The Shadow World's parallellism

[marcum uth mather]

i think onlyurealy inportent people ( like scions) would have a shadow world counterpart. i have never read blood spawn( i am working on downloading as i am computer eliterate) but with scions and there divine blood i play they have a impact on the malible shadow.

[A_dark]

The perversion of the SW had started before the battle on Deismaar. That is because thehalflings had already left the SW when Deismaar took place. So it had already been corrupted. Perhaps the idea that Azrai went there to take its power makes some sense.

I do not like the idea that Azrai was from the SW or even that he was a god of change and chaos. If nothing else, I always assumed that he would be LE rather than CE. Aside from that, I remember reading that Azrai was the god of knowledge and knowledge corrupts, so he was corrupted. Perhaps it was in Bloodspawn, perhaps in some other book, I cannot really remember.

The SW is definitely seepin in Cerilia and not the other way around (though of course, the DM can do what he wants). I mainly say this, based on the description of the Tuar Annwn in Vosgaard, where the elves, have totally opened up themselves to SW, dropped all wards and protections and they are one.

I liked the idea that the SW wants reality and that it is "sentient". It would make sense for the Birthright world, since Aebrynnis is also sentient. It has ancient sources and ley lines that the land itself controls and it has the mebhaighl flowing and do not forget the Land's Choice investiture option. It clearly says that the land is alive, so it would be nice if the SW was alive as well.

I do not think that there are mirrors in people between SW and Aebrynnis. As far as I am concerned the mirror effect applies only to locations and not actual people. But that is only my personal opinion.

I liked the Dream ideas and the info on those that control the Seeming, though I would think that most creatures in SW have some limited control over it and that the Cold Rider or the Queen have a greater control. Perhaps this control is amplified by blood? Who knows :)

my two cents

[Lord Eldred]

I like a lot of what A Dark says except for that there are not mirrors of people. I play it as there is a Shade equal for each person and that Shade is threat to the characters ability to reach their god in the afterworld and a threat to return through resurrection (see posts on subject in the Book of Days).

[Ariadne]

I also don't have "bloodspawn" but in my imagination of the shadow-world there is only the countryside equal to Cerilia. In my opinion there live only undead (such as spectres, skeletons or Liches) and some sort of shadow creatures. I don't think there are counterparts of living creatures there who can battle each other.

[Lord Eldred]

Ariadne, you say you don't believe there is counterparts, why?

It is the shadow world. It could be both a shadow of the land as well as people.

[soudhadies]

Orginally posted by Lord Eldred

Ariadne, you say you don't believe there is counterparts, why?

It is the shadow world. It could be both a shadow of the land as well as people.

Let us assume for a minute that there are shadow counterparts: How did they come to be?

As far as I recall at the point of origin the shadow world and the living world were physically alike but populated by different peoples: The halflings in the one, and cerilian and human races in the other. At what point in time would a race of shadow counterparts spring into being?

I have a vision of the shadowworld similar to Eldred's, except that instead of individual shades standing in the way between a person and the afterlife, the entire shadow world does, as a plane that must be travelled across to make it to the other side. Those who do not make it become trapped there and become the denizens of the shadowworld. I see this strategic placement between the world of the living and the world of the dead as the reason that the corrupter was attracted to the shadowworld in the first place.

[Lord Eldred]

I having worked all the details out yet. however some things have pointed me to thinking that the connection is more than just the same land. Most imprtantly, there are the same structures. This hinted at on page 88 of the rulebook when it says "A musty, aged crypt may hold nothing but moldering bones in Cerilia, but if one were to enter the same crypt in the Shadow World-or even on a night when the Shadow WOrld was near-wights, spectres, or worse might be encountered." If the same crypts exist, wouldn't the same people who built the crypts exist? I don't know.

If you want to believe that it wasn't always this way, I would say that when the Cold Rider came and drove out the Halflings, he did so by bringing the shadows with him/her.

[soudhadies]

The structures certainly could arise from this sort of parallelism, but they could just as easily be created by the souls that don't make it across the plane (as I mentioned in my interpretation) in a feeble attempt to recreate their living world. These structures could arise as much spiritually as physically (think hell in the movie What Dreams May Come) and serve as a prison for the spritually weak.

[Lord Eldred]

Would the souls create every structure that existed or only the ones that they were involved with? I like your interpretation, however to make it work I would have to change the way I view resurrection (see postings in Book of Days). I will have to consider the way you do it.

[soudhadies]

The souls would recreate the structures they were involved with. However, this would be done in a dreamlike manner. What I mean by this is that in dreams what is most immediate and present is most real, while what is on the periphery is less detailed and substantial(misty and dreamlike if you will). Thus the objects at the center of a shade's world would be detailed and very real while what is less important would be nearly insubstantial. While an individual spirit might thus create a house and a street leading to a place of work, an entire city would be created by the collective "dreaming" of its undead inhabitants.

I tend to avoid dealing with resurrection as much as possible in my campaigns, as the political and power ramifications are too convoluted for my taste and detract from my feeling of the Birthright atmospere. Thus it and wish spells are off my spell lists for Birthright.

However, if I were to reconcile the concept to my cosmological view of the place of the shadow world, I might do it thus:

There are several requirements for resurrection to take place successfully. First of all, the character's spirit must still exist. Secondly, the character must be willing to be raised. Finally, the spirit must make the return trip across the planes to its body.

Thus if the spirit was destroyed in the shadow world, found its way back into Cerilia and was destroyed, or was destroyed somewhere in the outer planes, then nothing will be able to raise the character.

The spirit experiences the resurrection spell as a distant calling of its name. If it follows the sound of the voice it will inevitably retrace its steps to the mortal world. If the sould is impeded from moving(trapped by some lich lord of something similar) then they must be rescued before the can go on (a la Orpheus and Eurydice). Furthermore, the spirit must again face the dangers of traversing the shadow world.

If the spirit was trapped in the shadow world the the situation is more complicated. The spirit may not even be aware of its death. Under such circumstances those seeking to raise the character must go to the Shadow World, seek him out and convince him to return to the real world.

Of course this is all a rough outline, but I think it may work and would be a traumatic enough experience to keep players from undertaking death lightly.