Do being on the Dream Plane give the Quori a "slam dunk" [Archive] - Wizards Community

Do being on the Dream Plane give the Quori a "slam dunk" [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DyloniusFunk
09-19-05, 10:30 PM There's recently been several threads discussing the DD, Inspired and Quori. All of these of course are one and the same, beings of spirit originating from the Plane of Dreams. Frankly, it seems like placeing the Quori here gives them game set and match. Frankly no matter what anyone does, PC or NPC, against them, eventually they have to sleep, and this puts them at the mercy of the Quori. The majority of beings can't control what they dream about and so i would think that the quori are getting intelligence all the time simply from peoples subconsious remembering events of the previous day. Frankly this seems like the perfect way for the DM to throw the DD into an campagin without giving the PCs a chance to learn or do anything about it
"Wait a second, what do you mean i was dreaming about my meeting with the Kalistar diplomat three nights agi and thats why the DD are here waiting for us"

"Well you can't control your dreams, and so you basically spilled hte beans while you sleep"

I can imagine plenty of evil DM's pulling crap like that. Bottom line, the Inspried are tough guys as is. Placeing them and thier masters on a plane that 99% of the popualtion access every night just gives them to much of an edge. Frankly i'm surpised they aren't taking control of the Emerald Claw under Vol's nose, simply by being able to learn about thier plans via the dreams of PC race agents.
stone_dog
09-19-05, 10:46 PM Yeah, evil DMs would pull crap like this.

Dreams are ephemeral and delicate. Muck about too much with them and they are over. They just end suddenly.

They are also mysterious. So full of symbols and useless ventings of the alread murky subconcious that clear information is almost impossible to reliably derive.

There are also LOTS of them. LOTS and LOTS. Picking out one of them from the teeming masses every night isn't going to be easy... even if you live where they all are.

It would be easier to send physical agents to take over key people in the material world than it would be to try and capture one dream out of thousands and try and get good recon from it.

Even easier is to just make Khorvaire friendly to your cause and take a few dozen generations to slowly work them all over to your way of thinking.

The Quori have all the time in the world. Actually, I think they have four times all the time in the world. They can afford to do things slowly, carefully and above all ... correctly.

Even if a few meddling kids do throw a wrench into their plans... eh. They will be dead soon enough. They can just start over again in a few years only this time they learned from the experience.

Good DMs would make a Quori dream interrigation an actual part of the adventure with a chance to resist and everything. Bad/Evil DMs would do that whole "You weren't in control so you told them everything" crap.
DyloniusFunk
09-19-05, 11:43 PM Yeah, evil DMs would pull crap like this.

Dreams are ephemeral and delicate. Muck about too much with them and they are over. They just end suddenly.

They are also mysterious. So full of symbols and useless ventings of the alread murky subconcious that clear information is almost impossible to reliably derive.
yes but remember that these are beings that live forever on the plane of dreams. For them reading a dream should be as easy as reaidng a book is for us

<snip other stuff i don't have time to reply to tonight but will get to replying to tomorrow>
MysticTheurge
09-19-05, 11:47 PM I kind of see the average person's relationship with Dal Quor being similar to Robert Jordan's world of dreams. Sometimes you dream normally, and sometimes you actually go to Dal Quor, but not always, not regularly, and probably not for long.
stone_dog
09-20-05, 01:33 AM For them reading a dream should be as easy as reaidng a book is for us If a book doesn't vanish when you touch it, recognize that it is being read and try to resist or have the pictures so full of muddled symbolism that they are completely useless.

Seriously, the Quori do have a lot of advantages. They are immortal. They are damn hard to kill at best. They have four days for every day we have to plan. They have agents in the material world all over the place (more or less depending on who you ask). They are in a nigh unassailable place of power and can potentially touch every mind in any given city at once with visions of the True Path of Origin umm... I mean the Inspired. They should in theory be able to read all the minds they want to by the time dawn shows up.

Why don't they?

Maybe they do, but their warped sense of time coupled with their immortality means that they very rarely notice to act on said information until it is too late.

Maybe they do, but they don't think in terms of individuals. They might think in terms of whole cultures at once. Since they are immortal, they may not even consider King Boranel so much as think about the nobility of Breland. They might work on the whole group little bits at a time, slowly and surely until after a few generations they are building monoliths in our backyards and we don't really mind that they block out the sun.

Maybe they can't do it without a more direct connection to the dreams in question. In Sarlona they might get such a connection from the monoliths. In Khorvaire certain people fall prey to the psychic might of the Inspired embassadors and are spied upon while they dream.

Maybe you just can't get to an individual dream from Dal Quor. Dal Quor might teem with the dreams of whole groups of people and one dream is as indistinguishable from the next as bubbles on the crest of a wave. You can get a good picture of followers of the Silver Flame in general if you know how to read the patterns, but maybe not a particular cardinal.

If that is the case, then it must be easier to trace somebody's dream from the material plane TO Dal Quor. Again that would make in vital to have psychic agents in the Prime doing your bidding and setting up key minds to be gathered up and linked to special scrying crystals in Dal Quor or simply fed images and visions through a psychic feedback.

In any event, the Quori are not "slam dunk" sorts of villains. They move on a timeline that might seem sluggish even to dragons. They scheme, plot and perhaps even connive, but they never rush. If sometimes they have the semblance of haste all that means is that a key stroke is about to be played at just the right moment. They have probably known about that stroke for years and have taken almost every precaution except the ones the PCs are bound to exploit.

They never lose. Ever. You can only push their inevitable plans back a little bit. Or so they say.

Also, just using the the PCs dreams against them without warning is a really mean thing to do and not in the cool fun way. You might as well just say that psychic monkeys crept in their rooms, got the info by sucking it out their ears with flappy monkey lips and then left. No you didn't get a roll. They were ninja monkeys. Etherial ninja monkeys. With... straws.

If I was going to have a Quori try and get information out of a PCs dream then I'd give the PC a chance to detect it, resist, fight it maybe and possibly figure out that they are being watched while they sleep (eeew). Then dealing with it would be a fun part of the game. If I pulled that "you can't control your dreams so you blabbed about X" stuff I'd be suspected of hamfisted railroading, and with good reason.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DyloniusFunk 09-19-05, 10:30 PM	There's recently been several threads discussing the DD, Inspired and Quori. All of these of course are one and the same, beings of spirit originating from the Plane of Dreams. Frankly, it seems like placeing the Quori here gives them game set and match. Frankly no matter what anyone does, PC or NPC, against them, eventually they have to sleep, and this puts them at the mercy of the Quori. The majority of beings can't control what they dream about and so i would think that the quori are getting intelligence all the time simply from peoples subconsious remembering events of the previous day. Frankly this seems like the perfect way for the DM to throw the DD into an campagin without giving the PCs a chance to learn or do anything about it "Wait a second, what do you mean i was dreaming about my meeting with the Kalistar diplomat three nights agi and thats why the DD are here waiting for us" "Well you can't control your dreams, and so you basically spilled hte beans while you sleep" I can imagine plenty of evil DM's pulling crap like that. Bottom line, the Inspried are tough guys as is. Placeing them and thier masters on a plane that 99% of the popualtion access every night just gives them to much of an edge. Frankly i'm surpised they aren't taking control of the Emerald Claw under Vol's nose, simply by being able to learn about thier plans via the dreams of PC race agents.
stone_dog 09-19-05, 10:46 PM	Yeah, evil DMs would pull crap like this. Dreams are ephemeral and delicate. Muck about too much with them and they are over. They just end suddenly. They are also mysterious. So full of symbols and useless ventings of the alread murky subconcious that clear information is almost impossible to reliably derive. There are also LOTS of them. LOTS and LOTS. Picking out one of them from the teeming masses every night isn't going to be easy... even if you live where they all are. It would be easier to send physical agents to take over key people in the material world than it would be to try and capture one dream out of thousands and try and get good recon from it. Even easier is to just make Khorvaire friendly to your cause and take a few dozen generations to slowly work them all over to your way of thinking. The Quori have all the time in the world. Actually, I think they have four times all the time in the world. They can afford to do things slowly, carefully and above all ... correctly. Even if a few meddling kids do throw a wrench into their plans... eh. They will be dead soon enough. They can just start over again in a few years only this time they learned from the experience. Good DMs would make a Quori dream interrigation an actual part of the adventure with a chance to resist and everything. Bad/Evil DMs would do that whole "You weren't in control so you told them everything" crap.
DyloniusFunk 09-19-05, 11:43 PM	Yeah, evil DMs would pull crap like this. Dreams are ephemeral and delicate. Muck about too much with them and they are over. They just end suddenly. They are also mysterious. So full of symbols and useless ventings of the alread murky subconcious that clear information is almost impossible to reliably derive. yes but remember that these are beings that live forever on the plane of dreams. For them reading a dream should be as easy as reaidng a book is for us <snip other stuff i don't have time to reply to tonight but will get to replying to tomorrow>
MysticTheurge 09-19-05, 11:47 PM	I kind of see the average person's relationship with Dal Quor being similar to Robert Jordan's world of dreams. Sometimes you dream normally, and sometimes you actually go to Dal Quor, but not always, not regularly, and probably not for long.
stone_dog 09-20-05, 01:33 AM	For them reading a dream should be as easy as reaidng a book is for us If a book doesn't vanish when you touch it, recognize that it is being read and try to resist or have the pictures so full of muddled symbolism that they are completely useless. Seriously, the Quori do have a lot of advantages. They are immortal. They are damn hard to kill at best. They have four days for every day we have to plan. They have agents in the material world all over the place (more or less depending on who you ask). They are in a nigh unassailable place of power and can potentially touch every mind in any given city at once with visions of the True Path of Origin umm... I mean the Inspired. They should in theory be able to read all the minds they want to by the time dawn shows up. Why don't they? Maybe they do, but their warped sense of time coupled with their immortality means that they very rarely notice to act on said information until it is too late. Maybe they do, but they don't think in terms of individuals. They might think in terms of whole cultures at once. Since they are immortal, they may not even consider King Boranel so much as think about the nobility of Breland. They might work on the whole group little bits at a time, slowly and surely until after a few generations they are building monoliths in our backyards and we don't really mind that they block out the sun. Maybe they can't do it without a more direct connection to the dreams in question. In Sarlona they might get such a connection from the monoliths. In Khorvaire certain people fall prey to the psychic might of the Inspired embassadors and are spied upon while they dream. Maybe you just can't get to an individual dream from Dal Quor. Dal Quor might teem with the dreams of whole groups of people and one dream is as indistinguishable from the next as bubbles on the crest of a wave. You can get a good picture of followers of the Silver Flame in general if you know how to read the patterns, but maybe not a particular cardinal. If that is the case, then it must be easier to trace somebody's dream from the material plane TO Dal Quor. Again that would make in vital to have psychic agents in the Prime doing your bidding and setting up key minds to be gathered up and linked to special scrying crystals in Dal Quor or simply fed images and visions through a psychic feedback. In any event, the Quori are not "slam dunk" sorts of villains. They move on a timeline that might seem sluggish even to dragons. They scheme, plot and perhaps even connive, but they never rush. If sometimes they have the semblance of haste all that means is that a key stroke is about to be played at just the right moment. They have probably known about that stroke for years and have taken almost every precaution except the ones the PCs are bound to exploit. They never lose. Ever. You can only push their inevitable plans back a little bit. Or so they say. Also, just using the the PCs dreams against them without warning is a really mean thing to do and not in the cool fun way. You might as well just say that psychic monkeys crept in their rooms, got the info by sucking it out their ears with flappy monkey lips and then left. No you didn't get a roll. They were ninja monkeys. Etherial ninja monkeys. With... straws. If I was going to have a Quori try and get information out of a PCs dream then I'd give the PC a chance to detect it, resist, fight it maybe and possibly figure out that they are being watched while they sleep (eeew). Then dealing with it would be a fun part of the game. If I pulled that "you can't control your dreams so you blabbed about X" stuff I'd be suspected of hamfisted railroading, and with good reason.