Musings of a Canadian Nierite. . .

Very interesting read, thank you. However, the one question that I have yet to see anyone ask (or at least that I can recall) is, “Why Arcanis?”

Why is it that the Other came here? Why did the human gods stay? Why are the Varn building a bridge to here? Why are all these, and other, oddities popping up here? Of course, the obvious (and cop-out) answer is that this is what makes for fun adventures and stories. But do you think that every other planet in the universe has the same issues? Or even most of them? I’m guessing not. I’m thinking that there is something in/on/about Arcanis that is extremely important to the cosmology of the universe. Is it because of what the human pantheon is doing with the timeline or the fight against the silence? Does it have something to do with what Larissa saw? Why?

I don’t have any answers. But I wanted to put the question out there so that those of you with a better mind for these things than I have can think about it.

Scott

Hello Scott,

“Why Arcanis?”

To my knowledge, you are the first person to ask that question.

While I’m not going to spill the beans on a forum post, I will say this:

There IS a reason why Arcanis is the focal point of such activity. That was my starting point in coming up with Arcanis and the over-arching plot.

So there is a reason and a logical one at that. I don’t think you guys have all the pieces necessary to put it together yet, but feel free to theorize away.

Have fun!

Good luck on that, my friend.

I don’t drink.

well, i’ll take a stab at the “why Arcanis?” question:

it’s my belief that Arcanis hosts a couple of things that make it close to unique: it was the seat of a dimension spanning empire, the Sorcerer King seems to think that there is something on Arcanis (and more specifically Onara) that will let him become a deity, and finally, Arcanis is the place that pretty much every race that has a god has lived with it’s deity at one point or another. the Ss’ethrics did, the Elorii did, and the Humans have.

looking at these one at a time:
Capitol of an Empire: as the first imperium expanded, they would have had to meet other races: celestials, infernals, and elementals, if nothing else (and i’m certainly guessing that there are more things). At the very least, this would have brought attention to Arcanis.

Device to “promote” a mortal to deity status: according to the original codex (page 200) the sorcerer king discovered that “the birthing chamber of the gods” is located on Onara. the codex points to the SK learning this fact from a captured celestial giant. Once he learned it was here, he became obsessed with becoming a deity.

living with deities: pretty much self explanatory, as the deities walked the earth, and all of them seemed to live in the first city/belestor (with the exception of Big Pappa Kass).

Diverting us all away from the discussion of somehow drugging a Lawyer, and all the problems that that can entail, how about another topic! This time I’ll delve more into one of the less popular races of Onara:

The Dwarfs!

There is surprisingly little actually known about this short race, considering how important they are. While the equally (or even more) mysterious Elorii have the excuse of mind-wiping their agents before setting them out to spy on humanity, the Dwarfs have no such claim that we are aware of. It seems even the Dwarfs themselves have little memory of their past beyond the last 3000 years or so. While this may not look TOO bad to us who, despite our future space technology, cannot gain much detail of our own history that long ago, in the world of Arcanis this makes me very suspicious.

First of all, lets get the ‘spoilers’ out of the way as to what we know about the Dwarfs. First of all, the Dwarfs began their lives in the form of what we call Celestial Giants. If we trust the stats put out by PCI in the not-entirely-unrelated-to-Arcanis product “Lords of the Peaks”, the Celestial Giants were elementally attuned creatures of enormous power. They are also not native to the world of Arcanis, but came here at least 2800 years before the present time. Why they came we don’t entirely know, but a recent adventure (Origins ’12) gave us more than a few hints as to how and why.

According to that adventure, the Celestial Giants are beings from another world or plane (not made entirely clear) who traveled to Arcanis using what was effectively a giant Stargate (known as a World Gate, with each world referred to as a ‘shore’ by them). The greater portion of the race organizes themselves presently into a body known as the Iroque Coalition, and the main city of the Celestial Giants on our world was far to the north of Onara in what is now known as the Valley of Niss. In that adventure, we discovered that the Giants who were sent to Arcanis were actually banished there for some reason, making Arcanis something of an interstellar/interdimentional Australia of this fictional world for them I guess. It was for this reason that the greater portion of the race hasn’t checked in on them for the past few thousand years (seems. . . excessive to me. . . )

Well, with that bit of spoilery goodness out of the way, we can now talk about what happened to these banished souls when they came to Onara. We have no real idea how long they have been on Onara, but we do know from the Ssethregore book that the “Dragon Wars” began some 2000 years before the foundation of the Coryani Empire (about 3000 years ago in the current age). This means that the Celestial Giants co-existed with (at least) the First Imperium of Man for a minimum of 300 years before the fall of that empire. During this time the Celestial Giants became de facto “gods” of the various minor races of giants which inhabited the more northern reaches of Onara. Were these other giants also banished to the world, or were they scions of the Celestials themselves? Did the Giants have conflict at all with Humankind, as we know the First Imperium was engaged in multiple conflicts during its history? What brought the Dragons upon them, but not the Elorii or the Humans who had (effectively) occupied the Ssethric Empire?

However it started, the Giants fought for almost 300 years against the Scions of Kassagore and Yig before they were driven to the edge of extinction upon this world. It was then, just as Leonydas val’Virdan was gaining strength before his coup, that the Gods of Man decided to intercede on behalf of the Giants. From what information we have been given, the Gods (Illiir specifically) felt that his Children needed a guiding hand with their empire falling apart, and felt that the Celestial Giants upon our ‘shore’ as the best group to shepherd them. Why were the Giants chosen? Didn’t Illiir make the Vals for exactly that reason? Did they fail in their role?

Anyway, the Giants–who were about to be crushed by more powerful Dragons–readily agreed to the bargain, and the Pantheon sent their Host of Valinor once more to go after the Dragons. This war was not as one sided as it may seem, with dozens of Valinor meeting their end to the powerful scions of the Ssethric Gods (interesting note: A dragon’s fire vapourized a Nierite Valinor, Nier being the God of Fire!). In fact, according to Ssethregoran records, the war itself lasted another 34 years even after the Valinor joined the conflict! By the time the Dragons were defeated, Leonydas’ Theocracy of the Cleansing Flame was only a scant half-dozen years from falling. During this time, the surviving Celestial Giants moved down from the remains of their former lands and took up residence in the shattered remains of the First Imperium. These Giants formed eight great communities and began their tenure as Illiir’s agents as the sages and powerful guardians that they promised they would be.

Within 30 years or so, however, the Celestial Giants had had enough of living as mere guardians of mankind: They yearned for the Empire they once ruled in the North. Yearning for the legions of slaves they once had, a Giant Elder named Vodik–with the support of the Solani and Betoqi enclaves–decided that it was time to stage a coup. Within a fortnight, they had taken control of a huge portion of the former Imperium, installing Vodik as their First Elder, demanding that they be worshiped as Gods in place of the Pantheon. Fearing retribution for the actions of the Council, the Giants of the Encali and Bealaki turned to Illiir for forgiveness for the actions of their brethern.

Illiir was not impressed.

Hearing what his chosen stewards had done, he smote the entire race of Celestial Giants with a devestating curse which stripped them of almost all their powers, their great size, and banned them from the afterlife. Later, Sarish offered the shattered remains of the once proud race an ‘out’ of the curse: make the perfect item. At this point, the new race of Dwarfs was created, and they receded into their underground enclaves away from casual view of mankind (who probably would want to take some vengeance on their former oppressors.

During this period, there was a marked change in the views of the Enclaves. The four enclaves said to have been involved in the Dwarfs fall from grace—Solanos Mor, Tir Betoq, Encali, and Bealak Gempor—did a complete switch of personality based on what happened. The Solani became pious and apologetic to Illiir, the Betoqi decided to go whole-hog into the protection of mankind, while the Encali became jaded with Illiir and rejected him in favour of Sarish. The Bealaki, previous the most loyal to Illiir, became the most bitter afterwards, isolating themselves in their hidden enclave and eventually spawning the Reavers of Bealak Gempor, whose mission it is to destroy all that Illiir stands for (including their fellow Dwarfs).

While losing their powers was horrifying to the Giants/Dwarfs, nothing was as terrifying as losing their ability to go to the Afterlife. Without the ability of the souls to go to be recycled, a set lifespan was set on the race as a whole, with every death meaning the loss of one of their precious souls. The Dwarfs—still quite knowledgeable at the time—were able to develop a means of trapping the soul in death within a special kind of crystal. These “soul shards” were then stored in the deepest recesses of their enclaves for protection when the day came that Illiir (or Sarish) freed them of their Curse. Furthermore, though Dwarfs are blessed with massively long life, if they go more than a decade without basking in the light of their enclaves ‘heartstone’—a massive soul shard-like structure which appears to be the crystallized heart of their enclave’s Chief Elder from the days Illiir issued his Curse—they will wither and die.

Wow, that was quite a bit of history to cover, so let us get to the analysis of what this means!

There are many question marks as to why Illiir chose the Celestial Giants as the Stewards of Humanity in the waning days of the First Imperium. From what we learned in the recent adventure, the Giants of Onara (and Arcanis in general?) were banished from their own people to Arcanis for some reason. People are usually banished for a reason, even if it is only because they are a persecuted minority. Did Illiir know about this history? Surely a God of his power could see the whole of the race! His means that either he didn’t care about what happened to them and trusted them anyway, or there was a connection between the two forces. Did the Celestial Giants of Arcanis side with the Pantheon in some way before, which caused them to be ejected from the rest of their people?

Also, how is it that Illiir (as powerful as he is) could unilaterally block the passage of souls to the afterlife as part of his Curse? The Soul is not one of Illiir’s aspects—that portfolio belongs to Beltine, at least with Human souls—so having him be able to do this seems strange to me. From this angle, we get a bit of a hint from what happened to the Celestial Giant that the Heroes met in the afore mentioned adventure: As soon as she came through the Gate to Arcanis, she too was struck down by the same Curse as the Dwarfs (and Gnomes). Before this, she herself was a Giant, presumably completely ignorant to what has happened on Arcanis. Also, when a Dwarf or a Gnome pass through a Gate to another world, they are freed of the Curse, becoming like their Giant forbearers.

This means that, whatever the Curse entails, it is only limited to our ‘shore’ of Arcanis. Somehow, Illiir was able to put up a ‘Soul-proof force field’ around the world (or at least the continent) which prevents the souls from passing on to wherever they go (to Beltine’s Cauldron or some other location unique to the Dwarfs). This seems like pretty heavy stuff, damning an entire race like this, but Illiir’s never been known for being a particularly compassionate God outside of ‘His’ people. Hell, to enact such a powerful ‘spell’ around such an area implies more power than I had previously attributed to Illiir. As stated, his portfolio has never seemed to include The Soul, or even anything really associated with life. Could this mean that Illiir has some extra power in relation to the Celestials? Is HE actually the source of the Human soul and race? Who knows?!

Actually, this association seems to connect one of the more. . . genetic mysteries of Arcanis. Human(kin) and Elorii cannot breed because of reasons (probably having more than something to do with how the Souls are handled). Ss’ressen cannot breed with any mammals because of how drastically different their reproductive systems are. But Dwarfs CAN breed with Humans. This means that there is A LOT of commonality between the two races, possibly indicating a common origin. Are Humans and Celestial Giants from the same world? Did they share a common ancestor? Is one race but a less-developed version of the other? Are the Celestial Giants actually the Humans from the previous ‘future’ when the Gods went back in time, and what we see is a whole time-travel crazy thing?

One more interesting point about the Dwarfs is their connection to the Arcanum. In the 3.5 ruleset, there was no objection to Dwarfs being Eldritch casters, but in the newer ARPG set, Dwarfs are essentially cut off from anything but Divine magic (Theurgy). The only exception to this rule (as far as we can see) is the Encali Dwarfs, who instead can only become Sorcerer-Priests of Sarish. This actually makes sense within the scope of the metaphysics of theurgy, in that in order to cast a Divine spell, you have to BELIEVE in the Gods during the casting, or else the spell fails. The Encali have rejected Illiir, and with him most faith in the Gods aside from Sarish, and because of this do not have the faith needed to ‘spark’ other divine spells. Presumably Sorcerer-Priests work under a similar, but slightly different metaphysics to normal theurgy, else they would be as blocked from the eldritch casting as with all other Dwarfs—either that, or Sarish granted them some gift akin to how the Blade of Nier (a Valinor) granted a certain amount of fire resistance to Nol Dappan Dwarfs. The only possible exception to this is the Enclave of Deneki, who in the 3.5 days was said to have produced far more Eldritch casters than the other enclaves. Whether this holds true in the new rules set is yet unseen as we have not come across a Deneki Dwarf.

However, looking back into the lore of Arcanis, we see that their connection to the Arcanum has not been entirely cut off. The most readily apparent aspect of this is the ability of Dwarfs—with no Arcane training—to scribe runes upon items. This implies that there is still a connection between them and their inherent magical abilities. The other—a point which hasn’t come up yet in ARPG Arcanis—is their blood. Many years (centuries?) ago, the Mages of Ymandragore discovered that if one were to drink the blood of a Dwarf (at least a Deneki Dwarf), they would gain a certain command over the Arcanum, even in those who did not previously have the ‘spark.’ This lead the Sorcerer-King (or, more accurately, his Fingers) to abscond with the Heartstone of the enclave of Deneki. Faced with either a slow death or enslavement, the Dwarfs of Deneki relocated to the Isle of Ymandragore where they were enslaved for their crafting abilities by the Ymandrakes, with several of their number being used for the “Wine” they produced.

Leaving the more metaphysical and biological aspects of the Dwarfs, there is also another mystery which surrounds them: What happened to the Final Enclave? We know (as far as records go) that there were eight original enclaves of Dwarfs in the ruins of the First Imperium: Solanos Mor and Encali in the Corilathian Mountains; Tir Betoq in the Lhauzyr Mountains of the Western Lands (now in the Gods Wall Mountains in the Hinterlands); Tultipet in the Aqtau Mountains near Khitan; Nol Dappa in the SheHaulk Mountains of the Hinterlands; Bealak Gempor, which is rumoured to exist in the shattered islands of the Pirate Isles; and Deneki which presently exists upon the Isle of Ymandragore (it’s original location has been lost to time). What of the eighth enclave? Well, we know that it was known as Corett Palas, and that the inhabitants of that enclave were skilled clothiers and leatherworkers (see the ARPG version of Forged in Magic for details) that may or may not have existed on the Southern Continent, south of the Lauriol Sea, somewhere along the coast of that continent. Thus far, we have not had any opportunity to go there in any adventures, but we do have some records of the areas immediately south of the Lauriol Sea, from the Ssethregore Sourcebook, from which there is no reference to Dwarfs.

Well, as I’m presently pushing 2600 words, I think I’ll leave the discussion here. . .

The Dwarfs!

Also, how is it that Illiir (as powerful as he is) could unilaterally block the passage of souls to the afterlife as part of his Curse? The Soul is not one of Illiir’s aspects—that portfolio belongs to Beltine, at least with Human souls—so having him be able to do this seems strange to me. .

I’ve noted that in Henry’s writing that many things mean many things….

Is Illiir the -Sun- god? Or is he the -Son- god? One could make the argument that as the -Son- God humanity (the sons of man) are his children. OR That Illiir is the -Son- of another… Kassegore perhaps? Or even all of the above.

Lets explore weather Kassegore is the Father of Illiir for a moment. As Kassegore is the creator and destroyer, Kass would eventually wish to destroy Illiir just as Kass created Illiir. This provides Illiir a clear motive. To defeat HIS eventual death, he has to defeat Kassegore. One way to do that is to keep time jumping into the past just before Kass has the chance to strike back at Illiir.

Now lets toss something else into the mix…. What about the whole Anshar/Yig question. If Yig the mate of Kassegore joined the God’s war on the side of the PoM. Then that could tip the balance in favor of the PoM…for a while at least.

But wait a second? Why would Anshar/Yig join with the PoM? Well if Kass is the creator and destroyer of all things, then Kass would -HAVE- to be the creator of Life and Death. Which means that Kass created Yig. Which in turn means that when Anshar shows up she could truthfully say she was Illiir’s Sister. Which is true. She could also say she was Illiir mother. Which is also true. Now the grand celestial lie is actually the truth. (The best lie there is).

Which brings us back to Illiir’s power over souls. If he is making a play for Kassegore’s portfolio, one way to do that is to make a play over the dominion of all things Celestial. Giant’s for instance.

The devil is in the details. Especially on All Hollow’s Eve.
Of course this could just be the ramblings of an insane heretic. Knowing me, I’m voting the latter.

…snip… 4. Lastly – Eric” Illiir is that cold and capable of doing just as you suggested. Now the question is, “Did He”? …snip…

I don’t suppose you’d care to give us a few more facts to go on, Henry?

The above snip is in relation to the question, did Illiir “set up” the Celestial Giants, knowing ahead of time that they’d fail, giving him just cause to turn them into dwarves?…who turn out to be humanities best allies.

So: If the Celestial Giants are somehow an end product from mortal worlds and they are or were worshipers of the PoM then the answer is almost certainly no. Illiir is not really a nice guy as I see it, but he sure does love his children and followers. On the other hand if the Celestial Giants had no significant history with the PoM then the answer is/leans a lot more to: yeah probably. Grasping Hand: If Illiir had prior knowledge due to time looping then the point is kind of moot since it already happened/is going to happen/must happen to maintain the loop. Begs the existential question, “Does Illiir have free will.”