What did Rajaat intend to do about himself after the Cleansing Wars?

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

terminus_vortexa

Mar 15, 2007 23:43:41
What did Rajaat intend to do about himself after the Cleansing Wars? He was the most hideous mutation of all, and he knew it. His self-loathing was his entire motivation. So what happens when his goals are met? Will he kill himself, transform himself into a halfling, leave, or what?
#2

redking

Mar 16, 2007 0:00:25
What did Rajaat intend to do about himself after the Cleansing Wars? He was the most hideous mutation of all, and he knew it. His self-loathing was his entire motivation. So what happens when his goals are met? Will he kill himself, transform himself into a halfling, leave, or what?

Good question. I have wondered that myself. I guess it would depend if he thought his job was done or not. Disaster struck the Halflings once, so it could happen again. He might stick around as an enforcer of racial purity. As far as I can see, Rajaat has never shown any interest in breeding, so he might exclude himself from those he considers a racial threat to Halflings.
#3

balican_gigolo

Mar 16, 2007 2:17:20
or maybe Hamanu, after having killed the champions, and transformed into the thing Rajaat intended him to turn into, would also kill Rajaat. Hamanu's form would be halfling I imagine, or something mortal and short lived.
#4

zombiegleemax

Mar 16, 2007 9:43:26
I think he would have killed Hamanu, after Hamanu would finish his Job. Rajaat would maybe stay some time in the pure Blue World, maybe even forever, though I guess he would retreat from the Halfling civilization, becoming an Halfling myth or similar, forever wating for the day desaster strikes again.
#5

ruhl-than_sage

Mar 24, 2007 22:48:49
I would imagine this is an unresolved or avoided question in Rajaat's mind. He would probably not have thought that particular part through, or is intending to kill himself... but might not go through with it. Either way I think it is kind of a meaningless question as there is no way Rajaat could have ever or will ever restore the Blue Age. At best he might accomplish a twisted mockery of it, but he wasn't even alive to see the Blue Age so there is no way he could really know what it was like.
#6

zombiegleemax

Mar 25, 2007 11:32:38
I would imagine this is an unresolved or avoided question in Rajaat's mind. He would probably not have thought that particular part through, or is intending to kill himself... but might not go through with it. Either way I think it is kind of a meaningless question as there is no way Rajaat could have ever or will ever restore the Blue Age. At best he might accomplish a twisted mockery of it, but he wasn't even alive to see the Blue Age so there is no way he could really know what it was like.

He had the Blue-Age Halflings on his side though. They were nature Benders IIRC who got turned into the Shadowpeople during the rebelion. They should have the knowledge how the Blue Age should be. There are also plenty of BA artifacts, the Rhul-Than, and he is the "greatest" mind out there, he probably was an nature bender himself, I don't think that there is something unknown to him.
#7

xenophanes

Mar 27, 2007 20:19:05
I thought about this very topic as well. I personally think he had two choices.

1. Destroy himself. I could see he would destroy himself once he truly felt the world was "exactly" how he felt it should be, however I don't think it ever would have satisfied him, thus he would never have to destroy himself.

2. Use his magic to remove all of his power and turn himself into a halfling.

He *could* have left Athas and gone into a different plane, but I just feel that this isn't really his *style*.
#8

zombiegleemax

Mar 27, 2007 22:51:14
I imagined that Rajaat had set himself above the other inhabitants of Athas in his mind.

I think that if and when his plan for a restore Athas succeeds, he would set himself up as an outside caretaker, to ensure that Athas doesn't repeat the mistakes of the past.

After all, somebody's got to secure the world's future, and who better than its savior?
#9

jihun-nish

Mar 28, 2007 19:09:16
Since the Rhulisti, no halfling ever worshiped a god but they did have elemental clerics and I guess there had to be some sort of clerical worship or at the very least some sort of mutual benefit/understanding between elemental and the clergy (what ever the element)
I think Rajaat came to realise that when he studied the ways of the Rhulisti/Rhul-thaun

True to the ways of the halflings ancesters Rajaat didn't crave for godhood but he may have thought what better solution to protect Athas is there other then a Spirit of the Land.

I think Rajaat would have transformed himself, eventualy, into the greatest/most powerfull Spirit of tha Land, capable of surveying the whole planet.

---I think Rajaat had nothing more to prove to himself as a mortal and after the Cleansing Wars would have decided to go to the next step.
#10

balican_gigolo

Mar 28, 2007 20:48:15
Rajaat was an ambitious man. I believe that after finishing his goal of restoring athas, his home-plane, he might have wanted to go on to other planes and conquer those or explore or whatever. I think Rajaat might just be the kind of person to never be satisfied with what he has. It's a totally human flaw and one that does not seem to contradict rajaat's nature in my opinion.
In other words, I believe Rajaat would have eventually turned his attention outward to other planes.
#11

Tsuul

Mar 31, 2007 0:58:56
I imagined that Rajaat had set himself above the other inhabitants of Athas in his mind.

I think that if and when his plan for a restore Athas succeeds, he would set himself up as an outside caretaker, to ensure that Athas doesn't repeat the mistakes of the past.

After all, somebody's got to secure the world's future, and who better than its savior?

This is my take as well.
Under no circumstance will he bow to his own rules and kill himself. He's too important. A real life model can be seen in organizations that condone suicide bombers. What percentage of their "leadership" has actually strapped themselves up? Zero.
#12

Mulhull

Apr 09, 2007 9:29:58
transform himself into a halfling

I don't think he would do this. He also had both magic and psionic means to permanently change his appearance to that of a normal Pyreen if he wanted to, which he never did, and ultimately saw himself as a freak and accident of the rebirth, and then later all the races of the rebirth.

Also, the Cerulean Storm implies he is a deformed human, not pyreen. When Lalali-puy is telling the story says something like "He tried to reconcile his appearance with his human spirit"
#13

Sysane

Apr 09, 2007 10:55:40
My two bits,

I feel that if it was simply a matter of turning himself into a halfling, Rajaat would have devised a plan to transform all the Rebirth Races into halflings rather than cleansing them from the face of Athas.

A neat twist on this would be that Rajaat had originally planned and developed the process on transforming the Rebrith Birth Races into halflings but later decided that it was best kill them all instead. This would leave the option open for a mad NPC villain (an insane Rhul-than?) to stumble across these notes and act on them. Pretty good basis for a long term campaign IMO.
#14

lumpkin

Apr 09, 2007 19:54:55
Here's my own take, which builds upon the canon:

Rajaat was a unique creature created by the chaotic energies of the Rebirth. His own essence was bound up in the Rebrith and the new world it created: so long as the new Athas existed, he could not die. Rajaat grew to hate himself and the Green Age because of the meaningless of his/its birth and existence, viewing his ugliness as the outward manifestation of this randomness. The only way to end his own existence was by undoing the spell of the Rebirth and returning the world to its underlying orginal form, the Blue Age. At the end of the Prism Pentad, Rajaat's body becomes the Blue Age and eventually, as I imagine it, there would have been no Rajaat left, only the restore Blue Athas.
#15

pringles

Apr 12, 2007 11:56:25
Your not tired of having always the same old boring debate about Rajaat and his champion?

I come here since 2004, and 75% of the post are about Rajaat and his champions.
#16

Zardnaar

Apr 13, 2007 8:35:37
Your not tired of having always the same old boring debate about Rajaat and his champion?

I come here since 2004, and 75% of the post are about Rajaat and his champions.

I've been here since 2001 and no I'm not tired talking about Rajaat and his Chamions. Any other questions?
#17

pringles

Apr 13, 2007 11:57:44
Well, it get pretty boring. People work on tons of idea concerning the Champions and Rajaat but there no talk about the more common thing like elfe tribe, war between city-state, political plot and the wilderness in general. That weird cause, you never put Rajaat in your game. So we have 75% of post about a thing that will probably never appear in a game, or maybe once.

Also, Rajaat is one of the less interesting and well-build character of the setting. He found he was ugly, so he wanted revenge on all creature except the Blue Age halfling. Give me a break. That the stupidiest thing that ever came out of Dark Sun, and serve only to get ride of orc,goblin, gnome and such out of the setting. They should have stick with the original idea and dont even bother to explain why Dark Sun was diffenrent than normal AD&D. Simply poor writting.
#18

terminus_vortexa

Apr 13, 2007 12:18:24
So what harm does it do you if others still choose to discuss this topic? Why derail the thread by questioning its legitimacy? Some of us still feel like ruminating on this topic. If you don't, Pringles, that's perfectly okay, but there's no need to inhibit our discussions, and make us waste time defending the validity of the subject at hand.
#19

cnahumck

Apr 13, 2007 12:29:58
I think that one of the reasons that this keeps coming up is because there is no "official" view or history. yet. There are some things in some of the up coming products that athas.org is working on that talk a little about the CW, but, because writing an exhaustive history would mean that things would stagnate, they are written to answer some questions, but raise others. The reason it is talked about is because people want to know the why of the past to understand how to play the why of now, which isn't all that different from real life.
#20

Mulhull

Apr 13, 2007 22:07:17
I think that one of the reasons that this keeps coming up is because there is no "official" view or history. yet. There are some things in some of the up coming products that athas.org is working on that talk a little about the CW, but, because writing an exhaustive history would mean that things would stagnate, they are written to answer some questions, but raise others. The reason it is talked about is because people want to know the why of the past to understand how to play the why of now, which isn't all that different from real life.

What I'd like to do, if I ever could hire him, is hire Brom to do a picture of Rajaat as described in the Cerulean Storm when he cast the first spell. The only one we have of him, is the one Tom Baxa did of him in the skeleton/cloud form with Sadira.

Also, Troy Denning said that he had wanted to do a book series on him and the Green Age/Cleansing Wars before the setting was discontinued in 1997
#21

j0lt

Apr 14, 2007 6:26:24
Well, it get pretty boring. People work on tons of idea concerning the Champions and Rajaat but there no talk about the more common thing like elfe tribe, war between city-state, political plot and the wilderness in general.

So start a topic. I'd love to talk more about Elf tribes, or Athasian Undead and their relationship to The Grey and stuff like that.
That weird cause, you never put Rajaat in your game. So we have 75% of post about a thing that will probably never appear in a game, or maybe once.

There are TWO threads out of 25 on the first page. I'm not going to give you trouble over your English, as I'm certain it's not your first language, but dude - learn to count, or at least keep things in perspective.
Also, Rajaat is one of the less interesting and well-build character of the setting. He found he was ugly, so he wanted revenge on all creature except the Blue Age halfling. Give me a break. That the stupidiest thing that ever came out of Dark Sun, and serve only to get ride of orc,goblin, gnome and such out of the setting. They should have stick with the original idea and dont even bother to explain why Dark Sun was diffenrent than normal AD&D. Simply poor writting.

How about poor reading, try reading the history again, it's not even about revenge at all. Not bothering to explain why Athas is the way it is would be bad writing.

Constructive criticism is welcome. Complaining about a thread's topic because you want to talk about something else is lame.