Discussion of In-game Cosmology

Toddo said:
My big problem is that Death and Chaos Elementals have not (in the chapters I've played) been portrayed as necromantic, but rather as parts of the natural order that might employ such magic. I'd honestly be happy seeing the "Earth/Chaos" debate taken out of the cosmological spectrum and changed to a "Health/Rot" debate. Please note that I only chose those words based on the fact that they are both one syllable. Let us leave the four foundation and magesterium elements to be the building blocks of the world and move the debate into a realm where both necromancy AND healing are both perversions of the natural order. This would preserve the debate as to if necromancy is evil, and move the discussion into if earth magic is also evil. Heck, it could lead to a third faction that believes only Alchemy is within the cycle, leading to slower healing times as PCs get healed 2 points at a time.

:)
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Necromancy is required to be 'evil' / 'against all in-game laws'. Because of that, I just can't see that happening.

Please note that while I find it an interesting idea, it doesn't really work for this game and its world.
 
There are plenty of PCs who dismiss the bad rap necromancy gets as tinfoil hat nonsense from elves and other sissies. Since there is no actual rules consequence for using necromancy, they are technically right. It might be vile in the opinions of some people, but it's not actually damaging to the "earth". In essence it's little more than a social belief, no different than a Barbarian's belief that celestial magic is untrustworthy, a Mystic Wood Elf's that slavery is abhorrent, or a gypsy's that he is inherently superior to everyone who knows how to dress themselves at a third grade level.

Allowing the actuality of things to be one way and requiring the game world to believe otherwise doesn't bother me nearly as much as the current model which feels like someone started building something with their left over lego bricks and just kept going until they ran out and called it done.
 
Toddo said:
My big problem is that Death and Chaos Elementals have not (in the chapters I've played) been portrayed as necromantic
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See, most chapters I play in have no way around Chaos elementals being necromantic. "Chaos elementals aren't necromantic!" "Do they throw chaos?" "Well, yeah." "Can you cloak chaos?" "Well, sure, but..." "And what school must your cloak defend against to stop chaos?" "<mutter> Necromancy </mutter>".

Now, mind you, it'll be pretty neat down the road defending the casting of necromantic rituals. "Your honor, clearly it's not necromantic. You can't cloak it with a cloak versus necromancy." ;)
 
The strong argument against that reasoning is that necromancy calls upon chaos, uses it as a fuel source if you will, but is a perversion of chaos. Chaos itself is fine; it's part of the natural order. Necromancy is an abuse of that power source, like taking adderall or another stimulant without prescription to increase your energy level. Used appropriately, it's a very helpful medication; inappropriately it's addictive and dangerous.

A similar parallel would be if a chapter introduced "materi", Foundation elementals that have become linked to the mortal world and are considered native to that place, and are healed by healing and unaffected by Banish. That's a pretty radical change for them, and some people might be really upset about it, claiming that to be material is against natural order and inherently destructive. Really though, it's a matter of perception.
 
There's a chaos elemental in NH that the PCs interact with on a fairly regular basis, and when someone told him he was necromantic, he whipped around and informed them "It's not my fault those c****y earth casters needed to call on *my* power when they want to misbehave! I exist in the whole balance thing, notice there are no healing elementals?!" (Not an exact quote, it was about a year ago.)

It inspired all sorts of debate among the PCs.
 
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Allowing the actuality of things to be one way and requiring the game world to believe otherwise doesn't bother me nearly as much as the current model which feels like someone started building something with their left over lego bricks and just kept going until they ran out and called it done.
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I think you're truncating your vision of the game to just what PCs can do. Sure, the players can only call forth the four Foundation elements, call-upon/gift the other four Magisterium elements, but that doesn't mean there's not a larger interaction between these forces. It's pretty much established canon that the PCs are the lowest tier of magical creatures in the world, in terms of R&D and true power. Elemental "Lords", Dragon Mages, Elder Dryads, Fae, Uber-Wooj-McBlackboxTech are all able to call upon different elements, affect them in startling ways, and do things beyond the imagination of most characters.

It could simply be that the system seems broken, jagged, unbalanced when you're looking through the PC's child eyes. Newtonian Physics makes a certain amount of sense until you stretch very large or very small, then a new schema must be embraced. Similarly, the simplicity of naming and opposition of the eight elements makes a certain amount of sense, until you start playing with Dragon, Fae, Elemental, or "Plot-directed" Magic.

From that angle, it hardly matters what trifling battle magics the wee pups play with, the real mechanics/epiphanies occur at a much higher level. That is, Plot can make the "real" system anything it likes (so long as they're clever enough writers).
 
See, that's actually exactly my point. PC perspective isn't where I'm coming from, just the opposite. What I'm bothered by is the idea, the fact that someone who comes to my chapter from another one has a different reality with potentially different physics, yet is still part of the same world. Ideally, I'd like there to be one truth; but I'd take "different worlds" as a reasonable compromise. Outside of Australia, no real world continents are as distinctly unlike each other in fundamental ways as the continents of Fortannis. One place may have radically different versions of the various elemental planes than another, each with their own icons, yet in both places all elven societies value archery above all other forms of combat? It doesn't ring true for me, and I believe the game's mechanical details should be fitted to its stories, not the other way around.
 
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
See, that's actually exactly my point. PC perspective isn't where I'm coming from, just the opposite. What I'm bothered by is the idea, the fact that someone who comes to my chapter from another one has a different reality with potentially different physics, yet is still part of the same world. Ideally, I'd like there to be one truth; but I'd take "different worlds" as a reasonable compromise. Outside of Australia, no real world continents are as distinctly unlike each other in fundamental ways as the continents of Fortannis. One place may have radically different versions of the various elemental planes than another, each with their own icons, yet in both places all elven societies value archery above all other forms of combat? It doesn't ring true for me, and I believe the game's mechanical details should be fitted to its stories, not the other way around.
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That's always been a sticking point for me. Each race seems to have a different creation myth and explanation for the cosmology in each chapter, all of which are objectively true in that chapter.
 
jpariury said:
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Outside of Australia, no real world continents are as distinctly unlike each other in fundamental ways as the continents of Fortannis.
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Antarctica?

I'd prefer the many worlds aspect, personally.
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I was going to ask how Australia is different myself...they got a desert, coast, forests.
 
SkollWolfrun said:
jpariury said:
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Outside of Australia, no real world continents are as distinctly unlike each other in fundamental ways as the continents of Fortannis.
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Antarctica?

I'd prefer the many worlds aspect, personally.
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I was going to ask how Australia is different myself...they got a desert, coast, forests.
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It's upside down!
 
obcidian_bandit said:
Marsupials.

Really.
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And that whole continent trying to kill you thing.
 
While I'm not 100% familiar with the cosmology of other chapters (in fact, I know next to nothing beyond that they can and often are very different from each other), It hasn't bothered me too much. That's not because there aren't inconsistencies and other things that make very little sense (as Dan has pointed out quite well), but because I've always assumed that the mists had something to do with it. Yeah, I know that might sound kind of weird or more along the lines of "A wizard did it," but hear me out. From what I've had explained to me or seen in game, the Fortannis mist is a force that can warp time and space to bring people across half the circumference of a planet in any time from a second to even a month or more. It picks people seemingly at random and places them somewhere else whether they want to or not, and covers what we can only assume is the entire world.

I figure with a force like that existing in Fortannis, it would make sense that there might be radically different geography or changes to planes depending on where you get dropped by the mists. It's not a perfect explanation, and people who are more in the know about plot are probably shaking their heads and saying something like "that's not even remotely right," but based on what I know and have seen in plot, that's how I assumed it worked. If I've gotten information horribly wrong, please tell me so I can be up to speed.

...and now all I can think of is this comic. http://awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=082211
 
More that trying to have all our very different chapters on the same game world requires a lot of ignoring any idea of continuity in worldbuilding. The freedom it gives the plot teams involved is nice, but trying to have any kind of accurate idea of how the world 'really works' between chapters is really difficult.
 
Wraith said:
More that trying to have all our very different chapters on the same game world requires a lot of ignoring any idea of continuity in worldbuilding. The freedom it gives the plot teams involved is nice, but trying to have any kind of accurate idea of how the world 'really works' between chapters is really difficult.
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You think that's hard? Try getting a bunch of chapters separated by thousands of miles to agree to a single cosmology and then stick to it! :mer:

Trust me, it's not for lack of trying ... and even so, there is a lot of consistency (compared to other similar LARPs at least).
 
So, I see this going one of two ways:

Nationally enforced cosmology - reduces flexibility, encourages creative use of materials rather than creative world-building. The downside is that given a history of allowing localized autonomy, individual chapters are more likely to feel disenfranchised with the concept and simply bow out, reducing the value of the brand as a whole.

Local chapter autonomy - increases flexibility, reduces consistency in world origins, etc. Doesn't really fit well in the "same world" concept, though.

Personally, I prefer the second, though I'd rather see the general premise being more Spelljammer, less Forgotten Realms, but with "the mists" instead of Jules-Verne-craft, but I am, admittedly, one of the people who's all "No, no, this is how it should be done." ;)
 
That's really how I feel, too. I know I'd be pretty irate if someone from another chapter showed up and said, "It's official, you're wrong. Fix it now." The many worlds paradigm feels much better to me in that it makes inconsistency more consistent.
 
It's never really bothered me too much about certain things like different planes of existence that seem to appear in one chapter and not another. In Ashbury we have the "graveyards" where people go after they die but don't exist in other chapters. That's OK.

Where I want consistency is in the things that DO travel from chapter to chapter -- the basic magic system, the races, the rules. There's no reason a dwarf should be different from chapter to chapter (other than local culture that still is consistent with dwarven personalities).
 
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