Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Eladrinstar 07-03-07, 12:35 AM	With the description of how magic went haywire during the ToT, the death toll in Halruaa must have been catastrophic. Buildings callopsing, objects exploding, mages dropping like flies after miscasting cantrips. What happened there during the Time of Troubles? Is there any info at all? I know there has to be something.
Stigger 07-03-07, 01:52 AM	Never seen any mention of it actually, come to think of it... beyond something about the king losing his mind for a bit during a divination during the period, and even that was pretty sketchy.
Zsych 07-03-07, 03:01 AM	It taught them all that Toril is a bad place for wizards and from time to time something catastophic can happen so they should all set up homes in other planes and only come back to Toril for sight-seeing, and seeing the homeland. ... just joking. Although magical kingdoms should naturally have been more effected by the ToT. Still... lets just assume for convenience sake that they were no worse off than the Red Wizards.
Alac Luin 07-03-07, 03:15 AM	With the description of how magic went haywire during the ToT, the death toll in Halruaa must have been catastrophic. Buildings callopsing, objects exploding, mages dropping like flies after miscasting cantrips. What happened there during the Time of Troubles? Is there any info at all? I know there has to be something. Why would the buildings fall at such an alarming rate? Except in dead magic zones ( which formed during the ToT), magic still functioned. Or else the dale lands would have been overwhelmed by devils and demons escaping from Myth Drannor, the Fay'ri would have been freed, and all kinds of other havoc would have ensued all across Faerun. Heck, Waterdeep would have fallen into Undermountain, the only thing supporting the city is a Mythal. Now, there was likely some odd instances when the Halruaan wizards tried casting spells.... Although it wouldn't take long for them to figure out that they should just cool it with the spell casting for a bit. So, things happened, just nothing so major that it had to be published. As for traces of this for your home game.... have fun :)
Zsych 07-03-07, 03:45 AM	I think that existing spells were also malfunctioning to some degree. Although... the idea that all previously existing spells, items and such remained stable isn't bad. (which of course, would make the state of potions and such, and them not working right a little questionable)
Alac Luin 07-03-07, 10:36 AM	I think that existing spells were also malfunctioning to some degree. Although... the idea that all previously existing spells, items and such remained stable isn't bad. (which of course, would make the state of potions and such, and them not working right a little questionable) Malfunctioning to some degree, yes but it's not like Toril became one big Anti Magic Field. I'll add a key word to your second sentence "...the idea that all previously existing spells, items and such remained relatively stable..." potions were questionable, the magic in a potion wasn't activated until one drank the potion, in essence a new magic effect.
Lord Karsus 07-03-07, 11:04 AM	-I'm sure Halruaa wasn't a very fun place to be, at the time.
sleyvas 07-03-07, 11:11 AM	Yeah, you heard very little of existing magical effects failing anywhere. Not that it didn't happen, but I'd suspect that they were more stable... being already woven together rather than being weaved as it were? You could say something similar with potions. They're already woven, its just the final effect release. I know it wasn't specifically written this way, but you could thing of it as use-related items were less effected than say, spell-trigger items, which rely upon the wielder having some knowledge to release the effect. Thus why the magic of swords and armor didn't suddenly go awry either. Now, how would this have affected things in Halruaa? I'd imagine that there may have been some murders by non-casters, avenging some past wrong done to them or their family by the mages who are given such privilege. I'd imagine some folk were trying to burn temples to Mystra.
Psionycx 07-03-07, 12:19 PM	Magic didn't completely collapse during the Time of Troubles, just like the rest of reality didn't. It did, however, become a lot more unstable. That said, a lot of the instability seems to have affected magics cast during the ToT. Magic that was already in effect wasn't spontaneously dispelled or altered, so things like spells supporting structures like buildings in most cases would not have simply failed, although that magical effects that had to be activated/deactivated would have been subject to wild magic any time they were turned on. The physical chaos probably would have been more traumatic to Halruaa. A lot of people forget that the ToT wasn't just magic going awry, the Realms were wracked by physical strangeness stemming from the gods being kicked out of the planes and not doing their jobs maintaining their areas of responsibility. Halruaan's are used to being able to use magic to control their environment, so being faced with physical chaos and not being assured of having magic to cope with it would have been the biggest challenge for them.
MarkusTay63 07-03-07, 03:00 PM	I heard they had a magic train, but during the ToT the entire thing teleported to some other world. Lost a few airships too.... :P :dancin:
Stigger 07-03-07, 05:41 PM	*snickers* Nice Markus... :D
Lord Karsus 07-04-07, 05:53 PM	I heard they had a magic train, but during the ToT the entire thing teleported to some other world. Lost a few airships too.... :P :dancin: -Different cosmologies. It just wouldn't work...:D
XHereticX 07-04-07, 05:56 PM	I heard they had a magic train, but during the ToT the entire thing teleported to some other world. Lost a few airships too.... :P :dancin: :P . So that is where they got the Eberron express. Bah, divine magic was what was most heavily affected, not arcane. Though the weave in chaos would be enough to collapse a tower or two.
Psionycx 07-04-07, 06:10 PM	-Different cosmologies. It just wouldn't work...:D Toril was a part of the Great Wheel back then. But sadly Eberron didn't exist yet. But you can never rule out time travel...
Alac Luin 07-04-07, 06:12 PM	-Different cosmologies. It just wouldn't work...:D Actually, they are connected through the shadow. If not in explicit terms, it is at least strongly implied. Many Eberron people tend to ignore their own CS on this matter.
Lord Karsus 07-04-07, 06:13 PM	Toril was a part of the Great Wheel back then. But sadly Eberron didn't exist yet. But you can never rule out time travel... -Eberron was never connected to the Great Wheel, though.
Psionycx 07-04-07, 06:36 PM	-Eberron was never connected to the Great Wheel, though. Like I said, it didn't even exist back then. It was birthed into the era of 3E and it's custom cosmologies. It's been a long time, even in the real world, since the ToT. My how things change....
Lord Karsus 07-04-07, 06:56 PM	Like I said, it didn't even exist back then. It was birthed into the era of 3E and it's custom cosmologies. -Yes, yes. My point was that it can't- and isn't supposed to be able to- be retroactivley fit into the Great Wheel. Though I don't know much about the setting, I do know that injecting into into the Great Wheel would "mess a lot of things up". ;)
Psionycx 07-04-07, 07:22 PM	-Yes, yes. My point was that it can't- and isn't supposed to be able to- be retroactivley fit into the Great Wheel. Though I don't know much about the setting, I do know that injecting into into the Great Wheel would "mess a lot of things up". ;) Dude, things were messed up more by sticking the Realms in a private cosmology than when they were a part of the Wheel. Even setting aside the fact that lots of previous game accessories and novels explicitly referenced the Great Wheel and planes, worlds, deities and races therein even the general design of the 3E Realms still incorporates other worlds, so the whole exercise of putting the Realms into a private cosmology was an exercise in stupidity. It works reasonably well in a self-contained "fishbowl" setting like Dragonlance or Eberron where contact with the outside cosmos is extremely rare. But the whole reason this is called the Forgotten Realms is because Toril was once a major epicenter of travel between worlds and planes, though this has since declined. Even the 3E setting materials acknowledge that the elves migrated in from other worlds. The orcs came in via portals. The Mulhorandi and Untheric peoples and their gods came in from another world. The sauriels came in from another world. Several gods of Faerun came in from other worlds. The private cosmology thing works better if the world is entirely self-contained. But the Realms aren't. Historically they're one of the most interconnected of game settings. The private cosmology thing is just one gigantic retcon.
MarkusTay63 07-04-07, 11:43 PM	Also, direct portals between worlds, ANY worlds, is still possible, Great Wheel and Spelljamming aside. Just look at the Imaskari - they took shortcuts. Plus what Psionycx said. ;) Maybe... just maybe... The ToT caused a 'leakage' of magical energy, do to the instability of the Weave (actually, the Weave should have collapsed altogether without Mystra). This instability caused a hole to open through time and space, and all of this chaotic arcane energy pored through, retroactively bringing Eberron into existance. So all of the magical creativity that happened during the ToT was stolen and siphoned into this 'Bizzarro World'. :eek: Hey... it could happen. ;)
Alac Luin 07-05-07, 12:12 PM	It works reasonably well in a self-contained "fishbowl" setting like Dragonlance or Eberron where contact with the outside cosmos is extremely rare. On this one, how many read how they separated Dragonlance from the great wheel? From the way I read it, it's still part of the wheel, it's now all on plane of the abyss. Silly story.
Boda 07-05-07, 12:50 PM	What do Halruuans do? I mean, the average commoner without magic abilities(they are still the majorityof the population, right?).
Psionycx 07-05-07, 12:56 PM	On this one, how many read how they separated Dragonlance from the great wheel? From the way I read it, it's still part of the wheel, it's now all on plane of the abyss. Silly story. Back in 2E it was a running joke amongst planewalkers that natives of Krynn were so clueless that they thought that all other planes of existence were "The Abyss". Krynn was pretty isolated by the will of their gods. They made a point of discouraging interlopers and until Takhisis went and moved the whole planet planar incursions were a rarity. Even so, Krynn was still considered to be in the Wheel back then. It was just that the locals were so ignorant about the planes that they didn't have them mapped out the way natives of worlds like Oerth or Toril did. But when privates cosmologies came along in 3E Krynn was probably the easiest adjustment since the natives didn't have much to do with the planes anyway. Not so Toril. I mean come on, the freakin' Chinese and Egyptian pantheons on worshipped on this planet! Plus we've got interoping strays from the Celtic, Finnish and Norse pantheons, plus a former interloper from the Greeks (Tyche). A sizeable percentage of the human races for Toril are descendents of people that came through from other worlds, along with the entire dwarven, elven and orcish races and their gods! So the Wheel made sense for Toril because it was such an interconnected world. Unlike Krynn, which is rather isolated, Toril was a hub of almost constant planar and spelljamming travel. The Wheel helped explain the presence of gods and peoples from other worlds in a coherent fashion rather than just making vague inferences to other worlds. Hence, a lot of 1E and 2E FR game materials and novels referenced the Wheel extensively. I realize with 3E they tried to retcon it to make it more "self-contained". But that's a pretty stupid idea when you're dealing with a setting that has such a long history of interaction with other worlds (and when your incumbent base of players and DM's have spent decades using the Great Wheel cosmology).
Faraer 07-05-07, 06:10 PM	The Realms' attachment to Gary Gygax's planar structure is a much more complex and nuanced argument than the one that usually recurs here. But the name 'Great Wheel' doesn't occur in Realmslore -- it's a specifically Planescape term.What do Halruuans do? I mean, the average commoner without magic abilities(they are still the majorityof the population, right?).Much as everyone else does.
Lord Karsus 07-05-07, 06:50 PM	The Realms' attachment to Gary Gygax's planar structure is a much more complex and nuanced argument than the one that usually recurs here. But the name 'Great Wheel' doesn't occur in Realmslore -- it's a specifically Planescape term. -As dog that is called a cat is still a dog at the end of the day.
Faraer 07-05-07, 06:59 PM	This beast, though, only partly resembles a dog, and 'dog' is its name in a foreign tongue.
Boda 07-05-07, 07:12 PM	Much as everyone else does. But they dont trade(there's no regular trade route in or out of Halruaa), arent involved in a military effort, or building enterprises, and there still a lot of non mage halruaans. So they just gather enough resourses to cover their needs and that it? If most of the population is rural(since there very few cities and there all small), wouldnt these people try to trade their goods for others?
Faraer 07-05-07, 07:24 PM	Those activities are the work of a small fraction of the people anywhere in Faerūn except trade cities. The class of wide-travelling merchants is growing but still tiny compared to the population. Probably smaller in Halruaa than in less self-satisfied places, but it certainly does trade -- see Shining South pp. 129–30.
Alac Luin 07-05-07, 07:29 PM	Back in 2E it was a running joke amongst planewalkers that natives of Krynn were so clueless that they thought that all other planes of existence were "The Abyss". I guess they just took this running joke and made it true. :) But they dont trade(there's no regular trade route in or out of Halruaa), arent involved in a military effort, or building enterprises, and there still a lot of non mage halruaans. So they just gather enough resourses to cover their needs and that it? If most of the population is rural(since there very few cities and there all small), wouldnt these people try to trade their goods for others? They do trade, they just don't trade their greatest assets often. As with many areas, the rural areas produce enough food and other resources to support the the larger population centers near by. That would leave them mostly logging to excess, avoiding this hasn't hurt them. Really, who needs trade routes when you have flying boats :)
Lord Karsus 07-05-07, 08:33 PM	This beast, though, only partly resembles a dog, and 'dog' is its name in a foreign tongue. -As long as it is actually a dog, which is it.
Psionycx 07-05-07, 09:44 PM	But they dont trade(there's no regular trade route in or out of Halruaa), arent involved in a military effort, or building enterprises, and there still a lot of non mage halruaans. So they just gather enough resourses to cover their needs and that it? If most of the population is rural(since there very few cities and there all small), wouldnt these people try to trade their goods for others? Well consider that any society needs people to fulfill the traditional roles. Although Halruaa is crawling with wizards, they don't produce all their own food, make their own clothes, craft typical items and such all through the use of spells. If a wizard requires a masterwork item for the purpose of enchantment, they probably don't make it themself, they pay some ordinary craftsman to make it for them. Also, the population of Halruaa is not very large. Culturally they're like Europeans, they don't have a lot of children. So given their population density in a nation the size of the one they've got, plus the widespread availability of magic, they don't have a lot of needs that compel them to trade as much as other nations might. In addition, remember that Halruaans are better educated than people in most other nations in the Realms. Halruaan children attend public school until they're at least thirteen, even if they don't have any aptitude for spellcasting. Thus as a people they are more likely to engage in leisure pursuits like reading that most people elsewhere in the Realms consider the province of the wealthier classes. Again, think Europeans here. Halruaan's are likely to behave as if there's more to life than just work. Intellectual and cultural activities are probably a big part of their lives.
MarkusTay63 07-06-07, 03:03 AM	In the Zakharan material, it specifically says that they (the Zakharans) trade with Halrua, Dambrath, Maztica, Kara-Tur, and Chult! It appears Zakhara knew about Maztica for quite some time, and they do a brisk slave trade there and in Chult (The Corsairs, anyway), and the more legitimate sea-merchants trade with Halrua and K-T. I guess both the good and the bad trade with Dambrath. It makes sense, Halrua is WAY closer to the northern coast of Zakhara then it is to the Sword Coast or the Inner Sea, and it would explain why turbans came into style. ;)
RedGlacier 07-06-07, 07:43 PM	Let's not forget it's a nation ruled by eccentric wizards. Which means a thirst for expensive and/or exotic trade goods of all sorts: regents, rare materials, fabrics, foodstuffs, etc... Gotta love a country where every ruling mage has the Spell Thematics feat. (just imagine...)
Psionycx 07-07-07, 12:56 AM	Yeah, but this means that when they trade, they trade for the really expensive stuff. This would explain the lack of regular trade routes. Normal goods like standard foodstuffs, cloth and non-precious minerals are fine to ship in regular caravans or nautical routes. But when you're carrying super-valuable cargo that kind of transport is just begging to get plundered by pirates and brigands unless you're willing to field a lot of firepower to protect the routes. So I would expect that Halruaa conducts a lot of this kind of trade via magical transportation, whether skyships, Teleportation Circles, or portals.
pokie 07-07-07, 04:28 AM	Also, the population of Halruaa is not very large. Culturally they're like Europeans, they don't have a lot of children. The rest of your argument is solid, but this is a mistake. Only 3 or 4 generations ago, Europeans and pretty much everybody else on Earth, for that matter, bred like rabbits. It's the modern society and opulence that changed that, not the cultural trend.
Psionycx 07-07-07, 12:42 PM	The rest of your argument is solid, but this is a mistake. Only 3 or 4 generations ago, Europeans and pretty much everybody else on Earth, for that matter, bred like rabbits. It's the modern society and opulence that changed that, not the cultural trend. That's my point. Europeans used to breed at a furious pace because, like most pre-modern societies, they needed lots of bodies to perform all the physical labor required by industry, to say nothing of the attrition caused by things like war and disease. Expansionism and colonialism also fueled the need for a high birthrate. But most of those factors have since declined and people don't feel as compelled to produce large families, even though governments would like a slightly higehr birthrate. Halruaa is in a similar position to modern Europe, except that magic takes the place of technology in reducing the labor load. Halruaans don't need to have lots of children to work the fields and man the industries. They don't engage in significant military activities nor are they involved in colonization. And magical healing reduces the attrition rate from injury and illness. So a largely static population size is not really a problem for them.
sleyvas 07-09-07, 03:06 PM	Yeah, but it gets hot down there, so they tend to take noon time siesta's. This combined with a lack of tv, an abundance of tropical fruit to feed one another, and of course, wearing lighter and less clothing leads to.... experimentation.;) In fact, Halruaans are big into wife swapping and attempting to "breed" in magical ability. For the men, this is just an excuse for extra time in the sack, but for the women, they hope to hit it big by having a child who will be the next archmage who will take care of Mama. :D Of course, all this exchanging of partners leads to a rather interesting family trees, and a surprisingly large numbers of individuals who give up their unwanted children to adoption. For those commoners with the free time created by magic doing their work for them, its not uncommon for them to get into geneology. Even many who are magical have gotten into the practice, offering services for adopted children to magical discover their parents. Thankfully, due to these practices, the occurrence of inbreeding is actually reduced compared to cultures that are monogamous. Oh, in case, its not clear, I am kidding <g>.