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<blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 5218123" data-attributes="member: 29746"><p>The simplest way is probably if I give a partial timeline of the known Nexus Events prior to about 2 years before the Grand Nexus (which was the last Event my PCs had a direct hand in). If I'd thought of it at the time, I would've included this in the post on Nexus Events in the first place.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>~250,000 years prior to Grand Nexus (Fall of the First Empire):</strong> "Fugue Plane" Entity is disturbed enough by sensory impressions from the future regarding its destruction at the hands of inhabitants of the Material Plane that it sets up the Abyssal Gate, which opens a portal between the Material Plane and the Abyss such that they effectively become 1 plane. Portal brings down the civilization ruling the world at the time, who invent (and leave behind) such powerful artifacts as Firestars (essentially, reusable <em>Nuke</em> spells in amulet form) in their desperation to stop the demonic tide. Eventually, the emperor of that civilization sacrifices himself by passing through the portal to the demiplane itself and casting an Epic ritual intended to close the Gate forever. Ritual only succeeds partway, forcing the portal closed except for 24 hours following the passage of a total solar eclipse over the Material Plane side of the Gate, an occurrence which happens every 5,000 years following this date.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>~25,000 years prior to Grand Nexus (the Great Red Fleet):</strong> Fugue Plane Entity leaks the location of the Abyssal side of the Gate to Lower Plane inhabitants prior to Gate opening that time. Devils invade Abyss from the Hells in an effort to succeed where demons have so often failed, but are rebuffed due to extreme power of Material Plane inhabitants on that side. Material Plane inhabitants are incensed enough by the affront that they send a <em>counter-invasion of their own</em> dubbed "the Great Red Fleet" including (among other things) three planet-sized warships bristling with high-tech firepower, which blast their way through the Hells leaving only Dispater of the original Lords of the Nine alive (because he betrayed his race and let them through his territory unmolested), eventually arriving in Nessus itself and killing the original Asmodeus. The being claiming that name in later times was either a surviving Aspect of the original, or an imposter, nobody (else) is ever really sure. Following this, the original Incarnation of Good, ruling from the top of the 666 Heavens, censures the mortals, and for his trouble is the second target of their wrath- the Great Red Fleet turns to the Heavens and storms them just as easily, killing him and leaving the mortals in charge of the Heavens. During the course of the following millennia, the population of devils and angels slowly recovers, but never quite reaches the strength it once had. The next several Abyssal Gate openings see almost no demons dare the portal, out of fear of what the mortals might do.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>~2,000 years prior to Grand Nexus (the War of the Return):</strong> Ice Elves, mutant survivors in a post-apocalyptic world following a catastrophic war called the Annihilation which had occurred 3,000 years previously, are searching for a plane from which to rule their slaves and subjects agelessly and forever. They open a portal to the Far Realm, leading (eventually) to the events of <em>the Gates of Firestorm Peak</em> but more importantly providing a way back to the Material Plane for the Mind Flayers and Aboleth, who had been forced out of the world by the First Empire over 200,000 years previously. The returning Mind Flayers and Aboleth scour the planet, above and below ground, bringing an end to Ice Elf civilization and creating several new races of mutant survivors before they are finally confined in the deep underground. After rebuffing the Returners from their own continent, the Shades- already masters of Urgic Magic by this time- investigate the Far Realm where the Ice Elves left off, and concoct their Plan of the Final Gate- resulting in the Black Burst that ends their civilization on the Material Plane and leaves their continent a barren wasteland where any living creature that dies is corrupted to rise again as an undead thing.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>~200 years prior to Grand Nexus:</strong> This Event did not actually have as profound an impact on my campaign world as it did others, but I have assumed that this time represented the Time of Troubles in the Faerunian Material Plane, perhaps the Cataclysm on Krynn, and several others scattered across the cosmos. It resulted, among other things, from the rise of a new Incarnation of Good to take the place of the old one, and a realigning of the priorities in the Upper Planes such that they were essentially unified against Evil (and the Lower Planes in particular). During this time, an army of Deamons/Yugoloths invaded Elysium, and were only rebuffed by the locals after Taliesid the Lion cast an Epic ritual to awaken a being called "the Soul of Elysium" which singlehandedly wiped out the invading army in less than an hour before going back to wherever it came from.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>~20 years prior to Grand Nexus (Gate Day):</strong> This was the Event around which my campaign revolved for about 7 years, from when the PCs were 1st level, all the way up until they became DR 3 just-ascended deities. This was the final opening of the Abyssal Gate, the day the Fugue Plane Entity had been dreading for hundreds of thousands of years, when all the prophecies came to fruition. There were essentially two possibilities here: either the players' side won, killing the demiplane and closing the Abyssal Gate forever so that no future society would have to worry about it, or the Entity would win and the Material world would become a literal World of Nightmares where the few hardy survivors would be constantly scourged by demons and civilization would be nothing more than a legendary dream out of the past. The original plan was to have the PCs fight the Entity without the Sword of Time, discovering that they couldn't kill it and forcing them into the World of Nightmares where they would eventually learn about the Sword and collect it, only then traveling back in time to the Gate Day to truly kill the Entity and end the threat- but their ascension proceeded more quickly than I had anticipated, short-circuiting my plans and forcing me to rewrite things as they happened in game. To whit: they arrived on the Fugue Plane side, where a dying alternate-future version of the party tank (carrying the Sword of Time in a Portable Hole) gave it to the divine past-version of himself before the Fugue Plane crushed him to death- thus giving the PCs the weapon they needed to finally kill the Entity.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>~2 years prior to Grand Nexus (Rise of Tiegon):</strong> The mortal avatar of Thangorodoth revealed himself at last, in the form of a mortal boy who was somehow able to naturally use all ten Urgic Magic Sources at once (standard rules assume that a person naturally skilled in the use of Urgic Magic- the Urgic equivalent of a Sorcerer- is only linked to <em>one</em> of the ten Sources, and can only use the others by taking special feats), eventually discovering his true heritage and becoming a full Antigod going by the name Tiegon. He shut the standard gods out of the Material Plane utterly, killing many and forcing what was left of their religions underground, until a party of mortal heroes found an artifact which was capable of opening a portal through his planar block to the Outer Planes and allow the true gods back into the world for an apocalyptic showdown. Eventually Tiegon was destroyed by that same mortal band, whose leader was wielding the Sword of Time. Following this, the Sword warped itself out of the central cosmos entirely, saying that its presence would just be a distraction from what was to come next. The PCs from Gate Day actually skipped over this Event and heard about it only secondhand, due to being in the Pure-Spirit cosmos at the time.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>~2 months prior to Gate Day (Rise of the Sidereals):</strong> The suicide of one PC, a desperation move intended to gain the attention and favor of the First One of Entropy, succeeded in causing Entropy to create an "avatar" of Itself exactly resembling her original self but with extra powers (which i will detail in the "Favored of the First Ones" templates post since this was what led me to create those templates in the first place). The shockwaves this event sent reverberating through the central cosmos, more specifically the imbalance to the traditional detente that direct interference by a full First One in the affairs of the cosmos represented, caused the Sidereals on every plane of the central cosmos to awaken from dormancy all at the same time. Most Divine Realms across the cosmos were eradicated by the awakening Overgods as they reasserted their dominance; about half of the surviving gods only did so because they were offered sanctuary in the Device in the Desolation (created, ironically, by the very Shard of Entropy who had precipitated the awakening in the first place).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Other Nexus Events prior to the Grand Nexus:</strong> were not detailed by me, due to coming so close together. Seriously: the next one after the Rise of the Sidereals was scheduled for only about 5 weeks later, then 4 days, then a few hours... I could go on but the point is moot. The real focus by then was...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>The Grand Nexus:</strong> The Ritual of Opening finally takes place, as the Ring Portal focuses all its energy on the Layer of the Ritual deep within the Far Realm (a layer which incidentally also served as home to the actual Entities who were the ten Sources of Urgic Magic). In the Material Plane, an army of gods led by PCs from both groups acting together overcomes the Parasite from the Egg, a baby Brane Dragon who was preventing the Seventh First One from taking its proper place in the grand scheme of things. SEPHIROSOPHIA, the actual Creator of the DABBATIALDABAOTH Reality, arrives through the open Final Gate and facilitates both the Transcendence into Eternal form of many observers present at the Ritual (including all of the remaining Shade Masters and most of the PCs), and the recognition by the two halves of the Seventh First One of its true nature so that they could finally merge and grow into their proper place. DABBATIALDABAOTH wakes on every plane of existence, in every cosmos, but is lulled back to slumber/dormancy by the Sendings of its Creator before it can do much damage.</li> </ul><p>Noteworthy on the above list is that several obvious massive Events, such as the several openings of the Abyssal Gate <em>besides</em> the two that occurred during Nexus Events (they happened every 5,000 years), as well as the destruction of the remaining Sidereal portion of Thangorodoth, did <em>not</em> count as Nexus Events. Nexus Events were different in that they sort of "ripple" out from the Grand Nexus that caused them all, and also in that major rules changes for the game (for example, switching from one edition to another, like 3.0 to 3.5 or Pathfinder) should ideally be saved for Nexi rather than dropped into the game at other times. Most Nexus Events, as should now be clear, involve direct action by Sidereals in even mortal-level affairs, and this is why the rules can change during such times.</p><p> </p><p></p><p>There were several occasions when they fought other deities, and honestly if I'd been better at coming up with good optimized stats for such opponents they would have fought a lot more of them. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> But more often, I threw whatever monsters at them that I thought I reasonably could from the IH Bestiary or other sources. They fought several Nexus Dragons, for example, and a Neutronium Golem, and I used guidelines from the Bestiary to create several opponents of similar level that weren't actually in the book such as the Eye of Daath (an Inevitable on a level similar to a Seraphim) or Pandorym (from the Elder Evils book, though the PCs actually skipped the cosmos before facing this thing so I never actually used the stats for it). I also threw Macrobe and double-Macrobe Vermin at one party, which usually proved to be relative pushovers- they're very over-CR'ed since they can't (by the rules) take feats, or other important things such as Divine or higher Abilities.</p><p></p><p>Combat, in the later game, meaning as the Grand Nexus approached, became less and less common, and when it did occur it often became anticlimictic due to the players' tendency to pre-analyze their potential opponents to death before even fighting them. With the exception of the Parasite, at the very end of the campaign, they didn't once enter a fight they didn't know in advance they could win. Accordingly, most XP and QP came from story awards by that time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="paradox42, post: 5218123, member: 29746"] The simplest way is probably if I give a partial timeline of the known Nexus Events prior to about 2 years before the Grand Nexus (which was the last Event my PCs had a direct hand in). If I'd thought of it at the time, I would've included this in the post on Nexus Events in the first place. [LIST] [*][B]~250,000 years prior to Grand Nexus (Fall of the First Empire):[/B] "Fugue Plane" Entity is disturbed enough by sensory impressions from the future regarding its destruction at the hands of inhabitants of the Material Plane that it sets up the Abyssal Gate, which opens a portal between the Material Plane and the Abyss such that they effectively become 1 plane. Portal brings down the civilization ruling the world at the time, who invent (and leave behind) such powerful artifacts as Firestars (essentially, reusable [I]Nuke[/I] spells in amulet form) in their desperation to stop the demonic tide. Eventually, the emperor of that civilization sacrifices himself by passing through the portal to the demiplane itself and casting an Epic ritual intended to close the Gate forever. Ritual only succeeds partway, forcing the portal closed except for 24 hours following the passage of a total solar eclipse over the Material Plane side of the Gate, an occurrence which happens every 5,000 years following this date. [*][B]~25,000 years prior to Grand Nexus (the Great Red Fleet):[/B] Fugue Plane Entity leaks the location of the Abyssal side of the Gate to Lower Plane inhabitants prior to Gate opening that time. Devils invade Abyss from the Hells in an effort to succeed where demons have so often failed, but are rebuffed due to extreme power of Material Plane inhabitants on that side. Material Plane inhabitants are incensed enough by the affront that they send a [I]counter-invasion of their own[/I] dubbed "the Great Red Fleet" including (among other things) three planet-sized warships bristling with high-tech firepower, which blast their way through the Hells leaving only Dispater of the original Lords of the Nine alive (because he betrayed his race and let them through his territory unmolested), eventually arriving in Nessus itself and killing the original Asmodeus. The being claiming that name in later times was either a surviving Aspect of the original, or an imposter, nobody (else) is ever really sure. Following this, the original Incarnation of Good, ruling from the top of the 666 Heavens, censures the mortals, and for his trouble is the second target of their wrath- the Great Red Fleet turns to the Heavens and storms them just as easily, killing him and leaving the mortals in charge of the Heavens. During the course of the following millennia, the population of devils and angels slowly recovers, but never quite reaches the strength it once had. The next several Abyssal Gate openings see almost no demons dare the portal, out of fear of what the mortals might do. [*][B]~2,000 years prior to Grand Nexus (the War of the Return):[/B] Ice Elves, mutant survivors in a post-apocalyptic world following a catastrophic war called the Annihilation which had occurred 3,000 years previously, are searching for a plane from which to rule their slaves and subjects agelessly and forever. They open a portal to the Far Realm, leading (eventually) to the events of [I]the Gates of Firestorm Peak[/I] but more importantly providing a way back to the Material Plane for the Mind Flayers and Aboleth, who had been forced out of the world by the First Empire over 200,000 years previously. The returning Mind Flayers and Aboleth scour the planet, above and below ground, bringing an end to Ice Elf civilization and creating several new races of mutant survivors before they are finally confined in the deep underground. After rebuffing the Returners from their own continent, the Shades- already masters of Urgic Magic by this time- investigate the Far Realm where the Ice Elves left off, and concoct their Plan of the Final Gate- resulting in the Black Burst that ends their civilization on the Material Plane and leaves their continent a barren wasteland where any living creature that dies is corrupted to rise again as an undead thing. [*][B]~200 years prior to Grand Nexus:[/B] This Event did not actually have as profound an impact on my campaign world as it did others, but I have assumed that this time represented the Time of Troubles in the Faerunian Material Plane, perhaps the Cataclysm on Krynn, and several others scattered across the cosmos. It resulted, among other things, from the rise of a new Incarnation of Good to take the place of the old one, and a realigning of the priorities in the Upper Planes such that they were essentially unified against Evil (and the Lower Planes in particular). During this time, an army of Deamons/Yugoloths invaded Elysium, and were only rebuffed by the locals after Taliesid the Lion cast an Epic ritual to awaken a being called "the Soul of Elysium" which singlehandedly wiped out the invading army in less than an hour before going back to wherever it came from. [*][B]~20 years prior to Grand Nexus (Gate Day):[/B] This was the Event around which my campaign revolved for about 7 years, from when the PCs were 1st level, all the way up until they became DR 3 just-ascended deities. This was the final opening of the Abyssal Gate, the day the Fugue Plane Entity had been dreading for hundreds of thousands of years, when all the prophecies came to fruition. There were essentially two possibilities here: either the players' side won, killing the demiplane and closing the Abyssal Gate forever so that no future society would have to worry about it, or the Entity would win and the Material world would become a literal World of Nightmares where the few hardy survivors would be constantly scourged by demons and civilization would be nothing more than a legendary dream out of the past. The original plan was to have the PCs fight the Entity without the Sword of Time, discovering that they couldn't kill it and forcing them into the World of Nightmares where they would eventually learn about the Sword and collect it, only then traveling back in time to the Gate Day to truly kill the Entity and end the threat- but their ascension proceeded more quickly than I had anticipated, short-circuiting my plans and forcing me to rewrite things as they happened in game. To whit: they arrived on the Fugue Plane side, where a dying alternate-future version of the party tank (carrying the Sword of Time in a Portable Hole) gave it to the divine past-version of himself before the Fugue Plane crushed him to death- thus giving the PCs the weapon they needed to finally kill the Entity. [*][B]~2 years prior to Grand Nexus (Rise of Tiegon):[/B] The mortal avatar of Thangorodoth revealed himself at last, in the form of a mortal boy who was somehow able to naturally use all ten Urgic Magic Sources at once (standard rules assume that a person naturally skilled in the use of Urgic Magic- the Urgic equivalent of a Sorcerer- is only linked to [I]one[/I] of the ten Sources, and can only use the others by taking special feats), eventually discovering his true heritage and becoming a full Antigod going by the name Tiegon. He shut the standard gods out of the Material Plane utterly, killing many and forcing what was left of their religions underground, until a party of mortal heroes found an artifact which was capable of opening a portal through his planar block to the Outer Planes and allow the true gods back into the world for an apocalyptic showdown. Eventually Tiegon was destroyed by that same mortal band, whose leader was wielding the Sword of Time. Following this, the Sword warped itself out of the central cosmos entirely, saying that its presence would just be a distraction from what was to come next. The PCs from Gate Day actually skipped over this Event and heard about it only secondhand, due to being in the Pure-Spirit cosmos at the time. [*][B]~2 months prior to Gate Day (Rise of the Sidereals):[/B] The suicide of one PC, a desperation move intended to gain the attention and favor of the First One of Entropy, succeeded in causing Entropy to create an "avatar" of Itself exactly resembling her original self but with extra powers (which i will detail in the "Favored of the First Ones" templates post since this was what led me to create those templates in the first place). The shockwaves this event sent reverberating through the central cosmos, more specifically the imbalance to the traditional detente that direct interference by a full First One in the affairs of the cosmos represented, caused the Sidereals on every plane of the central cosmos to awaken from dormancy all at the same time. Most Divine Realms across the cosmos were eradicated by the awakening Overgods as they reasserted their dominance; about half of the surviving gods only did so because they were offered sanctuary in the Device in the Desolation (created, ironically, by the very Shard of Entropy who had precipitated the awakening in the first place). [*][B]Other Nexus Events prior to the Grand Nexus:[/B] were not detailed by me, due to coming so close together. Seriously: the next one after the Rise of the Sidereals was scheduled for only about 5 weeks later, then 4 days, then a few hours... I could go on but the point is moot. The real focus by then was... [*][B]The Grand Nexus:[/B] The Ritual of Opening finally takes place, as the Ring Portal focuses all its energy on the Layer of the Ritual deep within the Far Realm (a layer which incidentally also served as home to the actual Entities who were the ten Sources of Urgic Magic). In the Material Plane, an army of gods led by PCs from both groups acting together overcomes the Parasite from the Egg, a baby Brane Dragon who was preventing the Seventh First One from taking its proper place in the grand scheme of things. SEPHIROSOPHIA, the actual Creator of the DABBATIALDABAOTH Reality, arrives through the open Final Gate and facilitates both the Transcendence into Eternal form of many observers present at the Ritual (including all of the remaining Shade Masters and most of the PCs), and the recognition by the two halves of the Seventh First One of its true nature so that they could finally merge and grow into their proper place. DABBATIALDABAOTH wakes on every plane of existence, in every cosmos, but is lulled back to slumber/dormancy by the Sendings of its Creator before it can do much damage. [/LIST] Noteworthy on the above list is that several obvious massive Events, such as the several openings of the Abyssal Gate [I]besides[/I] the two that occurred during Nexus Events (they happened every 5,000 years), as well as the destruction of the remaining Sidereal portion of Thangorodoth, did [I]not[/I] count as Nexus Events. Nexus Events were different in that they sort of "ripple" out from the Grand Nexus that caused them all, and also in that major rules changes for the game (for example, switching from one edition to another, like 3.0 to 3.5 or Pathfinder) should ideally be saved for Nexi rather than dropped into the game at other times. Most Nexus Events, as should now be clear, involve direct action by Sidereals in even mortal-level affairs, and this is why the rules can change during such times. There were several occasions when they fought other deities, and honestly if I'd been better at coming up with good optimized stats for such opponents they would have fought a lot more of them. ;) But more often, I threw whatever monsters at them that I thought I reasonably could from the IH Bestiary or other sources. They fought several Nexus Dragons, for example, and a Neutronium Golem, and I used guidelines from the Bestiary to create several opponents of similar level that weren't actually in the book such as the Eye of Daath (an Inevitable on a level similar to a Seraphim) or Pandorym (from the Elder Evils book, though the PCs actually skipped the cosmos before facing this thing so I never actually used the stats for it). I also threw Macrobe and double-Macrobe Vermin at one party, which usually proved to be relative pushovers- they're very over-CR'ed since they can't (by the rules) take feats, or other important things such as Divine or higher Abilities. Combat, in the later game, meaning as the Grand Nexus approached, became less and less common, and when it did occur it often became anticlimictic due to the players' tendency to pre-analyze their potential opponents to death before even fighting them. With the exception of the Parasite, at the very end of the campaign, they didn't once enter a fight they didn't know in advance they could win. Accordingly, most XP and QP came from story awards by that time. [/QUOTE]
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