The rainstorm died as suddenly as it had arisen, and the sorceress carried the Dark Lens to the edge of the ridge. Without pause, she hurled the obsidian orb into the lava lake. She and the others watched it fall. When it hit, a long, steady rumble rolled up from deep within the RIng of Fire, and the entire hill began to shake. At last, there was a deafening crash, and a plume of black flame shot up from the lake. It rose high into the sky, piercing Tithian's storm clouds like an arrow, and arced toward the sun. (CS, 339)
Tithian even says on the previous page:
"Before you destroy the lens, free me." (CS, 338)
Indeed, I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but a careful reading of the PP rather strongly supports the fact that the Lens was destroyed. It was thrown into lava, from which it was made, and seems to have melted there and have been destroyed. I am certainly aware that all other mentionings of this event speak to the Lens' survival, but Denning simply does not seem to support this supposition. Indeed, I laud TSR's wonderful reading comprehension skills for botching the whole subsequent write-up of the end of CS, especially their failure in understanding the imprisonment of Rajaat etc...
Let my critics in this matter commence their attacks!
I could see Rajaat exploding out of there with elemental forces so strong that it basically reshapes the entire planet... imagine the lava and obsidian veins being torn accross the entire surface of the planet, meanwhile, the cerulean storm expands and so much water and steam forms that the oceans begin to reform.. all life but the most basic (that could possibly survive in a volcanic undersea existence) is wiped out (barring really cool psionics or magic to preserve them) and Rajaat decides to rebuild the world from the ground up... or... from the basic building blocks up.. and he uses the pristine tower (eventually) to regenerate the world.. and the halflings of the forest ridge survive due to altitude..
So what u are basically saying is that there is a doomsday comming up on Athas and nothing can stop it regardless of what any players might wanna try, very nice...
u want to erase athas from existance?
I could see Rajaat exploding out of there with elemental forces so strong that it basically reshapes the entire planet... imagine the lava and obsidian veins being torn accross the entire surface of the planet, meanwhile, the cerulean storm expands and so much water and steam forms that the oceans begin to reform.. all life but the most basic (that could possibly survive in a volcanic undersea existence) is wiped out (barring really cool psionics or magic to preserve them) and Rajaat decides to rebuild the world from the ground up... or... from the basic building blocks up.. and he uses the pristine tower (eventually) to regenerate the world.. and the halflings of the forest ridge survive due to altitude..
I like this.
it's the players that are transitory :P the planet endures.. in one form or another.
Certainly this is a major campaign issue for any DM to decide, and I could see a DM simply keeping the Lens in the game for the game's sake. However, in the PP, it simply seems to have been destroyed (please, someone argue against this, I wish to be swayed in this issue!). Indeed, it fits the fantasy story/genre mold that this is done (the great and evil artifact must be destroyed in the end, to ensure it never is mishandled again).
To me, it might seem that the Lens would only soak up the spells Borys used to keep his sea of lava boiling away, and perhaps, the apologist might argue that the black plume that shoots up from where the Lens fell in, and the subsequent earthquake, are simply these spells being destroyed... but unfortunately, and quite obviously, this was clearly not what Denning was trying to convey, in context with the last pages of the pentad. Besides, the lava need itself not all be magical, and indeed, I would probably rule in game that the lava is not itself magical.
etc.
If anyone can make a credible argument for the Lens' survival past the PP, using the PP and not 2nd box foolishness, I would be much interested.
Course, if you allow the socalled "non-cannon" material, then yeah, it totally survives... from both novel and suplemental game material it still exists and is hard to destroy. I don't know, I could see the lava reacting to a powerhouse like the Dark Lens being thrown into it. Doesnt mean the Dark Lense was destroyed, meerly means the Lava had a hiccup ;)
If you need further convincing of my thesis Lyric, I advise you to look at the last pages of the CS, for in context, it seems terribly difficult to deny that Denning meant for the Lens to be destroyed.
I am aware that the Lens is an insanely powerful artifact, but Denning obliged the classic rules of epic fantasy writing by having the item destroyed out of the stuff from which it was made (LotR parallel surely...), namely lava. In terms of the PP, this unfortunately makes perfect sense, to me that is.
I still cannot see that the Lens survived the events in the CS.
The shadow giants, as shadow giants, did not survive either. If any survive, it seems to me that they are halflings now, and in the PMP...
At the end of the CS, Sadira stays behind to put wards up to let her know if anyone tampers with Rajaat's prison. The oba delares "it is done." (pg 339.) That is a SK declaring it, but she might not even know. Not sure this helped...
That's part of the reason I agree with "The Lens is destroyed" idea...and everything Phaaf says holds true as well. As has been discussed elsewhere (on the old boards, at least), part of the confusion is that many people seem to think that Rajaat was trapped *within* the Dark Lens with Rkaard's sun spell, which isn't the case - the sun spell is totally separate, was "made permanent" and likely warded by Sadira and the other S-K's separately, and has nothing to do with the Lens. The Lens itself is destroyed, with the backing of the remaining S-K's, because of the damage it's "resurfacing" caused.
As to the idea that the S-K's couldn't destroy it previously, or didn't know how to do so, there's nothing to support that and more importantly it couldn't have happened, anyway - as soon as Borys was transformed into the Dragon he went on a rampage, the other S-K's fled, and in the confusion the dwarves stole the Lens and hid it away. The S-K's, as a whole, only had it in their possession for a very short time before it was "lost" for 2000 years, and Tithian had the thing all the way up until right before Rajaat was freed. None of this indicates that they couldn't have figured out how to destroy it, however - they'd all been looking for the thing since it was lost, and the more intellectually-inclined S-K's like Nibenay may very well have done research (magical, psionic and mundane) to determine how to destroy the Lens should it ever resurface; after all, something of that power would be an "either I have it or no one has it" sort of item - no self-respecting S-K would allow another S-K to keep it (except maybe Borys, so he could reduce the levy...but even that'd be pushing it).