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Whats so special about the Far Realm?
- Thread starter Vicar In A Tutu
- Start date
wingsandsword
Legend
For Lovecraftian/Far Realm entities, here is a good way to see how they can be omnicidal and destructive, but be distinctly different from demons and other "destroy everything" creatures.
Demons want to destroy things for Evil's sake, cause mayhem to cause mayhem, corrupt souls, drag everything into the pit with them. They just want to watch the world burn, to quote The Dark Knight. They want to see individuals suffer and harvest the souls of the corrupted.
Lovecraftian abominations don't even see what they are doing as wrong, they just don't care. They are powerful enough to cause massive devastation, but due to differences in perspective in reality they don't understand what they do is "wrong", they just do it.
Look at it this way:
You find an annoying anthill in your backyard. You may ignore it as not worth your time or effort, but you find it full of insignificant, unintelligent beings you see as vermin, certainly nothing you can negotiate or deal with. You ignore it for a long time, but one day you may just decide to deal with the nuisance and decide to destroy it. You could dump some poison on it, just to end the vermin nuisance. . .or you could pour gasoline on it and burn it all down and end the annoyance. To the ants, you are a merciless, destructive, genocidal/omnicidal maniac that can't be reasoned with or dealt with, you have vast destructive power that might be able to kill most/all of their entire people. They hope you'll never come around, they hope it will be generation away, if ever, before you destroy their world.
Demons want to destroy things for Evil's sake, cause mayhem to cause mayhem, corrupt souls, drag everything into the pit with them. They just want to watch the world burn, to quote The Dark Knight. They want to see individuals suffer and harvest the souls of the corrupted.
Lovecraftian abominations don't even see what they are doing as wrong, they just don't care. They are powerful enough to cause massive devastation, but due to differences in perspective in reality they don't understand what they do is "wrong", they just do it.
Look at it this way:
You find an annoying anthill in your backyard. You may ignore it as not worth your time or effort, but you find it full of insignificant, unintelligent beings you see as vermin, certainly nothing you can negotiate or deal with. You ignore it for a long time, but one day you may just decide to deal with the nuisance and decide to destroy it. You could dump some poison on it, just to end the vermin nuisance. . .or you could pour gasoline on it and burn it all down and end the annoyance. To the ants, you are a merciless, destructive, genocidal/omnicidal maniac that can't be reasoned with or dealt with, you have vast destructive power that might be able to kill most/all of their entire people. They hope you'll never come around, they hope it will be generation away, if ever, before you destroy their world.
And
When I look at Chaos & Law in a fantasy setting, my primary inspiration for what that really means comes from the work of Michael Moorcock, and secondarily from HPL.
Most living creatures have a bit of law and a bit of order within them, how much being a sliding scale. The more chaotic a creature, the more bizarre and unpredictable we'd probably find it to be. Ultimately, chaos is about change, and those creatures that most fully embody chaos may be completely protean in form...and seemingly unstable in psychology as well.
Demons- whether D&D, Moorcockian or what have you- are about as chaotic as beings get that we as inhabitants of the normal world can truly comprehend in any meaningful sense. But beings of nearly or truly pure chaos are in some way incomprehensible to us. Therin lie some of Moorcock's creations, but moreso the HPL-inspired Far Realms critters.
Law in Moorcock's view, OTOH, ultimately is about the triumph of order. And the ultimate triumph of order is stasis. As in an unending sameness of being without alteration.
The reason the Far Realms critters seem so...other...to even the demons and other more traditional powers of chaos is that they don't even bother trying to be something we can understand. They are beyond a need for us to relate to them.
Who knows, perhaps they even have an opposite within the cosmology...but since that would be some kind of unchanging and unchangeable piece of undifferentiated, non-sentient matter, its not exactly worth statting up.
DragonLancer
Adventurer
Aberzanzorax
Hero
I didn't read the whole thread (sorry, I'm tired, and I probably will later).
BUT, here's a twist.
The pcs have to stop some far realm entites from DOING GOOD.
They don't know why, they don't want the actions to stop, per se, and are likely actually in line with the actions of the dastardly, face eating, tentacled things from beyond who are mind controlling or soul stealing people to do good.
But, they're not doing good nicely. They're hurting people to help others. WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY TRY TO SAVE ALL THE ORPHANS? WHY ARE THEY ERRADICATING DISEASE?
It's as though they're taking every dastardly or good measure to save everyone in this one specific town for no particular reason. Everyone will live, whether they want to or not (sorry old man dying of a painful disease, you get a cure light wounds every single darn day, whether you want it or not).
The "unfathomable" part is not actually having a reason yourself. In this case, good DMing is utilizing the arts of "poor DMing". Usually you should have npcs have motivations and reasons. In this case, good dming means they have no knowable motivations and reasons....no knowable motivations or reasons (knowable to us mortals like human DMs) means that they have no motivations or reasons. They just act.
The DM just does interesting stuff to increase horror, which can be to help one pc in a battle while trying to tpk everyone else.
Another, somewhat debatable hint.... Let the player's conspiracy theories drive what they're actually doing. Either decide, or if you can't decide, flip a coin. Heads the players are right, tails the players are only partly right. Or, just assume that whatever the players figure out (this is sorta cheating, but might be ok depending on the genre and buy in of the players) is always partly right, but also always partly wrong. Unknowable reasons, well...they're unknowable. That's sorta the damn deal.
EDIT: to be a bit more clear. Sometimes it's good to break every rule of gaming. Establish, recognize, and respect those rules on a regular basis. Then, with some very specific circumstances, break them. Break em hard and with some regularity. Every expectation is likely to be wrong. Every assumption is way off. But it doesn't always hurt/screw with the players. Sometimes it is to their benefit.
I'm not advocating being a rat bastard dm. I'm advocating being an overly kind and also overly harsh, and very confusing dm who hurts the understanding of players and their character's of the game, the rules, the adventure, the mystery, etc. but doesn't hurt the actual characters that much.
Hell, in a good far realm adventure, the characters might end up broken and insane, and might never ever have taken a point of damage, seen a villain, killed or looted anything, or even really understood what was actually happening....but they should have a solid understanding of what they THOUGHT was happening...and that thing, well, that thing was wrong.
BUT, here's a twist.
The pcs have to stop some far realm entites from DOING GOOD.
They don't know why, they don't want the actions to stop, per se, and are likely actually in line with the actions of the dastardly, face eating, tentacled things from beyond who are mind controlling or soul stealing people to do good.
But, they're not doing good nicely. They're hurting people to help others. WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY TRY TO SAVE ALL THE ORPHANS? WHY ARE THEY ERRADICATING DISEASE?
It's as though they're taking every dastardly or good measure to save everyone in this one specific town for no particular reason. Everyone will live, whether they want to or not (sorry old man dying of a painful disease, you get a cure light wounds every single darn day, whether you want it or not).
The "unfathomable" part is not actually having a reason yourself. In this case, good DMing is utilizing the arts of "poor DMing". Usually you should have npcs have motivations and reasons. In this case, good dming means they have no knowable motivations and reasons....no knowable motivations or reasons (knowable to us mortals like human DMs) means that they have no motivations or reasons. They just act.
The DM just does interesting stuff to increase horror, which can be to help one pc in a battle while trying to tpk everyone else.
Another, somewhat debatable hint.... Let the player's conspiracy theories drive what they're actually doing. Either decide, or if you can't decide, flip a coin. Heads the players are right, tails the players are only partly right. Or, just assume that whatever the players figure out (this is sorta cheating, but might be ok depending on the genre and buy in of the players) is always partly right, but also always partly wrong. Unknowable reasons, well...they're unknowable. That's sorta the damn deal.
EDIT: to be a bit more clear. Sometimes it's good to break every rule of gaming. Establish, recognize, and respect those rules on a regular basis. Then, with some very specific circumstances, break them. Break em hard and with some regularity. Every expectation is likely to be wrong. Every assumption is way off. But it doesn't always hurt/screw with the players. Sometimes it is to their benefit.
I'm not advocating being a rat bastard dm. I'm advocating being an overly kind and also overly harsh, and very confusing dm who hurts the understanding of players and their character's of the game, the rules, the adventure, the mystery, etc. but doesn't hurt the actual characters that much.
Hell, in a good far realm adventure, the characters might end up broken and insane, and might never ever have taken a point of damage, seen a villain, killed or looted anything, or even really understood what was actually happening....but they should have a solid understanding of what they THOUGHT was happening...and that thing, well, that thing was wrong.
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AngryMojo
First Post
Strange aeons ago, Pelor glimpsed far into the sky above his domain, far above creation itself and saw the vast darkness for what it was. Fearful for what would come, he quickly willed a barrier against the stark nothingness into existence, hoping it would stem the tide. Far down on the newly created natural world, life continued as normal for centuries. The barrier set up by the god held, and kept the blackness from creation.
However, cracks were found. Several races of creatures bearing the unnatural mark of the dark spaces between the stars emerged, and began interfering with the gods creation. Illithids manipulated the biology and psychology of cultures both above and beneath the ground while aboleths enslaved and mutated mortals. Beholders gibbered across the land, never speaking coherently enough for the mortals, or even the gods to understand. The gods fought against these slavers and corrupters, never realizing the aberrations loved their home. They sought to strenghten it in the only ways they knew, to fully comprehend it and make it able to stand against the endless expanse of the far realm. The illithids, the beholders, the aboleths have been touched by the far realm, and understand the horrible implications of that unknowable expanse. When the time has come and the stars are right, the barrier will collapse and the far will come into creation. A day that even the gods fear, for compared to the endless expanse they are as ants to the highest of divinity.
The far realm does not concern itself with that day. To them, it has already happened.
That's the appeal behind the far realm. Lovecraftian horror, from the cosmic aspect at least, isn't about tentacled beasts or dripping ooze, it's about nihilism. Not only is the constant struggle against the unknowable unwinnable, doom is coming. When the stars are right, Cthulhu will rise from R'yleh and lay waste to the earth as he awakens/resurrects. Humanity will be eradicated, and Cthulhu won't even notice. The fine folks at Chaosium do a better job of explaining it than I, or probably anyone on this board, can. Read through the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, and you'll at least see what the unknowable can appear to be, and how the term is not a cop-out but a narrative challenge.
However, cracks were found. Several races of creatures bearing the unnatural mark of the dark spaces between the stars emerged, and began interfering with the gods creation. Illithids manipulated the biology and psychology of cultures both above and beneath the ground while aboleths enslaved and mutated mortals. Beholders gibbered across the land, never speaking coherently enough for the mortals, or even the gods to understand. The gods fought against these slavers and corrupters, never realizing the aberrations loved their home. They sought to strenghten it in the only ways they knew, to fully comprehend it and make it able to stand against the endless expanse of the far realm. The illithids, the beholders, the aboleths have been touched by the far realm, and understand the horrible implications of that unknowable expanse. When the time has come and the stars are right, the barrier will collapse and the far will come into creation. A day that even the gods fear, for compared to the endless expanse they are as ants to the highest of divinity.
The far realm does not concern itself with that day. To them, it has already happened.
That's the appeal behind the far realm. Lovecraftian horror, from the cosmic aspect at least, isn't about tentacled beasts or dripping ooze, it's about nihilism. Not only is the constant struggle against the unknowable unwinnable, doom is coming. When the stars are right, Cthulhu will rise from R'yleh and lay waste to the earth as he awakens/resurrects. Humanity will be eradicated, and Cthulhu won't even notice. The fine folks at Chaosium do a better job of explaining it than I, or probably anyone on this board, can. Read through the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, and you'll at least see what the unknowable can appear to be, and how the term is not a cop-out but a narrative challenge.
Hactarcomp
First Post
So I actually just registered my account to comment in this thread.
My view of contact between the Far Realm and the everyday world is that it is similar to the Torque in China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. One of the characters is showing pictures of torque damage to another- they look at a picture of a think that was once a goat, but had a carapace and even after being dead, the horns in its stomach attacked the biologist dissecting it. When the team that had taken the pictures returns from the torque damaged area, one of the men has barbed tentacles where his eyes should have been and pieces of the scientist have just started disappearing. No blood, no mess, not fuss, just a hole through her the next day, a chunk of her arm the day after.
It is mutations gone mad. The aberrations are not from the Far Realm, as the Far Realm is too alien. Instead, they are what has survived contact with the Far Realm, the shape that normal, everyday things have been twisted into. The gibbering beast is the easiest example of this, but I apply it to aboleths as well.
Mieville also gives a decent view of a alien viewpoint that is just slightly incomprehensible to humans- the Weaver. It views everything simply in terms of aesthetics. Beauty is truth is goodness. Of course, what is beautiful changes depending on your point of view. Wars could be fought over whether to plant one type or another flower in a garden, while the decision to remove the left pinky finger from every other person in a room could be made in an eyeblink if it improved the aesthetics of the situation. Beauty is subjective, and what would beauty look like to an Aboleth?
(TVTropes has a page on this: Blue and Orange Morality. Warning, it is TVTropes, don't go in unless you have time to kill.)
I'm currently running a 4e game and assuming that I can get my players to stick with me until the paragon tier, I plan on throwing them into some Far Realm influenced dungeons. Non-Euclidean spaces, where the rooms appear normal, but when they walk along the corridors, it takes five 90 degree turns for them to come back to the same room. A dungeon on a mobius strip (this one I am definitely going to do, with the rooms reversed but filled with new monsters but also the corpses they left behind when they complete their loop). Gravity changing as they enter a room. Aberrations don't just have to happen to organic creatures, they can happen to inorganic stuff as well. A room in which the only non-slick surface is the ice, where the only surface that doesn't suck the PCs slowly in is the rock-solid surface of the pool of water that still ripples with the movement of the fish within it.
I'm not sure how I see psionics, as none of my players currently has a character playing one, but perhaps they could be seen as the ripples coming out of these unexpected reality excursions caused by the Far Realm.
I see the Far Realm as an opportunity to truly mess with the laws of reality within the system. Stuff that could be achieved through magic, sure, but that would not occur to any normal magic user and even would be considered an odd idea from the insane ones. Cosmologically, I view it as another universe with natural laws and morality completely alien to ours.
My view of contact between the Far Realm and the everyday world is that it is similar to the Torque in China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. One of the characters is showing pictures of torque damage to another- they look at a picture of a think that was once a goat, but had a carapace and even after being dead, the horns in its stomach attacked the biologist dissecting it. When the team that had taken the pictures returns from the torque damaged area, one of the men has barbed tentacles where his eyes should have been and pieces of the scientist have just started disappearing. No blood, no mess, not fuss, just a hole through her the next day, a chunk of her arm the day after.
It is mutations gone mad. The aberrations are not from the Far Realm, as the Far Realm is too alien. Instead, they are what has survived contact with the Far Realm, the shape that normal, everyday things have been twisted into. The gibbering beast is the easiest example of this, but I apply it to aboleths as well.
Mieville also gives a decent view of a alien viewpoint that is just slightly incomprehensible to humans- the Weaver. It views everything simply in terms of aesthetics. Beauty is truth is goodness. Of course, what is beautiful changes depending on your point of view. Wars could be fought over whether to plant one type or another flower in a garden, while the decision to remove the left pinky finger from every other person in a room could be made in an eyeblink if it improved the aesthetics of the situation. Beauty is subjective, and what would beauty look like to an Aboleth?
(TVTropes has a page on this: Blue and Orange Morality. Warning, it is TVTropes, don't go in unless you have time to kill.)
I'm currently running a 4e game and assuming that I can get my players to stick with me until the paragon tier, I plan on throwing them into some Far Realm influenced dungeons. Non-Euclidean spaces, where the rooms appear normal, but when they walk along the corridors, it takes five 90 degree turns for them to come back to the same room. A dungeon on a mobius strip (this one I am definitely going to do, with the rooms reversed but filled with new monsters but also the corpses they left behind when they complete their loop). Gravity changing as they enter a room. Aberrations don't just have to happen to organic creatures, they can happen to inorganic stuff as well. A room in which the only non-slick surface is the ice, where the only surface that doesn't suck the PCs slowly in is the rock-solid surface of the pool of water that still ripples with the movement of the fish within it.
I'm not sure how I see psionics, as none of my players currently has a character playing one, but perhaps they could be seen as the ripples coming out of these unexpected reality excursions caused by the Far Realm.
I see the Far Realm as an opportunity to truly mess with the laws of reality within the system. Stuff that could be achieved through magic, sure, but that would not occur to any normal magic user and even would be considered an odd idea from the insane ones. Cosmologically, I view it as another universe with natural laws and morality completely alien to ours.
Krensky
First Post
Just as a point of order, technically if your campaign world is set on a planet (the spherical kind, anyway) all dungeons are non-euclidean. Euclidean geometry on the surface of a (spherical) planet is just an local approximation of spherical geometry.
Sorry, carry on.
Infernal Teddy
Explorer
Every organism has it's own parasite. We have viruses. Bacteria. Fleas. Mosquitos. Every organism has parasites. Thei Multivers, this "Great Wheel" is so vast, so unfathomnable, who are we to say it's not a living organism, with everything inside, even the Gods, being nothing more than cells or minor organs. Maybe with the Lady of Pain, the Dark Lords and even the Tarrasque as vital parts of it's "immune system".
If this is the case...
...the the Far realm is a parasite that lives off Multiverses. And we have become the most recent host. And the worst is yet to come - as time goes by we have seen more and more "creatures" of the Far realm invading, more... "toxins" that the parasite injets into the host so as to be able to continue to feed. The immune system of the Multiverse is fighting back, but it is loosing the war. The Tarrasque was once maybe not alone, or slept less. The Dark Powers are hiding in Raveloft. The Lady of Pain holds Sigil as a last hold-out.
The multiverse is dying, the Far realm is killing it. There is no hope.
- Found amonst the writings of the Sage Menethenos of Alexandria, just after his suicide and mere hours before the burning of the Great Library
If this is the case...
...the the Far realm is a parasite that lives off Multiverses. And we have become the most recent host. And the worst is yet to come - as time goes by we have seen more and more "creatures" of the Far realm invading, more... "toxins" that the parasite injets into the host so as to be able to continue to feed. The immune system of the Multiverse is fighting back, but it is loosing the war. The Tarrasque was once maybe not alone, or slept less. The Dark Powers are hiding in Raveloft. The Lady of Pain holds Sigil as a last hold-out.
The multiverse is dying, the Far realm is killing it. There is no hope.
- Found amonst the writings of the Sage Menethenos of Alexandria, just after his suicide and mere hours before the burning of the Great Library
Zhaleskra
Adventurer
Having been a Planescape fan, and using some of the Planescape ideas, I have an idea of why the Far Realm exists at all. When a mortal dies and becomes a petitioner, his or her memories of that mortal life are erased by the gods in order to preserve that soul's sanity. Now let's add reincarnation, and remembering past lives: after so many cycles, the gods can't fix you anymore, and are starting to worry about their own sanity. They can't exactly destroy you since there's no nowhere for you to go to. So they dump you in the far realm to be alone with your own insanity. And then your insanity becomes reality.
