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Originally posted by Markustay

Also note that the only place in the Realms where the orcs repeatedly form hordes and constantly wreak havoc on anyone (including amongst themselves) is in the North, where the Netherese systematically exterminated them for thousands of years. Its no wonder they have a chip on their shoulder. Even during the Orcgate wars, after those off-world Orcs were brought to Toril to fight, things settled down and orcs became part of the local political climate (and one city has a half-orc leader). These are the types of consequences the Netherese caused, and continue to cause, long after their own demise. They just didn't bother to see 'the big picture'.

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Originally posted by Markustay

As part of my research into the 'guts' of each and every locale I place on a map, I get a 'feeling' for large swaths of area, and the temperament of the people therein. From what I can tell, The North is the ONLY place where people 'shoot first and ask questions later' in regards to orcs. They mix freely with humans in several places - they've even been part of the Calimshan/Shoon Empires (and still are, pre-plague). This is demonstrated by the sheer numbers of half-orcs in communities in the Lands of Intrigue (much higher then anywhere else, with several towns having very abnormal percentages). The only 'Orc Horde' we have on record (in canon) of penetrating into that region was the one that started in the North.

The same goes for the south and east - the only record of an Orc Horde in the Old Empires was the one brought-in from another world by the Orcish Pantheon. Orcs have always lived in all of these regions, and yet, we only see the CONSTANT and MASSIVE aggression in The North.

I am not saying Orcs in other areas are 'nicer', but they are smarter - they don't pick fights they can't win. And they certainly don't pick the same pointless fight over and over again for thousands of years. They pretty-much keep to themselves, and fight other non-humans, unless provoked. Those non-North Orcs have learned the same lesson most demi-humans have; leave humans the hell alone.

On the other hand, somewhere (probably Savage Frontier) it states that the Uthgardt have a number of half-orcs amongst them. It appears that they aren't so picky about partners, and Northern orcs aren't as resentful toward them as they are other humans (most-likely because they smell the same).

Oh... and High-Forest Orcs are NOT the same breed as the mountain Orcs. A number of tribes leave in peace right alongside the Elves (and I'm not saying its all 'cottoncandy & butterflies' - they probably don't like each other either, but they respect each other and leave each other alone, except in small, one-to-one type of conflicts. My assumption here is that Turlang has a LOT to do with 'keeping the peace' in HIS woods).

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
There is no proof anywhere that Northern orcs breed like rabbits and try stealing everything not nailed down (including crowbars to deal with nailed-down stuff) because of an ancient grudge going back two millenia.

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Originally posted by Markustay

EDIT: I have to correct myself - the Imaskari DID obliterate the kingdom of Zexthandrim, but those were just kobolds. Obviously the Imaskari wanted only a humanocentric Empire.

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Originally posted by Nicolai Withander



This question if also interesting en game mechanics term i think. What level of spell caster would these wizard kings be and what level of spell would such a binding spell be???

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Originally posted by Markustay

Yes, the were a nation of individuals... just like the Netherese.

What I think (as in, my own feelings on the matter, nothing canon) is while the Imaskari tried to find work-arounds and solutions to things, the Netherese simply tried to eliminate their problems, without considering the far-reaching consequences.

I was just re-reading the Old Empires material last night, and I came across a passage that stated that the folk of that region (which should include the Raurin civilization, which we later find out is the Imaskari) tried to find spells beyond 9th level but couldn't, and assumed that spells of that caliber were 'meant for the gods'. And yet we clearly have knowledge of such magic amongst the Netherese.

So what was the difference? the Netherese had the Nether scrolls - magic recorded by three of the Creator Races. The Imaskari, on the other hand (and AFAWK) only received some sort of help from the Fey. Obviously there was something the other three races observed or figured-out that the Fey did not, OR, that they did not want the Imaskari to know about (I have my theories about that... fey have some sort of relationship with time, and maybe knew humans should not have that level of power).

So the difference is that the Netherese first approached magic in whatever manner the Sarrukh did - probably with no boundaries - and the Imaskari first approached it from a long-lived fey perspective; that small changes wrought now will provide huge differences later on. Over time, individuals will have arisen on both sides with the opposite views, so by the time either civilization fell we had the normal human spectrum of personalities and viewpoints. Vangerdehast was taught (mentioned in two different novel series) that "you should never use magic when your own two hands will do the trick". Obviously this approach derives from the fey/Elven heritage of his teachers - that one should conserve one's resources and let the natural forces of the world do much of your work for you.

For instance, a fey or Elf might move some stones around near a small stream because he wants a nice chasm to form somewhere eventually. In a thousand years, he has a canyon blocking a route to an elven safehold. A person who adheres to the Sarrukh/Netherese school of thought will blast-away until the canyon is cut, with no thought to the environment, flora, or fauna in the region, or what other things might be upset by the changes. He expends huge amounts of power to get what he wants and have immediate results, even if those results are catastrophic to other parts of his plan (like he winds up flooding-out the area he was trying to protect, or whatever).

Both societies had there good and evil - that has nothing to do with it. Its the methodology they used to approach everything. Note that Imasakri only enslaved humans (and probably treated them halfway decently, which is what any sane person does with their 'property'). The Netherese enslaved gnomes, and treated most other non-humans with derision and even experimented on them (with the exceptions of the dwarves and Elves... although I think they weren't all that fond of the Elves either). The Imaskari were smart-enough to know that non-humans would ignore humans enslaving humans. They might even find it amusing. The Netherese didn't care who they pissed-off. I'm not saying Imaskari were any nicer then the Netherese - they were just more clever about showing their 'dark side'. In fact, I like to think that the Mulan were lead through the portals, not forced, with promises of a 'paradise' on the other end. Imagine the primitive peoples of Earth seeing Imaskari flying-about and doing miraculous things - they would think they were in the presence of gods.

Also note that the only place in the Realms where the orcs repeatedly form hordes and constantly wreak havoc on anyone (including amongst themselves) is in the North, where the Netherese systematically exterminated them for thousands of years. Its no wonder they have a chip on their shoulder. Even during the Orcgate wars, after those off-world Orcs were brought to Toril to fight, things settled down and orcs became part of the local political climate (and one city has a half-orc leader). These are the types of consequences the Netherese caused, and continue to cause, long after their own demise. They just didn't bother to see 'the big picture'.

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Originally posted by Markustay

As part of my research into the 'guts' of each and every locale I place on a map, I get a 'feeling' for large swaths of area, and the temperament of the people therein. From what I can tell, The North is the ONLY place where people 'shoot first and ask questions later' in regards to orcs. They mix freely with humans in several places - they've even been part of the Calimshan/Shoon Empires (and still are, pre-plague). This is demonstrated by the sheer numbers of half-orcs in communities in the Lands of Intrigue (much higher then anywhere else, with several towns having very abnormal percentages). The only 'Orc Horde' we have on record (in canon) of penetrating into that region was the one that started in the North.

The same goes for the south and east - the only record of an Orc Horde in the Old Empires was the one brought-in from another world by the Orcish Pantheon. Orcs have always lived in all of these regions, and yet, we only see the CONSTANT and MASSIVE aggression in The North.

I am not saying Orcs in other areas are 'nicer', but they are smarter - they don't pick fights they can't win. And they certainly don't pick the same pointless fight over and over again for thousands of years. They pretty-much keep to themselves, and fight other non-humans, unless provoked. Those non-North Orcs have learned the same lesson most demi-humans have; leave humans the hell alone.

On the other hand, somewhere (probably Savage Frontier) it states that the Uthgardt have a number of half-orcs amongst them. It appears that they aren't so picky about partners, and Northern orcs aren't as resentful toward them as they are other humans (most-likely because they smell the same).

Oh... and High-Forest Orcs are NOT the same breed as the mountain Orcs. A number of tribes live in peace right alongside the Elves (and I'm not saying its all 'cottoncandy & butterflies' - they probably don't like each other either, but they respect each other and leave each other alone, except in small, one-to-one type of conflicts. My assumption here is that Turlang has a LOT to do with 'keeping the peace' in HIS woods).

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Originally posted by Quale

In my games the Imaskari had three conflicting arcane traditions (and more but these are basic), one were the artificers, includes golems, mechanical magic, spatial manipulation, then the summoners-pactmasters-truenamers, and the ones influenced by the fey were similar to the lifeshapers from Athas.

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Originally posted by Nicolai Withander



This question if also interesting en game mechanics term i think. What level of spell caster would these wizard kings be and what level of spell would such a binding spell be???

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in 3e it would be an epic spell seed made of the binding spell

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Originally posted by sleyvas

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Originally posted by Quale

In my games the Imaskari had three conflicting arcane traditions (and more but these are basic), one were the artificers, includes golems, mechanical magic, spatial manipulation, then the summoners-pactmasters-truenamers, and the ones influenced by the fey were similar to the lifeshapers from Athas.

quote:

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Originally posted by Nicolai Withander



This question if also interesting en game mechanics term i think. What level of spell caster would these wizard kings be and what level of spell would such a binding spell be???

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in 3e it would be an epic spell seed made of the binding spell

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That's somewhat similar to what I had proposed above. The one thing I never got into very deeply (because I never ran a campaign in Imaskar), but I think is a very good question that we should answer is this: they were powerful wielders of magic, but for over a thousand years following the plague that decimated them, they turned away from the gods. I can't see any culture willfully giving up access to healing magic, so I would believe that they found some kind of replacement for such. Yet, I don't see a rise in the number of bards to match that scale happening. Maybe its only because my mind is currently on bending and elementalism, but I wonder if they didn't have a rise in the study of elemental based arts and they learned somehow to heal based on the fact that the body is made mostly of water (ala similiar to avatar). Maybe this lore was lost because the Mulan gods that arrived in Toril saw them for the threat they were to their old temples and decided to wipe out these healers so as not to have competition for worshippers. This could somewhat explain why the fertile plains of Raurin were changed into the Raurin desert too, thus removing the water from the land. Perhaps the fountain in Terbakar that created the river athis was a powerful artifact of water elementalism/bending.

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Originally posted by Xar Zarath

Did many Netherese enclaves escape just before Karsus's Folly?

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

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Originally posted by Xar Zarath

Did many Netherese enclaves escape just before Karsus's Folly?

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In canon, only two did: Shade (which hopped out either the day before the Fall, earlier the day of the Fall, or right as the Fall was happening; there are conflicting accounts on this) and Opus/Selūnarra, which Selūne grabbed and pulled into her domain, during the Fall.

That said, we don't know the ultimate fate of many of the enclaves; we don't even have a definitive number on how many existed. So it's possible that there were other surviving enclaves, far from Faerūn. I, personally, have tinkered with having one parked over one of Toril's undescribed continents, when the Fall happened.

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Originally posted by Dalor Darden

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

quote:

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Originally posted by Xar Zarath

Did many Netherese enclaves escape just before Karsus's Folly?

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In canon, only two did: Shade (which hopped out either the day before the Fall, earlier the day of the Fall, or right as the Fall was happening; there are conflicting accounts on this) and Opus/Selūnarra, which Selūne grabbed and pulled into her domain, during the Fall.

That said, we don't know the ultimate fate of many of the enclaves; we don't even have a definitive number on how many existed. So it's possible that there were other surviving enclaves, far from Faerūn. I, personally, have tinkered with having one parked over one of Toril's undescribed continents, when the Fall happened.

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Is there a record in Shou Lung of the day Karsus caused magic to fail? Does Mystra's power influence places such as Kara-Tur and Maztica with the loss of her magic prior to the events of the Spellplague?

The reason I ask is that in 2e there were "Spheres of Influence" where essentially various powers had control of magic in different places on the world of Toril. After the Imaskari, the Mulhorandi Pantheon controlled much of the lands of Imaskar...but before they came would Mystra have even been the god of magic for the Imaskari?

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

quote:

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Originally posted by Xar Zarath

Did many Netherese enclaves escape just before Karsus's Folly?

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In canon, only two did: Shade (which hopped out either the day before the Fall, earlier the day of the Fall, or right as the Fall was happening; there are conflicting accounts on this) and Opus/Selūnarra, which Selūne grabbed and pulled into her domain, during the Fall.

That said, we don't know the ultimate fate of many of the enclaves; we don't even have a definitive number on how many existed. So it's possible that there were other surviving enclaves, far from Faerūn. I, personally, have tinkered with having one parked over one of Toril's undescribed continents, when the Fall happened.

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