Post/Author/DateTime	Post
From_Khyber 12-05-06, 03:31 PM	Probably the biggest mystery of Eberron is The Mourning - a manifestation of devastation that horribly destroyed Cyre and a large majority of its inhabitants. The main reason for this horror's appearance is yet unknown, according to the official records. However, I can naught but wonder who/what caused it (and why, of course), even though the fact of having a historical event as this to be left totally unexplainable, appeals me. My question, though: What are you thoughts on the matter (if any)? My "unofficial" theory is, that The Lords of Dust were somehow involved, perhaps having attempted to awaken a Rajah, which went critically wrong.
GimliGloinson 12-05-06, 05:23 PM	My own thoughts (these have actually begun coalescing in the last 36 hours) on The Day of Mourning is that it was an eldritch machine that, when activated, created a protective barrier around the borders of Cyre. It got jacked up -- by someone, something or the guy who pushed the button miscalculated something -- and while it does seem to have created a barrier of sorts (the dead-gray mists of disorientation), it also ravaged the landscape and peoples. Massive magical fluctuations had varying effects on the flora, fauna, landscape and weather. My guess is that House Cannith was hired by the Queen to do this, but maybe not. As this has only recently occurred to me, I'll probably add to this post as I come up with a few more concrete thoughts. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Syltorian 12-05-06, 06:05 PM	Wow, Gimli. That's pretty close to the solution I came up with. Specifically with the following key points: 1) The Mourning stopped at Cyre's borders. 2) Phiarlan evacuated its leaders, but left everything else behind. 3) Nobody seems to know what happened. 1) Means that only Cyre was targetted. An accident does not stop at manmade borders. Yet none of the other nations would have had any interest at targetting Cyre alone. Aundair and Karrnath would certainly not have spared Thrane's borders. Thrane would not have kept Karrnath out of it. Karrnath itself would probably not have disconnected itself utterly from the lightning rail. Only one nation had an advantage at a magical forces stopping at the borders. Cyre itself. But why would Cyre destroy itself? Well, of course it wouldn't. The magic was supposed to shield Cyre from the ravages of the war around it. The Jewel of Galifar was the main battlefield of the War. Every army trying to get somewhere else, or nearly, passed through Cyre. Beset by its long-time enemies and the goblin and elven rogue nations, Cyre was close to ruin and defeat. Then, they discovered - or maybe rediscovered - a way to basically remove themselves from the war, by literally closing the borders, and building up behind them. 2) This too would explain why Phiarlan removed its leaders, but left everybody else - we are speaking about family here, as well as artifacts, riches and artworks - behind to be wiped out. Phiarlan knew, or, perhaps, was warned about what Cyre was up to. It pulled out what members it needed to run its continent-wide business, and left the others behind to help Cyre rebuild behind its secure, magical walls. 3) Except, that is not what happened. Cyre did remove itself from the war, but not in the way they wanted to. To this date, even Phiarlan can only guess at what happened. Actually, agents of an enemy nation, perhaps the Royal Eyes or the Dark Cabinet, heard of the plan, and decided to sabotage it. Their aim was to stop Cyre from simply closing itself off. But the forces at hand were too strong for simply stopping it, and instead, the entire arcane processes spun out of hand. Whatever nation these agents belonged to, they never reported anything back to their home. That is why not even their superiors know about what caused the Mourning. I doubt Cannith was involved, though. If they were, why did they not also evacuate their people to lead the house on outside the closed-off Cyre? Or at least arrange a proper succession? Either they thought they still had time to evacuate - and the shielding was not supposed to happen on Olarune 20th - or they had no idea in the first place...
From_Khyber 12-05-06, 06:22 PM	My own thoughts (these have actually begun coalescing in the last 36 hours) on The Day of Mourning is that it was an eldritch machine that, when activated, created a protective barrier around the borders of Cyre. It got jacked up -- by someone, something or the guy who pushed the button miscalculated something -- and while it does seem to have created a barrier of sorts (the dead-gray mists of disorientation), it also ravaged the landscape and peoples. Massive magical fluctuations had varying effects on the flora, fauna, landscape and weather. My guess is that House Cannith was hired by the Queen to do this, but maybe not. As this has only recently occurred to me, I'll probably add to this post as I come up with a few more concrete thoughts. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Interesting. I'm looking forward to hear more. Meanwhile, I'll add abit to my own theory: We are probably all aware of the utterly demanding requirements of awakening a Rajah - one of them could be starting a gigantic war, that with ensurance would wound Khorvaire (/any of the four continents) - this war was The Last War. And in the brewing heat of a terrible war, where nations are focused against eachother with all their attention, who would notice a subtle cabal such as The Lords of Dust and their ongoings? What time would be more appropriate to summon one of the mighty Overlords? Somehow, the attempt failed gravely, which resulted in The Day of Mourning (why in Cyre? because the Rajah simply was enthralled beneath Cyre soil). How/why it failed, I of course haven't thought through yet, but I'm sure that the exact cause of it will erupt in my head with time, as I -during hours of boredom- spend much time on puzzling this mystery out.
From_Khyber 12-05-06, 06:27 PM	Wow, Gimli. That's pretty close to the solution I came up with. Specifically with the following key points: 1) The Mourning stopped at Cyre's borders. 2) Phiarlan evacuated its leaders, but left everything else behind. 3) Nobody seems to know what happened. 1) Means that only Cyre was targetted. An accident does not stop at manmade borders. Yet none of the other nations would have had any interest at targetting Cyre alone. Aundair and Karrnath would certainly not have spared Thrane's borders. Thrane would not have kept Karrnath out of it. Karrnath itself would probably not have disconnected itself utterly from the lightning rail. Only one nation had an advantage at a magical forces stopping at the borders. Cyre itself. But why would Cyre destroy itself? Well, of course it wouldn't. The magic was supposed to shield Cyre from the ravages of the war around it. The Jewel of Galifar was the main battlefield of the War. Every army trying to get somewhere else, or nearly, passed through Cyre. Beset by its long-time enemies and the goblin and elven rogue nations, Cyre was close to ruin and defeat. Then, they discovered - or maybe rediscovered - a way to basically remove themselves from the war, by literally closing the borders, and building up behind them. 2) This too would explain why Phiarlan removed its leaders, but left everybody else - we are speaking about family here, as well as artifacts, riches and artworks - behind to be wiped out. Phiarlan knew, or, perhaps, was warned about what Cyre was up to. It pulled out what members it needed to run its continent-wide business, and left the others behind to help Cyre rebuild behind its secure, magical walls. 3) Except, that is not what happened. Cyre did remove itself from the war, but not in the way they wanted to. To this date, even Phiarlan can only guess at what happened. Actually, agents of an enemy nation, perhaps the Royal Eyes or the Dark Cabinet, heard of the plan, and decided to sabotage it. Their aim was to stop Cyre from simply closing itself off. But the forces at hand were too strong for simply stopping it, and instead, the entire arcane processes spun out of hand. Whatever nation these agents belonged to, they never reported anything back to their home. That is why not even their superiors know about what caused the Mourning. I doubt Cannith was involved, though. If they were, why did they not also evacuate their people to lead the house on outside the closed-off Cyre? Or at least arrange a proper succession? Either they thought they still had time to evacuate - and the shielding was not supposed to happen on Olarune 20th - or they had no idea in the first place... Seems perfectly logical. Most interesting theory.
Nived 12-05-06, 07:20 PM	An idea that's been floating in the back of my head for the longest time, wanting to be formed into a campaign... trouble is none of my players have interest in that particular mystery of Eberron so I never bothered to pencil in the details. Involves the Lords of Dust, (or maybe the Daelkyr I'm flexible) anyway one of them tried to bust free of Kyber and came clsoer than anyone else. Some intrepid group of adventurers tried to stop it. Interfered at the last moment, heck lets say that one of the adventurers was one of the powerful House C artificers 'lost' in the Mourning, stopping the ritual that would free the Rajah he tried with his artifice to repair the damage done to the Rajah's seal. Something went terrribly terribly wrong. Everything blew the heck up. Phiarlan didn't know it was going to happen, just all their divinations (on anything relating to Cyre) showed horrificly bad things and the elders decided to get out of dodge and wait to see what was going to happen. The Rajah is still caught, half imprissoned in the depths of the glowing chasm, technically... but he's found a way to manipulate events. The Lord of Blades isn't the name of a Warforged. Its the name of the Rajah that happens to be possessing him, whose found himself the perfect little army. I'd have my PCs discover that slowly. Coming up against the LoB and his minons, Warforged that inexplicably have the fendish and half fiend templates... After a few daring escapes I'd let my players have a dramatic confontation with the ol'LoBster... and actually kill him. BUT WAIT A MINUTE. Not long after the LoBster would be heard from again. Did he get rezed? Nope, the Rajah is not possessing a different Warforged who is the new LoBs... Though his followers believe him to be the same (essentially he is, and he'll know the PCs and all they've done). The fun part of the Campaign would start when the truth behind the LoB is revieled and the true LoBs is released, with his conviently brainwashed army of Warforged. Then it's a march towards Flamekeep to 'free' his brother. All Kyber breaks loose if the PCs can't stop it. Just something bouncing around in my head.
Loki5654 12-06-06, 04:17 PM	1) The Mourning stopped at Cyre's borders. Did it? I thought that it consumed a major portion of Cyre, but that whatever was left over was just absorbed into other nations (Darguun, Breland, etc.). Shoot, now I wish I had my books with me so I could compare the maps.
BoneLord_of_Skullthrone 12-07-06, 01:33 AM	My idea was that the LoD were somehow behind the Mourning. Originally I thought that they might simply want to cause some chaos and pain, being the evil, evil fiends that they are. Then I had a new thought while watching Full Metal Alchemist: what if they did it with the purpose of harvesting all the souls set free by the event? What if the Lords of Dust are trying to gather together enough souls together to fuel their unspeakably evil eldritch machine? What if the entire Last War was their doing, all for this one purpose?
From_Khyber 12-07-06, 09:11 AM	My idea was that the LoD were somehow behind the Mourning. Originally I thought that they might simply want to cause some chaos and pain, being the evil, evil fiends that they are. Then I had a new thought while watching Full Metal Alchemist: what if they did it with the purpose of harvesting all the souls set free by the event? What if the Lords of Dust are trying to gather together enough souls together to fuel their unspeakably evil eldritch machine? What if the entire Last War was their doing, all for this one purpose? My point exactly. In secrecy, The Lords of Dust could easily be behind The Last War, intenting to awaken an unspeakable evil, or at least cause one.
Syltorian 12-07-06, 09:40 AM	Did it? I thought that it consumed a major portion of Cyre, but that whatever was left over was just absorbed into other nations (Darguun, Breland, etc.). I thought that those parts had already become part of those other nations before the Mourning, but that statement does indeed ring a bell. Hm, if some parts of Cyre were left out, that makes for another mystery. Is there any indication, though, that parts of other nations (however small) fell to the Mourning? What map did you want to look at for comparison, though? The only pre-Mourning map I remember seeing is the ca. 500 YK map in the Player's Guide, and I don't trust that one at all, since it places things like Thrane's then-capital Daskara into Aundair, the city of the Aundairian House Orien into Thrane, and so forth...
Loki5654 12-07-06, 02:09 PM	What map did you want to look at for comparison, though? The only pre-Mourning map I remember seeing is the ca. 500 YK map in the Player's Guide, and I don't trust that one at all, since it places things like Thrane's then-capital Daskara into Aundair, the city of the Aundairian House Orien into Thrane, and so forth... I was thinking of that map, yes. I'm pretty sure the border discrepencies come from the fact that it is a pre-war map, not some artistic mistake. The borders of the Five Nations shifted a lot during the Last War. I guess I'll have to dig my books out tonight.
Syltorian 12-07-06, 06:18 PM	I was thinking of that map, yes. I'm pretty sure the border discrepencies come from the fact that it is a pre-war map, not some artistic mistake. The borders of the Five Nations shifted a lot during the Last War. My apologies to everyone for briefly going off topic here. That map just irks me for some reason... THe map predates the war by a long time. It supposedly shows the Kingdom of Galifar in "circa 500 YK". According to Five Nations, p.149, Daskaran was the capital of Thrane until 696 YK, when it was destroyed by fire and people moved to Flamekeep. Yet the map, nearly two centuries before Thrane moved its capital, shows the latter within Aundair. But unless there was a war between Aundair and Thrane at around 500 YK which nobody has told us about, or a Thranish enclave within Aundair (like modern Kaliningrad?), I personally must conclude that the map is a Lord of Dust scheme to throw confusion amongst the Five Nations and spark off a war. More seriously, I believe the artist was attempting to have all the borders meet up neatly at Thronehold, the overall capital of Galifar. You know, I am really looking forward to that accessory book about the Last War now... Back to the actual topic... Nived, I really like your idea about a Rajah possessing the Lord of Blades. That would make for a great story, especially if the DM choses to have the Lord of Blades be a warforged of good repute, like Boranel's friend Bulwark. It would make for a nice, tragic character; an innocent victim who may even have gone there to help, and ended up trapped by the Rajah.
hockeyteam 12-07-06, 06:29 PM	Thats a sweet theory Syltorian and from Nived as well. My theory is sorta like Nived's. In my theory, a daelkyr or two whom where imprisoned beneath Cyre recruited a large number of followers whom scoured Xen'drik for the magic the giants used in the war against the Quori. Remember that the only other example of destruction on the magnititude of that of the Day of Mourning was unleased by the Giants during the Quori War. As it turns out (according to me) that destruction brought about by the giants was part of the workings of an eldritch machine that shot Dal Quor out of alignment with Eberron. Anyway, the followers found the plans to this machine and eventually discovered how to reverse engineer the underlying priciples to create a massive manifest zone to Xoriat, specifically with the borders now known as the mournland. However, House Phiarlan found out before it was to late and sent in a crack team of adventurers, but in order not to tip of the Daelkyrs followers they just removed the House leaders from the area(in case the adventures failed). Long story short, the adventures destroyed the machine, but took too long in doing so, the machine was charged with energies from Xoriat at the time, which after the machines dying destructive blast where infused into the land, corrupting the wildlife, magic, everything. Some things that led to this theory: 1) The Glowing Chasm. Draws mutated creatures to it and mutates them further, mutating things that spend to much time near it. Sounds like Xoriat to me. 2) Living spells. It is said that the Shadow Marches was close to Xoriat and when it was coterminous with Eberron that magic went wild. Well healing spells not working and spells actually 'living' sounds pretty wild to me. 3) Dead Gray Mists. The effects of which are chaos. Fail your check walk in a random direction. 4) The Lord of Blades Creation Forge. So your telling me that the day of mourning damaged all creation forges in the Mournland, ok I buy that. Your telling me that the Lord of Blades couldn't capture a Cannith heir with the knowledge to repair/run correctly any of the forges, well probably. Your telling me that the Lord of Blades couldn't find the plans to a creation forge in the ruins of the Cannith seat of power, along with the above two conditions, your pushing your luck. I say(since I can) that the Lord of Blades is actually a daelkyr pawn of some degree and the so-called patched warforged that come out of that forge on purpose because that is what daelkyr do.
Siberys 12-07-06, 07:49 PM	Here's Mine, with one caveat; this is not what I say happened, except in ONE campaign, which I wanted to be epic. So I decided the party would restore Cyre :D . None of my other campaigns will have the events occur, as I want to keep the Mournland, Etc... But it's fun to run! Anyway, it's all a plot by Vol Vol discovered how to force the Mark of Death to appear on a living descendant of the house; thirteen special siberys 'marked or to-be-siberys 'marked had to be in thirteen certain places at the same time as a lunar and planar conjunction (Olarune the 20th, 994 YK), carrying thirteen specific dragonshards. 12 would be positioned at the 'clock points' around Making, where the one to develop the Mark of Death was to be. each one had to be of the appropriate race to develop a mark - One PC is the one in Sharn - he's an Aereni Elf who's going to develop the Siberys mark of Shadow. Vol planted each of these gems centuries ago, and has been patiently waiting for her plan to come to fruition. In a gigantic battle to get an artifact from the LOBster (so they can destroy Xulo), the Death-Marked will appear, as will the other eleven siberys marked. To fulfil a part of the prophecy, the Elf will have to sacrifice himself (similarly to how Aeren did), which will destroy the Mark of Death, restore Cyre, and (coincidentaly,) raise him as a deathless, so he can gloriously join his ancestors in Shae Mordai. Also, there's a cyran avenger-type PC in the group. When the dragons tell them the elf was involved in the destruction of Cyre, he'll flip out, and then feel all bad when the elf sacrifices himself to restore his homeland. :P cheers, Siberys
McFrankPatrick 12-08-06, 08:11 PM	Gimli and Syltorian: Awesome idea, consider it stolen! Now I just have to hope that none of my players ever visits any of these boards. *Shoo players, shoo!
GimliGloinson 12-09-06, 12:45 AM	Gimli and Syltorian: Awesome idea, consider it stolen! Now I just have to hope that none of my players ever visits any of these boards. *Shoo players, shoo! Why, thank you sir! Glad my thoughts can help someone out. I'm actually starting up a new campaign, at 1st level with the Forgotten Forge, Shadows of the Last War, etc. I'm probably going to have one of the other Cannith facilities being the source of the Mourning (probably in the Glowing Chasm); I'll pick one of the facilities mentioned in the SotLW map/floor and put it at the Chasm (I'm trying to put that thing together so I can definitely pinpoint). Anyway, I'll be going with my proposed theory. Syltorian, as to why Cannith didn't evacuate? They were expecting a protective, disorienting effect to defend the borders of Cyre, not a killing/bizarro-twist on the world (A-La Cassanova Frankenstein in Mystery Men), so why would they have to flee. My thinking on why it twisted animals, but killed nearly all of the people is that animals weren't factored into the disorienting mists part of the wards. More as I come up with it.
Syltorian 12-09-06, 09:13 AM	Always glad to be of service, McFrankPatrick! Gimli: my problem with Cannith not evacuating is that, (everything only in my theory, naturally), the shield would have been both ways. Nobody would be able to enter Cyre, but nobody would be able to get out either. That is why Phiarlan evacuated its leaders: to continue ruling the overall house. Cannith failed to do so. Its patriarch would have survived, had everything gone according to plan, but he would have been as inaccessible as he is now that he is dead. The three-fold split in House Cannith would thus have happened anyway, and Cannith would have avoided that if possible. So I believe that the shielding was simply not yet scheduled, and Cannith did not inform its other enclaves to prevent any foreign spies from getting to them. Also, something I just now thought about: there might be a precedent of shielding an entire nation, albeit to a lesser degree: the Shroud of Adar. I wonder whether there is a connection that could be made...
lordalm 12-09-06, 07:23 PM	Khyber farted. What? :bravo:
UCsimplyme 12-11-06, 11:12 PM	Check out the gates of night thread in the general eberron forum. The book was by keith baker. A cannith artificer in this book makes a couple comments regarding the origin of the mourning. Here is a snippet of the discussion: "Aleisa says "I don't know who could unleash this level of power." Talin replies "Of course you do. I never expected something of this magnitude, but think of the possibilities. Think of what it will do to the people of Eberron." Break that down. He's not saying that he knows the precise cause of the Mourning. He doesn't know HOW it's being done, and he's specifically saying that he DIDN'T expect this to happen. What he's saying is that now that he sees it happening, he has a good idea of who might have set it in motion. It's like saying "A rakshasa rajah is on the loose? I don't know how they released her, but I imagine it's her prakhutu that did it." And a key point there, looking to the Lords of Dust specifically, is that the people who actually DID release the rajah might never realize that they were doing the work of the Lords of Dust. So Talin is saying that he thinks he knows who set the events in motion - not that he knows exactly what those events were." And from Keith... "Lei's father implies that he knows who's behind the Mourning. However, there's a enormous difference between knowing who might be "behind" it, and knowing how it occured. Furthermore, Aleisa says "My husband may have his own ideas as to the cause of this" - so even she is saying that it's a theory, not a fact. So a good question is who Talin THINKS it is - and I'm very curious if anyone has come up with an answer to this question, since I've certainly tried to scatter clues throughout the novels - but that's still a theory." Lots of good story around the destruction of Cyre in Keith's books. You should pick them up!
Hendrake 12-12-06, 03:10 PM	Many thanks for starting this thread. The Mourning has...well, bugged me since I first read about it -- I think my first response was, "WTF - is this D&D or Gamma World?!?" One aspect of the Mournland seems to tickle my thoughts is that the, "soldiers whose dead bodies refuse to decompose." I figure that it had something to do with a weird time-effect -- i.e.: time has essentially slowed to almost the point of stopping for that which WAS (rather than what came after) in Cyre at the time of the Mourning, as long as it wasn't mutated or created due to the Mourning. That and the mutated / twisted environment really pushes me towards some partial connection to Xoriat (or, "Xoriat on Eberron" [Hell on Earth]), which is at least slightly supported by the plane's traits of Wild magic (next step: Living Spells?) and Distorted time (the thing with the bodies?). After all, Keith Baker said something like, "anything can happen" in the Mournland. You can't get any more chaotic than that! So I really like the idea that a powerful daelkyr corrupted the efforts of Cyre's skunkworks to put up a shield around what was left of their kingdom - especially since it seemed like they were getting their rears steadily handed to them during the Last War (it sucks being in the middle). Maybe they even established a smaller area because they knew their enemies had occupied outlying regions and they didn't want large enemy armies on the inside of their shield. House Phiarlan evacuated their top admins for exactly the reason stated (they wanted to oversee all of their House's matters across the continent rather than just inside the Shield), figuring they could come back via "teleport" spells but doing so for more than a handful of top bananas just wouldn't be economical. No one really expected things to go wrong, until it did thanks to the daelkyr's (or more likely, it's agents) efforts. What might be interesting would be if during the PCs exploration of some out of the way section of the Mournland they stumbled upon a properly "Shielded" locale that didn't fall under the effects of the Mourning - sort of a test area for the initial project. There could even be survivors within. Might be an initial step on figuring out what really happened. Anyway, my thoughts, such as they are. Thanks for the great ideas! I'll be following this thread with interest.
Cifer 12-14-06, 03:52 PM	I figure that it had something to do with a weird time-effect -- i.e.: time has essentially slowed to almost the point of stopping for that which WAS (rather than what came after) in Cyre at the time of the Mourning, as long as it wasn't mutated or created due to the Mourning. The only problem with this is that the non-decomposing effects everything dead in the mournland, even those that travel into it, not just those that were there during the mourning. Otherwise, great theories.
Shady314 12-14-06, 09:37 PM	Hmmmm any old ideas? An ancient prismatic dragon on a quest for ascension to godhood corrupted and infiltrated the highest levels of the government of Cyre and convinced Mishann to ally herself with him and in return he'd pretty much singlehandedly crush all her enemies. Of course his true motives were far more sinsister. The protective ritual he convinced Mishann to undertake used truename magic the likes of which hadn't been seen since Xendrick got obliterated by the Dragons. It didn't fail. It worked exactly how he intended. The true name aspect is how the mist settled so securely to the current political borders and not geography or areas of Cyre lost in the war. Phiarlan got out because shortly before the Mourning a top agent in the government managed to send them a single mayday that said, Flee. The answers to why he did this, what the Mournland is and how it can be stopped from happening again, reversed and maybe even repeated... are scattered throughout Metrol, Xendrick, Argonnessen and even the Frostfell. And once you've done all that you've got a prismatic dragon pursuing the dragon ascendant class from Draconomicon. And he's close to the goal. Good Luck adventurers MWHEHEHE.
YamiSouru 12-14-06, 11:25 PM	i feel that the mournland formed a nice premise for "how a super weapon can go wrong." I mean it wouldnt be that much of a stretch of imagenation to think that cyre had built a super weapon that worked in two general steps. 1) whipe out the enemy forces while protecting our own. 2) set up a magical barrier to give us time to prepare for the rest of the war. However things went wrong. When the eldritch machine designed to do this was activated it failed to see the difference between a cyran soldier, and every other soldier and just killed every humanoid it came across. However with the release of so many souls and the new magical barrier preventing them from leaving caused the machine to overload and send out pulse after pulse after pulse of eldritch energy, each pulse damaging the countryside and mutating those not initially targeted by the machine. Over time the machine simply couldnt hold up under this stress and broke, still leaking the dangerous spell energy causing those who go near it to mutate (the glowing chasm). naturally of course. this is all just a theory.
Solar-powered_Warforged 12-15-06, 03:13 AM	Ahhhh, see now this is why I love Eberron, where things aren't set in stone and the DM's can do practically anything they want for any reason they want as so much of the material is perfectly obscured, so the PC's can't point to any one thing and say this mystery happened because p.X of book so-and-so says so! Now we see the Mournland; an entire nation surrounded by dead grey mists that perfectly surround a nation whose lands have been (irrevocably?) warped, twisted, and tainted by magic where spells run wild and nothing and nowhere is safe. We know that Cyre was destroyed in a blast of eldritch energy so that says some sort of spell or magical effect right? Now the spell stops at Cyre's borders exactly so we know that whatever happened was deliberate, whether anything went wrong is another matter. Assuming that the Mournland was the deliberate result of an Insert here-(Divine, Arcane, Eldritch, -Spell, Ritual, Machine) we know that whatever wanted Cyre warped this way is bad news. We see several possible culprits-The Lords of Dust-Rajahs imprisoned beneath the earth attempting to escape their asylum to return to rule the world-personally I just don't see a Rajah's seal breaking destroying an entire nation perfectly down to it's mapped borders-and what might they gain from a landscape twisted in such a manner? Nothing our mortal minds could possibly comprehend but it just doesn’t follow through. Next we see the Daelkyr lords of madness who have perfected world destruction down to a form of art. It is very possible that a Daelkyr managed to escape his bonds and destroyed Cyre in it's entirety as a sort of ironic warning of things to come all of Cyre has been warped and what better a force to do so than one that specializes in the destruction of worlds? The Daelkyr are insane so it would make sense-(or completely fail to) for a Daelkyr to destroy an entire nation with perfect finesse and grace a sort of a one in a million chance that they picked at random out of all the horrible things they could do to Khorvaire. This though is probably highly unlikely as the odds are overwhelmingly against it. But then again the odds of anything a Daelkyr may do are incomprehensible to our untainted minds. The Quori also could be the cause for they have the most stable of the epic-evil hierarchies and are readily visible as having the most power that they can bring to bear at one time. However the Quori specialize in Psionics and while taking out Gailfar's gleaming jewel may seem like a rational first step in a Quori invasion strategy, the Mournland's effects don’t seem to match with anything in the Quori's bag 'o tricks. We see dragons in Argonessen with mystical powers galore and there are theories abound about how Cyre was developing some sort of super-weapon or ultra-mythical artifact capable of bringing chaos to the entire world w/wo House Cannith's help. But again doing what was done to Cyre don't seem like the way the dragon's play. Throught the ECS there are mutterings about planar alignments and something about the Queen making a pact with the Keeper and to be honest some of this seems to fit; an entire nation's soul's sacrificed to feed a glutton god who care's nothing for what remains and simply reached down and gobbled up all soul's entrusted to the Queen and any that happened to be on her property at the time could fit but it dosen't quite mesh with what's left behind we see the reduced healing effect as a side effect of a possible effect of a conjunction with Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead and if the Keeper truly resides anywhere it's there but what about the living spells and mutations they seem to be more chaotic than evil per se in nature-they may well be a side effect of the planar tear as the Keeper wrenched the countless souls from Cyre to his lair-but the mists still keep things from fitting properly why would he leave them as a shroud over Cyre and why weren't the Warforged and some of the surviving animals affected as well? The asnwer may be relaively simple the warforged's souls are unpalateable or possibly not in the posession of the Queen at the time the pact was made as may have been the case with the animals. The Mourning may have been a complete accident and there are to many possible things that may have gone wrong with eldritch doomsday machines or emerging demon-lords for me to do proper justice to with the remaining consciousness left to me. I'm gonna go through my books and look for more doomsday causes now so.....:whatsthis
Shady314 12-15-06, 03:46 AM	But again doing what was done to Cyre don't seem like the way the dragon's play. Except for when they obliterated Xendrik of course. Which they did because they didn't like the way the Giants handled the Quori war throwing a plane out of alignment. And Xendrik now suffers from the Traveler's Curse similarly to the travel difficulties in the Mournland. The "dragons" are not a unified monolithic force. And the way they "play" has no regard for anything not draconic. I think "they" (or more likely a dragon or group of dragons not all of them) or the Lord of Blades with an Eldritch device are the most likely culprits. Otherwise I agree with what you're saying.
Solar-powered_Warforged 12-15-06, 05:38 AM	Um... actually the dragons struck down the giants right before they used the dragon's magic to squash the elvish uprisings and attempt to stop the magical plagues and curses running rampant through Giant society. The dragons probably deemed the giants unworthy of such power after the destruction the giants caused when they used it against the Quori. The dragons may have used the giants as unwitting pawns against the Quori and the sealing off of the plane of dreams 'cause the prophecy told them to but they were unwilling to take direct action for fear of altering the prophecy. That said now that you mention it the dragons don't seem as unlikely a cause for The Mourning anymore but it still seems unlikely (in my book anyhow) that the Cyrans even at their best would be able to do anything to call down the FULL wrath of the dragons. Remember the levels of technology and magic application in use today anywhere in Khorvaire are nowhere near the marvels the giants produced after learning all their secrets from the dragons. The giants got a second chance remember? I doubt the Cyrans (as a whole) ended up being the direct cause for their own destruction at the hands of the dragons. Anyway Cyre was home to how many dragonmarked? Dragons are still in awe that any off the "lower races" have manifested any marks whatsoever so I doubt they'd wipe out an entire nation rather than sabotage some "childish" mortal plot. It makes you wonder what it would take to rouse the dragons out of inactivity though... maybe the awakening of multiple Daelkyr or rajahs but I don't think they'd destroy a nation over the release of a single Epic-Evil baddie. Would they.... Maybe... Cyran miners operating near what is now the glowing chasm find a seal miles long and forged from an impenetrable material unlike anything they've ever encountered. Officials and diviners are called in but everything it kept top secret. Phiarlan spies manage to decode a miniscule amount of text that flows around this giant sigil and rush to get the information to their house leaders who immediately begin to make full plans for full house evacuation of Cyre starting with the lead house members so as not to draw attention (yes it's that bad, the writings are in an ancient, ancient, ancient form of draconic and speak of doom beyond the horrors of Xoriat or Dal Quor). A mysterious figure cloaked in flowing robes approaches the Cyran council and beseeches them to stop the mining at once lest they release what lies within... The council laughs off the stranger and he leaves dire warnings that they fully fail to comprehend as he leaves he shifts, blurring and is no more...The Cyrans call upon their mightiest magics, and with the help of House Cannith manage to partially weaken the seal. The Seal still remain impervious to all metals and magics but seems to thin and duller as time wears on. The stranger appears again and warns the Cyrans of the impending doom that would befall their entire nation but few listen. Those that stand against the effort are banished from their houses and stations. (This is a side effect from what lies beneath it slowly taints the minds and has convinced both Cannith and Cyre that great power or wealth lie beneath the seal and it will brook no insolence among it's followers) Those who leave die shortly afterwards but not all as a few- (5-20) managed to flee far enough quickly and escape. The seal is now partially breached and divination spells and all magic begins to warp the surrounding area around the seal those affected by the taint (DC 42 to resist) are unaware of this though. The breach is only magical and the weak essence seeping through is a thousandth of the power controlled by what lurks below. The Messenger returns a final time and tells the assembled leaders exactly what is happening and what they can do to help fix it but they have grown to be fanatics and attack the messenger (who cannot be harmed for his magical wardings are more powerful than any assembled) who leaves telling the Cyrans what will happen as soon as the seal is breached. The messenger returns home and reports to his superiors who have gathered up their full might and power and are headed towards Cyre as they speak. The Seals final defenses are weakening and laborers can begin to fracture and flake away at the seal's surface. The Seal gives way and plummets thousands of feet into the depths, as it falls it catches on the lowest ledge and sticks, temporarily preventing whatever's down there from climbing up. The Dragons arrive in full force and summon a thick wall of ash-grey mists around Cyre's borders just as a glowing green eldritch radiance blasts forth from the depths of Khyber tainting all it touches and only stopping at the mists. The fallen shield is restored and enhanced though it is weaker than it originally was and now the Madness Below begins to seep upwards through the earth...
Shady314 12-15-06, 06:40 PM	You keep saying dragons this and dragons that but the "dragons" are not a unified force. They don't all agree on what dragonmarks mean or anything else. The chamber is just one possible power group of Argonessen and even within the Chamber there is dissension. But I've never heard of any dragon ebing in awe over the dragonmarks. Most are curious. Very big difference. Who says Cyre did anything to call down the full dragon wrath? The full dragon wrath destroyed the Giants civilization which was much more powerul. So maybe a fraction of dragon power could create odd gray mists over one of the five nations eh? Nice idea! Though the dragons aren't dumb. They are super powerful and cunning. Some cloaked traveler just popping up and asking to meet Mishann and warn her is like they were trying to fail to sop Cyre. :)
Solar-powered_Warforged 12-15-06, 08:50 PM	While you do have a valid point in saying that the dragons aren't a unified force but some part of me finds it hard to believe that a super-intelligent race that has existed for millennia before the giant's had mastered fire wouldn't have some form of government or body that could make decisions on important things when they decide to mobilize and take action. Wasn't it "The Dragons" that the Arenal elves were fighting, "The Dragons" that crippled giant civilization, "The Dragons" who aided the elves in the eradication of House Vol? We see "The Dragons" re-discovering the prophecy, "The Dragons” teaching the giants about arcane magic, "The Dragons" fighting the fiends in ancient times. We have only seen the dragons doing things and not bickering among themselves, we see the dragons taking action. Quite frankly there isn't enough information on dragon society or organizations (except the still mystery-shrouded Chamber) to say group X did Y at so and so time so when I refer to the dragons as "The Dragons" it's when I don't have enough information on what group or sect within dragon society is taking action or failing to do so or I haven't decided which one to use or makeup. "The Dragons" let the world do what it wants for the most part and hate to interfere save the Chamber so we don't know diddly about them whatsoever.
Shady314 12-16-06, 05:21 AM	While you do have a valid point in saying that the dragons aren't a unified force but some part of me finds it hard to believe that a super-intelligent race that has existed for millennia before the giant's had mastered fire wouldn't have some form of government or body that could make decisions on important things when they decide to mobilize and take action. Wasn't it "The Dragons" that the Arenal elves were fighting, "The Dragons" that crippled giant civilization, "The Dragons" who aided the elves in the eradication of House Vol? We see "The Dragons" re-discovering the prophecy, "The Dragons” teaching the giants about arcane magic, "The Dragons" fighting the fiends in ancient times. We have only seen the dragons doing things and not bickering among themselves, we see the dragons taking action. Quite frankly there isn't enough information on dragon society or organizations (except the still mystery-shrouded Chamber) to say group X did Y at so and so time so when I refer to the dragons as "The Dragons" it's when I don't have enough information on what group or sect within dragon society is taking action or failing to do so or I haven't decided which one to use or makeup. "The Dragons" let the world do what it wants for the most part and hate to interfere save the Chamber so we don't know diddly about them whatsoever. True and I don't have a problem saying "the dragons" but when you say "the dragons" don't seem like they'd....fill in the blank it's important to remember that some might. It's an interesting question on Dragon government I've often wondered about. I bet they don't have a formal government. Their governmental system could be anarchy. I think they'd have conclaves that one could call if anything truly shocking came to light or truly momentous occured. With seniority coming with age class probably. And then they'd probably take votes with probably the older ones reaching a consensus and enforcing it. They may be super intelligent but they're also a race of territorial creatures where every individual tends toward vanity and lust for power and is incredibly powerful. Imagine the world if every single human being as they grew older uniformly grew in power and intelligence and magical ability which was already formidable to begin with. Imagine if just from age every single human could reach just like 10th level magewright.
Manyfist 12-21-06, 04:07 AM	Well they're seems to be several connections that set the Mournland apart. - No Natural Healing - Decompositon doesn't happen (or at a very slow rate) - Heavy Psionic Energy - Several other Horrors I am too lazy to list (tired) My opinon the Mourning was caused when Dal Quor, Dolurrh and Xoriat both had a Manifest Zone right in the center of Cyre. Also for the first time Dal Quor, Dolurrh and Xoriat were conterminous at the same time. This caused a wave of Psionic Energy from Dal Quor and the madness of Xoriat, and the aura of hopelessness of Dolurrh created a powerful effect. Since the Manifest zones were all under Cyre and no where else, it would of stopped at Cyre's borders. No one can remember anything since their memories were wiped with the incedent happening of how it happened.
Shady314 12-21-06, 07:40 AM	Only problem with that is Dal quor is permanently remote. No manifest zones since the giants threw it out of whack.
Manyfist 12-22-06, 12:17 AM	Only problem with that is Dal quor is permanently remote. No manifest zones since the giants threw it out of whack. Nothing is Permaent or perfect. Who's to say that Dal Quor didn't find a crack in the Magic wall? Its just a guess because no one knows, hell you can even say Jesus was reborn on Eberron yet couldn't take it and blew up. :D Its a mystery.
lordalm 12-23-06, 03:04 PM	Chthulu fart = Mourning. Don't open the planar gate with the lightning glove. Jeeze didn't anyone watch that movie...
Shady314 12-24-06, 05:16 AM	Nothing is Permaent or perfect. Who's to say that Dal Quor didn't find a crack in the Magic wall? Its just a guess because no one knows, hell you can even say Jesus was reborn on Eberron yet couldn't take it and blew up. :D Its a mystery. Again I'm just bringing up canon. Not many in Eberron may know but everyone that reads the ECS knows that Dal Quor is permanently remote because of the giants. Why do you even call it a wall? It's just that Dal Quor no longer orbits/intersects the plane of Eberron. If you want to rule 0 I'm absolutely fine with that but rule 0 isn't a counter argument where anything goes else there is no common ground to stand on and discuss things.
Manyfist 12-29-06, 12:12 AM	Rule 0 is always in majority of Eberron. If you want to go by canon, Mourning happen no one knows why/how. End of story. However this is where you're allowed to make up anything. Who says that Dal Quor wasn't contermious for just a split sec.? Its a mystery, Giant magic wanes for a split sec. Xoriat in its craziness clashes with Dal Quor and Eberron. Anything can happen if you put enough imagination.
Shady314 12-29-06, 02:08 AM	Rule 0 is always in majority of Eberron. If you want to go by canon, Mourning happen no one knows why/how. End of story. However this is where you're allowed to make up anything. Who says that Dal Quor wasn't contermious for just a split sec.? Its a mystery, Giant magic wanes for a split sec. Xoriat in its craziness clashes with Dal Quor and Eberron. Anything can happen if you put enough imagination. Rule 0 is always applicable everywhere. What are you even arguing? I just think going against canon for no reason is a rather weak idea. Oh for a split second the rules of the setting broke down for no reason other than that's how I want this to have happened. How about coming up with some sort of semiplausible explanation? Rule 0 means it's ok to make changes but making changes just to change things is silly.
Manyfist 12-29-06, 07:04 PM	Rule 0 is always applicable everywhere. What are you even arguing? I just think going against canon for no reason is a rather weak idea. Oh for a split second the rules of the setting broke down for no reason other than that's how I want this to have happened. How about coming up with some sort of semiplausible explanation? Rule 0 means it's ok to make changes but making changes just to change things is silly. There is no canon on The Mourning. Who knows, maybe Xoriat did invade again or something blew up. Who knows, this thread is open to idea of off the wall breaking/bending canon, by even mentioning The Mourning. Why? No one knows what happens, and you never mention "Keep it to canon guys". :rolleyes:
jamvid 12-29-06, 09:20 PM	I don't know about everyone else, but these are the various Mournland/Mourning explanations in my Eberron: The glowing chasm: just the result of a big earthquake, caused by normal tectonic activity and easily-collapsed earth. The living spells: evolution Phiarlan not being there: They were on a tropical island getaway. Can't an Elf get a vacation? Dead-grey mists: LOTS of condensation. Anything else: the leader of house Cannith was working on self-tying shoelaces. Something went terribly, horribly wrong.
Shady314 12-30-06, 04:43 AM	There is no canon on The Mourning. Who knows, maybe Xoriat did invade again or something blew up. Who knows, this thread is open to idea of off the wall breaking/bending canon, by even mentioning The Mourning. Why? No one knows what happens, and you never mention "Keep it to canon guys". :rolleyes: 1. There is canon on the Mourning. The mechanics of the mists. The date it occured. That most of the Phiarlan leadership was away. That it stopped at political borders. etc. 2. The canon I'm bringing up actually has nothing to do with the Mourning. It's the canon of what the Giants did to Dal Quor. I'm not saying you can't use your explanation for the Mourning or change any and all of the established material on the Mourning. You can change it all, it honestly doesn't bother me. Make it work for whatever you need. I started off merely pointing out a tiny flaw in your explanation when going by canon just to make sure you were aware and could either fix that or clarify your position. "Well in my Eberron Dal Quor...blah blah" And now I'm stuck pointing out Rule 0 is rule 0 not rule 1 meaning it isn't enforced that you change anything and everything for no reason. Just handwaving an explanation that for no real reason, except for Deus Ex Machina, Dal Quor was coterminous for no good reason is weak and for the sake of your story further explanation would be GOOD though not NECESSARY. Since by canon Xoriat is also a source of Psionic energy so you don't, by your own logical train of thought, even need to include Dal Quor. Just Xoriat and Dollurh being coterminous while a stretch is much more believable and still conforms to your argument based on the effects of the Mourning. Of course by canon I don't remember reading anything about heavy Psionic energy in the Mournland but now I'm just rambling...
Solar-powered_Warforged 12-30-06, 05:20 AM	Since by canon Xoriat is also a source of Psionic energy so you don't, by your own logical train of thought, even need to include Dal Quor. Just Xoriat and Dollurh being coterminous while a stretch is much more believable and still conforms to your argument based on the effects of the Mourning. Of course by canon I don't remember reading anything about heavy Psionic energy in the Mournland but now I'm just rambling... Yeah huh,:thinks: I think Manyfist is mistakenly referring to the overabundance of arcane energy mentioned on P.188 of the ECS.
mhacdebhandia 12-30-06, 09:48 AM	My theory is: It doesn't matter unless and until a PC comes to the table with a burning desire to find out what happened. There's no better answer than the one which would be most dramatic and awesome to uncover in the course of play - and exactly what that is can only be revealed during the course of play, because it will be individual to the character who wants to know.
lordalm 12-30-06, 03:54 PM	My theory is: It doesn't matter unless and until a PC comes to the table with a burning desire to find out what happened. There's no better answer than the one which would be most dramatic and awesome to uncover in the course of play - and exactly what that is can only be revealed during the course of play, because it will be individual to the character who wants to know. And going by what is "cannon" what ever they discover will never ever be the "reason." Intrigue. Don't you just love it?:)
Siberys 12-30-06, 05:15 PM	My theory is: It doesn't matter unless and until a PC comes to the table with a burning desire to find out what happened. There's no better answer than the one which would be most dramatic and awesome to uncover in the course of play - and exactly what that is can only be revealed during the course of play, because it will be individual to the character who wants to know. See, that's exactly how I feel. In my game, one of the players caused the Mourning. It was all part of the Prophecy, and Vol instigated it, and he didn't know it, of course. But, when the dragons tell the party, the Cyran noble who seeks revenge on all arcanists (whom he thinks caused the mourning) will just flip out. The RPing possibilities are endless... :evillaugh
Evilmonster 01-03-07, 02:34 AM	I like the idea that it was everyones fault. Think about all the binding, abjuring, and sealing magic that is scattered all over the world and the kind of strain that puts on reality. Then get a bunch of armys of magic users to have a serious spell throwing contest in one spot add thousands of terrable deaths and BOOM! Massive break in reality. Every army of every nation and all the mercernarys from all over who were fighting that day are responsable so the guilt lies on everyone. If you need a someone to blame there are still possabilitys. Maybe the Speaker of the Flame fore saw the desaster and ordered fighting stoped before things went too far, but the general, or cardnal, who was in charge was sure they could win before it came to that and ignored the order. Or maybe the LoB knew it was coming and insured somehow that the fighting would escalate. Anything along the lines that it could have been avoided if any side had retreated but for one reason or another they refused.
SwordSaintMusashi 01-03-07, 09:39 AM	My DM and I have had a theory on the Mournland since we read a few articles and some of the books by Keith. Dol Urrh is described as a land filled with gray mist where everything just remains the same. The Mournland is consumed in a similairly described gray mist, and the bodies of the dead don't rot or decay, but simply stay as they are. As well, curative magic (all spells with the cure name in them) don't work, while abilities like the paladin's Lay on Hands, and spells such as goodberry do work. This shows that an innate connection to the connections to positive energy are cut off, which is also keeping in lines with the realm of the dead. What caused Dol Urrh to spill into Cyre's border as such? That is a tough mystery to dechipher, though it is canon that illithid were seen poking around the ruins of Cyre right after the Mourning happened. It wouldn't be too far a stretch to say that the daelkyr engineered it, whether directly or indirectly, or that something of interest to the lords of madness did occur to warrant the illithid coming to the surface.
lordalm 01-07-07, 02:33 PM	I too thought that the similarites between the plane of death and the Mourning were pretty strong. A giant Manifest Zone? However, what happens inside is so different between the two I believe its just coincedence.
bykov1 01-17-07, 12:20 PM	My DM and I have had a theory on the Mournland since we read a few articles and some of the books by Keith. Dol Urrh is described as a land filled with gray mist where everything just remains the same. The Mournland is consumed in a similairly described gray mist, and the bodies of the dead don't rot or decay, but simply stay as they are. As well, curative magic (all spells with the cure name in them) don't work, while abilities like the paladin's Lay on Hands, and spells such as goodberry do work. This shows that an innate connection to the connections to positive energy are cut off, which is also keeping in lines with the realm of the dead. What caused Dol Urrh to spill into Cyre's border as such? That is a tough mystery to dechipher, though it is canon that illithid were seen poking around the ruins of Cyre right after the Mourning happened. It wouldn't be too far a stretch to say that the daelkyr engineered it, whether directly or indirectly, or that something of interest to the lords of madness did occur to warrant the illithid coming to the surface. Makes me think that some Cyrans may have made a pact w/ the daeklyr. It is hard to imagine a random effect filling in political borders, but I have seen stranger things written about Eberron.....one of which led my campaign to have the sun rise in the west and set in the east, but that is another story. Bykov.
Yakman 01-19-07, 12:56 PM	Makes me think that some Cyrans may have made a pact w/ the daeklyr. It is hard to imagine a random effect filling in political borders, but I have seen stranger things written about Eberron.....one of which led my campaign to have the sun rise in the west and set in the east, but that is another story. Bykov. Personally, that's my opinion as well, as the roots of the war show a direct line to the Mourning (from what we know). The war began 104 years before the campaign. The treaty of throne hold ended the war 2 years previous. The Mourning occurred two years previous to that. Meaning the War was 100 Years long. Sounds fishy right? We look at the origin of the war. The Cyran Queen claimed the throne. Three nations rose against her claim--but without a claimant of their own. Why do this? It's not a personal rivalry between the claimants, as none of the opposition were demanding the throne for themselves at that point. Rather, it was an "Anybody but Cyre" movement. What could cause this? Objecting to her rule so strongly that they call the banners and don't even have the time to form a united front with a replacement candidate to win over those on the fence? Something nasty about this Queen maybe? Maybe she's a bit 'weird'? Maybe her husband isn't quite right? Maybe people get this ugly feeling around her? Maybe she's a little diabolic... literally? Or her husband or her heir are? When we examine the war we see that Cyre gets stomped. Ridden over and over and over again, shattered, massacred, torched, and decimated, yet the royal house stubbornly fights on--refusing to end the war. Why the insanity? Is it purely pride? Or something else? I think, that based on these two points, that the origin of the Mourning lay with the Cyran Royal House. I believe that the Queen had a pact with some daelkyr/rajah death cult (it has to be from Khyber to account for the Glowin Chasm), a pact that came to fruition after 100 years of strife, with a grand sacrifice of millions of Cyrans.
Yakman 01-19-07, 12:56 PM	Makes me think that some Cyrans may have made a pact w/ the daeklyr. It is hard to imagine a random effect filling in political borders, but I have seen stranger things written about Eberron.....one of which led my campaign to have the sun rise in the west and set in the east, but that is another story. Bykov. Personally, that's my opinion as well, as the roots of the war show a direct line to the Mourning (from what we know). The war began 104 years before the campaign. The treaty of throne hold ended the war 2 years previous. The Mourning occurred two years previous to that. Meaning the War was 100 Years long. Sounds fishy right? We look at the origin of the war. The Cyran Queen claimed the throne. Three nations rose against her claim--but without a claimant of their own. Why do this? It's not a personal rivalry between the claimants, as none of the opposition were demanding the throne for themselves at that point. Rather, it was an "Anybody but Cyre" movement. What could cause this? Objecting to her rule so strongly that they call the banners and don't even have the time to form a united front with a replacement candidate to win over those on the fence? Something nasty about this Queen maybe? Maybe she's a bit 'weird'? Maybe her husband isn't quite right? Maybe people get this ugly feeling around her? Maybe she's a little diabolic... literally? Or her husband or her heir are? When we examine the war we see that Cyre gets stomped. Ridden over and over and over again, shattered, massacred, torched, and decimated, yet the royal house stubbornly fights on--refusing to end the war. Why the insanity? Is it purely pride? Or something else? I think, that based on these two points, that the origin of the Mourning lay with the Cyran Royal House. I believe that the Queen had a pact with some daelkyr/rajah death cult (it has to be from Khyber to account for the Glowin Chasm), a pact that came to fruition after 100 years of strife, with a grand sacrifice of millions of Cyrans.
SSj3goblin 01-19-07, 01:34 PM	I'm getting so tired of those Khyber Farted (or X farted) "jokes" (as far as something so unfunny can be called a joke).
strange_person 01-19-07, 02:09 PM	Someone mentioned that the only other nation-sized magic ward is in Adar. It seems to me that the magic the Giants used was an attempt to bind the Quori - all of them, all at once - into Khyber. It didn't work because replacing a signifigant fraction of the foundations of the earth with dreams causes structural problems. The giants tried to do it again to bind the spirits of the dead elven heroes, but the dragons knew better than to let them saturate the earth itself with dead elves. So- the Quori know how to set up massive protective feilds, and how to mess with planar arrangements in a really ham-fisted and dangerous way. Their MO for taking over Sarlona involved provoking a war to divide and weaken, and then taking over one of the survivors to reunite by conquest. The mournland is nightmarish, and has traits in common with Dolurrh and Shavarath; there is also evidence to suggest it was intended as a protective measure for Cyre. The queen of Cyre started the war because nobody wanted her to take over Galifar. Sounds to me like the Quori infiltrated Cyre, and possibly the other Five Nations as well, to start the war. They waited 100 years for everyone to get tired, and then they sold Cyre an eldritch machine with which to synthesize a multi-manifest zone (death and war, and finally nightmare but they didn't talk about that one) to turn the planes themselves into a defensive barrier. House Phiarlan's leaders got out because they were getting suspicious (intrigue is their thing, but even they didn't see through the Quori plot soon enough or completely enough to evacuate completely). Cannith didn't see through the scheme, even though they were the ones building it, because they didn't know enough about how manifest zones worked. They knew it was supposed to set up a border of dead-grey mist with a disorienting effect (which it did), and dramatically alter the connection to Shavarath (which it did, but not quite how the Quori claimed it would), and finally set up some more complicated effect to preserve Cyre (which it did, in the most horribly unexpected sense). They just assumed that the trickier parts of the magic did what the Quori said they did. It kind of reminds me of Ramadan from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. A city of wonders, preserved forever in dreams but irretreivably destroyed in reality.
Kassil 01-20-07, 03:04 PM	It kind of reminds me of Ramadan from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. A city of wonders, preserved forever in dreams but irretreivably destroyed in reality. That is an absolutely gorgeous idea. I think that in at least one game I run, Cyre won't be destroyed, as people think it, but instead ripped from Eberron and cast into Dal Quor, while an equal segment of Dal Quor was shifted to Eberron. The two passed "Through" each other on the way, so all of Cyre became native to the dreaming realm, foreign armies and all, while the transplanted dreamland took on the worst possible parts of the nightmares of war - all while retaining that surreal, nightmarish quality that makes the Mournland such a horrific place.
frog8987 01-24-07, 01:39 AM	*first post ever, be gentle please* I’ve been working on a idea that Aaren Cannith caused the mourning after his exile from house Cannith. Aaren hated war, he had studied life and felt that if Cyre was removed for the equation then the chances that the war would end dramatically increased. He also wished for the war forged to have a homeland of there own but knew that the other nations wouldn’t tolerate it, so he designed a weapon that was capable of doing both. He used his weapon, and greatly effected the war, and created a place that only the war forged could really survive in. He then in some way that is only know to him, transferred his essence to a war forged body, where he now collects his “children” and has renamed himself the Lord Of Blades, and plans to use the mournlands to create a nation of war forged.
strange_person 01-24-07, 10:22 AM	I like it. Fits the ambiguous good-vs.-evil of Eberron, gives the LoBster some more depth, and (as an added bonus) it's compatible with my idea. If you've got Sharn: City of Towers, Aaren could have been so horrified by the war he tried to escape his own life entirely with the designer drug Absentia. Unfortunately, all it does is project your senses onto some random stranger and allow a Quori spirit to posess your body (which looks like sleepwalking). So, he's got an expensive drug problem, a first-hand look at how the war is making life miserable for all Cyrans, and one day he wakes up in his lab, surrounded by half-coherent sleepwritten notes and plans for a device to end the war. Aaren could end up kind of like the Claw Man from the anime gunxsword, and Claw Man is one of the coolest and most Eberron-appropriate villains I've seen.
Cifer 01-24-07, 11:44 AM	There's still the problem of the Quoris' motives - the creation of the Mournland definitely counts as a catastrophe which brings the wheel closer to turning. The war in itself was probably not on a scale which makes those catastrophes more likely to happen - most mages and artificers are too low-level for that. The thing the war did, however, was weakening everyone participating. If it went on for a long enough time, Sarlona could have stepped in and taken the crown for itself. Unless there's a really important motivation behind instigating the Mourning (one that was worth jeopardizing the survival of the whole race), it was a bad move for our favorite dreamies. It could, however, be the work of a misguided anti-quori-plot. Maybe the Kalashtar aren't all that friendly?
Cambian00 01-24-07, 11:47 AM	This really really makes my head hurt....
strange_person 01-24-07, 06:30 PM	There's still the problem of the Quoris' motives - the creation of the Mournland definitely counts as a catastrophe which brings the wheel closer to turning. The war in itself was probably not on a scale which makes those catastrophes more likely to happen - most mages and artificers are too low-level for that. The thing the war did, however, was weakening everyone participating. If it went on for a long enough time, Sarlona could have stepped in and taken the crown for itself. Unless there's a really important motivation behind instigating the Mourning (one that was worth jeopardizing the survival of the whole race), it was a bad move for our favorite dreamies. It could, however, be the work of a misguided anti-quori-plot. Maybe the Kalashtar aren't all that friendly? The Mournland might be just what all those omninous monoliths on the far side of the world are doing. It could, itself, be the Quori's goal: to make a living nightmare manifest on waking world, and thereby draw psychic energy (in a more concentrated form, perhaps) from the other half of the diurnal cycle. It's possible that the war wasn't supposed to end; the quori are master manipulators, but they aren't perfect. It could be that they're about to get the Last War restarted somehow, after the Five Nations (one down, four to go!) have had some time to let their respective guards down and design some new superweapons.
Cabral 01-24-07, 11:36 PM	He then in some way that is only know to him, transferred his essence to a war forged body, where he now collects his “children” and has renamed himself the Lord Of Blades, and plans to use the mournlands to create a nation of war forged. Perhaps related to how the warforged docents were meant (according to Shira) to host quori spirits. This ties into the idea someone else posted that the Lord of Blades is essentially an artifact docent that takes over the user and turns him into the Lord of Blades.
Rekko 01-25-07, 11:27 AM	There's still the problem of the Quoris' motives Do you remember the great monoliths of Riedra? In my opinion, the monoliths is the answer to repair the severed connection between Eberron and Dal Quor or at least create Dal Quor manifest zones around a monolith. The Quori and Inspired might not be involved into the Mourning (like stated on page 126 in Faiths of Eberron) but they surely took advantage of the event. If some adventurer travels far enough into the Mournland, he may probably stand at the feet of the first monolith built on Khorvaire.
Syltorian 01-25-07, 12:13 PM	The Quori and Inspired might not be involved into the Mourning (like stated on page 126 in Faiths of Eberron) but they surely took advantage of the event. If some adventurer travels far enough into the Mournland, he may probably stand at the feet of the first monolith built on Khorvaire. While it is a good idea, I do see a small problem with this. The Quori don't understand what the Mourning was, what caused it, and what influence the Mournland actually has on things. No more than anyone else in Khorvaire, with the possible exception of the mysterious culprit. All they know is that the rules that hold true everywhere else in Khorvaire and Sarlona do not necessarily apply in the Mournland. Would a monolith even function there? Could it be perverted by the Mourning's unexplained energies? A manifest zone works both ways... could the Mourning spread to areas of Dal Quor if they create one? Worse: the only comparable time that something like the Mourning happened, it precipitated the turning of the age and threw Dal Quor off orbit. The Quori haven't understood how that happened, either, but can they be sure there is not a link between the Mournland and what happened in Xen'drik all those millennia ago? And if there is even the possibility of such a link, would the Quori create a connection to their home-plane right in this disaster zone? The Quori are endlessly patient, and Quor Tarai is not imminent. They do not have to rush things, and generally don't. They can wait and observe, send in their own investigators and pioneers and researchers, before they engage a process with unknown results and side-effects that could contaminate their entire network and Dal Quor itself. It's far less risky to petition Q'Barra to let them build one of these things for them.
Rekko 01-25-07, 12:16 PM	Please open your ECS book on page 189. Look carefully at the borders of the Mournland. North-West: Thronehold lake and Brey river North and North-East: Cyre river East: Lake Cyre South: Kraken Bay and Ghaal river. The Mournland is bordered by huge mass of water (rivers, lakes and ocean). Exceptions South-West: Plain South-East: the last tip of the Blade Desert, so a dry plain Why did the Dead-Gray Mist stopped there? If we continue into my idea of being huge mass of water blocked the progression of the Mist, we could say it was raining like hell on the Day of Mourning in these regions. (Yes it can rain in a desert, though it's rare in a non-magical world, but we are not in a non-magical world.) I like the idea of the catastrophy, whatever caused it, being stopped by water. This adds mystery to the mystery. My second point is. At the beginning of the Last War, Cyre's territory and political borders englobed parts of what is now Darguun, Valenar, the Talenta plains, Q'barra and maybe a few islands of the Lhazaar Principalities. Remember that all these nations became truly official with the Treaty of Thronehold which occured two years after the destruction of Cyre, or vast parts of old Cyre, or what would be left of Cyre at the ending of the warfare. In my opinion, what destroyed Cyre and created the Mournland is a result of multiple events, planned and accidental, which prevents any player to determine the exact cause of the Mourning and reenforcing the mystery. Moreover, always according to my opinion, the Mournland doesn't have the same borders than the political borders of Cyre. I would like to have feed-back on that water theory. Rekko Syltorian, you are right. But what if... the Lord of Blades is a puppet of some greater Psiforged vessel to a quori spirit who studies the multiple side-effects of the Mourning. And now four years after the Mourning, four years of studying the effects, maybe the Quori can give actually give it a try building a monolith. But then again, it's true that four years is highly fast for Quori spirits.
Syltorian 01-25-07, 12:50 PM	Interesting theory, Rekko. There is at least one piece of information in your favour: the mists stopped precisely at the shore-line at Seaside (5N, p.83), which meant that some people could survive by simply waiting on the docks. On the other hand, there are some problems: 1. Metrol. The city is built around Starmantle Bay, and parts of it are on the other side of the Melandor (5N, p.82). Of course, if the mists really came out of Vermishard, which surrounds the bay and has one compelx on the other side of the river too, that might solve this problem. 2. The Crimson Water. It is not marked in the ECS, but it is on the map in 5N. And it is a rather sizeable area, drawn like a lake, albeit in red. Something seems to have happened to the water there, even if it is on the borders of the Mournland and would, according to your theory, have stopped it. 3. Despite what the map on ECS 188 shows, parts of Lake Cyre seem to suffer from the effects of the Mourning. This is only indicated by the last of the "adventure ideas" on p.191, which might not directly be canon, but still is in the ECS. Of course, the mysterious glow could be a creature that tries to move beyond the mists. 4. The Field of Ruins can easily be taken to mark the border between Breland and Cyre, since this is how far the Brelish advance went. Breland was a recognised nation (as was Darguun, at least by Breland, ECS 152). The Field of Ruins is just within the mists, however, indicating that at least on that front, they stopped indeed more or less at the borders. Unless Cyre had fatefully ordered nice weather from Lyrandar, the rains must have stopped falling fiercely just at the borders, which is equally mysterious than that the mists did so. 5. Of course the Mournland is bordered by natural waters. Waters and mountains are the usual frontiers for nations; they are easier to find on the map than arbitrary lines or parallels. If the mists, for one reason or another, stopped at the borders of Cyre, than they did so by implication at the rivers and lakes that mark those borders. Except where there are no rivers... and where the mists stopped, anyway, at roughly the borders. With this set of evidence ("mists stop at large extends of water"), you can "proove" both theories. In conclusion: Yours is a very interesting theory, and I do not try to proove you wrong. I'd be interested to hear how you would go about including the above elements into your hypothesis, though. It's definetly a way of looking at the Mourning that has not been done before. :) ------------- Regarding the monoliths: the Lord of Blades as one of the Quori agents checking out whether a monolith could be erected is an interesting solution. Also, 4 years is little for the Quori, but 4 years on Eberron is 40 years on Dal Quor. They have more time to analyse these things than people on Eberron do. The problem is, however, that any "tests" and "experiments" they can make on the Mournland would run at the "local time". Good thing they are patient. If they have to wait for 10 times as long, subjective time, to get their results than a human would... :D Also, 40 years is still a short time for creatures some 350,000 years old (in their own years). So, overall, it would work, but personally, I still think the Quori would not take any risks at all. King Sebastes is rather house-trained by now, and will surely see the benefits of a monolith in his palace. And anyone speaking against it is obviously a traitor working for the squabbling nations that went on with the war.
strange_person 01-25-07, 01:25 PM	While it is a good idea, I do see a small problem with this. The Quori don't understand what the Mourning was, what caused it, and what influence the Mournland actually has on things. No more than anyone else in Khorvaire, with the possible exception of the mysterious culprit. That assumes that the Quori are not, themselves, the culprit. They might know and just not be telling. Worse: the only comparable time that something like the Mourning happened, it precipitated the turning of the age and threw Dal Quor off orbit. The Quori haven't understood how that happened, either, but can they be sure there is not a link between the Mournland and what happened in Xen'drik all those millennia ago? And if there is even the possibility of such a link, would the Quori create a connection to their home-plane right in this disaster zone? The Quori might understand the Giant's magic perfectly and just not be able to do anything about it. If it takes a cataclysm to put Dal Quor off it's orbit, why would putting it back on track be any easier? The Mournland might be the direct result of a Dal Quor manifest zone. Nobody has identified it because it's the first such manifest zone in human history, and elven history didn't do a very good job of recording the advanced aspects of Giant magic.
Rekko 01-25-07, 02:12 PM	Good points Syltorian. I might have found a solution to Lake Cyre and Crimson Water. Crimson Water: I find unusual for a lake this big being next to a desert. If you look closely to the map on page 79 in Five Nations, Crimson Water is like a step away from the Blade Desert. How can the desert remain desertic next to this huge mass of water? My solution, on the Day of the Mourning, magical rain was summoned in this region to stop the Mist from spreading. The rain didn't stop the progression of the Mist at once. Instead, it slowly stopped it, allowing the Mist to travel through a water mass for a while. The magical rain that was pierced by the Mist suffered from the weird effects of the Mourning creating a large lake of magically twisted, tainted, corrupted, dangerous and mysterious red water... if it's still is water. Oh, for story sake, make it blood. all the Mourning victims' blood pooled into the area. However questions remain. Who summoned the rain? How did he knew, if he knew, it could stopped the Mist? If he knew, is he involved into the catastrophy? My answer to this. House Phiarlan, who are spies, somehow knew the coming of the Mourning or small proportions of what was to come (which can explain why their leaders were not in Cyre when it all occured.) However, House Phiarlan members are also elves and please tell me what is located on the other side of the Mist where the Crimson Water is? Oh, what a coincidence, the Elf nation Valenar!? And who other than the Half-Elves (other coincidence...) of House Lyrandar could easily summon this amount of rain at the exact moment when it was needed??? They might have been warned or hired by Phiarlan and/or Valenar to protect the lands of Valenar? But where some might see coincidence, I see cause and profits. :) As for Lake Cyre. It is said that the Mist originated in Metrol and spread to the now borders of the Mournland. It is also said that half of Lake Cyre is suffering from similar effects encountered in the Mournland, if not the same. A mist, by nature, is composed of water and vapor, like a think cloud floating above the ground. Logically, the Dead-Gray Mist has its source within the magical mysteries. But, what if the spells that gave birth to this Dead-Gray Mist required a lot of water, equivalent to a lake (or about half of Lake Cyre to be precise) into its material components? This could explain why the source of this horrific Mist, Lake Cyre, suffers from the Mourning effects. Also, the Mist originating from Metrol could explain why it hasn't been stopped by the Starmantle Bay and the Melandor river. The explanation is quite simple. Originating from Metrol, the Mist had enough power to bypass Metrol's surrounding water masses. If you'd like a more complicated explanation, you could say that the water from Starmantle Bay and Melandor river were also used as material components like Lake Cyre. As for the Field of Ruins area. Watch the battle of Helm's Deep in the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and tell me rain on a battlefield is not cinematic (which is the style Eberron is suppose to attract) ;) As for political borders, you are right, yet again. In my idea, the Mourning has multiple causes, planned and accidental. And this prevents me from saying that the Mournland has the exact same borders than which Cyre had. It's also for the story and preserving the mystery.
strange_person 01-25-07, 05:47 PM	It could be that the mist started in Metrol and continued out in all directions, gradually losing momentum, and spreading over water slowed it down a lot faster than spreading over land. I mean, halfway across Lake Cyre vs. hundreds of miles over relatively dry land. Could be that the dead-grey mist is not composed of water at all, but some magical particulate matter more akin to smoke or radioactive fallout. That would explain why water or rain stops it, but land doesn't; particles that settle on land just get stirred back up, but particles that settle on water get stuck by surface tension. Magical radiation poisoning would also explain why so many people died on the day itself, but the area is no longer inherently fatal, just dangerous and resistant to healing.
Just another user 01-25-07, 06:46 PM	The fun part of the Campaign would start when the truth behind the LoB is revieled and the true LoBs is released, with his conviently brainwashed army of Warforged. Then it's a march towards Flamekeep to 'free' his brother. All Kyber breaks loose if the PCs can't stop it. Just something bouncing around in my head. Nice, you could make a connection with that Warforged god religion in Faith of Eberron,The Becoming God. They are actually inspired by the fiend, when the body will be completed he will possess it and a body so big and so spiritually rilevant could contain all of him, finally freeing him from his prison, and with the added benefit to be into a giant fiendish warforged body. He would not even need a warforged army to attack Thrane.
korjik 01-26-07, 02:37 PM	I think it is magic of eberron where it implies that the first generation psiforged either know, or had something to do with the day of mourning
Tarionz_Cousin 01-27-07, 02:24 AM	Quote: Originally Posted by strange_person It kind of reminds me of Ramadan from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. A city of wonders, preserved forever in dreams but irretreivably destroyed in reality. That is an absolutely gorgeous idea. I think that in at least one game I run, Cyre won't be destroyed, as people think it, but instead ripped from Eberron and cast into Dal Quor, while an equal segment of Dal Quor was shifted to Eberron. The two passed "Through" each other on the way, so all of Cyre became native to the dreaming realm, foreign armies and all, while the transplanted dreamland took on the worst possible parts of the nightmares of war - all while retaining that surreal, nightmarish quality that makes the Mournland such a horrific place. In a thread full of wonderful ideas, this one struck me as having instant potential for a truly memorable campaign. What if the players' divinations said that to solve X problem they had to journey to Cyre? They might think of "Time Travel" but probably not Dal Quor. Eventually, they could journey to Dal Quor and solve their problems and still not know exactly how or why the Mournland came to be (unless, of course, the DM wanted them to know). \lots of great ideas here.
Cifer 01-27-07, 10:37 PM	All they know is that the rules that hold true everywhere else in Khorvaire and Sarlona do not necessarily apply in the Mournland. Would a monolith even function there? Could it be perverted by the Mourning's unexplained energies? A manifest zone works both ways... could the Mourning spread to areas of Dal Quor if they create one? Hmm... that sounds funny. I guess if I DM a campaign into the Mournland, the PCs will encounter an obelisk there which was strangely demolished directly after being finished...
Thindelock 02-01-07, 01:44 PM	If any of my players are reading, please stop now. I'm still working on exactly WHAT happened... I'm really liking the Ramadan idea pulled from Sandman... but I've got what I think is an interesting notion for WHO was behind the Mourning. I read somewhere that before the Inspired came to Sarlona, the nation was torn by a violent civil war. The Inspired presented themselves as a savior of sorts, and ended the war, taking over in the process in a "benevolent" manner. In my campaign, House Phiarlin spies piece together scattered reports sometime around 950, which point to the leaders of Thrane, Karrnath, and Breland being counseled by individuals with connections to the Inspired before they began the Last War. There is also evidence that House Cannith was visited by a few Sarlonan emissaries (no direct ties to the Inspired) shortly before the creation of the first warforged (background: agents of the Dreaming Dark gave Cannith the secrets of the Warforged so they could continue the work that was nearly lost in Xen'drik). Phiarlin are excellent spies. They start digging and find out the truth about the Inspired, the Quori, an inkling of the plans of the Dreaming Dark, and the original purpose of the Warforged. The house leadership pieces together that the Inspired aim to have Galifar destroy itself so they can come in and take over. They decide to take drastic action to stop the war that would otherwise end in a Sarlonan takeover, and to remove the potential menace of the Warforged in one fell swoop. Destroying one nation anonymously could scare the national leaders into a ceasefire, not knowing which opposing side had the power to do that and not daring to risk inciting that nation's ire. Sacrificing most of their rank-and-file house members was a neccessary loss, and conveniently gave them a feasible level of deniability... but the loss of the leadership was too great a blow to bear, so they all happened to be absent. I personally like this because it means that the horrible act of instigating the Mourning was done to save all of Khorvaire and slow the plans of the Dreaming Dark. It also means that, since the nations are all afraid that one other nation has the capability to cause the Mourning again, they might all secretly be working to develop arcane tools to match that level of destruction... a sort of medieval fantasy Mutually Assured Destruction scenario. How'd they do it? Again, still working on that. Maybe a series of Disjunction scrolls cast at the creation forges in a synchronized act nationwide? Dsijoin an artifact-level location and any number of unique magical effects could occur, one causing the mists, one the field of glass... (The Disjunction scrolls could come from Xen'drik ruins when spellcasters could actually cast spells of that level). Alternately: House Medani could easily fill the exact same scenario. The only real change is that some Philarlin spies realize at the 11th hour that Medani has big plans for Cyre and withdraws their leadership to be safe. Still working on the details. Thoughts, anyone?
strange_person 02-01-07, 02:31 PM	Maybe Phiarlan itself can't duplicate the Mourning. They just pulled it off by sabotaging a Quori psionic artifact that was under construction. That covers the Ramadan idea and the "saving the world" aspect, without leaving any faction with the power to destroy a nation outright (the Quori couldn't reliably duplicate the artifact's spectacular failure even if they wanted to). Could also be that the leadership wasn't supposed to leave, but everyone who had clearance to know about the plan decided (as individuals) to play it safe.
Thindelock 02-01-07, 02:43 PM	Maybe Phiarlan itself can't duplicate the Mourning. They just pulled it off by sabotaging a Quori psionic artifact that was under construction. That's actually pretty-much what I was thinking. It's been printed that House Cannith doesn't have complete control over how a given warforged comes out, implying they don't fully "get" the technology themselves, implying that there's some Quori mojo at the heart of the forges. Possibly. So, disjoining what amounts to not just an artifact, but an artifact of extraplanar origin, makes things go wrong in highly unpredictable ways. And yes, nobody can replicate the effect, but there's always the chance that at least some of the kingdoms are trying, because they think one of the others CAN. Spies averting doom by causing a national disaster, national governments rushing to build a superpowered armament to match the ones they fear their enemies have (even though nobody really does), and the Inspired still get off scott-free with only a few tattered remnants of an untrustworthy house knowing the truth. Gotta love that noir tone. And I like the idea that they weren't supposed to leave as a group, but all happened to to save their own necks. Brilliant.
RedKatanaX 02-06-07, 10:37 PM	A little off topic, but kinda close. I have been toying with an campaign that involved the lost treasury of Cyre. First off, the treasury was not actually in Cyre, but in one of the lands annexed away from Cyre. The Royal family never attempted to move it back to Cyre, since it was in a secure location, and would draw unwanted attention if they tried. I don't want to give away too many details, since I know members of my group read posts here, but an artifact was created to show the way to the hidden treasury, in case something catastophic happened, such as the Mourning. The campaign involves recovering pieces of this artifact that are spread across both the Mournland and it annexed lands. Any thoughts about the lost treasures of Cyre? If you want any more info on the campaign idea, email me, and I will send you some of my ideas. Thanks.
Yakman 02-07-07, 12:33 PM	I was pondering something along these lines.... The Last War was a century long. These countries are going to need to raise a LOT of money to fight it--that means war bonds. Who has the money to finance such a war? The Aurum. And with Cyre gone, they are out a pretty penny, no? Your PCs could possibly be in a race against the Aurum to recover that artifact, and then race against them to get away with the loot. It might be that the money was stored in Aerenal--after all, the Queen of Cyre felt comfortable enough asking for Elven aid in the war, it might be that the price of that aid was the storing of the treasury of Cyre in Aerenal.
Arzk 03-06-07, 08:55 PM	Im new to the forums, and the topic of the Mourning and the Mournland has perplexed and fascinated me ever since I purchased the Eberron campaign setting. You all present very good arguments, though some, like the Quori, are somewhat already proven wrong. 1) As explained in Keith Baker's series (BUY THEM IF YOU CAN, REALLY GOOD!!), it was explained that the connection between Eberron and Dal Quor was severd when the giants pulled one of Eberron's moons from the sky, and the only real contact that the Quori made after that was through the humans of Sarlona (I forget if thats right), so they couldn't have had anything to do with the Mourning (and the Creation Forges were made by the giants, not the Quori, though the Quori did employ warped, nightmarish versions of the ancient Xendrik warforged). 2) Of all the evil beings, the Daelkyr do seem the mostlikely, because unlike many of the other evil forces in Eberron, such as the LoD or Vol, who have goals to gain, the Daelkyr are content with causing mass chaos for simple enjoyment, regardless of wether it is beneficial or not. 3) My last statement is that when Wizards does release a manual on the Mournlands (whenever that is :confused: ), the incident will deal with an unkown power, something entirely new, and possibly more ancient than even the dragons and Xendrik, awoken from some sort of stasis (either that or something having to do with the Far Plane, if it exists in Eberron, dont know if Xoriat takes its place, but the Far Plane is much worse, because things can mutate from simple exposure and the fact that in the Mournland, even places shift around, making it nigh impossible to make actual maps, unlike with the Daelkyr, who crafted their abominations themselves and lack the power to warp the landscape).
Cifer 03-07-07, 08:13 AM	1) As explained in Keith Baker's series (BUY THEM IF YOU CAN, REALLY GOOD!!), it was explained that the connection between Eberron and Dal Quor was severd when the giants pulled one of Eberron's moons from the sky, and the only real contact that the Quori made after that was through the humans of Sarlona (I forget if thats right), so they couldn't have had anything to do with the Mourning (and the Creation Forges were made by the giants, not the Quori, though the Quori did employ warped, nightmarish versions of the ancient Xendrik warforged). You don't need Quori to come to Eberron when every mortal comes to Dal'Quor in his dreams... plus, there are Sarlonian embassies in Khorvaire - so Quori influence isn't really out.
Thindelock 03-07-07, 08:42 AM	3) My last statement is that when Wizards does release a manual on the Mournlands (whenever that is :confused: )... I'm hoping beyond hope that they don't, honestly. I think the Mournlands being a mystery that every DM gets to decide the solution to, so that no player knows the answer in any given campaign, is brilliant. I love it. Hopefully, if they do release such a misguided book (or include a chapter of like kind in the upcoming Last War book), they'll play it smart and give several different possibilities spelled out for DMs as to how it might have gone down, rather than saying explicitly "this is what happened." One of WotC's competitors did some sourcebooks for end-of-the-world material several years back, and did just that: each book had four different possibilities for how the world could end, the effects it would have at different times on different groups of PCs, how famous NPCs react to each scenario, etc. That same company later did a book for a major villainous organization, and did a similar structure: four different views on how the group is organized, who they really are, where they came from, and what their goals are. The beauty of a book like that is that it gives DMs an invaluable resource, a wellspring of ideas they can weave into their own stories, but it doesn't give away the whole plot to any player who gets nosey and peeks in the book. I view it as an unfortunate inevitability that WotC will eventually capitalize on the Mourning in book form... it's too famous an aspect of Eberron not to make a few more dollars off of. I just hope they do so smartly, and don't ruin the mystique they've set up around the place.
Yakman 03-07-07, 12:37 PM	To be honest, I don't think that they'll do that. There's a ton to explore in Eberron as is, without going into something already covered in 5 nations. We have two announced sourcebooks on the way, with another two clearly begging to be made (planes of e & s of kyber).
Arzk 03-07-07, 10:05 PM	Very good point about a manual for the Mournland, now that I think about it, I wouldn't want to know what happened (though its inevitable that the cause will be released one day), if nothing, I'd atleast want it to describe more of the strange phenomenon and creatures of the Mournland, if only to keep Mournland encounters from becoming to extreme and to give players more detail concerning the various sites.
Requiem_VampireKnight 03-10-07, 03:16 PM	Wow! Its a 'Portable Hole' full of theories in here. Now, I have yet to finish reading the Eberron Campaign Setting from front to back, but I can come up with my own theories. I apologize if one or more sound familiar to another posted, I only made it through the first page of posts. I like some of them. The ones that people have listed so far that appeal to me are: - The Lord of Blades is actually a warforged possessed by a Lord of Dust. - A weapon of destruction that decimated the land formally known as Cyre...no matter who made it or activated it. - The theory involving Vol and the 13th Mark. Here are my theories: 1) What if an Epic-level Warforged (the first;perhaps a Sorcerer or Wizard) imbued with such arcane might sacrificed itself to power a weapon of it's own design to wipe out the 'weak flesh' citizens of Cyre. And now the Lord of Blades is carrying on the same ideal. 2) What if a last resort option came up? An opportunity to avoid the last years of the Last War, a means of leaving the material plane. Could there be a chance that most of the living citizens of Cyre transported to a different plane. 3) Rage Walkers. From Monster Manual 3. They would be swarming the battle field. Maybe they could provide a clue to chaotic effects of the Mournland. I know its not a theory, but they would be all over the place in there:D . I'll probably think of the others when they return to me.