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  1. #41
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Originally posted by ryancaveney@Sep 26 2003, 04:34 PM
    On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, irdeggman wrote:



    > Now since cerilian elves are for the most part "one-with nature" and

    > that since death is the end of things that their souls wouldn`t want

    > to come back back.



    On the contrary, I would say that since the Sidhelien are naturally

    immortal, there is nothing more natural to a dead one than resurrection.





    Ryan Caveney

    Hmm so elves are very much into tampering with the natural progression of things - dust to dust, etc. Resurection isn't a 'bending' of natural laws but a total rewriting of them.

    Erik doesn't promote resurrection and as stated before the elven philosophy is very much akin to his outlook.

    There was something about elves who just gave up living because it was time and just faded away. It might have been in one of those dreaded PS. But the concept seems to follow along with the standard elven one, that to everything there is a time.
    Duane Eggert

  2. #42
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    I think Resurrection (and Raise Dead & True Res.) should be the rarest of rare powers. If I had my way, bringing back the dead would be limited to the Miracle spell, and cost a fat amount of XP (1000xp per level of the character being raised seems reasonable) to keep it a rare-use power. I mean, really, can you think of a much more miraculous event for mortals?

    Ryan, you have a point...although elves are connected to nature, they also defy the natural cycle by being immortal. So death only comes as the result of some violent, unnatural event.

    However, I don't see Resurrection as being any more acceptable than dying. If it did happen, I would want it to be a legendary event with a very special storyline around it.

    But if it's impossible to raise elves from the dead, it does leave open storylines for desperate elven necromancers trying to revive lost brethren, but coming up with rather corrupt results. Stephen R. Donaldson's Illearth trilogy provides some good inspiration there (Book 3, where the Archmage Elena tries to call back the ancient archmage-hero Kevin Landwaster, and gets only a weaker shade instead, who is easily corrupted by Lord Foul...a powerful story).

    -Osprey

  3. #43
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    ----- Original Message -----

    From: "Osprey" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

    Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 12:15 PM



    > I think Resurrection (and Raise Dead & True Res.) should

    > be the rarest of rare powers.



    My solutuion is to make these effects temporary. The souls of great heros

    have heroic things to do in the afterlife. Would you rather adventure in

    the physical world where the king gives you direction, or in the afterlife

    for cosmic stakes in which your direction comes from your patron diety? Not

    only would the raised character have the sad dispossition of Lasurus, but

    they would be eager to get back to the realm of the afterlife to continue

    their real work. So it might be fun to have an old character return for an

    episode as a guest star (and the sudden intrusion of TV terminology is

    intentional) and then return to the afterlife for cosmic campaigns.

    Likewise, if one visited the Shadow World, one might encounter an old friend

    on just such a mission. Imagine the party who confronts their old druidic

    friend, Olfjor of the blue sash, in the shadow world. They ask him to join

    him on their mission, but he refuses for the forces of Azrai will not wait.

    The party is stunned: "Is the rise of Azrai more than just speculation?"

    "Indeed," Olfjor replies before giving the characters some useful bit of

    information about their quest before running off to battle some minion of

    Azrai. It certainly would add weight to the notion that dead PC`s have

    better things to do than come back and worry about this kingdom or that

    treasure.



    Kenneth Gauck

    kgauck@mchsi.com

  4. #44
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Kenneth there is something that you pointed out that conflicts with the 3/3.5 rules. A character cannot be raised or resurrected if the soulddoesn&#39;t wish to come back, i.e., this condition cannot be &#39;forced&#39;.

    Since you point out that the elves (actually I guess you were referring to all sentients here) would likely have &#39;heroic things to do in the afterlife&#39; and &#39;they would be eager to get back to the realmof the afterlife to continue their real work&#39;.

    This leads to why elves (in Cerilia) can&#39;t (or wouldn&#39;t) be raised from the dead. They simply view the transition as a change or metmorphisis to something different that has a &#39;greater calling&#39;, hence they wouldn&#39;t &#39;allow themselves&#39; to be raised.
    Duane Eggert

  5. #45
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    ----- Original Message -----

    From: "irdeggman" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

    Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 7:56 PM



    > Kenneth there is something that you pointed out that conflicts

    > with the 3/3.5 rules. A character cannot be raised or resurrected

    > if the soulddoesn`t wish to come back, i.e., this condition cannot

    > be `forced`.



    This is fine if we are talking about NPC`s, but former player characters

    (like perhaps the one who died earlier in the game session) players need a

    motivation to so wish. Otherwise we are back to permenent PC resurrection

    for the lost character. Temporary return satisfies the desire to bring he

    PC back, at least for a key mission. The idea of afterlife missions even

    allows yout to run such missions, which offer something for players.

    Players want to play their characters, so few will not simply return without

    some motivation to stay dead.



    Kenneth Gauck

    kgauck@mchsi.com

  6. #46
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    Ken,
    Just wanted to tell you that I really like your "heroic duties" afterlife idea. Very cool.

    IMO, the jury&#39;s still out on whether or not elves have an "afterlife" at all, but for mortals with souls the concept of the immortal soul being involved in a greater struggle is awesome for story-driven reasoning behind limited recall of dead characters. Well done&#33;

    -Osprey

  7. #47
    Senior Member RaspK_FOG's Avatar
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    Kenneth: B)

  8. #48
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    Hi&#33;

    Just a couple of thoughts to add to the pool.

    Thanks Osprey I like the healing based on ambient magic. That&#39;s a very neat idea. :lol:

    The elves of Cerillia are definately weird. Firstly they&#39;re half a species (see shadow world creature compendium, available for download from Wizards). Their other side resides in the SW and is collectively referred to as the fae.

    Now the cool bit is that the fae can do divine magic. They don&#39;t call on gods, though the queen of the Seelie court is pretty godlike, and they can cure themselves with the spells available to them.

    My thoughts run a little like this. Cerillia really sticks out in the world of Aebrynis. It&#39;s inhabitants have always had something of a magical nature (even the goblins are Irish gnomes, small (for the most part), nasty & dirty)

    When the world split and the SW was formed the Sidhe were split into two distinct species, Sidhelien & Fae. Each of these took one aspect of the original creature with it. This would indicate to me that the original was a creature of magic made manifest (it could pretty much learn to do any magical effect)

    Stipulating that elves aren&#39;t normally affected by cure spells. My explanation runs like this. Cure spells are generally described as a positive life giving energy influx that fixes you up, peps your life up and leaves you feeling better all over (hps are more than health). Anyway it&#39;s an influx of external energies into you. Now this is not a bad way of looking at a lot of the Divine spells. Your god pulls stuff from the planes and makes it work for you.

    Now my idea i s that the Sidhelien are the part of the original creature most closely bound to Aebrynis&#39;s Prime material plane aspect whilst the fae are the more otherworldly part. The Sidhelien find themselves incapable or at least very disadvantaged in the handling of energies external to their world whilst the fae are fine with them.

    Well it&#39;s not much but let me know what you think.

    As to death & the soul...

    The novel Great Heart (sorry for those of you who may not like this, it is a little sappy) tells us that at least some of the elves believe that they become stars upon their deaths and claim that this is backed up by the stories of their oldest times. "Dragon meet elf, Dragon eat elf, Elves&#39; mates get upset & bash on Dragon, loads of people die. Hey what are those lights in the sky?"
    According to this belief all immortals (Dragons, Elves, others?) become stars upon their deaths.

    Silly possibly but it does indicate that at least the elves think they have a continuance after death and it doesn&#39;t really seem to involve the SW. Some elves get caught there and become ghostlike, but that isn&#39;t the norm.

    This does seem to tie in quite nicely of the Sidhelien being plane-bound. There was also some comment about the dead elves carrying on the struggle against the dragons & other now deceased immortals in the sky for dominance of the world (maybe they just don&#39;t like each other :P ). Hence falling stars being the aftermath of a pretty vicious fight.

    Once again let me know what you think.

    Cheers&#33;

    Jan
    Archmage of the Order
    me

  9. #49
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    Now my idea i s that the Sidhelien are the part of the original creature most closely bound to Aebrynis&#39;s Prime material plane aspect whilst the fae are the more otherworldly part. The Sidhelien find themselves incapable or at least very disadvantaged in the handling of energies external to their world whilst the fae are fine with them.
    Interesting...I&#39;d never heard the theory of the elves and fae "splitting" with the division of the material and shadow worlds. It&#39;s a neat concept.

    Ive always thought of mebhaighal as being the essential energy of the material world of Aebrynis. Which ties in nicely with elves being so closely linked to the ebb and flow of mebhaighal.

    I imagine the Shadow World is permeated directly by the Negative and Positive Material Planes, whereas the material world is divided by the same barrier that seperates the Shadow World. Hence the reason why there are priests who need special talents in contacting their deities and the divine energies they can access (spells + turning) are limited by their faith and skill.

    So it makes sense in this cosmology that natives of the SW (like your fae) handle these divine energies very naturally, because they are in fact partly composed of these energies (just as the Sidhe might be made of mebhaighal, at least in part). That&#39;s my running theory, anyways.

    P.S. - Do you have a link to the SW creature compendium? Finding things on the Wizards site can be a real pain...

    -Osprey

  10. #50
    Senior Member RaspK_FOG's Avatar
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    Caine: B)

    I think these (as well as any other future) ideas will make up a good list of variants...

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