The Multiverse's Most Incomplete Story Recap
Dramatis Personae
- Taran is a thick-headed belligerent fighter/sorcerer/spell-sword who believes that the killing blow is any argument’s most relevant (and frankly, inevitable) counter-point.
- Thelbar is Taran’s older brother, a genius archmage with a long, multi-life history of Trifling Where Wise Entities Fear to Tread.
- Gorquen, a champion of Arunshee (formerly Lolth, dead and reborn). Gorquen has risen from humble 1st level beginnings to become one of the multiverse’s most deadly swordwomen, and she fights with none other than Corellean Larethian’s sword—the weapon that killed Palatin Eremath (see below.)
- Elgin Trezler rounds out the group. He is the current High Priest of Lathander.
The Ermathan Pantheon, and Deific Happenings of Interest
- Palatin Eremath is the lost Elven co-creator (and goddess of Champions, Honor and Swordsmanship) who died at the hands of Corellon Larethian in a family feud during the misty pre-history of the elven race that saw the night elves (drow) banished.
- Palatin Eremath rose from the dead under the name of Ishlok, and established a new metaphysical order for the universe; the pasoun.
- Palatin Eremath died again at the hands of her own champion – Taran (Chapter 97).
- Palatin Eremath is joined by the elven deities Arunshee (Lolth), and Solonor Thalendiira. Of late, Lathander has taken the pasoun as well, sparking quite the tussle in poor, beleagured Faerun:
- Gods have died, Cormyr is now spelled “New Sembia,” the Silver Marches and the dwarven homes therein belong to King Obuld Many-Arrows, and Lathanderites have been drug from their home and massacred all over the planet by good-aligned priests.
- Taran doesn’t care.
Taran
does care about the Divine A-s Whooping he’s liable to take if he ever shows his face in Faerun again, so the quartet of adventurers are currently hiding in Sigil from the wrath of the Faerunian pantheon. During recent Apoclyptic events, Illmater and Tempus were slain, with their suddenly spell-less priesthoods set upon and destroyed by opportunistic evil cults. For some reason the other gods just can’t let this go.
Of course, the real reason for their epic enmity boils down to the human (demi-human and divine) constant; self-interest.
The metaphysical bone of contention is Ishlok’s pasoun, an alternate afterlife granted to any who will accept it (including deities) wherein a soul does not migrate to the Outer Planes when it dies, but reincarnates again and again until it has reached the full knowledge of self that will allow it to migrate out of the multiverse and in to some mysterious Great Beyond.
This would be fine, save for the fact that the existing D&D cosmology supposes that the End State for all mortal souls is either to merge with a deity, or with one of the outer planes themselves. The
pasoun will slowly starve both gods and the multiverse, if left unchecked.
The Champions of the Risen Goddess call this starvation “freedom from the tyranny of the Gods.”
Their enemies call it “the soul-death of the multiverse.”
I like to think of it as, “The Second Law of Spiritual-dynamics.”