there are some questions that arise as i transcript the text from SRJ2, those i have numbered. other questions will follow below them.
from "realmspace" (SJR2), page 49:
large luigi (LL) is a beholder who hails from the planet h´catha. he was one of the few beholders who was able (1) to ascend the spindle and gain complete knowledge of everything. (...) when he returned to the bottom of the mountain, he changed (2). no longer was he lawful evil in alignment, for the knowledge he gained boosted his intelligence and wisdom to the maximum, and his alignment changed to LN as a direct result of the change. he was looked down upon by the other beholders in his species because (3) he finally understood the purpose of his race: to gain all the information that there is to learn, and to become the ultimate information brokers of the universe. he has (had?) gained all knowledge of everything, but the other beholders refuse(d?) to accept him. once they found that his deathray had been replaced by the ability to detect lie(s), he became an immediate outcast.
running for his life, he again traversed the spindle (4). after convincing a tradesman ship of his dilemma (5), the humans took him on as a crewmember, eventually dropping him of at the rock of bral, where he is today. he purchased a bar, and currently bartends and keeps the peace. he is known to use his charm person and sleep abilities to keep the fighting in his bar to a minimum. he is an outstanding bral citizen and businessman.
he is the ultimate non-deitiy information broker in the known spheres. he never gives out information which would upset the delicate balance between good and evil (6). both serve a purpose, as he commonly says, and neither can exist without the other.
all his friends are lawful in one way or another. his close friends, howver, are (of?) lawful neutral alignment like himself (7).
Point 3: I think the author's point was that the other beholders are jealous & envious of Luigi's success. Sorta like brothers were one is a success and the other is a bum.
Point 4 & 5: The spire is a pretty big mountain, and I interpret that as him just wandering the base of it until he met the tradesman.
Point 6: I think the good/evil aspect was more important in SJ, because most of the major races were lawful in nature. Chaotic races were a very minor factor in space.
Point 7: I think Luigi is lawful because beholders are lawful, and therefore generally trusts lawful people over (unreliable) chaotic ones.
Point A-D: It mentions that Luigi probably knows that the universe is really a game played by a bunch of guys late at night, so here's the angle I'd go with: Luigi knows everything in the gamebooks. He probably even knows all the game stats for monsters, important NPCs, etc. His purpose is as a DM tool to get PCs in the right direction.
Point 3
"once they found that his deathray had been replaced by the ability to detect lie(s), he became an immediate outcast."
You sort of answered your own question, as the above was taken from the material you quoted. The other beholders didn't kick him out because he had climbed the spire, they kicked him out because beholders are violently xenophobic...even a change as small as a different eye ray is enough for most beholders to want Luigi dead. At that point, few would probably believe he had climbed the spire, as they would be intent on destroying him.
Point 4
Nightdruid has the right idea here. The exact wording of the quote is that Luigi again "traversed the spindle", not that he necessarily made it all the way to the top again. I'm thinking he probably climbed up high enough so he could signal a passing ship. Given that he had knowledge of everything at that point, he probably knew the exact time and place a ship would be passing by. Beholders can fly as well, so its not as if the tradesman would have to land to let Luigi onboard.
Realmspace describes the top of the Spindle as shrouded in a constant storm. I would assume that the intensity of said storm makes it difficult for a ship to simply fly to the top, much less view the top of the Spindle in passing. Also, there are no "traps" on the Spindle. Two things make gaining the ultimate knowledge difficult. A) The different beholder nations attack anyone entering the airspace of H'catha, and especially anyone approaching the Spindle, B) To gain the ultimate knowlege, one has to climb the Spindle from the ground floor up, locating and coming within 100 feet of every "mind-readying" station on the Spindle, all of which are exteremly difficult to locate. The book never mentions what happens to those who climb the Spire without readying their minds, but it does mention that someone who's brain is smaller than two feet in diameter goes insane upon attempting to gain the ultimate knowledge.
A - D
Realmspace mentions that the ultimate knowledge was left on H'Catha by the beholder deities, meaning he probably knows about as much as they do. I would say he doesn't know as much as AO or another overpower, but at least as much as a Greater Power.
Its also good to remember that Luigi is still mortal. Just because he knows everything, doesn't mean that he remembers it all or cares about every little detail. Luigi might be an expert on what's going on in his home sphere, but his knowledge probably gets less concise as one travels farther away. Why would he care about some race he's never heard of living in a sphere 10,000 years away? Luigi would probably remember the "big picture" but be a little fuzzy on the details.
I would limit Luigi's knowledge to the present. The beholder deities are ancient, so he probably knows much about the beginnings of the universe. However, most of his knowledge about these events would be colored by the interpretation of the beholder gods.
These are just my ideas, feel free to disagree.
I hope people can find this "Spelljammer" thread among the "Other Worlds" threads. Hopefully this will be put back into the (soon to be) restored SJ forum before too long.
(1) shouldn´t it be "were able"?
...and...
(2) i think the proper wording would have been "when he returned to the base of the mountain, he was changed", but as non-native speaker i´m not sure. ...and besides, i´m just nitpicking... :wink:
The English you pointed out looks fine to me, although I would have said "...he is one of the few beholders...", because although "was" is technically correct, it might be misinterpreted as implying he is no longer alive.
What the second sentence is saying, is that the beholder changed when he got back down to the bottom of The Spire (as opposed to saying he changed on top of the spire and was different before he came down). I could see him coming down loaded up with information and then assimilating the information after returning to his beholder community, although the transformation could technically have happened the second he got to the bottom of the mountain.
(English, by the way, sometimes looks "wrong" to foreign people, because it is made up of components imported from several European languages. So some of it probably looks more familiar to you (because it uses your rules), while other bits don't seem to be as logical (because it uses someone elses rules). This is especially true with the inconsistent spelling patterns, which come down to root words being sourced from, random other languages. Tuesday comes from the god Tyr, which is part of our Norse influence, whereas Pork, and most other names for table meat are "new" words that came in when the Normans invaded. It is all weird stuff caused by history, so don't worry about it too much, unless you are studying English.)
There are usually several different ways to say things in English. They all mean the same thing, but usually put the stress on different parts of the topic. This entire paragraph could be rewritten to change the focus from this individual beholder, to H´Catha, The Spire or the beholder race that were offended by Luigi's transformation.
(3) i think the author got something wrong at that point: why should he had been looked down upon when he succeded? the logical reason for throwing him out, to me at least, should be the change of his death ray into “detect lies”, which marks him as different from the rest of the tribe, and thus, an outsider. repudiation because of success doesn´t make much sense to me, even if it is unknown to the beholder nations of H´Catha what exactly happens to those who succeed…
Good point, but I think you may be missing the implication that they don't think he did succeed. This beholder race has been trying to take over The Spire (like all the others) and would logically expect to be given plans that would allow them to "destroy all enemies". When Luigi "understands" that his race's purpose is to "discover the secrets of the universe", that implies that the purpose that his particular race has (to kill the blue furry beholders on the other side of H'Catha and then kill the orange leathery beholders, and then kill the green fleshy beholders, etc, etc, etc..." is holding back their true destiny.
To compare this to history I'll need an example of a nasty group. I'll pick the Nazis. Imagine someone in the SS realising in the middle of the war that Hitler was barmy and that the true destiny of Germany was not to take over the world, but to grow in some other sort of way (maybe forseeing the European Union or something like that). If that person suddenly started to speak against Hitler, they would be thought of as a traitor and hunted down.
I think this is what happened with Luigi. I think (that in the eyes of his own subrace) he "betrayed" the cause, by failing to work on the plan to kill the other beholder subraces. I think that Luigi has become (for want of a better term) a "Europeanised" beholder, who sees all subraces as equal in the eyes of the beholder gods. To a xenophobic beholder, a switch to this sort of behavoir would be "wrong". If they don't believe that Luigi's (new) viewpoint is correct, then the only explanation (from their point of view) is that he has gone totally mad. I'm not sure if he shared his information with his race, but he must have said something to give himself away as a "tree hugging beholder". I can see the other beholders having a meeting and deciding to "kill the tree hugger" before his "destructive" ideas weaken their subrace and allow the other beholders to destroy them.
(4) was traveling up the test- and trap-riddled spire easier this time? pressed for time, probably with lot´s of angry beholders hard on his proverbial heels?
It is a lot easier to travel through a mine-field if you know where the mines are. Evil beings living in dungeons wouldn't fill their dungeons with traps if they were not able to also have a way to bypass the traps and move about. The easiest way for Luigi to move up The Spire would be to follow his previous route. And don't forget that he doesn't need to visit the "stations" this time, so could avoid any side-treks he had to make before.
In any case, running into a mine-field, might be the most logical thing to do if you have an entire subrace of beholders on you tail (or whatever you call the back of a beholder :P ). Luigi is trading a "gunfight" he can't win for a chance to stay alive as long as he doesn't get killed by a trap. The traps pose an equal risk to the beholders hunting Luigi and if he can get away from them, the traps will slow them down and keep them behind him.
(5) that seems to imply that he met the tradesman at the top of the spindle, or do i got it wrong? If he met the ship up there at the top, i see a contradiction:
Night Druid has said that the tradesman might not be at the top, but, to me, it wouldn't matter if it was. In fact, the top of The Spire could be a more logical place for a ship to try to get to.
i assume the beholders on the planet know the legends about the spindle, and trying to get to it´s top is not generally rejected. someone who passes the test and returns should in my opinion be accounted a "hero" among the beholders. thus, many beholders are motivated to "get to the top", and because it´s so damn hard to reach it the regular way (=passing all the tests), some of them would try to use a spelljamming ship and fly up there! :o
As I said before, I think the rejection is not down to the fact that Luigi got to the top - I think it is down to his un-xenophobic behavior that can only conflict with their rampant belief that their true purpose is to destroy all other beholders. It is possible that they did think he was a hero, but then the hero told them to make peace and abandon their evil ways.
I agree that beholders can fly directly to the top of the mountain. But (as Night Druid said) that just doesn't work.
so why does this not happen "all the time"? either the spindle has some kind of defence against that tactic (shooting "cheating" ships down), or the beholders who get there on a ship (or by teleport for example) simply don´t get rewarded. but then there should still be some beholders around who know "how it looks up there" - and most of the mystery of the spindle-top wouldn´t exist. a solution would be that cheating is frowned upon and thus, all who return empty-handed keep their little trip secret...
What makes the mystery of The Spindle harder to solve is that not only is it a maze, it is actually a maze hidden in plain sight. It has no "walls", it has no sign saying "this is the start of the maze". The obvious way to get to the end of the maze is to fly directly to the top, but the maze can only be entered from the bottom of The Spindle. The beholders don't realise this. I'm sure that a few of the beholders have got to the start of the maze, but if they then flew directly to the top, the beholder gods would not reward them.
Luigi could, presumably, escourt other beholders and help them navigate the route. But they would be too busy trying to kill him to listen to him. And he wouldn't trust that he could stay alive for long enough for the beholder gods to transform them and make them see that they shouldn't be trying to kill him. So in a way, the maze "seals itself" after everyone goes through it.
I think there is only one way a beholder can go through the maze and not get destroyed by its own subrace - and that is to lie about the new information gained from the maze and conceal any physical changes.
(6) i understand that this "clause" enables the dm to justify that LL can not "abused" by pc´s who know about his omniscience (which i strongly discourage!). but what about the balance between law & chaos? i lean towards including that aspect in LL´s considerations.
This reminds me very much of Dragonlance, in which the purpose of the neutral gods is to prevent good destroying evil or evil destroying good. If Luigi's new alignment is to be believed beholders are not supposed to be evil. They have become corrupted. Their true alignment is supposed to be lawful neutral and one day the gods will be able to restore the beholders to their true nature, and end the xenophobic war*.
* = Actually, the xenophobic war could easily be a punishment by the beholder gods onto a race that refuses to follow its true destiny.
Looking at this from Luigi's veiwpoint, I can see a logical reason to balance good and evil:
Beholders are (at this time) evil, so if good "wins" the beholder race will be destroyed or supressed. This will prevent the true destiny of his race from being fulfilled and will destroy the plan of his gods. This must not be allowed to happen.
However, if evil "wins", the beholders stick to their evil ways and have no way out of the trap of their own alignment. By destroying all other beholder subraces and taking over the universe they defeat their true destiny. This also destroys the plan of his gods. This must also not be allowed to happen.
What Luigi needs to do to further the plan of his gods is, somehow, disarm beholders and take them through the maze and turn them into lawful neutral beholders. But the beholder gods might not want him to do that. Part of winning against the maze might be a mental attitude. The beholder gods might be willing to wait for the beholder race to come to its senses.
(7) that´s a point I will have to alter, because my party leans heavily to the chaotic (good) side. Playing a lawful priest of erevan illesere wouldn´t make much sense, after all…
This is based on your game, so is stuff that is up to you. I'm sure that you could create a beholder of any alignment if you wanted to.
besides the petty errors in grammar and tenses (that i believe to have found), the main question is:
how shall we interpret complete knowledge of everything?
We can't really interpret stuff like that because we can't truely understand what it would be like to understand everything. All you can do is a bit of hand waving. (Maybe you could make Luigi automatically suceed at any sort of knowledge skill in 3rd edition.)
a) taken to the extreme, he would know more than "overpowers" like AO (who did not know which gods had stolen the tablets of fate, or so i understood the novels, at least...)
The beholder gods are "normal" gods. Ao is a higher god. Luigi can't have more information than normal gods, because they don't have the information to bestow.
b) did he only gain (more or less complete) knowledge about the "state of the universe" at the moment of his "revelation", or also knowledge concerning future events?
Your idea of "truth" and my idea of "truth" are slightly different. I think that Luigi's "truth" comes from the beholder gods. I think he now understands the true destiny of the beholders, their place in the universe.
I see Luigi as being given a restored version of the beholder religion. Actually a restored version of all beholder religions (within their pantheon). I see him as potentially being able to do the same sort of thing as Goldmoon (of the Dragonlance saga) and bring the beholder clerics back to the race. However, in Luigi's case, he has the knowledge to give to others, but they would rather destroy him on sight than listen.
c) did he gain only knowledge about things that are actually happening or also about events that could possibly happen? this question concernes the way we interprete the future: is it determined or not? i refrain from having the future too determined (else adventures would be useless), but “a little fate” can add to the atmosphere…
I wouldn't want to make him too powerful. The text says he has knowledge, not the ability to forsee the future. I would stick to the letter and only allow him to work out what might happen and what is probable.
d) apart from the question whether the "revelations" include future lore, does this "knowledge about the state of the universe" (my words, not quoted from SRJ2) include knowledge about
- living beings ("curricula vitae" of trillions of living beings, animals, plants...),
- only sentient living beings (still trillions in all the known spheres...)
- events and potential events (from the plans for world domination of thousands of mad villains out there to every little plot the merchants of sembia hatch on a daily basis),
- lore concerning divine beings/plans&plots, etc...,
- lore concerning other planes than the prime material
?
This information comes from the beholder gods, so I'd say they can't give information they don't know. We already know that gods are not found in all spheres and that there is a process that allows clerics to bring gods into a sphere. H'Catha is in Realmspace, so that implies he has knowledge of that sphere. The beholder gods don't "exist" in Dragonlance, so I'd say he knows nothing of Krynnspace (except what the beholder gods might have picked up indirectly). I would say you could decide on other spheres on a case by case basis.
Do you know what planes the beholder gods live on? If you did, you would be able to stack the information Luigi gets based on this. (And if the beholder gods don't exist, you need to invent them to "work this out".)
the reason for all those extensive reflections is that LL will play a part as one of the major npc´s in my campaign (which will soon take of to wildspace (SJA1)), and one of the players already met LL in his bar (at the end of a small solo-adventure, where he was whisked to a certain "retired" red dragon on coliar 8) and got some disturbing and nebulous hints about the destiny of the group :twisted: ). as soon as the party has completed SJA1, i expect them to travel to bral or coliar, because LL and firebrand flametongue (the dragon) are the only ones in the spheres they "know" at that point.
I hope this all went well.
while the dragon does not cause too many problems for me, a certain know-it-all- beholder (pun intended) does.
I can see how Luigi could cause problems if misused.
...besides, Large Luigi fascinated me from the moment i read about him!
He certainly is great. To me he is one of the only things that changes beholders from two dimensional killing machines into a race that has logic to it.
I can see a pantheon of good, neutral and evil beholder gods who have been pushed aside by a single evil beholder god who has corrupted their creation and turned the race to his/her advantage.
I even see Hive Mothers as somehow controlling the other beholder variants and "turning them evil". Maybe all beholders are "supposed" to be loners (like Luigi) so that each one can observe different things and bring new information to the beholder gods.
I see Luigi as being given a restored version of the beholder religion. Actually a restored version of all beholder religions (within their pantheon). I see him as potentially being able to do the same sort of thing as Goldmoon (of the Dragonlance saga) and bring the beholder clerics back to the race.
Picturing a party of beholders and kin trying to restore the beholders. Humans are regular beholders. Kender are lensmen. Elves are examiners. Half-elves are spectators. Dwarves are overseers.
The Spire was created by the original beholder gods, who may not even be around anymore (or at least are currently not actively influencing the beholder race in any apparent way). Their power lasts, however. The only current gods we know of, the Great Mother (who claims to be the creator deity, as many deities often do, although she clearly cannot be) and her immortal spawn Gzemnid, are definitely not responsible for the Spire and the revealed true purpose of the beholder race. In fact, she may even be responsible for the current destructive path that the race is on (or at the very least, is a product of that path), and likely doesn't even know about the beholder race's ancient true purpose.
The Spire can only collect and store information witnessed by, or known to, beholders. It does not contain all knowledge of everything everywhere. If a beholder wasn't there, Large Luigi doesn't know it. Likewise, it does not store any future knowledge. When Large Luigi climbed the Spire, he acquired the knowledge download of what was known only up to that moment in time. I handle the question of "what does Large Luigi know?" by asking myself "is there ANY chance that a beholder(kin) may have observed this at some point in history?". I usually give him the benefit of the doubt.
So how was Large Luigi affected? We know about the physical changes (regarding his eyes). To suddenly realize the true (lost) purpose of beholders really opened up his eyes (sorry about that, couldn't resist), and changed his philosophy. Now his purpose is to collect information. Not to sell information. He'll meter out a little information to chosen individuals whom he thinks will take that information and put it to a use that will enable them to collect information that they will report back to him. Essentially what he doles out will repay him in even more information (plus interest!) that he otherwise would not get. Sure, he may (or may not!) charge for the information, only because that makes the PCs value it so much more. Financial reward is not his game.
This is how you control the effect of Luigi on your campaign. He is NOT a font of all that is, was, or will be! In fact, for those in search of info, he's rather stingy with it... unless you've become his friend by action and by words. Even then, being True Neutral, there is no way he'll knowingly let out information that he thinks will ultimately compromise the Balance. He is an Observer (with a capital "O"!) and will not knowingly let out any information that will upset or affect the status quo. He also knows something else... if he were to make too much noise by influencing events, directly or indirectly, the Great Mother would take notice and do something about it. After all, he is not only living proof that she is NOT the beholder creator deity, but his knowledge could undermine all her power. How long would Bral stand if it were surrounded by hundreds of beholder hive ships? And how long would Luigi last when its citizens found out that all they wanted was a single tavern owner?
If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, the knowledge of the multiverse is... well... potentially cataclysmic on a multiversal level.
Nobody knows it better then Large Luigi. He's not about to muck things up for a few paltry coins.
Denis, aka "the Big Picture" Maldin
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more! Including Spelljammer ship models.
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As this interesting and active thread was prematurely snuffed out by reasons which we won't get into, it has been continued in the Spelljammer subforum as the new Large Luigi, the omniscient (?) beholder v2.0 thread.