afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VIII

[Tzardok]

Well I do apologize for that.

Just don't do it again. Or, even better, go edit your post and cut out the superfluous parts.

That's what I actually meant. Law factions, especially the Hardheaded Harmonium hate less-lawful factions. Among them, Indeps are most vulnerable, that's why Harmonium guys kill them whenever they can. They can't do it with others, for example it's hard to catch a Anarchist on hot, and as you said, Fated are too important to risk harming them. But they do hate them nevertheless.

I don't think I ever heard about the Harmonium simply going around and killing Free League members. It doesn't make sense for a bunch of reasons.

First, the Harmonium is the police of Sigil. And no one would stand for a police force that goes around murdering a sizeable and influential subgroup of a society (don't forget that a lot of rich merchants are indeps).

Second, the Harmonium is not only Lawful, but also (at least partially) Good. I don't think that killing people for adhering to a non-evil ideology is compatible with that.

Third, serial killings draw the Lady's eye.

Now, why I compared Fated to Asmodeus. In one of lore books, there is a short story on how Fated sold another faction a library. And only after getting their money, they said that they only were selling a building, a structure, not the books and scrolls that the buyer actually wanted.

So, is this breaking a promise, or finding a loophole in it? I see it exactly the same situation as with Pact.

The Takers have a chaotic ideology, but not so strongly chaotic that every member needs to be chaotic. Furthermore, a chaotic person may twist, break or keep promises at a whim. So we can't know what alignment this specific Taker had. Is he lawful and uses the Taker's ideology as a rationalization, but requires the additional word twisting to feel safe? Is he chaotic and just felt like playing word games? Maybe he is neutral. *shrug*

1) Do over-gods also reside on Outer Planes? Do they have some manifestations\avatars there? If not, do they live "physically" elsewhere in the known parts of Multiverse? The further-Outer planes I asked about earlier could be such a place, for example.

No divine realm or similar place for over-god was ever found. I personally believe that they live on the Prime, somehow in or around their respective crystal sphere, but we can only guess.

2) Are there deities living (and not floating around dead) in Astral or Etherial? If yes, do they have petitioners?

The Etheral has a whole lot of deities living there (or better, a whole lot of deities build themselves Etheral demiplanes where they live). Amongst them are Ptah of the Pharaonic pantheon, the three gods of magic of Krynn and a bunch more.

The Astral is technically possible as a home for deities, but (as Afro told us in an earlier thread) it is less of a place and more a between, which makes it difficult to stay there (and, unlike the Etheral, it's nature is not as suited for shaping something there). Also, most gods find the dead gods floating there depressing. The only gods I ever heard of that live there are Ulutiu, a Faerûnian god af glaciers who sleeps there, and Alausha, illumian goddess of knowledge and grief, who wanders the plane.

All deities, no matter where they live, have petitioners in some form.

3) Many times people mentioned Ordeal plane. Are there any descriptions on how it looks, what physical (or equivalent) laws it has and who lives there? Or only speculations? Maybe the over-gods live there?

Everything about the Ordeal is speculation. Yes, I have read the guess that the overgods live there. I have also heard the guess that all gods live there, and the gods you meet elsewhere are just avatars. Another guess is that it is connected in some way to language and symbolism, which is why (so the claim) it is full of glowing sigils. But essentially, everything is shrug.

4) What happens if a person, who is not a god and not similar to Asmodeus, is being worshiped? I guess there are quite enough examples: both Githyanki and Githzerai worship their leaders, Darksun kings are also worshipped as gods, or in Neverwinter Nights there was a dragolich Vix'thra who forced people not just obey, but actually worship him.
How real deities with actual divine rank look on this? Can one actually become a god in such a case? What happens with them upon death?

Some deities sponsor cults like that. Beholders, for example, have a tendency to form cults to them, which draw on the power of the Great Mother. It is possible to achieve apotheosis this way, but in most cases there is something more needed. See also Lich-Queen Vlakith's attempts to drain a dead god's divinity in addition to making the githzerai worship her.
Usually the afterlife of a would-be god doesn't change if they fail.

6) Are Tiamat and Takhisis same entity or different ones? They are way too similar. Why Planescape puts Takhisis on Baator and Krynn in Abyss? What is actually correct?

Takhisis is essentially a dragon fan-girl, hence her styling herself after Tiamat. She's still fundamentally a humanoid goddess. If you were to, I don't know, supprise both goddesses in the bath, Takhisis would be human-shaped, while Tiamat would be dragon-shaped. (You would also likely have a worse time than Aktaion did ) Takhisis is also more powerful; she is a greater goddess while Tiamat is just a lesser one.

The reason for the planar mismatch is the fact that Krynn's people are... simple in their understanding of the planes. On Krynn, they believe that there are only three Outer Planes: The good Dome of Creation, the evil Abyss and the neutral Hidden Vale. So through the lense of their understanding, all Lower Planes are the Abyss. This, obviously, leads to a lot of missunderstandings when talking with someone more... Great Wheel-affine. Like this one.

7) Except Limbo, are there other places where mortal can re-shape his surroundings using only his will?

The Etheral is made of protoplasm, which is easily shaped into facsimiles of many things if you know what you are doing. Hence the abbundance of Etheral demiplanes.

The Region of Dreams easily surrenders to the will of a lucid dreamer.

Shadow is also very fluid, but requires shadow magic in addition to pure will to be controlled.