[Eberron] Suspicions about Dal Quor

[FireLance]

This thread has sparked off an interesting thought. If Dal Quor is simply the place where mortals' minds go when they fall asleep, the current incarnation of dream/nightmare might only be one possibility. What if, in the distant past, mortals did not dream when they fell asleep?

What if in the past, Dal Quor was a place of knowledge? While mortals slept, their minds travelled to Dal Quor where they were taught by Quori sages.

Alternatively, Dal Quor could have been a place where all mortal minds led a second life. When a mortal fell asleep on Eberron, he would wake up in Dal Quor in a different body and lead a life that could be very different from his life on Eberron. Similarly, when he fell asleep on Dal Quor, he woke up on Eberron.

Or perhaps Dal Quor could have been a place of counselling and self-knowledge, with the Quori serving as psychiatrists and mentors. Perhaps this is what the next age will be like.

 

[Gez]

Alternatively, Dal Quor could have been a place where all mortal minds led a second life. When a mortal fell asleep on Eberron, he would wake up in Dal Quor in a different body and lead a life that could be very different from his life on Eberron. Similarly, when he fell asleep on Dal Quor, he woke up on Eberron.

That reminds me of the hypothesis of Michel Tournier (French novelist) that if your dreams always picked up where they last ended, you would be unable to tell which life is real.

There's a webcomic that uses this premise, The Dreamland Chronicles. Not that it has anything to do with Dal Quor.

 

[fafhrd]

What if in the past, Dal Quor was a place of knowledge? While mortals slept, their minds travelled to Dal Quor where they were taught by Quori sages.

Perhaps it was some precursor to the Quori that woke the dragons from their long sleep of ignorance and gave them a dream of the prophecy fulfilled. Yoink!

 

[GAAAHHH]

The Inspired Quori are the good guys. They want to show humanity the light of perfection. It is those renegade Kalashtar who are evil...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Yes, another viable idea is that the quori of the previous age were simply fleeing their inevitable destruction when the age turned . . . and the giants didn't want to play host.

Cue the Invasion of the Body Snatchers... This begs the question: If the only way to ensue the survival of your entire species is to take over the bodies of another species, is doing so evil?

I'm also wondering what the quorforged were for, precisely. I mean, unless the quori were able to give them lots of character levels upon creation, they wouldn't have been powerful enough physically against the giants. Perhaps they were intended as hosts for the quori?

Here's a scenario:

The Light quori realize that the end of their Age is upon them - but they want to survive anyway. Thus, they create a "beachhead" of sorts with all sorts of quorforged constructs, since they need to create some sort of "anchor" in the physical plane to have a chance of surviving at all. They then move their spirits to some sort of physical receptory - large-scale phylacteries, if you will.

The giants, in the meantime, have become suspicious about these newcomers. Sure, they say that they have come in piece... but the number of constructs they have created begin to rapidly outnumber them! War ensues, and both sides fight to near-annihilation.

Near the end of the war, some quori learn how to put their spirits into construct bodies - the first true warforged. Sure, they forget everything about their former existence and can't leave, but hey - it beats dying. Unfortunately, the cataclysm strikes before more can be transferred, and most warforged are destroyed as well. All that's left are hundreds of thousands of Light quori, trapped in their phylacteries, unable to communicate with the outside world, and waiting for some sort of release...

Fourty thousand years pass.

House Cannith discovers the instructions for creating warforged in the depths of Xen'drik - but without understanding its implications, or where warforged spirits come from. They create thousands of warforged - and their souls are drawn from the trapped quori, who immediately forget their true identity upon being joined with the warforged bodies...


How does that sound?

 

[blargney the second]

Keith Baker's third novel in the Dreaming Dark series, Gates of Night, addresses this.

Basically: yep, the quori that invaded the giants were nicer and prettier than the Dreaming Dark. Their world was collapsing, and they sought to escape impending doom (and it's implied that they tried diplomacy). The giants rebuffed their attempts, so the light-quori invaded out of desperation and failed.

 

[MarkB]

I don't actually remember ever reading anything that suggests the Dal Quor cycle is light-dark-light-dark. There is a group of kalashtar who believe that the next incarnation of Dal Quor will be one of lightness and good, but that could simply be an optimistic reaction to the current nightmarish state of the realm, hoping for a better tomorrow.

Here's an alternative possibility: Perhaps every new cycle of Dal Quor begins with lightness and good, washed clean of the sins of the past - but then, as the darker dreams and nightmares of Eberron's living beings begin to build up within the plane, it gradually grows darker and more twisted, until once again it must be cleansed by the cycle of renewal.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Of course, few among the other kalashtar will likely believe him. After all, they have built their whole life and society around working towards this goal. If he presses the issue, he will be an outcast among them - a prophet whose words no one wishes to hear.

And even if they believe him, what are they supposed to do? The current quori need to be stopped anyway, and the turning of the age would do that quite nicely - apparently, it took the quori tens of thousands of years to gain their current power, and it should be similar for the next generation, too (though something needs to be done about the "empty vessels" - they are going to be trouble...).

See, that to me is the fun part.

 

[Kurotowa]

Don't forget that the alignment of the Path of Light is LN, not LG. Just because they were nicer beings doesn't mean they weren't willing to start a war to try and preserve their existence.

Also, if you connect the dots, there's a strong implication (and IIRC Keith has said as much) that the original docents were lifepods for the quori. By sealing themselves inside a docent they were able to continue to exist even after Dal Quor changed. The original mindless quorcraft warforged were meant as disposable extensions of the docents.

 

[Graf]

While this thread has touched off a lot of interesting ideas and discussion the impression you get from KB's posts is that each "age" is completely different from the prior one.

It's not like the Wheel of time where they're dark and light and they flip flop around but its basically the same people being reincarnated over and over again.

Except for the roll it plays (i.e. mortals from Eberron go there when they dream, etc) Each age is completely and utterly different. So one age is Law vs. Chaos, another is "ultimate evil" vs. "equality and peace" (the current age), and so on.

Aside from a very limited segment of information about the previous age already released (i.e. they did fight with the giants) it's impossible to state with any authority what the last age would be like.

You could make them all continuous if you wanted to of course.