by other forms of magic it encountered. As it expanded, it might have absorbed the magical energy from permanent spell effects and magic items (Why not? Artificers can do it.). When it expanded far enough to meet the fiery expansion of whatever was coming out of Making...<<<BOOM!!!>>> But all this doesn't mean that the Mourning was just one huge accident. Let's suppose that magical effects inherently possess some like of barrier around them that prevent such interactions from occurring. If these interactions did happen, what (or who) caused their barriers to weaken? As I understand it, there are basically four power groups in Eberron that might be able to pull off something of this magnatude: the Dealkyr, the Dreaming Dark, the Lords of Dust, and the dragons. But this kind of thing doesn't seem like their style, any of them. So, does that mean there is another power-player on Eberron that no one knows about yet? Well, that's what I've come up with so far. Sorry this is so ****ing long, especially for a 1001... list.
getyourspotusa 09-21-05, 03:05 AM	:clap: Brilliant, Yossarius. Your reasoning is sound, and I think it's helpful in considering the 'real' possible causes. Great for a 'knowitall' at the bar when the other drunken patrons are all saying, "Yeah, I think one u' them warforged got :censored: off and tried to take over Cyre, and the House got mad, and tried to destroy all the 'forged at once since they couldn't control them all anymore... " :pint: :bow:
Rosary 09-21-05, 07:10 AM	Great post, Yossarius - a lot of good reflections and logic thinking went into that one. But something is nagging in the back of my brain: These chain reactions/explosions/spells merging or whatever caused it, seemed to know about political borders! And that - imho - makes it clear that something/someone sentient was behind this, maybe not a single thing/person, but perhaps a grouping, working together in a focused effort to destroy Cyre. Who it was, I wouldn't know, cause as Yossarius pointed out, the level of magic involved is gargantuan (or colossal, i'm not sure :-) ) - Rosary
yossarius 09-21-05, 12:30 PM	But something is nagging in the back of my brain: These chain reactions/explosions/spells merging or whatever caused it, seemed to know about political borders Yes, that occurred to me, too. For this theory to work, I think, only one of these spell effects would have needed to have been targeting the entire country. Now, the borders of the dead-grey mists aren't truly static; they ebb and flow slightly like the tide of a lake (or maybe expand and contract like the breathing of a living thing might be a better simile). I don't think so much the Mourning targeted Cyre all the way to its political borders, so much as some effect is holding it in. So either the original spell effect was designed to prevent something from leaving Cyre, or else it was designed to keep something out, and the magical chaos inverted the effect. So what could the effect have been? I recall that the legend lore spell cannot reveal the cause of the Mourning. Could this in itself be a clue? It could be possible that the effect targeting Cyre's political borders was meant to prevent scrying. That's a bit of a stretch, I'll admit, since divination is in no other way prevent in the Mournland, but still a possibility. After reviewing the ECSs descriptions of the other planes of existence, I think there is also an valid argument that Cyre has become a shifting quilt of overlapping manifest zones. Comparing the effects of the Mourning to the descriptions of the planes, you can see certain paralells. The center of the Glass Plateau might connect to Fernia. The Fields of Ruin might be a manifestation of Shavarath. The Glowing Chasm would likely be a manifest zone to Kythri, if anyplace. The Mournland as a whole might connect to either Dolurrh or Mabar, or maybe both simultaneously (now there's a scary thought). I think I may blend manifest zone theory with the one I suggested above. When I have something solid & organized, I think I'll post it (in this thread if it's still active, or a new one otherwise).
Dravot 09-21-05, 12:58 PM	Oooh. Interesting plot concept: someone is trying to take down the barrier that keeps the Mourning effect within the Cyre borders. Must...think...
Thrincold 09-21-05, 01:00 PM	Currently in my campaign we are working under the thought that Mournland is the result of someone in Cyre trying to harvest the powers of one of the trapped rajahs. The glass plain is where it is actually bound into kyber. Basically someone (still don't know who or what) built an eldrich machine to tap into the essence of the trapped rajah in kyber. The result of the mourning was a side effect of the LOD trying to break the seals on the rajah as the eldrich machine was powered up. What has become mournland is actually a reflection of that rajah's power on the prime material. The mist doesn't actually hit political boundaries as parts of Cyre are outside the mist, they represent the extent of the power and influence of the rajah on eberron. The actual blast that altered magic in cyre was the result of the eldrich machine dispersing the rajah's essence into a useable power source at the same time that the LOD tried to bring him physically to Eberron. He is now the first truely destroyed rajah, being dispersed as he is throughout all of mournland. So destroying the rajahs that are still bound is possible, but at the cost of everything...
Missekat 09-21-05, 03:08 PM	This Isn't actually my idea, but the idea of Dauntless who described it in the 1001 Mournalnd Horros thread: In a medium sized town or small city, everywhere in town has the word "Why?" scrawled on it. The walls, tables, doors, carts outside, even the fountain in the square. Nothing else appears wrong with the town, just everyone is missing. Investigation reveals no signs of struggle. As the characters eventually make their way out of town, and the buildings fade into the distance behind them, a soft whisper in draconic speaks to one of the PCs at random, saying: "Because they told me to." This is actually part of one of my three explanations for the Mournland. I use a different one in each of my Eberron campaigns, so players can play in multiple games and not have the story ruined for them by knowing the secrets ahead of time. In this case, Cyre was destroyed by the Chamber using draconic magic because House Cannith was trying to use Giant/Dragon magic in an Eldritch Machine. The voice belongs to the soul of one of the dragons who participated in the ritual. All of the dragons who participated were slain by the magic involved, something that even the Chamber didn't expect. Somehow the ritual went horribly wrong, but the Chamber ordered that it be completed regardless. In the end, a number of the now dead dragons who participated haunt the nation of Cyre as formless, powerless souls. And this is the quothe of a NPC from another encounter, (by Niven), in that thread: "They were tainted, all of them, this place... it got inside them. It wants to spread you see? Eventually everywhere will be the Mournland. It's already started... everyone that comes and goes, every piece of salvage brought out carries with it the taint... and now... it's in you! Don't you see? The mist is supose to keep it IN! BUT WE TAKE IT OUT!" At this point the lone survivor flips out and attacks the party. I'm working on a theory mixing these two ideas, + a chinese puzzlebox containing a pocketdimension and a dracolich. With the feel of Hellraiser + Labyrinth. The site of the ritual gone wrong would be inside the box, and to undo the ritaual the players would need not only bits of every dragon who participated, but also new dragons to do the ritaul like it was supposed to be done. I think this could be good. Any thoughts?
The Forgotten Traveler 09-21-05, 03:24 PM	Yes, this has been done before, but I couldn't find the old thread. Oh, well. 2) The Mourning (IMHO) is much to powerful (and large) an effect to have been caused by one person, even if it was a Daelkyr or one of the Lords of Dust. Cyre had an area of about 1,020,000 square miles. The dead-gray mists are about 100ft high. If the Day of Mourning was the result of an epic spell, its area of effect was 28,435,968,000 10 foot cubes. The size of the spell effect alone would add 140 to the Spellcraft DC. (And that doesn't even consider working out each effect.) I didn't say HE destroyed Cyre. The souls did. He just summoned the souls. Sorry if I was inprecise. Sincerely, The Forgotten Traveler :mage: :dragon:
yrogerg 09-21-05, 03:48 PM	(4?) My theory: Cyre created gunpowder, and irate Eberron fans descended upon the nation to wipe it off the map.
getyourspotusa 10-04-05, 05:33 PM	:bump: self-bump
The White Sorcerer 10-04-05, 05:54 PM	5) Robotic My Little Dinosaurs.