From mlevy@orion.oac.uci.eduSat May 25 18:14:41 1996 Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 13:37:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Matthew Levy Reply to: mystara-l@io.com To: mystara-l@io.com Subject: Re: [Mystara] Chronomancy & the Multiverse On Fri, 24 May 1996, Daniel Boese wrote: > > Does anybody happen to have a copy of X2: Chateau d'Ambrevilles to > compare Laterre, the world Etienne & co originally came from, to the HR > world? All the information I know of points to "A magical version of > France", but that's it.. Yes, I have a copy - not particularly helpful. None of the place names is from real France as far as I can tell (in fact many are the same as place names in Nouvelle Averoigne on Mystara). The one striking thing about Old Averoigne is that it is a much lower tech level than Glantri - probably more like 12th century AD, which makes sense - also it is somewhat remote and provincial, is the impression I get - lots of virgin forest and a few big towns. The similarity of "Averoigne" to "Aquitaine" (very slight, I admit) makes me wonder if it is supposed to be in Gascony somewhere. At any rate, Averoigne/Laterre (which is just French for Earth, of course) did not originate with X2 - you have to go back further to the Lovecraft-esque original stories of Clark Ashton Smith, and than will require a very good library than stocks obscure fantasy and sci-fi from the 30's. I've never read the stories but I assume they should be enlightening - many of the events and place names in X2 are taken directly from them. > I'm already imagining a time-travel plot where the PCs pop back in time > to about 820AC or so, head over to Laterre, and keep Etienne from ever > coming to Glantri and causing all that mess with the Radiance.. of > course, Rad/Etienne of 1014AC or 1000AC wouldn't take it lying down... > You really should check out Mark of Amber, which deals with almost exactly this question ... sort of ... > > believes the Immortals Rafiel and possibly Rad (a.k.a. Etienne > > d'Amberville) are defending a prehistoric secret somehow connected with > > the Radiance of Glantri. > > This is interesting.. it implies that these two Immortals of Energy > have their own methods of time travel, either through Temporal Prime, > favours from Time Immortals, or something else entirely. IMHO, all time travel would be more or less controlled/regulated by Khoronus - he's so powerful in that area I doubt anyone would challenge him individually, and he would probably allow some small use of time travel but no big changes. However, in my campaign right now, Khoronus has been "killed" (temporarily banished from time) by a group of other immortals as part of the WotI war - meaning that the time stream is coming apart at the seams and bizarre things are happening in illogical sequences. It is still pretty linear but it is already very frustrating to my PC's - imagine if Khoronus really were dead, the logic of time might collapse completely ... Then there's > always the "Emerald River" of time found at the end of the NightRage, > NightStorm, and NightWail module series, where it's claimed that > Immortals can travel back in time to observe events and return to the > present at will. I don't have that series ... does it say the Emerald River is usable by mortals? what about Immortals without access to the Hollow World? > > > Immortals of Time do a fine job of policing. Unobtrusive chronomancers > > would have considerable freedom; furthermore, they might gain the > > cautious notice of Immortals from Energy or Time (particularly Ixion or > > Khoronus), who might be bribed at tremendous expense to reveal other > > secrets of chronomancy or Mystaran history. > > I wonder just what "cautious notice" means, when an Immortal is doing > the noticing.. :) > I wonder what secrets that they /wouldn't/ reveal, no matter what the > bribe? Other than Blackmoorian science, of course. > perhaps secrets about the origins of various immortals ... > > Immortals of Time carefully shunt time travelers "around" critical > > events in history, so that all attempts to reach those times are missed > > by days, months, or years. > > Can anybody think of a good list of "critical events", other than the > cataclysmic ones or ones having to do with the Nucleus of the Spheres? I > know there's quite a lot of Mystaran history, but I'm not entire sure > what events would be considered more important to the timeflow than > others.. I can think of few off the top of my head - the collapse of Nithia, the arrival of the Alphatians, General Zendrolion's coup d'etat in Thyatis, the birth of Hosadus, etc. - then again the idea that some events are more critical than others is strange when you think about the logic of time ...remember all those Star Trek episodes on this subject? > > I recall reading somewhere that the magic-drain from the Nucleus only > affects the Mystaran system, and wizards who leave via Spelljammer or > planar travel are unaffected.. although it might be a mite difficult > getting back to the 'unaffected' regions without magic.. :) good point. kind of a catch twenty two, no? > > > However, time travelers might also meet up with a jackal-headed > > humanoid race also using Temporal Prime: the hutaakans of Karameikos, > > who can achieve chronomancer levels roughly equal to those gained by > > half-elves. > > Hm.. I wonder just what individual hutaakans (either Hollow World or > Karameikan) chronomancers would try to do in the past.. my guess would > be trying to avoid the "shunting", and somehow rescue their outer-world > civilization from collapsing circa 1000BC, when the gnolls invaded. Any > other ideas? if they were interested in preserving Hutaakan society first and foremost, yes. But they also might be completely insane and have some much more bizarre agenda as to their interventions in the Time Stream. Does anyone know the old BBC show "The Tomorrow People"? (it had a run on Nickelodeon in the US in the early '80's). It featured in several episodes a Hutaaka-esque race with time travelling and space travelling technology, who were supposedly responsible for Egyptian civilization on this Earth - why not absorb this kind of sci-fi stuff into D&D? M@2