Teaching new tricks to old gods

[Fable Wright]

Yes. Dunno. Haven't found anything I like as pure chaos exemplar but I know with %100 certainty that slaad have never in the history of ever been CN.

They were, a long, long time back.

Aaanyway, we got an Upper Planes entry now for balance reasons. It's no DnD deity and a whole lot less famous than DoubleD, but she's the only solo bigwig from upstairs I could find.

I mean, there's always Talisid; his five companions are more or less just tagalongs when he shows up described in setting books.

[Beleriphon]

-Lady of Pain: Admittedly, I got this a while ago. It's less a deity writeup, more a sorta last campaign idea, the massive final epic adventure you quit DnD with kinda of thing. Defining the Lady is also a blasphemy among DnD circles, I'd probably have to turn in my badge and dice after posting it. Been saving it for the actual end of the thread and, assuming it's good enough, we'll be ending with a bang. It might be that time.

I think if you define the Lady of Pain the ghosts that powered TSR and were adopted by WotC will come and murder in you hilariously gruesome horror movie fashion. Then scorch the the living D&D out of your soul so you can never find rest, and be forever one of the Lady's Host.

[Max_Killjoy]

This is evidently something D&D that I utterly missed... cannot define the Lady of Pain? There's an in-joke I'm missing here.

[Fri]

Not sure if you're joking or really don't have the knowledge, but in case it's the latter...

Lady of Pain is the ruler of Sigil, the city of thousand doors in Planescape setting (which is sort of hub to every other setting imaginable). Sigil act as some sort of "neutral" ground and The Lady hold absolute power there. She's one of the few things that's never statted/described, and basically if the pc tries to fight/annoy her, the lady's stat is: you die/got imprisoned in eternal maze (not like that prevent people keep trying to stat her though, which is completely beating the point).

[Max_Killjoy]

Not sure if you're joking or really don't have the knowledge, but in case it's the latter...

Lady of Pain is the ruler of Sigil, the city of thousand doors in Planescape setting (which is sort of hub to every other setting imaginable). Sigil act as some sort of "neutral" ground and The Lady hold absolute power there. She's one of the few things that's never statted/described, and basically if the pc tries to fight/annoy her, the lady's stat is: you die/got imprisoned in eternal maze (not like that prevent people keep trying to stat her though, which is completely beating the point).

I know very little about Planescape. Thought "Lady of Pain" might refer to Loviatar, and so the whole "can't define her" thing made no damn sense to me.

[Beneath]

Oh, no, the Lady of Pain isn't a deity, and trying to make her one is something she'll kill you for.

On another note, it occurs to me that dragons are probably the most normal thing Tiamat's made in this cosmos. That sounds like a story. I can't figure how Bahamut figures into it, either (though "just get rid of him" seems like a solid option)

[Pronounceable]

^I keep ignoring dragons. Cos I hate dragons. If they existed, they'd definitely be made by Tiamat but I'm leaving them wholly to DMs who don't hate them.

Today, we have a total misappropriation. Also I figured out a thing to do with Earth.


DUMATHOIN (lesser god), Silent Keeper, Mountain Shield, Voice of the Stones, Cave Ranger, Gemmed Lord, Mawbreaker
Domains: earth, protection, vigilance, mining, gems, metals, exploration, hunting

Spoiler

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The dao of Earth are the only type of genies who force mindless elemental spirits drifting through their plane into their enclaves and artificially accelerate their evolution to increase their own population. While this hoarding behavior mildly offends other types of genies, there’s always plenty of new elementals flowing out of Elemental Chaos and they’re not nearly angry enough to come over to Plane of Earth to stop them, especially since nobody fancies stumbling on an Engine of Destruction while looking for a dao enclave to liberate mindless elementals from. The general opinion among other genies is that dao deserve what they got for being so blind to their own plane.

As elementals who gain sentience and power through prolonged periods bound to earthen bodies without change, all dao have an aversion to large and empty spaces. Large spaces, whether full of air or true vaccuum, make dao anxious and tense, the main reason why they’re usually more dangerous to summon than their fiery or airy cousins. Their racial agoraphobia is also the reason why they steered clear of the world sized voids Silvanus left in places he took the earth for planets of Material Plane ages ago, they were little more than pinpricks in their spatially infinite plane anyway. When the astronomic hollows in Plane of Earth started trapping errant elemental spirits inside without any elemental material to bond, dao kept ignoring the situation. Thus, they didn’t notice the Allmother’s malevolent fertility seeping into the abandoned pockets of dark nothingness. Just like the dark, dank, dismal or otherwise unpleasant places of Material Plane spontaneously generating mindlessly hostile and unceasingly destructive tiny creatures known as vermin, the world sized holes full of oblivion in Plane of Earth also started generating mindlessly hostile and unceasingly destructive creatures. Except these dark empty spaces were the size of worlds, so the creatures they generated were also far bigger than the too big ants, spiders, centipedes and similar critters that plague mortals without giving a single **** about the laws of biology or even physics.

Dao definitely did not expect what hit them. The collosal Engines of Destruction attacked dao cities and strongholds with single minded fury and destroyed almost every one of their bastions on the plane. Even worse, Engines of Destruction completely annihilated anything they devoured, including dao themselves. The great panic among the previously thought immortal dao upon this discovery contributed almost as much to their civilization’s complete collapse as the power of Engines. The survivors of initial attack fled to other elemental planes, leaving Plane of Elemental Earth completely in grip of Engines of Destruction. Inhabitants of other elemental planes didn’t welcome them, especially abominations and marid of Water who’d had to deal with the largest number of dao refugees (as it was the least frightening elemental plane to agoraphobic dao). Once it was understood that Engines weren’t going to leave Earth to pursue the escapees, the dwellers of other elemental planes turned on dao, killing the ones that refused to be enslaved to banish them back to their plane where utter annihilation waited for them. As a result, the once proud dao became a race of slaves to their cousins and were abused for centuries.

It was a dao named Dumathoin who changed the fate of his race. Dumathoin was a slave to a djinn in Air who was using him as a blacksmith to craft new weapons to use against their old enemies, the efreeti. He already knew a method to craft items out of mindless elementals, allowing him to create weapons and armor that was extra effective against elemental creatures like other genies, but the breakthrough happened when he managed to merge multiple elemental spirits into a single item. Dumathoin had the brilliant idea of secretly crafting a set of armor out of air elementals, making himself all but invincible against his master. He slew the djinn and liberated his fellow dao, starting a major rebellion in Plane of Air. Of course, the slain djinn simply respawned and rallied his brethren and dao rebellion was quelled (with great difficulty on the djinni’s part), sending Dumathoin along with his fellow rebels back to Earth. However they had already guessed the elemental merged weapons and armor could work just as well against Engines of Destruction if made from earth elementals, so they set about capturing as many elementals as they could and merge them into new Earthware weapons and armor. At this point, Dumathoin had another brilliant idea. He wanted to construct giant armors, comparable in size to an Engine of Destruction, then every dao (who could change their sizes at will, like all other genies) could fight an Engine head on. Others were skeptical but tried it anyway, for Dumathoin was all but their leader now. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t finish before an Engine found their hiding place. Dumathoin enlarged to collosal size, put on the unfinished armor, grabbed the unfinished gemsword, and went out to fight the Engine to buy others time to escape. He promised his fellows he’d flee too once they were all safely away.

As a savvy reader can guess, he did not flee. Dumathoin fought to the end and even managed to kill the Engine after losing an arm and an eye, which was the first time an Engine was felled. However the epic battle had drawn attention of other Engines of Destruction, and three more descended upon Dumathoin even as the awed dao were returning to celebrate. Dumathoin was annihilated, along with the first gigantic Earthware armor, but the dao knew how to create more.

After that day, most dao enslaved by other genies rebelled or escaped, gathering together in new enclaves on Plane of Earth. The most talented dao worked further on Dumathoin’s designs, it was improved and perfected: armors gained them ability to change size, became able to change their elemental properties (by using all four types of elementals in their construction), even combine together when used by skilled pilotswearers into even more powerful forms. They produced many giant Earthware armors (now dubbed the Dumathoids in his honor) and deployed them against Engines of Destruction. The epic war between mindless gigantic monster and elementomagical-construct continues to this day in Plane of Earth, as Engines of Destruction simply respawn in the Allmother cursed pockets of darkness (now named Void Wombs) and return to mindlessly attack dao enclaves again.

Meanwhile, some of the Engines found their way to worlds of mortals, causing unprecedented amounts of death and destruction, going so far as to injuring a few deities who actually faced them in combat. These tarrasques, as mortals called them, and their ability to cause irreversible annihilation caused grave concern to all powers of the multiverse and they scrambled to learn more about the gigantic monsters. It was discovered that tarrasques required constant contact with elemental Earth to exist, which meant all Outer Planes and divine realms of deities were safe from them. But mortal worlds, being made of the stuff themselves, were not. Most deities and Outer Planar powers were content enough to leave the matter be at that point, satisfied that tarrasques didn’t pose any real danger to them. However Gruumsh was very impressed with dao’s ingenuity and badassery. He was especially a big fan of Dumathoin so he went and found the three tarrasques that devoured him, then dragged them (and a massive chunk of Plane of Earth he’d sheared off just to make certain they wouldn’t die on the way) all the way to the top of Celestia to a baffled Moradin. At his brother’s insistence, Emperor of Artifice extracted what little he could find of Dumathoin from the traces of Allmother’s essence inside the tarrasques (a dangerous thing even for King of the Mountain) and remade him as much as possible. Which wasn’t much; the newly made dao had no memories or personality of the original and couldn’t communicate in any way, it was a miracle even that little had remained. It was good enough for Gruumsh. He bestowed divinity upon new Dumathoin, took him back to Earth and charged him to continue being a massive badass and protect dao against the tarrasques.

By now, dao has managed to recognize Dumathoin as their hero. They don’t know how he came back and they don’t care either, it’s good enough. He may lack the memories or ability to communicate but his skill and bravery is intact, and he’s become by far the best user of Dumathoids. He's always at the forefront of all battles against tarrasques, the most successful when it comes to tracking them and scouting for their lairs or exploring old dao cities and strongholds. He’s not a leader among dao, the lack of communication makes him unable to lead, but is the most respected and revered figure of Plane of Earth, dao's admiration of him is borderline worship and has elevated Dumathoin to lesser godhood. He may not be worshipped or able empower clerics but he doesn’t need to either, his divinity will be innate so long as he continues protecting dao against tarrasques. Other types of genies are worried, wondering what dao and their mute war hero might do with their nigh invulnerable Dumathoids if they ever beat the Engines of Destruction permanently and retake their plane.

There you go. Y'all kept asking for this, so have at it. Hope you're happy now. Mentioned stuff can be as scifi and/or magitech as you want. Dumo should've been a deity of Plane of Earth with that mishmash of domains anyway.

[Fri]

*slow clap*

This is relevant to my interest.

[Fable Wright]

Me, I'm just impressed that you've made the Tarrasque made sense. Apex predators don't have spiny armor, but vermin certainly do. And in the void that spawns the tarrasques... well, it only makes sense that there would be something bigger that forces them out to the rest of the plane.

[Beneath]

How there came to be one and only one tarrasque per mortal world sounds like a story

Unless the story is simply "worlds that have more than one tarrasque don't have any mortals anymore". Or if the one and only tarrasque that sleeps for decades then arises somewhere else is actually multiple different tarrasques but only one shows up at a time and for some reason people think it's the same one?

[falcon1]

How there came to be one and only one tarrasque per mortal world sounds like a story

Unless the story is simply "worlds that have more than one tarrasque don't have any mortals anymore". Or if the one and only tarrasque that sleeps for decades then arises somewhere else is actually multiple different tarrasques but only one shows up at a time and for some reason people think it's the same one?

I mean, I doubt people would notice the possibly slight anatomical difference on the giant monster that's devouring them, especially if the previous monster was badly wounded by adventurers, which would possibly explain the differences to people.

[Fri]

For me eventhough I know they're supposed to be world ending horror there's a bit of disconnect about the danger of Tarrasque, since the internet spent so much free time bullying them (making thread about "lowest level you could take out a tarrasque" and such).

[Beneath]

I mean, I doubt people would notice the possibly slight anatomical difference on the giant monster that's devouring them, especially if the previous monster was badly wounded by adventurers, which would possibly explain the differences to people.

That doesn't really explain why people would say it's the same one. Like it's plausible, in-world, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't go "there's another one" instead of "it's back" without some other myth to back that and/or a strong dose of wishful thinking that there's only one.

[Fable Wright]

That doesn't really explain why people would say it's the same one. Like it's plausible, in-world, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't go "there's another one" instead of "it's back" without some other myth to back that and/or a strong dose of wishful thinking that there's only one.

"Majesty! We're getting huge amounts of magical disturbance in Duke Farlington's woods! Whatever it is, it's big, connected to elemental earth, and none of our scouts made it back alive."
"By Pelor... the stories Grandfather told are true. It's back!"

Given that there's only ever one at a time, huge intervals between appearances, low survival rates of witnesses, and very few lifeforms like it on the material plane... it's kinda illogical to immediately jump to the conclusion that there's more than one, and extremely difficult to prove otherwise. And live, that is.

For me eventhough I know they're supposed to be world ending horror there's a bit of disconnect about the danger of Tarrasque, since the internet spent so much free time bullying them (making thread about "lowest level you could take out a tarrasque" and such).

I'm just highly amused by the fact that in 5th edition, a Golem will actually just no-sell the Tarrasque indefinitely. Give one a big enough magical weapon, and it's inevitable that it will eventually take down the big T. Which pretty much fits the myth of Dumathoid perfectly, and leads to a bit of a giggle when you realize that the original golems were, in fact, suits of power armor, and that the 'clever' wizard of the group hiding in one is, in fact, just undoing the usual autonomous armor hack.

[Pronounceable]

Did someone say Daemonic Illuminati? Cos I heard someone say Daemonic Illuminati...


Apomps (intermediate deity), the Three Sided
Domains: failure, disappointment, demodands

Spoiler

Show

Disappointment is the oldest (and ultimately the only) friend of Apomps the Three Sided. As a daemon who schemed and betrayed his way to the top of the heap in Gehenna, he was finally let in on the secret of ultrodaemons: that there was no such thing as an ultrodaemon. There were no such things as greater daemons either, it was all just smoke and mirrors (aka arcane surgery and magic items). Not only were the so called “greater” daemons all just regular daemons who were canny enough to figure out the Gehennan conspiracy and blackmail or strongarm this cabal of elitist pricks into let them join, the almighty and mysterious General of Gehenna himself was just a game of tag among the conspirators to while away the eternity as they (metaphorically) grew fat upon the “taxes” they extorted out of their “lessers”. The extent of the so called greater daemons’ control over the rest was a work of art; the elegant complexity of magical, mental and surgical modifications disguised as the opaque system of Gehennan ranks and promotions, the shrewdness of calculated oppression and fetishization of greed and advancement that molded the mindset of daemonkind, the depth of emotional and psychological manipulation ruthlessly and insidiously inflicted upon one’s fellow daemon from all conceivable angles... It would’ve made any daemon burst into tears of admiration in its complete and utter daemonicness but Apomps was a perfect victim of the system. He immediately grasped the consequence of becoming a member of the secret caste: he was done, there was nothing in his future but disappointment, either eternal stagnation in luxury or a terrible downfall to irrelevancy. An existence without a potentially attainable higher station to covet was unfathomable to Apomps, he’d rather be reduced back to a mezzodaemon than join the daemonic cabal.

Of course, he’d much rather escape than either of those options, so he opted to flee Gehenna instead (he did approve of what the greater daemons were doing if it wasn’t to him though, so he wouldn’t expose them). His destination was Bytopia, for the pacifist kami wouldn’t destroy his form and send him packing back home (he hoped). The Plane of Equitable Industry also seemed like a good place for a smart and ambitious being to turn a new leaf and start to work his way up again, especially considering the weird mob rule they’d built on the principle of equality. Unfortunately for Apomps, the Bytopian Democracy was for the kami themselves only, they were completely aware how incredibly open to abuse and corruption their governing system was if any being who wasn’t literally made of goodness (with a lawful bent) was allowed to participate. So Apomps couldn’t be anything but a simple laborer (or just a hermit living in solitude) in Bytopia, as no kami would let a renegade fiend have authority over them. At least they had let him live among them (even with great mistrust), but now he was stuck. The news of his arrival in Bytopia had drawn a band of gung ho guardinals and, while they seemed to respect the hospitality kami had extended to him, the brutes of Beastlands were watching Apomps like a hawk, waiting for the slightest hint of evil (or just a moment without any kami witnesses nearby) to swoop in and smash his head. While not at all surprising, it was still disappointing.

Thus forced to spend every moment in kami company, Apomps slowly came to appreciate the sense of fairness and calm industriousness of the Bytopian exemplars. The complete lack of scheming and need for paranoia also helped to introduce him to alien concepts like peace of mind and ability to trust. The more he got used to it, the more he found his memories of Gehenna fading. The biggest blow to his old ways came when a particularly nice and tolerant kami finally gave him a chance, letting him be in charge of a small warehouse of trade goods. Apomps would forever be grateful to her and eagerly embraced his new (and modest) responsibilities to prove himself to the kami, for the cinders of his old desire for advancement was still there. And when the change came, the guardinals who’d been watching him for centuries were shocked more than he was at witnessing an exemplar transformation. A fiend had converted to a kami, an unprecedented event. Apomps became something of a celebrity overnight in the Upper Planes (in the ones that have day and night at least), he was even invited to courts of Lord Moradin and Lady Morwel as a guest of honor and showered in accolades and gifts. His old life mostly forgotten, Apomps dedicated himself to serving the kami who first trusted him, she was his idol and he would not rest until the entire Bytopia also accepted her greatness. He had unwittingly transferred his old obsessive ambition to his new heroine and, exemplar transformation being as rare as it was, nobody could notice it.

This kami was named Erathis and she really was as good as Apomps thought her. He became her closest friend and advisor, urging her to take on ever greater responsibilities and positions he knew she’d excel in. And Erathis was excellent at many things; her mastery over management, economics, diplomacy, philosophy and law, coupled with Apomps’ celebrity status and ambition, saw her elected further and further up until she became a Utopic Overseer, one of the two presidents of Bytopia. The kami were impressed with her leadership (independent of Apomps’ constant singing of praises), Erathis was very close to the ideal kami in many ways and they all loved her. When the time came for Erathis to step down, she did so despite protests from many, she was a firm believer in Bytopian Democracy and Bytopian Democracy wouldn’t have anyone to stay in power for too long. Apomps was especially against this idea, stepping down from a position of power just seemed wrong to him, but Erathis would have none of that (yet another disappointment in Apomps’ existence, even if he couldn’t remember previous ones too clearly). To make things worse, Erathis’ successor wasn’t as good as she was, prompting some widespread unrest (by Bytopian standards, which amounts to mild grumbling to any sane being). Apomps capitalized on that, lobbying for reelecting Erathis against her own wishes and it worked. Erathis was voted a Utopic Overseer as soon as her less popular successor’s term was over, which soured her friendship with Apomps. It was an acceptable price in Apomps’ eyes, who was unable to recognize it as remnants of his old daemonic ambition.

Erathis continued to be absolutely great at leading, which was a big problem as it was convincing a lot of kami that she needed to be exempt from regular limitations of Overseership, the loudest of which was obviously Apomps. Many other kami vehemently disagreed with that, Erathis included. By Bytopian standards, it (it being a heated debate that wasn’t resolved for days) was a civil war. Meanwhile, some whispers started accusing Apomps of deliberately causing trouble, his daemonic background was dredged back up after a long time, questioning the authenticity of his transformation. He was offended but this only made him louder, he genuinely believed Erathis staying permanently in power would be for the best and was gonna keep pushing for it no matter what anyone else said. This was a decidedly unkami move and only served to weaken his position. And while those rumors were eventually traced back to guardinals (whose motto was that not even a dead fiend was a good fiend) who were plotting to assassinate Apomps, by then Erathis had stepped down and was refusing to have any position of authority anymore, Apomps had also lost her friendship and trust.

He was getting pretty well acquainted with disappointment and all the stress, anger and a reignited paranoia about guardinal plots caused him to start remembering more of his daemonhood. Apomps could tell this was bad but he found some inspiration in it, he could still empower Erathis if he was smart. So he trashed his own dwelling to implicate guardinals with kidnapping (something no kami would ever think of), travelled to Material Plane in secret (something no kami would do) and started up cults that worship a benevolent goddess of civilization and law named Erathis (something no kami could even imagine). Once he had a handful of mortal cults worshipping a nonexistent deity, he warned the clergy of the great god of many things (civilization and progress among them) Olidammara about some new upstart trying to move in on their turf. As Apomps expected, it didn’t take long before servants of Olidammara showed up on Bytopia and accused Erathis of masquerading as divinity and meddling with mortals. The kami didn’t appreciate this, they were pacifists but slandering one of their most respected (ex)leaders wasn’t something to swallow, especially by some trickster god from Material. And while they were pacifists, the (recently shamed and seeking absolution) hotheaded guardinals were not, so Olidammara’s servants were sent back to him in pieces. Once Erathis, being the mature adult she is, had talked to Olidammara personally and diplomatically resolved the situation and the god of rogues had crushed all the fake cults and focused his anger on the guardinals, Apomps returned to Bytopia with a story of daemonic revenge. He’d been abducted by daemons to slander guardinals but some plucky mortal adventurers worshipping Erathis as the goddess of law had saved him from the fires of Gehenna. Apomps was in terrible shape; clearly he had been tortured by daemons and was now claiming there must’ve been something divine about Erathis to induce such a miracle and he would also worship her. Kami weren’t entirely strangers to intrigue but couldn’t possibly expect daemon level scheming from one of their own and the recent attack on beloved (ex)Overseer Erathis had reminded them how great she was, so a few others also started worshipping her as a goddess over her objections.

A small number of worshippers was enough of a tipping point, Erathis was already revered by the entire plane as an almost ideal kami and respected all over the Upper Planes for her leadership ability. She ascended as a demigoddess of leadership, law and civilization, then promptly exiled herself. She felt it wouldn’t be fair of her to participate in Bytopian Democracy anymore. Apomps tried to follow her but Erathis was suspicious of him and forbade it, handing him his greatest disappointment yet. He persevered, stayed in Bytopia and tried to spread her faith. It didn’t work too well, the kami who had held their democracy in a greater esteem than their respect for Erathis were angry for his old provocations, whereas the others were angry at him for costing them their great leader. Thus, he was ostracized again and wasn’t feeling very kami anymore. Apomps’ inner daemon was also weakening, both his ambition and industriousness had fizzled when Erathis forsook him, he was now being consumed by strange feelings (he’d later figure them out as sadness and despair).

Meanwhile Erathis found great success at attracting worshippers on Material Plane, mortals could tell she was very clearly superior to Olidammara when it came to civilization and law. Soon, she became a goddess primarily interested in Material (especially once she met Sun Father Pelor). However mortals were far more mortal compared to the kami and pretty soon she found herself becoming less good and more lawful, the rapid belief infusion was reshaping her. When Apomps realized that his idol had been converted to LN, he undergone another exemplar transformation. Not only was Apomps the first fiend ever to become a kami, he had also become the first known exemplar who has held three types. The resulting demodand was promptly captured and thrown into Tartarus by gleeful guardinals.

As he flopped onto the bottomless ocean of thick demodand slime, Apomps thought becoming a vaguely bipedal blob of vile sludge locked eternally in a foul sea was the final disappointment fate had in store for him. He learned that was wrong when he sank fully under the muck, for he was then linked to the infamous Tarterian Collective and they unanimously decided Apomps was the most pathetic, most pitiful and useless of all demodands, on account of being the only exemplar in the history of the planes who’s ever converted to one. After briefly rummaging through his memories, the Collective voted him the worst fiend ever ^{(and not the good sort of worst)} and ascended him as the god of failure and disappointment.

Apomps the Three Sided is still in the demodand sludge, slowly sinking into the infinite Tarterian Depths. He was recently informed of his idol’s eventual fate by a demodand who happened to be summoned to Material Plane for a short time and took it remarkably well (i.e. he didn’t react at all). Maybe he needs to be told again, wouldn’t surprise the Collective if he failed to get it on first try.

So here's us jumping all over the planes. And no mention of either demons or devils, I might add. Not a very useful god sadly, he's more of a vehicle for me to exposition on the planes. Also he basically has **** all to do with "canon" Apomps, except for a somewhat daemonic origin. I did warn you I was running out of deity ideas... On the bright side, I got to cram in a crapload of planescape so it's a good day. Our demodands are pretty different from the usual, as are the daemons. With any luck, they're also distinctly different from devils and demons cos, cool as it was, the old planescape was sorely lacking in imagination and had no reason whatsoever to not lump all of its fiends into a single hellspawn category.

Also no baatezu or tanarri or yugoloth or gehreleth cos that satanic scare **** was duuuumb and I refuse to acknowledge it existed on the eve of the year 2017.

Also also yeah, we got kami over there.

[M Placeholder]

In Spelljammer, there was actually a planet which was the homeworld of the Tarrasque, and on it, Tarrasques were docile eater of rocks. On other worlds though, they were driven insane by the conditions and went on killing sprees followed by long, long slumbers.

I thought that was pretty cool.

[Fri]

In Spelljammer, there was actually a planet which was the homeworld of the Tarrasque, and on it, Tarrasques were docile eater of rocks. On other worlds though, they were driven insane by the conditions and went on killing sprees followed by long, long slumbers.

I thought that was pretty cool.

What condition?

It's rap music isn't it? Damnit, I knew the convergent evolution of rap music among on all planet should be stopped.

[Pronounceable]

All right dudes and dudettes of this thread. This is the first time I'm undecided between two options looking equally goodterrible. Give me some voting for it: (not that I'm gonna necessarily accept the winning vote but I'll be more likely to cram both options if voting is close)

1) That's no moon, it's a City of Brass!
2) No, no, no, that's lame and dumb and too tryhard nerd; Elemental Plane of Air/Fire is clearly the SuperKaizo World.
3) Actually, it should be X instead, that'd be totes cooler.
4) Who cares about the boring inner planes? Tell us more about devils and demons. (trick option)
(and sorry for spoiling a future terrible truth spoiler before it even took form)

...Let's all speak our minds sensibly and honestly without trying to game the system. I'm gonna leave this here for an indefinite period of time.
Also I vote 3 cos X is so much better.
Also also, no spot in any of the inner planes are gonna be anything remotely resembling the regular fake medieval DnDlands but painted red/blue/white/brown for regular dungeon crawl extravaganza DnDism soup, that's ****ing dumb. Hence, water=lovecraft and earth=kaiju.

[Fri]

I also pick 3, X sounds cool.

[Fable Wright]

I don't know what you're talking about with option 4; the elemental planes are amazing and get tragically under-loved. Given the Azer were commissioned from Demogorgon... well, I have to wonder why the Efreeti wanted hollow dwarves filled with fire to build their stronghold, and why they needed a moon-sized battlestation.

I also don't understand how to map Super Kaizo World onto an entire plane. Those have a purpose in level design and a way through; why would a plane just actively be designed to have one difficult-follow-path to the goal for all visitors? And how? It seems too square peg/round hole for me.

So of the two presented, City of Brass is cooler. But what I'd be more interested in general is something touching on the Astral/Deep Ethereal/Ordial Planes. These are the conduits that pump the lifeblood of belief, possibility, and (hypothetically) divine creative power, respectively, through the multiverse. How did they get there? Who's involved with them? Is the Ordial plane an actual thing, or just a hypothetical that no one originating from the prime material plane can verify the existence of? Inquiring minds must know.

[Beneath]

Seconding city of brass or ordial plane.

[Bohandas]

Planescape setting (which is sort of hub to every other setting imaginable).

I think that description would apply more accurately to spelljammer

[Beneath]

Planescape's the hub, Spelljammer's the long way around. Still, probably more reliable given that portals can close/be closed at any time.

[Pronounceable]

Me: Thread, tell me what to do.
Thread: Do this.
Me: You're not my real dad. You can't tell me what to do, I do what I want >_>


VELSHAROON (lesser deity), Archmage of Necromancy, Lichlord, Maimed God, Lord of Hollow Crypts, Traitor’s Fortune, Skull of a Thousand Faces
Domains: necromancy, undead, lichdom, betrayal, disguise, secrets, luck

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The invention of necromancy didn’t go well with Giantfather Annam, who was furious with the giant wizards for desecrating bodies and souls of dead giants by mixing them up with disgusting material or spiritual remains of humanoids. And when they failed to find a way to determine a given soul’s premortem race, he banned the new branch of magic althogether. Many wizards thought this was a grave mistake and they had a point. Annam’s edict obviously didn’t matter at all to the humanoid races and they’d already gotten their hands on the secrets of necromancy thanks to the damnable Thief and were advancing rapidly. So, since Annam was usually too busy fighting off the Monster to protect coasts and ships of giantish empires, the necromancers disobeyed and continued on in secret.

One particular necromancer on Jotunheim itself was making great progress and was very to close to finding a solution to save necromancy by appeasing Giantfather, which would hopefully lead to the complete defeat of the shorties. Unluckily for him, his prodigy apprentice was greedy and treacherous. What Velsharoon saw in his master’s work was immortality instead of victory over shorties and he modified his master’s work in secret, inventing a method of binding one’s own soul to his body. The sacrificing of his master to fuel the ritual was incidental but it was the first of his many betrayals. What he didn’t expect was becoming an animated skeleton with an intact mind (dubbed lich in the following ages), he’d assumed he was getting an eternal life. Now stuck in undeath, Velsharoon had lost all the pleasures of a living body and worse, a walking skeleton was pretty conspicuous. While he could try to hide in his exmaster’s lair indefinitely, he was still on Jotunheim and his existence was a flagrant violation of Annam’s order; he was surely going to be destroyed for it if discovered. Giantfather himself would most likely absolve him (and unban necromancy too) if he knew what Velsharoon had accomplished, but Annam was off fighting the Monster as usual and the risk of being discovered before he returned was too great. This pushed Velsharoon to his second betrayal; he prayed to the Thief and offered to help humanoid races with his necromantic research in exchange for being spirited away from the giant homeworld. The Thief heard him, for he was always keeping an ear towards Jotunheim in case giants discovered new sciences or technologies to steal, and agreed.

Now free to continue his research, Velsharoon cooperated with many humanoid wizards (usually the best and the brightest) and found that, despite their small size and tiny brains, the shorties weren’t nearly as inferior to giantkind as giants believed, some were even smarter. Necromancy soon advanced and spread among the humanoids, many master necromancers among them became liches to continue their work, and the war against giants started to go in humanoids’ favor. The newly invented, more dangerous types of undead like ghouls and wights could wreak havoc on giantish armies even with the size difference and necromancy itself became a favored subject among all humanoid races. Velsharoon knew that even the Imposter, the “god” of humanoids (just how low a self esteem a god would need to demand worship from mere mortals?), approved of his work and encouraged his followers to advance necromantic research. But then one day the Imposter sudddenly disappeared and his absence made the Monster go completely out of control; the seas and coasts were now unsafe even for humanoids, almost all shores of all worlds were wracked with storms and earthquakes and nobody could even think about sailing safely. She grew worse and worse, focusing on causing the greatest destruction to giantkind instead of trying to defeat Annam like before. Without the Imposter to hold her leash, the Monster cared not even a little about collateral damage, even coastal humanoid kingdoms and empires were starting to collapse. It reached a point where even the cold and distant Giant Mother was roused to fight and the all giantish gods fighting together finally managed to capture and banish the Monster, proving that they were the masters of this plane.

The leadership of humanoids was then left to the Thief, who had no interest in leading any sort of war, and a deal was struck. In exchange for not sharing the Monster’s fate, the Thief agreed to prevent humanoid races from attacking weakened giantish civilizations further and suddenly, necromancy wasn’t such a cool and good thing anymore. Annam was still against it for mixing humanoids with giantkind, so the cowardly Thief obliged him and necromancy was banned among humanoids as well. Of course, the Thief had no intention of enforcing it either so necromancy continued on in the shadows. Velsharoon however, was quite famous as a traitor to giantkind and it didn’t take long before Giantfather sent his eldest son to deal with him. Luckily, he’d spent the years learning other types of magics as well so he managed to evade the wrath of the titans mostly intact, with only losing a hand to Stronmaus before fleeing to Astral Plane. The close call made him focus on more research, the threat of being bodily destroyed still stood between Velsharoon and immortality. He worked alone for centuries, cut off from any help or support and by the time he invented the philactery, the Imposter had reappeared. Thinking he’d be protected, Velsharoon returned to Material eagerly, certain that Pelor (Velsharoon had learned a great deal more about the nature of deities and the multiverse during his stay in Astral) would be restarting the war against giantkind and usher in a new golden age of necromancy. He was wrong. After having some sense knocked into him by his elder sibling, Pelor was now completely and utterly against all sorts of necromancy and undead for their unbreakable ties to Negative Energy. He explained to Velsharoon who the Allmother was and what a great threat necromancy posed against the entire multiverse before burning him to cinders.

Velsharoon had a lot to think about as he slowly reformed in his secret lair on Astral, grateful that Pelor had no idea about his latest discovery. He was also very lucky, as Astral was one of the very few places neither Pelor nor Moradin had any power over. In fact, as time passed and he didn't get discovered and destroyed for good, Velsharoon found that he was even luckier than he thought; thanks to the great machine of Mechanus, a whole new group of deities had popped up in Material Plane to keep both titans and Sun Father too busy to even think about him. But he still needed to be discreet, Velsharoon was too infamous a name to ever be safe anywhere in Material (also a giant walking skeleton was still just as conspicuous as it ever was). He worked some more to iron out the details of philacteries and managed to get himself a human skeleton to inhabit. Since Pelor had destroyed him, Velsharoon was officially dead. But Vecna lived! (for a given value of lived)

It didn’t turn out to be that hard to hide his identity, one human skeleton wasn’t much different from another and Vecna could easily pass as one of the many human necromancers he’d worked with back in the day. With the dominance over Material Plane in question, necromancy had become a far less important matter to deities and Vecna could continue his necromantic work with impunity, only impeded by the occasional band of plucky adventurers. Time passed and Vecna saw many mortals ascend to godhood (a much, much better way of immortality than lichdom), finally understanding why the gods of humanoids were so interested in belief and worship. By then, the imperious titans had been defeated and Jotunheim was gone, proving that the giantkind’s understanding of divinity was wrong and humanoid deities were superior. Then Vecna decided to be a god himself; how hard could it be if even mere mortal humans could ascend with a lifetime of less than a century? He spread the knowledge of necromancy, giving liches the secret of the now standard philactery, “rediscovering” the lost works of the ancient and infamous giant necromancer Velsharoon, inventing the deathknight as a modified form of lichdom for nonwizards... Vecna gained more and more infamy as the greatest necromancer of his time, using all of his cunning and firsthand knowledge lost to the ages to construct a mythical Velsharoon who all but singlehandedly invented the fundamentals of necromancy, while hunting down and destroying all of his remaining lich colleagues from the ancient wars that could possibly identify him or object to the myth he was crafting. It worked out in the end, Velsharoon was eventually accepted in wizarding circles as the sole inventor and greatest practitioner of necromancy, dubbed the Archmage of Necromancy, and Vecna was generally considered to be his "successor" and modern day equivalent.

Then came the second phase of his plan. Vecna announced far and wide that he’d found Velsharoon’s hand that had been cut off by titan Stronmaus so long ago. Using the ancient artifact, Vecna was going to ressurrect Velsharoon and together, they’d usher in a new era of terror and necromantic reign upon the worlds of mortals (mwahahahaha!!!). This caused a stir; legions of sentient undead and necromancers liked this proposed age of terror and flocked to Vecna, while pretty much everyone else disapproved. Pelor was especially unhappy about this and ordered mobilization of his church to stop the mad lich, unwisely letting Vecna enlist help from god of death Nerull (who’d have preferred to just leave mortals (and undead) to it if Pelor hadn’t intervened directly). The result was a massive war of good vs evil that devastated a world and killed hundreds of thousands. Vecna made a great show of it all; the hopes and fears of everyone involved on both sides, the bloodshed, and the divine and arcane power unleashed on the battlefields were all ultimately feeding the legend of Velsharoon and Vecna. Ultimately Vecna’s side lost and the mythical Hand of Velsharoon was destroyed, he himself was defeated in an epic confrontation by a hero who ironically severed his hand and eye.

The event became a legend known throughout the multiverse, a cautionary tale against the madness of liches and necromancers. Of course, it wasn’t too long before yet another mad lich appeared, claiming to have recovered the Hand of Vecna and Eye of Vecna from the ruined and haunted castle of Vecna. This Mellifleur was an unknown but he had the exact same idea, he was going to resurrect Vecna, and they’d find a way to reconstruct Hand of Velsharoon, and then the three of them would usher in a new era of fear and darkness. One more massive and terrible war of good vs evil later, Mellifleur was also destroyed. But rumors claimed he managed to hide Eye and Hand of Vecna before his destruction and these would go on to become the holy grail of necromancers and evil wizards everywhere. After that, a large number of liches crawled out of the woodwork on various worlds, claiming to have found a remaining piece of the infamous liches and planning to bring Vecna/Velsharoon/Mellifleur back. None of those ever amounted to much; a parade of named liches defeated by bands of adventurers became little more than footnotes, as assorted badguys who’d be into Vecna’s promised age of terror had been burned enough times that very few were buying what these mad liches were selling. There hasn’t been any other massive war of good vs evil but thanks to repetition of the same basic story all over Material Plane, the name Vecna became one of the most famous, synonymous with “bad guy” (followed by Velsharoon and Mellifleur in more learned circles). At that point, even children of most mortal worlds knew of Vecna as the spooky bad guy who’d get you if you’re bad.

It’d taken much longer than he hoped, but Velsharoon aka Vecna aka Mellifleur aka a dozen other names (while not all of the discount Vecnas were secretly the real one, a lot of the more successful ones were) finally ascended to godhood. Befitting his methods, he is a demigod of secrets and betrayal on top of necromancy. He initially revealed himself only to Nerull and Sune, assuming the patronage of the greatest rivals of Pelor would be his best defense against eventual discovery by him, and was accepted into the fold (grudgingly in Nerull’s case). But eventually, his lust for more power overcame his fear of destruction at primordial deities’ hands and he volunteered to help goddess Sune in one of her schemes. This resulted in, among other things, Velsharoon absorbing the domain of undead from the newly deposed god Myrkul with a sizable amount of divine power. Ascended to lesser godhood, Velsharoon was now safe to announce his existence to the multiverse at large. In an effort to gain large numbers of worshippers, he revealed the extent of his schemes and betrayals stretching back all the way to the lost age of giantkind (these might maybe be a bit exaggerrated though), instantly gaining enmity of countless powers of the multiverse. But he got large numbers of worshippers as well (necromancers, giants, all sorts of aspiring villains, exemplars from some Lower Planes, liches and other sentient undead), so it’s fine.

Velsharoon aka Vecna aka Mellifleur aka far too many other names is still working to advance necromancy and undeath, his only regret is that, for all his evil, he’s not hated as much as the goddess of magic Mystra, for whom he feels an inexplicable knot of twisted jealousy and desire. So far, the greater goddess has completely ignored his advances and Velsharoon fears that his strange lust for Mystra’s power and self is his “patron” Sune’s way of keeping him on a short leash and might be the end of him (as his parallels to Myrkul is disturbingly obvious).

Y'all can consider this to be your Xmas/new year present. A Secret Santa if you will, except he secretly brings death and undeath. The mad lichy god isn't as numerous as the trickster or manly war god but there were enough of those to bother me, hence we got this. Canon Myrkul is also in this category but he's got the Dark Three thing going for him. Funnily enough, canon Nerull isn't a spoopy skeleton (though he's the spoopiest skeleton of our thread here).

Also feel free to talk about the previous thing I asked further. The jury is still out on that. Also also tell me this isn't a dickbutt djinn's lair in Air.Tip: you can't

[Fable Wright]

MVelsharoon aka Vecna aka Mellifleur aka far too many other names is still working to advance necromancy and undeath, his only regret is that, for all his evil, he’s not hated as much as the goddess of magic Mystra, for whom he feels an inexplicable knot of twisted jealousy and desire.

I died.

Also, a giant walking skeleton is conspicuous, whereas something completely normal is inconspicuous. Not meaning to nitpick, but you seem to have messed up those two terms.

Also also tell me this isn't a dickbutt djinn's lair in Air.

This isn't a dickbutt djinn's lair in Air. That's a bunch of 1s and 0s modified into an abberant configuration in comparison to the normal sequence of 1s and 0s, interpolated through extraordinarily fast parallel processors to control blinking lights on a screen, the sequence of bits over time stored in a repository and shared to anyone who holds the passphrase and a device that can use said passphrase to locate the repository and cause a similar series of processors to interpolate it into a very different operating environment than it was originally recorded on, for the amusement and wonder of individual humans who recognize the achievement involved in the process.

[Pronounceable]

you seem to have messed up those two terms.

No, it didn't happen. Nobody can prove it happened, there isn't nor has ever been such a mistake...

[Pronounceable]

We return to our unscheduled program with the creation myth. Creation of the apocalypse is still creation, that's logic.


VAATI (primordial titan), Wind Duke of Aaqa, Last Lord of Law
Domains: law, air, aarakocra

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Genie legends claim that at the end of the Dawn War, seven creatures of immeasurable power were born in Elemental Chaos, who would go on to call themselves vaati (meaning Wind Dukes in their own language). Outwardly, they would be classified as greater titans, similar to the two progenitors of giantkind on Material Plane that would come in later ages but they were also aligned to Law, making them a unique hybrid of outsider and elemental. And since even the greatest powers of the multiverse have found it completely impossible to merge aligned essences of outsiders with elemental souls, the existence of such beings has caused much debate among historians and scholars about their true origin. The prevailing theory among the scholars of primordial myths is that they were the result of the Elder Elemental Evil stirring in his unfathomable prison, although some insist it was instead the baleful will of the Allmother.

Their origin might be contested, but their impact is certain: according to oldest myths of both Inner and Outer Planar beings, vaati were collectively the greatest power that has been seen in the multiverse. They had supreme control over both elemental matter and aligned essence, making each one almost as powerful as a greater deity (none of which were around yet). As creatures of order, they were bothered by the glaring lack of symmetry in the multiverse; there were fourteen Outer Planes but only four Inners, Inner Planes were stable and static whereas Outers were floating freely and randomly around Astral, planes of pure Law and pure Chaos were lacking despite the fact that hybrid planes with mixed alignments existed, Astral and Ethereal Planes isolating the (so far unnamed) Material from other planes didn’t have the same properties, Outer Planes were full of creatures other than the exemplar races while only the four races of genies (and their mindless embryonic forms) lived in elemental planes. And worst of all, they were the only creatures made of both an alignment and an element, the fifteen other possible combinations didn’t exist and even vaati’s power couldn’t create such beings. This meant that either their existence was breaking a multiversal law or laws of the multiverse were flawed. It was unacceptable; vaati had to be destroyed. But first, they would fix all the other flaws of the planes.

In their land they called Aaqa inside Elemental Chaos, they started to construct two artifacts of apocalyptic power. Once activated, the Rod of Law and the Shard of Pure Evil would become irresistable magnets for the alignment essences that made up the Outer Planes and their denizens, drawing all of one type of aligned essence onto themselves while repelling the opposite as far as it can be pushed. This would disintegrate all Outer Planes (and their denizens) and remake the fourteen into four new planes of pure Law, Chaos, Good and Evil. Thus, a symmetry would be established between Inner and Outer Planes and the biggest multiversal flaw would be fixed.

Meanwhile in Outer Planes, yet another battle was raging in the borderlands where Arborea and the Abyss were tangled into each other. A massive army of demons were, as usual, trying to climb out and spread into the multiverse and eladrin warriors were pushing them back into the gaping pit. But this specific army of demons was led by one called Miska (later dubbed WolfSpider in legends), who was suffering from a particular malady: he was hearing a song that was pleading him to go to Prime Universe that no one else could hear. While a demon hearing nonexistent voices wasn’t too strange, claims of such demons never stayed consistent for long. Yet Miska was determined and also one of the most powerful demons of his time, he’d gathered himself one of the largest demonic armies to assault Arborea and he was fully committed to obeying the voice in his head. Eladrin eventually pushed them back as always, dashing the demons to pieces on the jagged rocks leading down to their Abyss. But Miska himself had managed to fight through eladrin ranks, sacrificing every last one of his flunkies to push through Arborea and reach a portal to Astral by himself and then disappeared.

As far as the dwellers of Outer Planes knew, the multiverse ended with the inaccessable void beyond Astral, said to be the original universe created first by the Allmother. That’s where Miska was headed and it’s completely unknown how he managed to reach it or what he did once there. When he came back, he’d gained inexplicable and unprecedented magical powers (one of which was an ability to create his own portals to travel among the planes). He’d become something much more strange than a mere demon, something identified only much later when the primordial deity siblings emerged, the very first of its kind in the whole of multiverse: a cleric. He visited every Outer Plane one by one using his strange and terrifying new magical powers, praising the Queen of Chaos who dwelt in “the shadows beyond the darkness”. According to Miska, he had been knighted by this Queen, the most grand and terrible being of the multiverse and tasked to destroy the Wind Dukes of Aaqa, a dire threat to existence itself. The only problem was that no outsider had ever heard of her before or had any idea what Aaqa was or who its dukes were, but Miska’s newfound zeal was such that all manner of beings fell under his sway and became his followers. In a very short time he had gained an army that contained members of every exemplar race, even a number of pacifist and peaceful kami from Bytopia had joined him to fight these unknown Wind Dukes. An army like that had never existed before and would never exist again, making the legend of Miska the WolfSpider one of the most well known in all the planes. He then led his army to Inner Planes where both exemplars and genies were surprised to discover that previously unknown things lived beyond the great blackness of Prime Universe. Then Miska, still being a demon, ordered the attack and a most epic but largely pointless battle started.

It was during this battle that Wind Dukes of Aaqa left Elemental Chaos with their artifacts in hand to enact their plan. They found a massive and chaotic battle raging in their way, for some of Miska’s fiendish forces had decided to turn on their celestial allies and efreeti and djinni had also decided to continue their eternal war in the middle of an invasion. So vaati waded in, attacking genie and outsider alike, trying to put an end to the untidy mess. And they were winning handily too, until Miska finally made his move. Claiming that the voice of his Queen was guiding him, Miska attacked one of the vaati in the chaos. This happened to be the one carrying the Shard of Pure Evil and Miska managed to grab the artifact and use it. Of course, vaati had placed safeguards just in case and it also was meant to be activated on Astral so it could remake the Outer Planes. The Shard exploded and the result was apocalyptic. It ripped apart all the outsiders, completely destroying Miska and his army by scattering their aligned essences; it was the first time in history outsiders died and didn’t respawn in their homeplanes. It sent shockwaves throughout the multiverse, alerting the five primordial deity offspring of Overmothers that something other than the Dawn War was happening outside their shelter. The apocalyptic artifact was supposed to fuel itself by consuming some of the Evil essence it would draw from all the Outer Planes, but its pull couldn’t pass through Ethereal. So, after consuming the Evil essence of all fiends in Miska’s army, it drained the entire Plane of Fire as fuel, leaving behind a black emptiness full of ash, smoke and bits of smoldering metal where eternal fires once burned. Vaati appeared to be completely destroyed as well. Miska had done as his Queen bid and sacrificed himself (and countless others) to stop Wind Dukes of Aaqa, proving the power of faith in mysterious higher forces. Unfortunately for outsiders, that wasn’t the end of it.

Genies were furious at outsiders and wanted revenge for Plane of Fire turning into a burnt out husk. It was the efreeti who found and studied the Rod of Order, figuring out how to use it safely, while djinni were the ones to invent astral projection magics that was going to let them reach the planes of their enemies. Working together for the first and last time, genies of Air and Fire activated the Rod of Order in Astral to unleash the greatest cataclysm the multiverse had yet seen. Twelve out of fourteen Outer Planes were devastated, all exemplar races except Hadean hags and Elysian angels suffered massive casualities as the essences of Law and Chaos ripped away from them and their planes, and coalesced into opposing planes of Nirvana and Limbo (to be named Plane of Unimperiled Thought and Plane of Willpower later). Both would have kept draining essences of Law and Chaos from everywhere else until they wholly consumed everything in Astral if angels and hags weren’t the most rational and practical of all exemplars. The two outsider races and their home planes were unaffected thanks to being free of Law or Chaos and they were able to cooperate without turning on each other at the earliest opportunity (multiverse was lucky that Elysians+Hadeans was possibly the only combination of fiends and celestials who could’ve done that). A great force of famously willful angels entered Limbo to scour the plane and look for whatever was creating it, while a similarly massive force of hags known for their mutability went into Nirvana. Hags found the Rod of Order and managed to deactivate it, halting the growth of the new planes and putting an end to the slow and steady genocide of other exemplars. At the end, discounting the massive damage to Outer Planes themselves, about a quarter of all outsiders had been irrevocably destroyed by the Rod of Order and remaining ones owed their survival to hags of Hades. Later on, they would secretly return to Nirvana and break the Rod into seven pieces to smuggle it out instead of completely destroying it like they claimed they had, which would get Hades conquered by the greedy daemons looking for it in the following ages (a typical display of fiendish gratitude).

A quarter for a quarter was fitting revenge in genies’ opinion and they quietly retreated back to Inner Planes to continue their own war. Limbo and Nirvana became new territories to be squabbled over and captured, as no new types of exemplars emerged to claim them. Ages passed and the chaotic nature of Limbo repelled all attempts to permanently settle, whereas Nirvana was deemed no outsider’s land by edict of the sons of Overmothers, who had no intention of letting any exemplar tamper with the great machine of Mechanus. Thus Limbo was abandoned and Nirvana became a land for mortal races strong enough to reach there and stake claims.

One such mortal race is the birdlike bipeds calling themselves aarakocra (who everyone else just calls birdmen on account of it being a ****ing stupid name). They worship the Wind Dukes of Aaqa as their creators, which immensely pisses off the outsiders with long memories and they’re hunted down and destroyed every time they leave Nirvana. Their local enemies, the insectoid formians, enjoy much material support from fiends and celestials alike, who would like nothing more than to see the birdmen eradicated. Yet they survive; birdmen have the power to summon mindless elemental spirits and not murderously infuriate them, an ability normally only possessed by their evolved genie brethren. Obedient elementals aren’t the only thing that stands between birdmen eyries and all the formian attacks, mortal mercenaries and the occasional vengeful genie various outsiders send their way either. They’re ingenious creatures and have invented many strange and wondrous machines that run on mindless elementals’ power, creating one of the most technomagically advanced societies in the planes. Armored war machines, flying ships, cannons and rayguns are staples of birdmen arsenal and the envy of other mortals who encounter them.

Birdmen and their power over elementals are considered proof that vaati weren’t destroyed and are hiding somewhere in Nirvana. The truth of the matter is that only a single one remains and he’s crippled, which is why he needs the birdmen to act for him. His worshippers regularly go on expeditions, scouring the multiverse for the Rod of Order. Even armed with their wondrous steampunk tech, armies of birdmen are no match for exemplar races and they die in droves to obey the Last Lord of Law. The occasional birdmen who tire of dying for Vaati’s goals and try to make a living somewhere else inevitably get destroyed by his numerous enemies, so he’s pretty certain birdmen will be successful in their search at some point. The Lord of Celestia did an all right job arranging the planes but his vision was tainted by empathy and he didn’t go far enough, the multiverse is still too messy and asymmetrical. Once all pieces of the Rod of Order returns to him, Vaati will be able to restore his power and hopefully recreate his fellow Dukes so the great ordering can continue. Afterwards, aarakocra will also need to be destroyed like the rest of their kind; the everchanging individuality of mortals cannot be allowed to taint existence with their inherently chaotic nature, but they make good servants for the time being and their continued worship should eventually ascend Vaati to divinity. Maybe then he’ll be able to create the fifteen missing hybrids of elements and alignments and won’t have to kill himself in the end, but that’s not a primary concern. The Wind Duke of Aaqa will stop at nothing or let himself be destroyed until a proper symmetry is established in the multiverse.

Wind Dukes of Aaqa and Queen of Chaos is one of those oldest school DnD things that were mostly forgotten later on. Being sick as I am of law=good chaos=bad crap, I flipped this omelette. I know it wasn't such a lame cliche back in the day but don't care. Also birdmen with their dumb name was yet another of those dime a dozen weird DnD critters without much purpose, so they got repurposed. Maybe this is a strange match but human(oid)s with steampunk is another of those things getting kinda old at this point, so I'll say this omelette is fresh. Birdmen in clockwork tophats with retractable monocles packing lightning shooters is neat and original (at least originaler than elves and dwarves with the same). The primordial myths part might've been kinda indulgent here, deviating far too much from the actually gameable part (birdmen). Hopefully it's somewhat interesting and a nod to the old old school DnD.

In other news, it's been far too hard to find a proper individual being to build the writeup of Cities of Brass for. But it's gonna happen, cos I'm now angry at it.

[Beneath]

It sounds like the primordial deities emerged in the middle of this story, but it's not clear where

Also, was Mishka a cleric of Shar?

[Pronounceable]

^ They came out after the fracas.
And Queen of Chaos may or may not be Shar. We don't know. Tho I hope not, she's popped up from almost under every rock.

So this took a stupidly long time and I'm angry at it. Turns out it's incredibly hard to reach a predetermined point when you have nothing but not be regular DnD about it.


IMIX (elemental lord), Prince of Elemental Fire
Domains: fire, tyranny

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The enmity between djinni and efreeti is eternal and undying and even they themselves don’t remember how or why it started. Maybe Fire and Air were mutually the easiest elemental planes for them to raid, as it’s so much harder to maintain a long campaign inside Water or Earth, but such questions are pointless; the unimaginably long time both races have spent raiding and enslaving one another is reason enough to continue raiding and enslaving. Being immortals, neither side is able to destroy their enemies and theirs have been a war of enslavement as a result. At this point, the existence of a single efreet or djinn left who hasn’t been captured, enslaved, liberated, recaptured and reliberated a few times in the countless raids and counter raids between Fire and Air is suspect.

Slavery plays a cruicial role in djinn and efreet societies, an individual’s worth is measured in their ability to capture and control slaves. Lacking any need for labor thanks to mindless elementals they can dominate in great numbers, the purpose of djinn/efreet slaves is to be “worthy”, which means looking pretty and strong and skilled to make their owners look even better. This makes arrogance, showboating and largerthanlifery the main pastimes of djinni and efreeti (discounting the slavery/liberation raids of course), even while they’re enslaved themselves, as being worthier leads to better treatment by owners (until eventual rescue by their fellows). Genies of Water and Earth would show their disdain for this by calling their lands Planes of Ham and Cheese, if such terms existed in genie lexicon.

The importance of slavery is such that even regular chain of command among genies of Air and Fire are considered to be a softer type of slavery (one not enforced by being bound to rings and lamps and bottles and all sorts of other implausible items) and disobedience to superiors isn’t well regarded; each djinn or efreet is technically a slave to the chieftain of the tribe, who are slaves to lords powerful enough to subjugate multiple tribes and so on all the way to the top. As a result, the Grand Sultan of Efreeti and the Grand Caliph of Djinni are considered to be the owners of all of their kind. This means capturing them would symbolically mean capturing their entire race, a theoretical end to the war. Of course, both have been captured, repeatedly. Djinni get around this problem by one of the advisors of the Grand Caliph revealing that he was the one pulling the strings all along and the one captured was just a puppet. Such an event will always be the turning point in the war, as the time for subtlety has passed and now their true ruler can finally act with impunity and the retaliation on efreeti will be fearsome indeed (this promised victory never seems to happen for some reason). So, according to the noble djinni who control Plane of Air, the rulership of djinnkind is (and has always been) an everlengthening line of puppets serving the cunning and ineffable mastermind behind 777 proxiespatsies (which has been known to loop in on itself, as previously captured and liberated ex Grand Caliphs have turned out to be the real mastermind behind the latest patsy who got captured on a few occasions, only to be revealed as a double bluff upon their subsequent capture and the true real mastermind’s emergence). Efreeti call this bull**** and consider themselves to have already won the war for capturing the Grand Caliph the first time; they just have to keep fighting because djinni are being sore losers and spouting this dumb crap to refuse admitting their defeat. Djinni’s multiple claims to have captured the Grand Sultan are all fake too, for the Grand Sultan of Efreeti is none other than the First Servant of Prince Imix the Master of Elemental Fire, determined and supported by His will alone. Great Prince Imix sees all and knows all, his divine foresight guides efreetkind and he can be trusted to choose the greatest efreet as the Grand Sultan, him always picking a new one minutes before a previous one gets captured by djinni is mere coincidence but means their enemies have never captured their ruler. Djinni call this bull**** because of course they would, the liars.

Great Prince Imix dwells inside the great temple of the City of Brass, which also houses the palace of the Grand Sultan. Like its lesser cousins, the City of Brass is one massive settlement built on the inside of an astronomically significant sphere of ashbrass, an implausible metal that cannot cool down, a material crafted by efreeti blacksmiths from the burnt out ashes of Plane of Fire itself. The efreeti have done remarkably well for themselves for a post apocalyptic society whose homeplane was virtually destroyed in an ancient catastrophe, inventing the ashbrass and building massive and mobile pressure cookers with it to comfortably live off of the heat from their fire elemental herds (although being immortal and incredibly powerful probably helped). Of all the ashbrass vaults, the City of Brass is the biggest and most heavily defended, containing millions of caged fire elementals to protect thousands of its efreeti dwellers from the bitter cold and dizzying ash storms of the ruined Plane of Fire. On top of the traditional defenses, archalchemists of the Grand Sultan have constructed what they call the Scorn of Imix, a strange and massive artifact (said to be modeled after the mythological Rod of Order) that can shoot a ray of magical cold (technically heat drain) strong enough to freeze a Material planet solid, with an adjustable portal to target anything they might want to hit inside their plane. This is strictly for defending the City of Brass against djinni and other extraplanar invaders and has nothing at all to do with keeping smaller ashbrass vaults in line and obedient to the Grand Sultan, nope.

Another vital use of ashbrass for efreeti is the construction of travel vessels. While vaults can move, they’re slow and a method to move from one to another without exposure to elements (so to speak) is needed and the risk of collision would be too high for them to approach physically. The cold, winds, floating char and ash, freak lightning storms, smoke and poisonous fumes of Plane of Fire won’t seriously hurt any efreet but they don’t like such conditions and none of those bother djinni in the slightest, which is why ashbrass vehicles usually come armed with various elemental weaponry and detection spells. Power of these vehicles are usually proportional to the number of efreeti it’s meant to carry and there’s a wide range of them from light, single efreet boxes to heavily armed warships carrying hundreds of efreeti soldiers into Air raids. Each ashbrass vault has its own fleet of vehicles to protect it (the biggest of which is obviously in the City of Brass), for it’s usually not worth the effort to arm and armor structures as massive as the vaults directly.

Due to the endless demand for ashbrass, brasssmithing has become the most lucrative and prestigious industry in Plane of Fire (just after slavery) and, as can be expected, the City of Brass is where the biggest bulk is produced. The Grand Sultan even paid for an entire new mortal race called azer to be created by the infamous demon prince Demogorgon to work ashbrass forges, for the demand was so much that efreeti brasssmiths weren’t enough to keep up. But space inside the City of Brass is limited and cannot be increased due to the impossibility of building on ashbrass once it’s set, so only the strongest, richest and “worthiest” of efreeti can live there and it has become a haven of arrogance and self satisfaction even beyond regular efreeti communities. By the decree of Imix, some parts of the City near the “docks” were modified to let nonefreeti survive (if uncomfortably) and conduct trade with mortals and outsiders, and even those relatively small parts are enough for the City of Brass to be considered one of the greatest cities of the planes. More conservative efreeti don’t appreciate this but word of Imix is the law, above and beyond even the Grand Sultan. High efreet society knows they cannot be an isolated island if they are to beat Sigil, Hestavar or Dis in wealth, no matter how self satisfied they act in public. The power from mindless elementals and slave labor of azer is more than good enough to let every efreet in the City of Brass live like mortal kings off the ashbrass trade but obviously that’s not enough, the Grand Sultan and his or her court need to be the richest and greatest in the multiverse. While all efreeti living outside are unhappy about the tyrannical rule of the City’s elite, there isn’t enough resentment for some sort of rebellion against the Sultan (yet) and djinni is a constant danger to smaller vaults and travelling vehicles.

All Grand Sultans are quite happy with the absolute rule and ultimate decadence but aware that an air of confidence and power is always needed to cow challengers, which is why they regularly go on tours, visiting other ashbrass vaults and sometimes even joining in skirmishes against djinni to show what a badass he or she is. And not ever risking capture would invite a coup too, for all noble efreet recognize the greed of their fellows and the need to give them at least the appearance of hope. Being a slave to Imix doesn’t really bother the Grand Sultan either, on account of the massive creature of infinite fire occasionally paraded around the City being just a divinely touched mindless elemental gifted to an ancient predecessor by the Sun Father as a sign of goodwill. Being the Grand Sultan of Efreeti is one of the cushiest jobs around and none of them ever get the urge to rock the boat. While Pelor didn’t expect his peace offering meant to reignite Plane of Fire be used instead to create an ironclad tyrannical rule, he’s not overly bothered by it either. If the rulers of efreeti want to keep huddling in tiny metal boxes instead of restoring the lost glory of their plane like Pelor’s own little corner of it, that’s no radiance off his nose. He’s busy with Material and mortals, what notoriously defiant genies do in their own time is none of his business.

Evil empire, ancient secrets, spaceships, brewing rebellion, alien invaders, got all the requisite components I believe. So we're officially 3 for 3 nonDnDist elemental planes. I'd be happier if this hadn't taken so damn long to solidify and it kinda comes off as trying wayy too hard. But it was either this or Astral/Spelljammer and those have already been DnD space for a long time.

Also Dumathoids and ashbrass fleets shouldn't mix. Crossing the streams isn't good. There's a reason different genres are separate.

[Fri]

Okay, that's pretty amazing. I don't really need to quote the best parts, but I'll do it anyway for easier linking to my fellows.

Slavery plays a cruicial role in djinn and efreet societies, an individual’s worth is measured in their ability to capture and control slaves. Lacking any need for labor thanks to mindless elementals they can dominate in great numbers, the purpose of djinn/efreet slaves is to be “worthy”, which means looking pretty and strong and skilled to make their owners look even better. This makes arrogance, showboating and largerthanlifery the main pastimes of djinni and efreeti (discounting the slavery/liberation raids of course), even while they’re enslaved themselves, as being worthier leads to better treatment by owners (until eventual rescue by their fellows). Genies of Water and Earth would show their disdain for this by calling their lands Planes of Ham and Cheese, if such terms existed in genie lexicon.

The importance of slavery is such that even regular chain of command among genies of Air and Fire are considered to be a softer type of slavery (one not enforced by being bound to rings and lamps and bottles and all sorts of other implausible items) and disobedience to superiors isn’t well regarded; each djinn or efreet is technically a slave to the chieftain of the tribe, who are slaves to lords powerful enough to subjugate multiple tribes and so on all the way to the top. As a result, the Grand Sultan of Efreeti and the Grand Caliph of Djinni are considered to be the owners of all of their kind. This means capturing them would symbolically mean capturing their entire race, a theoretical end to the war. Of course, both have been captured, repeatedly. Djinni get around this problem by one of the advisors of the Grand Caliph revealing that he was the one pulling the strings all along and the one captured was just a puppet. Such an event will always be the turning point in the war, as the time for subtlety has passed and now their true ruler can finally act with impunity and the retaliation on efreeti will be fearsome indeed (this promised victory never seems to happen for some reason). So, according to the noble djinni who control Plane of Air, the rulership of djinnkind is (and has always been) an everlengthening line of puppets serving the cunning and ineffable mastermind behind 777 proxiespatsies (which has been known to loop in on itself, as previously captured and liberated ex Grand Caliphs have turned out to be the real mastermind behind the latest patsy who got captured on a few occasions, only to be revealed as a double bluff upon their subsequent capture and the true real mastermind’s emergence).