Cthulhudrew
First Post
Wow! Who knew they had implants in the Abyss? 
Dragon 353 came early!
Particle_Man said:I got an email from Erik Mona basically saying that they are going to wait and see what the reception is for the modrons before they commit to more.
So if you were going to buy multiple copies of 354 to get more modrons later, who could blame you?
Crap, so I have to rely on enough people to be excited over Modrons for there to be a chance!?
All Modron fans here better send a letter to Paizo when #354 comes out begging for the rest of the Modrons...or else...um...or else Formians will be the new lawful entities.
mhacdebhandia
Explorer
James, I just wanted to thank you for a minor detail from the article on Malcanthet!
"Only the rare redeemed succubus, such as the enigmatic Fall-From-Grace of Sigil, escape her fondness . . ."
My wife is playing through Planescape: Torment right now, as it happens, so I was absolutely delighted to see this reference!
"Only the rare redeemed succubus, such as the enigmatic Fall-From-Grace of Sigil, escape her fondness . . ."
My wife is playing through Planescape: Torment right now, as it happens, so I was absolutely delighted to see this reference!
mhacdebhandia
Explorer
Oh, and I agree with Razz for once. I'd love to see the full modron hierarchy described!
Shemeska
Adventurer
BOZ posted what was trimmed from his archomental article, and so I've gone through and seen what was trimmed from the Demiplane article and the Ecology of the Keepers. This is all crossposted with Planewalker (though they got it first).
Cut from the last paragraph in the description of Moil:
"Overseen by the lilitu Alxhiira (CE, Lilitu cleric 6 of Orcus), Moil has become a prison for captured worshippers of Kiaransalee, littered with twisted versions of Acererak’s riddles and deathtraps."
Cut from the list of potential destinations for things sucked into the center of the Black Abyss:
"layer 1293 the “Amber Inferno of Thrice Damned Jahannam”"
Cut from the list of misc demiplanes:
"Demiplane of Ectoplasm – a “demiplane” fashioned of raw ectoplasm on the Astral"
Cut from the Demiplane of Imprisonment:
following the first mention of the demiplane's prisoner, while the version that made it to print doesn't name it, my submitted version did "called the Dark God, the Elder Elemental Eye, Tharizdun, the Elder Elemental God, who seeks nothing less than the destruction of everything."
The article never mentioned big T by name or alias, but the motifs are still there, so even though he's not named, the intention is still preserved.
I also included the following line that speculates on Big T's nature and place within the timeline of the planes and his exact nature as a deity:
"These legends are ancient, with fiendish historians placing the Dark God's imprisonment near the birth of the first deities spawned of mortal worship, and potentially before that point, suggesting the entity might not be a god in the same sense, but something else, originally native to another multiverse."
And for the Keeper ecology:
This bit was removed from the 'History of the Keeper' section:
"Some stories claim that the keepers resulted from the first, abortive attempt by the gods to create inevitables, or a flawed attempt to mimic those beings of Law by a deity of Chaos. Others claim that a long dead god of secrets created them, and that now alone and abandoned, they perpetually seek to uphold their creator’s tenets even as that god slips further and further into oblivion. Still others claim that the keepers are some form of living illusions, or even sentient protomatter, first spawned and given true substance and definition within the Deep Ethereal, either by intent or by mistake."
The following section was cut entirely:
"Alternative Keeper Origins
Arcane Experiments: Other legends claim that the keepers were the creations of Areya Fenthellis, 1st disciple of Shekelor, and last Factol of the Incantifers, a magic obsessed planar faction that was ultimately destroyed at the height of their power. Her creations still live on however, and so might she, still locked away in exile within the Mazes of the Lady of Pain.
Fiendish origins: Several archfiends have been linked to the creation of the keepers as servitors, among them Corin, the Lord of Espionage of Baator’s Dark Eight, as well as a long litany of noble Baatezu within the courts of Dispater and Levistus.
The most intriguing name linked to the keepers however, is one that is barely remembered: Larsdana Ap Neut, the designer and first lord of Gehenna’s Tower Arcane. A monstrously powerful arcanaloth and yugoloth lord, she may have created the keepers in secret, just before she was killed or imprisoned by her protégé, Helekanalaith, the current holder of her former position. Even beyond her race's obsession with secrets, the title she created and held within the yugoloth hierarchy was, quite suggestively, that of Keeper of the Tower.
Deific Creations: The keepers might be the creations of a deity of secrets, possibly ancient servitors of Vecna, Shar, the now dead Maanzecorian, or a forgotten deity whose corpse drifts unlamented through the silver void of the Astral. Alternatively, the keepers could be creations of Mnemosyne, the imprisoned Titan of Memory, wishing to gather secrets and knowledge outside the bounds of her prison in Carceri."
The following was cut from the Physiology section:
"Hints of any further detail into keeper anatomy are slim, given the beings’ rarity combined with their propensity to dissolve when killed or captured. Still, two sources of information exist. The first is an obscure book titled ‘Songs of Scream, Saw, Silence’, of either Yugoloth or Tanar’ri origin, which details in exquisite and macabre detail, the still living vivisection of nearly two hundred separate species of mortal, and includes a portrait of and a footnote on a creature bearing a close resemblance to a keeper. Referred to only by a numerical designation, likely a catalog notation from the book’s original source, the resemblance is uncanny. The volume describes the being as ‘a nuisance’ and speaks of it as an ‘eater of secrets’, adding ‘Let it choke on ours’.
Ultimately the book’s fiendish author laments that while he took steps to preserve the creature’s form, nearly all detail was lost during its attempts to commit suicide. What he recovered though seemed to suggest that the keeper’s body cavity contained a non-homogenous protoplasm-like liquid, composed of several immiscible, sequential layers, surrounded by a protective membrane: the creature’s glossy skin.
The only other source of detailed information comes from a series of torn and reassembled pages, supposedly discovered sewn into the backing of an unrelated tome purchased in the extraplanar city of Sigil. Regardless of its origin, the pages of this second source are decorated with elaborate illustrations intermixed between passages of cramped, coded writing in an apparently artificial script.
Though the writing remains undeciphered, the diagrams confirm a number of the claims of the previous fiendish author, except that this second source performed its examinations on a willing subject, possibly one still in the process of forming or growing. The document indicates that the outermost layer of liquid or other material closest to the skin can aggregate and differentiate into other structures, the source of the keepers’ minor metamorphic ability. The next layer down apparently functions in a hydraulic capacity, forcing itself against gravity and giving the keepers their oddly articulated motion.
Unfortunately the second source abruptly stops in mid sentence of its coded script, with any additional pages either misplaced or destroyed. Ultimately the sources leave behind tantalizing suggestions, but nothing firm, nothing pinned down and cataloged, no secrets left open to the light, only a situation that perfectly suits the keepers’ secretive nature."
And finally there was a 'D&D Origin of the Keeper Sidebar':
Unique to D&D, keepers first appeared in the 1995 Planescape Monstrous Compendium II by Richard Baker. Later, the 1997 module ‘Dead Gods’ mentions the keepers when Tenebrous (recently mentioned in the 3.5 Tome of Magic) pondered approaching them for information about the lost Wand of Orcus. In 3rd edition D&D, the 3e Fiend Folio reintroduced the keepers, finally bringing their mystery to a new generation of games and gamers alike.
Cut from the last paragraph in the description of Moil:
"Overseen by the lilitu Alxhiira (CE, Lilitu cleric 6 of Orcus), Moil has become a prison for captured worshippers of Kiaransalee, littered with twisted versions of Acererak’s riddles and deathtraps."
Cut from the list of potential destinations for things sucked into the center of the Black Abyss:
"layer 1293 the “Amber Inferno of Thrice Damned Jahannam”"
Cut from the list of misc demiplanes:
"Demiplane of Ectoplasm – a “demiplane” fashioned of raw ectoplasm on the Astral"
Cut from the Demiplane of Imprisonment:
following the first mention of the demiplane's prisoner, while the version that made it to print doesn't name it, my submitted version did "called the Dark God, the Elder Elemental Eye, Tharizdun, the Elder Elemental God, who seeks nothing less than the destruction of everything."
The article never mentioned big T by name or alias, but the motifs are still there, so even though he's not named, the intention is still preserved.
I also included the following line that speculates on Big T's nature and place within the timeline of the planes and his exact nature as a deity:
"These legends are ancient, with fiendish historians placing the Dark God's imprisonment near the birth of the first deities spawned of mortal worship, and potentially before that point, suggesting the entity might not be a god in the same sense, but something else, originally native to another multiverse."
And for the Keeper ecology:
This bit was removed from the 'History of the Keeper' section:
"Some stories claim that the keepers resulted from the first, abortive attempt by the gods to create inevitables, or a flawed attempt to mimic those beings of Law by a deity of Chaos. Others claim that a long dead god of secrets created them, and that now alone and abandoned, they perpetually seek to uphold their creator’s tenets even as that god slips further and further into oblivion. Still others claim that the keepers are some form of living illusions, or even sentient protomatter, first spawned and given true substance and definition within the Deep Ethereal, either by intent or by mistake."
The following section was cut entirely:
"Alternative Keeper Origins
Arcane Experiments: Other legends claim that the keepers were the creations of Areya Fenthellis, 1st disciple of Shekelor, and last Factol of the Incantifers, a magic obsessed planar faction that was ultimately destroyed at the height of their power. Her creations still live on however, and so might she, still locked away in exile within the Mazes of the Lady of Pain.
Fiendish origins: Several archfiends have been linked to the creation of the keepers as servitors, among them Corin, the Lord of Espionage of Baator’s Dark Eight, as well as a long litany of noble Baatezu within the courts of Dispater and Levistus.
The most intriguing name linked to the keepers however, is one that is barely remembered: Larsdana Ap Neut, the designer and first lord of Gehenna’s Tower Arcane. A monstrously powerful arcanaloth and yugoloth lord, she may have created the keepers in secret, just before she was killed or imprisoned by her protégé, Helekanalaith, the current holder of her former position. Even beyond her race's obsession with secrets, the title she created and held within the yugoloth hierarchy was, quite suggestively, that of Keeper of the Tower.
Deific Creations: The keepers might be the creations of a deity of secrets, possibly ancient servitors of Vecna, Shar, the now dead Maanzecorian, or a forgotten deity whose corpse drifts unlamented through the silver void of the Astral. Alternatively, the keepers could be creations of Mnemosyne, the imprisoned Titan of Memory, wishing to gather secrets and knowledge outside the bounds of her prison in Carceri."
The following was cut from the Physiology section:
"Hints of any further detail into keeper anatomy are slim, given the beings’ rarity combined with their propensity to dissolve when killed or captured. Still, two sources of information exist. The first is an obscure book titled ‘Songs of Scream, Saw, Silence’, of either Yugoloth or Tanar’ri origin, which details in exquisite and macabre detail, the still living vivisection of nearly two hundred separate species of mortal, and includes a portrait of and a footnote on a creature bearing a close resemblance to a keeper. Referred to only by a numerical designation, likely a catalog notation from the book’s original source, the resemblance is uncanny. The volume describes the being as ‘a nuisance’ and speaks of it as an ‘eater of secrets’, adding ‘Let it choke on ours’.
Ultimately the book’s fiendish author laments that while he took steps to preserve the creature’s form, nearly all detail was lost during its attempts to commit suicide. What he recovered though seemed to suggest that the keeper’s body cavity contained a non-homogenous protoplasm-like liquid, composed of several immiscible, sequential layers, surrounded by a protective membrane: the creature’s glossy skin.
The only other source of detailed information comes from a series of torn and reassembled pages, supposedly discovered sewn into the backing of an unrelated tome purchased in the extraplanar city of Sigil. Regardless of its origin, the pages of this second source are decorated with elaborate illustrations intermixed between passages of cramped, coded writing in an apparently artificial script.
Though the writing remains undeciphered, the diagrams confirm a number of the claims of the previous fiendish author, except that this second source performed its examinations on a willing subject, possibly one still in the process of forming or growing. The document indicates that the outermost layer of liquid or other material closest to the skin can aggregate and differentiate into other structures, the source of the keepers’ minor metamorphic ability. The next layer down apparently functions in a hydraulic capacity, forcing itself against gravity and giving the keepers their oddly articulated motion.
Unfortunately the second source abruptly stops in mid sentence of its coded script, with any additional pages either misplaced or destroyed. Ultimately the sources leave behind tantalizing suggestions, but nothing firm, nothing pinned down and cataloged, no secrets left open to the light, only a situation that perfectly suits the keepers’ secretive nature."
And finally there was a 'D&D Origin of the Keeper Sidebar':
Unique to D&D, keepers first appeared in the 1995 Planescape Monstrous Compendium II by Richard Baker. Later, the 1997 module ‘Dead Gods’ mentions the keepers when Tenebrous (recently mentioned in the 3.5 Tome of Magic) pondered approaching them for information about the lost Wand of Orcus. In 3rd edition D&D, the 3e Fiend Folio reintroduced the keepers, finally bringing their mystery to a new generation of games and gamers alike.
If I recall correctly, the Keepers actually originated when a member of Fraternity of Order discovered loopholes of the Laws of the Multiverse and ended up creating his own multiverse. He created the Keepers to the police force and keepers of the knowledge of this new multiverse and was, well, killed when he gave them those orders.
You know, the Keepers would be ripe in 3E for the purpose of the changes in the Multiverse made in 3E. One could have it where the new multiverse created was...well...the one we have in 3E! With Keepers keeping the secret of this on both ends.
Hmm...I think that'll be the story for my campaign. Perfect!
You know, the Keepers would be ripe in 3E for the purpose of the changes in the Multiverse made in 3E. One could have it where the new multiverse created was...well...the one we have in 3E! With Keepers keeping the secret of this on both ends.
Hmm...I think that'll be the story for my campaign. Perfect!
