You'd need a variety of characters, apart from the Druids and Avangion(s); in fact, campaign-wise, I'd suspect that having them being NPCs and the PCs being the people trying to keep them alive would be best...
Oronis might also be a good kernal around which to form a revival attempt. Especially if you were able to keep up the pretense of him being an evil SK. He could make power-grabs that appear to be standard SK moves, which would avoid certain attention. However, I think he'd need a Chain Lightning up the rear end to actually get him to do anything...
There's also the power of the Cerulean Storm (if you're running post-PP) to be harnessed. Surely there's some way of taking that and putting it to good use for Athas...
And finally, if there's one SK who might, just maybe, follow the path of Keltis/Oronis, I think it's Lalali-Puy. It'd take centuries of persuasion, no doubt, to get her to see that she could become a true "Forest Goddess"...
It's a small but very significant difference which is often overlooked. SKs are not against preservers/druids because they are good/restorationist and the SKs are evil/destructionist. Athas is not the world of high ideals like this IMHO. SKs simply try to grab or destroy any source of power which can be dangerous to them. And the life force is such power source.
From here on in it gets tricky. I'd still need to deal with the SK. Having them, or at least some of them Atone(but someone would need to be higher level than them to cast it) would be ideal, because a Preserver SK, isn't going to have defilers working for him, which would give defilers in general less of a chance to hide. As Korvar points out, Lalali-Puy would probably easiest to persuade, though even that might take awhile. Since the SK all fear the madness that comes from being a dragon, if they see that becoming an Avangion does not have this limitation, they maybe more likely to come around.
Other things to take care of. The Pristine Tower probably needs to be destroyed, but thats going to be difficult, considering the amount of power its channeling. Probably need to shut it down first.
The Pristine Tower probably needs to be destroyed, but thats going to be difficult, considering the amount of power its channeling. Probably need to shut it down first.
I would think that the Pristine Tower would be one of the very keys to restoring Athas.
I would think that the Pristine Tower would be one of the very keys to restoring Athas.
How so? Its defiling the sun. At least thats my understanding.
How so? Its defiling the sun. At least thats my understanding.
Its true that it has been used to alter the sun causing it to change from Blue, to yellow, and to its current red state. However, it isn't constantly draining the sun. The Tower has been used for some good in the past (the destruction of the Brown Tide, the Rebirth, etc...).
It could perhaps be harnessed yet again to change the color of the sun back to either yellow, blue, or some other beneficial hue. I'm sure it could even be utilized in some other manner that I couldn't fathom. Either way, the Tower by itself is not causing Athas to deteriorate. Its destruction will not reverse or solve anything.
Thats all IMO though. I do think canon does support most of what I'm saying.
The idea is that a wish can only be made once every thousand years, and that the same wish can never be duplicated. So, when someone said, "I wish for immortality", nothing would happen, because someone already had that wish granted. But who? ;)
One of my players was a defiler, and we sort of knew where the campaign was going. He would have the chance to either save the world or destroy it with his wish, if he were to gather the stones.
You see, the wish comes with a price. In order to save Athas and to make it green again, all magic would have to disappear forever. The question is, would my defiler have taken that route?
So that's how we were going to make Athas green again. I know it doesn't fit in the best with DS continuity, but it was a fun game.
This is an idea that I've been kicking around in my head for awhile. What would it take to rejuvenate Athas?
We would need a definition here: What do we mean by "rejuventate"?
After all, Rajaat probably thought his plan was going to rejuvenate Athas by returning to a Blue Age. I assume you simply mean: "How would we make Athas green with abundant vegetation again?" Right?
Regards,
Eric Anondson
Its true that it has been used to alter the sun causing it to change from Blue, to yellow, and to its current red state. However, it isn't constantly draining the sun. The Tower has been used for some good in the past (the destruction of the Brown Tide, the Rebirth, etc...).
It could perhaps be harnessed yet again to change the color of the sun back to either yellow, blue, or some other beneficial hue. I'm sure it could even be utilized in some other manner that I couldn't fathom. Either way, the Tower by itself is not causing Athas to deteriorate. Its destruction will not reverse or solve anything.
Thats all IMO though. I do think canon does support most of what I'm saying.
I agree with you completely... but who shall find the way to do it? It is IMHO obviously beyond the possibilities of any PC of playable level either to develope a spell/power of such effect, or to interrogate Rajaat effectively. Moreover, the new experiments with the Sun can be even more harmful. Imagine the restored yellow Sun shining over the lifeless Athas... or Athas with only vegetable life... or the undamaged Athas under the Black Sun... such methods are to be tested on mice, not worlds!
I agree with you completely... but who shall find the way to do it? It is IMHO obviously beyond the possibilities of any PC of playable level either to develope a spell/power of such effect, or to interrogate Rajaat effectively. Moreover, the new experiments with the Sun can be even more harmful. Imagine the restored yellow Sun shining over the lifeless Athas... or Athas with only vegetable life... or the undamaged Athas under the Black Sun... such methods are to be tested on mice, not worlds!
I never said it would be easy, just an option. Its an idea that could be the basis of an entire campaign. The PC's could be in search of a being that was knowledegable in the Tower's inner workings perhaps? A trusted aid to Rajaat (now undead), or an ancient rhulisti life-shaper (or nature-bender).
The Tower would be an invaluable tool in restoring Athas. Even Rajaat realized this and I'm sure thats what he had planned.
This is just speculation though. Just throwing some ideas around.
We would need a definition here: What do we mean by "rejuventate"?
After all, Rajaat probably thought his plan was going to rejuvenate Athas by returning to a Blue Age. I assume you simply mean: "How would we make Athas green with abundant vegetation again?" Right?
Regards,
Eric Anondson
Yeah, the latter. Make it greeen, but without Cleansing of races.
but ah i am of the school of potential. i think the brown tide was a massive expenditure, an irreplacable loss of life energy from athas. defilers now are just licking the last traces of it, even as the desparate and lonely try to recover it. but i do not think their is enough in all of athas to undo, or revert, or even to transcend the situation. rajaat was evidence of that, i suppose he knew how worthless the world was to his ambitions in its form. how he expected to attain blue age is unknown. it would probably be form of using magic as a redux to lifeshaping energy (it is my own opinion, non canon of course, that the brown tide's change brought about the magical energies heretofore unknown on the blue world...left for the descendents of the rhulisti to discover. this is just logic stemming from the githzerai perhaps being root of psionics due to their war with the githyanki). its where i drew conclusion that dragons were an incarnation of lifebending...that magic is diluted or spoiled or whatnot lifeshaping, at its core. of course he was quite mad, so who knows...
So a bunch of foo-foo elves and snot-nosed humans would die . . . by the millions, but you can bet your arse that if anyone is going to restore Athas, its going to be him. Athas would be restored to its most verdant nature of all, a waterworld. Pound for pound there's a few thousand times more life in the oceans than on land.
I'd say, let Rajaat loose again . . .
So a bunch of foo-foo elves and snot-nosed humans would die . . . by the millions, but you can bet your arse that if anyone is going to restore Athas, its going to be him. Athas would be restored to its most verdant nature of all, a waterworld. Pound for pound there's a few thousand times more life in the oceans than on land.
That's assuming his plan (and I'm not entirely sure what his plan was) would actually work, and not just make things worse...
And personally, the deaths of several thousand intelligent beings is not something I'd take that lightly...
I'd say, let Rajaat loose again . . .
So a bunch of foo-foo elves and snot-nosed humans would die . . . by the millions, but you can bet your arse that if anyone is going to restore Athas, its going to be him. Athas would be restored to its most verdant nature of all, a waterworld. Pound for pound there's a few thousand times more life in the oceans than on land.
Where's he going to get the fish and other animals to inhabit the oceans? They're pretty much all dead. There's the Last Sea, even thats not much of an eco-system. Without living organisms, its just stagnant water.
and I'm not entirely sure what his plan was
To bring about the Blue Age once more.
Where's he going to get the fish and other animals to inhabit the oceans?
Assuming Rajaat did have the ability to bring about a new Blue Age, species population would be the most meger of issues. Besides, he didn't want to harm the halflings, fully intending on turning the planet back over to them (once all those troublesome Rebirth races were dealt with).
A little research and a little Epic Spell known as Origin of Species, modified to produce the desired results.
Finally he send them to the elemental plane of Water. Would make sense because once he was free and began to draw the water from the EP some unique fishes, from the Blue age I guess, came with it too.
and I'm not entirely sure what his plan was
To bring about the Blue Age once more.
That's his goal, true enough - I meant that I don't know how he was planning to do that. The means he was planning to use to that end.
That's his goal, true enough - I meant that I don't know how he was planning to do that.
Probably by the way described in details in PP5: change the sun's color through force of will, spew out water like crazy until it covers the entire world, and alter reality so that the things of the past (living coral and others) come back to life again.
Which all happened, up to the moment the Rajaat's self was turned into the Cerulean Storm.
Hm, maybe just maybe Rajaat, the allpowerful mage he was, preserved most species from the blue age, all that survived, and remade the rebirth process on some others.
There already are halflings that set up underground hibernation complexes, in the hope of surviving the Brown Tide, like those halflings at Cleft Rock.
It's not a stretch to believe those same halflings, and others elsewhere, brought lifeshapes with them, some of them repositories of the imprints of all forms of life known to the rhulisti, so they could recreate them through lifeshaping one day to repopulate the world.
Of course, the real answer would be pretty complex. You'd have to get preservers out of the shadows and into the open. Make druids have an actual promenant place in society, and make it required that the city populations actually help to rejuvinate long dormant spirits of the land.
And of course even that is a short answer to a very complex problem.