What are we refugees from?

[Brutus2]

<p>The game opens with your character having been pulled out of the ocean by a ship captain and brought to the Queen's Colony.  I had always assumed this takes place during the destruction of the moon and the ensuing destruction.  But the timelines I have seen say the shattering was about ten years before the game starts.  So why are all these characters being rescued from the ocean and brought to the island ten years after the event?  How did they end up adrift in the ocean ten years later?</p><p>Is it possible for a Barbarian character to have been born in Halas if it was destroyed durng the rending?  If not, where would a Barbarian likley have been born to end up being plucked out of the ocean and brought to Qeynos?  Would barbarians have been living in Everfrost after Halas was destroyed?</p><p>About how much time has passed in-game from launch to now (opening of Kunark)?  In other words how many years would my character have aged since first arriving on the Isle of Refugee (Queen's Colony) on launch day?</p>

[Zabjade]

<span style="color: #00cc00;">Smaller islands in what is left of the Plains of Karana. there used to be groups of Barbarians who lived along what is now the Dead River Basin. for my Human she was from either Gatewatch(Antonica Spires) itself or a nearby village.</span>

[Gukkor2]

<p>My Iksar monk grew up in a small island village of Iksar that had been isolated by the Rending.  He became a refugee after the village was destroyed in the Shattering, and he pretty much just survived in the wild for years before the Far Journey picked him up.</p><p>As for Barbarians, there were also the Sandfishers, a clan of Barbarians that lived in a fishing village on the coast of the Desert of Ro.  Several smaller humanoid villages certainly also had individual Barbarian members.  Any one of those villages could have been isolated by the Rending, and it's likely that those Barbarians would have descendants.</p>

[Brutus2]

<p>Would this work as far as age, years past, etc...</p><p>My ancestors fought in the siege of Halas, the women and children were sent out in the wilderness to be hunted (according to the book History of the Barbarians).  After the green mist killed the Rallosian Army, Barbraians from surrounding outposts retook Halas only to soon watch it destroyed in the Rending.  </p><p>The survivors lived in caves in Everfrost for several generations hoping to someday rebuild Halas.  Then the Shattering came and the last of the ruins of Halas sank beneath the waves.  My character would have been about 9 years old when the Shattering occured.</p><p>With all hope of ever returning to their former home lost, the survivors decided there was no choice but to leave Everfrost and seek a new home elsewhere but the seas were too violent after the Shattering.  </p><p>After about 8-9 years living in caves, the seas calmed enough for some of the youth to construct a crude boat and set out in search of other survivors.  The boat was not well made and was crushed in the violent waves.  Everyone was lost overboard.  My character (about 18-19 years old) was fortunate enough to be picked up by the Far Journey.</p><p>When he was evetually able to return to Everfrost a few years later, there were no signs of the people he left behind including his parents.</p>

[Cusashorn]

The reason why we all ended up in the ocean was because the dragon Darathar intentionally wiped our memories of our past lives, stripped us of our goods, dumped us in the ocean, then took on the form of Captain Vargas and pulled you onboard to give you a new life. It was all part of a master scheme of his that backfired because he didn't think we'd ever end up killing him.

[Josgar]

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>The reason why we all ended up in the ocean was because the dragon Darathar intentionally wiped our memories of our past lives, stripped us of our goods, dumped us in the ocean, then took on the form of Captain Vargas and pulled you onboard to give you a new life. It was all part of a master scheme of his that backfired because he didn't think we'd ever end up killing him.</blockquote>I thought his name was "captain varlos". Anyways, Josgar does not know a lot about what happened to him after his glorious, gallant fighting against those nasty dark elves.He does remember seeing quellious' message to retreat to human cities, but he never actually lowered himself into going there. Rumor has it that he was on the high sees attempting to locate his dear friends Dlion, Elion, and the great grand children of Erydan the Paladin and the great great great grand children of frolic the druid. (NOTE: Two different families)

[Cusashorn]

ehh I always get his name wrong. Maybe I should just call him Captain V from now on.

[ke'la]

<p>Not shure about the Isle of Refuge stuff, and as it does not necissarily apply to new caractors. Now you goto Queens Conany or Isle of the Overload more to prove your worth as an adventurer. </p><p>As for how long has passed sence launch, I think Norath YEARS are as long as Earth years so ~3 years have past give or take a few days. Its just that Norath has many more Months, Weeks and Days then Earth, in a standard year.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<cite>ke'la wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Not shure about the Isle of Refuge stuff, and as it does not necissarily apply to new caractors. Now you goto Queens Conany or Isle of the Overload more to prove your worth as an adventurer. </p><p>As for how long has passed sence launch, I think Norath YEARS are as long as Earth years so ~3 years have past give or take a few days. Its just that Norath has many more Months, Weeks and Days then Earth, in a standard year.</p></blockquote><p>Lets see.. I'm not good at math, but each Norrath day is 90 minutes. So that would mean... 90 times 365 equals 32850 minutes, devided by 60 minutes equals... 547.5 Earth Hours per Norrathian year.</p><p>That sound about right? Or is it 72 minutes per Norrath day? oh I can't remember. >_<</p><p>Anyways, since after Desert of Flames came out, they changed the start of the game to acknowledge that Darathar's plan was no longer in motion. Newbie players were no longer refugees picked up out of the ocean, but returning heros of Norrath and adventurers who have thier own story to tell.</p>

[Torri]

<p>My Barbarian Monk can indeed trace her lineage back to the Fall of Halas where her great ancestor, a Heyoka from the Age of War died in it's defense. </p><p>Her story is that her ancestor's wife and their four children escaped to Qeynos and their clan has lived there ever since. Due to her abnormally large size and lack of affinity for spirits she was steered toward the discipline of the Monks to try and keep her out of trouble, The Isle of Refuge does not even enter into her story.</p><p>I never liked that people had to be saddled with that whole fished out of the sea bit, so I just ignore that detail.</p><p>Norrathian day is 72 minutes, so there are 20 Norrathian days in one Earth day. I'm not sure of the exact launch day, but guestimating 1100 days passed since, then we'd be looking at just over 60 Norrathian years having passed since launch. So we can't look at it that way, since most races would be in their old age if they were created at launch.</p>

[Daine]

Um...mispost...this was supposed to happen in a different thread but using the tabs in Firefox did some weird things when I hit the reply button  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Gukkor2]

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ke'la wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Not shure about the Isle of Refuge stuff, and as it does not necissarily apply to new caractors. Now you goto Queens Conany or Isle of the Overload more to prove your worth as an adventurer. </p><p>As for how long has passed sence launch, I think Norath YEARS are as long as Earth years so ~3 years have past give or take a few days. Its just that Norath has many more Months, Weeks and Days then Earth, in a standard year.</p></blockquote><p>Lets see.. I'm not good at math, but each Norrath day is 90 minutes. So that would mean... 90 times 365 equals 32850 minutes, devided by 60 minutes equals... 547.5 Earth Hours per Norrathian year.</p><p>That sound about right? Or is it 72 minutes per Norrath day? oh I can't remember. >_<</p><p>Anyways, since after Desert of Flames came out, they changed the start of the game to acknowledge that Darathar's plan was no longer in motion. Newbie players were no longer refugees picked up out of the ocean, but returning heros of Norrath and adventurers who have thier own story to tell.</p></blockquote>But Varlos is still alive.  The Far Journey's still the ship that takes newbies from the training islands to the cities.  Is that the "real" Capt. Varlos or just an oversight by the devs?

[Cusashorn]

<p>Hmm. They never went on to explain what Captain Varlos is doing NOW, after the Darathar storyline has been completed.</p><p>It's kinda part of the paradoxal nature of an MMO. Despite that players have defeated him, He continues to respawn for other players who are still working on the quest. Since the only way to kill an NPC for good is to remove it or it's quest from the game after one person completed it, they continue to allow NPCs to respawn for other players to complete the quests. You could say that despite that Darathar's defeat is later acknowledged, specifically by Nagafen, in future storylines, he's still trying to carry out his own plans, that involves new players on the Isles of Refuge.</p>

[Deadrus]

<p>My Iksar Main was on an iksar ship on its way to ocean of tears when the reding happened. The Captian V rescued him. </p><p>before rok came out i got flamed for saying my iksar was actualy from Kunark sayiung that if an iksar they didnt konw showed up on kunark id be killed before i steped off the boat and how iksars that have been away from kunark for so long would not even be able to earn trust with their fellow iksar. Now that ROK is here its a sad thing that sickens me that ANY race good neutral or evil can get factoin up to ally with about all of the iksar on kunark? Why no place for Iksars to live on kunark if the kunark iksar are talking and giveing out all this faction to soft skins. The iksar should atleast let their brothers home with more open arms then the rest of the races. </p>

[Zabjade]

<span style="color: #00cc00;">Klornie remembers little of her old life, even now, an image of a town, a face in the water: And a piece of Luclin hitting the Antonican Spires, a blinding flash of light.Kanaraz remembers once being a Dark Elven Warrior welcome even in Qeynos, and something of a Mercenary. She is now a Philosophical Shadowknight.Kurayami has her memories she was once a lowly Teir'Dal servant, who made a  better life in  Freeport then to Qeynos. </span>

[DrkVsr]

<p><span style="font-size: medium;color: #993300;font-family: comic sans ms,sand;">Haven't started doing any of the big storylines, but where is it revealed that Varlos was Darathar? Is that why the former first-mate now has a ship and captaincy of her own (always thought the peck on the docks in Mara was pineing after her until was 'old' enough to actually get his quest)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;color: #993300;font-family: Comic Sans MS;">Was 'Varlos' an original construct of Darathar's? Or based on a real person, maybe held prisoner by Darathar's forces (and maybe after Darathar's defeat the real Varlos was freed and now he's making it up for what the false Varlos did by truly helping adventurers)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;color: #993300;font-family: Comic Sans MS;">Still working on the backstories for most of mah characters, but just came up with how Zabisuto ended up on the Isle of Refuge: after the spending centuries in hibernation after the fall of Gukta, he was woken by the Rending, after taking stock of the changes around him he set off to Freeport only for the ship he was travelling on get hit by a falling fragment of Luclin, he remembers almost everything of his past but after being picked up by The Far Journey decided this was an apt time to change his future (like his sister Subozati he was originally a cleric of Mith Mar)</span></p>

[surepaw]

Perhaps we are refugees from a long war, and the fact that the Gods had abandoned us. The Moon exploded in a cataclysm that devastated the planet, leaving many without a home and a place to live. Evil and greed took over, and safety was hard to find. For some, living off the weaknesses of others was a good thing, they decided to migrate to Freeport and other areas that would have similar minded people. For others they just wanted a safe place, maybe not home in what they were used to, a place surrounded by like races, but instead a place where numbers counted for safety, regardless of the race. This was Qeynos, where few could take advantage of the cataclysm that had taken place, and where a since of normalcy could be felt, at least for a time. I am sure, if the moon that orbits Earth was to explode, either by a huge asteroid or comet collision, or by some other reason, you would have chaos rain down on Earth, people would eventually feel they were forced to leave the places they called home due to various reasons, some being that it was too chaotic, others being that it was devastated by the raining rocks from our moon. If what was left of Earth was large islands as opposed to the large continents we have now, you feel forced to travel by boat or raft, instead of by land. This would be more true if the land was destroyed, or if it was safer to travel by sea due to the danger over land. This is just my take on things

[ElnAckom]

To answer the question about "how much time has passed" since coming ashore, allow me to give a few Grobb-Everfrost specific benchmarks, as taken from The Fallen Legion's "Our History" page (www.TheFallenLegion.org), which I've been nerdily maintaining for the past three years:The Fallen Legion was founded in 3727, approximately sixteen years after the end of the Shattering period. From the "Our Story" page, the following is quoted:<span style="font-size: xx-small;color: #00cc00;"><i>For a hundred and fifty years, the world had been rent asunder, rock torn and tossed about like so many pebbles and playthings. The Rallosian Army and the war of the world in the mid 36th century… the cataclysmic tectonic upheavals of The Rending that defined the 37th century… Then at the outset of the 38th, one of the three moons of Norrath, Luclin, burst apart in its low orbit and rained burning hell down upon the already-decimated surface of the planet, crashing into the oceans, flooding entire continents, and further tearing an already broken world. The world of old had been lost, and countless millions had perished. Consumed by walls of fire or crushed by mountains of stone, drowned in the roiling sea or swept into a towering tornado, over half the planet’s population had drowned, suffocated, or burned alive. The few who had clutched to driftwood or barricaded themselves in caves, navigators who had managed the whirlpools or warriors who had climbed above hell on the bodies of the fallen… these were the survivors. It was 3727, sixteen years after the breaking of the moon, when our story truly began.</i></span> Circa 3726: Game LaunchCirca 3741: Desert of Flames LaunchCirca 3747: Kingdom of Sky LaunchCirca 3764: Echoes of Faydwer LaunchCirca 3785: Rise of Kunark LaunchCirca 3788: TFL Dings Level 80 (recent event)While this differs from server to server, approximately 62 years of in-game time have passed on the Grobb-Everfrost server.Keep in mind that it has never been astronomically established how long a "year" is in relation to Earth time. The Norrathian calendar and the Gregorian calendar used by most real-world Earth nations.The Norrathian calendar has ten days in a week comprising twelve months of the year, which are divided into three months.Those even more geeky (read: intelligent) than I am have established that Norrath is orbiting Ro (the sun) on a plane roughly equivalent to its tilt axis, taking with it its two remaining moons (Drinal and Morrell) and the remains of shattered Luclin, none of which appear to have phases as observed from Norrath. It has also been established that Norrath doesn't rotate on an axis roughly perpendicular to its orbit around its sun, like Earth, but rather rotates on an axis through its center sort of like Earth on its side. (Watch the sky some time.)All that said, Norrath and Earth have some striking similarities. The idea of a human living for 62 Norrathian years and not getting a heck of a lot older may not be strange at all if a Norrathian year is really like two or three Earth months. (Just an example; no support for such a ratio.)But in answer to the question, "how much older is my character now than when I created it?" the answer depends on when the character was created. Just over 60 years have passed since launch, so those of us who have been around since about that time have lived over half of a Norrathian century with one another.With some of you, it feels like a lot longer... <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> LOL