Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stoat" data-source="post: 3990872" data-attributes="member: 16786">There is an inherent tension between the Far Realms and the Abyss, and I am interested to see how WotC attempts to resolve it.The Abyss, and the Great Wheel as a whole, is both moral and anthropomorphic.  By "moral" I refer to the Great Wheel's concern with alignment.  Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are objective elements and each is in some way inherent to the multiverse.  Thus the Abyss exists as part of a philosophical outlook that is intensely concerned with the concepts of objective morality.  It is in many ways similar to the concept of "hell" as found in any number of real world religions.By "anthropormorphic"  I mean two things.  First, the natives of the Abyss generally have emotional and psychological states that are recognizable to mortals.  They hate, they scheme, they lust.  In some cases, Abyssal lords are personifications of mortal sin.  Malcanthet is lust made flesh.  Kostchtchie is an incarnation of anger and hate.  Consider Savage Tide, the numerous demon lords presented there are evil, but they reason, form alliances, betray one another and otherwise act in an understandable way.  The second thing I mean by "anthropomorphic" is that natives of the Abyss are interested in the prime material plane.  They seek to steal our souls.  They want to conquer the land.  They set up kingdoms and realms in the mortal world.  Again, consider the Savage Tide.On the other hand, the Far Realm, when it is at its most Lovecraftian, is neither moral nor anthropomorphic.  Lovecraft was an atheist and a skeptic.  His creations are decidedly amoral.  His universe does not contain objective good and evil.  Things won't go well for us when Cthulhu awakens, but Cthulhu isn't Lucifer.  The greater entities, Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, are more like forces of nature than demons.  This amoral worldview is incompatable with the objective morality inherent in the Great Wheel.Nor are Lovecraftian creatures anthropomorphic.  For the most part, they lack recognizable personality or emotion.  It cannot be said that Cthulhu is a personification of any mortal ideal.  The Color out of Space may or may not be sentient.  Azathoth is a blind idiot.  Nor are mythos beings particularly concerned with earth or humanity.  To the contrary, Lovecraft's horror is based on humanity's insignficance.In summary: the Abyss and the Far Realm are products of two different and incompatible world views.  The Abyss envisions a moral multiverse where the actions of humanity are significant.  The Far Realm envisions an amoral multiverse which cares nothing for humanity.  Of course, we know that 4E is removing the great wheel and sharply curtailing the importance of alignment, and I suspect that the Abyss will wind up looking more like the Far Realms as a result.</blockquote>

Verification