Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 9 Feb 2002 to 10 Feb 2002 (#2002-41) From: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM> Date: 11/02/2002, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests <MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM> Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 5 messages totalling 297 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Return to the Assault on Glantri (4) 2. How do you pronounce "geas"?? ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 16:50:46 -0000 From: Paul George Dooley <dooley@BLUEYONDER.CO.UK> Subject: Re: Return to the Assault on Glantri ----- Original Message ----- From: "Agathokles" <agathokles@LIBERO.IT> To: <MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM> Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2002 1:46 PM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Return to the Assault on Glantri > > Uhm, it looks like the facts here are that: the Floating Islands were > unaffected, and the Red Sun went out, during the WWM. IIRC the Floating Ar did drop much closer to the water. It's in one of the PWA. As for the Red Sun. Perhaps some of the mages were fooling around with bits of the Smoking Mirror at about the same time, in a mirroring of Rad fiddling about with the NoS when he doesn't know what the results would be. It was this which, in part, allowed the sun to go out. This also eases the entire Zandor putting the sun out. Like all magic it was merely "Smokin' Mirror's". Apologies to all for the last BTW Paul ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 13:44:57 -0800 From: Chris Furneaux <c_furneaux@YAHOO.COM> Subject: Re: Return to the Assault on Glantri > Uhm, it looks like the facts here are that: the > Floating Islands were > unaffected, and the Red Sun went out, during the > WWM. > The rest are but hypotheses. And the hypotheses you > need to prove that > Immortal Magic failed are: the Red Sun is powered by > Immortal Magic, and > the Floating Islands are powered by magic that is > not Mortal or Immortal > (note that even if we assumed these conditions, we > would still not know > what happened to the rest of the Immortal Magic > effects on Mystara--even > a single Immortal Magic effect that was working > during the WWM would > ruin your proof). Ahem. I disagree. Here's why. Much like a skyship must be permenently enchanted by mortal magic, I can but assume that the simmilar would have to be true of immortally created floating islands. Now mortal magic ceaced to function, but magical items were not destroyed. Immortals have to permenantly expend power points (PP) to create permanent things, but only temperory power points (TP) to cast spells and other dispellable effects. If we then refer back to the gold box as matterial for expantion of the immortal rules, imortals are 4 dimentional beings, while mortals are only 3 dimentional beings. Their 4th dimention is the magical part. When magic ceaces to function I would NOT concider that they become weak and lose their innate abilities, just cannot cast spells. I would then extraporlate that magical immortal creations involving PP (not just TP) expenditure would have this fourth dimension. Mortally created magical items are bound to the magical forces (elves+dragons are bound to it as well (i.e. are not 4D)) while immortal ones are inately magical. Mortally created magical items require magical energies to be present to function, while immortal items generate/contain their own magic and so retain their inate magical abilities. There is one point to mention about this though, an artifact cannot be used to create spell effects just as an immortal cannot cast his or her spells at the time because the artifact relies on the same process. However just because it cannot use it's magical abilities does not mean it is not still "working" i.e. an artifact that could comunicate without magic could still do so (not that I can think of many (perhaps the golden tounge of hosadus would make an ok example. During the WWM the user can still talk with the toung just not use it's charm powers, etc. Replacing a persons tounge could be considered an inate function or normal state.)) I would argue that floating islands are innately magical and their innate ability is to float. They are usually aided by magic so they don't function well duing the WWM, but it could be entirely possible for them to continue to float. After all, I would rule that an imortal could still fly. It might be magical, but he is too and does not actually need to "use" magic to do so. Just thought I'd add my two cents (0.02NZD ~ 0.007USD i think.... hmmmm, value for money... [I have observed that a coke can always costs a dollar in a vending machine, no matter your currency]) Chris. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 18:32:42 -0800 From: The Stalker <alphatian@ANGELFIRE.COM> Subject: Re: Return to the Assault on Glantri On Sat, 9 Feb 2002 14:46:46 +0100, Agathokles <agathokles@LIBERO.IT> wrote: (snip) > > Uhm, it looks like the facts here are that: the Floating Islands were > unaffected, and the Red Sun went out, during the WWM. > The rest are but hypotheses. And the hypotheses you need to prove that > Immortal Magic failed are: the Red Sun is powered by Immortal Magic, and > the Floating Islands are powered by magic that is not Mortal or Immortal > (note that even if we assumed these conditions, we would still not know > what happened to the rest of the Immortal Magic effects on Mystara--even > a single Immortal Magic effect that was working during the WWM would > ruin your proof). > > But we can't really assume the conditions above, as they would imply > that Floating Ar is based on magic more powerful than that of the > Immortals, and it is pretty clear that they were created by a not so > powerful Immortal, using at most some Immortal Magic. > That's just the problem - the islands of Floating Ar should have plummeted to the ground (or sea as the case may be). The short answer is that Allston goofed! He simply forgot. Yet Floating Ar is fine and okay in PWA1 which he also wrote. I'm not saying this is not a problem. It is a problem, but what can we do about it? > So, we should rather assume that Immortal Magic was functioning during > the WWM (we do have one example, Floating Ar). > Does this create a contradiction with the Red Sun being out? It contradicts with what WOTI says. P.89 of Book2 says under "Fall, Year 1,009: The Week Without Magic" that "The Sun of the Hollow World grows dark and millions of Hollow World residents are convinced that the end of the world has come. Immortals who are on the world of Mystara in Mortal Identities find that they are trapped; they are unable to return to their true forms without using the desperate method of killing their mortal bodies." Of course, we can choose to throw canon out the window since it continues to give us so much trouble, but then we have nothing to hold onto. However, if we look at the week without magic described after Phase III of WOTI, it is interesting to note that it says (p.70) "The week following the events described above will be totally without magic; no spells or maigcal items will work )except Immortal-level magics, of course)" The last bit is rather significant, obviously, as it defines this period of failed magic as different from the Week Without Magic mentioned in the Timeline on p.89 when Sundsvall is destroyed and Eriadna is killed, since that specifically that Immortal magic was affected. If we are to compromise between the two, we might follow the argument Chris Furneaux made, though, and decide that Floating Ar's magic did *not* fail because it was a permanent magic of Immortal origin. Then we find some reason why the Week Without Magic would put out the HW sun. We could argue, for instance, that the red sun is a continuous spell rather than a permanent spell like the one that keeps Floating Ar, well, floating. Another point we could make is that the DM book of the HW set says (p.5) that Ixion "opened up a small, permanent Gate to the Sphere of Energy at the exact center of the Hollow World; energies emitted by this gate became the central Sun of the Hollow World". Now, given that the NoS drained Energy, we could argue that the WWM shut down the HW sun because it drained so much energy from the Sphere of Energy that not enough could pass through this gate to light the HW. That way the HW sun went out because the Sphere of Energy was drained, yet permanent Immortal spells, such as Palartarkan's that keeps Floating Ar in the air, didn't fail. Ixion's permanent Gate didn't fail either, there just wasn't enough energy left in the drained Sphere of Energy - in one had travelled through at that time, he would have entered a drained Sphere of Energy. > Since I > don't think it was specified _why_ it did so, nothing should lead us to > believe that it was a sudden failing of (all) Immortal Magic--this would > be an arbitrary conclusion. > Well, I have quoted the sources... > At this point, you could ask how I justify the Red Sun sudden > defaillance. > Well, I think that if Zandor was able to dispel it, then the Red Sun > must be, at least partially, powered by Mortal Magic--otherwise either > all mortal wizards would be able to dispel immortal effects, or Zandor > would not be a mortal wizard, and I think you would not agree on any of > the two. Well, Zandor's ability to dispel it wasn't exactly mortal energy. It happened in last year's MA (MA 1017) and was possibly only because he was able to make use of some exceedingly powerful Zargosian spells. So it was scarcely mortal magic, though the Zargosians needed Zandor's magical expertice to decipher the spell. - The Stalker ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 18:34:00 -0800 From: The Stalker <alphatian@ANGELFIRE.COM> Subject: Re: How do you pronounce "geas"?? On Sat, 9 Feb 2002 12:51:55 +1100, shawn stanley <stanles@ALPHALINK.COM.AU> wrote: > At 17:39 8/02/02 -0800, you wrote: >> I've been wondering about this one for some time now... >> >> I'd prefer it if someone could mention a word it rhymes with since do >> phonetics is such a problem in this form. > > in his reading of Chivalry Neil Gaiman pronounces it like gay-us > Gaiman said that? Okay, I guess I'll take his word for it... And your's, of course! :) - The Stalker ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 19:43:50 -0800 From: Chris Furneaux <c_furneaux@YAHOO.COM> Subject: Re: Return to the Assault on Glantri <Snip> (commenting on the section below) I forgot to mention my theory on this. The gate does not to be an object as an artifact or something that can be made of a solid like a floating island so can be entirely magical... therefore can be dispelled. Also it is a magical effect, not an innate magical ability of *something* spells like permanance will do a permanant gate for an immortal I believe, so it does not need to be in the same catorgory > If we are to compromise between the two, we might > follow the argument Chris > Furneaux made, though, and decide that Floating Ar's > magic did *not* fail > because it was a permanent magic of Immortal origin. > Then we find some > reason why the Week Without Magic would put out the > HW sun. We could argue, > for instance, that the red sun is a continuous spell > rather than a > permanent spell like the one that keeps Floating Ar, > well, floating. > Another point we could make is that the DM book of > the HW set says (p.5) > that Ixion "opened up a small, permanent Gate to the > Sphere of Energy at > the exact center of the Hollow World; energies > emitted by this gate became > the central Sun of the Hollow World". Now, given > that the NoS drained > Energy, we could argue that the WWM shut down the HW > sun because it drained > so much energy from the Sphere of Energy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 9 Feb 2002 to 10 Feb 2002 (#2002-41) **************************************************************