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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
 Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 15:58:44
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quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I don't see Khelben's actions as being a reflection of mental instability... He's working to prevent a greater evil.
But of course, he is. Blackstaff is a great hero standing high on the front when Doomy Dooms of Doom are out to get everyone and knock at the door - no question here. But when there aren't any, he will find some or other target to do much the same anyway. In other words: tend to react inadequately. The smokepowder crusade? Sending a warship after Liriel (BTW, this couldn't reassure Ruathym - for example - that what Waterdeep plays is "live and let live", even with extra "or else"), really? Attacking an unknown shapeshifted dragon, in the middle of a party, for no good reason whatsoever? All perfectly sensible actions? 
Khelben is a plans-within-plans kinda guy, someone who tends to stay a few steps ahead of everyone else. Just because you don't see why he did something, it does not prove he did it entirely without reason. |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 16:36:44
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quote:
Originally posted by evildmguy
Okay, one of my questions has been answered, in terms of how can this group be at this level of technology and that group be at that level of technology at the same time. Thanks!
More than welcome. I found the exercise of applying principles of archeosociology and history of technology to the Realms profoundly interesting.
quote:
Originally posted by evildmguy
How can we have had 35k years of history and no evidence of over half of it? Where are the remains/ruins/writings of the sarrukh? Dragons? Giants?
Let us begin with some ruins and remains.
In Serpent Kingdoms we discover the crypts of Oreme in Aunaroch, dating back to the fallen sarrukh realm of Isstosseffifil (-33,800 DR), various mysterious ruins and relics in the Western Heartlands dating back 30,000 years and more, Sar'Rukoth, the Vault of Records and other ruins of lost Okoth (-34,100 DR) in the southern deserts of Mulhorand and Unther and innumerable ancient ruins in the jungles of Chult from the continous presence there of serpentine races dating back to the sarrukh of thirty five millenia ago. Nor are these the only ruins from the sarrukh. Many, many more exist, though identifying them may prove difficult, as time and less-than-careful looters will have destroyed most visible signs.
The Hall of Mists in the High Forest dates back to a secret society of three Creator Races, the sarrukh, batrachi and aearee, which bore the name of Ba'aetith. They also left behind what became the Nether Scrolls, so not only did they leave both ruins and writings, but they profoundly influenced the rise of human civilisations.
Direct evidence that other remnants of Creator Races may have led to some of the most powerful magical civilisations of humanity is sparse, but hints of it do exist. In addition, ruins which predate all written history in a region are not unlikely to be Creator Race relics. This applies to structures such as the Bloodforges and the Mountain of Iron in the Utter East, Ironfang Keep in the Moonsea North and perhaps the Citadel of the Raven as well (both likely to be giant-built) and so on.
Most of the more impressive giant ruins are covered by miles of glaciers, of course, with the swallowing up of their heartlands by the inexorable advance of the Great Glacier. Yet even so, it is possible to find magnificent examples if adventurers were to look. In addition, I have no doubt that many underground caverns of great beauty once held stone giant halls, but have now been taken over by other underground races. Check Giantcraft for further examples of giant societies.
As for dragons, their physiology makes it much less likely that they would built houses or leave tools. After all, what need have they of knives to cut their meat, spears to hunt it or a roof to shelter them? They have claws, teeth and scales. Even when a dragon rules a realm of primitive humans, it is most likely to demand tribute in the form of portable treasure rather than any form of rooted building. And the portable treasure assuredly still exists, but it would take a pretty awesome scholar to recognise when a given gem is carved by a human living in a society ruled by a human king and when it is carved by one ruled by a dragon.
Even so, dragonic realms did build things, I expect. But the problem with these buildings is that they were built by humans in the service of dragons, but later attacked by rival dragons, giants and elves wielding titannic magics. Thus, the forces that were applied to their destruction were considerably more powerful than those which contributed to their construction. By comparison, imagine how much would remain in the way of identifiable ruins thousands of years later if a village of mud huts were attacked with modern bulldozers, napalm and bunker-busters.
Those ruins which were not completely destroyed at the time have no doubt been occupied by a succession of multiple cultures of various races in the meantime. Some of the elven realms were no doubt founded on the sites of dragonic capitals, changing the style and decoration of older buildings with magic and artistry to suit their own tastes. How would a scholar of modern Faerun know that he was looking at a fusion of two or more cultures when exploring the ruins of these early elven realms?
But aside from these considerations, let's not forget how much entropy changes things in just ten thousand years, let alone thirty thousand. Stonehenge is less than five thousand years old, but we know next to nothing about its builders. Without powerful magic, how would anyone in Faerun know the difference between the ruins of a human, elven, dwarven, sarruk, batrachi, aearee, fey, giant or dragon ruin? In most cases, they'd be buried, overgrown and mostly invisible to the naked eye. All that would be found is a couple of stones standing up from the ground that looked deliberately shaped.
The search for the oldest man-made structures has involved serious scientists using modern technology estimating the same 'megalithic structure' as being between 20,000-30,000 years old, being more than 75,000 years old or being just a collection of random stones. And that's the best we can do with ruins that are any older than 10,000 years.
Cave paintings exist that are older than this, of course, but that's because caves are naturally almost a sterile environment for conserving stuff, not because early people concentrated their art there. Do dragon paintings exist in caves in Faerun? Assuredly! But what they can tell us about the real centers of civilisations at the time might not be representative.
While I don't consider game mechanics to be an accurate representation of the reality in the setting*, I think it's reasonable to say that temporal limitations on divination and necromantic spells aren't purely a game-tech phenomenon. That is, the further back in the mists of time that a given spell must reach, the more powerful the spellcaster needs to be. In order to contact spirits or read the psychometry of artifacts dating back centuries, a user of magic or psionics needs to be exceptional. To reach millenia back, he needs to be immensely powerful. Tens of millenia is likely to be so far back that impressions are unreliable in the extreme and so cryptic that the scholar cannot be sure of anything.
So when attempting to use Legend Lore or similar spells on something that looks like a ruin of truly ancient times, without knowing anything more, it is quite possible that even dating accurate enough to know which race it belonged to is something which requires an epic level caster. In fact, given that some spells use limits like a century per level of the caster, I'd venture to say that past ca -2000 DR, most of the information known to even the best sages in Faerun is essentially based on written records of civilisations that were active then and limited by their own knowledge or lack thereof.
Anything known about a specific dragon realm of -27,000 DR might be the result of ten seperate transmissions of second-hand rumours from one ancient civilisation to the next, with some rumours being fanciful translations from primitive archeology. In this sort of 'Chinese whipers'/'telephone game', any detail at all is suspect.
*It's a low-resolution model for our convenience, not how things really work there. |
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evildmguy
Acolyte
USA
33 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 16:38:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
quote:
Originally posted by evildmguy
My other question has not but it was murky, so let me try it again.
How can we have had 35k years of history and no evidence of over half of it? Where are the remains/ruins/writings of the sarrukh? Dragons? Giants?
-Well, getting the obvious out of the way, the planet has kind of been blow up, smashed around, devastated, and various other maladies over the +/-35,000 years of recorded, 'civilized' history that we have. Having your ancient society blown off the map would kind of make it hard to find ruins and remnants of it and such.
Hmm. I do grant that there has been one RSE during that time. (I'm the type to ignore 4E but even that wasn't huge in terms of the land, and if anything, should have revealed more.) But I don't think there has been enough to destroy all evidence of them.
And, 35k years is not a lot of geological time, if we are using real world basics here, such that it would be buried that much deeper. Yes, we can default back to magic, and if that's the conclusion, that's fine. Just looking for reasons.
Maybe the sarrukh were different enough that there have been ruins but humans didn't recognize them for what they were? Just not sure on why we don't have more giant-ish stuff about. Some in the stonelands but not much elsewhere.
Thanks again for the replies!
edg |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 16:51:01
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quote:
Originally posted by evildmguy
And, 35k years is not a lot of geological time, if we are using real world basics here, such that it would be buried that much deeper. Yes, we can default back to magic, and if that's the conclusion, that's fine. Just looking for reasons.
Maybe the sarrukh were different enough that there have been ruins but humans didn't recognize them for what they were? Just not sure on why we don't have more giant-ish stuff about. Some in the stonelands but not much elsewhere.
Also, don't forget that to find evidence of ruins, identity them and for this knowledge to become known by more people, you need a lot of people deliberately looking.
The number and age of old ruins known to us on Earth in the 18th century was by far less than those we knew about in the 19th, which was dwarved again by what we found in the 20th century and it is only now that we are beginning to establish fairly accurate dates and plausible explanations for a lot of what we found.
There are people on Toril that look for ruins, but the vast majority of them do it to loot them for valuables, not record them for posterity. Anything remotely accessible to people will mostly have been picked over by tomb robbers and desperados known as adventurers, with any true archeological evidence destroyed. Bones trampled, art defaced in tearing out gems and valuable metals, etc.
Even if we were to propose that the wealth and population density of Toril is closer to our 19th century than our Middle Ages, this still leaves the intense specialisation necessary for good archeologists out of the hands of any but a few royals and nobles, archmages or adventurer lords. And most of these, again, are actually specialised in their trade, not a 'useless' hobby like ancient archelogy.
You can expect that the ratio of archelogists per square mile of potential discoveries on Toril is several orders of magnitude less than on Earth. And we've seen on our Earth just how much difference this makes, when we compare what is known about European pre-history with what is known about New Guinean pre-history.
Both societies appear to have started acriculture at about the same period, but compare New Guinea with an equivalent square mile area of Western Europe and see how many artifacts and ruins from 5,000 BCE there exist in the archeological community.
Fewer digs means that fewer ruins are found, no matter whether many or few ruins exist. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 17:10:37
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There are ruins EVERYWHERE.
I once made a comment on Ed's thread that "It feels like you can't walk ten feet in the Realms without stumbling over the ruins of some long forgotten kingdom", and THO responded "Thats the precisely the feel Ed was going for."
The ruins we know about are just the ones that have been found - there are many, many more. The Citadel of the Raven is unbelievably old - it may date to the Creators, and the Temple of Saigai (to the east) is over 8000 years old, and appears to been built by some sort of 'beast men'. And then there is Calimshan - a 'living fossil'.
Dwarves (as we have been told by Ed) are infuriatingly secretive when it comes to geographic information - they purposely obscure information and rarely create maps (and when they do, the maps are well hidden and done in such a way as to be near-indecipherable by others).
Elves, on the other hand, believe certain knowledge should not be "in the hands of lesser beings" (in other words, non-Elves), so they lock-away all sorts of history and science (including the 'magical sciences') in their most secret libraries hidden from prying eyes.
Halflings don't bother with written history - they are more of a verbal folklore type of culture, and probably tell very little about other races. Who knows what Gnomes think - they're nuts.
As for the other races, except for a few highly evolved species (illithids, maybe aboleth, etc), most of them don't bother with history, beyond some rather sparse and imprecise religious teachings.
So there we have it - fallen civilizations are everywhere on Toril, and humans usually don't even know where to look, or what they found. For instance, anything found in Anauroch will be blamed on the Netherease, when it could have come from Thaeraval, the Cloud Kingdom, any of the three survivor states (Asram, Anauria, and Hlondeth), Delzoun, at least two Elven nations, the beholders, the Sarrukh, the Asabi, etc, etc... Faerunians do not have the same knowldge we do - they would not realize just how many civilizations over lapped in the same regions. This makes it much harder for them to figure-out what came from where (no carbon-14 dating), and how many civilizations there really were.
We FR fans probably don't even know about 10% of what once existed in the Realms, and we know far more then the folks that live there.
And then there is the absolute, complete destruction of historical records. Considering the magnitude and severity of past disasters - The Sundering, tearfalls, Miyertar/High Moor, Fall of Netheril, Great Conflagration, Imaskari/Mulan Godwar, Orcgate Wars, etc, etc - it is a small wonder we have any records of ancient cultures in the Realms. In our RW, there is evidence of ancient civilizations well over 7000 years old in India, and yet we have almost no record of them - the British rail companies leveled all the ruins to use the stone to line their rail-beds back in the 1800's. What little evidence we have is from a couple of early explorers who took notes on the sites (when the British Gov't sent out official teams years later, the ruins were gone).
Thats what happens - progress. In ancient Egypt (and elsewhere), people have been leveling and building on top of important relics for thousands of years - every time there is an earthquake or flood stuff is being found beneath people's homes! Thats just the way of things - we are fortunate to have had things like the Chinese and Roman empires, that took such excellent civic notes about everything. Can you imagine what our Egyptian knowledge would be without the accidental discovery of the Rosetta Stone?
And here on our RW we are finding evidence of other cultures we didn't know abut all the time - beneath the sea, and elsewhere. There is even evidence of offshoots of humanity that became extinct - huge men (Gigantopithecus) and tiny ones (Homo floresiensis). We also have entire species wiped-out in recent years, just because of over-hunting - the dodo and Thylacine. The Thylacine (Tasmanian wolf/tiger) was purposely hunted to extinction because it 'bothered people'.
On a planet full of other races, you don't think some civilizations may have been purposely wiped off the planet because they 'bothered people'? It happens all the time. It even continues to happen today. History is written by the winners... the losers (and their realms) get forgotten.
So its not that their is huge gaps of history that should be there - its that we don't have complete knowledge of every little thing that has ever happened on Toril.
As it should be.  |
"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 04 Mar 2012 17:15:26 |
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader
USA
3738 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 19:08:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Icelander
*It's a low-resolution model for our convenience, not how things really work there.
-This concept is key. The sourcebooks that we have are, for the most part, designed to be Dungeons & Dragons game supplements. The novels that we have are, for the most part, contemporarily-relevant stories that WotC wants to have told, that they contract authors to write. There are plenty minor details that are generally assumed, that are skipped over because they're seen as minor and inconsequential, or not relevant to the Forgotten Realms when viewed through the lens of a D&D game. Things like ancient lore and artifacts are casualties of this kind of worldview. It's not that ancient lore and artifacts get completely ignored and aren't in any way relevant to D&D games- for plenty of people, it's the opposite. But, in terms of how this info is told- Ancient Dragons did X, Y, and Z, as opposed to, in a story or sourcebooks, someone finds ruins of Ancient Dragons who did X, Y, and Z- the archeological aspect of things is kind of minimized, or not given any thought whatsoever. |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2388 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2012 : 21:41:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Khelben is a plans-within-plans kinda guy, someone who tends to stay a few steps ahead of everyone else. Just because you don't see why he did something, it does not prove he did it entirely without reason.
Do you? If anything goes, it's not a meaningful theory. That's just an universal cop-out.
But on the other eyestalk... this reminds me of something from Van Richten's Guide to Vampires. So, proceeding on the subject of slipping sanity... quote:
Sometimes the transition from sanity to insanity is hard to spot. As a result of the creatures' immortality, they will often engage in plans that might take centuries to reach fruition. The creatures' day-to-day actions, when viewed without the long view of immortality, might make little or no sense. The transition to insanity is insidious, subtly more complicated as the vampire engages in more and more intricate plans - "wheels within wheels within wheels", to quote one vampire - and more labyrinthine plotting. Eventually the creature's day-to-day actions make no sense to the creature itself, but it follows through with them anyway.
- Dr. Rudolph Van Richten
BTW, wasn't there one kind of nice but mad surviving Aearee in one of novels? |
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And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
Posted - 05 Mar 2012 : 06:02:55
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quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Khelben is a plans-within-plans kinda guy, someone who tends to stay a few steps ahead of everyone else. Just because you don't see why he did something, it does not prove he did it entirely without reason.
Do you? If anything goes, it's not a meaningful theory. That's just an universal cop-out.
Eh. It's been proven in the Realmslore that even some Chosen don't know the full extent of Khelben's plans-within-plans. Why should non-Chosen know differently? |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2388 Posts |
Posted - 05 Mar 2012 : 08:40:19
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quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
It's been proven in the Realmslore that even some Chosen don't know the full extent of Khelben's plans-within-plans. Why should non-Chosen know differently?
Because while "we don't know everyting" is a normal situation, "nevermind, it should be something we don't know" is just a meaningless cop-out: explains everything, and thus predicts nothing. Whether applied specifically to this issue or not.
Moreover, two of the three Blackstaff's acts i mentioned were heat-of-the-moment decisions. And did not proceed "just as planned" unless he wanted Liriel to become Zedriniset (maybe he had a secret crush on her and wanted her to become his equal?) and the steel dragon to wreck that banquet (-maybe he didn't like the cake? -he's too sneaky, you can never tell!) or something. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
Edited by - TBeholder on 05 Mar 2012 11:29:56 |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 05 Mar 2012 : 18:19:13
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quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
It's been proven in the Realmslore that even some Chosen don't know the full extent of Khelben's plans-within-plans. Why should non-Chosen know differently?
Because while "we don't know everyting" is a normal situation, "nevermind, it should be something we don't know" is just a meaningless cop-out: explains everything, and thus predicts nothing. Whether applied specifically to this issue or not.
Moreover, two of the three Blackstaff's acts i mentioned were heat-of-the-moment decisions. And did not proceed "just as planned" unless he wanted Liriel to become Zedriniset (maybe he had a secret crush on her and wanted her to become his equal?) and the steel dragon to wreck that banquet (-maybe he didn't like the cake? -he's too sneaky, you can never tell!) or something.
Where does it say those acts were heat of the moment decisions? |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 05 Mar 2012 : 20:05:11
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It's theoretically possible that every seeming mistake that Khelben ever made was the result of a convuleted scheme on his behalf, the ingenious results of which would not become apparent until a millenia after his death.
It's also an unfalsifiable belief and thus not really a fruitful avenue of discussion. Any time someone points out that a seemingly rash or ill-considered action on Khelben's part actually made things worse, the proponent of 'Khelben is never wrong, just mysterious' can always add another layer of complexity to Khelben's secret scheme. That this requires omniscience on his part that is never demonstrated by any other Chosen is pretty much irrelevant, as those arguing this presumbably already believe this of him.
Nevertheless, I'll point out that the fact that Khelben may in fact believe that he's acting as part of a long-term plan does not mean that he'd fall under many definitions of 'sane'. In a legal sense, I believe that Khelben is sane, i.e. that he's responsible for his actions. From a psychological health perspective, he's so traumatised by centuries of loss and disillusionment that only an array of coping mechanisms keeps him functioning at all. That's not 'sane', that's 'barely functioning'.
If he didn't have the comfort of the recent relationship with Laeral, a fellow immortal, I believe that Khelben would have so little human perspective that his plans had a high probability of being fundamentally flawed. That his methods had become unsound. That he managed to soldier on before ending his life in a way noble enough so that it couldn't have been called a selfish act I attribute entirely to the beneficial effects of sharing immortality with someone.
I point out that Elminster has at least once maintained that certain acts that the Blackstaff believes were part of a long-term plan were actually motivated by emotional imbalance on the part of Khelben. See the Sea of Fallen Stars, on spelljammers and Khelben's obsessive crusade in ridding the Sea of Swords of remains of them. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 05 Mar 2012 : 22:01:24
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| I'm willing to admit that anyone can make mistakes, including Khelben. I just don't think we have enough data to say he was acting without reason in the specified examples. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
Posted - 06 Mar 2012 : 00:49:44
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quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
It's been proven in the Realmslore that even some Chosen don't know the full extent of Khelben's plans-within-plans. Why should non-Chosen know differently?
Because while "we don't know everyting" is a normal situation, "nevermind, it should be something we don't know" is just a meaningless cop-out: explains everything, and thus predicts nothing. Whether applied specifically to this issue or not.
You're assuming, though, that these plans-within-plans have all been fully outlined. And we know that isn't the case, because Steven Schend has made that clear on several occasions.
It would really only be a "meaningless cop out" if designers deliberately chose to leave them as not detailed. But my reading of what Sage Schend has told us, in the past, is that it's simply about providing opportunities for future designers to tinker and tweak with their own lore in order to further generate new material based on these vague references. It's not about "something we don't know," but, rather, just something we don't know... yet. |
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Clarification on the Ages of Faerun
