Author Topic: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?  (Read 1986 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Bryanicus

  • Apprentice
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • OIC Points +0/-0
What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« on: January 21, 2021, 09:33:21 PM »
This has been a topic that lies on the outskirts of what is really covered. But I have been wanting to play as an elemental priest in a shadow world game (I know they're not the greatest but my GM allowed me to take the Elemental mage training package appropriate for my element to get those spells as 3 of my additional base lists.) the only real references I've seen were in Master Atlas 4th edition where they're described as being the rulers of the elemental planes of essence and that they are pretty much exactly described as in Fie and Ice. This brings up the issue of the fact that they're described as being the creators of the universe in it. In powers of light and dark there in the "other gods" section there is a possible reference to them but being called 'elemental gods' and that they have global influence. There don't really seem to be many references to them or their followers in modules either. If anyone has anywhere I can look for information I'd love to know.

Offline Voriig Kye

  • Wise Elder
  • ***
  • Posts: 817
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2021, 05:30:25 AM »
Shadow World was written well before Fire & Ice, any mention you find is most likely a suggestion to bridge the concepts of the 2 books together, but it would be up to the GM to decide.
Since Kulthea is so easily related to portals to other planes, you could say that the magic of an "elemental god" permeates most regions, so you'd have access to PPs no problem.

Another way is to determine that since there is not a strong enough connection, the character has to carry a "piece of the god" to mantain contact. We did this for a Priest of Ice, she had to carry a staff topped with a sphere of Illinar which represented her god's essence near hear. If she lost the staff she lost all PPs.

I've sent characters from Kulthea to the different elemental planes described in Fire & Ice, but we've never used the Elemental Priest profession, only the Elemental Mages and Storm Mage.

Offline Bryanicus

  • Apprentice
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2021, 06:24:31 PM »
Like I said above, according to the Master Atlas, the elemental lords are canon to Shadow World. I'm wondering things like who warships the, what have they done throughout history, who do they see as enemies.

Offline Neee-Wom

  • Neophyte
  • *
  • Posts: 70
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2021, 05:49:17 AM »
This is what happens when you have less control about the world, in TKA books there was never a refference to Elemental Lords, but 4th edition included as an addition that does not fit really well. Can you use it this approach? Of course, but it does not fit well with the stablished cosmology.
Ni!

Offline Crivens

  • Neophyte
  • *
  • Posts: 54
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #4 on: December 06, 2021, 12:53:52 PM »
Hi all,

In my opinion Elemental Lords are fully compatible with SW and even necessary.

According to the timeline, the lords of Essaence (lords of Orhan) arrive in - 200 000 present time from another space-time. And with them come the Essaence and continually (as the interphase is not completly closed).

So, the Essaence have nothing to do with the creation of Kulthea and the solar system.
So, having the Elements as source of creation of the physical world is quite a nice way to explain the existence of the planet.
They were the first powers of the planet. Of course after the Essaence intrusion they have lost some of the power and influence. Thus, primal forces (fire, water, air, earth...) are always disturbed by Essaence (cf. Essaence Storms).
To conclude, Elemental Lords are still there, they are powerful enough to be used as Elemental focuses and it seems logical to suppose that they have a grudge against Essaence.
So an Elemental user could be naturally in opposition with others spell users (but mainly against the essence users as they are efficient in manipulating the elements and are considered as power stealers !!!).

It is up to the GM, but it could be fun to add in the Elemental Lords 's secret agenda the fact that they want to close the link between Kulthea and the point of origine of the Essaence, so to regain their initial power.
Of course they will not globally collaborate with Unlife, as Unlife is used by the Void to destruct the reality (maximal entropy).

The way I see it, is that it creates a third force, we have 1-The Essaence 2-The Unlife 3-The Elements. This situation creates a lot of interactions and plot ideas.

For me, the planes (the pales, the elemental planes) are created by the interaction between the Reality and the Void (Agoth the lord of the Void is supposed to predate Creation itself...).
Essaence and Anti-Essaence (the Unlife) are the vectors, the energies between them. They are used by their respective agents.

In other worlds where there is no Essaence and anti-Essaence (in our knowlege Kulthea is the only planet where Essaence exists), there is only interaction between the reality and the Void.

Where does Essaence come?, another space-time dimension ?. For me, it is the spark of life. It needs the physical world (created by the Elements) to blossom.
In some places (planets), it doesn't work, the planet are still without life, but sometime the miracle of life appears...
So I see it as a wave impregnating all the reality (created from the elements) some time after the creation of the physical world within the Void.
And since -200 000 years Kulthea is connected with the origin of this wave.

To resume:
(1) First: Void
(2) After: Big Bang = creation of the physical reality (Elemental reality)
(3) At the same time: creation of all the planes
(4) Even after: Essaence Wave creating life in all the Universe (when??? I suppose there is no need to know)
(5) In Kulthea apparition of a (probably) unique known link with the source of the Essaence wave (remember, it is a space time link).

Unlife being the antithesis of Essaence and came from the same place (it could be another wave which will annihilate life) it is attracted by Kulthea (using Charon as an intermediate).

This theory has several weak point.
First, it doesn't explain the Creation (the Big Bang). But as a scientist and atheist I am quite confortable with this (who or what created God(s) ?). More specifically, who or what created the Lord of Orhan?, they are Lord of Essaence so may be they are the expression or the creation of the Essaence itself when it interacts with the reality (aka physical world). They exist in Orhan as long as the flux of Essaence exists.
The spirits in Kulthea are born from the interaction with the reality and the Life (with was born the the initial Essaence Wave).

Second, according to this, the element predate life so elemental creatures should not be alive but only interacting in the reality uniquely due to physical laws. But all elemental creatures are alive (with their own intelligence and capacities).
A way to explain this is to postulate that all elemental creatures (from the True Elemental to the Elemental Servant) are born from the interaction between the element and the Esseance Wave. Some are grateful and collaborate with Essaence users (mainly Essence users) but others reject this state and wish for returning to the primal elemental stat (the element state alone, with only the physical, chemical laws and no bloody bio as a prefix). This explains the furious behaviour of most elemental creatures (most have a Beserk outlook)...Freud could have explained this :).


I will be gratefull to have your feedback on this theory.


Need to find a good signature...

Offline kmanktelow

  • Initiate
  • *
  • Posts: 108
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2021, 01:37:46 PM »
A little bit off topic, but you could always just assume that the Essaence and Unlife are simply Order and Chaos - Order from the higher planes and the Unlife from lower planes. The universe is 'naturally' a Balance between the two forces - but because of the Black Hole that intersected Kulthea and created the Pillar of the Gods there is damage between both the lower and higher planes - which in turn allowed the Lord of Orhan and the Dark Gods access to Kulthea. (Years ago I wrote something that incorporated the Dark Space setting which made the Vlath'acna the cause of the disaster.)
Anyway the theory went that any organism will utilise any resources that occur in the environment - extremophiles and heat, plants with light, etc - thus while the original Althan's were mortal, some of them evolved so that their bodies were able to use the essence - which in turn extended their life spans (its' a force of order) and this led to the K'ta'viir. This then explained why the Althan's who left Kulthea were not immortal - because they lost their connection to the Essaence.
The use of the essence by the K'ta'viir in turn allowed the Unlife to seep into Kulthea.

Offline MisterK

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 655
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2021, 01:38:28 PM »
My take on the elemental Lords is that, basically, they don't exist in Shadow World as described in F&I. There are elementals, which are native to planes that are Essaence Pales of Kulthea (warped reflections), and some of them are certainly more powerful than others (so some may style themselves as 'lords'), but they are no more gods than Ordainers are - they just come from different Pales (and there *are* elemental demons already, so...).

Kulthea was a mundane world before the coming of the Essaence, so its creation is as mundane as the rest of the Space Master universe. Whether the Pales are reflections *created* by the Essaence, or are planes from this alternate universe made *accessible* by the Essaence is an open question (and a moot point in the end).

Basically, while I use the F&I technical details, I don't consider it canon for Shadow World cosmology-wise. Like a number of other RM things, it fits the "genetic system with many options, pick what you want" but not a pre-existing setting like Shadow World (or Middle Earth, for that matter).

Of course, there are so many greater spirits on Kulthea (and most of them are natural phenomena-oriented) that some might be considered 'elemental gods' by the neighbouring mannish population. And why not ? Especially on such a world, a 'god' is only a very powerful being, and I can accept very powerful nature spirits with an elemental bend. There might even be several claiming the same element in various locations. I would also expect some powerful demons to claim mantles of "elemental lords" to make themselves more palatable for worship.

Not to mention that there *is* a Dark God of Charon that claims both Earth and Fire as domain (Nykaru).

Offline MisterK

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 655
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2021, 01:41:51 PM »
A little bit off topic, but you could always just assume that the Essaence and Unlife are simply Order and Chaos - Order from the higher planes and the Unlife from lower planes.
Oddly enough, if I was assuming that (I don't), the Essaence would be Chaos and Unlife would be Order. The Essaence is life and change and unpredictability - the very definition of chaos. The Unlife is stasis, nothingness, the inexorable entropic end of the universe - the very definition of order.

Offline Crivens

  • Neophyte
  • *
  • Posts: 54
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2021, 02:10:18 PM »
I like the idea of the Althans adaptation to thef Essaence (using it as a ressource).
And yes the Pillar of Gods apparition using a Black Hole (which wraps Time and Space) is also an interesting idea which fit well my theory.

I have yet to think a bit more about the God of Charon and their interactions with Essaence, the Unlife and the Void.

But later...

See you
Need to find a good signature...

Offline kmanktelow

  • Initiate
  • *
  • Posts: 108
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #9 on: December 07, 2021, 02:47:37 AM »
A little bit off topic, but you could always just assume that the Essaence and Unlife are simply Order and Chaos - Order from the higher planes and the Unlife from lower planes.
Oddly enough, if I was assuming that (I don't), the Essaence would be Chaos and Unlife would be Order. The Essaence is life and change and unpredictability - the very definition of chaos. The Unlife is stasis, nothingness, the inexorable entropic end of the universe - the very definition of order.
I would tend to take the scientific view that entropy is chaos and the disordering and breakdown of systems. It takes a fair amount of 'Order' to make a 1,000 piece jigsaw - but you stick it completed in a box and then add some chaos - shake the box - what happens? And with each addition of chaos it just gets more and more disordered - it will never be completed again.

Offline kmanktelow

  • Initiate
  • *
  • Posts: 108
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #10 on: December 07, 2021, 02:55:01 AM »
A little bit off topic, but you could always just assume that the Essaence and Unlife are simply Order and Chaos - Order from the higher planes and the Unlife from lower planes.
Oddly enough, if I was assuming that (I don't), the Essaence would be Chaos and Unlife would be Order. The Essaence is life and change and unpredictability - the very definition of chaos. The Unlife is stasis, nothingness, the inexorable entropic end of the universe - the very definition of order.
I would tend to take the scientific view that entropy is chaos and the disordering and breakdown of systems. It takes a fair amount of 'Order' to make a 1,000 piece jigsaw - but you stick it completed in a box and then add some chaos - shake the box - what happens? And with each addition of chaos it just gets more and more disordered - it will never be completed again.
Sure the black hole exited through Kulthea - and pulled core material up to form the Pillar of the Gods behind it. Don't remember any more references to it in the books. I had it smashing through dimensions like a bouncing ball - and where it did this Essaence entered the Universe. Spacemaster also had Magic in the Zoura system in the Raiders from the Frontier Module, and of course Dark Space also had Magic (which I assumed was beyond the boundaries of the  Terran Imperium.)

Offline MisterK

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 655
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: What Role do the Elemental Lords play in Shadow World?
« Reply #11 on: December 07, 2021, 04:18:22 AM »
A little bit off topic, but you could always just assume that the Essaence and Unlife are simply Order and Chaos - Order from the higher planes and the Unlife from lower planes.
Oddly enough, if I was assuming that (I don't), the Essaence would be Chaos and Unlife would be Order. The Essaence is life and change and unpredictability - the very definition of chaos. The Unlife is stasis, nothingness, the inexorable entropic end of the universe - the very definition of order.
I would tend to take the scientific view that entropy is chaos and the disordering and breakdown of systems. It takes a fair amount of 'Order' to make a 1,000 piece jigsaw - but you stick it completed in a box and then add some chaos - shake the box - what happens? And with each addition of chaos it just gets more and more disordered - it will never be completed again.
I don't consider "entropy" ex nihilo - the Unlife is the ultimate state of the universe when everything has frozen over. In entropy, there are two parts - the part of change (transformation of state) and the part of decay (loss of energy, or rather, energy that reaches its final, unchanging state). Change is of the Essaence, Decay is of the Unlife.

It also fits the idea of magic - Essaence magic is change, while Unlife "magic" (I don't like to use that word for anything Unlife-fueled) is decay.

So if the Essaence "wins", the world becomes unendingly unstable. If the Unlife "wins", the world becomes static and dead.