The Chaos War was not my favourite storyline, but it sure shook things up.
Starting positive, the things I liked were:
1) The Graygem was an incarnate uber-diety... never saw that one coming
2) It was a different adventure than a simple war between good and evil
3) A sense that this was to big to be solved merely by war
The things I didn't like were:
1) The Knights of the Thorn somehow being able to "steal" magic from all three moons.
2) The world conquest seemed to happen much to quickly chronologically.
3) Palin and Usha face off against Chaos because the powerful were off doing something more important? What could be more important than facing off against Chaos?
4) The gods buggered off after being back for barely 2 decades.
5) Chaos seemed to be too anthropomorphized for a being greater than gods.
Redoing the Chaos War is kind of like redoing Crisis on Infinite Earths. Big changes, and a divided fan base between the old and the new. The core difference between the Chaos War and my War of Chaos centers around this:
The power of Chaos is embodied in arcane magic, the raw power which could create and destroy the universe and what it is currently bound together by. The power of the High God is embodied by the souls of mortal beings and the power that mortals innately possess. That is what Takhisis had been lusting for dominion over since the All Saints War. The Power of Ionathas and the High God. The whole enchilada.
The beginning of the story begins when the Greygem slips from Reorx's grasp in "Wanna Bet?". Retreived by agents of Takhisis, she uses it to enhance the power of her Knights of the Thorn. When the Wizards of High Sorcery attempts to destroy this nest of Renegades, they are decimated. Feeling unstoppable with the power of the graygem behind her, she orders the army begin its conquest. The Knights of Takhisis quickly reclaim the lands of Nereka, and settle down to fortify and occupy. Impatient at this slow rate of progress, and growing mad from the power of the graygem, she hatched upon the scheme to crack open the graygem itself and consume its power.
Reorx, travelling as Dougan Redhammer and seeking to reclaim his prize, approaches Nereka with the intent of stealing the graygem back. Too late he realizes what the Dark Queen wishes to do, and can only watch in horror. Takhisis, infused with the power of the Graygem, destroys Reorx instantly despite his entreaties and prostations. With the destruction of the forger of the world, the universe begins to break apart. Takhisis, now wholly mad, seeks to destroy the world so she can create it anew in her image.
Breaking open the gates of the Abyss, Takhisis fully enters the world, creating creatures of frost to consume warmth and life, fire to consume everything, and shadow to annhiliate the light of existance leaving nothing in the void. The souls of the dead, and the arms of the living rose up to meet them. This is mankinds hour of judgement.
At the time of the Cataclysm, the gods of good had realized that the time of judgement was at hand, and that mankind was not ready. Due to their godly interference, the mortals of the world were petty and spoiled, immature and unwilling to face their own destiny. They had accepted the divine gifts but scorned the divine teachings. Instead they demanded, through their mouthpeice the Kingpreist, to have all their problems solved and the monsters under their bed banished.
So the gods, with heavy heart, destroyed the world and reset the balance with the Cataclysm. Mankind suffered, but learned and grew strong in the suffering. The War of the Lance and the rediscovery of faith was the final trial and tempering in mankind's soul. The gods of good had done all they could. It was now time for mortals to unlock the power of the High God latent within themselves.
The gods called upon their worshippers to accept their destiny. While gods and dragons held back the power of Takhisis and her hordes, mortals knelt and tried to understand the truth about themselves. Slowly the power built, as awareness spread upon humanity of each other. A spiritual bond between all souls, living and dead. An awareness of beginning and the end of time and all events in between. Mankind understood, but did not understand enough.
Everything was consumed in fire, and the wild magic of chaos overtook everything.
The world was remade, but it was not remade in the image of Takhisis. It was remade in the image of men. A world of cities and fields, of families and individuals, of petty ambition and noble sacrifice, of hard reality and unexplainable wonder. The dead returned to their punishments and rewards, and men were left with half-remembered visions and dreams. However, mankind had learned of the power of the arcane power behind reality and the of the divine power inside themselves which had hitherto been only granted by the gods.
Phew... commentary on the reply to this. I've left out a lot to give you the bare bones plot, now I have to see how this all plays out.
You'd replace 'Mr.Cool' Ionthas with "Takhisis tries to take over the world...again"? Come on.
I understand your complaint about "Takhisis taking over the world" plots, and certainly after all the preludes novels, the Legend of Huma, The War of Souls and everything else, it is a storyline that has been done to death.
Now to not have a "Takhisis taking over the world plot" I would have to also retcon the anthology "Second Generation" as well, which introduces the Knights of Takhisis/Nereka. So a take over the world plot by Takhisis is how DOSF starts, though it is pre-empted by Chaos.
Now I'm afraid I don't share your opinion of how cool Chaos is in DoSF. I think that a being that is the raw power of the universe should be a little more impersonal than a giant with thin skin on his toe. So I figure I'll just let Takhisis carry through, and have the power of Chaos drive her mad enough to try and destroy the world instead of conquer it.
However, I could allow another diety to break open the Graygem, such as Morgion, Hiddukel, or Chemosh. Perhaps even a neutral diety such as Gilean, Sirrion, or Reorx himself, in a bid to reset the balance. Actually, I kind of like the idea of Reorx breaking open the gem to destroy the world. He forged it, perhaps he desires to reforge it.
Comments?
Originally posted by ferratus
Now I'm afraid I don't share your opinion of how cool Chaos is in DoSF. I think that a being that is the raw power of the universe should be a little more impersonal than a giant with thin skin on his toe.
I agree with you after a fashion.
The setup for Chaos was great. Here we have the Forger of the world stumbling into a mysterious scene with Irda and the Greygem. Ionthas enters the scene and suddenly we have a god trembling in fear, and as bonus some random genocide. Now that's an entrance worthy of any villain (and what made it even greater was that, in a way, Chaos really wasn't a villain. Not from his viewpoint anyway).
Then the rest of the book is about finding out how to defeat the dude. Good stuff (the best outsider view of this is in RotBS where the gods are shown waging war on Chaos in other dimensions all the while aiding their followers in the prime).
But then when the finale finally comes it feels like a total cop-out. Sure it took the effort of the whole world to drain Chaos' powers by making him spend energy on his avatar, his minions, and creating general chaos and bad weather, but sheesh. We didn't even get a proper conclusion. And now in retrospect we didn't get any kind of conclusion since it turned out to be Takhisis in disguise there at the end. So there's a definitive lack of background on Ionthas and what he was really about (and wasn't DoSF supposed to have been a trilogy originally. Damn that would've been great). :whatsthis
So he is a villain with a cool premise and very little delivery. That's what I would like to see developed. Maybe Sovereing could do something about that if they ever get around to making a Chaos War sourcebook.
However, I could allow another diety to break open the Graygem...Perhaps even a neutral diety...Actually, I kind of like the idea of Reorx breaking open the gem to destroy the world.
I kind of like it as well. And wasn't "Reorx is crazy" how they later explained his Father of All and Nothing rambling (which I thought should have been explained some other way, instead of totally dismissing it)?
Originally posted by jonesy
And wasn't "Reorx is crazy" how they later explained his Father of All and Nothing rambling (which I thought should have been explained some other way, instead of totally dismissing it)?
The only other idea I could come up with at the time was "Reorx was really Takhisis in disguise", I'm afraid. Keep in mind that the main body of the Appendix was pretty much set at the point I came up with the explanation.
Matthew L. Martin
Cracks it open, drives him nuts. The creator god becomes the destroyer, and things progress from there.