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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
 Posted - 01 Nov 2016 : 22:52:35
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Hey, was anything ever done with this material other than using it as an explanation for uprisings against dragons?? I noted it when rereading the 4e campaign guide on Returned Abeir. It appears to be some kind of short term use material, with possibly an area effect, and it can apparently be fitted onto the tips of lances and such (I'd guess arrowheads too). What exactly are its effects? Extra damage versus dragons, lowering of magic resistance, lowering of their resistance versus their own breath weapon damage type, slowing them down, removing their flight ability??
>>Dragons quarreled, empires rose, expanded, and decayed, or were wrested from the talons of their dying emperors, but draconic rule survived nearly unchallenged until the Blue Breath of Change unearthed small quantities of dragonbane amber , enough to shatter the Rule of Dragons.>>
<<History DC 15: When the Blue Breath of Change came, the Undying One’s empire nearly fell to its dragonborn slaves who rose in rebellion. Melauthaur did nothing to prevent lesser dragons who served him from being slaughtered by dragonborn who wielded
dragonbane amber . When the rebellion was put down, the Undying One allowed the jungle to overrun his lands, and he took no new humanoid slaves.>>
>>Djerad Kusold: One of the stone ruins of the Jungle Empire was a dragonborn slave city that became a rebel fortress when the Blue Breath of Change briefly bequeathed Returned Abeir with dragonbane amber . The dragonborn of Melabrauth managed to slay nearly one-quarter of the Undying One’s dragons. But the Undying One tapped a store of Dawn Titan lore, causing the earth to swallow Djerad Kusold, all its dragonborn defenders, and its yellow crystal.<<
>>History DC 10: Most creatures in Returned Abeir know that in the wake of the Blue Breath of Change, the earth was rent and split. Afterward, amber crystals were discovered across the land, whose mere
presence weakened dragons nigh unto death. These amber crystals were most prolific in Skelkor, though they were also found in lesser quantities in other lands. Dubbed “dragonbane amber,” the substance was seized upon by the slave races. Many dragons were killed then, and some ancient empires tumbled. The Empress Dragon survived only by fleeing her own land with a ragged guard of suzerains.
History DC 20: Fortunately for the dragons of Returned Abeir, dragonbane amber is limited in quantity. Once used, a crystal crumbles into useless dust. Over the decades, every known store of
dragonbane amber was used up. The heady days of great rebellions are over. Nowadays, tiny bits of dragonbane amber are sometimes still discovered in old ruins, but rarely in a large enough quantity to harm
even a single dragon, let alone bring down a draconic empire.
History DC 25: Centuries before the appearance of dragonbane amber , a particularly able clan of dragonborn slaves rebelled and managed to hold an entire outlying province of Skelkor for itself for nearly two centuries. The rebels named this province Tymanchebar,
and lived free, though they were constantly threatened by flights of dragons. Then the Blue Breath of Change shook the land. When the skies
returned to their silver hue, all saw that the heart of Tymanchebar, Djerad Thymar, was gone. Though the remaining free dragonborn fought to retain their autonomy, their spirit was broken. Even armed with
dragonbane amber, they failed to topple the Empress Dragon’s rule.<<
>>Rolling plains and slave cities predominate in Skelkor. Few foreign dragons or humanoids seek to enter the realm of the Empress Dragon. Yet stories of undiscovered fields of dragonbane amber regularly draw the foolish, who find only an untimely death.
Marangor
City of Dragons; Population 7,600
The capital city of Skelkor is an impressive mountainlike fortress of concentric stone walls rising in the center to provide hundreds of dragons with covered lairs. It was built and expanded for thousands of years by dragonborn. The City of Dragons is Gauwervyndhal’s seat of power. It has been often assailed, and was even taken once by rebellious dragonborn brandishing lances tipped with dragonbane amber. But with the aid of rathrea prophecy, the Empress Dragon
fled with a strong guard of suzerains, waiting for the rebellion to burn out its limited resources. Afterward, she returned in fury, slaying nine out of every ten slaves, and torturing the rest into broken shells.>>
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Arivia
Great Reader
Canada
2965 Posts |
Posted - 02 Nov 2016 : 10:51:43
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| ABER4-2 has a lot about dragonbane amber in it and is the best source you're going to find, I think: http://livingforgottenrealms.com. It includes some more details and a single-use power. |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 03 Nov 2016 : 16:24:51
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Thank you, I was hoping to find more lore on Abeir itself via this method of searching. I find the below interesting, in that Abeir... a world notedly without divine magic... had paladins . Possibly the worship of Primordials was working exactly or very much like divine magic?
From that ABER4-2 entry
The inscription on the portal reads, in Draconic, “Did the mighty paladin and hero Thaidgalbe the Foehammer bring low the dastardly female dragon Katchendyn, known also as Deathember.”
A moderate Arcana or History check can confirm this is true, a part of Abeir’s history from the time of the rebellion against the dragons. In addition, a successful check confirms that that Deathember was a red dragon.
also these entries
The inscription on this portal reads, in Draconic, “The mighty barbarian Vesmur bring an end to the terror of Rhaelladaegarys, also known as Frozenmist.”
A moderate Arcana or History check can confirm this is true, a part of Abeir’s history from the time of the rebellion against the dragons. In addition, a successful check confirms that that Frozenmist was a white dragon.
The inscription on the third portal reads, in Draconic, “The young duke, Bramund of house Colwer did lead the cowardly Angurmarious, also known as The Night Death to his death.”
A moderate Arcana or History check can confirm this is true, a part of Abeir’s history from the time of the rebellion against the dragons. In addition, a successful check confirms that that The Night Death was a black dragon.
The inscription on the fourth portal reads, in Draconic, “The pompous Gibar-Kathil was brought low by the human wizard Muldlarn of the Howling Mountains, though the creature’s bite will eventually lay him low many days later.”
A moderate Arcana or History check can confirm this is true, a part of Abeir’s history from the time of the rebellion against the dragons. In addition, a successful check confirms that that Gibar-Kathil was a green dragon.
A Hard DC confers the knowledge that this is false information and that the dragon actually died of old age and Muldlarn circulated false stories of his deed.
The inscription of the fifth portal reads, in Draconic, “The honorable ranger Wirlgyn Pemnock brought down the thieving Rangiramius amidst storm and rain.”
A moderate Arcana or History check can confirm this is true, a part of Abeir’s history from the time of the rebellion against the dragons. In addition, a successful check confirms that that Rangiramius was a blue dragon.
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 03 Nov 2016 : 20:40:00
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First, 'The Blue Breath of Change' sounds a LOT like the Spellplague... but it would be too long ago for that to make sense.*
Thus, I theorize that that is a reference to the first Magitastrophe (Arcageddon?) - the FIRST Sundering, that split the worlds. The timing would be better, since it would coincide to the time before elves came to Toril, when the Dragon empires first arose. The Elves later used a High Magic Ritual (that "reached backwards and forwards in time") which changed the nature of that first Sundering (in part) and created Evermeet. I propose that that may have been when Dragonbane Amber got introduced to Abeir (NOT 'New Abeir' - it was a bad mistake for the 4e designers to repeatedly use a name in historic context that would have NOT EXISTED before parts of Abeir were returned to Toril!)
Dragonbane Amber seems to have been something unique to Abeir, created at the time Abeir itself was created, or at a later date, as I just proposed above. Since the exact nature of Evermeet was to "give The People (Elves) a place they could call their own, without control or interference from outside forces", and it probably tapped into the Sundering (the vingette in GHotR hits at that), it may have also inadvertently created the Dragonbane Amber (literally 'retconned' Abeir LOL), because dragon swere the biggest threat to Elven freedom at that time.
At least thats my spin on all of that. You have to do some epic 'fudgery' to get 4e lore to work with previous (and now future) lore. Since the Sundering happened again (did it? I know there was series of novels under that heading), and seemed to have 'undone' (some of) what the Spellplague wrought, that may have 'shut off' the Dragonbane Amber, created more of it, created some on Toril itself, augmented its power, or changed its power... or all of the above.
Its pretty open-ended - spin it however you want. 
*EDIT: Its been awhile since I read through the 4e FRCG, and I may be over-estimating the times involved here, now that I think about it. I forgot that a century passed after the Spellplague happened, so I may have over-complicated everything above. IF the Blue Breath of Change WAS the Spellplague, then all of that history may have only happened 'a century ago' (the first appearance of Dragonbane Amber). If thats the case, I would say it had something to do with the nature of (returned) Abeir, Realmspace, and maybe even Maztica (perhaps pre-existing Mica deposits weren't shifted over to Abeir, and instead were converted to this Amber? Or somehow caused it to come about?)
The problem with all that is that Amber takes millions of years to create (I think), so how would that have happened spontaneously? UNLESS its somewhere between these two theories - that the Amber DID appear only a century ago in Returned Abeir, but since all this Sundering/Spellplague stuff seems to be a SINGLE, cross-time event, modifying Larakond (RA) in the past may have been what happened. Maybe I had it backwards, and Mica is some sort of magical residue left-behind after the Amber was first obliterated (during the initial Sundering), and then was 'set aright' when Larakond returned to Toril? Timey-Wimey stuff is so confusing (and it doesn't help that they named two different(?) events 'The Sundering' now).
More like the Spellplague was the 'Unsundering', and the second (third?) event was the REsundering (resetting the setting back to how it was pre-Spellplague).
My head hurts now. 
EDIT: But we all know the truth is that the 4e designers didn't put a whole lot of thought into any of it, like 'paladins' on a non-deific world, or 'Amber' forming instantly. It was more along the lines of , "Hey, lets just put lots of kewl concepts and words all over the place, so we have more time to play 'Karate Guy'!)
Mini-rant over.  |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 03 Nov 2016 20:58:10 |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11696 Posts |
Posted - 03 Nov 2016 : 22:37:52
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4e FR campaign guide states that "the Blue Breath of Change" is what Abeirans call the spellplague.
My thoughts are to simply use some of their mess-ups to explain what I'd like to see happen with the whole debacle now. I suspect that some of the Dawn Titans/Primordials were also gods, and something happened on the new world that weakened them. Personally, I'm on a kick that Abeir now has some "gods" that had transferred over (and have since "returned")... and many of those "gods" may themselves have been Primordials in truth (such as Talos, Ulutiu, Ubtao (who we know was), maybe even Lathander, etc...). To my view, that's the quickest way to explain the disappearance of certain gods and their sudden reappearance.
If I were to try to explain where the stuff came from... I'd go with the idea that Ao actually had plans in the works to cause the spellplague... and when the worlds transferred he just created the stuff as a means to give mortals the ability to kill off dragon lords. |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 03 Nov 2016 : 23:50:44
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Yeah, I had completely forgotten about the 'lost century' - MY BAD. 
I was thinking that the overthrow of the Dragon Lords was something that happened in the DISTANT past, 500-1000 years ago. I hadn't realize how recent that event was (that nearly ALL of the 'history' portion of the 4e Abeir material actually took place POST-3e). I guess we block unpleasantness out of our minds, eh?
I am still mentally toying with a Mica/Amber connection - it just seems a bit too coincidental to me that there are TWO odd, magical substances in the same region (albeit different worlds... most of the time), that you can find nowhere else on Toril. I've connected the entirety of the Draconic Pantheon with the Maztican one (its a great fit), and also shoe-horned Tiamet into the Maztica stuff (via the Tlincallis - in RW myth Tiamet created the scorpomen). Perhaps the Dragonbane Amber was supposed to be on Abeir-Toril (which would changed history quite a bit, with Toril's own dragon Empires), and after the world was split Asunder, all the Amber went to Abeir, leaving behind the 'Mica' residue? Not sure if any of that works.
But wait... thats not quite right either. 
The Dragonbane Amber did NOT EXIST until after Abeir Returned, on either world. Hmmmm...
It still makes sense that it was something that was supposed to exist, but then didn't (probably because of the Sundering, or the High Magic Ritual the Elves cast that altered the Sundering). What if the Amber itself got separated into two parts? The 'magical' portion got left behind on Toril (the Mica), and the physical 'Amber' portion got shunted to Abeir? So the Amber always existed on Abeir, but was dormant until reunited with its 'Mica' half.
Or am I over-thinking it?  |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Dragonbane Amber ? Any info?
