Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JulesCARV 09-19-07, 07:40 PM	I'm wondering about your take on Xoriat. Do you think of it as being a normal plane of Eberron's cosmology (albeit a weird one), fundamentally as organic and normal a part of the cosmological system as Fernia, Mabar, or Syrania, or do you regard it as something "outside" Eberron's normal cosmology, much like how the Far Realm is said to be "outside" the standard D&D cosmology?
Darth Syntax 09-19-07, 10:21 PM	My own view is the Xoriat is very much an organic, natural, and necessary part of the Eberron cosmos as a whole. It is the incarnation of the fear that the cosmos is fundamentally something beyond mortal understanding, an amoral realm of limitless strangeness and and cognitive dissonance. Just as Lammania is in some respects the world as mortals might like it to be, Xoriat is what we fear it really is.
Shady314 09-20-07, 04:25 AM	It's both! Obviously :P Which of course perfectly suits Xoriat's nature. ;)
Vharuck 09-20-07, 01:42 PM	It is a part of the cosmology, and follows the same guidelines as the other planes outwardly. It has an orbit, it becomes coterminous sometimes and remote other times, you can reach it via the Astral Plane, etc. However, the guidelines and rules for what goes on inside the other planes do not apply to Xoriat. Gravity need not be defined. Matter could exist in the same location as other matter. An angle that appears obtuse could have properties as though acute (for example, imagine walking down a straight hallway when you are suddenly caught in a corner of the wall you could've sworn was flat).
Highschool_Magic 09-20-07, 06:52 PM	I understand Xoriat but I wouldnt know how would you play in it. If it is so chaotic and "weird"...or just live in it for that reason (As the Dae-whatever people do)?. Highschool_Magick
Alex_ 09-20-07, 07:12 PM	I understand Xoriat but I wouldnt know how would you play in it. If it is so chaotic and "weird"...or just live in it for that reason (As the Dae-whatever people do)?. I don't think you're really supposed to be able to. It's one of those places that exists, but not as an actual place that PCs would generally want to go to or need to go to. IF they did, it'd probably be a good idea to introduce some kind of special tool, ability, help that would allow them to at the very least make sense of it all.
taski 09-20-07, 08:16 PM	If I were running an adventure set in Xoriat, and I was using something like dungeon tiles, I'd move the map tiles around while the PCs were traveling. I'd stack tiles in a deck and pull new ones out randomly to make the next section. I'd put some tiles down at weird angles to the others (i.e. not lined up in a nice little grid). I'd also let PCs make Int checks to move tiles around and make them "stable," but if they fail the Int check, I move a different tile and the creature or character on it.
Shady314 09-20-07, 09:22 PM	However, the guidelines and rules for what goes on inside the other planes do not apply to Xoriat. Gravity need not be defined. Matter could exist in the same location as other matter. An angle that appears obtuse could have properties as though acute (for example, imagine walking down a straight hallway when you are suddenly caught in a corner of the wall you could've sworn was flat). I think that sounds more like Kythri. That's the plane of total and utter randomness/chaos. Xoriat is a realm of madness. There are rules there they just make no sense to the sane. But they are alien, non-sensical (to us at least) and just weird.
Highschool_Magic 09-21-07, 02:10 PM	What would it look like? I would think like space but with massive earthbergs or whatever they are called. You said things about random tiles ect.., well, how would the Dae-w/e survive? They will need a somewhat stable enviroment to "live" (conduct experiments ect...) This is why we need a Eberron: Planes Guide!
Vharuck 09-21-07, 04:30 PM	I think that sounds more like Kythri. That's the plane of total and utter randomness/chaos. Xoriat is a realm of madness. There are rules there they just make no sense to the sane. But they are alien, non-sensical (to us at least) and just weird. It isn't Kythri because the rules are static. In the examples I gave, the biggest factor was that rules we take for granted may not be true in Xoriat. Kythri actually uses the common laws, however it switches. In other words, gravity may change every so often, but it's still the gravity we know. Xoriat's gravity may not really be gravity. It could be something else entirely and we are simply at a loss for words to describe it, so for simplicity's sake we equate it to gravity.
Alex_ 09-21-07, 06:29 PM	You said things about random tiles ect.., well, how would the Dae-w/e survive? They will need a somewhat stable enviroment to "live" (conduct experiments ect...) The answer would make you go mad. Xoriat isn't supposed to be a place that makes sense. There's no gravity, you exist in several dimensions at once, and blue drops falling out of nowhere turn randomly into giant insects, amongst other things. In a world where Mindflayers, Beholders, and other Abberations rule, they're madness, freakyness, and horrors all pale in comparison to the Daelkyr: beings that are beautiful by our standards. You don't expect a world of pure and utter madness to be logical do you? :P
bhasu 09-21-07, 09:58 PM	And if you did get there, there is a better than average chance that some insane, mindless being, whilst pulling itself across several layers and spanning dimension might notice you. If it did turn it's consciousness towards you, you would go mad. And of course, it might not. Either way, the bad juju would leave it's mark.
Lord_Madrigan 09-22-07, 12:09 AM	Xorat Lies within the "Normal" cosmology, It just Happens to be on the Outer Edges of said Cosmology and may infact be adjacent to the Barrier Between standard Reality and the Far Realm. Given Xorats Nature It may very well be the Weakest Point in said Barrier. Through the Nightmares of the Living shall horrors unspeakable march upon the waking World
ArcTan 09-24-07, 03:09 AM	I think that sounds more like Kythri. That's the plane of total and utter randomness/chaos. Xoriat is a realm of madness. There are rules there they just make no sense to the sane. But they are alien, non-sensical (to us at least) and just weird. Xoriat in some ways makes more sense than the Far Realm. Unlike pure Chaos, "Madness" is neither a particularly orderly or chaotic force -- there are some things about Xoriat that *are* constant and *are* consistent. Namely, the fact that Xoriat is hostile to any life that isn't Xoriat, and actively wants all life to suffer. It's an Evil-aligned plane, and that's intrinsic to its nature.
ArcTan 09-24-07, 03:10 AM	If there is a "Far Realm" in Eberron, or, as Eberron calls it, an "Outside", I don't see it as being like Xoriat. I don't think it's a metaphysical truth in Eberron that Lovecraftian horror is the fundamental essence of the universe. There are multiple essences of the universe, including Lovecraftian horror, and they all live together in the Outside -- the place where the deities truly reside and where the afterlife really is. (And that therefore can't ever be reached or proven to exist by mortals.)
TiwazTyrsfist 09-25-07, 02:53 PM	Xoriat is another plane, just like Mabar. If not for the wards placed by the gatekeepers after the last invasion, Xoriat would probably be close to being coterminous again, but at the moment the wards hold it at the perigee of its orbit. But, if someone were to break the wards... Would it continue on at it's normal speed, or would it snap back into the position it should be in if it were never stopped?
androkguz 09-29-07, 11:28 AM	I imagine Xoriat as a world with four or more dimensions (height, weight, dept and something else). Creatures exist at the same time in many layers of the plane in the same way that we exists in many levels of height... but in each we are different, yet conected. How would a flat creature percieve our world? I mean, a really flat creature, a creature from a bidimensional world. Their skin would only cover the edges of them and if you looked at it from another point you could see it's flat organs. Their sight would capture a line just like ours capture a plane. If the creature moved in our world everything it saw would constantly change even if the world is still. Use this to imagine what eberronians would be in xoriat. They could move (and fall) in a direction different than up, down, north, east, south or west. Creatures from xoriat would be able to see many "layers" of the world at the same time and could simply apear out of thin air by eluding the tridimensional creature's limited sight. You would see a world of madness almost imposible to understand. The image that the eberronian could have of a single monster would actually be like just a piece of it... an infinitely small piece of it. That's why they wouldn't make sense to us. That's why a daelkyr mind could tear ours out. And that's why the realm itself can make a visitor become a pool of ooze: because there we would be as frail as a bidimensional creature in our world (as frail as paper).