Anyhow, for the various Netbook projects, I'm getting heavily into the Cosmological and the divine, ATM, and have run into a snafu.
Imaskar's 'Godwall' (or 'Planer Barrier', or whatever) never really made a lot of sense to me. They had the power to block deity's fully-empowered essences from entering Realmspace, but yet couldn't defeat their mortal incarnations?
Here's what I'm thinking - Ao created the barrier! It was probably just something built into the Weave, or perhaps saddled onto it later, but whatever. This makes FAR MORE sense to me then anything else, so now all we need to do is justify it -
Warning: The following is not entirely canon - it is based on canon, with some major extrapolation going on to help justify certain things.
1) Imaskar had been traveling to other worlds, and probably was taking people from them (on a small scale) for some time, before making the big move and grabbing entire populations. There is evidence in the Desert of Desolation material that the Imaskar were not only aware of many other gods (from outside of Realmspace), but methodically recorded information about them and kept records regarding power, portfolio, and worshippers. All of this information was kept by the Imaskari, most likely by some sort of magical extra-planer 'CIA-like' organization. Imaskar didn't just travel to other worlds - it explored them, and even established colonies on several.
2) As Imaskar expanded and their planer traveling became popular, so to did visitors from other worlds, who brought their religious beliefs with them. For a period of time, it became 'in vogue' for people to follow this or that 'god from another world', much the same way that paranormal stuff becomes vogue every so often in the RW. You can just imagine rich, noble ladies with way too much time on their hands all getting these Rasputin-like advisors - sages from other worlds.
3) There is a sudden influx (sudden as in "over the course of a millenium", which is 'sudden' in divine/planer terms) of deities into Realmspace, because of all the cross-planer cultural interaction of the Imaskari. This causes quite a bit of cosmic turmoil (like the war between Talona and Kiputytto - the Greek and Finnish Pantheons probably made in-roads around this time), and Ao is forced to do something about it. He creates the Godwall - or rather, he just "shuts the gates" of Realmspace to interloping deities. From that point forward, divine beings need to petition Ao for admittance into Realmspace, and since he can only be contacted IN Realmspace, such things are highly unlikely to happen (at least not without an intermediary).
4) The Imaskari take note that their 'guests' are no longer able to contact their gods... and they begin to get an idea. Rather then transplant small groups of other people into the Realms (and vice-versa), why not kidnap entire peoples form their worlds? After all, the only thing stopping the incredibly powerful Imaskar Artificers from doing this would have been the gods of those people.
Now we have a situation where the Godwall was the fault of th Imaskari, but not actually erected by them. This makes more sense to me, and Imaskar's using it to their advantage would cause the misconception that they created it - a misconception they probably help spread themselves, to cow their new 'property' into submisison (after all, if they can stop your GODS, what chance did you have?)
This would also explain why Ao removed it after the ToT - it was HIS, after all, and he probably decided it's usefulness was over (maybe he thought Realmspace needed some 'new blood' after the ToT fiasco).
Whats everyone think? I have some consisency issues that this fixes, which I will discuss further in other posts (this one is already long enough).
Imaskar's 'Godwall' (or 'Planer Barrier', or whatever) never really made a lot of sense to me. They had the power to block deity's fully-empowered essences from entering Realmspace, but yet couldn't defeat their mortal incarnations?
-Why does this not make sense to you?
-To use an analogy, we can spend millions of dollars to build state-of-the-art, high-tech prisons to keep the worst criminals secluded from the rest of society, but there isn't anything we can do about preventing rodents and insects from living in said places, going in and out as they please.
-To use another analogy, water and air filtration systems get get 99.9999...% of germs, bacteria, and other substances out of the water and air. That that .0000...1 survives, you can still get sick.
Its just that Ao decides who comes and who goes - that's canon. Then we have the Imaskari somehow usurping Ao's authority where that is concerned.
Also, other gods were obviously not effected - it seems to me that the Godwall needed to keep out ALL gods, not just the Mulan ones (which encompass three seperate pantheons, two of which were merged into one in FR). I just can't see the Imaskari having that kind of power...but I can see them using it to their advantage.
It just makes more sense to me that Ao made the Godwall, because it is HIS job to "watch the door", as it were.
Well... whatever... it can make sense, if you want it to make sense (but I don't want it to :P ).
-Like I often say of you, you are making a "problem" when there isn't necessarily one. Or, rather, there's only one knot that needs to be pulled out, not three. Or something like that. Whatever sounds better.
Its just that Ao decides who comes and who goes - that's canon. Then we have the Imaskari somehow usurping Ao's authority where that is concerned.
...
It just makes more sense to me that Ao made the Godwall, because it is HIS job to "watch the door", as it were.
-Just as canon says that it is Ao's duty to decide what deities can come and go, it is also canon that says that the Imaskari erected the planar boundary that warded the Mulhorandi and Untheric Deities from entering into Realmspace directly.
-Hmm...Here's something that keeps both canon statements: Perhaps Ao never got the chance to "allow or disallow" the Mulhorani/Untheric deities because they never 'physically' entered Realmspace, due to the planar barrier being up. That is, the deities never actually entered Realmspace, so Ao could not pass "judgment" on them. Think of Realmspace as a ball, and the Imaskari planar barrier as a piece of paper covering the ball. The paper covers the outside area of the ball. It doesn't actually go "in" the ball, however. Likewise, the Imaskari planar boundary covered the Crystal Sphere. Because it was outside of the Crystal Sphere, Ao had no power over it. Until recently, of course, when it was dissolved.
-Hmm...Here's something that keeps both canon statements: Perhaps Ao never got the chance to "allow or disallow" the Mulhorani/Untheric deities because they never 'physically' entered Realmspace, due to the planar barrier being up. That is, the deities never actually entered Realmspace, so Ao could not pass "judgment" on them. Think of Realmspace as a ball, and the Imaskari planar barrier as a piece of paper covering the ball. The paper covers the outside area of the ball. It doesn't actually go "in" the ball, however. Likewise, the Imaskari planar boundary covered the Crystal Sphere. Because it was outside of the Crystal Sphere, Ao had no power over it. Until recently, of course, when it was dissolved.
maybe that was the real reason for ToT, Ao needed the gods on the ground while it can safely get out of the crystal sphere and remove the barrier
maybe that was the real reason for ToT, Ao needed the gods on the ground while it can safely get out of the crystal sphere and remove the barrier
-That's a possibility. "Everyone is not behaving and needs to learn a lesson" was always a bit harsh, I thought, for casting the divine to the mortal coil.
maybe that was the real reason for ToT, Ao needed the gods on the ground while it can safely get out of the crystal sphere and remove the barrier
LOL...
Like when a building needs to be cleared out for a week or so while repairs are going on.
Its sort of weird, but I like it. :D
The entire 'set of rules' for Realmspace (the Tablets of Fate?) needs to be 'taken down', sort of like a computer server, and then fixed, and 're-booted'. With the rules (server) down, the gods could have 'run amok', so Ao needed them out of the way while he conducted repairs.
maybe that was the real reason for ToT, Ao needed the gods on the ground while it can safely get out of the crystal sphere and remove the barrier
The concept was, ironically, first proposed by Ed Greenwood himself, in "Down-to-earth divinity" [DRAGON #54], seven years earlier: 'Another mechanism for keeping things under control is the “Godswar.” This concept is also a good justification to cover the changeover of a campaign from D&D rules to AD&D rules—and will also justify any other divine revisions the DM feels necessary, once.'
I would guess he regrets writing that.
The entire 'set of rules' for Realmspace (the Tablets of Fate?) needs to be 'taken down', sort of like a computer server, and then fixed, and 're-booted'. With the rules (server) down, the gods could have 'run amok', so Ao needed them out of the way while he conducted repairs.
-The Tablets of Fate were nothing, a ruse created by Ao just to see if the deities had "sunk so low" that they'd do something like try to steal them, or whatever. And, they did...
I figure the 'Tablets of Fate' was actually "The Weave for Dummies" manual... it basically told you all the 'kewl stuff' the weave could do, that most people don't know about (like 'locking-out' gods, or changing the laws of physics so gunpowder and electronics don't work, etc).
Ao kicks out the gods, takes the Weave-server down, removes all those faulty lines of code the Imaskari added (a virus?), and then puts in a new subroutine specifying a closer relationship between Divine Might and Worshippers.
Of course, Ao could do all of that without the manual... but it still is handy to have around as a reference. ;)
The concept was, ironically, first proposed by Ed Greenwood himself, in "Down-to-earth divinity" [DRAGON #54], seven years earlier: 'Another mechanism for keeping things under control is the “Godswar.” This concept is also a good justification to cover the changeover of a campaign from D&D rules to AD&D rules—and will also justify any other divine revisions the DM feels necessary, once.'
I would guess he regrets writing that.
I think ToT is a very good idea, it contributes significantly to the uniqueness of FR
it's just how some parts of it were executed, like some gods acting childish
I thought everyone knew that. :P
Not any more - It's going 4e with it's cosmo, or so I've heard on the Eb boards (much to their chagrin).
After the 4e Eberron books come out, I may have to start hanging out there all the time, instead of here. There hasn't really been a lot of the 'WotC Hate' I so love on this board lately. :D
with the Great Tree it's more complicated
The new cosmology has them screwed, in regards to the Elemental Maelstrom - all those seperate 'worlds' can't be seperate no mo'.
Not that we didn't have the same thing, but it just seems easier to me to have planes merge (in my mind) then planets. After all, we can just say they were always together, and prime-scholars just assumed that when they travelled to a specific plane, that it was seperate (when really they were just travelling to a very specific pocket).
The reason why I really embrace the Maelstrom model (and plan to use it) is that it helps explain why primes from two different worlds - say Toril and Oerth - never run into each other in the Plane of Air, or the Plane of Elemental Erath, etc... if each world usually has a specific 'pocket' they travel to, and the maelsrom has thousands of these pockets, it makes much more sense.
And, I suppose, Eberron's 'worlds' could just be VERY large pockets as well.
I kinda always pictured all the planes working much the same way - people from different prime worlds enter differnt regions of each plane, and when they leave, they would normally exit back into their own plane... unless they moved VAST distances within the plane itself.
The reason why I really embrace the Maelstrom model (and plan to use it) is that it helps explain why primes from two different worlds - say Toril and Oerth - never run into each other in the Plane of Air, or the Plane of Elemental Erath, etc... if each world usually has a specific 'pocket' they travel to, and the maelsrom has thousands of these pockets, it makes much more sense.
-Why would they "run into each other"? What do you mean by that?