Anyway I got to thinking, what happens to the psyches placed in obsidian orbs when the psionatrix is turned on, and they I got to thinking what would happen to the mind lords when the psionatrix is turned on.
So now i ask you what do you think would happen? Would they die, would they just be surpressed, would they get a nice mental rebute after they came out of their suppresion, or would something far more hideous happend like a massive epic caller in the dark?
I have yet to decide what I am going to do to that region once the psionatrix is activated. I was going to at least have everything shut down and be disabled while it was on, but there would be a rebuilding process once it was turned off.
I just can't imagine it not having some sort of effect on the region, especially since the water they drink is filtered using psionic empowered items.
If the opposite was true, don't you think those events would be described in either supplement (especially in the case of Saragar, as that product was released long after). Certainly these events would've had a major impact on the Last Sea Region. Because there is no reference to anything of the sort, I'd tend to believe the effects were never felt. Boring, maybe, but logical IMO.
I will have to re-read that adventure someday now.
If the field reached Saragar, maybe the mindlords would've become even crazier and wiped out the surfing druids... and the DOLPHINS! :P
No, it would just evolve the dolphins into humanoids so they could leave the Last Sea area and take over the world!
Mwuahahahhaha!
Edit: I was apparently on crack when I initially typed this message...
another possibility: nothing happened. the mind lords are THE oldest and most powerful psion-capable "people" on the planet. they pre-date the champions, don't they? they truly are "gods" in their domain. they can sense when magic is used within their borders, and where. there's a good chance the psionatrix field didn't even effect the area, held out by the mind lords' power somehow. their power predates the psionatrix anyway: it's a magical creation of the wind mages, not a green age artifact.
more intriguing is the possibilities if the field were effective and never shut down. the last sea would never have existed. kosveret doesn't travel back in time to warn mareet until like free year 12 or something. if there were no psionics, he would not be "awake" and would never send his message and the last sea would never be. fission mailed!
also, considering dregoth's gate is psionic, he would be trapped in the outer planes for good unless he found another way back.
Now, it woul just evolve the dolphins into humanoids so they could leave the Last Sea area and take over the world!
Mwuahahahhaha!
From the room ahead of you, the sounds of fist striking flesh and pulping bone can be heard. There are no screams though. Presumably the victim of the vicious assault had been rendered speechless in the first few moments of the beating for saying something that deserves a good thrashing.
Hummm, I guess this could happen to anyone!
the reason the field got worse the farther WEST the party travelled was an issue of time, not direction. the field was increasing strength over time, making psionics harder to access. coincidentally, this went along with travelling closer to dasaraches. eventually the field WOULD cover all of athas, which would become a psi-less world
A truely epic plot, but would it really hurt the SK's more than it helped them. Even without psionics they are powerful defilers and without psionics around the power of magic would be even more supreme. Their transformations wouldn't be reversed, but no one could start an advanced being transformation without psionics so no new Avangions, SotL, or Elemental Clerics=less challange to their power.
beyond those members of the order who had the correct key-gems: which pharistes destroyed in the end anyway, making him the only psi-capable character on the planet until the water hammer was used. all the dragon-kings lost their psi including borys. all kreen everywhere were insane.
So much for the Thri-kreen evasion if the psionitrix wasn't destroyed. But what happened to the kreen empire during this time? The effects there would have been far more severe than in the Last Sea region.
the last sea? everything was probably just repressed for the duration and the water clerics of the one town prolly became very important for the time while the desalinization process was defunct. but remember the population isn't that big to begin with and there were probably stores anyway, so it prolly wasn't a big deal water-wise. the biggest deal would be the time minus their gods and the powers of psi: the spin campaign that had to have followed would be very interesting.
Very good point. I would have been a good time to "escape" from the region as well. All the defense systems would have been down, so anyone and anything could come and go as it pleased. Monsters and Creatures that the people had never seen before might have crossed over the borders and wandered into populated areas. Any events like that would have to figure into their spin as well.
another possibility: nothing happened. the mind lords are THE oldest and most powerful psion-capable "people" on the planet. they pre-date the lords' power somehow. their power predates the psionatrix anyway: it's a magical creation of the wind mages, not a green age artifact.
Yah, It would be nice to see them stated out after the SKs are done. Actually I don't really care about their stats as much as how they stack up to members of the Order and the SKs, in other people's minds.
more intriguing is the possibilities if the field were effective and never shut down. the last sea would never have existed. kosveret doesn't travel back in time to warn mareet until like free year 12 or something. if there were no psionics, he would not be "awake" and would never send his message and the last sea would never be. fission mailed!
also, considering dregoth's gate is psionic, he would be trapped in the outer planes for good unless he found another way back.
Wow! woe betide the campaign world where the pionitrix was never destroyed! It would make for an interesting alternate setting though
Edit: I was apparently on crack when I initially typed this message...
Or on eggrolls. :P
Or on eggrolls. :P
They are not really called eggrolls- their proper name is springroll
That said, the Lawtenders would have been pretty preoccupied keeping the city's basic systems running, the Lawkeepers wouldn't be able to 'harmonise' any troublemakers and it's debatable as to whether the Mind Lords themselves would be capable of functioning very well. The Border of Guardians would be more of less non-functional which could let all kinds of creatures and intruders wander in which would only add to the problems of the Lawkeepers.
For a few weeks or a month the Last Sea might have begun to experience something approaching freedom and all kinds of resistance groups might have started to form without the constant interference of the Mind Lords and their minions
THe same goes for the mind lords: The are, basically, advanced guardians.
If the Psionatrix's field is akin to a Null-Psionic Field, then even supernatural abilities that are psionic-based would not work for the mind lords.
Like it has been mentionned, its also very possible the mind lords managed to ward at least themselves off from the effects of the Psionatrix. Who knows.
there's a good chance the psionatrix field didn't even effect the area, held out by the mind lords' power somehow. their power predates the psionatrix anyway: it's a magical creation of the wind mages, not a green age artifact.
I must be missing the point here: What's the difference between a "magical creation of the wind mages" and a "green age artifact"?
The wind mages are from the wars of the preservers/defilers (or preserver jihad, though some really hate that name for a number of reasons) or the cleansing wars, it's not exactly clear due to the muddled continuity. In either case, they are not from the height of the green age: the psionatrix is a magical artifact that absorbs and focuses psionic power for various things, most notably the potentially (given enough time) world-wde suppression field of psionics. An example of a green age artifact would be dregoth's planar portal which accomplishes easily what is nearly impossible through all other means: a gateway to any plane of existence, including the mostly untouchable outer planes.
Something I thought of after posting my previous bit has to do with the psionatrix's origins, actually. An idea. Black Spine puts forth the idea of the githzerai psionic bomb that destroyed the minds of all the githyanki, leading to the degenerate gith so common today. And which also potentially is a part of the reason why psionics are so commonplace on athas today: something about killing or mutating psionic parasites or something.
Anyway
The idea is that maybe the wind mages didn't create the psionatrix exactly. Maybe they found the original, or parts of the original gith psionic mind bomb thingy, maybe the core of the device (let's assume it's a device of some sort), and tinkered with it, the psionatrix we know being the final result. The gith bomb destroyed the minds of the githyanki: known for their psi power. It's guessed that it may also have destroyed or mutated other psionic entities (the parasites). It other words, it was antithetical to psionic thingies. Among its many uses, the psionatrix includes the complete suppression of psionics. As well as destroying/regressing the minds of kreen.
It's an interesting idea anyway, at least to me.
Another thing. There were at least two water hammers: the blue one which was used to destroy the psionatrix, and the red one for another unknown item. But it likely was going to be crystalline, right? If it didn't have a crystal-like form, the idea behind the water hammer doesn't really make sense, does it?
Ok, so let's say you have the gith bomb. Maybe it was a single device at an epicenter, or maybe it was a series of devices scattered around with a cumulative effect. Let's say the wind mages recover some of the devices. They're at war with defilers, and what better weapon than something that would suppress defiling magic (or just plain magic) and psionics? Without, the defilers are wimps. So maybe they recover the gith bombs, but they're kinda old and don't really work like they used to. But that's ok, cuz if they did and were activated, all psionic creatures (almost everyone, everywhere) would degenerate into monsters like the gith. So they tinker.
Towards the end of WW2, the russians recovered some bombers from americans who had to do emergency landings in east russia after bombing runs on japan. They were more advanced than anything the russians had. They kept them. One was taken apart entirely, all it's parts measured and notes taken so that it could be put back together. The notes were used to manufacture duplicate parts. Another was used as reference for the process. The third and least damaged one was used as a training vehicle to practice and teach pilots how to fly it.
So let's say the wind mages do something similar.
The russian version that was ultimately manufactured was inferior in most aspects: they simply lacked a lot of techniques to perfectly duplicate the craft. But it worked, after a fashion.
Let's say the wind mages find some bombs. They take some apart to figure out how they fit together. They know what they do, but don't want to ruin the whole world. But they sure would like a variation of the effect. The end result are two crystals: a blue one mean to suppress psionics. Being relatively close to the original purpose of the gith bombs, it's easier to make and works easier. Another one is meant to suppress magic, but being kinda far removed from the intent/function of the gith bombs, takes longer an dultimately is never finished. Somewhere is the disassembled pieces of at least a third bomb core and the notes. All in all just an interesting idea.
As for the kreen empire and the effects of the null psionic field. It probably just fell down into some factions and everyone went native for a while. They all consider themselves as being in one huge pack, so i think the "devastating efffects" might not be that bad. They get savage and animalistic, but they're still kreen, and kreen are pack-mentality animals. The priests of change (who aren't even really kreen, really) prolly freaked out and maybe tried to evolve more safeguards into their bred-in control over the kreen. I dunno. Worst case, the kreen empire becomes a huge locust swarm. Those who last longer against the degeneration and don't go with the flow of savagery might result in factionalism, but the results would be temporary and when the field dies down everything would eventually settle down. Maybe the reason the kreen are so intent on invading the tablelands is a direct result of the psionatrix field. The leadership knows there's something "up there" that can seriously screw over their society, and dagnabbit they're gonna stop it from ever happening again, even if they have to eat each and every single potential wielder of the item.
If the field didn't die down, then the empire would sooner or later (sooner) just devolve into roving hunting packs as the pack mentality shrinks to smaller and smaller packs (empire to city to family, etc) who look out for their own interests, becoming animals again.
If yer one of the people who likes the "nature benders became the priests of change and rule the kreen" line of thinking, maybe the null field has the effect it does on the kreen because their intelligence is artificial, created by the natur benders through a form of psionics and lifeshaping: they essentially lifeshaped the bugs' brains into organic "computers" that project psionic "programming" which simulates an AI. As the field increases in strength, the psionic "programming" which is their higher thinking identities is supressed and finally shuts down, and all that's left is the original animal instinct. That's kinda out there, though.
I know it's a lot of text, but, you know . . . ideas!
Yeah. anyway . . .
Right, Pennarin, I forgot to directly address the point i was trying to make about the distinction between green age and wind mage artifact. Green Age= psionic powerhouses. Like the mind lords. They are THE absolute psionic powers on athas (or they better be, considering their age, background and powers). The psionatrix is from an age of magic, and is not a psionic artifact. In other words, it shouldn't be able to put a dent in the power of the mind lords, which should be greater due to age, experience, and coming from the heyday of psionic enlightenment.
Ahh, but the Psionatrix is described as the greatest of all psionic devices. Its not much important if it partially achieves those heigths by using magic. If you reread the pamphlet in Dragon's Crown, as well as some of the passages in the adventure booklets, you'll see that its the greatest thing relative to psionics to come out of the time of the Ancients.
The Planar Gate is great but only allows passage and vision to other dimensions, while the Psionatrix is said to be a device with which you can do virtually anything as long as you know how to manipulate its energies, or research what resonators to add to it that can amplify, concentrate, redirect, whatever, its energies. The Psionatrix's ability to supress psionics is one such capability it can achieve, and it can blanket the world with the field only if the proper type of resonator is afixed to the gem. The gem's main ability is to provide an infinite source of PPs. There are probably hundreds of other things one can do with the gem.
The Dark Lens is maybe the second greatest psionic artifact out there, but mostly it only provides PPs, or so the novels seem to indicate.
(Btw, the Wind Mages date from the Time of Magic or the beginning of the Preserver Jihad. What's important is that those two periods are subsets of the later part of the Green Age. If you recall, the Green Age ends with the start of the Cleansing Wars since its their start that causes the sun to change color.)
(Here's a quick look at the Green Age: The Green Age attains at one point its greatest height of psionic power, then Rajaat invents magic, starting the Time of Magic, but we're still in the Green Age, and then magic attains its height and you obtain the greatest civilization the modern Known World ever saw, marrying magic and psionics, and then somewhen after the height is achieved the Preserver Jihad starts and continues well within the Cleansing Wars, and then about halfway along the Preserver Jihad the Cleansing Wars start and the Green Age is over.)