[BIRTHRIGHT] A ThoughFrom AnotheList.

[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 16 May 2003, Gary Foss wrote:

> One of the things that I`ve been finding increasingly
> interesting/amusing about BR is the possibility that the Battle of
> Deismaar "awakened" the Land itself. Call it Aebrynis, call it Gaia
> or the consciousness behind the Land`s Choice, the campaign setting
> itself can be used as a sort of ultimate NPC.

Yup! I`ve been toying with that one for years. Actually, I always
thought the planet`s consciousness preceded all other sentient life, and
in fact is what made Deismaar possible -- even necessary.

The version of the concept I`ve liked most is that Aebrynis was no
different from any other habitable planet in the universe until a giant
energy being came there, and began the extremely slow process of creating
offspring. Its "body" and "biological" processes are what constitute
magic and spurred the development of so very many deeply strange (and
otherwise impossible) kinds of living things, a remarkable proportion of
them sentient. Bloodlines are sort of its genetic material, sorting and
re-sorting itself into different combinations; eventually, after long
enough, all the blooded people will be drawn together into another
Deismaar, at which point they will explode and in so doing create a second
child of the planet`s resident energy being. Won`t the Gorgon be surprised!


Ryan Caveney

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 16 May 2003, Gary Foss wrote:

> One of the things that I`ve been finding increasingly
> interesting/amusing about BR is the possibility that the Battle of
> Deismaar "awakened" the Land itself. Call it Aebrynis, call it Gaia
> or the consciousness behind the Land`s Choice, the campaign setting
> itself can be used as a sort of ultimate NPC.

Yup! I`ve been toying with that one for years. Actually, I always
thought the planet`s consciousness preceded all other sentient life, and
in fact is what made Deismaar possible -- even necessary.

The version of the concept I`ve liked most is that Aebrynis was no
different from any other habitable planet in the universe until a giant
energy being came there, and began the extremely slow process of creating
offspring. Its "body" and "biological" processes are what constitute
magic and spurred the development of so very many deeply strange (and
otherwise impossible) kinds of living things, a remarkable proportion of
them sentient. Bloodlines are sort of its genetic material, sorting and
re-sorting itself into different combinations; eventually, after long
enough, all the blooded people will be drawn together into another
Deismaar, at which point they will explode and in so doing create a second
child of the planet`s resident energy being. Won`t the Gorgon be surprised!


Ryan Caveney

************************************************** **************************
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Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
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[Mark_Aurel]

The version of the concept I`ve liked most is that Aebrynis was no
different from any other habitable planet in the universe until a giant
energy being came there, and began the extremely slow process of creating
offspring. Its "body" and "biological" processes are what constitute
magic and spurred the development of so very many deeply strange (and
otherwise impossible) kinds of living things, a remarkable proportion of
them sentient. Bloodlines are sort of its genetic material, sorting and
re-sorting itself into different combinations; eventually, after long
enough, all the blooded people will be drawn together into another
Deismaar, at which point they will explode and in so doing create a second
child of the planet`s resident energy being. Won`t the Gorgon be surprised!


Wow - that sounds pretty similar to Earth X - which had some ideas I'd planned to nab for a future Planescape campaign.

The Earth of Earth X is basically a sort of cosmic womb, containing the growing fetus of a godlike being, who would eventually grow to maturity, and destroy the planet in the process. The planet was "inseminated" with this creature thousands of years ago, and the races on the surface were altered - given so-called celestial seeds - so that they'd be able to unknowingly protect the planet, and therefore the creature within, from intrusions from other alien races.

Drawing the line that the "celestial seeds" are similar to bloodlines or magic, the scenarios sound pretty similar. Of course, there might a difference between a creature that gives life and one that is eating up the planet from within...

[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 16 May 2003, Mark_Aurel wrote:

> The Earth of Earth X is basically a sort of cosmic womb, containing
> the growing fetus of a godlike being, who would eventually grow to
> maturity, and destroy the planet in the process.

Hadn`t heard of it, but I clearly see the parallel.

> the races on the surface were altered - given so-called celestial
> seeds - so that they`d be able to unknowingly protect the planet, and
> therefore the creature within, from intrusions from other alien races.

That`s another good idea. IMO, in Cerilia that role of "the antibodies
of the land" would be taken by the Gheallie Sidhe -- the health of the
planetary being lies in mebhaighl, as measured by source potential levels;
growth of the non-elven races is therefore a direct threat to it.

Along those lines, one of the other crackpot theories I`ve had about
Cerilia is that none of the sentient races evolved there naturally. The
giants and elves had been there as caretaker spirits (of inorganic and
organic matter, respectively) for a very long time, but they never needed
to take fixed physical form until the dragons showed up, fleeing a magical
war they were losing on a far-distant world. Having arrived thinking they
were preparing their last stand against their pursuing opponents, the
dragons` first order of business was to create an army. They wanted
creatures who would be smart yet naturally loyal and dependable, good at
combat, resistant to damage, magic and poison, capable of bearing heavy
loads, good at engineering, and subterranean so as to better withstand
sieges and move about in secret, yet biological rather than constructs so
they could reproduce on their own. In other words, dwarves. With the
assistance of giants and elves to enable them to give real, biological
life to rocks, the greatest dragon mages made the first Cerilian dwarves,
the first sentient mortal life on the planet. They built their mountain
fortresses, bred their armies, and prepared magical weapons of power for
the final battle -- but their enemies never arrived.

After a thousand years or so, it became fairly clear their enemies were
never going to attack, so the dragons got back to their normal routine.
This involved a great deal of large-scale magical research. Having
created life once already, they were naturally keen to try again; but the
giants and elves were not happy with the results of the dwarf project, so
they had to go it alone. Without the powers of those races, the dragons
could not again create life or sentience from scratch, so they were forced
to work with existing, moderately advanced creatures, and work slowly to
Uplift them (in the David Brin sense). All the other sentient races, such
as gnolls, orogs, humans, goblins, etc. were raised up from existing
critters (dogs, pigs/badgers, apes, ???), and used as servants.

Eventually, the dragons got back to their true passion -- politics -- and
started using their servant tribes to struggle for dominance. Some of
them decided to teach magic to their servants to improve their power
bases, but discovered their pets strangely unable to handle most spells.
Somehow -- perhaps by learning a secret from the elves, or putting some of
their own essences into their creations, or even by putting the essences
of unwilling elves into their creations -- a few dragons created the first
bloodlines in mortals. This enabled them to teach their servant races
true magic, which gave those dragons a decisive advantage over their
rivals, and incidentally increased the fervor with which their creations
quite logically worshipped them as gods. Deismaar was then just the final
and most spectacular battle of the last of the dragons` many civil wars,
which so completely annihilated their society that the only dozen or so
survivors of their race (who had lived only by not being there) swore off
politics forever, and went away into the wilderness to hide and think alone.

> Drawing the line that the "celestial seeds" are similar to
> bloodlines or magic, the scenarios sound pretty similar.

Yup! And the uplift theory of dragons and bloodlines I just mentioned has
some accidental similarities with the creation of the Dragaerans from
Stephen Brust`s "Jhereg" novels. I guess it`s just sort of what happens
when you mix fantasy and science fiction. =)

Oh, incidentally, this theory explains the racial ability modifiers of the
human subraces: there are real biological differences between Anuireans
and Rjurik and Brecht etc. because they are the products of slightly
different intentional breeding programs by their draconic "gods".

> Of course, there might a difference between a creature that gives life
> and one that is eating up the planet from within...

I should hope at least some! OTOH, the "Aebrynis creature" in my theory
doesn`t care one whit about the fates of individual humans, either. But
it`s not ever going to leave (only its children are), so it probably cares
slightly more about sustainable development, and may get really irritated
or really sick if human technological progress goes too far. Perhaps it`s
the planet-creature`s immune system which prevents Renaissance technology
or gunpowder from appearing.


Ryan Caveney

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