Saturday, September 18, 2010

shard of evil, living gate, obyriths

i am formulating a comprehensive history in which the shard of evil was a piece of the living gate. the obyriths, powerful creatures of the far realm, pierced the living gate momentarily, causing a shard of the living gate to break free. that shard, having been the locus of the obyriths' concerted effort to pierce into the known planes, absorbed an unfathomable amount of the energies of the far realm.

the deities of the astral plane, wherein the living gate was momentarily ruptured, quickly recognized the corrupting effect that the shard of evil was having upon the plane. tharizdun, a lawful good deity of great power and wisdom, recognizing that the shard, a thing not entirely of this plane, could not be destroyed, took it upon himself to remove the shard to the furthest reaches of the elemental chaos, a plane dominated by primodial beings with whom the deities warred.

pazuzu, an obyrith, told asmodeus how to remove a piece of the shard of evil. perhaps pazuzu did so in order to get a piece of the shard to the astral sea in hopes of doing to that plane what the shard has been doing to the elemental chaos--namely, transforming it into the abyss, a place more to the liking of these far realm alien creatures.
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the above history implies that the worst of evils actually stems from the far realm. the abyss is the corruption of the elemental chaos by the influences of the far realm, via the physical presence of the shard.

it is with this understanding that creatures throughout the known planes--deities, primal spirits, wilden, shardminds, etc.--universally oppose the presence of far realm influences in any form, whether aberrations, malevolent stars, portals or rifts.

as i see it, such far realm influences physically warp their surroundings in a manner not unlike the shard of evil, but on a much smaller scale. the mere presence of a community of aberrant creatures actually will cause its environs to change (think of the movie Aliens or the starcraft zerg).

in a sense, demons are another form(s) of aberrant creatures.

minotaurs

similarly to my decision to make trolls fey instead of natural, i have decided that minotaurs are fey creatures. in the feywild, minotaurs are largely subservient to fomorians. subterranean minotaur mazes often serve as outer defenses to fomorian kingdoms; however, minotaurs often are deployed by fomorians on missions above ground.

some minotaurs worship baphomet. others follow primal traditions. both of these subsets conflict with fomorian rulership.

predicting variable racial stats

my (great) expectations (actual outcome in bold):

Deva – Wis, Int or Cha
Dragonborn – Cha, Str or Con (same)
Drow – Cha, Dex or Wis (Dex, Cha or Wis)
Genasi – Int, Str or Con
Gnoll – Dex, Con or Str
Gnome – Int, Cha or Wis
Goliath – Str, Con or Wis (most likely, but i prefer Con, Str or Wis for primal goodness)
Half-Elf – Cha, Con or Wis (Con, Cha or Wis)
Half-Orc – Str, Dex or Wis (Dex, Str or Con)
Kalashtar – Wis, Cha or Dex
Revenant – Con, Dex or Wis
Shadar-kai – Dex, Int or Con
Shifter – Wis, Str or Dex
Tieflings – Cha, Int or Dex (Cha, Int or Con)
Warforged – Con, Str or Int

Sunday, September 5, 2010

unnatural

denizens of the elemental chaos refer to the natural world as the unnatural world because, as they see it, it is not natural.