/tg/ - Traditional Games

>>378417

It would require a massive amount of people to cause such sudden shifts without changing a person's character to counteract the effects countless generations have had on the forces of Good and Evil permeating everything so thoroughly as it has. The second thing to counteract is belief about the guy himself already.

Even then it wouldn't be a sudden shift unless the belief is strong enough to change space and time, he'd be unknowingly being put through key events until he matches the alignment.

A lot was said about Devilish politics, but not much about Demonic ones. You'd expect a plane with infinite layers and an infinite number of demon princes would get more development, but apparently Baator gets all the love. Which is a shame, because the Abyss is ripe with planar plothooks you can use for your campaign.

So, how did you use the Abyss in your campaigns, besides dropping off demons to the Prime?

>>377631

Holy shit that art is garbage.

>>377750

Weird thing is, Maruts actually predate the rest of the Inevitables by two editions. They showed up in AD&D as divine golems created by a certain god of pestilence and then given out to various other gods who'd done him favors.

>>377750

5e's "Star Spawn" are basically 3e's and 4e's Foulspawn, but stealing the name of the cool "living star" monsters from 4e's World Axis.

>>349004

I agree with >>349015 that it really reminds me more of Exalted than anything from the original Great Wheel. Mind you, I preferred the World Axis's Elemental Chaos completely to the convoluted monster-spawning mess that was the Elemental - Energy - Paraelemental - Quasielemental setup.

>>282199

And don't forget their original lore was that they were an all-female race that reproduces through parthenogenesis, with even the lillendi that look like guys actually having female genitalia and sporadically falling pregnant.

>>229244

That shit about Asmodeus ending the Blood War and shit is for the REALMS version of Asmodeus only.

In the World Axis cosmology? The Blood War was NEVER the black hole background element in was in Planescape. There is no "truce" in the Blood War - there's a cold phase that it falls into every few millennia as each side struggles to rebuild all the defenses and replace all of the millions of casualties it too. Asmodeus started the Blood War in the World Axis, but he sure as fuck has never finished it.

>>386677

>the REALMS version of Asmodeus only

That actually brings up an interesting point.

There are multiple different cosmologies - the Great Wheel, the World Axis, the Forgotten Realms one. And somehow they're all true. Now, you could go the obvious route and say how only one of them is true in your game, but what if you tried to merge them all together? Can you actually have a real multiverse here, with various versions of Asmodeus running around? Are there parallel multiverses, like one where Asmodeus never fell, or one where Tharizdun succeeded?

>>386920

Weirdly, that's how the idea of the cosmology was presented for Mystara in the days of BECMI. The Known World's meta-cosmology was all about parallel dimensions and alternative layers of reality. So, yeah, that kind of thing has precedent in D&D.

>>386920

>>386988

Forgot to mention; even the World Axis hints at the existence of a "meta-verse"; the Seed of Evil that created the Abyss is all that remains of a universe that was completely consumed and used up by the Obyriths, who turned what was left of their entire reality into an escape capsule to launch themselves into a new multiverse. The whole "plan" (to use the term loosely) of the World Axis' Abyss is to spread out until it engulfs the entire World Axis multiverse, at which point, once it's used it all up, it will launch new Seeds into new multiverses in order to start the cycle all over again.

>>386989

Now I've got this idea that one multiverse ends the moment one of the Alignments "wins". The Obyriths won in one and ate everything, in some other the Asmodeus actually became an Overdeity Ahriman and ate everything, and so on.

The second one actually would be an interesting take on how Ahriman and Jazirian came to be, come to think of it.

>>386673

The thing about the Inner Planes is that except Positive and Negative, there are always elemental pockets of foreign substances. Like bubbles of Air in Water, big "droplets", icebergs and stones flying through Air, etc.

That's where most of the fun goes on, for non-elemental people.

>>387173

If there was always "contamination" from the other planes, then, really, what was the point of making them seperate in the first place, other than to fit some weird need to obsessively categorize everything into the most minute place?

>>387702

If you do some more digging you'll see that the Elemental, Paraelemental, Quasielemental and Energy Planes all have border regions where they touch the planes next to them... except sometimes these regions have matching names, and sometimes they don't.

I kinda wanna cram the cool shit from the World Axis into respective Great Wheel Planes. I hate the 4E cos model and am not happy to see bits floating in 5th, part of the reason I'm back to AD&D. Anyway, I cracked open some 4th books a ways back and there's some neat ideas to sample here and there. Beyond a few posts, anyone take bits of the Axis and put it into respective AD&D GW planes? (Like anon's post below)

>>244093

If you're still around, your ideas inspired me. If you have anymore, I'm down to hear them.

>>387702

The planes are building blocks of the universe and even though the planes have borders it's more appropriate to think of it as an infinite spanning dimension. You have to willfully move "towards" the border of another plane to get there otherwise you just roam around wandering the element until your protection gives way and you die.

>>387705

I know that. Doesn't make the old-school Elemental Planes any less boring to me.

>>388267

Which is just one of the reasons why I hate the Elemental Planes.

>>388229

I personally can't see why you'd want to use the boring, clunky, uninspiring Great Wheel in the first place. Most of the stuff that the World Axis had to make itself shine literally can't work anywhere else, because so much of the World Axis's planes are split across multiple planes and/or layers in the Great Wheel.

But... I suppose it depends on what the "cool shit" is that you want to try and use to spice up the Great Wheel. Give us a run-down and maybe advice can be offered.

>>388299

>old-school

In 4e the elemental planes is just one vague dimension where they all overlap each other anyways making a color pie instead of a wheel, so there is no "new" way the elemental planes are handled.

>this thread is still up

It's a Christmas miracle!

>>386677

Speaking of FRAsmodeus, I really hate how the new lore is forcing him into some sort of multiversal BBEG. Like the Demon Lords and Yugoloths and everything else are not even contenders in the great game, while he's the only one aware of the game going on. He's becoming more and more of an overarching villain for the entire setting, instead of being just one facet of it.

So, to liven the thread up a bit, who or what could stand up to Frasmo and come on top?

>>408143

>So, to liven the thread up a bit, who or what could stand up to Frasmo and come on top?

Elminster and his band of friends. Maybe Tiamat, if she managed to consolidate everything loyal to her. And the gods of good, but only after being provoked which is not something Asmodeus would allow.

>>408143

Tharizdun, from what little I read, sounds like something wannabe Lucifer would literally have to go petition the powers of good to help fight.

>>408174

>Tiamat

What's the story behind her? Isn't she just a goddess of evil dragons and nothing else?

>>408487

I did and i thought i had posted it. Well, rip now, good job.

>>408254

There's quite a bit of additional lore about her. She's the twin brother of bahamut, the dragon god of good and they constantly fight for dragonkind; she is one of the few non-devilish being to live in hell, etc...

>>408175

Tharzidun always feels odd. It doesn't really fit the rest of the lore. But he certainly would.

>>408143

>, I really hate how the new lore is forcing him into some sort of multiversal BBEG.

That's 4E. Even WoTC realized how retarded all of that was and retconned all of it. Sadly, we still have tieflings and nudragonborn...

>So, to liven the thread up a bit, who or what could stand up to Frasmo and come on top?

On a 1vs1, most greater deities could probably win. However, none has the interest in actually doing that, otherwise the abyss would destroy everything.

Thoughts on Faction War?

>>386677

4e "lore" is a pile of maelephant dung. The simplest solution is to throw it away, rather than squeeze your nose and dig in it for good things that maybe are hidden somewhere in the pile, maybe not.

>>408514

>tieflings

Wut? Tieflings were in Planescape from the start.

>>419732

I would sooner retroactively burn every copy of Planescape lore that ever existed than use the Great Wheel. The World Axis was far better and far more interesting than 9.5/10ths of the crap TSR put out for the planes.

>>336328

>>336326

>>336327

Which was the plane that had the region (which is technically infinite in scale, because planar bullshit is that all areas of all layers of all planes are infinite in scale) that was literally an enormous desert of radioactive dust that gives you virtually uncurable lethal cancer if you go there, which no magic can canonically protect you against because nobody's figured out just why it is the dunes from that part of the plane kill you?

What races came out in Planescape? These are the only ones I know of:

>Planescape Boxed Set:

>>Tiefling

>>Githzerai

>>Bariaur

>Planewalker's Handbook

>>Aasimar

>>Genasi

>>Rogue Modron

>>Planar Human

>>Planar Half-Elf

>Guide to the Astral

>>Githyanki

>>213754

>Athas is kinda impossible, but it also happened.

someone tell this story

how is athas impossible but kinda happened

>>420026

Oh hey you're still here, good to see you. I still don't know why you hate the great wheel so much, the world axis is just a colorpie that inverts into itself if you go far enough. nothing special really.

>>370589

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCKING SIGNERS

>>370589

I'll never understand this joke, no matter how many times I read it.

>>420149

>entire thread full of meaningful discussion

>(you) show up and just post reddit trash

>>420033

Not an expert on it, but I believe Athas' positioning in the multiverse is unique, making it extremely hard to reach without going through the Deep Astral or Elemental Planes. Most notable, the githyanki do know of one portal from the Astral to Athas, but they sealed it up and, I think, put a guard on it after they tried to invade and found themselves being chewed up and spat out by the natives.

>>420161

>entire thread full of meaningful discussion

You know I've been patient and willing to talk to people where each reply is a series of posts followed by a month (or 4 months) periods of absolutely nothing in between but this statement is absurd. This thread is 3 years old, most of the discussion you see is 1-2 years ago. I don't even remember what half my posts are in here and I'm always hoping it's a new thread with fresh stuff only to be met with disappointment. Yet here I am still talking with everyone one who is still here hopefully when somebody actually posts something.

The only mistake in his post is that it's such a stale joke I don't find it funny anymore.

>>408514

>Tharizdun always feels odd

Because he used to be a Cthulhu stand-in waaay back in the day - we're talking 1e here, with Gygax at the helm. A cosmic horror, an evil god of forbidden and maddening knowledge, everything Lovecraftian you can think off and throw in a blender.

But lets put on our tinfoil hats. Here comes some speculation.

1) According to some interview with Gygax, Tharizdun was not some Primordial entity, because he has mortal followers. So we might be dealing with something similar to the Orcus situation - Orcus was mortal too, but did something so Evil that it catapulted his soul into becoming a Demon Prince. My guess - Orcus invented Undeath.

2) He was also cast out of the universe, something all Good and Neutral entities (with Pelor at the helm, apparently) worked for, while the Evil ones just watched. We're not talking locked away, we're talking ripping him out of the fabric of real-space and real-time. He was so bad that the other gods decided, "yeah, this guy is such bad news that we're willing to forever damage the multiverse just to get rid of him". To put it into context: Orcus brought forth Undeath, and wasn't cast out the same way for his crimes.

So. Tharizdun was a mortal at one point, but did something so horrible that everybody in the universe decided to cast him out, no matter the cost, and then force amnesia themselves to forget he ever existed. Orcus - guy who invented Undeath and is responsible for every zombie apocalypse ever - is not as bad as what this guy did.

And of course, that's not even getting into the part that, even though they cast him out bits and pieces of him still remain as mind-rendering abominations. Where parts that he manages to "sneak" into reality become broken on a metaphysical level. Where even Asmodeus and crew realize that yeah, if this guy comes back, we might need to unite the entire multiverse to have a chance.

>>420197

From what I remember, Athas is kinda insulated from the Great Wheel. The Outer Planes have only minor ties with it - if any - while the Inner Planes have ties everywhere. That's why Athas has no gods on its own - according to 2e lore it never had, and according to 4e lore there were Elemental spirits that cast the gods down.

Now, you could argue that either someone killed the gods (and the other gods cut off Astral ties to Athas to save themselves) or gods never came down (because there are no proper ties between the Astral and Athas). I think it's up to you, but it would be interesting to use Dark Sun for some deicide campaign.

>>420221

Imagine the Dawn War from 4E. Athas is a world where the primordials won.

>>420228

Yes, I know, but I find the idea of a world where Gods never showed up - despite them being an universal constant - more interesting than Elementalbowl.

Especially when you consider that "belief = power" is a rule the whole setting works on. So what the fuck happened here? Why is Athas the only known world so far where Gods didn't occur on their own?

>>420221

>>420236

>Athas never had gods in AD&D

That's actually incorrect, though. Modern Athasians don't *remember* their gods, because the Sorcerer-Kings exterminated their faiths when they took over, same way that much of the Pre-Cleansing War cultures have been lost in general. There are still ruined temples to be found out in the wasteland, but nobody remembers who was worshipped there, because the Elements and the Sorcerer-Kings are the only "allowed" faiths.

Heck, one of Athas' unique monsters is the Raaig, which is the *incredibly* pissed-off and vengeful ghost of a slaughtered cleric or paladin; it haunts these ruins and only spares those who prove they are not enemies of its faith... which practically nobody can do, because they language they speak has been lost to history.

http://www.mojobob.com/roleplay/monstrousmanual/r/raaig.html

>>420271

Really? That's amazingly neat.

I definitely need to brush up on my Dark Suns, Athas always was just "there" in my head.

>>220627

https://thetrove.net/Books/Dungeons%20and%20Dragons/AD&D%202nd%20Edition/Planescape/

So, with Wayback Machine and Archive.is drinking the Kool-aid, how will threads like these be saved for future generations, bar In-browser tools and Screenshotcaptor?

>>420027

Glowing Dunes? On the border between Radiance and Magma.

>Theres a Demiplane of elemental blood filled with madness inducing blood slimegirls

Question is, is it:

The plane where Piscea touched upon the elemental plane of water, in the same manner as the creation of the demiplane of filth with Juiblex? There is an entire species of !notAboleth's on that plane that migrate to dagon's lair/trade with Aboleth, so it's possible.

Related to the sheeding of fiend blood in the blood war?

Linkd to the blood magus Prc, and is what they hear when they are resurrected from death and learn to manipulate to some degree.

Despite what some may think, it's not related to vampires, as D&D vamps don't actually suck blood for blood's sake, bar Nosferatu.