blue crane said:
Will the 'Planes' be covered in the MoM supplement? If not, could someone please help me with regards to understanding the nature of the 'Planes of Existence'?
We all know that the 'Daziarn Plane' is much the same as the 'Astral Plane' - but what about the others? I suppose that like many of you, I too own the 'Dungeons & Dragons Manual of The Planes'. For those of you who do have it, what exactly are the other planes in terms of the planar categories of the above-mentioned book? For instance, is the 'Plane of Light' an 'Energy Plane'? Is the 'Plane of Air' an 'Elemental Plane'? And so on.
As far as I can tell from Prisoners of Time (and Beyond the Nightmare Gate - STILL my favorite of all the books), the Elemental Planes seem to be little more than pure manifestations of what they represent. Thus, fire is a sea of eternal flame, earth is solid stone and dirt, etc. Much as with D&D, it wouldn't really be possible to LIVE in any of those planes.
In the Grey Star books, he can use Elementalism to can call upon elemental spirits to aid him (and, in the RPG, magicians of Dessi can do so as well). In the books, it states flat-out that Grey Star is calling these spirits from "the Elemental Plane", so it's possible that they are all spiritual creatures who dwell in the Elemental Planes, but are capable of coming through to the physical world when called (though, apparently, the proper medium must be present as a gateway). It's somewhat vague, though, and is probably more of a GM's call whether or not the elemental spirits come from the elemental planes, or are simply present in nature itself, and are merely evoked by the magic.
The Plane of Light and the Plane of Darkness, though, are less like elemental planes, and are actually closer to Heaven and Hel (or, if you prefer, Vahalla and Niflheim, Olympus and Tartarus, etc). For visual purposes, it might even be better to refer to them as the Planes of Good and Evil.
Imagine, if you will, a world comprised entirely of every evil, wicked, twisted thing EVER. Toxic smoke, mutant creatures, darkness, beings of unimaginable evil power - this is the Plane of Darkness. We've never actually seen the Plane of Light in the books, though one can probably assume a similar mechanic - whatever sort of Paradise you can think of, populated by attractive and kind forces of Good.
As for the other entries on that map, Aon, of course, is the material plane, in which there are countless worlds, some good, some evil. Magnamund is the balance point - the last world which has not completely fallen to the Darkness, or been rescued by the Light, so whoever wins there, wins everything.
I'd hesitate to call the Daziarn the "astral plane", though. It's closer to a world of imagination made real, of beings powerful enough to shape the very reality that lies around them as if it were clay. The "natural" state of the Daziarn has been called the Neverness, and it's a bleak landscape of grey mists and endless space. When someone with a strong enough will goes there, however, they can create items, places, and even people out of the very raw essence of creation itself.
Every world and kingdom that exists in the Daziarn was created at some point by someone. Some of those creators are still there (like the Chaos-Master), while others seem to have died over the course of time (the Ironheart family). Once "created", these reality bubbles seem to remain mostly stable... though it's possible for someone to force their will over someone else's creation (what the Chaos-Master spends most of his time doing, apparently).
Smiling Fox said:
Don't know if this question has been answered somewhere, but how is the Daziarn voyage that a 19th level BoCS performed? It is a spiritual journey or does he go there physically? If it's physically how does he return? In the Lone Wolf books the Brotherhood believes that you can't return from Daziarn (before LW actually does it). Is it so that there are no lvl 20 BoCS in Magnamund?
Keeping in mind that this is ENTIRELY my own POV...
In PoT, Lone Wolf learns that the only way back to Aon is via a power greater than most humans possess - in other words, the Lorestones. If you break things down, Lone Wolf is unable to use the one-way Shadow Gate in reverse until he's straddling the line between Scion-Kai and Archmaster.
Or, in the RPG terms, when he reaches level 19.
If a level 19 Kai can physically travel between the planes, it's not entirely impossible that a level 20 Crystal Star mage could do the same...
So, when a level 19 Brother decides the time has come to Master the Word, as it were, perhaps they must pass through the Shadow Gate of Toran, questing through the Daziarn, until they discover some secret (even if that secret is only self-realization) which not only grants them the power to use the Grand Word, but also to return through the normally one-way Gate.
Needless to say, Brothers who fail in this quest aren't coming back... though, considering the dangers of the Daziarn, it's probably a toss-up as to whether they simply failed to "level up", as it were, or died trying.
One could suggest that knowing this return-trip is possible at all would tend to invalidate the Guild claiming the Shadow Gate is one-way... but, consider this - a Kai needs to be Archmaster or Grand Master to pass through the Shadow Gate, and how many Archmasters or Grand Masters are there at any given time? The answer is, precious few, probably. So, if you have to be a Master of the Word/Court Wizard to even be able to ATTEMPT this quest, and you have to become a Grand Master of the Word/Chancellor to SUCCEED... I'm thinking you probably only have a few people each generation who could pull it off.
Which means the Guild KNOWS that only the most powerful sorcerers Magnamund has ever seen could possibly survive... doing a quick bit of math, I'd estimate that fewer than 100 Brothers in the entire history of the Guild would have tried it - maybe 30-50 survived. That's like one success every 40-50 years or so.
So, if the most powerful members of your order only have a 50-50 chance of ever making it back alive, wouldn't you assume the door is one-way for nearly everyone else? I'd be fairly positive that the pirate captain and the poisoner aren't going to find a way through. Perfect means of disposing of criminals...
By that argument, about the only person who SHOULDN'T have been sent through was Vonotar, because not only was he a skilled Brother, but he also possessed secrets of the Left-Hand path which MIGHT have given him the strength to force the door open again. Which is exactly what he was trying to do in PoT.
I'm sure you could easily just assume that it's an astral quest (as it were) if you prefer that option, but it seems to me that the descent into Certain Death, as it were, seems by far the more heroic option. It's that Hero's Journey symbolism, where the wizard goes where no one else can go and survive, and comes back changed.
