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As we all know, Takhisis has given the power of arcane magic to her followers in the past. This was first seen with Ariakas, who served as a prototype for the Knights of the Thorn.
Takhisis went by the name of the One God during this time, partially not to alert people as to who this god was, and partially to solidify herself as the one divine presence in the world.
We've already seen how clerics were beginning to return, especially with Mina. Yet it seems to me that Takhisis would further solidify herself as the ultimate power base by taking the place of the moon gods as the sole provider of arcane magic.
With Ariakas and the Knights of the Thorn as precedent, would it not stand to reason that she could have had similar followers during the War of Souls? I would imagine most would be Thorn Knights, but some may be independent from that.
It seems to me that part of what Takhisis is doing is stealing ambient magic, and using it to boost her own power. In this model, the divine magic of mysticism would be absorbed to increase her divine might, and then sorcery is then absorbed and focused back on her mortal followers. The result would then be the effective death of ambient magic and the effective return of focused arcane magic.
So what do you guys think? Would it have been possible for Takhisis to have had some wizard followers in the War of Souls?
While its certainly a good game concept, I believe that Takhasis' plan would have been to START with Palin and Dalamar as the providers of arcane magic to the Former Orders of High Sorcery. Certainly, your plan sounds like something she would do and was even plotting....she was the Shadow Sorcerer very briefly too during all this.
I think she was too weak to be a focus at this point though and intended to "unveil" the new magic with her new clergy headed by Goldmoon.
One question though, yes Ariakas was the prototype of the Knights of the Thorn, but he also passed the Test of High Sorcery. Didnt he receive his magic from Nuitari?
But Takhisis certainly had the power to grant arcane magic to wizards, yes. In fact, she did that very thing to help bring down Beryl the Green, remember?
The elves sought to restrain Beryl and some of the elven wizards cast rope and binding spells as they had known them in the 4th Age, and the magic worked perfectly, because Takhisis granted it to them for that moment.
Didn't Dalamar have a deal with Takhisis in which she would give him back his wizardly magic in return for his service?
If you mean right after the Chaos War, then that was because she was too weak after stealing the world away, and she had to rest for decades before she felt strong enough to use dead souls to steal magic for her and to challenge the Dragon Overlords.
In the 5th Age, she could do whatever she pleased.
How does being one among many diminish her capacity as one of the Creator gods of Krynn? Her power should be the same.
Simple. Imagine you are a member of a team and each member has a specific job. You can even be the leader of the entire team, it doesn't matter.
Each member feels "special" because he/she is the best at what he/she is doing.
Now, imagine one member of your team decides suddenly that not only can he do his job better than anyone but he can also do your job better than everyone else (you included).
Wouldn't you feel a wee bit angry? A little threatened in your position? Of course you would! And since it's in the best interest of ALL the team's members that they retain their specific job, you could count on the others to help you teach the upstart a lesson.
After all, nobody wants to be obsolete and lose his job, right?
In the case of Krynn, there are three "teams" of gods - good, neutral, and evil. Paladine, Gilean, and Takhisis are the team captains. They each have their own goals, their own moves to make during play, and each person plays a part.
While Takhisis may not act very LE at times, I will assure you that she is indeed LE. Of course, she considers herself to be the ultimate law. LE types work within the boundaries of structure, and make their move when opportunity presents.
Likewise, Takhisis knows that she must work within certain boundaries to get the leg up, yet she also knows when it is time to discard those boundaries.
To have given arcane magic to mortals prior to when she did would be to incur the wrath of the combined might of the gods of magic, perhaps as well as the High God. Her timing, needless to say, had to be exact, and she had to have all her pieces on the right spot on the board.
I think it may have been entirely possible for Takhisis to have granted arcane magic to wizards - eventually. She may or may not have during the War of Souls, but I think that would have become a definite afterwards.
Still, it gives us a neat idea for a rather unique type of character during that era.
I'm taking my original post and working it up as an article for the Nexus, so be on the lookout for that sometime soon.
EDIT: Okay, so I was quicker than I thought. You can see the article here.
Then every member of the pantheon was too busy figuring out how to survive to worry about what Takhisis had done
When the other gods vanished so did the three moons, and with it the magic from which all wizards, Wizards of High Sorcery, renegades and Grey Robes alike, drew their power.
Takhisis couldn't replace that power. At least not right away. She wasn't a god of magic herself. Plus she needed magical energy to recharge her own powers. So she taught primal sorcery to Palin and others and then allowed them to spread the practice across Krynn. Then she enslaved the souls of the dead and set them to the task of stealing the energy generated whenever a sorceror or mystic cast a spell so that she could add it to her store of power.
Once she had collected enough power she made her grand entrance as the One God with Mina as her first new cleric. Granting clerical spells would have been easy for her, as she had always possessed such an ability and doing so then would have been nothing new to her.
Granting arcane spells in the absence of the moons would have been a little trickier. She really had no prior experience in doing so, she had simply helped her Grey Robes steal the power flowing from the three moons.
In theory, once she had established herself as a supreme deity it is conceivable she could have worked out a way to become a new conduit for arcane magic as well as divine magic. I suppose it's possible she could have empowered an individual or individuals to cast focused arcane spells, but probably not to duplicate the powers of the Thorn Knight character class.
The big question would be: why? She seemed disinclined to create any rivals to Mina's powers (doing so would, perhaps, have diluted Mina's messianic appeal to the general public).
Takhisis, granting rule-bending favors as she was wont to do, allowed the Grey Robes to draw upon the special benefits of all three moons rather than just one (or none, as was the case with regular renegades of the wizard character class).
The "all three moons" issue is something of a myth, of course, now that Takhisis' true efforts are seen in hindsight. The Thorn Knights never had the benefits of all three moons at once, rather they had a direct connection of power from Takhisis which enabled them to be on an even playing field with the wizards of High Sorcery. The wizards had their gods of magic enhancing their wizard spells, and the Gray Robes had Takhisis. You'll notice that it's conjecture on the part of Tanis and a few others that the Thorn Knights are enjoying the benefits of all three moons - probably smart propaganda on the part of Ariakan.
Cheers,
Cam
But I thought in the original Second Generation there was a table showing the affects of the moons on the grey robes??
That's right. And in Dragonlance Adventures, all three Orders of wizards had different XP tables and spell progression, and you couldn't play a dwarf wizard.
Cheers,
Cam
But I thought in the original Second Generation there was a table showing the affects of the moons on the grey robes??
It was the same basic moon phase table from prior products for the WoHS.
Don't think about it in our terms. Think of it in in-world terms.
For ages, people have known about the WoHS and the moons. I've always thought the Knights of Takhisis were masters of propaganda. They're very fascist, and some very infamous fascist states used propaganda as one of their big tools.
So imagine that there's the Thorn Knights, made up of some new wizards and some disenfranchised Black Robes. They want to do their best to destroy the WoHS. They know that all three orders would ally against them. So they need to fight this battle not only on a magical front, but others as well.
Enter fear. They decide to not only assault the WoHS, but also their morale. By doing so, they make their opponent weak. Could it be that the assault the WoHS led against the Thorn Knights was driven by fear?
The thing to remember is that what is in a sourcebook is often written with the views and biases of the time. At the time, magic came from the moons, so the view was to steal from them.
Yet we've expanded on that exponentially, so now we can say that there's multiple sources for arcane magic. We can look at things through new eyes and come up with new ideas.
That's right. And in Dragonlance Adventures, all three Orders of wizards had different XP tables and spell progression, and you couldn't play a dwarf wizard.
Cheers,
Cam
Better watch it, Cam. The Retcon Patrol will be after you in short order! ;)
Better watch it, Cam. The Retcon Patrol will be after you in short order! ;)
I've got their number on speed dial, don't worry!
Cheers,
Cam
The Grey Robes were so powerful because, since they could draw power from all three moons, rather than one, they were stronger than the Order wizards, whose magic was tied to one moon (level adjustment based on lunar phase) or normal renegade wizards, whose power wasn't tied to any specific moon (no level adjustment positive or negative).
Since odds favor at least one moon being in High Sanction at any given time the Grey Robes had an edge. All the more so when multiple moons were in High Sanction.
However, the fact is that all wizards, whether they paid homage to Solinari, Lunitari and Nuitari or not lost their powers when the moons were gone. That meant the Wizards of High Sorcery, the unaffiliated renegades and Takhisis's Thorn Knights.
That could certainly be retconned, and any god could now be made a source of arcane magic. But then how is Dragonlance as a setting distinctive than the more cluttered Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk settings? Then again, I know some people want to throw everything distinctive about DL away and do just that, make it exactly like the other settings.
From a game stats perspective the Grey Robes drew their powers from the three moons. Period. However anyone chooses to retcon doesn't change the fact that that was what was in print.
Yes, it was in print. At the same time, we have sources such as the DLCS saying the power came from Takhisis, and not mentioning the moon phases. This is in print also. We can go on forever about things being in print. No dwarf wizards according to prior materials, yet we have the dark dwarf savant PrC in ToHS and a couple of dwarf wizards in books lately. Which is correct? Are there no dwarf wizards or are there?
Should I believe that drow are in Krynn since Wild Elves had them in print?
Perhaps someday there will be a Chaos War era sourcebook out with some rules for Thorn Knights of that era receiving some sort of bonus from the three moons.
I don't like the idea of gods beyond the moon gods granting arcane magic either. Each god has their own domain. Takhisis, though, has been known to violate the domains of other gods from time to time, such as when she used a bunch of undead in the War of Souls. Certainly Chemosh wasn't too happy about that. Likewise, Nuitari is mad at Takhisis for granting magic to the Thorn Knights.
One way to look at it is through a compromise of sorts. In this model, Takhisis siphons the magic of the moons and grants it to her Thorn Knight followers. Now, by this model, she would not be able to grant magic to wizards in the War of Souls era. However, it would serve as a nice way to bridge the Second Generation and current sources.
Just a thought.
No dwarf wizards according to prior materials, yet we have the dark dwarf savant PrC in ToHS and a couple of dwarf wizards in books lately. Which is correct? Are there no dwarf wizards or are there?
Actually, IIRC, dwarf arcane spellcasters were treated a Derro Savants back then, so it's really only a matter of game mechanics in this case ;)
Actually, IIRC, dwarf arcane spellcasters were treated a Derro Savants back then, so it's really only a matter of game mechanics in this case ;)
That's okay, we still have spelljamming drow and Jiathuli. ;)
*ducks!*
Well, I rather liked the Krynnspace accessory, so ..
Lol!
Actually, what I'm referring to comes from Wild Elves. Krynnspace is one of my favorite Spelljammer products. I did an online supplement for that at one point.
From a game stats perspective the Grey Robes drew their powers from the three moons. Period. However anyone chooses to retcon doesn't change the fact that that was what was in print.
I look at it as they could draw from all three moons but only one at a time.
ie, when Solinari was in phase Tak stole the magic from it, when Lutinari was in phase she stole magic from it, etc.. ,but if two were in phase she could still take it from one.
So in essence they could draw on all three moons just not all at the same time.
Edit: Pretty sure I butchered the spelling on the moon's names. Sorry in advance
Lol!
Actually, what I'm referring to comes from Wild Elves. Krynnspace is one of my favorite Spelljammer products. I did an online supplement for that at one point.
No, I know that. I just meant that, unlike some, I don't run around screaming sacrilege if I am presented with spelljamming creatures on Krynn ;)