I was wondering what the pixies of Athas looked like (before they were all killed). I found an entry on TotDL related to them, but the undead type there has no body, only a floating head.
So, are there any canon descriptions of them? If not, what would your suggestions be? A foot tall with butterfly wings, or something else?
Thanks!
Lurking Shadow.
How can they be different from other settings' pixies? Don't make them hedonist, trickster beings ruled by a fey queen holding court and you should do fine.
The existing entries for Athas mention they worshiped tree gods. I also guess that they kicked ass. Probably were the best druids around besides pyreen. Their two-fold vulnerability was needing the forest to live in, and worshiping parts of that forest. Some fire was all it took to do the pixies in.
So, I propose that orcish diet consisted primarily of pixies, whom they ate after popping off their heads. So that's why Blights are just floatin' pixie heads, and the real reason the orcs died out - it wasn't Abalach-Re that killed them - they starved to death.
Basically, my thoughts were that the pixies were the children of the Spirits of the Land, guides upon pathways between Athas and the metaphysical realms surrounding it, existing half in this world and half in another (Shadow, perhaps?).
This is what I have in my notes about elves regarding the pixies:
"Pixies were guides and prophets, mysterious creatures whose intuition made them great trackers and guides through the new wilds of the Reborn Land, as well as great oracles and soothsayers.
It is said not even the elves could pass through the wilds as could the pixies, nor were any others gifted with their understanding the harmonies among the planes of Athas' existance, the elemental boundaries and facets that underpined the world and bound it together.
[They were] guardians and guides upon the pathways between worlds, the little ones who had crossed once and back, who were the children of the living earth and not born of the Pristine Tower like the other races, but were born of the land's spirits."
They would be physically very small, but metaphysically powerful. They would be able to create or confuse pathways, move between places without moving through the space between, open and block elemental and other-dimensional portals, and so forth. I imagine maybe they built and maintained a world-wide network of traveling stones (teleportation monoliths). They might have served as messengers and wilderness guides in Reborn society, as well as following more spiritual pursuits as soothsayers, oracles, and metaphysical guides and guardians.
Ooohh....me likey!
This could be explained by the pixies being intended by the spirits of the land to be the next great stage of evolution for life, i.e. even more connection to the land than what Rebirth races already have compared to Blue Age halflings.
Thus pixies could have had few Hit Dices but lots of powers like seeing planar boundaries, sight within a few dozen feet within each plane simultaneously, being able to phase into those planes, intimate connection with spirits of the land (can ask questions, or speak telepathicaly with them), their speech understood by all creatures part of the pact of earth, air, fire, and water. Etc.
I like the angle of the pixies being not of the Rebirth (and thus probably being even greater abominations in Rajaat's eyes), of them being able to see the boundaries of the elemental planes and Black and Gray, and thus are probably the best to tell what things are out of place on Athas.
This could be explained by the pixies being intended by the spirits of the land to be the next great stage of evolution for life, i.e. even more connection to the land than what Rebirth races already have compared to Blue Age halflings.
The only problem I see with this idea is that it seems that Rajaat was specifically out to get Rebirth races as opposed to "other" creatures - he didn't go after the Nikaal or Thri-Kreen, two races that likely existed prior to the Rebirth, so I'm not so sure why he would have specifically targeted the pixies if they weren't one of the major Rebirth races.
I really like this idea otherwise, I just think that they still need to have originally come from "halfling stock" as it were, and be a true Rebirth race in that respect.
Perhaps a secondary "Rebirth metamorphosis" that occured after the original halflings changed to form the new races?
Halflings were masters of their world, and had a connection to it. They are still excellent druids. Pixies would be that druidic nature amplified at the expense of other attributes.
I like this, cnahumck.
Ten feet tall with butterfly wings, or something else?
Oooops. I meant one foot tall. (Already edited.) Sorry, I'm metric.
I thought they would look like standard D&D pixies: a foot tall, with transparent colorless dragonfly wings between their shoulder blades.
Good. I plan to present my vict..., I mean, players, with a different type of Deadland's undead pixies. I get the feeling that they will be quite unnerved to be ambushed by ultrafast little pixies covered in obsidian (to the point of appearing vitrified) wielding razor-sharp obsidian blades.The existing entries for Athas mention they worshiped tree gods. I also guess that they kicked ass. Probably were the best druids around besides pyreen. Their two-fold vulnerability was needing the forest to live in, and worshiping parts of that forest.
Cool! Any chance you could post that particular entry on this thread, Pennarin? :D
existing half in this world and half in another (Shadow, perhaps?)
Greyworm, should the pixies have a shared existence between this world (Athas) and another, my suggestion would be the Ethereal plane (through conduits), given their association with the land and thus with the Inner Planes.
According to the official timeline, the orcs were wiped out a mere 12 years after the last pixie died.
So, I propose that orcish diet consisted primarily of pixies, whom they ate after popping off their heads. So that's why Blights are just floatin' pixie heads, and the real reason the orcs died out - it wasn't Abalach-Re that killed them - they starved to death.
:heehee That kinda reminded me of an adventure hook presented in (I guess) GURPS Fantasy Folk as an idea of how to merge Fantasy with Horror. It goes more or less like this: a powerful mage/warlock/necromancer/whatever figured out a spell to do [enter random evil goal]; however the main magical component for the spell is a large amount of pixie wings.
Upon arriving at the magical forest, the party sees piles upon piles of little wingless corpses...
If pixies have been created by the spirits of the land, I don't see why Rajaat would not hate them as much as we know he hates, for example, muls and other half breeds. A race being created by an abomination is another abomination to add to the list.
I dunno. The Spirits of the Land have been around for a while. Didn't druidic magic exist during the Blue Age? Didn't the pact of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water happen when the Rhulisti were on the world? Thast to me would suggest that the Spirits of the Land have been around from before the Rebirth, and wouldn't be "abominations". Unless Rajaat has other reasons to despise them -- personal ones (since he was a pyreen, and has no druidic ability, he could have never been able to link with a Spirit of the Land like everyone else of his people did, and feel rejected by them).
I could see the SotL's taking a creature made byt he rebirth, and manipulating it to serve their puroposes -- that would make the race they did this to, up to be slaughtered by a Champion.
I dunno. The Spirits of the Land have been around for a while. Didn't druidic magic exist during the Blue Age? Didn't the pact of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water happen when the Rhulisti were on the world? Thast to me would suggest that the Spirits of the Land have been around from before the Rebirth, and wouldn't be "abominations". Unless Rajaat has other reasons to despise them -- personal ones (since he was a pyreen, and has no druidic ability, he could have never been able to link with a Spirit of the Land like everyone else of his people did, and feel rejected by them).
According to the TSR timeline the first clerics appeared in -14249FY, shortly after the first nature-benders were discovered, so I agree with you here. The fact that he didn't go after the druids at all - it wasn't until long after the CW had ended that the S-K's decided to do that - also indicates that he didn't have any problems with them. So unless the pixies were originally of halfling stock, and as some part of their transformation were "bound" to the SotL's, I don't see why Rajaat would consider them abominations. From everything I've read there needs to be that "rebirth race" connection there, somewhere.
The only other option I can think of that might fit is if the pixies were aligned with the preservers somehow, maybe they were a primary ally during the Preserver Jihad, and it might have ticked Rajaat off enough that he threw them onto his "To Do" list simply out of spite.
Imagine this, your enemies have these newborn creatures that aren't part of the "Rebirth" per se, but were never around in the Blue Age.
Now imagine they are hiding and sheltering the other races, moving the resistance armies around the world and running messages for them...even if they're doing the same for everyone else (because they are staying neutral).
Next imagine the pixies are strongly aligned with the elves, linked to the elves metaphysically, who need the pixies to comlete their natural life-cycles and who help them reach some hidden safe-city in the shadow-realms around Athas.
So, these things are not only helping out the enemy and giving them an advantage, hiding them, letting them safely build-up their forces, but are necessary for one of the Rebirth races to propogate naturally.
Who cares about this Rebirth stuff. Kill the pixies, cut your enemy's legs out from under him. You can fix it later once the Abominations of the Rebirth are all dead, just like you'll fix the deserts and the oceans you've destroyed in your war. Kill and destroy anything that gets in your way and sort it out later.
Not to start a war, but quite frankly your three reasons are pretty much nonsense - the pixies were the third race to die, and except for the gnomes every other "civilized race" survived the next 600 years of the war; unless the pixies were only helping out the monstrous humanoid races, they apparently weren't playing much of a role in in the war effort. As far as the elves are concerned, your idea only works if you consider the elves to have been an entirely different race, really, back before/during the CW...possible, but that sure is complicating it an awful lot just to justify the idea that the pixies might not have been a Rebirth race.
As has been repeatedly discussed, the canon material is highly contradictory and full of holes...but that doesn't mean that you should brush it completely aside when filling in those holes. It's a lot easier to say "yes, they were a Rebirth race and that's why Rajaat wanted 'em dead" and then work an interesting storyline around that than to start with the idea that they're not a Rebirth race and go to such lengths to justify why they were still important targets. The canon history leaves so much room to work with in regards to the pixies that it's silly to make up all these non-Rebirth justification. There's been a lot of good ideas in this thread about the pixies, and none of them *must* include the idea that they're non-Rebirth. So why bother?
Oh, and btw, I believe the whole order of cleansing (who was cleansed first) and the time between the cleansings is without grand meaning. Those that see such meaning take the phrase "and then Rajaat created his 15 Champions and sent them to slaughter the Rebirth races" literally, while there is evidence in several sources that the Champions were not created all at once. The delays were from there being no Champion yet for those races.
The only important data, IMO, is the length of each cleansing, which reveals how good the race was at making war/how bad the Champion was at it, and how much the specific powers of a Champion were adapted to the task of cleansing that particular race. For some the task were illfitted, while for others it was perfect. Some races proved so good at making war or at fleeing that even a Champion was not enough to cleanse them in a timely fashion.
Not to start a war, but quite frankly your three reasons are pretty much nonsense
Whenever a person says, "Not to insult you..." or similar what they really mean is "I'm saying I don't want to insult you so I can look like I'm trying to be nice, but I'm still going to do it anyways."...pretty much nonsense...
I'm fully willing to accept useful criticism of an idea, but I draw the line at abuse-disguised-as-criticism. That is what this is, and as such, I have aboslutely nothing further to say to you.
Wow, you guys are blinding yourselves with doctrine so badly, you've forgotten what the outside of the box looks like. I can think of three reasons off the top of my head that Rajaat would want to destroy the pixies whether or not they were an "actual" Rebirth race or not.
For the record, just because I disagree with you, doesn't mean I'm somehow an inferior intellect. Please refrain from such implications.
Actually, everything points in the materials presented that Rajaat blinded himself with doctrine. Which is how I interpret his motives for such things. He focused on his "big picture" -- the restoration of the Blue Age. For that, he felt the need to wipe out every member of every Rebirth race. From the way that Keltis had basically ignored the Mind Lords to look for the Lizardmen, I get the impression that the Champions can "sense" where there are more of their particular chosen race 00 even if it is more instinctive than it is conscientious. Which I have proposed before in other threads could have been the source of the guilt he felt. His conscious mind knew there were no Lizardmen in the Last Sea (he himself cast a powerful spell to search for them, and defiled a rather large area of land to do it), but his subconscious mind, and his instincts are in complete opposition to it, producing a sort of paradox within him.
Imagine this, your enemies have these newborn creatures that aren't part of the "Rebirth" per se, but were never around in the Blue Age.
Unless they were there. If you say the pixies were not part of the Rebirth, then there is nothing to say that they weren't around in the Blue Age. If they were part of the Rebirth, then there is the possibility. If they were made by the SotL's, then time isn't an issue. If they were a rebirth race that was modified or enhanced by the SotL's, then that pretty much guarentees that they were around after the Blue Age... but it does mean they are still a Rebirth race -- even if you want to pretty it up and say they really aren't.
Now imagine they are hiding and sheltering the other races, moving the resistance armies around the world and running messages for them...even if they're doing the same for everyone else (because they are staying neutral).
That seems like WAY too much involvement then on the part of the SotLs to make a race to do that.
Next imagine the pixies are strongly aligned with the elves, linked to the elves metaphysically, who need the pixies to comlete their natural life-cycles and who help them reach some hidden safe-city in the shadow-realms around Athas.
So, these things are not only helping out the enemy and giving them an advantage, hiding them, letting them safely build-up their forces, but are necessary for one of the Rebirth races to propogate naturally.
Seems unnecessarily over-complicated.
Who cares about this Rebirth stuff. Kill the pixies, cut your enemy's legs out from under him. You can fix it later once the Abominations of the Rebirth are all dead, just like you'll fix the deserts and the oceans you've destroyed in your war. Kill and destroy anything that gets in your way and sort it out later.
Once again, it seems unnecessarily over-complicated. It would mean that the Champion for the Pixies was really only doing half a job... if the pixies were a necessary part of the elf lifecycle (and vice-versa), then all Rajaat would need is a Champion to wipe out the Elves or the Pixies, not both. Because a Champion who succeeded against one would basically doom the other race as well. Considering the pixies are dead, and the elves are still around, my guess is that the pixies aren't sio necessary to the elf lifecycle.
Further, this seems to be an attempt to bring something like the elf/pixie relationship you find in Zelda games to Athas, and that, to me, is just... corny.
(Everything Xlorep said)
Agreed, my thoughts as well.
(Everything Penn said)
Agreed. I like that idea; basically what Greynorm said at the beginning of this thread, minus the "they were the children of the SotL's" part, is a great idea.
Whenever a person says, "Not to insult you..." or similar what they really mean is "I'm saying I don't want to insult you so I can look like I'm trying to be nice, but I'm still going to do it anyways."
Actually, it's more like "I really don't have any idea how to say this without it being insulting, so I'll at least make note of it ahead of time."
I'm fully willing to accept useful criticism of an idea, but I draw the line at abuse-disguised-as-criticism. That is what this is, and as such, I have aboslutely nothing further to say to you.
If you say so, although I disagree that a single, short sentence counts as "abuse" when, as far as I can tell (and Xlorep pretty much gave the exact same criticism as I), I wasn't off-base on anything I said. I tend to play the Devil's Advocate on this board even when I should just be keeping my mouth shut, and have been called out on "nonsense" on many an occasion, but even when someone flat out says "you don't know what you're talking about" I don't take it as anything more than harsh criticism that's either justified (in which case I acquiesce) or else I back up my statements with whatever facts/info I can. Starting off a post with "Wow, you guys are blinding yourselves with doctrine so badly" and following it up with a bunch of "imagine this" statments as some sort of proof as to why your idea is sound is...well...nonsense.
In the end, this board is here so all of us Dark Sun fans can come up with ideas, as a community, to make each and every one of our DS gaming experiences better...and that means that if you throw out ideas that are completely "out of the loop" of popular opinion, you're going to get shot at. Sorry that there's so many "canon-heads" here, including myself (...when I'm remembering it correctly, at least... :D ), but such is the nature of the beast.
For the record, just because I disagree with you, doesn't mean I'm somehow an inferior intellect. Please refrain from such implications.
Then please avoid creating such implications.
That said, I'm not butting heads with you, either, Xlore, as I have no interest in anyone's need to defend their ego from imaginary attacks.
I also have no interest in defending someone else's interpretation of my material rather than anything I actually wrote. The whole elf/fairy thing is a great example of this: you make arguments based on assumed details about the proposed elf/pixie relationship. You're arguing ferociously against these phantasms, against details I never provided but you have created just to tear down.
Further, this seems to be an attempt to bring something like the elf/pixie relationship you find in Zelda games to Athas, and that, to me, is just... corny.
No clue what you're talking about. But I find it funny that no one had a problem with these ideas when I originally posted the exact same material some months back. All of a sudden now, vicious canon fanbois on the attack! Gods. Whatever.
Don't use it if you don't like it. No one is holding a gun to your head, and at the same time no one cares if it doesn't meet with your approval for the One True Vision of Athas.
As such, the idea is there for anyone who wants to use it in whole or in part.
If I say, "Wedding yourself to canon is unnecessary. Here's some possibilities that break canon." That doesn't mean I'm trying to support the ideas I'm putting forth, it means I'm providing examples of how one does not have to be wed to canon to make things work out.
Responding to that by noting how it breaks canon is...well: THANKS for READING my post! No kidding it breaks canon.
Actually, it's more like "I really don't have any idea how to say this without it being insulting, so I'll at least make note of it ahead of time."
If you can't think of a way to say it without being insulting, then don't say it. "I couldn't think how not to be insulting" is not an excuse when you KNOW it is going to be insulting because you just said it was. Basic etiquette.
Also, note the difference between what I said and what you said: saying "you are blinding yourself with canon" is a valid criticism; saying something is "nonsense" is not a valid criticism. One is empty of value because it is both unsolvable and unspecific, thus an insult, the other is not, because it is both solvable and specific.
Of course, those aren't the only criteria, but they're a good start -- and I really don't care how many times other people have done it to you and so given you the idea that it is thus OK or defensible. I shouldn't even have to explain what's wrong with that argument.
But fine, I can understand why you might choose to have done it, and won't hold it against you this time.
Honestly, I think we can officially and sadly declare this thread to have become the current posterior of the forum.
Someone slap a "Taken by the Defenders of the Holy Canon of Athas" sticker on it, link it to the a**hatery that was the whole "Paizo's Interpretation of DarkSun is the D3\/1_!!!111!!11 and they SUXX0R2!!1!!1" thread, put it down as another example of how a thread should not progress -- complete with justifications for why insulting and shooting at other posters is OK! to do (as long as you're in the majority!) -- and we can call it a day.
I'm done here. Have fun, guys. I won't be touching this thread again with a ten-footer. Oy.
Jeez, you want a kleenex to go with that WAAAH!mburger and your French Cries? How about a Whinekin? Grow up, guys. It's a forum about a game. Little stompings of toes are nothing to make a big deal about. That kind of nonsense would be laughed at in any real-world interaction, let aloone cyberspace.. Don't clutter the boards whining at each other about your skinned cyberspace knees.
True enough. He presented an idea, a few of us presented why we didn't like it, without any bile or angst. His response to ours at least appeared to be more offensive. Honestly, if Greyorm likes the idea, more power to him, if others like it, more power to them. I honestly couldn't care. I just felt it pertinent to the discussion to at least provide an opposing viewpoint to his write-up, and that is what I did, without taking offense to what he said, just that I disagreed with the idea.
If I say, "Wedding yourself to canon is unnecessary. Here's some possibilities that break canon." That doesn't mean I'm trying to support the ideas I'm putting forth, it means I'm providing examples of how one does not have to be wed to canon to make things work out.
...
Responding to that by noting how it breaks canon is...well: THANKS for READING my post! No kidding it breaks canon.
...
Also, note the difference between what I said and what you said: saying "you are blinding yourself with canon" is a valid criticism; saying something is "nonsense" is not a valid criticism. One is empty of value because it is both unsolvable and unspecific, thus an insult, the other is not, because it is both solvable and specific.
If I hadn't have gone on to explain why I thought it was nonsense then yes, it would not have been valid criticism. But I did explain my justifications for that opinion. Just like if your post had been written differently, say in such a way that your above-quoted sentences were actually included (which it didn't), then both Xlorep and I would have also written our responses differently. But you didn't, so we didn't, so there ya go.
True enough. He presented an idea, a few of us presented why we didn't like it, without any bile or angst. His response to ours at least appeared to be more offensive. Honestly, if Greyorm likes the idea, more power to him, if others like it, more power to them. I honestly couldn't care. I just felt it pertinent to the discussion to at least provide an opposing viewpoint to his write-up, and that is what I did, without taking offense to what he said, just that I disagreed with the idea.
Xlorep, you've definitely made it to Etiquette 201 - I pushed my way through 101, but with barely passing grades. ;)