Satori said:
Demogorgon vs. Azathoth!
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Abyss versus Far Realm
- Thread starter Dausuul
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Demogorgon vs. Azathoth!
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
Ahrimon said:
I chose to go with the 'desire to end a headache' approach because in most of the HP Lovecraft fiction I have read, there is as often as not a sense of malevolence coming off the creatures in those stories.
A good example would be Mind Flayers. They eat the brains of sentient creatures. They have about as much outright hatred of humans as humans have of cows. Consider for a moment if a cow was sentient and aware of its fate, but was born wild.
One day strangely misshapen creatures show up and abduct you. They keep you in a small pen, and you now receive your food and water from unusual recepticals. One of the creatures takes a burning hot object constructed with technology you had no idea was possible, and burns a mark into your ass. If your a female, machines are hooked up to your breasts and your milk is sucked out. If your a male, if your not among the most fit, your balls are cut off. To your horror, you realize that some of your keepers are wearing foot coverings and torso coverings made out of the flesh of your people! You try to escape, but you encounter an impassible barrier that causes much more pain than it should if you touch it. Time passes, and occasionally, you are fortunate to still have intact reproductive organs, you are forced to breed. Once in a while, your keepers take some of the other prisoners away. If you happen to get sick, one of your keepers will administer strange medicines, or even force one of his appendages up into your rectum. One day, they come for you, and you are herded into a great machine where you are killed, and have the flesh stripped from your bones. You are now a $20 New York Striploin dinner at the Keg Steakhouse.
As a cow, you never know why these things are happening to you. If you were aware of any of it, you would be horrified. But, the full scope of activities of humans are beyond the comprehension of cows. Does that mean that humans hate cows?
Oh, and for what its worth, after writing down the above example, I really want to go out and eat a nice steak dinner.
END COMMUNICATION
Do note that my original question was about the Far Realms versus the Abyss--not aberrations versus demons. So far, there's been a lot of discussion about the differences between denizens of the two planes, but not nearly as much about the planes themselves.
Every other plane in the 4E cosmology can be defined on its own terms, without reference to its inhabitants.
The Feywild is a reflection of the mortal world, but filled with life and untouched by civilization.
The Shadowfell is another mirror plane, this one full of shadows, death, and ruin.
The Elemental Tempest is a swirling chaos of raw elemental forces.
The Abyss is an unstable, ever-changing nightmare realm.
The Astral Sea is a silvery void which contains the domains of the gods.
But the Far Realm seems to be just "that place where aberrations come from." Is that enough to justify a whole plane? What is it about the Far Realm itself that makes it different from the Abyss?
My own inclination would be to make aberrations into holdovers from the dawn of creation. We don't know a lot about the war between the primordials and the gods, but perhaps aberrations came into being after the primordials made the world. Then the gods came along, beat down the primordials, and made their own creatures. The surviving aberrations fled to the depths of the sea, or the black pits of the Underdark, and hid themselves away from the wrathful gods.
Every other plane in the 4E cosmology can be defined on its own terms, without reference to its inhabitants.
The Feywild is a reflection of the mortal world, but filled with life and untouched by civilization.
The Shadowfell is another mirror plane, this one full of shadows, death, and ruin.
The Elemental Tempest is a swirling chaos of raw elemental forces.
The Abyss is an unstable, ever-changing nightmare realm.
The Astral Sea is a silvery void which contains the domains of the gods.
But the Far Realm seems to be just "that place where aberrations come from." Is that enough to justify a whole plane? What is it about the Far Realm itself that makes it different from the Abyss?
My own inclination would be to make aberrations into holdovers from the dawn of creation. We don't know a lot about the war between the primordials and the gods, but perhaps aberrations came into being after the primordials made the world. Then the gods came along, beat down the primordials, and made their own creatures. The surviving aberrations fled to the depths of the sea, or the black pits of the Underdark, and hid themselves away from the wrathful gods.
the difference
Since I already use the far realm in my cosmology/campaigns, if the 4E version is 'more normal',i'll use the current style one instead..
You asked what is the difference of the Far Realm..i can give some notes based on the 2e/3e version (mainly 3E where they fleshed it out a lot more and better than 2e).
Essentially it's a place of insanity...think of every possible reality/dream/nightmare happening at the same time...all in the same place; causing reality itself to rip itself apart.
Imagine standing in one dimension and seeing 1000s of other worlds/dimensions all around you, some on different angles, intersecting, etc. gods, giant creatures floating aroundd thru the air, rambling in insanity. Rain made from acid that turns into insects as it hits teh ground that then bore into minds of things and do whatever they will..then maybe even burst out and turn back to rain and 'fall' up towards the sky from where they came.
their 'lords' or 'gods' whatever u call them are said to be more powerful than even the beings of the prime..mainly , as someone mentioned, since their existence is anathema to other realities...they twist and destroy and convert other realities just by their existence as they come thru into other worlds.
It's supposed to be a place that no prime beings can comprehend but of course, that logically can't be written down via a human, so just take the most insane, reality bending, wierd stuff you can think of, and have them all happening around the characters, etc at the same time.
The abyss is technically, while hostile, and some places the air is poisonous, etc, it's still a prime universe place. Stuff can be explained. It's basically violence come to life. Unpredictable creatures, chaotic energies, wild magic, etc.
Far Realm is supposed to be insanity itself come to life. No logic, no reason. No real alignment for it's creatures, although 3E lists them as CE or NE, really they don't kill cause of a desire too...they kill cause they want to change all reality to match their own, which is insane...OR cause their presence causes stuff around them to die even if they don't do anything.
Something I plan to do to my players, when they meet up with the far realm again..as they walk around, imagine seeing yourself in the distance on another plane that intersects with the one you are on, you see a creature slashing at your clone, but as it happens, you start to get hurt, get cuts, etc..yet it's not even you that it's happening to.
Also, it says the 'air' is actually some thick mucous like substance, so surviving there isn't easy without magic or special items that allow it, although most fail anyways, since the reality altering nature doesn't seem to like that stuff.
I am sure some here, can give a better description than I just did....but if you aren't familiar with it, I can give references to creatures from the far realm so you can look them up.
In Eberron, Xoriat is supposed to be the far realm as it makes it blot (where it intersects into the prime realities).
ALl that said, many of the weaker far realm beings, find it hard to survive without their resin armours, and their version of 'magic' (really, just the powers to alter reality it appears) and they will melt away and die in prime worlds.
The more powerful ones are quite .... crazy, in ever sense of the word.
Sanjay
Since I already use the far realm in my cosmology/campaigns, if the 4E version is 'more normal',i'll use the current style one instead..
You asked what is the difference of the Far Realm..i can give some notes based on the 2e/3e version (mainly 3E where they fleshed it out a lot more and better than 2e).
Essentially it's a place of insanity...think of every possible reality/dream/nightmare happening at the same time...all in the same place; causing reality itself to rip itself apart.
Imagine standing in one dimension and seeing 1000s of other worlds/dimensions all around you, some on different angles, intersecting, etc. gods, giant creatures floating aroundd thru the air, rambling in insanity. Rain made from acid that turns into insects as it hits teh ground that then bore into minds of things and do whatever they will..then maybe even burst out and turn back to rain and 'fall' up towards the sky from where they came.
their 'lords' or 'gods' whatever u call them are said to be more powerful than even the beings of the prime..mainly , as someone mentioned, since their existence is anathema to other realities...they twist and destroy and convert other realities just by their existence as they come thru into other worlds.
It's supposed to be a place that no prime beings can comprehend but of course, that logically can't be written down via a human, so just take the most insane, reality bending, wierd stuff you can think of, and have them all happening around the characters, etc at the same time.
The abyss is technically, while hostile, and some places the air is poisonous, etc, it's still a prime universe place. Stuff can be explained. It's basically violence come to life. Unpredictable creatures, chaotic energies, wild magic, etc.
Far Realm is supposed to be insanity itself come to life. No logic, no reason. No real alignment for it's creatures, although 3E lists them as CE or NE, really they don't kill cause of a desire too...they kill cause they want to change all reality to match their own, which is insane...OR cause their presence causes stuff around them to die even if they don't do anything.
Something I plan to do to my players, when they meet up with the far realm again..as they walk around, imagine seeing yourself in the distance on another plane that intersects with the one you are on, you see a creature slashing at your clone, but as it happens, you start to get hurt, get cuts, etc..yet it's not even you that it's happening to.
Also, it says the 'air' is actually some thick mucous like substance, so surviving there isn't easy without magic or special items that allow it, although most fail anyways, since the reality altering nature doesn't seem to like that stuff.
I am sure some here, can give a better description than I just did....but if you aren't familiar with it, I can give references to creatures from the far realm so you can look them up.
In Eberron, Xoriat is supposed to be the far realm as it makes it blot (where it intersects into the prime realities).
ALl that said, many of the weaker far realm beings, find it hard to survive without their resin armours, and their version of 'magic' (really, just the powers to alter reality it appears) and they will melt away and die in prime worlds.
The more powerful ones are quite .... crazy, in ever sense of the word.
Sanjay
Doug McCrae
Legend
I hope they serve human. Tastee brains.Lord Zardoz said:
Abstraction
First Post
Isn't this where Bizarro comes froms?Cadfan said:
ZombieRoboNinja
First Post
IMO, the Far Realms aren't really "chaotic" so much as they are "inscrutable."
The Abyss is the ultimate locus of brutality, rage, and hatred, entropy and destruction. When you make a deal with a demon, you know exactly what he's after in the long run. He wants to tear the world apart.
The Far Realms is... strange. It's a world whose laws, whose very logic is utterly different from our own, such that any extended visit there invites madness in all but the most trained minds.
I'm not sure if anyone would get the reference, but the Far Realms makes me think of the spider from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station even more than I think of Lovecraft. Far Realms denizens are in fact sane and often very intelligent, but their world and their understanding of the universe is so utterly removed from our own that we can't begin to hope to treat with them. All we can know is that Far Realms creatures are incredibly powerful and utterly unpredictable.
The Abyss is the ultimate locus of brutality, rage, and hatred, entropy and destruction. When you make a deal with a demon, you know exactly what he's after in the long run. He wants to tear the world apart.
The Far Realms is... strange. It's a world whose laws, whose very logic is utterly different from our own, such that any extended visit there invites madness in all but the most trained minds.
I'm not sure if anyone would get the reference, but the Far Realms makes me think of the spider from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station even more than I think of Lovecraft. Far Realms denizens are in fact sane and often very intelligent, but their world and their understanding of the universe is so utterly removed from our own that we can't begin to hope to treat with them. All we can know is that Far Realms creatures are incredibly powerful and utterly unpredictable.
mhacdebhandia
Explorer
I agree, and it's a good reference. The Far Realms has more often struck me as a place which simply does not play by our universe's rules more than a place which harbours malevolence towards our universe.ZombieRoboNinja said:
What some people forget is that Lovecraft wrote about lots of different things. His ghouls are terrifying because they live beneath our cities and eat us, not because to merely gaze upon them is to drive us mad. Not everything is sanity-blasting angles and weird sounds.
Robert Ranting
First Post
Does anyone else remember the bit of information we got a while back about how the Abyss was formed when Tharzidun threw something terrible into the Elemental Chaos and it broke through the fabric of the plane? Well, think of it this way. The Abyss is like a hole in a piece of paper. On one side, the one we understand, is the Elemental Chaos and the realms of reality as we know them. On the other side is the Far Realm, a universe that does not play by our rules. If you think of the entirety of the planar cosmology as being contained within a finite (but so large as makes no difference) space, then the Far Realm is all that lies beyond it...or another sphere entirely seperate across the void...and the Abyss is the entryway or a wormhole, the place where the madness of that place has touched the elemental chaos. Just as when you stand in a doorway you are in neither room, so is being in the Abyss being caught between two alien universes.
The Far Realm is not a place of insanity, evil, destruction or tentacle monsters. That is just how our brains try to interpret the ab-light that ab-reflects off their ab-surfaces. Our brains simply were never rigged to perceive such things, so our minds go into overdrive, trying to conjure up something, anything, that makes more sense than what our senses are trying to tell us. Everything you experience in the Far Realms is a hysterical delusion crafted by your own mind in a vain effort to save you from true madness. Some people, especially the incredibly unintelligent and vapid, might even peer into the Far Realm and see nothing at all (Zaphod anyone?). Most people simply can't cope with the experience and lose touch with reality. If something so alien can exist, can be so traumatic to even attempt to perceive, truly it must be evil...or at least that is what we think. In fact, the Far Realm simply "is" in a way that nothing else in our universe "is" and may or may not care about us...we simply don't know, and we can't ask it/them.
Creatures such as Aboleths, Mind Flayers, Mooncalves and other creatures of the Far Realm are tainted by this universe. The powers which hold our universe together, decree that all that exists must conform to certain rules, rules of Magi-Physics and Alignment. Forced to conform, but railing at the very notion, they always result in hideous abominations, composite creatures out of nightmare that push the boundary of what is possible in our universe. Often, characters encounter such creatures before they visit the Far Realm, and thus, the guises of the Far Realm's lost children in our universe bias the thoughts of what the Far Realm will be like. Tentacles creatures become our frame of reference for the Far Realm, and so if we go there expecting them, then it is easy for our minds to dredge up similar images once it is faced with ab-reality.
You can also think of the Demons as being Chaos Cultists. They have looked into the Far Realm, and upon returning, they have gone mad in a more conventional sense. Unable to articulate the feelings of helplessness and terror, they act out violently against all around them. Their primitive minds simply cannot distinguish between the desire to fight or flee...and so they do both, attempting to move away from the Far Realm, deeper in our universe, and to take their misery out on us all.
It is not surprising then, that a few corrupted Primordials, the so-called Demon Lords would try and command the demons as an army, to give direction and purpose to their mindless violence by aiming it at the Gods and their creations. So fundamentally rooted in the nature of the world, and wise from their long existance and power, these Demon Lords dip into the Abyss while averting their eyes from the Far Realm. They lead by looking away from the gap, back toward our universe. It gives them enough focus and clear vision to keep on waging their war against creation. True, they seek to unmake all that has been made, but they do not seek to help the Far Realm's reality prevail. If they thought they had a chance, they might try to invade the Far Realm and extinguish it's maddening influence forever as well...perhaps they have tried and failed many times since the Abyss was born. Perhaps their impotence in being able to do so is what drives them to destroy this universe, a tangible, perceivable, comprehensible thing that they actually can destroy.
In any case, this is pretty much what the universe was like in my last couple of homebrews, and I will probably stick with something similar in 4e.
Robert "Thinks that you could easily put both The Demonweb Pits and Hell Into This Mess Too" Ranting
The Far Realm is not a place of insanity, evil, destruction or tentacle monsters. That is just how our brains try to interpret the ab-light that ab-reflects off their ab-surfaces. Our brains simply were never rigged to perceive such things, so our minds go into overdrive, trying to conjure up something, anything, that makes more sense than what our senses are trying to tell us. Everything you experience in the Far Realms is a hysterical delusion crafted by your own mind in a vain effort to save you from true madness. Some people, especially the incredibly unintelligent and vapid, might even peer into the Far Realm and see nothing at all (Zaphod anyone?). Most people simply can't cope with the experience and lose touch with reality. If something so alien can exist, can be so traumatic to even attempt to perceive, truly it must be evil...or at least that is what we think. In fact, the Far Realm simply "is" in a way that nothing else in our universe "is" and may or may not care about us...we simply don't know, and we can't ask it/them.
Creatures such as Aboleths, Mind Flayers, Mooncalves and other creatures of the Far Realm are tainted by this universe. The powers which hold our universe together, decree that all that exists must conform to certain rules, rules of Magi-Physics and Alignment. Forced to conform, but railing at the very notion, they always result in hideous abominations, composite creatures out of nightmare that push the boundary of what is possible in our universe. Often, characters encounter such creatures before they visit the Far Realm, and thus, the guises of the Far Realm's lost children in our universe bias the thoughts of what the Far Realm will be like. Tentacles creatures become our frame of reference for the Far Realm, and so if we go there expecting them, then it is easy for our minds to dredge up similar images once it is faced with ab-reality.
You can also think of the Demons as being Chaos Cultists. They have looked into the Far Realm, and upon returning, they have gone mad in a more conventional sense. Unable to articulate the feelings of helplessness and terror, they act out violently against all around them. Their primitive minds simply cannot distinguish between the desire to fight or flee...and so they do both, attempting to move away from the Far Realm, deeper in our universe, and to take their misery out on us all.
It is not surprising then, that a few corrupted Primordials, the so-called Demon Lords would try and command the demons as an army, to give direction and purpose to their mindless violence by aiming it at the Gods and their creations. So fundamentally rooted in the nature of the world, and wise from their long existance and power, these Demon Lords dip into the Abyss while averting their eyes from the Far Realm. They lead by looking away from the gap, back toward our universe. It gives them enough focus and clear vision to keep on waging their war against creation. True, they seek to unmake all that has been made, but they do not seek to help the Far Realm's reality prevail. If they thought they had a chance, they might try to invade the Far Realm and extinguish it's maddening influence forever as well...perhaps they have tried and failed many times since the Abyss was born. Perhaps their impotence in being able to do so is what drives them to destroy this universe, a tangible, perceivable, comprehensible thing that they actually can destroy.
In any case, this is pretty much what the universe was like in my last couple of homebrews, and I will probably stick with something similar in 4e.
Robert "Thinks that you could easily put both The Demonweb Pits and Hell Into This Mess Too" Ranting
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