afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VI

[afroakuma]

I have a weird question: What group or race produces the best chefs on the material plane?

Unspecified, apparently.

Did the Shadow plane used to be part of/adjacent to the inner planes way back in planar cosmology?

Before it was a demiplane, it lay at the intersection of Positive and Negative.

1) If a Prime World became so 'Far Realm' corrupted as to turn into a giant cerebrotic blot... would the Blot likely stop at the Crystal Shell?

I would expect it to stop at the first planet, nevermind the sphere. And I would never expect a cerebrotic blot to get that far.

Can the Crystal Sphere itself become 'Far Realm' tainted

No.

2) How eager are Gods to go find worlds where no native Gods exist;

Ehh... marginally. Worlds where faith is contested are demonstrably more valuable than private worlds.

and what tools would they use to make 'first contact'?

On a world without gods? A cleric needs to enter the sphere.

3) If there were an ancient Cabal of various ancient powerful riffraff whose intent was to study and experiment on the nature of the Gods, what are a few species/things/whatever you might expect to see as members?

Ethergaunts, spell weavers, possibly aboleths... basically anything that denies the supremacy of deities or ignores them as meaningless.

Does the Orb of Night and day appear the same no matter how far you travel away from it in Arcadia

As far as we know, yes.

Given that Baatezu, Tanar'ri and sentient undead are immune to poison, do they have their own recreational intoxicants, are these established in canon, and what would happen to mortals that tried them?

Undead, not likely. Fiends, absolutely, and I would recommend staying far, far away from such substances.

[Dalmosh]

Great, thanks a lot.

The most mind-affecting thing I can think of that might come close to filling such a role for an undead would be Bardic Music performed with the Requiem feat.
Do you know of a more common "pleasure-inducing" mind-affecting effect that would specifically work on undead?

[afroakuma]

Great, thanks a lot.

The most mind-affecting thing I can think of that might come close to filling such a role for an undead would be Bardic Music performed with the Requiem feat.
Do you know of a more common "pleasure-inducing" mind-affecting effect that would specifically work on undead?

Mind-affecting effects don't work on the undead. If it works on the undead, it's necromancy.

[Mr Adventurer]

Check out Book of Exalted Deeds, positoxins and ravages, for some ideas.

[Dalmosh]

How do Klurichirs fit into Abyssal ecology and hierarchy?

What keeps them as a generic type of Tanar'ri, rather than becoming unique demons?

Are most Demon Lords significantly more powerful stat-wise than a klurichir?

Are any Klurichirs named in canon beyond the Guardian of the Gates?

[afroakuma]

How do Klurichirs fit into Abyssal ecology and hierarchy?

Klurichirs are very rare demons, nightmarish uberservants of demon lords where they are not lords themselves. Klurichirs mostly serve as generals and right hands to the powerful, positions that allow them to enjoy a great deal of power to deliver suffering and misery at a relentless scale.

What keeps them as a generic type of Tanar'ri, rather than becoming unique demons?

I don't follow.

Are most Demon Lords significantly more powerful stat-wise than a klurichir?

Given that 3.5 knocked back their CR? Yes.

Are any Klurichirs named in canon beyond the Guardian of the Gates?

Demogorgon's war secretary-general, Grosmfed the Drowned.

[Naanomi]

Is anything known about the 'types' of Kamarel?

[Mithosaurion]

How did the Gith break the mind control of the Illithids and rebel against them?

[Eldan]

Looking at the Unbroken Circle and with a bit of conjecture, I'd say it seems that the Gith weren't directly dominated, as such. Zerthimon, at least, seems to be more in a kind of trance state and once he sees something truly unusual (a corpse with its brain intact and a metal blade), he begins to think again, and wonder, and breaks free.
He is interviewed by an Illithid, who accuses him of obstinance. So it has to be at least possible, for the Illithid to consider it. Similarly, the Illithids employ torture as punishment. Not necessary with the totally controlled.

What I take from the circle, then, is that the Gith were not magically enslaved, or not purely. They were kept in squalor and hopelessness and fear, through pain and control, but when they realized that there were weapons against the Illithids, namely steel, they turned to rebellion quite quickly. GIth learned it in war, fighting te enemies of the Illithid, Zerthimon by accident.

Of course, the Circle may not be true at all.

Other texts imply that it may be evolutionary. The Illithids changed the GIth, from something probably humanoid to something partially reptilian and egg-laying and highly psionic. Through experiments and over time, they may just have developed resistance.

[Clistenes]

The so-called "Tyr region" was estimated to contain less than a million people. Perhaps you can project off from that?

That could explain why nobody cares finding a way to fish Athas's lost souls from the Grey...they are so few they aren't worth the effort it would take...

[WalkingTheShade]

Is anything known about the 'types' of Kamarel?

Kamerel time, yay!
Leeched from there:

Kamerel look like short, white-skinned humans. They usually have long shocks of wild hair in which they weave greenery and flowers. Kamerel teeth are slightly pointed. They favor clothing in blue, green, or white and carry short-bladed weapons and light crossbows (much of the time, these items carry Outlands-based enchantments, but never more than +1_. For the most part, they can be onsidered normal humans, advancing in levels as fighters, thieves, or wizards. They speak their own language, but have learned (reluctantly) the common trade language of the planes. Kamerel name their sergeants "drivers." Usually, these individuals practice wizardry, but some train as warriors. Kamerel leaders, above the drivers in rank, are always wizards. Further, the leaders and drivers developed a special ability that allows them to memorize and prepare additional 1st level spells instead of spells of other levels (which are useless here).

tl;dr they seem to advance by class rather than by type.

Timaresh questions:
How does one navigate Timaresh?
How to find a book about a specific subject?
How to find a specific book?
If every copy of a book, except for the one in Timaresh, is destroyed and forgotten, what happens to the copy in Timaresh?

[afroakuma]

Is anything known about the 'types' of Kamarel?

As noted above, they didn't want to invent a whole new planar race, so they did it on the cheap. It was actually pretty badly done, unfortunately. So no.

How did the Gith break the mind control of the Illithids and rebel against them?

The flayers wanted a more resilient kind of slave. They altered the gith to be more useful. This included mental resilience. Over time, the newly-altered gith realized they could push back against the flayers' mind powers.

Timaresh questions:

Oh this will just be a festival of nonsense, won't it.

How does one navigate Timaresh?

One does not. Once you enter the main library, the best you can do is see into the next rooms via the mirror-portals. Strong magic - cast well before getting anywhere near the library, given its location - would be required to help you chart your course, and even that may not work.

How to find a book about a specific subject?
How to find a specific book?

See above. There is no organizational system listed. Again, this particular adventure was noticeably slapdash.

If every copy of a book, except for the one in Timaresh, is destroyed and forgotten, what happens to the copy in Timaresh?

The books aren't magical; the library has a type of printing press artifact which scans the multiverse for written works which the creator desires be read by many others and then prints out a copy in the kamerel tongue. Technically this means it's always running behind. So, the same thing that would happen if that last copy were in any other library - it would be the last copy.

[WalkingTheShade]

Oh this will just be a festival of nonsense, won't it.

Why, no, why would you expect that?
I mean if there's a party somewhere at least I should get an invitation

and then prints out a copy in the kamerel tongue. Technically this means it's always running behind.

Those are interesting points that had eluded me. Thanks!

[enderlord99]

I wonder why mirror-people are suddenly such a popular topic...

Since you said you prefer to avoid Plane-of-Shadow/alternate-cosmology-related discussion, do you know of someone else who would be a decent source for such? If so, who are they and how do I contact them?

[afroakuma]

Since you said you prefer to avoid Plane-of-Shadow/alternate-cosmology-related discussion, do you know of someone else who would be a decent source for such? If so, who are they and how do I contact them?

The reason I hate them is because there are no decent sources, meaning everything is spec. If there were decent sources it would just be another average question.

[Dalmosh]

How easy is it for the Revolutionary League factols of the Bastion of Last Hope to leave Carceri?

[Naanomi]

Can a God set up a Divine Realm in a prominent Demi-plane? Dread is right out, and lots of others are pretty bad (the lady's maze, time, etc) but... Maybe a power in the plane of Mirrors? Dreams? Gravity? Nightmares? Numbers? Wood? Those sort of places.

[enderlord99]

The reason I hate them is because there are no decent sources, meaning everything is spec. If there were decent sources it would just be another average question.

...Off-canon counts, as far as I'm concerned. I take it that doesn't change anything?

[Naanomi]

...Off-canon counts, as far as I'm concerned. I take it that doesn't change anything?

For the shadow plane travel to work, for me there has always had to have been some existing 'deep shadow' medium to travel to other cosmologies, a 'medium' in which all cosmologies exist in. Some old spells could probably access this, but there was no big universal connection point... Until the shadow plane expanded from a Demi-plane, extending itself to this previously untouched multiversal 'place'.

Other cosmologies may or may not have similar natural 'connecting mediums'; those without any such connection are likely unreachable directly from Shadow Plane travel as is now possible in the Great Wheel, but may be still reachable via other means.

The existence of some sort of inherent multiversal medium that the Shadow Plane taps into does raise many questions for travelers, even beyond the standard 'will my magic work right' type questions planar travelers are more familiar with. If you die in a different cosmology what happens to your soul (what if that cosmology is a physical universe without souls!)? What does your timeline look like if you travel to a world without a Temporal Prime equivalent (or you were born on such a world!)? How do those worlds react if I take foreign elements to them (I learned the hard way not to take memorized spells to Earthdawn in a crossover campaign once, and that was just 'basic' magic, no Binding or Incarnum or Avatars of Gods)?

The true answer is probably 100% dependent on the cosmology you find yourself in and the one you came from, so no general answers are even 'hypothizable' outside trial and error with each unique combinations of cosmologies, if even then.

The same is, to a degree, why Far Realm answers are so hard: it acts a lot like a (particularly hostile and unfortunately intrusive) Alternative Cosmology where even generalizations about what interactions look like are unpredictable in the most absolute sense of the word.

[afroakuma]

How easy is it for the Revolutionary League factols of the Bastion of Last Hope to leave Carceri?

It's rarely easy to get off Carceri without major resources.

Can a God set up a Divine Realm in a prominent Demi-plane?

It's not inconceivable. For most of them, it's rather unlikely - demiplanes don't tend to work with gods unless they belong to those gods, and so-called "natural" demiplanes exhibit odd and unique behaviors and traits that might make them tremendously unsuitable.

...Off-canon counts, as far as I'm concerned. I take it that doesn't change anything?

What exactly are you looking for?

[ShurikVch]

Where is the afterlife for worshippers of Tharizdun?

Is there any cults of Tharizdun beyond the Greyhawk?

[Naanomi]

The Blood Queen came into the world before any Gods, and isn't numbered among the 'first Gods'... What was she between the time she entered our reality and the time she became a Goddess? Just a unique and horrid abberation of some kind?

Did she dwell in Baator or had Baator not really formed at that point (did it for around her nest)?

[Tzardok]

Since when has the Blood Queen been a goddess? I thought she was just some kind of unknowable Far Realms entity. (And Lords of Madness called her an Elder Evil, even if it uses that term in a different way than Elder Evils.)

[Jowgen]

Hi, I am currently looking into good places to send enemies that tend to not stay dead (e.g. Devils, Demons) for the purposes of keeping them "out of play" for extended periods of time. For a while, I figured Carceri was a decent place, since it has the Demodands as literal Jailers; but now I've come across something very interesting that I was hoping to get your 2 coppers on.

The MotP version of the Plane of Faerie. A "coterminous outer plane". It has a Hades/Elysium-type entrapping trait that works on Outsiders AND gets rid of their memories; but most interesting is this:

Because the Plane of Faerie doesn't connect to the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, or the Plane of Shadow, spells that use those planes do not function on the Plane of Faerie.

Now the obvious ramification is that you can't plane shift or use 99% of all magic to get in or out of this Plane; but I'm wondering: what happens to the soul of a creature who dies on this plane?

Last page, in reply to my Ethereal thing (which got resolved BTW, thank you greatly) you mentioned that dead souls head straight to their final reward via the Astral. I imagine that is also how elementals, outsiders and such who are killed out of their home-plane get back home for reabsorption/reincarnation. I assume this is based on the rule that the Astral is everywhere, but in a special case like this, how does it all work? Are the souls trapped? Get eaten by the plane? ... Become trophies on the relevant Fey-deity's shelf?

[Dalmosh]

Afrocanon please,

What was the relationship between the Khayal and the Vaati?
In terms of your origins backstory, were the Khayal originally discorporate Shadow entities given humanoid form by the Vaati?

[afroakuma]

Where is the afterlife for worshippers of Tharizdun?

Interesting question. I'd expect either they go to the appropriate plane... or they get drawn toward the Demiplane of Imprisonment and become trapped souls within it, slowly eroding from proximity to the Dark God.

Is there any cults of Tharizdun beyond the Greyhawk?

I would expect so.

The Blood Queen came into the world before any Gods, and isn't numbered among the 'first Gods'... What was she between the time she entered our reality and the time she became a Goddess? Just a unique and horrid abberation of some kind?

Might have been an outsider, but yes.

Did she dwell in Baator or had Baator not really formed at that point (did it for around her nest)?

I expect she went trawling through the planes for rather a long while, particularly the Prime but eventually also other planes in the hope of escaping the Great Wheel cosmology.

Since when has the Blood Queen been a goddess? I thought she was just some kind of unknowable Far Realms entity. (And Lords of Madness called her an Elder Evil, even if it uses that term in a different way than Elder Evils.)

Since The Night Below.

Hi, I am currently looking into good places to send enemies that tend to not stay dead (e.g. Devils, Demons) for the purposes of keeping them "out of play" for extended periods of time. For a while, I figured Carceri was a decent place, since it has the Demodands as literal Jailers; but now I've come across something very interesting that I was hoping to get your 2 coppers on.

The MotP version of the Plane of Faerie.

No.

Now the obvious ramification is that you can't plane shift or use 99% of all magic to get in or out of this Plane; but I'm wondering: what happens to the soul of a creature who dies on this plane?

Out through the Prime, Astral, onto its destination. Plane's porous and coterminous, it's not a trap of any kind.

Afrocanon please,

What was the relationship between the Khayal and the Vaati?

They may have been exiled rebels who refused to join the War or tried to join the side of Chaos.

[Naanomi]

They may have been exiled rebels who refused to join the War or tried to join the side of Chaos.

How about Jann? They also seem a bit 'off' from their other Genie Kind

Time of Troubles, even gods worshiped on other worlds were forced to take part in the 'forced incarnation' game of Ao. I never hear about any of the really 'exotic' Gods' antics though... Any thought of what The Blood Queen, Great Mother, Ilsensine, or Queen of Air and Darkness were up to during that debacle?

[enderlord99]

Time of Troubles, even gods worshiped on other worlds were forced to take part in the 'forced incarnation' game of Ao.

Presumably, this only applied to those who were worshiped both in Realmspace and elsewhere, and/or those worshiped on other worlds within Realmspace (Abeir, for example.) Ao has no power over Powers that are exclusive to other spheres. Of course, if one of them happened to have a cleric visiting Realmspace via spelljammer...

[Naanomi]

Ao has no power over Powers that are exclusive to other spheres

Right but I imagine all the examples I gave (mostly as racial Powers of races known to exist there) did infact have followers on Faerun

[afroakuma]

How about Jann? They also seem a bit 'off' from their other Genie Kind

Oh please tell me we're not doing this now.

I suppose, theoretically, the vaati may have desired "go-betweens" who could comfortably serve on all four elemental planes.

Time of Troubles, even gods worshiped on other worlds were forced to take part in the 'forced incarnation' game of Ao. I never hear about any of the really 'exotic' Gods' antics though... Any thought of what The Blood Queen, Great Mother, Ilsensine, or Queen of Air and Darkness were up to during that debacle?

As it is extremely unlikely any of those named bothered to petition Ao for access to Toril, I doubt any of them were forced to ground during the Time of Troubles.

Lack of answer to earlier question

You still have not explained to me what is it that you want regarding alternate Primes.