The Mayong Origin Problem [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Anaogi

12-19-2010, 03:50 PM

It's not exactly a secret that there's a cloud of issues surrounding Mayong Permafrost Mistmoore's origins (sorry, the transition is still sinking in). Just to have a clear record out in the open, I'm tossing this up and soliciting comment.According to Mayong's own statements, he was supposedly contemporary to Veeshan's first brood of dragons on Norrath. Okay, so he's old. But it's also implied he was a vampire at that time, and that's where the wrinkles start in.It's implied that he was there when said brood first came into being--which implies predating the arrival of the gods. Which would mean there was at least one vampire on the scene before Anashti Sul's actions and banishment.Worse, existing in-game lore from the Mystmyr Manor zones seems to identify Mayong as part of a race called the Ydal. I'm assuming for the moment the similarity to the " -'Dal " names for the various flavors of elf is a coincidence, mostly on account of running low on stuff for headaches at the moment. If not, there seem to have been Ydal before any other Dal.Still not confused? How about Innoruuk's apparent role in creating the Ydal, who (by redname statement here in the Lore forums) appear to have had vampiric tendencies from the get-go?I understand that in a game and setting with this much lore, snags and contradictions will work their way in for various reasons, but...come on folks, this is just a little too much. Either multiple parts of 'established' lore are just plain wrong, or there's some issues that need resolving here.Short my half-serious theory that the post Plane of Time 'reset' left some wrinkles in the new timeline that resulted in this particular unholy mess, can anyone out there resolve this? Come on, red-names, I know you took some crap earlier in conjunction with the Freeblood lore, but I'd love to hear from ya on this one. Surely you can't have been ignorant of this? Certainly you have some way to at least wallpaper over these cracks...right?Put me some knowledge, or at least some better headache meds...

kelvmor

12-19-2010, 04:22 PM

<cite>Anaogi@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>It's not exactly a secret that there's a cloud of issues surrounding Mayong Permafrost Mistmoore's origins (sorry, the transition is still sinking in). Just to have a clear record out in the open, I'm tossing this up and soliciting comment.According to Mayong's own statements, he was supposedly contemporary to Veeshan's first brood of dragons on Norrath. Okay, so he's old. But it's also implied he was a vampire at that time, and that's where the wrinkles start in.It's implied that he was there when said brood first came into being--which implies predating the arrival of the gods. Which would mean there was at least one vampire on the scene before Anashti Sul's actions and banishment.Worse, existing in-game lore from the Mystmyr Manor zones seems to identify Mayong as part of a race called the Ydal. I'm assuming for the moment the similarity to the " -'Dal " names for the various flavors of elf is a coincidence, mostly on account of running low on stuff for headaches at the moment. If not, there seem to have been Ydal before any other Dal.Still not confused? How about Innoruuk's apparent role in creating the Ydal, who (by redname statement here in the Lore forums) appear to have had vampiric tendencies from the get-go?I understand that in a game and setting with this much lore, snags and contradictions will work their way in for various reasons, but...come on folks, this is just a little too much. Either multiple parts of 'established' lore are just plain wrong, or there's some issues that need resolving here.Short my half-serious theory that the post Plane of Time 'reset' left some wrinkles in the new timeline that resulted in this particular unholy mess, can anyone out there resolve this? Come on, red-names, I know you took some crap earlier in conjunction with the Freeblood lore, but I'd love to hear from ya on this one. Surely you can't have been ignorant of this? Certainly you have some way to at least wallpaper over these cracks...right?Put me some knowledge, or at least some better headache meds...</blockquote>Mayong is going to purposely mislead you as to his origin.Why? He's Mayong F@#king Mistmoore.

Anaogi

12-19-2010, 04:34 PM

That would be my first instinct, except...well, what does he gain that he doesn't already have? It doesn't come across as an 'I'm ancient, fear me' thing so much as a 'yeah, I'm old' thing...though as I've said elsewhere, it's time we started taking a closer look at credibility on all lore. So it's possible.Still doesn't work out the Innoruuk / Anashti problem though. Needs at least a veneer to cover it, if it isn't going to get worked out properly.

DeBasilisk

12-19-2010, 06:00 PM

I've just resigned to the assumption that he's probably a god. Maybe the opposite of zebox - a god who became a mortal rather than the other way around. Albeit a ludicrously powerful mortal.*shrugUntil he's fleshed out further than the thousand and one hints, whispers and misleads, I'm done with MM. hehe.

Coniaric

12-19-2010, 06:59 PM

I believe it has been pointed out that Mayong is not a "typical" vampire. Any techinque that will kill present-day vampires will hardly faze Mayong himself.Beside, further back in history you go, more clouded it'll become. It applies to any history, even ours.

Cusashorn

12-19-2010, 07:02 PM

Since the race is called Ydal and not Y'Dal, we really don't know if they're a race of elves or not. Mayong's appearance could just be pure coincidence.

Jrral

12-19-2010, 07:43 PM

<cite>Anaogi@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>According to Mayong's own statements, he was supposedly contemporary to Veeshan's first brood of dragons on Norrath. Okay, so he's old. But it's also implied he was a vampire at that time, and that's where the wrinkles start in.It's implied that he was there when said brood first came into being--which implies predating the arrival of the gods. Which would mean there was at least one vampire on the scene before Anashti Sul's actions and banishment.</blockquote>First off: trust anything Mayong says about as far as you could drop-kick Lord Nagafen. He's going to mislead you every time, out of habit if nothing else. He's become a god, then came back down again because he got bored (or so I read the lore, anyway). I'm going to assume he's overstating his own age simply as part of maintaining his public image, at least until there's reliable third-party confirmation his statements are true.There was <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=450689" target="_blank">this thread about the Ydal</a>. I'd say Mayong was simply the only Ydal to survive.

Rainmare

12-19-2010, 07:54 PM

what does Mayong gain by shrouding his origins? that's very simple. if you knew where and how he came to be, you could probably find a foolproof method of destroying him. Yes he claims to have been around since the first brood. We know he's unique among the vampires, the same things that destory them barely phase him, as the freethinkers found out.we have hints for the Sage's notes that Mayong did in this timeline, like in EQlive, become a god..and he voluntarily gave it up. so who knows how strong he might be from a residual effect of his ascension.and the less we know about him, the less we can guess on his motives, which menas we're more liekly to do what he asks because we don't for sure know he's 'an evil b*stard' or a 'powerful neutral party' though we mostly can agree he's not a 'good guy'the less you know, the harder it is to judge his true strength, to learn his actual weaknesses, or judge his real motives. adn that's how mayong wants it. knowledge is power. an dmayong likes to keep that power over us, rather then someone turn it against him.

Wilin

12-19-2010, 08:26 PM

<cite>Anaogi@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>It's not exactly a secret that there's a cloud of issues surrounding Mayong Permafrost Mistmoore's origins (sorry, the transition is still sinking in). Just to have a clear record out in the open, I'm tossing this up and soliciting comment.According to Mayong's own statements, he was supposedly contemporary to Veeshan's first brood of dragons on Norrath. Okay, so he's old. But it's also implied he was a vampire at that time, and that's where the wrinkles start in.It's implied that he was there when said brood first came into being--which implies predating the arrival of the gods. Which would mean there was at least one vampire on the scene before Anashti Sul's actions and banishment.Worse, existing in-game lore from the Mystmyr Manor zones seems to identify Mayong as part of a race called the Ydal. I'm assuming for the moment the similarity to the " -'Dal " names for the various flavors of elf is a coincidence, mostly on account of running low on stuff for headaches at the moment. If not, there seem to have been Ydal before any other Dal.Still not confused? How about Innoruuk's apparent role in creating the Ydal, who (by redname statement here in the Lore forums) appear to have had vampiric tendencies from the get-go?I understand that in a game and setting with this much lore, snags and contradictions will work their way in for various reasons, but...come on folks, this is just a little too much. Either multiple parts of 'established' lore are just plain wrong, or there's some issues that need resolving here.Short my half-serious theory that the post Plane of Time 'reset' left some wrinkles in the new timeline that resulted in this particular unholy mess, can anyone out there resolve this? Come on, red-names, I know you took some crap earlier in conjunction with the Freeblood lore, but I'd love to hear from ya on this one. Surely you can't have been ignorant of this? Certainly you have some way to at least wallpaper over these cracks...right?Put me some knowledge, or at least some better headache meds...</blockquote>This can all be explained. I and others have tossed out at least one plausible way that all of this works. It's in the lore forum. There's of course not confirmation that the theory is correct. But, there's enough reason to believe that it'll make sense once we find out more.

BleemTeam

12-20-2010, 04:29 AM

^^ link for the lazy?

KniteShayd

12-21-2010, 04:01 AM

Where's Vhalen, when we need a cryptic clue for the answers we seek?.../cry

Meirril

12-21-2010, 05:18 AM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>what does Mayong gain by shrouding his origins? that's very simple. if you knew where and how he came to be, you could probably find a foolproof method of destroying him. Yes he claims to have been around since the first brood. We know he's unique among the vampires, the same things that destory them barely phase him, as the freethinkers found out.we have hints for the Sage's notes that Mayong did in this timeline, like in EQlive, become a god..and he voluntarily gave it up. so who knows how strong he might be from a residual effect of his ascension.and the less we know about him, the less we can guess on his motives, which menas we're more liekly to do what he asks because we don't for sure know he's 'an evil b*stard' or a 'powerful neutral party' though we mostly can agree he's not a 'good guy'the less you know, the harder it is to judge his true strength, to learn his actual weaknesses, or judge his real motives. adn that's how mayong wants it. knowledge is power. an dmayong likes to keep that power over us, rather then someone turn it against him.</blockquote>There is one very good point brought up here. Mayong is so old....he might remember Rohen Theer. If Mayong is THAT old then there is a very credible reason why he would go through all the trouble to become a diety and then give it up. He can guess that the whole Shissar Prophacy has something to do with Theer being released and a god slayer running around. With that kind of information he could summise that he would be safer as an immortal than as a diety and better able to take part in the action instead of being forced to hide.The wrinkle in this is undeath didn't exist until Anashti created it. Could Mayong be a "living" vampire? Could he have somehow interacted with the Ewer and started creating vampires afterward? Possible but there is absolutely NOTHING that would lead us to this conclusion. Most likely Mayong wasn't a vampire until about the time Anashti was banished, and Theer was in the void before her (otherwise why wouldn't Theer have simply killed her instead of void banishment?).Still temporarlly ascending would of given Mayong the clout he needed to get information from the dieties. Inny being who he is would have a reason to dig up dirt on everybody and find secrets. Also Inny would make deals for those dirty little secrets.Quite possibly Mayong ascended during the 400 years the gods were away because there was nobody to stop him from gathering the power to do so. Offering a portion of his newly aquired power to Inny while the gods were cut off from Norrath would of been brillant if he was also planning on not keeping his newly gained diety status.

MixxitNDance_Live

12-21-2010, 09:44 AM

Perhaps the best way to look at this is to look at how the developer designed and played this character when everquest was a PNP game. Where did he get his ideas?What did he aspire to play as?What was the race?What background from the campaign they used would they get this information from?The answers are probably right there in dungeons and dragons or whatever EQ came from <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />On a side note i remember reading somewhere on this forum or in some sniipets that someone thought he sounded similar to a character like mayong but who had some dragon connection (flew on the back of dragons and led some dragon armies somewhere) My memory is hazy, i'll try to find the thread but maybe he's based on that and rebelled and ended up on norrath

Meirril

12-21-2010, 05:22 PM

<cite>MixxitNDance_Live wrote:</cite><blockquote>Perhaps the best way to look at this is to look at how the developer designed and played this character when everquest was a PNP game. Where did he get his ideas?What did he aspire to play as?What was the race?What background from the campaign they used would they get this information from?The answers are probably right there in dungeons and dragons or whatever EQ came from <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />On a side note i remember reading somewhere on this forum or in some sniipets that someone thought he sounded similar to a character like mayong but who had some dragon connection (flew on the back of dragons and led some dragon armies somewhere) My memory is hazy, i'll try to find the thread but maybe he's based on that and rebelled and ended up on norrath</blockquote>Everquest all evolved from a D&D game that a few of the origional developers were invovled in before EQ became its own game. As a player of D&D for 30 years I can tell you, Mayong Mistmoor has NOTHING to do with anything TSR or Wizards of the Coast has put out. Ever. Everquest was a home brew game. Most good GMs make their own campaign settings and let their imaginations run wild. EQ evidently was one of these to begin with.As for the EQ suppliment for D&D, I consider that non-cannon material. While the writers of the suppliment did extensive interviews and got some notes from the EQ development team, they also wrote their own material and you can't be sure if any of it is reliable.

MixxitNDance_Live

12-21-2010, 10:31 PM

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npou8eFIWHM" target="_blank">oooo that meirill!</a>Well i'm still going to look into this! Perhaps the vampire lore of the moors of mystara may come up with something! <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Rezikai

12-22-2010, 12:14 AM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>MixxitNDance_Live wrote:</cite><blockquote>Perhaps the best way to look at this is to look at how the developer designed and played this character when everquest was a PNP game. Where did he get his ideas?What did he aspire to play as?What was the race?What background from the campaign they used would they get this information from?The answers are probably right there in dungeons and dragons or whatever EQ came from <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />On a side note i remember reading somewhere on this forum or in some sniipets that someone thought he sounded similar to a character like mayong but who had some dragon connection (flew on the back of dragons and led some dragon armies somewhere) My memory is hazy, i'll try to find the thread but maybe he's based on that and rebelled and ended up on norrath</blockquote>Everquest all evolved from a D&D game that a few of the origional developers were invovled in before EQ became its own game. As a player of D&D for 30 years I can tell you, Mayong Mistmoor has NOTHING to do with anything TSR or Wizards of the Coast has put out. Ever. Everquest was a home brew game. Most good GMs make their own campaign settings and let their imaginations run wild. EQ evidently was one of these to begin with.As for the EQ suppliment for D&D, I consider that non-cannon material. While the writers of the suppliment did extensive interviews and got some notes from the EQ development team, they also wrote their own material and you can't be sure if any of it is reliable.</blockquote>Well you'd have to find Lokarb and ask about him and Bill Trost's old campaigns. I mean they did have more then Lucan/Mayong/Zazoo from different DnD campaigns in EQ.. Cane Darkmoor was an NPC in eq1 that originated from an avatar Tony played as one time he said. So.. im sure alot of Mayongs history was wrapped up in Trost/Garcia's head and they purposely kept it secret even to other devs to make sure keep it from getting overused/corny... which eh.. has been a challenge.

MixxitNDance_Live

12-22-2010, 05:37 AM

My twitter status is to @billtrost with a link to this thread atm!

Meirril

12-22-2010, 01:25 PM

<cite>MixxitNDance_Live wrote:</cite><blockquote><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npou8eFIWHM" target="_blank">oooo that meirill!</a>Well i'm still going to look into this! Perhaps the vampire lore of the moors of mystara may come up with something! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I've always wanted to be english. Though, I'm not sure if I'm suppose to be the long suffering gentlemen in black or one of the two men in dresses./shrugBut if the best you can do for this discussion is a personal attack on someone that says your barking up the wrong tree then what is the point of participating?

Tatsou

12-22-2010, 06:38 PM

been mulling this over a bit. I kinda view this as I view religion (no, I'm not here to convert anyone sides ima pagan <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />&nbsp<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Ive read alot of religious books and history especially bout the Ark and what not and after watching a bunch of programs on national geographic it dawned on me.We know theres two versions of the bible old and new. whats in the old isnt in the new and vice versa. The Ark is suppose to be some great artifact with supposedly great powers aka indiana jones movie.Now, take this thinking and place here. What if and I am stretching the IF. Mayong's story is two fold just like the 2 books and others if you want to count them. Each has there own beginnings on what happens. We know that some ppl speculate there might be a stretch of the Truth severly and he could be lying or telling the truth only mayong knows that. But also, once you start telling a tall tell for so long it almost becomes the truth in your point of view.Even text that would exist could be fathomed to exaggerate a individual as well.This is where we come across the Ark, it was suppose to have been made by the heavens themselves to place the tablets that moses carried. So now we look at the ewer, I could believe that it was made prior to whats her name (I can never remember how to spell it ) and to say she made it so her followers would drink from it. There might have been doubt on her strengths and she was losing them. I mean, if you where a follower but started to have doubts bout your god/goddess and was waining away wouldnt you want your faith renewed if they so called said they made this or done that but you must confess to me type scenario to stay true to them??I'm a history buff and try to use different scenarios of society of this and that.

Gungo

12-22-2010, 08:39 PM

Mayong made a pact with innoruk. Mayong was ydal.Inny used his blood with the ewer to create mayongs form of vampirism.Is mayong older then the dragons probably not (but he likes to infer he is)Was mayong on norrath to see the first brood? Likely since the ydal were the first elven race.So Mayong is likely one of the OLDEST living(?) beings on norrath.At some point in eq2 lore he was a god (he stated it during his event). He likely still was the demigod of the plane of blood, a demiplane of the plane of hate.He voluntarily stopped being a god. And he has a strong interest in the shissar prophecies. Particularly the end of days scenario.Thats the jist of mayongs eq2 lore.

Iskandar

12-22-2010, 09:17 PM

Don't forget, he also has a thing for blonde High Elf chicks! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" />

MixxitNDance_Live

12-23-2010, 05:07 AM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>MixxitNDance_Live wrote:</cite><blockquote><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npou8eFIWHM" target="_blank">oooo that meirill!</a>Well i'm still going to look into this! Perhaps the vampire lore of the moors of mystara may come up with something! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I've always wanted to be english. Though, I'm not sure if I'm suppose to be the long suffering gentlemen in black or one of the two men in dresses./shrugBut if the best you can do for this discussion is a personal attack on someone that says your barking up the wrong tree then what is the point of participating? </blockquote>personal attack? i would never do that! it was just a line that they say 'ooo that merill' - was trying to lighten the mood <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Rezikai

12-23-2010, 11:59 AM

<cite>Iskandar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't forget, he also has a thing for blonde High Elf chicks! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>and the more curvy Teir'Dal ones <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Anaogi

12-23-2010, 07:26 PM

I'm wondering now (and thanks all for chiming in--it's easing the Mayong Migraine significantly <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" /> ) if what we have here is a hidden or incomplete information issue. Perhaps Inny used the Ewer to create the Ydal secretly, thus (inadvertantly?) tainting it and leaving Anashti Sul to take the fall for what happened next. (It would certainly explain why the Ydal remained ensconced in Mystmyr on his Plane--hiding the evidence...)Might be the best way to reconcile the contradictions in the stories. And it's not the cop-out the 'PoT fix' theory admittedly is...

Cusashorn

12-23-2010, 10:41 PM

Honestly, I think Mayong is a character who's suppose to stay in the shadows. There's no really definitive proof of the whole Ydal or Innoruuk or Ewer thing. We just have vague snipits from brief mentionings in game that don't truely lead anywhere. We really only have anything a developer tells us, and they like to be cryptic, vague, misleading, or only telling small parts of the whole story.

BleemTeam

12-24-2010, 03:44 AM

If Veeshan "got here first" its probably "new testament" Brell then got here, and so on down our current pantheon.As far as we've found out over the last 5 years was, Anashti was.....before all this? Ancient diety? So were the gods that Theer slain(ed?) As well as Theer... So how exactly, would Innoruuk use a relic to create a race that was actually "older" than his arrival to Norrath? A race that apparently, was older than the first brood.I sense a paradox here somewhere and there just isn't enough to clarify a definitive timeline (good luck)If you made Norrath, like Earth, then you definitely have huge amounts of time (and lore/science) to explore.

Cusashorn

12-24-2010, 03:50 AM

<cite>Brailyn@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>If Veeshan "got here first" its probably "new testament" Brell then got here, and so on down our current pantheon.As far as we've found out over the last 5 years was, Anashti was.....before all this? Ancient diety? So were the gods that Theer slain(ed?) As well as Theer... So how exactly, would Innoruuk use a relic to create a race that was actually "older" than his arrival to Norrath? A race that apparently, was older than the first brood.I sense a paradox here somewhere and there just isn't enough to clarify a definitive timeline (good luck)If you made Norrath, like Earth, then you definitely have huge amounts of time (and lore/science) to explore.</blockquote>Indeed. It's this very paradox that I want to have cleared up, because it's a retcon to the very History of Norrath story listed in the original Everquest instruction manual- the first bit of lore that anyone who played that game (when it started) was subjected to.

Iskandar

12-24-2010, 05:16 PM

Down in <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=450689" target="_blank">the Ydal thread</a>, there's some timeline discussion that can be used with the existing story lore -- basically, it's suggested that Inny didn't make the Ydal on Norrath, but instead made them in the Plane of Hate... if that's the case, and if Mayong is indeed an original Ydal, then he could have predated Veeshan's arrival on Norrath without any conflict with the core lore of the game. Perhaps Inny had him out in the area of Norrath to spy on Veeshan, thus sparing him from whatever fate befell the Ydal? (maybe cursing him with vampirism instead of whatever happened to the other Ydal?) It still leaves a lot of questions, but it does fit.Anashti would have been involved in ancient Norrathian history -- long before the events of EQOA, and long before the Godking founded Ahket Aken... her original followers would probably be a race that we currently know nothing about (or if we do, we're unaware of it) whom she accidentally cursed with the "gift" of undeath, resulting in her banishment to the Void, where she meets up with Theer. Two Void invasions later -- one defeated by the Ethernauts way back when, the other defeated by us -- and Anashti is able to escape the Void, while we go in and finish off Theer.Neither Anashti, Theer, nor the Ydal would be mentioned in the original EQ intro because from the perspective of the narrator, they're ancient history, footnotes at best. Think of it like when you discuss the Revolutionary War -- do you tell the tale of the guy who was rowing George Washington's boat, or do you just focus on Washington crossing the Delaware?

Mary the Prophetess

12-24-2010, 06:11 PM

Veeshan 'discovered' Norrath. Norrath when it was discovered was a lifeless planet. This indicates that the gods existed prior to Norrath's discovery (but not necessarily that they existed prior to Norrath itself).If the gods existed prior to Norrath's discovery, then so too, must Theer have existed.If Norrath was a lifeless planet prior to the arrival of Veeshan, then who were these 'ancient' gods, and why did they rule over a lifeless planet. Or did they have any connection to Norrath at all?After Norrath was discovered, many, (though not all), of the greater gods created their own races on Norrath. To the best of my knowledge, these races were not 'imported' from the gods' planes and transplanted onto Norrath, they were created upon Norrath itself. It seems entirely believable to me that the Ydal were Innoruuk's (failed) attempt to create a race of his own. If so, then his attempt was not only a failure, but it was the ONLY failure of a god to successfully create a race, and his attempt was different than the way the other greater gods produced their offspring. (ie; the Ydal were create on the plane of Hate, while the other races were created upon Norrath itself)If the Ewer was used in Innoruuks failed attempt, then who created the Ewer? There were no elves of any flavor prior to their creation by Tunare. Did Innoruuks attempt at race creation occur long after the other gods had already established their offspring on Norrath? It would seem so, but why the delay? Had he made other earlier attempts and failed even before his attempt to create the Ydal?These repeated attempts and failures angered Innoruuk, made him jealous, and led him to attempt to corrupt another god's race and claim it as his own.

Meirril

12-25-2010, 02:02 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>If the Ewer was used in Innoruuks failed attempt, then who created the Ewer? There were no elves of any flavor prior to their creation by Tunare. Did Innoruuks attempt at race creation occur long after the other gods had already established their offspring on Norrath? It would seem so, but why the delay? Had he made other earlier attempts and failed even before his attempt to create the Ydal?</blockquote>The stories say that Inny wasn't invited to either the first or second covenent. Just a few select dieties. Inny just seems incapable of making a race. Nothing stopped Cazic from making tons of races dedicated to his worship and he was a late commer. Nothing stopped the creation of Barbarians/humans/euradites and Frogloks and the Marr Twins showed up was later in the histories.For all of the Theer stuff to make sense, it has to happen after Norrath is discovered and claimed by multiple gods. We've got several ages we really don't know a whole lot about so there is room in early Norrath history for more dieties. The whole Ydal story is baffling. Elves before there were elves? Created by Innoruuk and not Tunare? Created in *his* image? Tunare and Innoruuk look like they belong to the same race? A race made before Norrath was discovered? Seriously, why did Inny make them? The races on Norrath were made specifically to claim the planet for their respective gods. Something stinks about the Ydal story. Smells like someone decided to make up his own history after the fact.

DrkVsr

12-25-2010, 03:28 AM

Just because Norrath was a 'lifeless' planet when Veeshan flew past doesn't mean it was always a 'lifeless' planetMaybe it was 'lifeless' because Anashti's creations spread and corrupted everything, including the plants and aminal, kinda like what would happen in a zombie attack: eventually all that would be left are zombies until eventually they too ran out of 'steam'The reason there were no other gods around to repopulate? Theer isn't called the 'Gods Layer' because he sleeps with all of them <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And Anashti didn't get slain because she had already been banished and when Theer finished off the last of the Old Gods he went to the Void forgetting Ana was in there

Cusashorn

12-25-2010, 04:54 AM

^ The original opening video showed that Norrath was just a husk of a planet. Grey. It was no different than our own moon. No atmosphere, nothing capable of sustaining life. A completely blank slate. I think that if there was something that had ended life on Norrath before then, there'd at least be signs that vegitation, water, and structures had existed.

Rainmare

12-26-2010, 12:05 AM

well that depends. we saw what happened with the gods withdraw direct influence. perhaps the lifeless planet became lifeless during the massive battle to disarm/shove theer into the Void? the huge amounts of power that must have been unleashed coudl probably easily wipe a planet clean, so to speak...think of it similar to norrath being a snadcastle that got eaten by a high tide. you'd never know there was a sandcastle there if you were n't the to see it before the tide ate it.

Morghus

12-26-2010, 01:15 AM

It's an interesting idea, but as said, it being true would seem to fall into the category of being a retcon. Before Veeshan Norrath was nothing, as far as we and anyone else knows. This has been an established truth since the very first game, and its first bits of lore. Despite how dispassionate she is, Zebuxoruk in EQlive chooses to refer to Veeshan as the 'lifegiver dragon', and calls Norrath 'her world'.What would make sense though, is that Theer and the other fallen gods were not originally a part of Norrath's cosmology, but other worlds most likely. Mayong could indeed be as old as he claims, and at the same time he may not even truly be native to Norrath either. He may have witnessed or played a part in events that are similar to Norrath's that may have happened on another world entirely.The ancient gods, Mayong, and Theer all could have been involved with a sort of 'beta' world or beta Norrath. We are told that the Nameless created the gods and Norrath, but what if there were gods, beings, and worlds that came into existence without the Nameless' influence? Beings that, by their very nature clashed with the Nameless' view of its ideal cosmos and thus it creates Theer originally to purge them, and then to later serve as an extension of its will over its creations.

kelvmor

12-26-2010, 03:05 AM

Actually.You people are forgetting the Behemoths. <a href="http://lorelibrary.com/?page=book&bid=410">http://lorelibrary.com/?page=book&bid=410</a>

Cusashorn

12-26-2010, 03:13 AM

^ Are we? We haven't been told anything more about them beyond that book and the cryptic notes that Vhalen told us that lead to that book, so how are we suppose to know that wasn't a retcon either?

Lodrelhai

12-26-2010, 07:56 AM

Minor quibble, but I suspect calling the Ydal elves is an error in translation. Yes, "dal" is part of their name, but then a very intense version of "I love you" in Japanese contains an English cuss word for bodily waste (and the Japanese term is censored on the forums because of the word it contains). The Ydal were a separate, independently-created race, so why would we actually expect them to be using a word from another race's language to describe themselves? Teir'dal, on the other hand, were created from the Elddar, and so their language and self-identification could naturally be expected to extend from their original race.So yeah, pretty sure the "dal" in "Ydal" has nothing to do with elves, but was later translated as such by younger races who ran across it and noticed the similarity. Race created by Innoruuk, "dal" in the name, must be a type of dark elf!Which means we can safely have the Ydal existing in their section of the Plane of Hate before the true elves were created.But then, I'm also a fan of the Norrath-before-Norrath, worldwide-cataclysm theory. It DOES make sense. History is written by the survivors, and they can only write as much as they know. Call it a retcon, and maybe it is, but it's entirely possible the Norrath creation story we all know is incomplete or incorrect simply because it's from incorrect or misleading sources. Whatever may or may not have existed before Veeshan came, the dragons were the first of the modern Norrathian races, and glossing over any claims to the planet that might predate theirs would certainly be in their best interests.I know I'm talking about a lot of this from the in-character view - but to me it makes perfect sense to look at Norrath's history from that viewpoint. For one thing, the whole purpose of it is to establish the background of the world for our characters; ergo, it's reasonable to look at it in terms of "this is what our characters know." For another (and I know this won't be popular), in a game world over 10 years old, with 2 PC games, 1 console game, a pen-and-paper game, and various novels as lore sources, and who-knows-how-many people having been involved in crafting the lore, there's going to be inconsistencies and "facts" that don't fit. Heck, we can't even get all the historians in real life to agree to various "facts" of our history, especially as we discover information that was unknown or misunderstood for years. So having a game-world history that is up for debate seems more realistic than a simplified "this is how the world is, the end" approach.

Morghus

12-26-2010, 08:26 AM

I disagree. Without a certain level of 'concreteness' to aspects of the the lore, it leaves far too much open to interpretation, to the point where retcons or any other form of weirdness or jumping the shark moments can be inserted freely and with impunity. If there is nothing solid regarding something, there would be no accountability in regards to how something is dismissed or acknowledged.It can be tantamount to making every single time a character is about to dramatically die in a movie, they are instead killed off screen giving the possibility of them mysteriously appearing again from plot demands or random whim with no explanation because we didn't actually see them die, thus leaving their condition vague.My theory as to some of this is posted above, but I do have to agree slightly with the notion that the dragons may be passing off misinformation. They are a proud race, and would have every reason to make such claims, however because of their pride they could also possibly be telling the truth because of it.As far as the original lore goes, it is stated outright that Veeshan was the first to discover Norrath, it also states that the world was in such a condition that it was considered promising and new to the god. It also states that there were other worlds created at similar times, if Norrath had already been claimed in would she not have passed it up for worlds unclaimed? Then again, there is also the possibility that she simply didn't care.

DrkVsr

12-26-2010, 12:49 PM

We have only Veeshan and her Brood's word that Norrath was how she claimed it was when she 'claimed' it

Mary the Prophetess

12-26-2010, 01:15 PM

Actually, to be more precise, we have the words of the orator of the introduction movie. This is the all-knowing, all-seeing word of the games designers.Before you enter Norrath, before you even get to the character selections screen, the very FIRST exposure to Norrath and it's history is from the introductory movie, and the orator.Surely the very first words out of the orator's mouth cannot have been designed to have been a lie or a half-truth!

Mary the Prophetess

12-26-2010, 01:53 PM

Since Mayong is the only example of the Ydal race we are aware of, then we are forced to use him as the model for the Ydal. Looking at the many moods of Mayong, it is very hard to believe that the Ydal were not elvish in some form:<img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/mayong_mistmoore-size.jpg?t=1293381765" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/mayong-mistmoore.jpg?t=1293381765" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/mayong-1.jpg?t=1293381765" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/largeredframedpaintingofmayongmistmoore.jpg?t=1293 381765" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/mayong01th.jpg?t=1293381765" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/id20035.png?t=1293381765" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/id3534.png?t=1293381765" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/1215783-blood14_super.jpg?t=1293381888" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/4723a9452ea861b0ed28c584eed68ba4.png?t=1293381888" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/198.jpg?t=1293381888" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/180px-Mayong_Mistmoore_Contested.png?t=1293381888" />Indeed, up until the release of the Freedbloods, one cannot find an example of vampires anywhere in Norrath that are not also 'Elvish' in appearance:<img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/EQ2_000025.jpg?t=1293381888" /><img src="http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t105/agh1950/Ydal/Mistmoore.jpg?t=1293381765" />It is my belief that Innoruuk attempted to create an evil counter-weight to Tunare's Elddar Elves, and the Ydal were his attempt, (which failed). This necessitated his abduction of the Elddar king and queen. I believe that the only source we have pertaining to the Ydals existence pre-dating the First Brood comes from Mayong himself (a notorious liar). Therefore I believe that the Ydal should, in fact, be the Y'Dal.

Cusashorn

12-26-2010, 01:57 PM

^ That and the opening movie that tells the story from a universal narrative to the player.

Anaogi

12-26-2010, 03:13 PM

The problem with the elf-vampire link is a chicken-egg issue, I think. Most 'modern' vampires before the Freebloods started out as elves (Tier'dal most commonly) and were turned later; given what we've seen of Sarkon D'Ryil, whom we now can be fairly certain was the 'first Freeblood', many of those physical characteristics are a result of turning into a vampire.Remember, several of the 'elven' features can also be read as 'beastly' (which, I should note, is the traditional read). The Ydal - xxx'Dal issue may be a bit of linguistic confusion, and possibly clever misdirection on the part of the devs...

Iskandar

12-26-2010, 05:09 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>Since Mayong is the only example of the Ydal race we are aware of, then we are forced to use him as the model for the Ydal. Looking at the many moods of Mayong, it is very hard to believe that the Ydal were not elvish in some form:</blockquote>In several of those images, when Mayong drops his guise and goes beastial, he looks a bit more goblish than elven to me. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" /> But personally, I dont feel that we can put much stock in the physical appearance of any race to tell us anything. Even without getting into polymorphs and illusions, the races (and the gods as well, for that matter) generally follow the same core humanoid design, with many bearing striking resemblances to each other -- ie, barbarians/humans, elves, and valkyries as created by Marr, Tunare, and E'ci... three separate races made by three separate gods, but each bearing strong physical similarities to each other in their external appearance. Many races also seem to be biologically compatible with each other... even when the races originate from gods with almost polar-opposite belief systems. It's kinda reminiscent of Star Trek, where all the aliens looked like humans with a funky nose ridge or some sorta ear thing or an odd skin tone. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />

Morghus

12-26-2010, 06:42 PM

<cite>DrkVsr wrote:</cite><blockquote>We have only Veeshan and her Brood's word that Norrath was how she claimed it was when she 'claimed' it</blockquote>As the person below you said, that is inaccurate. It is presented as third party, neutral information as expositionary material, and as material from the instruction book, told as 'the word of god (devs)'. Veeshan as far as we know, has said nothing to anyone about it, the only way anyone learned that she had claimed the planet was by being nosy.I still to this day find it ironic that the reason the other gods placed us and their other creations on Norrath was jealousy and pettiness, and to supposedly keep dragon-kind in check, yet after all this time it tends to be us, the children of the other gods who end up causing the greatest amount of destruction...either directly or indirectly.

Rezikai

12-26-2010, 07:02 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>Since Mayong is the only example of the Ydal race we are aware of, then we are forced to use him as the model for the Ydal. Looking at the many moods of Mayong, it is very hard to believe that the Ydal were not elvish in some form:(Mayong / vamp pics)</blockquote>Hmmm this makes me wonder about the Maestro of Rancor then, as he did share the original model for Mayong way back when... shown below.<img src="http://eq2images.station.sony.com/000/001/763/967.JPG" width="248" height="280" />Maybe he to was a Ydal that was turned which i could be wrong about, I've never been able to find much info on the Maestro's past. As for the elves situation if the Ydal were created in the plane of Hate theres no telling when they were created, before or after Veeshan struck Norrath seeding her brood. The fact the Ewer existed doesnt really mean it was before/after Anashti was banished either since the Ydal lore doesnt say when / how Innoruuk uses it.Something me and a friend were theorizing were the "reaction" factor to Innoruuk creating elves like Mary suggests to Tunare's elves. What if Norrath isnt the only place with pointy elves?.. we know for a fact the Plane of Growth had them maybe it was Inny's counterbalance to the elven race there.... or maybe other worlds.. they do often have far dreamer last names like Stardgazer, Windrider, etc..

The_Cheeseman

12-27-2010, 12:24 AM

From what I understand about EQ lore (and that's with almost 11 years of EQ experience) the timeline seems to be like this:Bunch of stuff we've never heard about involving other worlds and gods that as of yet have not had any interaction with Norrath. Rhoen Theer is banished into the void during this era.Anashti'Sul creates the Ewer of Sul'Dae, from which flows the Fyr'Un throughout the planes. She instructs her followers upon other worlds/planes to drink the water, which she believes will grant them eternal life.Innorruuk uses the Ewer to create the Ydal race, granting them the domain of Mistmyr upon the Plane of Hate.Veeshan discovers the world of Norrath and lays claim to it. This prompts certain other gods to create their own races to contest Veeshan's claim. Some of these beings worship Anashti'Sul and are given her "gift" as well.The powers of the Ewer are discovered to be corrupt and eventually cause undeath in those who drink from it. This effect causes all of the Ydal to become vampires, which eventually leads to their extinction. Anashti'Sul is banished to the void for being responsible for the Ewer's creation.Mayong Mistmoore, the last of the Ydal, blames Innorruuk for the downfall of his race (thinking that the vampirism thing was actually intentional on Innorruuk's part, as the rest of his people thought), and leaves the Plane of Hate, taking up residence on Norrath. Innorruuk, embarassed by his failure in creating his own race and envious of the other gods' successes, corrupts some of Tunare's followers to create the dark elves.Godking Anuk discovers a lost temple dedicated to Anashti'Sul and becomes her prophet, founding the city of Aket'Aken in Tunaria.The Ewer of Sul'Dae is discovered by the dark elves of Neriak. (Possibly a gift from Innorruuk, who may have maintained possession of it since creating the Ydal. Innorruuk did give them knowledge of necromancy, and the Ewer is pretty necromantic.) The Ewer turns the D'Morte famility into vampires, who are hunted down by the other dark elves. Malkonis D'Morte flees to Aket'Aken, and gives the Ewer to the Godking in exchange for sanctuary.Solusek Ro raises the Serpent's Spine mountains, which destroys the forest of Tunaria. Desperate to save his people, Godking Anuk tells his subjects to drink from the Ewer, causing the entire city to become undead. Aket'Aken is lost under the sands of the Desert of Ro.From there onward, the timeline is fairly well-established, I think. A few other pertinent points:According to Mayong's own words, the Ydal knew of the symbols that are etched on the Chelsith Stone, perhaps even before the Shissar existed (assuming the Shissar were created on Norrath and were not natives of another world. They were, after all, prolific planar explorers). However, he alludes to the fact that neither his people, nor Innorruuk himself, knew what the symbols actually meant. This is according to this line from his conversation after completeing the "Fate of Norrath" questline:"The Sigil of Ages End is a gift from the planar realms. It is not as we once believed in Mistmyr. The powers above are ignorant and they passed that curse onto us. Such are the fruits of blind faith. However, I know much more than I did back then."We know that Mayong Mistmoore is not a fan of Innorruuk, but we have never been told exactly why. Obviously, Innorruuk being responsible for the total destruction of his race is a pretty good reason.We know that Mayong spent a large portion of the Age of Cataclysms on the Plane of Hate, looking for something. He very well may have been searching the ruins of Mistmyr for information regarding the Sigil of Age's End.We know that Mayong has a severe disdain for the D'Morte clan, and considers them lesser beings. It's easy to see why he would feel this way, considering they have embraced the very state of undeath that destroyed his entire race.We know that Mayong himself is fundamentally different from the vampires he creates from Norrathian races, and those vampires who were progeny of D'Morte. This is obvious, as the tools used to kill Norrathian vampires barely have an effect on Mayong. This could very well be due to the fact that Mayong is a "pure" vampire, one who was born directly from the Ewer, rather than being a mortal who was later "infected" by the Fyr'Un.When greeting a dark elf player character at the beginning of his dialogue after the "Fate of Norrath" questline, he says,"Teir'Dal, you remind me of the past. So alike are we. I pray that we do not run the same path... for the sake of all Norrath."If he sees himself as a being who was "corrupted" by Innorruuk, and whose race was lead to ruin by blind faith in the Prince of Hate, it is easy to see how he could feel kinship with a dark elf. It could also be why he seems to prefer dark elves for his minions.Personally, I believe that Innorruuk and Mayong will play a major part in Age's End, not only due to their constant meddling in other beings' affairs, but also because the large, central symbol on the Sigil of Age's End looks exactly like Innorruuk's holy symbol, while the large symbol in the center of the alternate sigil (The red one associated with Aeteok) is the same symbol found on the Ankh of Ydal, which is seared into Mayong's Face. Now, keep in mind that the Sigils are of planar origin, and the gods may not even know what they are. It's possible that Innorruuk found the Sigil of Age's End and chose to use that central symbol as his own. The devs have alluded to the fact that the Combine did the same thing with the symbol they used for their Empire, and that other's have as well. Then again, perhaps it was Destiny that caused those beings to choose those symbols to represent themselves?EDIT: Removed the apostrophe from instances of the name, "Ydal."

Cusashorn

12-27-2010, 12:30 AM

^ Ydal, not Y'Dal. No apostrophe. We can't really connect them with any elven races yet.

Stubbswick

12-27-2010, 04:55 PM

I'm not sure if that's 100% accurate... I guess we may never know on some of those questions. But that's one of the best, most comprehensive write-ups I've seen in a while. Nice job!

Luag

12-27-2010, 06:56 PM

<cite>Rezikai wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Iskandar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't forget, he also has a thing for blonde High Elf chicks! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>and the more curvy Teir'Dal ones <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>who doesn't? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Rashaak

12-28-2010, 03:11 AM

<cite>Anaogi@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>It's not exactly a secret that there's a cloud of issues surrounding Mayong Permafrost Mistmoore's origins (sorry, the transition is still sinking in). Just to have a clear record out in the open, I'm tossing this up and soliciting comment.According to Mayong's own statements, he was supposedly contemporary to Veeshan's first brood of dragons on Norrath. Okay, so he's old. But it's also implied he was a vampire at that time, and that's where the wrinkles start in.It's implied that he was there when said brood first came into being--which implies predating the arrival of the gods. Which would mean there was at least one vampire on the scene before Anashti Sul's actions and banishment.Worse, existing in-game lore from the Mystmyr Manor zones seems to identify Mayong as part of a race called the Ydal. I'm assuming for the moment the similarity to the " -'Dal " names for the various flavors of elf is a coincidence, mostly on account of running low on stuff for headaches at the moment. If not, there seem to have been Ydal before any other Dal.Still not confused? How about Innoruuk's apparent role in creating the Ydal, who (by redname statement here in the Lore forums) appear to have had vampiric tendencies from the get-go?I understand that in a game and setting with this much lore, snags and contradictions will work their way in for various reasons, but...come on folks, this is just a little too much. Either multiple parts of 'established' lore are just plain wrong, or there's some issues that need resolving here.Short my half-serious theory that the post Plane of Time 'reset' left some wrinkles in the new timeline that resulted in this particular unholy mess, can anyone out there resolve this? Come on, red-names, I know you took some crap earlier in conjunction with the Freeblood lore, but I'd love to hear from ya on this one. Surely you can't have been ignorant of this? Certainly you have some way to at least wallpaper over these cracks...right?Put me some knowledge, or at least some better headache meds...</blockquote>The Lore of EQ2 has been all [Removed for Content] since Vhalen left tbh. It's evident who they have now is trying to change it to their liking. I think I lost my favor for the Lore right around the release of TSO. A shame really...

The_Cheeseman

12-28-2010, 04:32 PM

<cite>Wubbah@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm not sure if that's 100% accurate... I guess we may never know on some of those questions. But that's one of the best, most comprehensive write-ups I've seen in a while. Nice job!</blockquote>Most appreciated. The main reason I chose to play on the Mistmoore server (RIP) is because I have always found Mayong to be an intriguing character in EQ lore. I have done quite a bit of research into his origins--both in-game and out--and so far, that is the best approximation of a clear timeline that I can piece together. It certainly makes some unproven assumptions, but I can find no way around that with the fragmented, and often contradictory, information we have to work with. While I applaud the EQ devs for using the concept of unreliable narrators for their in-game sources, it certainly does make it difficult to decipher the truth.

DeBasilisk

12-29-2010, 12:52 AM

lol - with all this guesswork going on, why not propose that Tunare ripped the original elves off from the Ydal? Teir'Dal in reverse...I feel like there's a good bar-joke in here somewhere: "So Innoruuk, Mayong and Anashti walk into a bar, and Veeshan leans over to the bartender, the Nameless, and says..."

The_Cheeseman

12-29-2010, 02:04 PM

<cite>DeBasilisk wrote:</cite><blockquote>lol - with all this guesswork going on, why not propose that Tunare ripped the original elves off from the Ydal? Teir'Dal in reverse...I feel like there's a good bar-joke in here somewhere: "So Innoruuk, Mayong and Anashti walk into a bar, and Veeshan leans over to the bartender, the Nameless, and says..."</blockquote>"Sorry we're so late, but Anashati over there took forever to get back from the Void."To which Anashti replies,"Hey, ewer the one who was dragon her feet, dropping all her kids off!"Innorruuk, exasperated, exclaims,"Blast it all, we were supposed to get here by elven for the happy hour! I'll have to steal one from that lush, Tunare..."Sorry, best I could do on short notice.

Meirril

12-31-2010, 03:32 AM

Cheeseman's timeline is possible, but I think fundamentally flawed in that the great majority of events need to find their start in Norrath or they don't make sense with the focus on Norrath for all of these events. Honestly, if Norrath could of possibly freed Theer, why not Prime? Why not any of the other worlds consumed by the Void army? Something about Norrath had to be a key element, or it shouldn't of been such a goal for Theer for him to make 2 unsuccessful attempts to free himself.So the quick version of my timeline, bound to be inaccurate but lets give it a go.The Nameless creates the universe, and the elemental gods. The elemental gods give the universe form.Veeshan claims Norrath as her own, planting the first brood on the face of the planet. Soon the first gods of influence appear and create other races on Norrath to counter Veeshan's claims. It is unknown if the gods of influence existed prior to Veeshan's claim, or were created in response to those claims. Either is a possability.First elves walk the land, being the first race Tunare creates. Elves are created in Tunare's image. Tunare also creates plants and animals at this time. Yeah, before this Norrath was a barren rock...Innoruuk kidnaps the first King and Queen Thex, and uses them and their attempted rescuers to create his own race, the Teir'dal.Various gods of influence continue to appear on Norrath. Rohen Theer appears as the avatar of balance, supposidly an avatar of the Nameless with the ability to slay dieties which he uses to balance the gods as per the Nameless's wishes. He provides some evidence of his abilities but is eventually plotted against by the dieties of influence (and possibly elemental gods) and banished to the Void (home of the Nameless?).Anashti'sul creates the Ewer of Sul'Dae and attempts to cure death. The result is the first case of undeath. The magic of Undeath is spread and begins to effect all of the dead. The gods see this as a threat to their very existance and banish Anashti'sul to the void. All knowledge of Anashti'sul is removed from Norrath by the gods, with some small traces remaining.Quite possibly at this time, Mayong Mistmoor becomes the original vampire. Perhapse unlike other vampires that follow, Mayong himself isn't undead. Maybe he is a "living" vampire which could account for him not being affected by attacks that normally prove leathal to ordinary vampires. Possibly Mayong is a former high priest of Anashti'sul and drank directly from the Ewer. If he was a high priest, having the memories of Anashti'sul removed and his immortal status would cause him to wander the world and seek his own past. He would reject the idea that he could be like "common" elves or other mortals and seek a more grand design for himself. Eventually he would create a race of proto-elves call the Ydal and fill his castle with vampires and other undead under is control desperately trying to fabricate evidence of the Ydal to meet Mayong's demands.Perty much going to agree with the Aket'Aken parts of The Cheeseman's timeline, except that Tunaria's forest was destroyed by being parched dry by Ro's direct influence, not the raising of a mountain chain. Desert of Flames lore indicates that Aket'Aken was destroyed by a fireball, which agrees with early EQ1 stories of the destruction of the forest by a gigantic fireball. This disagrees with the later stories of the Ethernaughts which claim it was a slow process of drying out the forest.

Rainmare

12-31-2010, 08:47 AM

actually every story I have ever heard about the tunaria forest was Sol Ro raised up the serpent spine mountains...both eq1 and eq2. the gods didn't actively try to 'erase' anashti from norrath. they simply threw her into the Void. there was only 1 city that had worship of her..and it was destroyed presumably when Sol Ro raised up the mountain chain. We know that there were gods that came before our gods of influence. Anashti herself claims that Bertox is not the original god of pestilence...and there's the four that are 'binding' Theer.the behemoths, of which Chel'drath is supposed to be one, were supposedly here before the Dragons. hinting that there WAS life on norrath prior to the Wurm Queen's actions. this is life that could have been eradticated during the conflict with Theer...that killed/destroyed several of the 'old' pantheon. Anashti talks about a great battle against Theer and there were 'sacrifices' made. we assume this means entirely the gods. but one of those sacrifices cuold have been Norrath itself.we have conflicting evidence with the Ewer. Anashti created it, we know that...but we don't know when. according to the little bit we know abuot the Ydal...it would have have to have been much before any of the other gods worked to seed norrath, if mayong is a Ydal and his claims to have been here to see the first brood are true...which frankly I think they are.Anashti was a forgotten god even in the Elder Age..the godking's story says as much. she would have had to have been banished before then...which means that the undeath that happens in Aket Ahken could be/is after she convinces herself that Undeath is a good thing...calling it 'everliving' instead.and it's the D'morte line that brings the Ewer to the gofking in exchange for sanctuary. this hints that Inny has it/had it after her banishment...and gave it to the Tier'dal. Malkonis uses it and becomes a vampire. he flees to Aket Ahken...the Godking from his studies knows of the Ewer, makes the bargain of sanctuary for a sacred artifact, uses it with himself and his people and they become mummies/undead upon death in thier now buried city.

The_Cheeseman

12-31-2010, 04:57 PM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote>Cheeseman's timeline is possible, but I think fundamentally flawed in that the great majority of events need to find their start in Norrath or they don't make sense with the focus on Norrath for all of these events. Honestly, if Norrath could of possibly freed Theer, why not Prime? Why not any of the other worlds consumed by the Void army? Something about Norrath had to be a key element, or it shouldn't of been such a goal for Theer for him to make 2 unsuccessful attempts to free himself.</blockquote>Simple answer: because Norrath is the world upon which the events of this campaign take place, so of COURSE all the major confluences of coincidence take place here. If the eventual conclusion of all these situations were to occur on Prime, they would have set the story on Prime and we'd all be checking monthly for our free "Legends of Prime" packs.Keep in mind, this is not a telling of actual events, this is a story. Writers will use many contrivances to make their stories more approachable, not the least of which is making sure all the main events take place in the same setting. Norrath is the setting of a high fantasy campaign, not a space opera, so they had to keep everything to one main planet. This does not preclude the existence of other planets in the cosmology, nor does it prevent events from those other settings from affecting the main one. For another example, look at Stargate SG1.I'd also like to point out that Norrath is most definitely not the first world to draw the attention of the gods. For one thing, the description of Veeshan states,"When the universe was young, Veeshan traveled throughout the cosmos depositing Her children on worlds She deemed worthy. She would then strike the planet with Her massive claws so that the other deities would know She had laid claim to that world."This passage implies not only the existence of other worlds before Norrath, but the fact that Veeshan had laid claim to others worlds, thereby implying that a "claim" was somehow necessary for her to keep the other gods from interfering.

DrkVsr

12-31-2010, 11:19 PM

So that means all the other Gods are dirty rotten claim-jumpers? Or just that whoever is telling Veeshans story is trying to blow smoke up our [Removed for Content]

Morghus

12-31-2010, 11:41 PM

<cite>DrkVsr wrote:</cite><blockquote>So that means all the other Gods are dirty rotten claim-jumpers? Or just that whoever is telling Veeshans story is trying to blow smoke up our [Removed for Content]</blockquote>From the Everquest instruction manual:"Veeshan, Crystalline Dragon and ruler of the Plane of Sky, was the first god to notice the world of Norrath. She found this world pleasing and deposited her brood onto the frozen continent of Velious.With one swipe of her mighty claws, Veeshan opened several great wounds upon the surface of Norrath, staking her claim to this promising new world. Dragons then walked the land and flew the skies, powerful beings of great intellect, wisdom, and strength.In time the other gods noticed Veeshan's work, and being often petty and jealous beings, they too came upon Norrath, intent upon leaving their mark."Note that there is no 'written by', or 'narrated by'. This is neutral information presented to us as backstory by the writers of the game. It is information we the players are supposed to know, and not necessarily our characters in the game.

Eritius

01-01-2011, 05:35 AM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DrkVsr wrote:</cite><blockquote>So that means all the other Gods are dirty rotten claim-jumpers? Or just that whoever is telling Veeshans story is trying to blow smoke up our [Removed for Content]</blockquote>From the Everquest instruction manual:"Veeshan, Crystalline Dragon and ruler of the Plane of Sky, was the first god to notice the world of Norrath. She found this world pleasing and deposited her brood onto the frozen continent of Velious.With one swipe of her mighty claws, Veeshan opened several great wounds upon the surface of Norrath, staking her claim to this promising new world. Dragons then walked the land and flew the skies, powerful beings of great intellect, wisdom, and strength.In time the other gods noticed Veeshan's work, and being often petty and jealous beings, they too came upon Norrath, intent upon leaving their mark."Note that there is no 'written by', or 'narrated by'. This is neutral information presented to us as backstory by the writers of the game. It is information we the players are supposed to know, and not necessarily our characters in the game.</blockquote>I do believe there is a Narrator for that. An Iksar in fact. At least its said so in the Everquest Trilogy book.

Cusashorn

01-01-2011, 05:40 AM

^ That is the universal backstory that us players are suppose to learn about how life on Norrath came to be. Not told from anyone's biased perspective. Just the universal truth.

Tatsou

01-01-2011, 01:26 PM

I See this but also this can be just a "point of view" brought on by the gods and mayong.I still like my theory bout the ewer though and that Anashti did not create but either witness its creation or stole it and tampered with it. Seriously though, just like I mentioned earlier, she was probably losing her disciples and what better way for a god/goddess to gain them back but to say they created a item that would give them long lasting life.Even in real world religion, pagans where forced to follow one god. Im not gonna get into the whole history of that. Even items that where found in history to influence said religiion to help strengthen it. But there we have was it really a part of said history or was it fabricated to and given a "story" how it was created to strengthen its followers.Its possible inny made the ewer saw what it did and was either one disgusted with what happened and tossed it aside with anashti watching or 2, those two mae the ewer inny tested it and anashti "stole it" and set claim she made this fabulous instrument that she promised immortality too.We know lieing is a nature of being and even gods are known to stretch the truth as well. Which would fit.

Cusashorn

01-01-2011, 02:05 PM

<cite>Tatsou wrote:</cite><blockquote>I See this but also this can be just a "point of view" brought on by the gods and mayong.</blockquote>It could be, but it's not. It's just backstory. No point of view, just backstory.

Tatsou

01-01-2011, 04:14 PM

But that is what backstory is. Its a point of view. I can give backstory bout myself but then someone can also give backstory bout myself but to there point of view.

Mary the Prophetess

01-01-2011, 04:32 PM

I find it beyond credible, that when the original dialogue for the introduction was made that it was made to be a backstory from a particular point of view. It was a backstory for everyone's point of view. It told a universal truth.

Cusashorn

01-01-2011, 05:37 PM

Ok, how about this. It *IS* someone's point of view. It is THE NAMELESS' point of view. The god who created everything and allows the universe to exist. This makes it so there are no sides telling the story. Just the all encompassing, all seeing omnipotent diety that allows the concept of existence itself to exist.

The_Cheeseman

01-01-2011, 09:11 PM

I'd like to point out here the very same thing I always mention when people start talking about the Star wars prequels, or JRR Tolkien's letters discussing the history of the Silmarils: in works of fiction, the author, given enough time, will change stuff. As a D&D campaign-writer, one of the most important rules is to not to provide too much detail on elements of the setting that are not immediately relevant to play. By keeping some facets of the setting nebulous, you allow yourself room to expand or adapt your vision to the expectations of your audience.If you planned a totally awesome campaign that sounded to you like a great time, but you find out that your players just don't like the direction the story is going, you can change it. The story, until it has been actually experienced by the players, is simply a massive body of unrealized ideas you keep around to help yourself keep the setting internally-consistent. If you change one of them because you got a better idea during the course of the campaign, nobody ever has to know but you. You haven't "compromised your vision" you've adapted your game to become more fun for the people it is meant to entertain.Keep in mind that EQ started out as a home roleplaying campaign setting. This setting was eventually adapted for use in an MMORPG, no doubt forcing a LOT of compromises on the part of the designers to make it work right in that medium. Over the past decade, the design document has been passed around through countless hands, and it now rests in the care of a totally different group of people than the ones who originated it. Each of these developers has been a creative person who found new, intriguing ideas to improve the work as a whole, and thus each one has shaped its current form.What I am trying to convey here is simply that referencing old campaign notes or design documents, or decade-old into movies is all well and good, but you really can't take anything as the gospel truth until there is actually a scene in-game that verifies it. It doesn't matter that Mayong was originally a Dark Elf shadowknight with a couple of home-brewed racial feats that seemed vampiric, or that Veeshan was first concepted as a L/G platinum dragon. All that matters right now is what has already been established in-game. The devs have and will continue to make changes to the mysterious backstory of the EQ2 world whenever they feel that such changes will make the game more fun.A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned. They certainly haven't abandoned EQ yet!

Rezikai

01-01-2011, 09:23 PM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned.</blockquote>qferumors were Zeb's backstory may have been different in the original EQ documents but his final incarnation in-game of eq1 may have been radically different.

Mary the Prophetess

01-01-2011, 10:15 PM

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.A fantasy roleplaying game must operate under a set of rules. These allow we the players to suspend disbelief, and immerse ourselves in the game. The better a game is able to do this, the more believable it is and the more depth it holds.In an MMORPG, accepted convention and lore play a very important role in this immersive aspect.There are laws which must govern the creation of fantasy milleus, among which are:The Law of Infinite Universes.The Law of Personal Universes.The Law of True Lies.The Law of Pragmatism.Fantasy worlds only 'work' because of these laws.An individual can, and does, create within their imagination, a 'presonal unviverse', which is one of the 'infinite universes' which may exist.In the case of MMORPGs, this personal universe is created by the designers of the game. This universe is subject to it's own laws, 'true lies', which, for the purposes of the game, are taken to be true; 'pragmatism'. It is the acceptance of these laws that allows us to suspend disbelief, and immerse ourselves into a fantasy world.We, as players, then create our own personal universes, (in the form of background for our characters, beliefs, associations, etc.), within the designer's universe, (Norrath).It is when the laws of True Lies and Pragmatism are unknown, discarded, or are not universally known and accepted, that the game loses the aspect of a fantasy world, (personal universe), and becomes nothing more than a video game.The whole uncertainty as to what is known, what may be known and what is unknown has disrupted these laws in the sense that it has violated the Law of True Lies; giving the players two or more sets of equally valid, and often contradictory 'truths' with which to assimilate and deal with. It has streched the suspension of disbelief to it's limit, if not to the breaking point.The same may also be said of mixing different genres into an amalgarim, (science fiction with fantasy for instance).They put an UNNECESSARY strain on the believability of the system.Introducing more uncertainty (chaos) into the system threatens to break it entirely as a believable, and knowable personal universe.With no firm foundation, then we can make up any scenario which fancies us: The Ydal are really Drow, the Namless is actually Sauron, the Elder Gods include Cthulhu, and Norrath is simply a planet in the Regulus sector of Star Wars.For this to be a believable universe thare MUST exist some universal constants, beyond which we do not venture or we threaten to create a muddled, contradictory, illogical, and unbelievable hodge-podge of disconnected antecdotes.

Iskandar

01-01-2011, 11:32 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>and Norrath is simply a planet in the Regulus sector of Star Wars.</blockquote>This IS Ceti Alpha FIVE! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" />

The_Cheeseman

01-02-2011, 12:35 AM

While the concepts that <a href="../user/profile.m?user_id=50427">Mary the Prophetess</a> explains would make sense from a literary perspective, I question their application in the context of a living campaign world. In a literary work, the artist must complete the work before he can share it, at least enough that the audience can appreciate it. If the audience doesn't like the work, the artist has little recourse other than to either edit and re-release it (which will probably fail, as the audience is unlikely to try the same work again) or just create something new that the audience will hopefully like more. In a living campaign setting, the audience is already established, and thus their tastes are a known factor. If your audience doesn't seem to like one of the elements of your work, you can choose to reduce the importance of those elements and instead focus on the elements your audience enjoys, thereby adapting the game to emphasize the fun.That is, I think, the biggest hurdle an adventure writer has to overcome: designing a campaign setting is not like writing a book. The goal is not to tell a deep, involved story, it is to provide a compelling backdrop for the player characters to work with. In many ways, creating an adventure setting has more in common with building a set for an improv show than writing a script. You can't dictate the actions of the protagonists (the player characters), but you can do your best to provide story hooks to which your audience can anchor their own character concepts, and to include all the props they need to realize those concepts.If a given setting detail is not being used by the players, it is without value. Worse, if the developers feel the need to maintain that unreleased detail as unalterable fact, it has actually become a restriction on their creative freedom. Obviously, restrictions can breed creativity, but slavishly adhering to what amounts to arbitrary setting conceits is not a good way to help your setting thrive.I personally do not like discussing fantasy worlds using the term "realism" as I feel that "realistic" is the opposite "fantastic." In my opinion, the goal of a fantasy setting is to be internally-consistent while also being creatively evocative. Both are extremely important, because if we only valued internal-consistency we'd just set all our stories on Earth, while if we only valued creative evocation we'd probably just spend our time tripping on LSD. Creativity needs both restrictions and inspirations, so the setting must provide both.Where your tastes fall on the sliding scale of creative control will determine how much the details of the setting matter to you. If you always play a specific character with a given backstory, you probably won't like a highly-detailed setting in which that character is inappropriate, but you may love generic_quasi-medieval_world_01, regardless of the economic infeasibility of the primary kingdom's overly pastoral culture.Because the creator of a campaign setting has no control over the main characters, the setting must be able to accommodate the tastes of a wide range of players, each of which maintaining their own opinions and expectations about life within a fantasy world. This level of necessary adaptation makes it less than optimal to get too attached to minutia, especially in the context of such arcane subjects as in-setting mythology and folklore.

Morghus

01-02-2011, 01:19 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>While the concepts that <a href="../user/profile.m?user_id=50427">Mary the Prophetess</a> explains would make sense from a literary perspective, I question their application in the context of a living campaign world. In a literary work, the artist must complete the work before he can share it, at least enough that the audience can appreciate it. If the audience doesn't like the work, the artist has little recourse other than to either edit and re-release it (which will probably fail, as the audience is unlikely to try the same work again) or just create something new that the audience will hopefully like more. In a living campaign setting, the audience is already established, and thus their tastes are a known factor. If your audience doesn't seem to like one of the elements of your work, you can choose to reduce the importance of those elements and instead focus on the elements your audience enjoys, thereby adapting the game to emphasize the fun.That is, I think, the biggest hurdle an adventure writer has to overcome: designing a campaign setting is not like writing a book. The goal is not to tell a deep, involved story, it is to provide a compelling backdrop for the player characters to work with. In many ways, creating an adventure setting has more in common with building a set for an improv show than writing a script. You can't dictate the actions of the protagonists (the player characters), but you can do your best to provide story hooks to which your audience can anchor their own character concepts, and to include all the props they need to realize those concepts.If a given setting detail is not being used by the players, it is without value. Worse, if the developers feel the need to maintain that unreleased detail as unalterable fact, it has actually become a restriction on their creative freedom. Obviously, restrictions can breed creativity, but slavishly adhering to what amounts to arbitrary setting conceits is not a good way to help your setting thrive.I personally do not like discussing fantasy worlds using the term "realism" as I feel that "realistic" is the opposite "fantastic." In my opinion, the goal of a fantasy setting is to be internally-consistent while also being creatively evocative. Both are extremely important, because if we only valued internal-consistency we'd just set all our stories on Earth, while if we only valued creative evocation we'd probably just spend our time tripping on LSD. Creativity needs both restrictions and inspirations, so the setting must provide both.Where your tastes fall on the sliding scale of creative control will determine how much the details of the setting matter to you. If you always play a specific character with a given backstory, you probably won't like a highly-detailed setting in which that character is inappropriate, but you may love generic_quasi-medieval_world_01, regardless of the economic infeasibility of the primary kingdom's overly pastoral culture.Because the creator of a campaign setting has no control over the main characters, the setting must be able to accommodate the tastes of a wide range of players, each of which maintaining their own opinions and expectations about life within a fantasy world. This level of necessary adaptation makes it less than optimal to get too attached to minutia, especially in the context of such arcane subjects as in-setting mythology and folklore.</blockquote>What you are saying sounds more like a choose your own adventure book. It has nothing at all to do with a fantasy online game, with a developed and established backstory, with a moving and progressive plot that relies on at least some form of continuity. "You're in our world now" was the original tagline afterall.We are clearly free to behave however we wish, but in-game quest dialogues and outcomes are established. You seem to be under the false pretense that we, the players truly alter the events of the game world, when there are in fact only few outcomes:We either finish a quest and set its end result into reality, or we don't do the quest and none of it happened. Even then, if your character personally did not do a quest, or kill say...Roehn Theer etc...it will simply be assumed and accepted that someone else possibly did, thus setting that result into reality anyways.If the setting is to be as malleable as you say, why not declare that the entire world of the game takes place on a giant flying whale, or that maybe...it was all a dream our characters had, or maybe our characters are aware that they are the cosmic plaything of us real people. It would be cool and interesting to someone right?People play games with rich settings to immerse themselves in the false world's setting and history, not to have that unique world suddenly warp and twist to look like what the individual is expecting it to be. You don't play something like Everquest, get slightly bummed about a thing or two in the setting and then demand it turn into Lord of the Rings.A great fantasy setting in my opinion is not governed by creativity or what the player desires, it defines them by being so. Thus, any and all restrictions defined by the setting are justified by default.

The_Cheeseman

01-02-2011, 04:05 AM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote>What you are saying sounds more like a choose your own adventure book. It has nothing at all to do with a fantasy online game, with a developed and established backstory, with a moving and progressive plot that relies on at least some form of continuity. "You're in our world now" was the original tagline afterall.We are clearly free to behave however we wish, but in-game quest dialogues and outcomes are established. You seem to be under the false pretense that we, the players truly alter the events of the game world, when there are in fact only few outcomes:We either finish a quest and set its end result into reality, or we don't do the quest and none of it happened. Even then, if your character personally did not do a quest, or kill say...Roehn Theer etc...it will simply be assumed and accepted that someone else possibly did, thus setting that result into reality anyways.If the setting is to be as malleable as you say, why not declare that the entire world of the game takes place on a giant flying whale, or that maybe...it was all a dream our characters had, or maybe our characters are aware that they are the cosmic plaything of us real people. It would be cool and interesting to someone right?People play games with rich settings to immerse themselves in the false world's setting and history, not to have that unique world suddenly warp and twist to look like what the individual is expecting it to be. You don't play something like Everquest, get slightly bummed about a thing or two in the setting and then demand it turn into Lord of the Rings.A great fantasy setting in my opinion is not governed by creativity or what the player desires, it defines them by being so. Thus, any and all restrictions defined by the setting are justified by default.</blockquote>You make a very good point here, and I want to be clear that I do not disagree with this basic premise. The major point I am trying to make is that a fantasy setting can be viewed from the perspective of the developer and the perspective of the player. The developer is the omniscient creator, the development team (supposedly) knows everything about the established canon and is aware which of those facets are also known to the player. The developer knows the answers to all the mysteries, the truth behind all the conspiracies, and the true identities of all the shadowy figures. The developers choose which of those facets they wish to reveal to the player via the in-game narrative.The player only has access to the information that the developer has chosen to reveal. The player's understanding of the world is completely under the control of the developer, however, the developer is responsible for providing the player with enough accurate information about the setting for him to craft his avatar in the world. However, and this is the biggest point I am trying to make, information that has not yet been revealed to the player does not have to remain the same.As I mentioned above, and as you also explain in your response, the breaking of internal-consistency via retcon or simple error is extremely damaging to the player's immersion in the game world. However, if the player never actually knew something, there is no consistency to maintain. Just because a certain detail is present in the design document does not mean it must be set in stone. The only one whose consistency is threatened in such cases is the developer, but he already knows everything anyway.For example, let's assume for a moment that the original EQ team was interested in exploring the main over-arching storyline of Kerafyrm and his conflict with the Claws of Veeshan. As any good fantasy world-builder does, they made sure to include plenty of other interesting characters and plots that they could flesh-out later. Let's say one of these plots involved a dark elf vampire named Mayong Mistmoore who acted as an evil overlord and fulfilled the role of a shadowy plot-spinner. They have a basic character write-up for Mayong, but don't really do much more with it, because their attention is primarily focused on the dragon storyline.Now, 5 years later the Kerafyrm arc is pretty much done, and the release of a great deal of vampire-related young-adult fiction has made vampires a hot commodity. The team decides to look with more depth at the character of Mayong Mistmoore and set him up as the new primary antagonist. In doing so, they decide that they want to make his origin more mysterious, so they release some new lore that reveals that he is not actually a dark elf vampire at all, but that he very well may be the last surviving member of an ancient race who all had vampiric features. This idea has a lot more traction and will make for a much more interesting story, and the players never have to know that it wasn't exactly what you planned from the start. Heck, you can probably even engineer some creative misdirection to make it look like you dropped clues about it at release! The villain gets a cool backstory, the players think you're a genius, and nobody is the wiser.This sequence of events does not threaten internal-consistency, because it is impossible to be inconsistent with information you never knew in the first place. This is why it is advantageous to maintain a certain level of mystery about aspects of a living campaign setting, so that you can make those sorts of changes on-the-fly to adapt your setting to the evolving tastes of your audience without having to resort to retcon.Yes, having a detailed design document is very helpful for ensuring that your world is internally-consistent from the perspective of the player. But adhering to that design document even in situations wherein you are dealing with unreleased information is merely a self-imposed barrier to creative freedom.

Rainmare

01-02-2011, 04:29 AM

Our whole problem here can be boiled down to 4 specific things. Roehn Theer, Anashti Sul, the Ewer of Sul'dae, and the Ydal.and frankly all of these are specific EQ2 creations. and out of these 4 creations, the two biggest problems are the Ydal, and Roehn Theer.Anashti Sul being a forgotten goddess striking back from the Void is perfectly fine. in fact I'd wager that Vhalen never intended there to be anything 'bigger' then her in the Void as a supreme master. her using the Ewer to unleash undeath accidentally made perfect sense, provided a valid reason to cast her into the Void.the 'Godslayer' creation is what screws up royally our establish pantheon. all of the sudden we find that our pantheon may not be the original ones, those that may have come before have no story to them, even thier names that are seemingly just a random jumble of letters.then there's these damned Ydal. some apparently unbeknownst to anyone 'first' dark elf race, created by inny using an ewer that was supposedly the instrument for getting one god kicked to the void. which flies in the front of all the lore we have on this. Inny was supposed to have been so jealous of not getting to play with the other gods and create a race, that he stole the elves of Tunare to forge his own. Why would he do that if he had this 'master race' sitting in PoH? Why would Inny be allowed by the pantheon to have the Ewer when they know what the thing does? they banished a goddess for it. an dof course not to mention, the previous story on the ewer made more sense that she created/used it specificly for her followers. the Ydal story pretty much states it was sitting around there all the time....like she just dusted it off and handed it over when she decided to try to cure death.So then we have the idea that he creates the Ydal..which might not have been such a bad idea if they didn't try to shoehorn it in before the Teir'dal....used it instead as a second attempt...adn that Mayong is one. which mucks up the story of Mayong, supposedly a 10.5k year old vampire lord that was here to see the First Brood...the theory/rumor of him being an Elddar Elf that made a pact/bargain with Innoruuk is much easier to swallow then he's a member of a race that only lived in PoHate, made from an Ewer that a god shouldn't have had access to in the first place, and then at somepoint while in PoH, sees the arrival of the First Brood, something happens to make him a vampire...and he is apparently the only survior of this 'mystery' Ydal race.It's one thing to go back and add in things like Anashti Sul...when it's done right. this mess they created with the Ydal and Theer is enitrely different. in games like this, the only information we get is through the questlines, and the backstory. screwing around with backstories and the established facts of things as basic as the creation story is something you don't do. no matter how 'cool' you think your addition might be.

Morghus

01-02-2011, 04:36 AM

First of all, Mayong, and "new antagonist" are an oxymoron. He has been a major antagonist many times already across both games, he has just conveniently managed to don plot armor in all such occasions where he might be permanently solved as the problem he is.I don't know who you are trying to convince here. The issue is that new information, is contradicting or otherwise not correctly matching up to information already presented to us.By not releasing information, it frees the creative process up from contradicting itself, yet they have done exactly the opposite. We have a contradiction somewhere in the storyline where one of a few things cannot possibly be true without proving the other false when they have both been presented to us as a truth.Either someone didn't do their research, the new information was presented incorrectly, or it is something that will be retconned to cover the mistake.Either way, I still feel any justification towards Mayong's further development is unfounded. He already has more character and plot development than nearly every other possible major player in the story, the only characters that receive anywhere close to the same amount of development are the iconic city leaders Lucan and Antonia.I swear, if Mayong shows up at the tail end of Velious and kills Kerafyrm/steals his power or w/e...my suspicions will be confirmed: That we the players are the decoy protagonists of the story, and all other NPCs and antagonists are accessories to Mayong's status as the real main character of Everquest 2, with Nagafen off sitting somewhere trying to look important while doing nothing for four expansions. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" />

Rainmare

01-02-2011, 05:23 AM

well I can't think of any other major figure we've come across that woudl do what Mayong does, myself. Trakanon and the Ring of Scale, as well as the Cult of the Awakened..don't give a [Removed for Content] about the rest of Norrath other then thier own direct problems or petty squabbles. Venril's only concern is Kunark. Rile's only concern is overthrowing Venril. Nagafen, by being stuck in Sol's Eye...interacts with the world more, adn takes more precautions, becuase he deals with the 'lesser' races a metric ton more then any other dragon, save the Claws...whom we'll prolly see in Velious as either obliterated, or firmly under Kera's thumb.there's no other major figure that has the knowledge, and the desire to deal with Age's End but Mayong...until now. Now we have the Duality...but even he's relying on Mayong's information to peice together his own conclusions. and we have Fironia Vie...who knows what she might be up to in Velious.I think we're going to see Mayong again in Velious..as well as Tserrina. maybe Tserrina is working with Kera and Mayong will intervene to deal with his former lover...or maybe he'll help us defeat the Awakened...as he's probably the only non dragon around that might have a clue how he was subdued the first time.though Velious, and Kera's presence might mean that Nagafen will call in that favor we owe him. Who knows? but I'll bet my last copper we haven't seen the end of Mayong as a major player yet.

The_Cheeseman

01-02-2011, 07:43 AM

I didn't mean to imply that Mayong was a new antagonist, that entire paragraph was simply an example of the lore-adaptation theory I was explaining. Obviously, Mayong has been a major player in EQ lore from the early days, which I mentioned as being the reason I started playing on the Mistmoore server in EQ2.Personally, I don't see a lot of retcon going on here. I see exactly what I was talking about: the writers choosing to develop a section of the EQ backstory that was left open for future development long ago. Vampires make perfect mastermind-type antagonists, heck it started with the original vampire antagonist (at least by modern literary standards): Dracula. You can't beat an immortal predator who can easily blend into normal society for the role of long-term plotter, and the role of vampires as thinly-veiled sexual innuendo, especially in the context of coercion and power fantasy, makes them very attractive as the "tall dark and handsome" rogue mystery-man. Vampires make awesomely effective antagonists, so it would be silly not to exploit the character.I think that a lot of what we previously considered canon material was merely the exact kind of otherwise-unreleased design document detail that the devs probably made a mistake alluding-to. How much of our previously-accepted Mayong mythology was derived from vague zone descriptions, cryptic developer commentary, and even arguably non-canon source material? How much of Mayong's history was actually based on in-game, EQ2-relevant data? How badly does said data actually conflict with the more recent revelations, if at all? How badly are we trying to shape this character around our preconceived image, rather than allowing the developers to weave his past into the ongoing narrative? How much of this could actually have been part of the lore from the start, but we simply failed to piece together?

Morghus

01-02-2011, 08:56 AM

It hasn't directly fallen into retcon territory yet, but that has yet to be seen when or if the entirety of his origin is put forth to scrutinization. The possible implication of him being present on Norrath in some form, to witness the dragons being placed is what falls into retcon territory.If he however saw it from afar, from another plane or a seperate planet everything would be fine. As we are told flat out that Norrath was completely barren before Veeshan struck it, and it is seen in the original introductory video as a solid grey rock.Brell also carves tunnels into it, if there had been any form of civilization in the past, it would not have likely been chosen by Veeshan, and it would not be completely solid inside to out.And once again, you have missed my point. The problem isn't that they "may have alluded" to a few things, the problem is that they have presented things as truth that may be in contradiction to other things also presented as truth. Not alluded to, not hinted at, but presented as truth.Also, I suppose I cannot totally begrudge people for defending Mayong as a character, but I myself am sick of him and all things related to him. All things can be enjoyed in moderation, but when it is too much it becomes poisoning.In the original everquest he was not even an npc for a while, and was a totally gm controlled character that moved plot events forward in the early days of gm events. Later he became a god and then supposedly threw it away.Then in Eq2, we deal with vampires in bloodline chronicles, Dmorte in Desert of Flames, Mayong and even more vampires in Echoes of Faydwer..he is even so kind to give us back Soulfire, Vampires again for Night's of the Dead, Mayong again in Kunark despite him being defeated on 3 seperate or simultaneous occassions, Vampires steal Anashti's Ewer, Vampires again in some Shadow Odyssey zones, Vampires again now as a playable race, and Vampires yet again with Tserrina and Mayong's possible involvement in Velious.Also Rain makes an excellent point about Mayong and stopping Kerafyrm. That is certainly a good way to get around having to have any sort of dragon faction or dragon involvement despite Veeshan imparting that knowledge according to the dragons, it would be a good way to further empower Mayong's role in the story.As for Nagafen, I suspect his favor from us will be killing the only mature prismatic dragon currently around, so that he can eventually unleash his children on us unopposed until Mayong saves the day by killing the arbitrarily level 100 dragon and his young prismatics using Theer's power taken after Kerafyrm dies. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" />Honestly, I preferred Mayong as a character before he was made more important than merely a background figure. It was a mistake making him fightable, and it was a mistake giving him any interaction with our characters. He was better off before he started opening his mouth, and before his backstory became more than the dark elf vampire who hates dragons.

The_Cheeseman

01-02-2011, 03:13 PM

I doubt Nagafen has any intention of facing Kerafyrm personally, as it would inevitably lead to his death. In the EQ lore, there really isn't a non-deific figure who possesses more personal power than Kerafyrm, and with the events of SF behind us, the deific ones are no loner relevant. Kerafyrm is Kind of a Big Deal(TM).I respect your opinion on Mayong, and I admit to having similar disdain for characters in various fictional settings in the past. However, I think Mayong is a strong and effective villain, and look forward to more of his past being made clear, as well as his motivations and future goals. As long as they treat Mayong as a real, three-dimensional character, I'll be happy. The minute they reduce him to mustache-twirling supervillain, I'll join you.

Rainmare

01-02-2011, 08:04 PM

I agree Mayong should never have been made into a raid mob. he simply too strong...there's no way 24 mortals should be able to face him and win. simple as that.Mayong in Eq1 was the mystery that everyone wanted to learn about up until the Depths of Darkhollow. he did things for his own reasons, he was courteous and polite to a fault. in the depths of darkhollow, mayong invites you to his lair, tauting you to take him on. when he's killed, and he does indeed die..his blood activates the last of a ritual for his intended goal...Godhood. the sotry is very well done. the whole reason you only hear scraps and whispers of mayong was becuase he wanted it that way. for people to revere him, to hunt for him, top devote themselves to him..even if it was in a 'scholarly' sense.In EQ2, he's still the mysterious figure...delving into the Shissar calander and prophecies...trying to avert, as far as we know, Ages End. he allows us to have Soulfire after he's through with it, he lets us keep the Chelsith Stone until he needs it. basically telling us to guard it with our lives. had these been our only interactions with Mayong..it might have been better...or if he had shown up in the Tunarian throne room to simply abduct Leyna and leave might have worked. but fighting him, and beating him...yeah that did kinda weaken his 'power' as an npc.The best thing they could have done for the 'raiders' with Mayong I woudl have done was have them face enemies whiile Mayong watched...witnessing a personal entertainment of mortals against his own experiments...and once the raiders win, he simply gives them a congradulation and leaves.the D'morte/T'haen I think was thier attempt to try and lessen Mayong's involvement, but still keep Vampires in the game. until D'morte/Malkonis...every vampire in EQ is under Mayong's control. so they made D'morte to say 'here are vampires, but they are NOT doing Mayong's bidding'.and of course you can't go to Faydwer, Mayong's base of operations and not deal with him/his minions. that'd be a sacrilege...that would be like going to Kunark and not dealing with the Iksar or Venril.

The_Cheeseman

01-02-2011, 09:20 PM

I think not allowing people to fight Mayong would have been a major mistake. There is nothing worse than devs maintaining some kind of invincible, mary-sue NPC that always pushes the PCs around but who you never actually get to fight. I mean, it isn't as if a major villain has to be invincible in order to be effective. Sauron got his rear handed to him by a dog for goodness sake (Huan), it doesn't make him less of a badass during the Lord of the Rings (Interestingly enough, Sauron's chief minions were vampires and werewolves, sound familiar?)Besides, Mayong does tell you straight-up that he sensed the importance of your destiny, and therefore let you escape with your meaningless victories in past battles. After all, Mayong is an immortal undead overlord who pretty much runs Norrath, he doesn't need to prove anything to a bunch of mortal adventurers.

Anaogi

01-02-2011, 09:25 PM

"...you always come back!"Buffy said that about Dracula, but I think Mayong fits the bill. One can always say he was just testing our heroes...for later reference as his plans unfold, of course. The usual 'canon sez you didn't defeat him' actually has a valid out in this case.

Cusashorn

01-02-2011, 09:26 PM

I'd say he does. If he wants to prove to us mortals that he's NOT evil, then he can directly get involved with us right at the beginning of our battles against those that are greater than him.

Morghus

01-02-2011, 09:27 PM

Come on, we players deserve more credit than being called mere "mortal adventurers". Mortal adventurers who in the past have fought the actual gods and weakened their power forcing them to retreat from the world. Mortal adventurers who destroyed Anashti Sul's physical form and freed her from the void. Mortal adventurers who destroyed Munzok and defeated Miragul. Mortal adventurers who have now killed the Godslayer and Master Yael the Sentinel of the Underfoot....mortal adventurers who will presumably defeat Kerafyrm the awakened. And many other insert things we have or will do. I think some of us, particularly those who end up interacting with Mayong have stopped being mere mortal adventurers a long time ago. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" />

Meirril

01-03-2011, 12:35 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I didn't mean to imply that Mayong was a new antagonist, that entire paragraph was simply an example of the lore-adaptation theory I was explaining. Obviously, Mayong has been a major player in EQ lore from the early days, which I mentioned as being the reason I started playing on the Mistmoore server in EQ2.Personally, I don't see a lot of retcon going on here. I see exactly what I was talking about: the writers choosing to develop a section of the EQ backstory that was left open for future development long ago. Vampires make perfect mastermind-type antagonists, heck it started with the original vampire antagonist (at least by modern literary standards): Dracula. You can't beat an immortal predator who can easily blend into normal society for the role of long-term plotter, and the role of vampires as thinly-veiled sexual innuendo, especially in the context of coercion and power fantasy, makes them very attractive as the "tall dark and handsome" rogue mystery-man. Vampires make awesomely effective antagonists, so it would be silly not to exploit the character.I think that a lot of what we previously considered canon material was merely the exact kind of otherwise-unreleased design document detail that the devs probably made a mistake alluding-to. How much of our previously-accepted Mayong mythology was derived from vague zone descriptions, cryptic developer commentary, and even arguably non-canon source material? How much of Mayong's history was actually based on in-game, EQ2-relevant data? How badly does said data actually conflict with the more recent revelations, if at all? How badly are we trying to shape this character around our preconceived image, rather than allowing the developers to weave his past into the ongoing narrative? How much of this could actually have been part of the lore from the start, but we simply failed to piece together?</blockquote>The major issue is that we've got information on a Ydal race that conflicts with the previously known facts about the creation of Norrath and the Elves specifically. From EQ1 days we know that Tunare created the elves in her image. We know that Innoruuk stole the first King and Queen and used those that attempted to rescue them to create the Teir'dal. We also knew that Innoruuk attempted to steal Mithanial Marr's gift of life so he could create his own race. And we knew that nobody knew where Mayong Mistmoor came from and he was an International Man of Mystery....and now? Inny uses the Ewer to create his own race in his own plane in his own image BEFORE NORRATH IS POPULATED. And they happen to look exactly like Teir'dal. That entire race happens to be flawed due to the creation process and poof! They all self destruct except for Mayong and he happens to get to Norrath just in time to see the first brood get planted. And yet...Inny can't create another race. Not only that but he steals Tunair's children to re-make his Ydal but calls them Teir'dal instead. And this time he places them underground on Norrath instead of his own plane.Really? This was better as a hollow boast on Mayong's part. The more real the devs try to make this claim, the more unreal it makes...everything.Next we're going to find out that T Marr beat Inny up and stole Inny's Gift of Life so he could create his own children and passed it on to them...

The_Cheeseman

01-03-2011, 02:29 AM

I am not really sure what about this story bothers you, but it seems neat to me! We find out that Innorruuk actually tried and failed to create his own race once in the past, thereby giving him motivation for corrupting Tunare's creations rather than make his own. We have a backstory for Mayong that explains his disdain for Innorruuk as well as his extreme age and obvious differences from other known vampires. None of the information really conflicts with any of the established lore, all it does is elaborate further on points that were previously either glossed-over or ignored entirely.

Mary the Prophetess

01-03-2011, 03:08 AM

The only part of the story I have a real problem with is the "when" of the Ydal. All other aspects can be meshed into the lore "good enough".Since the "when" comes exclusively from Mayong himself, we can cure a host of ills by simply rejecting Mayong's "when" as a deliberate deception.

Morghus

01-03-2011, 03:09 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am not really sure what about this story bothers you, but it seems neat to me! We find out that Innorruuk actually tried and failed to create his own race once in the past, thereby giving him motivation for corrupting Tunare's creations rather than make his own. We have a backstory for Mayong that explains his disdain for Innorruuk as well as his extreme age and obvious differences from other known vampires. None of the information really conflicts with any of the established lore, all it does is elaborate further on points that were previously either glossed-over or ignored entirely.</blockquote>Are you purposefully obtuse? The issue has been pointed out several times by different people, you however appear to be choosing to ignore it. Closing your eyes and pretending its not there does not change the fact that it is still a problem. Mayong's supposed origin, and what we have been told already in the past are what is clashing. They cannot both be right.So because you seem to think it is "neat" makes it all okay? That's a dangerous and flawed justification in my opinion. This sort of issue needs to be properly explained and justified. It cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, leaving it unchallenged simply emboldens them to do it more and more without fear of being called out on it due to a proliferation of apathetic enablers.Nagafen was, in everquest a red fire dragon. In everquest 2, he is still a red fire dragon. In the events before everquest he was imprisoned for trying to mate with lady Vox because the result would be more dragons like Kerafyrm. But wait, lets make him more interesting by saying he really was the father of Kerafyrm too!They never outright said he wasn't, we have hints here and there that Dozekar the cursed was Kerafyrm's father, but that was never directly confirmed either, it would make Nagafen cooler if he actually was, even though it is impossible because he was not even born let alone mature at the time. But who cares, because its cooler? Let's just say he used time travel and trash what we know about the setting even further.I mean, why stop there? Why don't they just go on out and state that everything we think we know about the lore and the setting is wrong so they can make up any thing they want? There's no need to justify anything as long as it's cool right?

Cusashorn

01-03-2011, 03:35 AM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am not really sure what about this story bothers you, but it seems neat to me! We find out that Innorruuk actually tried and failed to create his own race once in the past, thereby giving him motivation for corrupting Tunare's creations rather than make his own. We have a backstory for Mayong that explains his disdain for Innorruuk as well as his extreme age and obvious differences from other known vampires. None of the information really conflicts with any of the established lore, all it does is elaborate further on points that were previously either glossed-over or ignored entirely.</blockquote>Are you purposefully obtuse? The issue has been pointed out several times by different people, you however appear to be choosing to ignore it. Closing your eyes and pretending its not there does not change the fact that it is still a problem. Mayong's supposed origin, and what we have been told already in the past are what is clashing. They cannot both be right.So because you seem to think it is "neat" makes it all okay? That's a dangerous and flawed justification in my opinion. This sort of issue needs to be properly explained and justified. It cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, leaving it unchallenged simply emboldens them to do it more and more without fear of being called out on it due to a proliferation of apathetic enablers.Nagafen was, in everquest a red fire dragon. In everquest 2, he is still a red fire dragon. In the events before everquest he was imprisoned for trying to mate with lady Vox because the result would be more dragons like Kerafyrm. But wait, lets make him more interesting by saying he really was the father of Kerafyrm too!They never outright said he wasn't, we have hints here and there that Dozekar the cursed was Kerafyrm's father, but that was never directly confirmed either, it would make Nagafen cooler if he actually was, even though it is impossible because he was not even born let alone mature at the time. But who cares, because its cooler? Let's just say he used time travel and trash what we know about the setting even further.I mean, why stop there? Why don't they just go on out and state that everything we think we know about the lore and the setting is wrong so they can make up any thing they want? There's no need to justify anything as long as it's cool right?</blockquote>Actually, Cronyn sent me a PM a few days ago saying that Everquest officially takes place as part of the Halo universe, where Jack Sparrow is the leader of the Elites, who are actually trying to take over the Galaxy in order to promote the Jedi religion. It's the Xenomorphs you gotta be careful of, because they have Dr. Doom giving them orders and trying to get everyone addicted to the Yu-Gi-Oh card game.

Beastmage

01-03-2011, 06:21 AM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I agree Mayong should never have been made into a raid mob. he simply too strong...there's no way 24 mortals should be able to face him and win. simple as that.----but fighting him, and beating him...yeah that did kinda weaken his 'power' as an npc.</blockquote>We never 'beat him.'Do you remember what he says when he tells you to keep the chelsith stone safe? Because your character asks him how he is still alive when 'we had killed you.'He says that he only lead you to believe you had killed him. It was a ruse to make you think he was gone.Basically he faked his death so he would be out of the spot light and could continue his research without being interrupted by us or whatever other powerful beings there are that may have had their eyes on him.

Iskandar

01-03-2011, 07:11 AM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote>The major issue is that we've got information on a Ydal race that conflicts with the previously known facts about the creation of Norrath and the Elves specifically. From EQ1 days we know that Tunare created the elves in her image. We know that Innoruuk stole the first King and Queen and used those that attempted to rescue them to create the Teir'dal. We also knew that Innoruuk attempted to steal Mithanial Marr's gift of life so he could create his own race. And we knew that nobody knew where Mayong Mistmoor came from and he was an International Man of Mystery....and now? Inny uses the Ewer to create his own race in his own plane in his own image BEFORE NORRATH IS POPULATED. And they happen to look exactly like Teir'dal.</blockquote>In regards to Inny's Y'dal and Tunare's Dal each being created in their own gods image, yet still appearing so similar.... it's pure speculation, of course, but perhaps this is simply because Innoruuk and Tunare share a common ancestry?I could very well be mistaken, but I don't recall any "origin story" for either of them. And we do know that several of the gods and demigods were not born/created as deities but were instead elevated to their position. Could both Inny and Tunare have been created by the same elemental god, perhaps? Or maybe they were elevated to godhood from the same race on some distant world, long before Norrath existed? Or maybe I'm just up too late...or too early, depending on your perspective <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />Sure, <a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/innoruuk/94-13716/" target="_blank">Innoruuk</a> and <a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/tunare/94-13742/" target="_blank">Tunare</a> have some obvious physical differences (those links have some decent art of each btw), but it's still not inconceivable that they have similar origins (a similar fantasy example would be Golum, who began his existence as a Hobbit, but ended it looking more like a midget troll <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" />).Just a late-night sleep-deprived food-for-thought shot-in-the-dark over-hyphenated idea <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />

Rainmare

01-03-2011, 07:20 AM

I know that as a Lore hunter...adn I read the npc text. but I know alot of my fellow raiders are up in arms about his continued presence for the same reason. they are getting sick of seein ghim after they have 'stomped' him 3-4 times now. hell people were aggravated when Venekor showed back up in HoS. they were like 'really? could they have not thought of ANYTHING else?'yes, Mayong allows us to win so we'll leave him alone and let him get back to work. yes Mayong is a LOT stronger then any of us really grasp about him.as to the 'mortal adventurers' you have to remember that as far as the game goes, WE don't do any of that stuff. it an 'unamed raid' or 'unknown heroes' that do it. whcih is why all of us are running around with Soulfire adn Claymore weapons or there are dozens of us wearing Master Yael's left eyeball as an earring. as far as the continuity goes, we are just 'mortal adventurers'where does it state that Mayong has an animosity toward Innoruuk? I know that the leaders in Evernight Abbey reffer to a Curse from Inny in thier respective rooms...but that doesn't mean that Mayong has any kind of problem with Innoruuk. in fact, from what we gather, Mayong was the ONLY one that had access to PoHate after the gods 'cut norrath off'. the notes of the Sage claim that he went there looking for artifacts/information. doesn't seem like something someone with a grudge or issues with Inny would get away with.

MixxitNDance_Live

01-03-2011, 11:20 AM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>as to the 'mortal adventurers' you have to remember that as far as the game goes, WE don't do any of that stuff. it an 'unamed raid' or 'unknown heroes' that do it. whcih is why all of us are running around with Soulfire adn Claymore weapons or there are dozens of us wearing Master Yael's left eyeball as an earring. as far as the continuity goes, we are just 'mortal adventurers'</blockquote>I disagree, it's happening, the sky is shattering and the gods are going to make a death star out of you.

Beastmage

01-03-2011, 09:32 PM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I know that as a Lore hunter...adn I read the npc text. but I know alot of my fellow raiders are up in arms about his continued presence for the same reason. they are getting sick of seein ghim after they have 'stomped' him 3-4 times now. hell people were aggravated when Venekor showed back up in HoS. they were like 'really? could they have not thought of ANYTHING else?'</blockquote>Sounds like the people you raid with have their panties in a wad. I raid myself and can't recall anyone ever complaining about him, most regular raiders just don't care.

Rezikai

01-03-2011, 11:22 PM

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am not really sure what about this story bothers you, but it seems neat to me! We find out that Innorruuk actually tried and failed to create his own race once in the past, thereby giving him motivation for corrupting Tunare's creations rather than make his own. We have a backstory for Mayong that explains his disdain for Innorruuk as well as his extreme age and obvious differences from other known vampires. None of the information really conflicts with any of the established lore, all it does is elaborate further on points that were previously either glossed-over or ignored entirely.</blockquote>Are you purposefully obtuse? The issue has been pointed out several times by different people, you however appear to be choosing to ignore it. Closing your eyes and pretending its not there does not change the fact that it is still a problem. Mayong's supposed origin, and what we have been told already in the past are what is clashing. They cannot both be right.So because you seem to think it is "neat" makes it all okay? That's a dangerous and flawed justification in my opinion. This sort of issue needs to be properly explained and justified. It cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, leaving it unchallenged simply emboldens them to do it more and more without fear of being called out on it due to a proliferation of apathetic enablers.Nagafen was, in everquest a red fire dragon. In everquest 2, he is still a red fire dragon. In the events before everquest he was imprisoned for trying to mate with lady Vox because the result would be more dragons like Kerafyrm. But wait, lets make him more interesting by saying he really was the father of Kerafyrm too!They never outright said he wasn't, we have hints here and there that Dozekar the cursed was Kerafyrm's father, but that was never directly confirmed either, it would make Nagafen cooler if he actually was, even though it is impossible because he was not even born let alone mature at the time. But who cares, because its cooler? Let's just say he used time travel and trash what we know about the setting even further.I mean, why stop there? Why don't they just go on out and state that everything we think we know about the lore and the setting is wrong so they can make up any thing they want? There's no need to justify anything as long as it's cool right?</blockquote>Actually, Cronyn sent me a PM a few days ago saying that Everquest officially takes place as part of the Halo universe, where Jack Sparrow is the leader of the Elites, who are actually trying to take over the Galaxy in order to promote the Jedi religion. It's the Xenomorphs you gotta be careful of, because they have Dr. Doom giving them orders and trying to get everyone addicted to the Yu-Gi-Oh card game.</blockquote>i'd quit my job to play that MMO....all day.

The_Cheeseman

01-04-2011, 08:36 AM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am not really sure what about this story bothers you, but it seems neat to me! We find out that Innorruuk actually tried and failed to create his own race once in the past, thereby giving him motivation for corrupting Tunare's creations rather than make his own. We have a backstory for Mayong that explains his disdain for Innorruuk as well as his extreme age and obvious differences from other known vampires. None of the information really conflicts with any of the established lore, all it does is elaborate further on points that were previously either glossed-over or ignored entirely.</blockquote>Are you purposefully obtuse? The issue has been pointed out several times by different people, you however appear to be choosing to ignore it. Closing your eyes and pretending its not there does not change the fact that it is still a problem. Mayong's supposed origin, and what we have been told already in the past are what is clashing. They cannot both be right.So because you seem to think it is "neat" makes it all okay? That's a dangerous and flawed justification in my opinion. This sort of issue needs to be properly explained and justified. It cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, leaving it unchallenged simply emboldens them to do it more and more without fear of being called out on it due to a proliferation of apathetic enablers.Nagafen was, in everquest a red fire dragon. In everquest 2, he is still a red fire dragon. In the events before everquest he was imprisoned for trying to mate with lady Vox because the result would be more dragons like Kerafyrm. But wait, lets make him more interesting by saying he really was the father of Kerafyrm too!They never outright said he wasn't, we have hints here and there that Dozekar the cursed was Kerafyrm's father, but that was never directly confirmed either, it would make Nagafen cooler if he actually was, even though it is impossible because he was not even born let alone mature at the time. But who cares, because its cooler? Let's just say he used time travel and trash what we know about the setting even further.I mean, why stop there? Why don't they just go on out and state that everything we think we know about the lore and the setting is wrong so they can make up any thing they want? There's no need to justify anything as long as it's cool right?</blockquote>Let's keep this friendly, shall we? I am not being obtuse about anything, I am honestly asking you exactly what details of Mayong's origin you feel have been contradicted. I would like to point out that a lot of the information we once used to speculate on the subject came from non-canon sources, such as message board posts by developers and 3rd-party game supplements. What did we really KNOW about Mayong's origin when considering only sources from within EQ2 and timeline-relevant sections of EQ1? Specifically, which of those details do you see as being directly contradictory to the newer lore? I honestly can't think of any off-hand, but I have never claimed to be infallible. All I am asking for are citations.I also think you are slightly overreacting, here. Do you really believe that pointing out lore inconsistencies on the forums will prevent the developers from doing whatever they want in the future? I suggest that this belief, while perhaps not "purposefully obtuse", is somewhat naive. It doesn't help that you immediately invoke the informal fallacy of slippery-slope, either. There is no reason at all to believe that the developers have some villainous plan to discredit all the existing canon and re-write EQ2 as a time-traveling sci-fi anime.You call me an apathetic enabler, I call myself a fan who doesn't sweat the small stuff. The Bible directly contradicts itself in multiple passages, do you really expect that the setting of a mere Fantasy MMO will be perfectly consistent? The developers are doing their best to produce a compelling and inspiring world for our characters, but they're only human and will occasionally make mistakes. Personally, I find such mistakes to be easily justified if the result is greater narrative depth and character development.So no, I don't think that the developers have any obligation to "justify" their narrative choices to us. It is, after all, THEIR story to tell. If they want Mayong to actually be a transvestite [Removed for Content] from a parallel Norrath where everybody drinks through their fingertips, that is their prerogative. Now, compromising their artistic integrity so greatly would certainly jeopardize the future of their product, so doing so would be inadvisable, but it is completely within their rights. The devs do not answer to us: we are in their world, now.Personally, I'd prefer the EQ2 team spend their limited development time crafting intriguing new stories for us to experience, rather than wasting it fact-checking everything they write against decade-old lore minutia that the vast majority of players neither know nor care about. They've done an amazing job keeping true to the existing lore thus far, and I think their honest affection for the setting really shows through in their workHowever, as I mentioned above, I am curious as to exactly which details of Mayong's origin you feel have been violated, as I would like to analyze them further myself and perhaps adapt my timeline, if necessary.

Rainmare

01-04-2011, 11:20 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am not really sure what about this story bothers you, but it seems neat to me! We find out that Innorruuk actually tried and failed to create his own race once in the past, thereby giving him motivation for corrupting Tunare's creations rather than make his own. We have a backstory for Mayong that explains his disdain for Innorruuk as well as his extreme age and obvious differences from other known vampires. None of the information really conflicts with any of the established lore, all it does is elaborate further on points that were previously either glossed-over or ignored entirely.</blockquote>Are you purposefully obtuse? The issue has been pointed out several times by different people, you however appear to be choosing to ignore it. Closing your eyes and pretending its not there does not change the fact that it is still a problem. Mayong's supposed origin, and what we have been told already in the past are what is clashing. They cannot both be right.So because you seem to think it is "neat" makes it all okay? That's a dangerous and flawed justification in my opinion. This sort of issue needs to be properly explained and justified. It cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, leaving it unchallenged simply emboldens them to do it more and more without fear of being called out on it due to a proliferation of apathetic enablers.Nagafen was, in everquest a red fire dragon. In everquest 2, he is still a red fire dragon. In the events before everquest he was imprisoned for trying to mate with lady Vox because the result would be more dragons like Kerafyrm. But wait, lets make him more interesting by saying he really was the father of Kerafyrm too!They never outright said he wasn't, we have hints here and there that Dozekar the cursed was Kerafyrm's father, but that was never directly confirmed either, it would make Nagafen cooler if he actually was, even though it is impossible because he was not even born let alone mature at the time. But who cares, because its cooler? Let's just say he used time travel and trash what we know about the setting even further.I mean, why stop there? Why don't they just go on out and state that everything we think we know about the lore and the setting is wrong so they can make up any thing they want? There's no need to justify anything as long as it's cool right?</blockquote>Let's keep this friendly, shall we? I am not being obtuse about anything, I am honestly asking you exactly what details of Mayong's origin you feel have been contradicted. I would like to point out that a lot of the information we once used to speculate on the subject came from non-canon sources, such as message board posts by developers and 3rd-party game supplements. What did we really KNOW about Mayong's origin when considering only sources from within EQ2 and timeline-relevant sections of EQ1? Specifically, which of those details do you see as being directly contradictory to the newer lore? I honestly can't think of any off-hand, but I have never claimed to be infallible. All I am asking for are citations.I also think you are slightly overreacting, here. Do you really believe that pointing out lore inconsistencies on the forums will prevent the developers from doing whatever they want in the future? I suggest that this belief, while perhaps not "purposefully obtuse", is somewhat naive. It doesn't help that you immediately invoke the informal fallacy of slippery-slope, either. There is no reason at all to believe that the developers have some villainous plan to discredit all the existing canon and re-write EQ2 as a time-traveling sci-fi anime.You call me an apathetic enabler, I call myself a fan who doesn't sweat the small stuff. The Bible directly contradicts itself in multiple passages, do you really expect that the setting of a mere Fantasy MMO will be perfectly consistent? The developers are doing their best to produce a compelling and inspiring world for our characters, but they're only human and will occasionally make mistakes. Personally, I find such mistakes to be easily justified if the result is greater narrative depth and character development.So no, I don't think that the developers have any obligation to "justify" their narrative choices to us. It is, after all, THEIR story to tell. If they want Mayong to actually be a transvestite [Removed for Content] from a parallel Norrath where everybody drinks through their fingertips, that is their prerogative. Now, compromising their artistic integrity so greatly would certainly jeopardize the future of their product, so doing so would be inadvisable, but it is completely within their rights. The devs do not answer to us: we are in their world, now.Personally, I'd prefer the EQ2 team spend their limited development time crafting intriguing new stories for us to experience, rather than wasting it fact-checking everything they write against decade-old lore minutia that the vast majority of players neither know nor care about. They've done an amazing job keeping true to the existing lore thus far, and I think their honest affection for the setting really shows through in their workHowever, as I mentioned above, I am curious as to exactly which details of Mayong's origin you feel have been violated, as I would like to analyze them further myself and perhaps adapt my timeline, if necessary.</blockquote>see that's prolly a difference there. I consider a dev post to be pretty much the word of God. if a dev says something happened, then it happened. If Vhalen says mayong was here to see the First Brood, then he [Removed for Content] sure was...or that mayong is some 10.5k years old...he is. things like that should stay consistant. if every peice of information, including major events, are due to an explicit fact, then changing that fact is wrong and a disservice to the people who are enjoying the story. If I'm going to write a story about say...Raistlin Majere from Dragonlance..and I change his eyes, or make him not a twin, or turn him from a powerful mage into a thief...yes people will get up in arms about it. becuase there are some facts that I should stick to becuase they are part of the character concept. and I should know these facts.In this case, that fact is that until this Ydal shoehorn...Inny has been unable to create a race of his own. he had to steal the elves to creat the Teir'dal. he tried to take Mith Marr's Gift of Life...that resulted in barbs and frogloks thanks to morelle's intervention...to be able to make his own race. everything we know about Inny says he wasn't aware of Norrath till much after the pact, adn that he can't create a race of his own and instead corrupts the creations of others.now this tidbit here says inny can create his own race. made one long before the pact on norrath apparently, kept it in PoH. Mayong was apparently one of this race, so I guess he saw the first brood from PoH. to me it sounds like the Ydal was made up specificly to give Mayong a 'special' race to be part of. and it does indeed contradict what we've known about Inny for what? 11 years now?Not to mention it requires Inny to have an artifact that he by no means should have been able to get his hands on. the only way you can even remotely see him using the ewer in the timeline we're given is if Anashti herself handed it over. which makes no sense. why would the goddess of health/life give an artifact like that to the God of Hate?

Mary the Prophetess

01-04-2011, 01:37 PM

A serious question:How much of this tangle is fixed if Mayong is lying?Occam's Razor, people.

Rainmare

01-04-2011, 05:31 PM

None of it, actually. Unfortunately if it was something we could solve by saying mayong is lying to us we prolly would. but the Ydal thing is more about the idea that there are some general facts that the devs have told us about Mayong, adn some general facts that they've told us about Inny, that the whole Ydal thing clashes with.Mayong is somewhere in the range of 10,500 years old.Mayong was here to see the First Brood. now this one we can speculate is that he was here to see when the First Brood was active..i.e. the Eldar Age/end of the Age of Scale rather then here when V put them on norrath.Inny goes to great length at least once to steal another gods 'essence of life' becuase he wants it to create his own race, becuase he himself can't do it on his own. he fails, but the point is still there.Inny, becuase he can't create a race of his own, made the Teir'dal from Tunare's elves. Also, Inny didn't have any involvement with Norrath until after the first pact was made, becuase he was angry they other gods didn't invite him to join in on it...and the timeline for the creation of the Tier'dal obviously shows that the elves were already flourishing, and had an established society with a monarchy.Then we have how the race was actually made...which was inny's blood in the Ewer of Sul'dae. this creation has to take place before Anashti is banished, becuase her use of it, and it's unleashing undeath on norrath, is what gets her banished. So Anashti has to willinging allow Inny to use the Ewer to make his race, even though up to this point everything we know about Inny says he can't create his own race.add all this up and it seems like the Ydal was made up to give Mayong a 'special' unknown race to be part of, by someone that didn't bother to even do a cursory check of the information about Mayong or Inny. it was just a 'this sounds like a neat idea' thing that they ran with.

Meirril

01-04-2011, 06:18 PM

You know, there is one elegant solution to all of this. Mayong traveled from the future to Norrath to witness the beginning of the end of Norrath and is desperately looking for a way to prevent Ages End where in his future Kerafyrm has destroyed Norrath and is going on a rampage in the planes destroying the other gods and their followers. As the last of the Ydal he has sworn to not allow his own future to exist and believes that the moment he can stop it is comming up.So the Ydal don't exist yet, or maybe Inny was able to create the Ydal after Mayong went to visit him on his own plane while Mayong was a diety? Maybe Mayong brought along the Ewer and then broke and discarded it in the Living Tombs because he knew it needed to be found soon.While this is extremely far fetched, and I hate time travel, the devs used this with Miragul so why not Mayong as well?

Iskandar

01-04-2011, 06:42 PM

Anashti doesn't need to just hand over her Ewer for Inny to use it though... he could have silmply stolen it from her before she was banished. With her being a goodie-goodie goddess of health at that time, it wouldn't have been much of a stretch to say the two of them weren't bestest buddies hehe! So nipping an artifact from a rival wouldn't be unheard of.Alternately, he could also have stolen it from where it was stashed after Anashti was banished. When it eventually fails to give him the results he desires, he casts it out in anger... and thus it finds itself on Norrath. I think this is the most likely scenario, as there's really no other reason for it to be here... if Inny's influence was focused on Norrath when he had a tantrum, that could easily explain how it found its way here.Personally, I don't think Inny is incapable of making a race... I think he just lacks the patience to properly tend to all the little details. He gets angry and frustrated and just goes "Oh, screw it, it's done! There!" Whereas Tunare is more of a perfectionist... she sits down and works on her race until every last detail is done just right. It's only natural that a hate-filled being like Inny would get jealous of someone who can do that... which just makes him angry... which just fuels his hatred more... which just makes him even more impatient and less willing to go into the detail work.

The_Cheeseman

01-04-2011, 06:49 PM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>None of it, actually. Unfortunately if it was something we could solve by saying mayong is lying to us we prolly would. but the Ydal thing is more about the idea that there are some general facts that the devs have told us about Mayong, adn some general facts that they've told us about Inny, that the whole Ydal thing clashes with.Mayong is somewhere in the range of 10,500 years old.Mayong was here to see the First Brood. now this one we can speculate is that he was here to see when the First Brood was active..i.e. the Eldar Age/end of the Age of Scale rather then here when V put them on norrath.Inny goes to great length at least once to steal another gods 'essence of life' becuase he wants it to create his own race, becuase he himself can't do it on his own. he fails, but the point is still there.Inny, becuase he can't create a race of his own, made the Teir'dal from Tunare's elves. Also, Inny didn't have any involvement with Norrath until after the first pact was made, becuase he was angry they other gods didn't invite him to join in on it...and the timeline for the creation of the Tier'dal obviously shows that the elves were already flourishing, and had an established society with a monarchy.Then we have how the race was actually made...which was inny's blood in the Ewer of Sul'dae. this creation has to take place before Anashti is banished, becuase her use of it, and it's unleashing undeath on norrath, is what gets her banished. So Anashti has to willinging allow Inny to use the Ewer to make his race, even though up to this point everything we know about Inny says he can't create his own race.add all this up and it seems like the Ydal was made up to give Mayong a 'special' unknown race to be part of, by someone that didn't bother to even do a cursory check of the information about Mayong or Inny. it was just a 'this sounds like a neat idea' thing that they ran with.</blockquote>Here is a question for ya: how did Innorruuk know that he couldn't create his own race if he never tried? It seems obvious that the other gods have no problem doing so, so why would Innorruuk assume he lacked that capacity unless he'd already attempted and failed? This is how I see the Ydal. Innorruuk tried to create the Ydal, but his attempt failed and the entire race ended up destroying themselves. That's a pretty big blow to a divine ego, I'd think. Because of this failure, Innorruuk has decided to attempt alternate methods of creating a servitor race, including corrupting Tunare's creations to serve him, and attempting to steal Marr's power.The Ydal began and ended within Mistmyr on the Plane of Hate, so there is no timeline inconsistency with the entire event happening before Norrath was even discovered. As I pointed out above, there is in-game evidence that suggests lots of things have happened in the EQ2 universe that predate the population of Norrath, so there is no real contradiction here.Mayong, being a member of a race that predates Norrath, obviously was around to see Veeshan deposit her brood on Norrath, as he claims.I'd like to point out that I cannot ever recall seeing the "10,500 years" age quoted from any canon source. As far as I can tell, that number originates with a player who used a quote from "Maps of Myrist" claiming that Mistmoore is over 10,000 years old, and then tacked another 500 years onto that to account for the timeline difference between EQ1 and EQ2. Obviously, "Maps of Myrist" isn't a canon source.Why does the creation of the Ydal "have" to predate Anashti's banishment? I agree with you in that I believe it does, but why, exactly, does it HAVE to?Also, why would Anashti'Sul have to give Innorruuk permission to use the Ewer? Many of the gods have had artifacts of their own creation stolen from them or even used against them. Just because she created it doesn't mean she gets to dictate its use. Remember that the gods of the EQ2 universe are petty, flawed, and often ignorant. Mayong says as much, and it is the reason that The Nameless felt the need to create Theer in the first place.Finally, it is my opinion that any lore tidbits the devs provide outside of in-game events or specific "press releases" (such as the Ethernaut stories and such) should be taken with a grain of salt. They may be relaying the "word of god" as they know it at the time, but the EQ2 universe is a collaborative effort, and as such, such details can be subject to change (as I explained in a few posts above). While I always appreciate the lore devs giving us tidbits, I prefer not to rely too heavily on them until they are corroborated with in-game evidence.

Mary the Prophetess

01-04-2011, 07:08 PM

Actually, I believe Maps of Myrist is considered canon as it is an official SOE publication.

Rainmare

01-04-2011, 07:52 PM

if inny can create his own race, at all, they why would he specifically go after Mith Marr's 'essence of life' for the sole purpose of being able to create a race? it's proven that gods that can create races, can do so as many times as they want. (Brell is a big example of that here). thus is seems that Inny cannot create his own race, which is why he attempted to steal mith marrs ability to do so for that purpose, and explains why he has, up until this talk of the Ydal, corrupted other races to suit his ideas.We know from Brell, we know from Tunare, we know from Zek, that a god that can create a race, can do so as many times as they feel a need to. Tunare has made 2 races. Brell is up to what? like ten now? Zek has three. Prexus might even have two if you think the Othmir are his..that gives him othmir and kedge. So it makes no sense to have a story that says Inny went after mithaniel's gift of life, to steal it so he can create his own race, if he had the ability to create at least 1 prior to that time. becuase obviously if he can do it once, as all these other instances with gods proves, he could do it again. he'd have no need to steal someone else's gift.As to Inny stealing the Ewer...there's only been 1 instance of a god stealing from another's plane, and that was Sol Ro siphoning power from Fennin's plane to charge the dresolisk crystal. and even then he had to be extremely careful about it to not [Removed for Content] off his father....and that's nothing compared to basically invading a plane to get something. Lets take another example from EQ2 though. Inny presence in Valor caused infighting to break out...mithaniel says as much in SoL, Inny 'hateful' influence by being present in Valor has effects...it caused fights and squabbles to break out. So it's not like Anashti wouldn't have noticed her creations in Health suddenly becoming violent and [Removed for Content] toward eachother. hell Mithaniel still seems to be able to sense what's going on in Valor from Love.I find it highly unlikely that Inny could have stolen the Ewer from Anashti, without her being aware of him when he entered her plane. and I say that it has to occur before her banishment, becuase of what the Ewer does. Anashti is banished for using the ewer and creating 'undeath' on norrath. so Innoruuk isn't THAT stupid to mess with something that can get him banished and thus infer that it was done before Anashti used it and created Undeath...not to mention that her creation of undeath puts the Ewer on norrath, where we have pretty much the history of where it was from then on.

The_Cheeseman

01-05-2011, 01:06 AM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>if inny can create his own race, at all, they why would he specifically go after Mith Marr's 'essence of life' for the sole purpose of being able to create a race? it's proven that gods that can create races, can do so as many times as they want. (Brell is a big example of that here). thus is seems that Inny cannot create his own race, which is why he attempted to steal mith marrs ability to do so for that purpose, and explains why he has, up until this talk of the Ydal, corrupted other races to suit his ideas.We know from Brell, we know from Tunare, we know from Zek, that a god that can create a race, can do so as many times as they feel a need to. Tunare has made 2 races. Brell is up to what? like ten now? Zek has three. Prexus might even have two if you think the Othmir are his..that gives him othmir and kedge. So it makes no sense to have a story that says Inny went after mithaniel's gift of life, to steal it so he can create his own race, if he had the ability to create at least 1 prior to that time. becuase obviously if he can do it once, as all these other instances with gods proves, he could do it again. he'd have no need to steal someone else's gift.As to Inny stealing the Ewer...there's only been 1 instance of a god stealing from another's plane, and that was Sol Ro siphoning power from Fennin's plane to charge the dresolisk crystal. and even then he had to be extremely careful about it to not [Removed for Content] off his father....and that's nothing compared to basically invading a plane to get something. Lets take another example from EQ2 though. Inny presence in Valor caused infighting to break out...mithaniel says as much in SoL, Inny 'hateful' influence by being present in Valor has effects...it caused fights and squabbles to break out. So it's not like Anashti wouldn't have noticed her creations in Health suddenly becoming violent and [Removed for Content] toward eachother. hell Mithaniel still seems to be able to sense what's going on in Valor from Love.I find it highly unlikely that Inny could have stolen the Ewer from Anashti, without her being aware of him when he entered her plane. and I say that it has to occur before her banishment, becuase of what the Ewer does. Anashti is banished for using the ewer and creating 'undeath' on norrath. so Innoruuk isn't THAT stupid to mess with something that can get him banished and thus infer that it was done before Anashti used it and created Undeath...not to mention that her creation of undeath puts the Ewer on norrath, where we have pretty much the history of where it was from then on.</blockquote>The EQ pantheon is full of many varieties of divine beings: natural gods like Tunare and Brell, ascended mortals like Rodcet Nife, even beings who coalesced from pure concentrations of some element, such as Bertoxxulous. I think it is making a large assumption that they all work exactly the same way. We have heard stories of how the races were made, every deity has their own methods. The gods don't seem to just will things into existence, the mold them from magical clay, or give birth to them after being impregnated by magic, or grow them from the earth. Who is to say that Innorruuk using the Ewer wasn't a perfectly normal occurrence? What's to say that the reason he can't create his own race isn't some lack of power, but the fact that his races always end up as spectacular failures? My inability to create a symphony isn't a lack of ability to write notes on paper, but a simple lack of talent for arranging them. Maybe he wanted Marr's gift of life because he thought it would be a more effective method?I also don't see why you're assuming Innorruuk had to send agents to infiltrate the Plane of Health and steal the Ewer. The Ewer is stated to be the source of the Fyr'Un, a river that flows throughout the planes. Who says it even resided on Health at all? Perhaps Anashti created it, placed it in whatever location contained the largest population of her followers, and left it in their care. After all, my own player character has a bag full of deity-created artifacts, and thus far no extra-planar repo service has been harassing me. It's entirely possible that Innorruuk just borrowed the Ewer to create his race and Anashti either didn't know or didn't care. As far as I am aware, Anashti'Sul and Innorruuk have no particular enmity.Finally, as I mention in my timeline, it is my theory that the entire Ydal fiasco occurred after the Ewer was created, but before its nasty side-effects were discovered. Remember, the lore states that Anashti "unwittingly" unleashed undeath upon the inhabitants of early Norrath. Like the Panacea Cure mentioned in "Remembrances: Prime", it's entirely possible that the Ewer seemed to be working just fine for a long while before the horrible truth was discovered.I also can't see any particular reason why Innorruuk would avoid using the Ewer, even after Abashti's banishment. Anashti was banished for first unleashing undeath--for originating it on Norrath. Now that its here, there really isn't any more harm to be done. Innorruuk is the go-to deity for pacts of lichdom, such as in the case of Venril Sathir, and taught the Tier'Dal the art of necromancy as a gift to his children. I really don't see him being afraid of dealing with undeath.

Jait

01-05-2011, 01:35 AM

Last two posts are really good and thought provoking.But getting back to basics.... There's an interdependency to the Gods we simply don't understand yet. I was hoping they would explain it...6 years ago! The Gods NEED each other. They're bound by some purpose. Nothing else could force Inny to show up in the Plane of Time to lend assistance during PoP. Same goes for The Council of the Gods. Remember Inny did NOT agree with anything they were saying. He wasn't worried about losing his power as most of them were. But he showed up and agreed to the God of freaking Tranquility's compromise. Sound like the God of Hate? Not to me.I think the same applies to races. I think if you don't form a compact or accord all the Gods would unite to destroy your race. This is why Brell sought out compacts with the Gods. Compacts which Inny was not allowed to participate in. His first race had the protection of the Plane of Hate. His second race was buried deep underground and in EQ1 they had a secret agreement with Lucan and Freeport to protect Neriak.We just don't have enough pieces of the story. The Gods need each other. Maybe it's simply that these Gods are all united against Theer and Dragonkind. Who knows. There's a bizzare connection we just haven't been made privy to.

Iskandar

01-05-2011, 03:59 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also can't see any particular reason why Innorruuk would avoid using the Ewer, even after Abashti's banishment. Anashti was banished for first unleashing undeath--for originating it on Norrath. Now that its here, there really isn't any more harm to be done. Innorruuk is the go-to deity for pacts of lichdom, such as in the case of Venril Sathir, and taught the Tier'Dal the art of necromancy as a gift to his children. I really don't see him being afraid of dealing with undeath.</blockquote>The Ewer's undeath side-effects may even have been what caught his interest in the first place. Perhaps he assumed that using his own blood would make the final race strong enough for them to retain control and not fall from sentience to mindless brain-hunger. In the end, it would appear to have worked to a certain degree, as vampires are a far cry from zombies... but I doubt that was the end result he was seeking.

Rezikai

01-05-2011, 04:38 AM

<cite>Iskandar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I also can't see any particular reason why Innorruuk would avoid using the Ewer, even after Abashti's banishment. Anashti was banished for first unleashing undeath--for originating it on Norrath. Now that its here, there really isn't any more harm to be done. Innorruuk is the go-to deity for pacts of lichdom, such as in the case of Venril Sathir, and taught the Tier'Dal the art of necromancy as a gift to his children. I really don't see him being afraid of dealing with undeath.</blockquote>The Ewer's undeath side-effects may even have been what caught his interest in the first place. Perhaps he assumed that using his own blood would make the final race strong enough for them to retain control and not fall from sentience to mindless brain-hunger. In the end, it would appear to have worked to a certain degree, as vampires are a far cry from zombies... but I doubt that was the end result he was seeking.</blockquote>I also think that the theory of the curse of vampiric traits on the Ydal took time, not quick and instant. The texts and hints and zones suggest they were a thriving race of dark heart/minded elves that eventually fall as a race to this genetic curse of vampiric undeath. Thus thousands of years of civilization and progression may have took place within Mistmyr before the "blessing" of the ewers curse of undeath in the roots in their genetic make up was awoken and turned them into vampires.

Rainmare

01-05-2011, 05:01 AM

That's just it. the Ewer was the object, the artifact, that caused Undeath to be realeased. it was using the Ewer that did it. not Anashti's power, or Anashti's will..the Ewer. and she was banished for having made it and the results that followed it's use. I don't know about anyone else, but if I were to go to a store, see an item that says 'the last person that used it burst into flames, so good luck' on it i wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. the potential risk that Inny is taking, by the fact that the last person that used the Ewer got thrown into the Void for it, does not seem like a risk Inny would take to create a race.and again. if he can create a race, there's no reason to steal another's power to do so for that purpose. the 'gift of life' doesn't do anything else. it's not like the gift of life means a better race, it means the ability to create a race. that's all. that was the whole purpose to want to steal it, was to create. If I have the power to do so on my own. why would I need to steal someone else's ability? if you want to use the symphony analogy here...it's like stealing someone else' music sheets..becuase you like the color better.also with the idea of how inny got it..after anashti's banishment we know where the ewer goes on norrath. there's no real setup of 'oh it disappeared for x amount of time.' it pretty much goes from we can guess Aket Ahken, to Malkonis who makes the d'morte bloodline, back to Aket Ahken when Naythanox orders teh bloodline eradicated. and that's where it stays until we shatter it withte rod of rathe, adn then it goes back to neriak, the D'ryil are created, Anashti comes back to norrath, and her followers steal it back and put it back in Aket Ahken. SO we know pretty much where it goes after she gets banished.also, I woudl point out that most deities that have an item specific to them...it's never far or off thier person. Tallon's bow, Vallon's sword, Rallos' battle axe, Mith Marr's sword, Karana's staff, Sol ro's spear/crown..even Brell is almost always commented on having his stein of brells brew on hand at all times. It's not far fetched to think Anashti carried the Ewer around in similar fashion, or knew exactly where it was in her plane as it was her 'crown jewel' of her created items.and yes, there's no animosity between Anashti and Innorruuk. there's none between Inny and Rodcet either. but how many of us can see Rod helping Inny with anything? especially something like creating a race? just becuase they don't actively work against eachother at every opportunity does not mean they'd work together at all.

Mary the Prophetess

01-05-2011, 10:49 AM

When was the FIRST use of the Ewer?

Cusashorn

01-05-2011, 12:54 PM

When she unleashed undeath on Norrath. It's the reason why she created it.

Rezikai

01-05-2011, 01:19 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>When was the FIRST use of the Ewer?</blockquote>unknown..we dont know if the ewer transforming anyone outside of Norrath progressed the decsion to banish her either. Perhaps Inny goes back to the Pantheon and tells them that the Ewer caused his race to become undead. Hence a major reason to banish her.Though for some dog-fathered race in his own plane the gods may not have cared but for whatever reason they wanted Norrath free from this.... actually... does it specifically say Anashti bringing undeath to NORRATH was the cause of her banishment or bringing undeath to MORTALS, because the latter could mean mortals anywhere... not just here on Norrath.Also I thought the Ewer wasnt brought to Aket Ahten until Malkonis brought it, wasnt it found by the godking or a priest of Anashti at some hidden temple of hers 1st? maybe I'm wrong but im pretty sure it wasn't in Aket Ahten originally. They just worshipped her as a deity.

BleemTeam

01-05-2011, 03:57 PM

Why can't the God of Hate just choose to corrupt another's race out of spite and anger?If he failed before, isn't that what you'd expect of a Hateful anything?The problem, here, is that we (the audience) get caught up in thinking inside the box. Just because life on Norrath "started" when Veeshan came around, doesn't mean that ALL life, ever, forever started then. So, just keep that in mind. Regardless of the outcome.

Rainmare

01-05-2011, 04:57 PM

I can buy that with the elves. but we have a fact, anf that fact says Inny tried to steal mith marrs gift of life so he could create a race. blatantly stated. he didn't get the essence thanks to intervention from Morelle, that resulted in the barbarians and the froglocks. we also know, and might as well be fact, that the gods that have created races on thier own, can do so as many times as they see fit to. So it makes completely no sense, to have innoruuk looking to steal the gift of life, to create a race, when he obiously already has the power to do so if he created teh Ydal beforehand.We have no reason to believe that Anashti would allow Inny to use the Ewer. It's also very unlikely he could steal it out form under her planar nose, as it's with her until she gives it to mortals on norrath and it has it's unintended and disasterous for her result.we know where the ewer is after her banishment. we can trace it's movements. so the ydal have to be before that point, and since all teh information was have is stating that Mayong is a Ydal, we have to take into account mayong's timeline for this creation process as well. which again puts the Ydal creation pretty much before/around the time V deposits the First Brood...not to mention, if mayong is a Ydal..then he somehow escapes PoH and comes to norrath as a vampire. so the vampiric transofrmation has to occur during the age of scale/elder age as that's the time Mayong is around on norrath proper to start.which would make the Ydal the race upon which she 'unleashes' undeath to get her banished...but again that begs why banish her when you can say inny using his blood in it was the cause of undeath? not to mention this race is kept in PoH, adn I beleive it's stated her unleashing of undeath on norrath specifically is what gets her banished....so why would they let the vampiric Ydal be perfectly fine but not the undead on norrath? Also it's implied Anashti didn't know that undeath was going to be let loose...so the Ydal becoming vampires, which would have been known since apparrently the creation undeath did get teh entire pantheon's attention, doesn't fit right either. in fact during her time in the void is when she ponders undeath and eventually convinces herself it was a good thing. it's much more plausible to say that she gave it to the godking, and his use unleashes undeath and gets her banished...because then it's entirely her device used as intended, that causes the result. Her actions in giving it to mortals. but you cna't really see Inny's use of it happening before then with that information, adn it has to in order to keep Mayong/Tier'dal creation timeline intact. about the best timeline I can create on all teh information is this.Anashti makes the EwerAnashti allows inny to use it, Inny creates the Ydal (mayong)V deposits her brood on Norrath (mayong watches from PoH)the Age of Scale beginsthe fatal flaw in the Ydal is found, Vampirism..Mayong becomes a vampire adn is either the last survivor/strongest remaining of the Vampiric Ydalthe pact between Brell/Prexus/Tunare happens, each depositing races, the Elder Age begins. Inny gets [Removed for Content] he wasn't invited, steals the elf monarchs adn thier rescue party creates the Teir'dal, put them in the underfootAnashti gives the Ewer to mortals, result is undeath, Anashti banished.Mayong leaves PoH, (potentially along with other clan leaders from the Ydal political structure these being the elders we find in Evernight Abbey) and comes to norrathand there are even hints that Mayong is around before the Teir'dal come to norrath, remarking on him finding them and how useful they are adn then using them as guards/servants...inplying he was here before they came into existance...which puts the creation of himself as a vampire again before 'undeath' is supposed to be unleash on norrath adn getting anashti banished for it.Now this could all work, if they weren't trying to shove that Mayong is a Ydal. becuase we could take the saying from mayong like 'we know so much more now then we did in Mystmyr' as mystmry was where he went to in PoH during the last 500 years....which we could then put the creation of the Ydal as anytime we want after Anashti's banishment...and it doesn't have to conflict with Inny not being able to create a race, cause we can put it after that, we can say after his failure to get mith marrs essence, he used the Ewer to make Ydal. and he based thier looks of the race he already had, the Teir'dal. the Ydal thing about being the 'first' dark elves could then be explained as them thinking of themselves as the 'first' becuase inny made them from relative scratch, while the teir'dal were 'corrupted' from tunare's elves.But making Mayong a Ydal means you have to adjust thier creation in light of where Mayong is at give times. which throws a big monkey wrench into all sorts of timeline events.

Iskandar

01-05-2011, 05:46 PM

hmmm, instead of conjecture, let's pull what we all know together into one place and see how it all fits. I know we each have our own way of looking at and interpreting things, so perhaps a solid pool of work will help all of us:The Ewer is described as "the very vessel that sprang life to the Fyr'Un, the River of Life that ran through the celestial worlds."The Ancille of D'Morte tells us that Anashti created the Ewer, "The Godking pays homage to the lost goddess Anashti Sul, the power that created the Ewer of Sul’Dae." Anashti also makes no secret that she claims the Ewer as her property.Norrath is clearly neither the first nor the only planet to exist in the universe, which we can see from the original opening narrative, "Veeshan, Crystalline Dragon and ruler of the Plane of Sky, was the first god to notice the world of Norrath. She found this world pleasing and deposited her brood onto the frozen continent of Velious."This is also confirmed by the EQ1 game manual, "When the universe was young, Veeshan traveled throughout the cosmos depositing Her children on worlds She deemed worthy. She would then strike the planet with Her massive claws so that the other deities would know She had laid claim to that world."It was after Veeshan came to Norrath that the other gods started moving into the neighborhood, "Thus, the gods each created a race of beings to keep a vigilant eye on Norrath and the schemes of Dragonkind."Related side note: I found a comment I only just noticed made in <a href="http://eqmac.station.sony.com/manual_detail.jsp?chapter=17" target="_blank">the original EQ1 manual </a>rather interesting as well, "As an observer of the nature of mortal worship, I have come to wonder about the nature of these deities. Are we made in their image, or do we create their appearances based on our needs?" Related side note: This does conflict with a Dwarven story related to us during the Dwarven Ringmail HQ, "Molten metal from the rivers of Brell flowed into the Underfoot of Norrath. This was long before even dragon set foot upon this world. Eons passed and the scales of Veeshan descended upon Norrath. The great mother wyrm breathed upon the world to form her nest, but in doing so she repelled the blessed flow of metal below. The river of metal began to flow back to the planar realm of Brell, but as it did so, it left a gift to the dwarves that would rise from below. As the river retreated a sacred slag was left in its wake. This slag would be Brell's gift to his children yet to come."Related side note: It is stated in the original lore that Brell and Veeshan are enemies, "Veeshan is the great crystalline dragon who rules the Plane of Sky. She needs no allies but considers Brell Serilis an enemy" and also "Brell is allied with Fizzlethorpe Bristlebane, and is an enemy of Veeshan's." Related side note: Possibly non-canon to EQ2, while discussing the EQ1 "Prophecy of Ro" story and lore, Vahlar notes, "I'll let you in on something -- the shiliskin already existed in the underfoot (underground of Norrath) when Brell Serilis first arrived. It was the shiliskin and several of the other creatures in Darkhollow that Brell encountered that caused him to create his realm and children elsewhere.""Who was here first" in our Norrathian turf-war really just boils down to who we wish to beleive, since the gods themselves are the only ones who could say for sure. But the EQ manual states that Brell was second to arrive, "In time, another god noticed Veeshan's work. Brell Serilis, the Duke of the Underfoot, secretly created a magic portal to a cavern deep in the belly of Norrath. Through this portal, he seeded the depths of Norrath with all manner of creatures and sealed them within a labyrinthine chamber of mystical Living Stone."According to the backstory from EQ2Players, Roehn Theer apparently came along after Norrath was populated as well, "And the Nameless created the Gods and the Gods created all the races of Norrath to worship them and bring them honor and for many years all was well. But soon the Gods grew jealous and each coveted the worship of all mortals, that each might grow more powerful than the others. And the Gods of the Light and the Gods of the Dark made common cause against each other and mighty were the battles between them and all Norrath trembled. Then came the Nameless, He who created all things and He who shall end all things, and He sent forth His avatar into the world saying "Keep thou the balance, that no lesser God shall rise all powerful, and that neither Light nor Dark shall reign supreme." And thus did Roehn Theer the Godslayer come to Norrath and so did the Gods come to fear one who was both less and more than a God and for a short time peace returned to Norrath.The Ydal talismans point us to a creation of the Ydal after the Ewer is made. “The Ydal were the first dark elf race, created in the Plane of Hate by the evil god, Innoruuk. The dark elves would be spawned from dark ancient rituals cast upon the product of a single drop of Innoruuk’s blood, poured from the Ewer of Sul’Dae. These Ydal would share some of the powers and appearance of their deity.”Related side note: Possibly non-canon to EQ2, as this was stated during EQ1's "Prophecy of Ro" release, Vahlar notes, "Mayong Mistmoore is his own race of vampire. He's older than any of the common player races. In fact, he's said to have seen the first of Veeshan's brood on Norrath. Perhaps something occured in those days that fueled his hatred of dragon kind..."Jindrack tells us that Anashti was on Norrath and her banishment was as a result of unleashing undeath here, "Anashti Sul, the original Prime Healer, was sentenced to non-existence by the other gods when she unwittingly released undeath upon the inhabitants of early Norrath. Rodcet Nife would be later appointed to take her place."Anashti has a pressence on Norrath sometime before the Elddar Empire. "The Godking Anuk is the founder of the City of Life, Ahket Aken. He is also the prophet of the lost Goddess of Life, Anashti Sul. Long ago did he discover her lost shrine within the Elddar Empire. Through her forgotten words he rose from the ranks of the Elddar Empire and cast free the Dal religions. He is the only known chosen prophet of Anashti Sul. He is the all powerful ruler of Ahket Aken and is the harbinger of the gift of Anashti Sul, the gift of undeath. The Godking Anuk resides in the Inner Temple of the royal districts of Ahket Aken."And from "The Tale of Ahket Aken," we can see that Ahket Aken wasn't Anashti's "home" city, but rather a place that got "access" to her in a third hand sort of way long after she was banished and forgotten. "Once in days long passed, days before the green turned to sand, there was a city of secrets. Within this city were promises of life everlasting for those of blind faith. Here the bloom would never wither, here is where the followers of the forgotten prayers came to reside, eternally. This city was born from the words of an ancient dal, a prophet of the chants of oblivion. How he came to know the shadow of nonexistent powers is unknown, but know he did."From her words, Anashti was active during the time of Xul'Varien, and is unfamiliar with Bertoxxulous, "Hmmm... I do not feel the presence of Xul'Varien, but instead I sense this new being -- Bertoxxulous, if I have heard correctly, who is evidently the new Lord of Pestilence. I will be watching that one carefully. However, I have a more pressing matter at hand, which is the one who replaced me, Rodcet Nife."According to "The Necropolis of Lxanvon," Bertoxxulous arose on Norrath from a race that was struggling to survive in the age of the dragons, "In a Norrathian age long past, when dragons ruled the lands, seas, and skies, an ancient race did spring forth from the will of an unknown god. They were a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh world ruled by the scaled children of Veeshan. The true name of this extinct civilization has been lost to the mists of time, the evidence of their existence buried and all but destroyed by the elements and the forces of change."It goes on to describe his creation, "The Xulous, through their adoration and reverence of their rotting kings, their defilement of the dead children of Veeshan, and their dependence on the deaths of dragons for the expansion of their kingdoms did unknowingly bring a powerful and ancient evil to Norrath. As years passed, the evil presence in the bowels of Lxanvon grew stronger, and there, within the rotting corpses of those ancient kings, Bertoxxulous was born."Anashti also confirms she has been banished for several millennia: Avatar of the Forgotten says to you, "At long last! After so many millennia... I feel the power of the living mortals of Norrath surge through my being! I have returned from the edge of non-existence!"Malkonis comes along and uses the Ewer to create vampirism, which the Ancille of D’Morte tells us about, “You seek the decanter of the Fyr’Un, the origin of undeath, the life giver of the D’Mortes.“ ... “The D’Mortes existed within the gates of Neriak long before they were graced with the presence of the Ewer of Sul’Dae. In their research of such an artifact of power they unleashed the gift of undeath to their bloodline. They became immortal.” ... “The gift varies to those that are bestowed, but all are immortal in undeath. Such a gift the Teir’Dal empire was not ready for. The D’Morte house hid their secret, but eventually their ilk would learn and hunt them down, driving them from the empire of the Teir’Dal.”Vhalen once commented on this as well, "The tragic tale of the D'Morte's is related to Mistmoore's origins. That is evident to those that can piece the puzzle together properly. Sometime in the future we will see more pieces to that puzzle appear in the world of Norrath."Vhalen also once said, "Lord Mayong Mistmoore may be more powerful than any of us can ever dream of being, but perhaps the greatest mysteries of Norrath are just as perplexing to commoner as they are to a superior entity. Or, perhaps he is toying with us all, leading us to a destiny where the secrets of Mistmoore will finally be revealed as Norrathians take one step closer to the inevitable."Brand, an agent for the Freethinkers, tells us that Mayong did once ascend to godhood: You say to Brand, "Why has Mistmoore returned? Legend tells of him ascending to godhood. Surly there is nothing more powerful?" Brand says to you, "No one knows for certain, but for one who possesses ultimate power on Norrath, perhaps ascension only brought unwanted responsibility. In the dark, I've heard it whispered that he only sought that power for a specific purpose..." You say to Brand, "I wonder if anyone knows why..." Brand says to you, "It's said that the few remaining original Antonican Bards may know more of his plans for future nights and stories of his past, but if they do, it is certain that they're not speaking of it in their tales."Related side note: The mob "a parched desert prophet" has been noted as saying, "The vampire bargains with gods! Dooms us all!"Related side note: Probably non-canon to EQ2, while being fought in EQ1's Darkhollow, Mayong shouts, "'One of your lifetimes is but a fleeting moment compared to my endless existence.' ... 'I have watched civilizations rise and fall, seen races born or destroyed, witnessed the gods meddling pointlessly with mankind.' ... 'I was there when Rallos led his army into the Plane of Earth.' ... 'I saw Takish`Hiz buried under a sea of burning sand.' ... 'The trivial endeavors of the pantheon bored me, long before you ever existed.' ... 'I grew jaded and tired of this world eons ago.'"Related side note: Possibly non-canon to EQ2 and the source is unverified, but Mayong is reported to say, "True immortality comes with a price... You cannot possibly comprehend the burdens I bare. There is an implied responsibility to watch over mankind. To mold it, to push it in the right direction. In addition to mointoring the progress of my minions across several continents. In a way, I am envious of your simple lives."The Freethinkers report that Mayong still has access to the Plane of Hate. "We have received information from a reliable source that leads us to believe that Mayong Mistmoore has recently returned from what he claims to be the Plane of Hate."There is a tangible connection between Anashti and the Ewer, which she uses to reclaim it once she returns to Norrath, as Plumetor Dul'Sadma relates to us during the deity questline, "Anashti Sul is ready to make her return to Norrath, and she is preparing to take back the Plane of Health, as it is rightfully hers. However, she has mentioned something troubling... something that has even angered her. ... The Ewer of Sul'Dae, her precious artifact, has been destroyed, and the pieces removed from the temple of the Fountain of Life! It no longer funnels the power of the Fyr'Un as it once did, and the River of Life is dwindling down to nothing. Without that artifact, Anashti Sul will have a far more difficult time claiming what is rightfully hers. ... Anashti Sul is close enough now that her power can return the Ewer if we can empower it once again. To do that, we will need to collect waters from the River of Life, the Fyr'Un. If we return the waters of the Fyr'Un to the Ewer, then Anashti Sul can use her connection to the Ewer to move it herself."This questline also tells us the Dark Elves unleashed yet another line of vampirism while rebuilding the Ewer: Sharnar D'Zauer says, "Certain... complications arose while the Ewer of Sul'Dae was being reconstructed. Some of the inhabitants that you speak with here may not be as they appear."Please try to use a direct quote from ingame quests, books, or dialogue so that we can have a verifiable pool of knowledge to work from here <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />

Cusashorn

01-05-2011, 06:21 PM

Wait, where is it mentioned that Innoruuk tried to steal Mithanial Marr's life essence? Every story I've ever heard said that was Cazic and Terris Thule who killed him and tried to steal his life essence, and it was Morrel who placed it into the Frogloks and Erollisi Marr.

Iskandar

01-05-2011, 07:30 PM

Good catch! In "From Pond to Paladin" it details the story. Innoruuk was just working on corrupting Erollisi, trying to turn her to the dark side, so to speak. Meanwhile, Cazic had captured and imprisoned Mithaniel, and used the nighmares of Terris to steal his Gift of Life. Morrell then stole it from her and gave half to Erollisi, who used it to create the Barbarians, and spread the other half over Innothule, to create the Frogloks.So Inny wasn't after the Gift of Life, but either Terris or Cazic seemed to be.You can read the full text on Zam <a href="http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/Origin_of_the_Barbarians_and_Frogloks" target="_blank">here</a> or on Wiki <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/From_Pond_to_Paladin,_Vol._I_(House_Item)" target="_blank">here</a> (book one) and <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/From_Pond_to_Paladin,_Vol._II_(House_Item)" target="_blank">here</a> (book two)

Rainmare

01-06-2011, 05:40 PM

Ah so my mistake on Inny then. but even that makes no sense..Cazic can create races too. he's responsible for Iksar and Trolls, I think. well at least the Iksar.there must be some cosmic rule or something that limits some of these gods apparently. Brell makes races like he's having them come off an assembly line, yet cazic wants to steal Mith Marrs gift after making 2 races?but even so we're still left with the idea of why Anashti would let Inny use the Ewer, or how Inny woudl steal it when what information was have about the planes tells us that Anashti would have known Inny entered Health once he set foot in it...all becuase if Mayong is a Ydal, like they are pushing it places thier creation at a time that likes to screw with things.

Iskandar

01-06-2011, 06:37 PM

Looking at Marr's predicament, I see two strong possibilities... one, the life-giving powers of the gods are cumulative, so if one god steals another's power he becomes twice as strong (like the Quickening in "Highlander")... or two, it's a "burned earth" policy, taking his power simply to keep the competition down.From what we have so far on the Ewer, we have Anashti creating the Ewer... Inny then uses the Ewer in Plane of Hate to create the Ydal... Norrath is then discovered and "colonized"... Theer then comes along and is banished... Anashti then uses the Ewer to release undeath on Norrath and is banished... Bert is then created at the tail end of the Age of Scale or early in the Elder Age... the Godking then hears Anashti from the Void and begins her worship again, creating Ahket Aken in her honor.I can see a few possibilities here too...<ol><li>Inny and Anashti worked together to create the Ewer. I don't think this is very likely though. </li><li>Anashti let Inny use the Ewer to create the Ydal as a "test run" of the Ewer's powers. I can kinda see this one -- at first, the results would have looked really good, and it would not have been until later that the "curse" revealed itself (perhaps it appeared as the Ydal bred, weakening the power of Inny's blood with each new generation?). By then Anashti would have been fixated on giving life eternal to her own followers, and a few mummies later she's getting a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" basket from Theer over in the Void. </li><li>Someone is lying to us. I think this is the single most probable answer. Perhaps Mayong fabricated the whole Ydal thing to add more to his mystery? Perhaps Anashti didn't create the Ewer, but simply claimed it -- maybe after Theer put the smackdown on it's previous owner? I don't see enough solid info right now to point the finger, but something from one of em just isn't adding up.</li></ol>

Cusashorn

01-06-2011, 06:57 PM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ah so my mistake on Inny then. but even that makes no sense..Cazic can create races too. he's responsible for Iksar and Trolls, I think. well at least the Iksar.there must be some cosmic rule or something that limits some of these gods apparently. Brell makes races like he's having them come off an assembly line, yet cazic wants to steal Mith Marrs gift after making 2 races?but even so we're still left with the idea of why Anashti would let Inny use the Ewer, or how Inny woudl steal it when what information was have about the planes tells us that Anashti would have known Inny entered Health once he set foot in it...all becuase if Mayong is a Ydal, like they are pushing it places thier creation at a time that likes to screw with things.</blockquote>Cazic killed Marr for ideological reasons. He wanted to corrupt him with the taint of Fear, so that he could spread his influence further on Norrath by eliminating the notions of honor and valor. If he couldn't corrupt him, then he figured that killing him might do the job just as well. It has nothing to do with absorbing his life essence in order to create more races.

Rainmare

01-06-2011, 07:22 PM

the problem I have with Anashti letting inny use the ewer is that of all the gods to choose from to ask 'will you test this?' the one she goes to is Inny? if we can base her probable allies of the allies of her replacement...Karana, Quellious, Prexus, though I thnk her time was before E.Marr so maybe Tunare or even Brell might have been an ally. all seem much more likely canidates. Especially Brell...since he likes to produce races at the rate rabbits breed.which would leave us with how would Inny get into PoHealth, stole the Ewer, and got out without her knowing, since the information we have from Mithaniel says that the second Inny gets into Health, his 'essence' influences the plane and cuases fighting/squabbling to break out...plus, judging from othe other gods and thier 'prized' items/relics...she likely carried the Ewer on her person.

Rainmare

01-06-2011, 07:41 PM

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ah so my mistake on Inny then. but even that makes no sense..Cazic can create races too. he's responsible for Iksar and Trolls, I think. well at least the Iksar.there must be some cosmic rule or something that limits some of these gods apparently. Brell makes races like he's having them come off an assembly line, yet cazic wants to steal Mith Marrs gift after making 2 races?but even so we're still left with the idea of why Anashti would let Inny use the Ewer, or how Inny woudl steal it when what information was have about the planes tells us that Anashti would have known Inny entered Health once he set foot in it...all becuase if Mayong is a Ydal, like they are pushing it places thier creation at a time that likes to screw with things.</blockquote>Cazic killed Marr for ideological reasons. He wanted to corrupt him with the taint of Fear, so that he could spread his influence further on Norrath by eliminating the notions of honor and valor. If he couldn't corrupt him, then he figured that killing him might do the job just as well. It has nothing to do with absorbing his life essence in order to create more races.</blockquote>Actually I reread it...and he doesn't try to kill mithaniel at all..adn the gift of life is indeed apower to create. however he has Terris steal it, telling her that she can't torture mithaniel until she does..Morelle steals it from her, and gives half to erollisis and spreads half on Innothule that gives rise to frogloks...so you could guess that Cazic wanted to give Terris the ability to create a race..becuase Terris is loyal to Cazic, a a race devoted to Nightmares would probably alos help fuel Fear.

Iskandar

01-06-2011, 08:30 PM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>the problem I have with Anashti letting inny use the ewer is that of all the gods to choose from to ask 'will you test this?' the one she goes to is Inny? if we can base her probable allies of the allies of her replacement...Karana, Quellious, Prexus, though I thnk her time was before E.Marr so maybe Tunare or even Brell might have been an ally. all seem much more likely canidates. Especially Brell...since he likes to produce races at the rate rabbits breed.which would leave us with how would Inny get into PoHealth, stole the Ewer, and got out without her knowing, since the information we have from Mithaniel says that the second Inny gets into Health, his 'essence' influences the plane and cuases fighting/squabbling to break out...plus, judging from othe other gods and thier 'prized' items/relics...she likely carried the Ewer on her person.</blockquote>That's why I think it's most likely we're missing a piece of the puzzle, either as a result of an NPC lying to us to misdirect us, or as a result of something we simply haven't discovered yet.For example, suppose another god was responsible for the Ewer, one whose name is even lost to us at this time. This unknown god could have worked with Inny to help him create the Ydal, perhaps being of evil alignment itself or just simply impartial enough to ignore ideological boundaries. Then during Theer's time, Theer could have slain the unknown god... and then Anashti scoops up the Ewer and lays claim to it, thinking it's perfect for helping people out. But since it's not really "hers" she just winds up making everyone undead instead, perhaps because she doesn't have true control over it or perhaps because the unknown god did something to keep others from using it (a booby trap, a secret password, a curse, that sorta thing).That would leave us with a chronology where everything fits, something more like: "Unknown" possesses the Ewer... "Unknown" helps Inny create the Ydal in PoH... Norrath is discovered... Theer comes along and kills "Unknown" before being banished... Anashti claims the Ewer and unleashes undeath.... BUT, all this hinges on there being an unknown dead god and Anashti lying about both the Ewer and the unknown god. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" />

Mary the Prophetess

01-07-2011, 01:30 AM

I think Mayong is lying. I think he, and the Ydal, were contemporaries to the Elder Elves of Tunare. When the Ydal were found to be flawed, Innoruuk turned to plan 'B', the kidnapping and corruption of Tunare's children.

The_Cheeseman

01-07-2011, 02:08 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think Mayong is lying. I think he, and the Ydal, were contemporaries to the Elder Elves of Tunare. When the Ydal were found to be flawed, Innoruuk turned to plan 'B', the kidnapping and corruption of Tunare's children.</blockquote>I must disagree. We have multiple sources, including lore dev tidbits, that allude to Mayong and his race existing before the creation of the Elves, and arguably before the population of Norrath. It isn't set in stone, certainly, but I do not see sufficient evidence against that theory to assume otherwise. Personally, having read the quotes that Iskandar posted, I am pretty confident in my original timeline. I have yet to find any canon details that directly contradict it, except that I thought Theer was banished before Norrath was discovered. However, that isn't really relevant to this discussion, anyway.*EDIT*I'd also like to add that this discussion has been very interesting and give thanks to all participants for the strides we have made thus far. There is a lot of good work going into this thread, so I think we should be very proud of how far we've come. Oh, and a special shout-out to Iskandar on that excellent compilation! Now, if only somebody had logs of all the Mistmoore-related dialogue from the Swords of Destiny timeline...

Iskandar

01-07-2011, 04:21 AM

Thanks! Glad the compilation has been handy <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Gathering all that info together definately helped me clear up a few bits and misconceptions I was stumbling over! Definately been a good discussion, too -- even kinda reminds me of a game of Clue! hehe! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />

BleemTeam

01-07-2011, 05:26 AM

Crazier things have been suggested. Ydal is Lady backwards. Mayong is a chick!

Tatsou

01-07-2011, 12:42 PM

But but.....i suggested it first about the ewer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />

MixxitNDance_Live

01-07-2011, 01:43 PM

Can someone post links to all these references please (RE: YDal) I don't know who to believe!

Cusashorn

01-07-2011, 03:30 PM

I can easily believe Mayong to be older than the Elves, but not the dragons despite all the stories that he was around to see the first brood. The only possible place in time where the whole Ydal thing could make sense is if they were created before the elves, but after the dragons.

Meirril

01-07-2011, 04:12 PM

<cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>I can easily believe Mayong to be older than the Elves, but not the dragons despite all the stories that he was around to see the first brood. The only possible place in time where the whole Ydal thing could make sense is if they were created before the elves, but after the dragons.</blockquote>The more we look at this, the more I am convinced that the only explination for Mayong is time travel.

Meirril

01-07-2011, 04:27 PM

<cite>Iskandar wrote:</cite><blockquote>The Ewer is described as "the very vessel that sprang life to the Fyr'Un, the River of Life that ran through the celestial worlds."The Ancille of D'Morte tells us that Anashti created the Ewer, "The Godking pays homage to the lost goddess Anashti Sul, the power that created the Ewer of Sul’Dae." Anashti also makes no secret that she claims the Ewer as her property.According to the backstory from EQ2Players, Roehn Theer apparently came along after Norrath was populated as well, "And the Nameless created the Gods and the Gods created all the races of Norrath to worship them and bring them honor and for many years all was well. But soon the Gods grew jealous and each coveted the worship of all mortals, that each might grow more powerful than the others. And the Gods of the Light and the Gods of the Dark made common cause against each other and mighty were the battles between them and all Norrath trembled. Then came the Nameless, He who created all things and He who shall end all things, and He sent forth His avatar into the world saying "Keep thou the balance, that no lesser God shall rise all powerful, and that neither Light nor Dark shall reign supreme." And thus did Roehn Theer the Godslayer come to Norrath and so did the Gods come to fear one who was both less and more than a God and for a short time peace returned to Norrath.The Ydal talismans point us to a creation of the Ydal after the Ewer is made. “The Ydal were the first dark elf race, created in the Plane of Hate by the evil god, Innoruuk. The dark elves would be spawned from dark ancient rituals cast upon the product of a single drop of Innoruuk’s blood, poured from the Ewer of Sul’Dae. These Ydal would share some of the powers and appearance of their deity.”Jindrack tells us that Anashti was on Norrath and her banishment was as a result of unleashing undeath here, "Anashti Sul, the original Prime Healer, was sentenced to non-existence by the other gods when she unwittingly released undeath upon the inhabitants of early Norrath. Rodcet Nife would be later appointed to take her place."Anashti has a pressence on Norrath sometime before the Elddar Empire. "The Godking Anuk is the founder of the City of Life, Ahket Aken. He is also the prophet of the lost Goddess of Life, Anashti Sul. Long ago did he discover her lost shrine within the Elddar Empire. Through her forgotten words he rose from the ranks of the Elddar Empire and cast free the Dal religions. He is the only known chosen prophet of Anashti Sul. He is the all powerful ruler of Ahket Aken and is the harbinger of the gift of Anashti Sul, the gift of undeath. The Godking Anuk resides in the Inner Temple of the royal districts of Ahket Aken."There is a tangible connection between Anashti and the Ewer, which she uses to reclaim it once she returns to Norrath, as Plumetor Dul'Sadma relates to us during the deity questline, "Anashti Sul is ready to make her return to Norrath, and she is preparing to take back the Plane of Health, as it is rightfully hers. However, she has mentioned something troubling... something that has even angered her. ... The Ewer of Sul'Dae, her precious artifact, has been destroyed, and the pieces removed from the temple of the Fountain of Life! It no longer funnels the power of the Fyr'Un as it once did, and the River of Life is dwindling down to nothing. Without that artifact, Anashti Sul will have a far more difficult time claiming what is rightfully hers. ... Anashti Sul is close enough now that her power can return the Ewer if we can empower it once again. To do that, we will need to collect waters from the River of Life, the Fyr'Un. If we return the waters of the Fyr'Un to the Ewer, then Anashti Sul can use her connection to the Ewer to move it herself."</blockquote>And these are the reasons why the Ydal can't be older than dragons. Anashti'Sul created the Ewer on Norrath and unleashed Undeath. For that she was banished. Probably before Theer came to Norrath or after he was banished to the void. After it was created Inny used it to create the Ydal. Most likely Anashti wasn't around because if she was she could simply call it to herself. It seems silly to think you can steal the physical embodiment of a god's power when the god can prevent this. Maybe if Inny used some kind of trap on her he could take the Ewer. It is perfectly reasonable to think that Inny probably helped to lay the trap that the gods used to bind Anashti before they banished her to the void. Inny seems to have a lot of experience at trapping other gods. While trapped, Inny would have an opportunity to aquire the Ewer disguised as "weakening" Anashti to keep her bound.Also the other gods being involved in banishing Anashti indicate that they have some sort of stake already in Norrath. That indicates that the first races must of been created. We're fairly certain that Elves were amongst the first races. If not, then it would be "Brell banished Anashti to the void...by himself!". Which would certainly explain why nobody messes with Brell, but seems unlikely.

Mary the Prophetess

01-07-2011, 06:28 PM

It was during the Age of Scale that Veeshan deposited the First Brood upon Norrath. It was also during the Age of Scale, (sometime), that Brell discovered Veeshaan's world of Norrath, and informed Tunare, Prexus, and Rallos Zek of the discovery. Brell proposed a pact among these gods to create their own races upon Norrath as a balance against Veeshan's dragons. Brell kept hidden the fact that he had already created his first races in the Underfoot of Norrath.The other gods (except for Rallos) agreed to the pact and created their own respective races on Norrath. The Elves of Tunare, the Kedge of Prexus, the Giants of Rallos Zek, and the Dwarves for Brell Serilis. Their creation marked the end of the Age of Scale and the start of the Elder Age.It was during the Age of Monuments which followed the Elder Age, that Innoruuk learned about what had been taken place upon Norrath, and he went into a rage at not having been invited to the first council of the gods. It was during this age that he kidnapped and corrupted the Elvish king and queen, and their loyal subjects who had follwed in an attempt to rescue them, thus creating the Teir 'Dal.According to Mayong (who is the only source for this information), he, (and by implication the Ydal race), were already around prior to the beginning of the Age of Scale.We have independant sources (other than Mayong) that attest to the fact that he, (Mayong), is very old, perhaps as old as 10,000 years, but the ONLY source I am aware of that makes the claim that Mayong was around to see Veeshan's discovery of Norrath comes from Mayong himself, and no other.It is entirely possible that the Age of Scale and the Elder Age were in fact thousands of years before our present Age of Destiny, There is nothing in Mayong's longevity alone that places him before the age of Scale. He could very well be 10,000 years old and have been created with the Ydal during the Elder Age. The lore does not preclude that possibility. We simply have no way of knowing how far back the Age of Scale was or the Elder Age from where we now are.If there is ANY lore source (other than Mayong) that corroborates his version, (that he was alive to see the First Brood deposited upon Norrath), could someone please list it?

Rezikai

01-07-2011, 07:00 PM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Iskandar wrote:</cite><blockquote>-lots o'stuff-</blockquote>And these are the reasons why the Ydal can't be older than dragons. Anashti'Sul created the Ewer on Norrath and unleashed Undeath. For that she was banished. Probably before Theer came to Norrath or after he was banished to the void. After it was created Inny used it to create the Ydal. Most likely Anashti wasn't around because if she was she could simply call it to herself. It seems silly to think you can steal the physical embodiment of a god's power when the god can prevent this. Maybe if Inny used some kind of trap on her he could take the Ewer. It is perfectly reasonable to think that Inny probably helped to lay the trap that the gods used to bind Anashti before they banished her to the void. Inny seems to have a lot of experience at trapping other gods. While trapped, Inny would have an opportunity to aquire the Ewer disguised as "weakening" Anashti to keep her bound.Also the other gods being involved in banishing Anashti indicate that they have some sort of stake already in Norrath. That indicates that the first races must of been created. We're fairly certain that Elves were amongst the first races. If not, then it would be "Brell banished Anashti to the void...by himself!". Which would certainly explain why nobody messes with Brell, but seems unlikely.</blockquote>This i find interesting, I remember doing the peacock line and being told she unleashed undeath on Norrath, but did it ever say why the Ewer was created or when this happened? Im having trouble remembering if that was the text.

Rainmare

01-07-2011, 08:08 PM

in the quote about mayong Iksander posted you can see that Vhalen states Mayong is old enough to have witnessed the First Brood. now wether that means putting them on Norrath, or wether that means when the First Brood was actually active on Norrath in a large scale (before the Claws selcuded themselves on Velious and the Ring went and basically did the same on Kunark) we're not sure.We know the Ydal were cloistered away in Plane of Hate...so who knows when they were exactly created...other then he used the Ewer to do it. and who knows how long that was before or during the Age of Scale. the real problem we have with the Ydal is the devs trying to shove the idea Mayong is one. if mayong isn't one, then the Ydal fit pretty easy into things.for all we know...if Mayong is NOT Ydal...that Mayong is the last survivor of the race Anashti used the Ewer on upon norrath...or the one and only 'test subject' for it's use. it makes him his own race, it fits with him being around during the age of scale perhaps..since Anashti is a 'forgotten' goddess during the Elder Age.plus it seems the Ewer's 'undeath' is different for different races. Humans seem to become zombies...dark elves become vampires..the Dal that inhabit Aket Ahken become mummified. Maybe Mayong is more like 'Blade' all the vampiric strengths, virtually none of thier weaknesses and possessing vampiric thirst.of course this conflicts with the idea that Norrath was completely lifeless before V marks it. though the Behemoths (Chel'drak) are supposedly as old/older then the dragons.

DrkVsr

01-08-2011, 03:21 AM

Agree with Rainy: Mayong having seen the First Brood doesn't have to mean he was there watching when V squated behind a bush and plopped out some eggs, it just meant that at some time before the overgrown skinks went into hiding he was around to see them

Cusashorn

01-08-2011, 04:38 AM

<cite>DrkVsr wrote:</cite><blockquote>Agree with Rainy: Mayong having seen the First Brood doesn't have to mean he was there watching when V squated behind a bush and plopped out some eggs, it just meant that at some time before the overgrown skinks went into hiding he was around to see them</blockquote>Which would place him in the era where Brell Serilis came around and started creating races specifically because Veeshan deposited her brood. It was the reason he came to Norrath after all.

Iskandar

01-08-2011, 08:32 AM

That makes sense to me. In EQ1's Darkhollow raid, Mayong says he was witness to both the Rallosian invasion of PoEarth as well as the fall of Takish'Hiz. This puts him at least as far back as the early Age of Monuments. To me, it seems that Anashti was banished sometime in the early Elder Age -- she doesn't know who Bertoxxulous is, and his origin seems to fall in either the very last part of the Age of Scale or the early Elder Age, as dragons are still dominant and relatively unchallenged. And since Dragons are known to live exceptionally long lifetimes, compared to many of the other races, Mayong could have "witnessed" the first brood in the early Elder Age, before they *ahem* got busy making some more broods! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />Hmmm... now I wonder if the "unknown god" referenced in "The Necropolis of Lxanvon" could have been Anashti? Could the Xulous have been her contribution to the races of Norrath? Perhaps her release of undeath is what corrupted and destroyed them, leading to the creation of Bert? This would have been a fairly violent period, when both the gods and the mortal races were battling each other for power and control... when the Nameless creates and sends Theer to Norrath to quiet the kids down... not the most fun of times.Hmmmm... and now I wonder if perhaps Mayong is from the Xulous race -- if THEY are actually the Ydal? Xulous is, after all, just a word the dragons used to describe them... their true name is unknown. They're described as "a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh world ruled by the scaled children of Veeshan" -- and the Ydal talismans say "These Ydal would share some of the powers and appearance of their deity".... a powerful race of dragonslayers, slowly destroyed from within by their own corruption, until they finally fall to a deadly plague spread by the undead... *coughvampirismcough* Sooo... Perhaps Inny is actually the one who created the Xulous/Ydal, and when Anashti attempts to help them with the Ewer she curses them with vampirism?Yeah, I know, I should stop speculating this early in the morning and just go back to sleep <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" />

Lorriana

01-08-2011, 09:54 AM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>if inny can create his own race, at all, they why would he specifically go after Mith Marr's 'essence of life' for the sole purpose of being able to create a race? it's proven that gods that can create races, can do so as many times as they want. (Brell is a big example of that here). thus is seems that Inny cannot create his own race, which is why he attempted to steal mith marrs ability to do so for that purpose, and explains why he has, up until this talk of the Ydal, corrupted other races to suit his ideas.</blockquote> Somewhere in this thread, someone compared Inny to Sauron from LotR. I really think he is more akin to Morgoth. In the beginning, Morgoth (Melkor at the time) could make things like the other Valar. He increasingly stole ideas (songs) from the others out of envy. He molded and improved on these ideas, making them his own. After some time of this, he lost the ability to create and was forced to warp the creations of others. I think that perhaps this is what the idea of Inny is/was. Or perhaps I'm totally wrong. Who knows. It is a theory that makes some actions make sense.

fishbulb

01-08-2011, 11:50 AM

<cite>Iskandar wrote:</cite><blockquote>That makes sense to me. In EQ1's Darkhollow raid, Mayong says he was witness to both the Rallosian invasion of PoEarth as well as the fall of Takish'Hiz. This puts him at least as far back as the early Age of Monuments. To me, it seems that Anashti was banished sometime in the early Elder Age -- she doesn't know who Bertoxxulous is, and his origin seems to fall in either the very last part of the Age of Scale or the early Elder Age, as dragons are still dominant and relatively unchallenged. And since Dragons are known to live exceptionally long lifetimes, compared to many of the other races, Mayong could have "witnessed" the first brood in the early Elder Age, before they *ahem* got busy making some more broods! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />Hmmm... now I wonder if the "unknown god" referenced in "The Necropolis of Lxanvon" could have been Anashti? Could the Xulous have been her contribution to the races of Norrath? Perhaps her release of undeath is what corrupted and destroyed them, leading to the creation of Bert? This would have been a fairly violent period, when both the gods and the mortal races were battling each other for power and control... when the Nameless creates and sends Theer to Norrath to quiet the kids down... not the most fun of times.Hmmmm... and now I wonder if perhaps Mayong is from the Xulous race -- if THEY are actually the Ydal? Xulous is, after all, just a word the dragons used to describe them... their true name is unknown. They're described as "a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh world ruled by the scaled children of Veeshan" -- and the Ydal talismans say "These Ydal would share some of the powers and appearance of their deity".... a powerful race of dragonslayers, slowly destroyed from within by their own corruption, until they finally fall to a deadly plague spread by the undead... *coughvampirismcough* Sooo... Perhaps Inny is actually the one who created the Xulous/Ydal, and when Anashti attempts to help them with the Ewer she curses them with vampirism?Yeah, I know, I should stop speculating this early in the morning and just go back to sleep <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I'd say the unknown god is more likely Xul'Varien. Them worshiping an already banished Anashti -instead of their creator- doesn't add up with what we already know for certain about the Xulous: they deified Bertoxxulous. If they suddenly abandoned Anashti for Bertoxxulous, she wouldn't be talking about not knowing of him when she returns to Norrath.This also creates a real logjam in southwestern Tunaria. We've already got the Jal'Raeth and the Xulous in that area around the same time, mirroring each other almost perfectly, probably being each other. I have difficulty fitting the Ydal into that same epoch, and I have even more trouble trying to imagine Anashti attempting to cure them of vampirism with a power she already knows to cause similar states of undeath.Edit: More stuff.

Iskandar

01-08-2011, 03:36 PM

<cite>fishbulb wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'd say the unknown god is more likely Xul'Varien. Them worshiping an already banished Anashti -instead of their creator- doesn't add up with what we already know for certain about the Xulous: they deified Bertoxxulous. If they suddenly abandoned Anashti for Bertoxxulous, she wouldn't be talking about not knowing of him when she returns to Norrath.This also creates a real logjam in southwestern Tunaria. We've already got the Jal'Raeth and the Xulous in that area around the same time, mirroring each other almost perfectly, probably being each other. I have difficulty fitting the Ydal into that same epoch, and I have even more trouble trying to imagine Anashti attempting to cure them of vampirism with a power she already knows to cause similar states of undeath. </blockquote>At the point where the Xulous began their decline, it's possible Anashti was still free... she wouldn't have been there to see the creation of Bert at the end of their decline though. And rather than curing vampirism, that would be the "curse" Anashti inflicts upon them with the Ewer in trying to make them forever healthy. Xul'Varien would also work as a creator for them as well (and clicks with the dragon's name for them, too). And hmmm, I'd totally forgotten about the Jal'Raeth... that does put a damper on the idea, as I do kinda doubt the same race would have three different names it was known by -- but still, it was a fun conjecture! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />I do still beleive that somewhere in the limited lore we have for that time period we'll find the answers.

MixxitNDance_Live

01-08-2011, 10:11 PM

Xulous background from EQ1: <a href="http://www.lorelibrary.com/?page=book&bid=168" target="_blank">The eldest of dragons sometimes whisper tales of this lost race of beings who were the first to stand against and slay the great children of Veeshan.</a>When's the first time the dragon's got into a war with anyone but themselves?<a href="http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/news_article.vm?id=50865&month=032008" target="_blank">The crypt was originally built upon Antonica in an age long past to house the dead kings of a long dead ancient race. That race called it Lxanvom that means in their tongue, 'Kings Rest'. </a>From the above we can see the dragons were fighting the Xulous on antonica somewhere very early in history<a href="http://www.lorelibrary.com/?page=website&wid=103&ss=rodcet%20nife" target="_blank">"Is there disease here? Has the Xulous force reached this world?"</a>And we know they have been on other planets - could explain how they saw the first brood of veeshan

ratbast

11-07-2011, 05:18 AM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>I can easily believe Mayong to be older than the Elves, but not the dragons despite all the stories that he was around to see the first brood. The only possible place in time where the whole Ydal thing could make sense is if they were created before the elves, but after the dragons.</blockquote>The more we look at this, the more I am convinced that the only explination for Mayong is time travel.</blockquote>how about-nameless creates 4 elemental dieties, and their respective planes, and creates void, ethernere, and 'middle earth' (standard planets including norrath), the basic skeleton of space-time, plus some trash lifeforms, like behemoths/giant slugs -4 elemental dieties create gods of influence and their respective planes of influence, which fill the space-time/are bridges between the planes 'nameless' made (fire, air, water, earth, norrath, void, ethernere) -anashi creates ewer, then creates river of life, allowing souls to enter the universe and inhabit sentient races -gods of influence create their races within their planes -gods of influence deposit their races on norrath and other standard planets, middle earth being the 'nexus'/crossroads of all planes, the main event, the central battlefield.in my view, ydal were created by innoruuk (maybe not a race of mortals, but demigod offspring of inny), in the plane of hate, in mistmyr, BEFORE veeshan came to norrath. and that myong was one of the original ydal, and had some scrying device he used from plane of hate, or was transported and actually present on norrath when veeshan came to norrath. in the time when creepy behemoths where only life.seems like easy plot device to say inny could create bodily demigod offspring, but each successive child was more corrupt, myong being the first and perfect ydal. myong needs perfect offspring from other diety (dal of tunare), which is compatible with him (inny molded dal=teir'dal) to create immortal offspring, tserinna no longer qualified after non-teir'dal taint.inny child + tunare child (modified by inny) = master humanoid race, leveraging races of 2 dieties, kinda like leveraging fire and ice dragon = prismatic dragon. what if 2 gods had a baby? myong + tserinna...last i heard about his lovelife, myong was trying to hook up with leyna, after tserinna was tainted.anyway, i dont see myong timeline in relation to first brood to be inconsistent. what i do find interesting, is that inny allowed his race (ydal) to have a natural recorded history within his plane before they came to norrath, unlike all other races. other races first recollection is simply existing on norrath.i would like to see more info on myongs relation to inny, and his temporary ascension to godhood. would also be great to see plane of sky categorized as power or influence. veeshan the crystalline is a mystery. seems like posky would be offshoot of plane of air (power), but veeshan has the disinterest of an elemental god, not a god of influence), she has offspring like gods of influence too.I would like to see eq2 explore the other anchors, even if transportation is not provided by void, as well as a wrap up of xulous, tanaan, nizari. there are more worlds to discover, tie up some loose ends, and press on.the main question i am left with, is how do mortal travelers thru this universe become deified? they are passing souls, not pillars of this existence like the rathe. stopping the flow of souls creates logistical problems.i have come to conclusion that life is like this, personal offspring, and planar offspringpersonal:nameless->gods of power ->behemoths gods of power->gods of influence gods of influence->demigods gods of influence->racesplanar (created by a plane itself instead of by an individual):nameless->planes of power->asexual elemental lifeforms (fire elementals, valkarie)nameless->gods of power->planes of influence->asexual influence lifeforms (amyg, orcs?)with this in mind, it puts a new twist on half orc children, being 1/2 personal, and 1/2 influence planar creatures.what other planar races are in lore?edit: forgot harpy, siren, fairy, naiad; naiad are definitely extra planar in origin, iirc naga are not a reproducing race, just enchanted to be that way

Mary the Prophetess

11-07-2011, 05:56 AM

The Principle of Occam's Razor would indicate that the theory requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely. Given that, the simplest explanation it seems to me, is simply that Mayong is lying.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-07-2011, 05:14 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>The Principle of Occam's Razor would indicate that the theory requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely. Given that, the simplest explanation it seems to me, is simply that Mayong is lying.</blockquote>I'm not sure this is entirely fair - alot of the post-everquest1 lore created by the developer who said it gets dismissed without a thought on this board so why is this now perceived cannon to everquest2?Also Vahlar said 'he's said to have seen the first of Veeshan's brood' which doesn't mean Mayong is lying at all, it could just be rumour.

Rainmare

11-07-2011, 07:27 PM

I don't think mayong is lying. look at past history with Mayong...one of his 'quirks' is that he tends to tell you exactly how things are. Mostly becuase there's very little you can do about it. He knows he has the upperhand and most of the cards are stacked in his favor.Mayong keeps his origins shrouded for good reason: He doesn't want anyone finding a weakness.His vampirism is unique. he direct children so far (Lenya/Tserrina) are also unique. he's the only vampire that has successfully been able to turn a dragon. but that doesn't mean that if you knew how he became a vampire, and what he was before, that there isn't some horribly crippling weakness in the mix.but even then, he still drops big hints that he was SOME kind of elf. that Mystmyr is a place, not just a name. I would not be surprised if further along the Age's End prophecy, that we do find out exactly what mayong is. and why we more then likely will have to help him and work with him, rather then against him.

Meirril

11-07-2011, 09:32 PM

<cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote>i have come to conclusion that life is like this, personal offspring, and planar offspringpersonal:nameless->gods of power ->behemoths gods of power->gods of influence gods of influence->demigods gods of influence->racesplanar (created by a plane itself instead of by an individual):nameless->planes of power->asexual elemental lifeforms (fire elementals, valkarie)nameless->gods of power->planes of influence->asexual influence lifeforms (amyg, orcs?)with this in mind, it puts a new twist on half orc children, being 1/2 personal, and 1/2 influence planar creatures.what other planar races are in lore?</blockquote>replace "power" with "elemental". The Elemental dieties were created by the Nameless. The Gods of Influence came into being afterward. Most were created by the Elemental Dieties (usually as their children) or other Gods of Influence but many are unaccounted for or we know had no connection to the rest of the pathenon. Tunare, Inny, Cazic, Brell and Zek: no idea what their origin is. Marr Twins, Fennin Ro, Perexus are all greater dieties that have elemental gods as parents. Demi-gods are mortals that were raised to divine status by another god.Self-made: Zeberbox. Found out the secret of how divinity works and made himself a god. Has been variously banished from existance and given partial amnesia to protect the divine order. It is possible that Zeb might know how to contact the Nameless directly, or invoke his power to elevate someone to a divine status. It is also possible that it is impossible for the other gods to destroy Zeb, which accounts for the elaborate traps used to contain him and the reason he was never allowed to be released or even known of in EQ1.BTW: Orcs, Gnolls, Giants and other races are assumed to have children and grow similar to other races in game unless you have evidence that leads you to believe otherwise. Just because a female model doesn't exist doesn't mean the race reproduces asexually. Give the art team a break.Now races that came directly from another plane may or may not reproduce, or they could be asexual or have some sort of magically enhanced reproduction. How they work is much more at the whim of the individual diety rather than being greatly influenced by Growth which leads to sexual reproduction that we're more accustom to.

Meirril

11-07-2011, 09:47 PM

<cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't think mayong is lying. look at past history with Mayong...one of his 'quirks' is that he tends to tell you exactly how things are. Mostly becuase there's very little you can do about it. He knows he has the upperhand and most of the cards are stacked in his favor.Mayong keeps his origins shrouded for good reason: He doesn't want anyone finding a weakness.His vampirism is unique. he direct children so far (Lenya/Tserrina) are also unique. he's the only vampire that has successfully been able to turn a dragon. but that doesn't mean that if you knew how he became a vampire, and what he was before, that there isn't some horribly crippling weakness in the mix.but even then, he still drops big hints that he was SOME kind of elf. that Mystmyr is a place, not just a name. I would not be surprised if further along the Age's End prophecy, that we do find out exactly what mayong is. and why we more then likely will have to help him and work with him, rather then against him.</blockquote>Mayong has a habit of telling partial truths, and allowing others to come to false conclusions. His minions and followers tend to lie out right when it could offer an advantage. It isn't beyond Mayong to create an elaborate hoax to amuse himself and allow you to believe it really happened.Mayong is indeed unique. As far as we can tell he is the origional vampire. Since undeath wasn't known before Anashti create the Ewer, it is possible that Mayong was involved in the Ewer's early history. Maybe he drank from it and was the only being not killed by it, but rather allowed him to pass on the curse of vampirism.I'm still betting on the time travel theory, Mayong was only born 50 years ago during the age of Cataclysm. He, as an adventurer is involved in stopping Keryfyrm from wrecking havor over Norrath. In the final battle the young Mayong is flung into the past to become his current self. Mayong is a direct decendent of Emperor Thex who was trapped on Fadewyr and part of a secret trist that the modern day Mayong arranged between the defeated emporor and Leyna before she became a vampire. All of Mayong's manuvering and scheming is to make sure his own creation is assured.After that he announces to the world that he is quite frankly disappointed in all of you and retires to a quiet life of finishing his collections of rare and unique trash collected through various agents in every city in the world. His vast spy network performs information brokerage and blackmail to aquire all the various furniture and trinkets needed to lure adventurers to spend vast amounts of time and plat to assemble these sets for Mayong's private collection.Mayong's final act will be to collect enough fragments of Luclin to build his own Luclin on a 1:1 scale model. After he completes it he will steal the nexus from Stonebrunt Highlands for his New Luclin and open it as a theme park.

ratbast

11-07-2011, 11:19 PM

when it comes to orcs, i know there is a substantial following of norrath loremasters who think there are no orc females(and not cuz they havent been implemented yet).they have special names for it, better than "asexual reproduction". they speculate about the harem room in DFC, etc.there are several single gender races throughout norrath, and unsurprisingly, they tend to have a planar origin. naiad, lamia, golems, valkarie.fairies and orcs seem more mainstreamed, but arasai and fae are only fairy type creatures that have males. fairies could come from plane of air, and orcs could come from plane of war. females for elemental planes, males for influence planes.i think it would cool if they said planar can mate with regular races, but offspring lose planar traits, such as gender-lock. elemental fairy mates with elf -> fae, elemental fairy mates with dark elf->arasai.pair an amyg with a human, and you get a mind flayer, the next playable race! ill be buying a race change potion for sure.

The_Cheeseman

11-08-2011, 12:41 AM

Mayong was not the first vampire, I believe this is specifically mentioned during the Soulfire signature quest series. However, it is generally accepted that he is the last surviving member of his unique race, the Ydal. Since the Ydal were created by Innorruuk using his blood and the Ewer, I think it's a fair assumption that the Ydal were all afflicted with Vampirism, which is what eventually lead to their extinction. This would make Mayong the oldest (un)living vampire, as well as the only one of his kind. Other varieties of vampires obviously exist, each one created by the Ewer's influence corrupting a member of another race, but Mayong seems to be the only surviving being who is a vampire "naturally."Since the Ydal lived in Mistmyr, a region of the Plane of Hate, they could very well pre-date Veeshan's arrival on Norrath without messing-up the timeline as we know it.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-08-2011, 01:13 AM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote>i have come to conclusion that life is like this, personal offspring, and planar offspringpersonal:nameless->gods of power ->behemoths gods of power->gods of influence gods of influence->demigods gods of influence->racesplanar (created by a plane itself instead of by an individual):nameless->planes of power->asexual elemental lifeforms (fire elementals, valkarie)nameless->gods of power->planes of influence->asexual influence lifeforms (amyg, orcs?)with this in mind, it puts a new twist on half orc children, being 1/2 personal, and 1/2 influence planar creatures.what other planar races are in lore?</blockquote>replace "power" with "elemental". The Elemental dieties were created by the Nameless. The Gods of Influence came into being afterward. Most were created by the Elemental Dieties (usually as their children) or other Gods of Influence but many are unaccounted for or we know had no connection to the rest of the pathenon. Tunare, Inny, Cazic, Brell and Zek: no idea what their origin is. Marr Twins, Fennin Ro, Perexus are all greater dieties that have elemental gods as parents. Demi-gods are mortals that were raised to divine status by another god.Self-made: Zeberbox. Found out the secret of how divinity works and made himself a god. Has been variously banished from existance and given partial amnesia to protect the divine order. It is possible that Zeb might know how to contact the Nameless directly, or invoke his power to elevate someone to a divine status. It is also possible that it is impossible for the other gods to destroy Zeb, which accounts for the elaborate traps used to contain him and the reason he was never allowed to be released or even known of in EQ1.BTW: Orcs, Gnolls, Giants and other races are assumed to have children and grow similar to other races in game unless you have evidence that leads you to believe otherwise. Just because a female model doesn't exist doesn't mean the race reproduces asexually. Give the art team a break.Now races that came directly from another plane may or may not reproduce, or they could be asexual or have some sort of magically enhanced reproduction. How they work is much more at the whim of the individual diety rather than being greatly influenced by Growth which leads to sexual reproduction that we're more accustom to.</blockquote>Bill Trosts design of this explains it quite well<img src="http://loreofnorrath.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/planes-of-everquest.png?w=576&h=724" width="576" height="724" />

Velenda

11-09-2011, 03:32 AM

Hmm....I wonder.Does Mayong know what his origins are? Has he made any indication that he had parents? Or is his birth more supernatural in origin? Does he remeber it all or.........is he not revealing anything because even he dosen't know.

Rainmare

11-09-2011, 04:04 AM

Mayong knows his origin I'm sure. he refers to his past a few times, he alludes that he is/was some form of elf. I wouldn't be surprised if he is a Ydal, the last of them. I would also not be surprised if thier 'origin' isn't as 'superpowerful' as they think...that they are not direct descendants from Inny, but were certainly 'created' from his influence.We know Inny captured the original Dal king and Queen, and that they eventually became his Tier'dal. we know that they weren't the only dal he got his hands on. I wouldn't be surprised if the Ydal were Tunarian elves, that Inny 'turned' using the Ewer in an experiment.we know that the Ewer used on elves can make them vampiric. we know they turn eachother by drinking from it. if inny infused his blood into the ewer, could it have 'turned' other Dal into the Ydal? who turned out to be a 'failure' in inny's opinion. according to what we know they basically turned on eachother and destroyed themselves.So for experiment number 2, Inny got more 'hands on' and created the Tier'dal directly by remolding Naythanox and Cristanos both physically and mentally.We know the Dal were Tunare's response to Veeshaan. so even if we say that Inny took some dal and made them into Ydal with the ewer, it still keeps the idea that Mayong's claim to have 'been here to see the First Brood' intact. it coudl even hint at the comment he makes to Tier'dal of 'he used to be like you' not meanign he was a tier'dal, but meaning that like all tier'dal, he is descended from the original Dal race..and his 'offshoot' is due to Inny's influence.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-09-2011, 04:44 AM

Why don't you look at it from bill trosts perspective and see where he would have got the idea from? No doubt <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystara" target="_blank">some dnd supplement</a> he <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Greyhawk" target="_blank">played with vhalen </a>has given him the idea of what mayong and <a href="http://loreofnorrath.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/lucan-dlere-char-sheet.png?w=603&h=802" target="_blank">lucans past</a> is and that will probably lead you to mayongs origins - at least we know when bill played him he intended him to be a chaotic-good <a href="http://loreofnorrath.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/mayong.png?w=589&h=798" target="_blank">Champion Wizard Elf</a>I believe, deep down, that the lore for Mayong's past in this universe has not been written and even the later devs on eq1 said that even they did not know much about him and that his past is meant to be mysterious.I can pretty much assume that at launch, the elf thing translated over in the character's model and his castle and the choice of minions there but when people started asking questions about his background they decided that it might be interesting to say he wasn't an elfAll in all who is to say till it is written! Maybe in Trost's head he journeyed to this world from the old when he was still coming up with art and background lore for the game back in 96/97 and that his lore was never expanded too much on because of it's basis in DnD and it just worked out to keep it mysterious but in Trost's head he probably see's mayong's history as one long timeline in from grayhawk to norrathNow what some newer lore devs decide to do with his history from this point onwards we will have to wait and see but i'm sure it will be suprising!

The_Cheeseman

11-09-2011, 07:54 AM

I believe that Vhalen once said that all the clues to Mayong's Origin are already in-game, and it was just a matter of piecing them together. I also highly doubt that the EQ2 dev team would make Mayong so integral to the story of EQ2 without at least having a general idea of his origins. One of Mayong's major motivations seems to be preventing the same fate that befell his race from happening again, so there has to be some information on what actually did happen to his race.

Velenda

11-09-2011, 11:56 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I believe that Vhalen once said that all the clues to Mayong's Origin are already in-game, and it was just a matter of piecing them together. I also highly doubt that the EQ2 dev team would make Mayong so integral to the story of EQ2 without at least having a general idea of his origins. One of Mayong's major motivations seems to be preventing the same fate that befell his race from happening again, so there has to be some information on what actually did happen to his race.</blockquote>I wonder if someone could start piecing it togeather? Some folks have some info, and some folks have other info...if they can put it all togeather perhaps the answer is there?That would be an interesting project to undertake.

Kvanilya

11-09-2011, 08:29 PM

Okay this is some info I *think* has been put out there before as being what is known of Mayong.First, he is Ydal and it was hinted this was the race of Elves created by Tunare and were the same Elves which Innoruuk took the King and Queen to corrupt into the Teir'Dal.Second, there is lore that it was Innoruuk who made Mistmoore a Vampire. Possibly the first one by the lore IG from EQ1. Mistmoore feared dying, went to Inny and pleaded for immortality and Inny made him into a Vampire. From EQ1, Inny was the father of the Vampires from some of the lore.Third, Anashti Sul, so far as I've seen has never been credited with creating Vampires. She's been credited with creating Undeath only. All you ever see of her turned followers are Zombies, or other Undead. No Vampires.Fourth, Mistmoore in EQ1 and it appears he has carried it over to EQ2, seems to like the Teir'Dals still for his minions. While the larger Vampires in his Castle look more like they could be potential turned Ydal, it was Teir'Dal he had in his old Castle in EQ1 and it is Teir'Dal appearances you see a lot around his Castle even now and even among his named minions. Look at Tserrina and her history, she was Teir'Dal as well.

Meirril

11-09-2011, 08:55 PM

<cite>Kvanilya wrote:</cite><blockquote>Okay this is some info I *think* has been put out there before as being what is known of Mayong.First, he is Ydal and it was hinted this was the race of Elves created by Tunare and were the same Elves which Innoruuk took the King and Queen to corrupt into the Teir'Dal.Second, there is lore that it was Innoruuk who made Mistmoore a Vampire. Possibly the first one by the lore IG from EQ1. Mistmoore feared dying, went to Inny and pleaded for immortality and Inny made him into a Vampire. From EQ1, Inny was the father of the Vampires from some of the lore.Third, Anashti Sul, so far as I've seen has never been credited with creating Vampires. She's been credited with creating Undeath only. All you ever see of her turned followers are Zombies, or other Undead. No Vampires.Fourth, Mistmoore in EQ1 and it appears he has carried it over to EQ2, seems to like the Teir'Dals still for his minions. While the larger Vampires in his Castle look more like they could be potential turned Ydal, it was Teir'Dal he had in his old Castle in EQ1 and it is Teir'Dal appearances you see a lot around his Castle even now and even among his named minions. Look at Tserrina and her history, she was Teir'Dal as well.</blockquote>A lot of this info I've never herd of before. Sources please?I have a feeling some of this EQ1 info may come from post-split lore which means it isn't cannon for EQ2. That doesn't mean it can't become lore in EQ2, it just means we should ignore it until a dev brings it into existance here.

Rainmare

11-09-2011, 11:25 PM

Dal were the original Tunarian elves, not Ydal. that's why the branches all have Dal in teh name. Teir'dal (elves of the abyss) Renda'dal (pure elves) Ayr'dal (half elves) Feir'dal (wood elves) Koada'dal (high elves) Sul'dal (sand elves) Kerig'dal (elves of war)from the lore in the Anashti diety line and the aftermath of DoF, it is explained that the Ewer of Sul'dal was brought ot neriak and rebuilt. when they used it, it turned the Tier'dal into Vampires (the D'yril clan) and they used the ewer (up until players take it in the deity line) to turn others. also, Vamprism IS a form of undeath. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />It was thier experiments in learning to turn others without the ewer, and to strengthen thier bloodline, that resulted in Sarkon and the Freeblood origins.the little bit we have on the Ydal is that thier 'origin' story is that Inny put his blood into the Ewer, and they are the result. and that they Ydal hailed from PoHate, in an area called Mystmyr, and that they fought against eachother and killed themselves off over time.Mayong comments once that 'we know so much more then we did in mystmyr' his claim to have been present to see the First Brood, seems to hint that his is/was a Ydal. and the last one. we know he had a lover named Zanne, adn the writing about her seems to hint at a romeo and juliet situation. lovers on opposite sides of a conflict.if you did the RoK sig line as a tier'dal, when you talk to Mayong he comments that he remembers what it was like when he was like you. which has left some thinking he was a Tier'dal before he was turned..I think it might refer that he was a Dal originally.

The_Cheeseman

11-10-2011, 01:48 AM

Mayong's line to Tier'dal at the end of the RoK "Fate of Norrath" quest series seems to me to indicate more that he feels a kinship with the Tier'dal, and sees some of his own race in them, not that he actually was one of them. I believe that he is referring to the Tier'dal and their devotion to their creator, Innoruuk. Mayong is not a fan of Innoruuk, and it's obvious from the dialogue of the elders in Evernight Abbey that the Ydal felt that they had been cursed by their creator and were upset about it. I believe Mayong thinks that the Tier'dal are foolish to trust in Innoruuk, and that it was this trust in their creator that lead his own race, the Ydal, to their demise.It should be noted that every known form of vampire had its origin with the Ewer of Sul'Dae. The Ydal, Mayong's race, were created by Innoruuk using his own blood in the Ewer. The D'Morte clan (featured in the Bloodline Chronicles, the Peacock Club timeline, and Freethinker's Hideout) were created when Malkonis D'Morte discovered the Ewer and subsequently brought it to Ahket'Aken. Finally, the D'ryil clan was created when the Ewer was reassembled in Neriak after being taken from the Fountain of Life.Obviously, Mayong is the oldest of these, and if my theory is correct, the only being in existence who was "naturally" a vampire as a feature of his race, rather then a member of another race who was changed by the Ewer.

Mary the Prophetess

11-10-2011, 02:10 AM

Before the very first player of EverQuest Live even got to the character selection screen in 1999, we got this:"The giant crystaline dragon, ruler over the Plane of Sky, deposited life onto a LIFELESS PLANET, and with one swipe of her mighty claw laid claim to the promise of a new world."Obviously there were no Ydal, (or anything else), on Norrath when this happened.Then we get this:"In time the other gods noticed Veeshan's work, and being often petty and jealous beings, they too came upon Norrath intent upon leaving their mark.Brell Serilis was first, and from his Plane of Underfoot, a dark realm of vast caves and endless tunnels, he quietly created a magical portal to a cavern deep in the belly of Norrath. Through this portal the Duke of Underfoot seeded the depths of Norrath with all manner of creatures. Brell then returned home, sealing his portal within a labyrinthine chamber of mystical Living Stone.And when the other gods came to Norrath Brell Serilis approached each of them, and after some time convinced them to meet as one to discuss the fate of the world.The Great Mother Tunare, and Prexus, The Oceanlord were in attendance, and Rallos Zek, the warlord, was also there, yet in mistrust kept his distance.Brell, carefully avoiding all queries as to the origins of his information, told of Veeshan's discovery of the new and potentially powerful world in which she had deposited her brood.Words befit of the King of Thieves poured forth from Brell's lips and he proposed that they accept an alliance of sorts, to which all save Rallos Zek agreed, ignorant of the fact that Brell had already released some of his creations into the Underfoot of this new world."And finally this:"It was inevitable that such energies involved in seeding planets with life would attract even more of the gods, and it was the Elves who drew the unwanted attention of Innoruuk, Prince of Hate.In a decrepit tower overlooking the dark decaying alleys of the Plane over which he ruled, Innoruuk waited, stoking the fire of his Hate until it was a raging inferno. He cursed his fellow gods for not including him in their pact and vowed to make them regret such disrespect."So:1. There were no Ydal actually ON Norrath when the First Brood was deposited.2. Innoruuk, who is the supposed creator of the Ydal, was completely unaware of Norrath when the First Brood was deposited. It wasn't until late in the Elder Age or even into the Third Age, (early in the Age of Monuments), that Innoruuk knew anything of Norrath or of the First Council of the Gods.3. Therefore when Mayong, (an Ydal), says that he witnessed the deposit of the First Brood, he is lying. The Ydal had not even been created by Innorruk when the First Brood was deposited.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-10-2011, 03:40 AM

Don't think he really is to blame for this quote he doesn't say it on that alternate line of text that mentions takish hiz and plane of earthI think it's just got mixed up with vahlars quote from EQ1 and that dev is post vhalen/pop and it was a 'rumour'<cite>Iskandar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Mayong says he was witness to both the Rallosian invasion of PoEarth as well as the fall of Takish'Hiz. This puts him at least as far back as the early Age of Monuments. To me, it seems that Anashti was banished sometime in the early Elder Age -- she doesn't know who Bertoxxulous is, and his origin seems to fall in either the very last part of the Age of Scale or the early Elder Age, as dragons are still dominant and relatively unchallenged. And since Dragons are known to live exceptionally long lifetimes, compared to many of the other races, Mayong could have "witnessed" the first brood in the early Elder Age, before they *ahem*got busy making some more broods! </blockquote><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: #d4e7f7; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #00355f; padding: 0px;">Mayong shouts, ‘One of your lifetimes is but a fleeting moment compared to my endless existence.’<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: #d4e7f7; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #00355f; padding: 0px;">Mayong shouts, ‘I have watched civilizations rise and fall, seen races born or destroyed, witnessed the gods meddling pointlessly with mankind.’<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: #d4e7f7; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #00355f; padding: 0px;">Mayong shouts, ‘I was there when Rallos led his army into the Plane of Earth.’<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: #d4e7f7; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #00355f; padding: 0px;">Mayong shouts, ‘I saw Takish`Hiz buried under a sea of burning sand.’<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: #d4e7f7; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #00355f; padding: 0px;">Mayong shouts, ‘The trivial endeavors of the pantheon bored me, long before you ever existed.’<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: #d4e7f7; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #00355f; padding: 0px;">Mayong shouts, ‘I grew jaded and tired of this world eons ago.’<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 18px; color: #d4e7f7; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; text-align: left; background-color: #00355f; padding: 0px;"><div>Vahlar-Dev</div><div>I love theories…the more outlandish and seemingly impossible, the better. It’s great that you are always thinking.</div>Mayong Mistmoore is his own race of vampire. He’s older than any of the common player races. In fact, he’s said to have seen the first of Veeshan’s brood on Norrath. Perhaps something occured in those days that fueled his hatred of dragon kind . . .

Meirril

11-10-2011, 07:38 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>Before the very first player of EverQuest Live even got to the character selection screen in 1999, we got this:"The giant crystaline dragon, ruler over the Plane of Sky, deposited life onto a LIFELESS PLANET, and with one swipe of her mighty claw laid claim to the promise of a new world."Obviously there were no Ydal, (or anything else), on Norrath when this happened.</blockquote>I've always been bothered by the existance of the Leviathans because of this. Supposidly the Leviathans were around before the dragons, but we've got the intro video of EQ1 directly saying this isn't possible. /sighSloppy.

Meirril

11-10-2011, 07:52 PM

If we take it that Mayong was created with the aid of the Ewer AFTER Anashti was banished (so Inny could get his hands on it) then it brings up some interesting questions.Timing wise it has to happen before the Rallosian Army invades PoE. I believe that happened long before Takish'Hiz was destroyed by the Curse of Ro.An interesting question is what happened first: Creation of the Teir'dal or creation of the Ydal? It is possible that the Ydal were created on the Plane of Hate AFTER the Teir'dal were released onto Norrath. Ewer+Inny's blood used on a few last Teir'dal=Ydal? That would explain a lot actually. Especially if Inny toyed with his new creations a bit more and the effects of the Plane of Hate drove them to turn on each other until only one was left. After Mayong finished off the rest of his kind and escaped the Plane of Hate and its influence why he would come to hate Inny himself.It also explains why Mayong only turns Teir'dal to begin with. He probably is aware of his own creation, and through experimentation was able to replicate the process with his own blood. Eventually he finds out that other elves are susceptable to the same process. Later is comes to realize that the curse of vampirism can be applied to every living creature on Norrath if the proper steps are taken.All of this could of taken place during the Elder Age.

Mary the Prophetess

11-10-2011, 08:12 PM

Correct me if i am wrong, but all the Gods of Influence were able to create various races on Norrath. Some sooner, some later. Some of them are player races, many of them are MOB races. The sole exception seems to be Innoruuk. It seems to me that the Ydal were Innoruuks attempt at race creation and it failed. This infuriated him even more because not only had he been snubbed by the first Council of the Gods, but now he failed at race creation! He turns to a back-up plan, the kidnapping and corruption of the Elvish rulers and those loyal followers which attempted to seek out and rescue them. The Teir-Dal were his back-up plan. The Ydal were meant to be Innoruuk's answer to Tunare's Elves, but it was a failed attempt, necessitating the kidnapping.That would place the attempt to creat the Ydal somewhere near the end of the Second Age.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-10-2011, 08:57 PM

Guess his failure is why he's a prince and not a king! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />

Meirril

11-11-2011, 12:28 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>Correct me if i am wrong, but all the Gods of Influence were able to create various races on Norrath. Some sooner, some later. Some of them are player races, many of them are MOB races. The sole exception seems to be Innoruuk. It seems to me that the Ydal were Innoruuks attempt at race creation and it failed. This infuriated him even more because not only had he been snubbed by the first Council of the Gods, but now he failed at race creation! He turns to a back-up plan, the kidnapping and corruption of the Elvish rulers and those loyal followers which attempted to seek out and rescue them. The Teir-Dal were his back-up plan. The Ydal were meant to be Innoruuk's answer to Tunare's Elves, but it was a failed attempt, necessitating the kidnapping.That would place the attempt to creat the Ydal somewhere near the end of the Second Age.</blockquote>That would place Anashti's banishment after the Dal's creation but before the Thex Nobels were kidnapped. How long after the creation of the Dal did Inny kindnap them?

Mary the Prophetess

11-11-2011, 01:53 AM

Well Tunare created the Elves at the start of the Second Age. Indeed it was this round of race creation by Tunare, Prexus, Brell, and Rallos Zek which defines the start of the Elder Age. At this point in time, Innoruuk is still in the Dark about Norrath.*Sometime* during the Second Age, Innoruuk learns about Norrath and the First Council of the Gods. It fairly certain that he is rather put out when he learns about it. For some reason, he is especially angry at Tunare, (possibly just because of their alignments). At any rate, he sets out to create his own answer, the Ydal, modeled physically on Tunare's Elves. This effort, as you say, involved the Ewer and so would have to have been after Anashti was banished. I would say that Anashti's banishment took place during the early period of the Third Age, and the Ydal were (mis)created during the middle of the Third Age. Placing the kidnapping at the end of the Third Age, and the exodus of the Elves from Tunaria finally occurring during the Fifth Age.The destruction of Takish Hiz and the Elddar Forest was a slow process of desertification which began toward the end of the Third Age. According to Ruanya Windleaf of EQ Live's LDoN quest line, this process took thousands of years, covering a portion of the Third Age, all of the Fourth Age, (the Age of Blood) and finally forcing the Hajira during the Fifth Age. (the Lost Age)How long a Norrathian 'Age" lasts is unknown, though their definition is marked by events rather than by time intervals, making some Ages long and some Ages short (by comparison)

Meirril

11-11-2011, 05:18 AM

Inny captured the first king and queen of the elves and used them plus those that went to rescue them to create the Teir'dal. So...the first elves lived for an entire age? Elves are incredibly long lived, but it seems a little unlikely.I think the kidnapping and creation of the Teir'dal came before the Ydal. That gives a longer period of time for Anashti to be banished and still fits in early enough in history that Mayong could of seen the invasion of the PoE and the fall of Takish.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-11-2011, 05:50 AM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote>Inny captured the first king and queen of the elves and used them plus those that went to rescue them to create the Teir'dal. So...the first elves lived for an entire age? Elves are incredibly long lived, but it seems a little unlikely.I think the kidnapping and creation of the Teir'dal came before the Ydal. That gives a longer period of time for Anashti to be banished and still fits in early enough in history that Mayong could of seen the invasion of the PoE and the fall of Takish.</blockquote>Not according to the item that Maergoth linked<img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/Maergoth/YdalTalisman.jpg" width="306" height="318" />

The_Cheeseman

11-11-2011, 09:35 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>So:1. There were no Ydal actually ON Norrath when the First Brood was deposited.2. Innoruuk, who is the supposed creator of the Ydal, was completely unaware of Norrath when the First Brood was deposited. It wasn't until late in the Elder Age or even into the Third Age, (early in the Age of Monuments), that Innoruuk knew anything of Norrath or of the First Council of the Gods.3. Therefore when Mayong, (an Ydal), says that he witnessed the deposit of the First Brood, he is lying. The Ydal had not even been created by Innorruk when the First Brood was deposited. </blockquote>The Ydal were not native to Norrath, they lived in Mistmyr on the Plane of Hate. Therefore, the creation and subsequent extinction of the Ydal could very well have pre-dated Veeshan's arrival on Norrath. Indeed, the Dev quote, "Mayong Mistmoore is his own race of vampire. He’s older than any of the common player races. In fact, he’s said to have seen the first of Veeshan’s brood on Norrath." pretty plainly states that Mayong is older than any of the other races, and therefore his race, the Ydal, must have been created before the First Council of the Gods.Also, I am not sure why we should assume that Anashti had to have been banished before Innoruuk created the Ydal. Anashti may lay claim to the Ewer, but it's not part of her, it's just a planar artifact. Inny could have gotten her permission to use it or just outright stolen it for a short time to create his race.

Mary the Prophetess

11-11-2011, 10:45 AM

@ CheesemanYou are correct that the Ydal were created on the Plane of Hate. However, the Ewer was utilized in their creation (either while Anashti had claim to it or after her banishment). Additionally, Innorruk was *unaware* that Norrath even existed when the First Brood was deposited.And therein is the problem with the Ydal having been created prior to the arrival of Veeshan. There was no Ewer when Veeshan arrived, and there was no knowledge of Norrath's existence.As far as Vahlar's statement, the phrase, "he's said to have seen the first of Veeshan's brood on Norrath" can be taken in several ways:1. That Mayong saw the arrival of Veeshan on Norrath2. It is *rumored* that Mayong saw the arrival of Veeshan on Norrath3. Mayong saw dragons who were a part of the First BroodGiven a creation time during the Third Age, and given the longevity of dragonkind, it is certainly possible for Mayong to have lived while there were still dragons of the First Brood on Norrath.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-11-2011, 11:51 AM

wasnt there also something about mayong being 10500 years old - i see it around on the internet but i can't find the actual reference for it*edit* - scratch that, reference comes from maps of myrist which is probably not that reliable

The_Cheeseman

11-11-2011, 08:26 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>@ CheesemanYou are correct that the Ydal were created on the Plane of Hate. However, the Ewer was utilized in their creation (either while Anashti had claim to it or after her banishment). Additionally, Innorruk was *unaware* that Norrath even existed when the First Brood was deposited.And therein is the problem with the Ydal having been created prior to the arrival of Veeshan. There was no Ewer when Veeshan arrived, and there was no knowledge of Norrath's existence.As far as Vahlar's statement, the phrase, "he's said to have seen the first of Veeshan's brood on Norrath" can be taken in several ways:1. That Mayong saw the arrival of Veeshan on Norrath2. It is *rumored* that Mayong saw the arrival of Veeshan on Norrath3. Mayong saw dragons who were a part of the First BroodGiven a creation time during the Third Age, and given the longevity of dragonkind, it is certainly possible for Mayong to have lived while there were still dragons of the First Brood on Norrath.</blockquote>What source has stated that the Ewer of Sul'Dae didn't exist before Veeshan came to Norrath? I have never seen any reference to when the Ewer was created.Just because Innoruuk was unaware of Norrath's existence doesn't mean that Mayong was as well. Also, I would like to point out that "In fact, he’s said to have seen the first of Veeshan’s brood on Norrath." can be interpreted as implying that Mayong was alive when Veeshan claimed Norrath, but does not necessarily have to mean that he was literally there to see it. The first brood could have been dropped off while Mayong was still in Mistmyr, but when he later made his way to Norrath, he met them (and evidently this meeting was not a happy one).

MixxitNDance_Live

11-12-2011, 03:10 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>@ CheesemanYou are correct that the Ydal were created on the Plane of Hate. However, the Ewer was utilized in their creation (either while Anashti had claim to it or after her banishment). Additionally, Innorruk was *unaware* that Norrath even existed when the First Brood was deposited.And therein is the problem with the Ydal having been created prior to the arrival of Veeshan. There was no Ewer when Veeshan arrived, and there was no knowledge of Norrath's existence.As far as Vahlar's statement, the phrase, "he's said to have seen the first of Veeshan's brood on Norrath" can be taken in several ways:1. That Mayong saw the arrival of Veeshan on Norrath2. It is *rumored* that Mayong saw the arrival of Veeshan on Norrath3. Mayong saw dragons who were a part of the First BroodGiven a creation time during the Third Age, and given the longevity of dragonkind, it is certainly possible for Mayong to have lived while there were still dragons of the First Brood on Norrath.</blockquote>What source has stated that the Ewer of Sul'Dae didn't exist before Veeshan came to Norrath? I have never seen any reference to when the Ewer was created.Just because Innoruuk was unaware of Norrath's existence doesn't mean that Mayong was as well. Also, I would like to point out that "In fact, he’s said to have seen the first of Veeshan’s brood on Norrath." can be interpreted as implying that Mayong was alive when Veeshan claimed Norrath, but does not necessarily have to mean that he was literally there to see it. The first brood could have been dropped off while Mayong was still in Mistmyr, but when he later made his way to Norrath, he met them (and evidently this meeting was not a happy one).</blockquote>the Ancille of D’Morte says to you, “The Godking pays homage to the lost goddess Anashti Sul, the power that created the Ewer of Sul’Dae. Such an artifact is highly desired by the Godking as well as the few others that know of the forgotten past. In return for safe haven from hunting ilk the ewer exchanged hands.”The faithful of the city everlasting prayed to the forgotten and cried to their prophet to save them. The prophet told them to drink from the great ewer, the very vessel that sprang life to the Fyr’Un, the River of Life that ran through the celestial worlds. And so they drank from the Ewer of Sul’Dae.Lect’Zadh says to you in Death’s Whisper, “Malkonis D’Morte is a high ranking resident of Ahket Aken. He is the Teir’Dal pilgrim that entered the city from afar. He brought with him the Ewer of Sul’Dae, the powerful urn used by the lost goddess Anashti Sul, to create the river of life, the Fyr’Un. In return for this sacred artifact he was granted refuge within the hidden city. He once dwelt with his consort, the Rin Priestess of Fyr’Un, in the Temple of Blood in the Priestess Court of Ahket Aken.”I'm just gathering the text from Anashti'Sul now

ratbast

11-13-2011, 02:08 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>Correct me if i am wrong, but all the Gods of Influence were able to create various races on Norrath. Some sooner, some later. Some of them are player races, many of them are MOB races. The sole exception seems to be Innoruuk. It seems to me that the Ydal were Innoruuks attempt at race creation and it failed. This infuriated him even more because not only had he been snubbed by the first Council of the Gods, but now he failed at race creation! He turns to a back-up plan, the kidnapping and corruption of the Elvish rulers and those loyal followers which attempted to seek out and rescue them. The Teir-Dal were his back-up plan. The Ydal were meant to be Innoruuk's answer to Tunare's Elves, but it was a failed attempt, necessitating the kidnapping.That would place the attempt to creat the Ydal somewhere near the end of the Second Age.</blockquote>i think it would settle the issue if you could show how ydal were an answer to tunare's elves, and not a project preceding the discovery of norrath.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-13-2011, 05:57 AM

Anyone found the quote yet? Anashti'Sul diety quest didn't have any creation of the ewer quotes either

Mary the Prophetess

11-13-2011, 07:08 AM

I cannot find information on *when* the Ewer was created. However, Anashti was trying to 'cure' death. That pre-supposes that there were mortals that *needed* to be cured of death. There were no mortals on Norrath prior to Veeshan's arrival. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that the Ewer was created by Anashti *after* mortals arrived, (and started dying at the end of their life-cycles).Likewise, there is no direct evidence that the Ydal were created as a counter to Tunare's Elves. However, they were created as a race that Innoruuk tried to make immortal by using the Ewer. That means that they were mortal upon their creation, and it was through the (mis)use of the Ewer that they died off. Again, a mortal race needs a mortal world on which to reside. Before Veeshan there was no such world (unless of course we want to conjecture the existence of other worlds--a path I suggest we NOT venture down too far)Additionally, it strains credulity that one of Innoruuk's creations, (Mayong) would be aware of the existence of Norrath before Innoruuk himself was.All of this is circumstantial certainly, but it is also logical and consistent.Unless and until the designers choose to clarify the circumstances surrounding the origins of Mayong and the Ydal, then we are forced to rely on conjecture, and one person's theory is as valid as the next.I *DO* have a major concern though. As the accumulated volume of Norrathian lore increases over time, it becomes problematic that any single individual, (designer or otherwise), can remember it all and the possiblity of new information contradictiong with existing information increases exponentially.The collective investigations of many, many players into this one area has already consumed a dozen pages on this thread alone. Nor is this thread the first, or only, discussion to take up Mayong and his motives and actions.If dozens of people, researching thoroughly, have trouble sorting it out, how much more so for a single developer who is wearing several hats and whose primary responsibilities are not necessarily associated with making new lore consistent with older lore, or explaining contradictions and inconsistencies?

ratbast

11-13-2011, 06:03 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>I cannot find information on *when* the Ewer was created. However, Anashti was trying to 'cure' death. That pre-supposes that there were mortals that *needed* to be cured of death. There were no mortals on Norrath prior to Veeshan's arrival. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that the Ewer was created by Anashti *after* mortals arrived, (and started dying at the end of their life-cycles).Likewise, there is no direct evidence that the Ydal were created as a counter to Tunare's Elves. However, they were created as a race that Innoruuk tried to make immortal by using the Ewer. That means that they were mortal upon their creation, and it was through the (mis)use of the Ewer that they died off. Again, a mortal race needs a mortal world on which to reside. Before Veeshan there was no such world (unless of course we want to conjecture the existence of other worlds--a path I suggest we NOT venture down too far)Additionally, it strains credulity that one of Innoruuk's creations, (Mayong) would be aware of the existence of Norrath before Innoruuk himself was.All of this is circumstantial certainly, but it is also logical and consistent.Unless and until the designers choose to clarify the circumstances surrounding the origins of Mayong and the Ydal, then we are forced to rely on conjecture, and one person's theory is as valid as the next.I *DO* have a major concern though. As the accumulated volume of Norrathian lore increases over time, it becomes problematic that any single individual, (designer or otherwise), can remember it all and the possiblity of new information contradictiong with existing information increases exponentially.The collective investigations of many, many players into this one area has already consumed a dozen pages on this thread alone. Nor is this thread the first, or only, discussion to take up Mayong and his motives and actions.If dozens of people, researching thoroughly, have trouble sorting it out, how much more so for a single developer who is wearing several hats and whose primary responsibilities are not necessarily associated with making new lore consistent with older lore, or explaining contradictions and inconsistencies?</blockquote>is it possible for mortals to enter norrath before river of life existed?from:<h3>1001 Tales of Maj'Dul - The Tale of Ahket Aken</h3>"The prophet told them to drink from the great ewer, the very vessel that sprang life to the Fyr'Un, the River of Life that ran through the celestial worlds"

Meirril

11-13-2011, 11:18 PM

<cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>I cannot find information on *when* the Ewer was created. However, Anashti was trying to 'cure' death. That pre-supposes that there were mortals that *needed* to be cured of death. There were no mortals on Norrath prior to Veeshan's arrival. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that the Ewer was created by Anashti *after* mortals arrived, (and started dying at the end of their life-cycles).Likewise, there is no direct evidence that the Ydal were created as a counter to Tunare's Elves. However, they were created as a race that Innoruuk tried to make immortal by using the Ewer. That means that they were mortal upon their creation, and it was through the (mis)use of the Ewer that they died off. Again, a mortal race needs a mortal world on which to reside. Before Veeshan there was no such world (unless of course we want to conjecture the existence of other worlds--a path I suggest we NOT venture down too far)Additionally, it strains credulity that one of Innoruuk's creations, (Mayong) would be aware of the existence of Norrath before Innoruuk himself was.All of this is circumstantial certainly, but it is also logical and consistent.Unless and until the designers choose to clarify the circumstances surrounding the origins of Mayong and the Ydal, then we are forced to rely on conjecture, and one person's theory is as valid as the next.I *DO* have a major concern though. As the accumulated volume of Norrathian lore increases over time, it becomes problematic that any single individual, (designer or otherwise), can remember it all and the possiblity of new information contradictiong with existing information increases exponentially.The collective investigations of many, many players into this one area has already consumed a dozen pages on this thread alone. Nor is this thread the first, or only, discussion to take up Mayong and his motives and actions.If dozens of people, researching thoroughly, have trouble sorting it out, how much more so for a single developer who is wearing several hats and whose primary responsibilities are not necessarily associated with making new lore consistent with older lore, or explaining contradictions and inconsistencies?</blockquote>is it possible for mortals to enter norrath before river of life existed?from:<h3>1001 Tales of Maj'Dul - The Tale of Ahket Aken</h3>"The prophet told them to drink from the great ewer, the very vessel that sprang life to the Fyr'Un, the River of Life that ran through the celestial worlds"</blockquote>Yes. The "river of life" refers to the creation of Undeath. The Ewer of Sul'dae is the source of those waters, which caused the curse of undeath to be released. Mortals existed before the Ewer, undead did not.

The_Cheeseman

11-14-2011, 12:26 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>I cannot find information on *when* the Ewer was created. However, Anashti was trying to 'cure' death. That pre-supposes that there were mortals that *needed* to be cured of death. There were no mortals on Norrath prior to Veeshan's arrival. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that the Ewer was created by Anashti *after* mortals arrived, (and started dying at the end of their life-cycles).Likewise, there is no direct evidence that the Ydal were created as a counter to Tunare's Elves. However, they were created as a race that Innoruuk tried to make immortal by using the Ewer. That means that they were mortal upon their creation, and it was through the (mis)use of the Ewer that they died off. Again, a mortal race needs a mortal world on which to reside. Before Veeshan there was no such world (unless of course we want to conjecture the existence of other worlds--a path I suggest we NOT venture down too far)Additionally, it strains credulity that one of Innoruuk's creations, (Mayong) would be aware of the existence of Norrath before Innoruuk himself was.All of this is circumstantial certainly, but it is also logical and consistent.Unless and until the designers choose to clarify the circumstances surrounding the origins of Mayong and the Ydal, then we are forced to rely on conjecture, and one person's theory is as valid as the next.I *DO* have a major concern though. As the accumulated volume of Norrathian lore increases over time, it becomes problematic that any single individual, (designer or otherwise), can remember it all and the possiblity of new information contradictiong with existing information increases exponentially.The collective investigations of many, many players into this one area has already consumed a dozen pages on this thread alone. Nor is this thread the first, or only, discussion to take up Mayong and his motives and actions.If dozens of people, researching thoroughly, have trouble sorting it out, how much more so for a single developer who is wearing several hats and whose primary responsibilities are not necessarily associated with making new lore consistent with older lore, or explaining contradictions and inconsistencies?</blockquote>The fact that other worlds exist in the EQ universe is not only plausible, it is indisputable. The Obelisk of Lost Souls actually names a few of them, and the origin of Rodcet Nife involves an entire civilization on another planet. It is not a coincidence that Rodcet looks like an alien (though that is not a stylistic choice that I would have made).Not only are there other worlds, but entire races live among the Planes themselves. There are plenty of mortal races which Anashti could have tried to make immortal by creating the Ewer without her ever even knowing about Norrath.Secondly, the Ydal were created by Innoruuk's blood poured from the Ewer of Sul'Dae. They were not first created and then exposed to the Ewer by Innoruuk. We have no idea whether Innoruuk intended to make them an immortal race, his motivations in regard to the Ydal have not been revealed. All we know for certain is that Innoruuk used the Ewer to create them, then they all ended up turning into vampires and killing each other off. Perhaps this was Innoruuk's plan from the start? Who knows?What we do know, from the very mouth of a developer, is that Mayong is older than any of the common player races. This means that Mayong's race, the Ydal, predate the Elder Age. Essentially, this means that the Ydal had to exist at least as far back as the Age of Scale, during which time Innoruuk supposedly was not yet aware of Norrath. Whether Mayong became aware of Norrath before Innoruuk is up for debate, as we have no definite timeline for exactly how or when Mayong first came to Norrath.

Mary the Prophetess

11-14-2011, 02:02 PM

@CheesemanIf the sequence of events which you are proposing is correct, then there are certain facts which we must accept:1. Since the Ewer was used in the creation of the Ydal, and since you are suggesting that the Ydal were in existence on the Plane of Hate prior to Veeshan's arrival in Norrath, then logically the Ewer must have been in existence before Veeshan's arrival too.2. Since the Ewer was used in the creation of the Ydal, and since you are proposing that the Ydal were created before Anashti's banishment, then either Anashti lent the Ewer to Innoruuk, or Innoruuk stole it from Anashti to use, or Anashti was in on the creation of the Ydal. No matter which is true, the Ewer was back in Anashti's hands for her to use later on Norrath.3. Anashti created the Ewer. Anashti created the Ewer to cure death. Anashti did not get banished by the Gods for creating undeath until ages had passed on Norrath.4. The reason for Anashti's banishment was for creating undeath. Using the Ewer is what created undeath.5. In order to cure death, you need to have mortals to cure. Since there were no mortals on Norrath prior to the arrival of Veeshan, Anashti must have created the Ewer to cure mortals 'somewhere else'. If there are no mortals to cure, then there is no reason to create the Ewer in the first place.6. Using the Ewer created undeath on Norrath. Using the Ewer created vampirism on the Plane of Hate. One would assume that if the Ewer were used on mortals somewhere else it would also have created undeath there. However, for some reason Anashti was not banished by the Gods for creating undeath somewhere else.7. The whole of this scenario rests on one statement by Vahlar to the effect that Mayong is older than any of the character races on Norrath. That includes the Elves and the Dwarves, (as well as the Kedge and the Giants which were created at the same time as the Elves and the Dwarves), but not necessarily the Dragons.Given all of the above, it seems to me that a far simpler explanation is that Holly mis-spoke.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-14-2011, 02:28 PM

I agree!

Anaogi

11-14-2011, 06:51 PM

I think you're in the ballpark here. Since I started this thread way back when, I'll add in my working theory...<ul><li>Anashti created the Ewer in ages unknown, before the Gods came to Norrath.</li><li>Each of the Gods of that time had created (or adopted?) servitor races.</li><li>Inny was in a bind...Hate is not exactly a force conducive to creation or fostering; mostly he had to corrupt others.</li><li>This probably got him in trouble a lot.</li><li>To put a stop to that, he figured he needed a little extra 'oomph' to back him up...</li><li>So, the Ewer. I'd be surprised if Anashti even knew what he was up to; he probably did the deed in secret...</li><li>...and accidentally tainted the Ewer in the process. Hate tends to do that to what it touches.</li><li>So then, Norrath.</li><li>Eventually, conflict with the dragons, and some need to cure the results...</li><li>...yeah, you see where that's headed.</li></ul>In short, a fusion of the original and new origins of undeath--Anashti took the fall for what Innorruuk did, wittingly or not.I suspect it was all fairly close together. One possiblity I'm kicking around is that the Ydal were intended for the colonization of Norrath, but the unintended results turned up...and the Ydal got hastily relocated to the Plane of Hate so as to cover Inny's tracks (and keep him from getting chucked into the Void)...and that was when they showed their true nature. Mayong then escapes from the collapsing Mystmyr (back to?) Norrath, with a hatred of dragons and a healthy distrust of the gods.Again, not a lot to work with, but that's how I arrange the pieces so far.

ratbast

11-14-2011, 10:33 PM

<cite>Anaogi@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think you're in the ballpark here. Since I started this thread way back when, I'll add in my working theory...<ul><li>Anashti created the Ewer in ages unknown, before the Gods came to Norrath.</li><li>Each of the Gods of that time had created (or adopted?) servitor races.</li><li>Inny was in a bind...Hate is not exactly a force conducive to creation or fostering; mostly he had to corrupt others.</li><li>This probably got him in trouble a lot.</li><li>To put a stop to that, he figured he needed a little extra 'oomph' to back him up...</li><li>So, the Ewer. I'd be surprised if Anashti even knew what he was up to; he probably did the deed in secret...</li><li>...and accidentally tainted the Ewer in the process. Hate tends to do that to what it touches.</li><li>So then, Norrath.</li><li>Eventually, conflict with the dragons, and some need to cure the results...</li><li>...yeah, you see where that's headed.</li></ul>In short, a fusion of the original and new origins of undeath--Anashti took the fall for what Innorruuk did, wittingly or not.I suspect it was all fairly close together. One possiblity I'm kicking around is that the Ydal were intended for the colonization of Norrath, but the unintended results turned up...and the Ydal got hastily relocated to the Plane of Hate so as to cover Inny's tracks (and keep him from getting chucked into the Void)...and that was when they showed their true nature. Mayong then escapes from the collapsing Mystmyr (back to?) Norrath, with a hatred of dragons and a healthy distrust of the gods.Again, not a lot to work with, but that's how I arrange the pieces so far.</blockquote>I like the theory that ewer was created long ago, but only utilized/attempted to cure death outright later on norrath.Saying ydal creation tainted ewer is a cool twist.if river of life is really about undeath and not stream of conscousness of souls, that is too bad. the river that flows thru the celestial worlds. river of life...i like creation myth like this. the nameless makes major planes, and rhoen theer, gives rhoen theer 2 artifacts(soulfire/claymore). major planes manifest elemental gods. elemental gods create planes of influence/gods of influence. rhoeen theer comissions anashti(influence god of health) to create river for souls to enter norrath (and exit to ethernere). she creates artifact, the ewer, (from some special materials from rhoen theer) as tool for accomplishing her project. she uses ewer to create connection to celestial worlds, now playing board is set. no current use left/known for ewer.gods makes races, inny is only a destructive force, cant create, uses artifact on a drop of his blood, taints ewer, smuggles it back to anashti. bertoxXULOUS ascends to god of influence (who was disease before that-maybe thats one of gods theer killed, how convenient its from plane opposite anashtiHEALTH<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />ISEASE). later on anashti decides to take on a project (heretical project from theers view btw, imbalancing health/disease), to cure death completely, she tries using her artifact, undeath results, whether from taint or its just a bad idea. she gets banished, rodcet (xulous?) ascends to god of influence.alternate use for ewer is discovered, besides making river of life, making ydal, making sul'dae...making vampires.actually making vampires was a use discovered by the guy who brought ewer to takish-haz, BEFORE anashti was banished, thats before sul'dae right? so vampirism is disconnected from her project that got her banished(undeath is diff from vampirism/or a superset of vamp).i dont like the theory that anashti made the ewer for the original purpose of solving death for takish-haz. its too unambitious a role for the artifact. so did ewer make ydal immortal? did it cure death? did it make them all 'undead'? technically they could have been undead, even if they killed each other, since undead can perma kill each other.either way, the connection between ewer, undeath, and vampirism is tenuous. it seems 'undeath' didnt occur until takish-haz, when anashti tried to solve death permanently. a different project then mere immortality, which dragons enjoy, and it appears myong as well.1 question: why didnt myong die? does he only make mini=me vampires by having them suck his blood, but never partaking of others blood? was he created from a first batch drop before ewer was fully tainted? or were only loyal ydal granted vampire ritual from ewer shortly after their creation? could say ewer creation + vamp ritual w/ewer = extinct undead. a ritual myong declined, so he lived.my goal is apotheosis, so I have a few projects of my own in game. been conducting research, and experiments on my disciples(alts). there are several open planes of influence, afaik.I almost have every book from nizari, which contains much information on the xulous, and is next door to Zebuxoruk who lives in shin. some day i may publish my in game house, containing my gigantic library, along with my own research notes, speculations, conclusions, efforts. personally i suspect lichdom may be involved somehow, but instead of possessing yourself into a single artifact, you possess yourself into a plane itself. i suspect zeb went the easy route with mana(plane of mana?). mana is ever present in norrath, and created the behemoths out of nothing at all before veeshan ever arrived. great way to regenerate yourself if you dont have a plane/demiplane.

The_Cheeseman

11-14-2011, 11:31 PM

I think it is important to note that the dev stated that Anashti was banished for "unwittingly" introducing undeath to Norrath. It does not say that she was banished for inventing undeath in general, but specifically for bringing it to Norrath. This may or may not be an important distinction, but it bears mentioning. Also, this statement implies that she didn't bring undeath to Norrath on purpose, which would imply one of a number of possible scenarios:1) She didn't know what the actual effects of the Ewer would be and undeath was the result of her experiment. This would imply that she hadn't used the Ewer previously and it was a more recent invention.2) She was somehow mislead about what the effects of the Ewer would be, and was therefore the victim of a deception. This seems unlikely, since Anashti seems to not have any particular grudge against anybody for such a deception, and has embraced undeath as her own creation.3) The Ewer malfunctioned somehow, and ended up doing something she didn't expect. This could mean that the Ewer and the Fyr'Un originally had a different purpose, and were later changed into the current state by some means. Perhaps Anashti created the Ewer long ago as the source of the Fyr'Un, which was a river of healing and refreshment, and it was only her later attempt to grant true immortality that changed it into the source of undeath? Or, as Anaogi postulated, perhaps another deity (like Innoruuk) tainted the Ewer so that it's powers were altered in some way, unbeknownst to Anashti?4) The Ewer was functioning as intended elsewhere, and only affected Norrath by accident. This would imply that Undeath was the original goal of the Ewer, and that it had already been used on other worlds/planes. In this case, it was not so much the invention of undeath that got Anashti banished, but the fact that she allowed undeath to come to Norrath and mess with what so many other gods had been working on.

Meirril

11-14-2011, 11:40 PM

<cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Anaogi@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think you're in the ballpark here. Since I started this thread way back when, I'll add in my working theory...<ul><li>Anashti created the Ewer in ages unknown, before the Gods came to Norrath.</li><li>Each of the Gods of that time had created (or adopted?) servitor races.</li><li>Inny was in a bind...Hate is not exactly a force conducive to creation or fostering; mostly he had to corrupt others.</li><li>This probably got him in trouble a lot.</li><li>To put a stop to that, he figured he needed a little extra 'oomph' to back him up...</li><li>So, the Ewer. I'd be surprised if Anashti even knew what he was up to; he probably did the deed in secret...</li><li>...and accidentally tainted the Ewer in the process. Hate tends to do that to what it touches.</li><li>So then, Norrath.</li><li>Eventually, conflict with the dragons, and some need to cure the results...</li><li>...yeah, you see where that's headed.</li></ul>In short, a fusion of the original and new origins of undeath--Anashti took the fall for what Innorruuk did, wittingly or not.I suspect it was all fairly close together. One possiblity I'm kicking around is that the Ydal were intended for the colonization of Norrath, but the unintended results turned up...and the Ydal got hastily relocated to the Plane of Hate so as to cover Inny's tracks (and keep him from getting chucked into the Void)...and that was when they showed their true nature. Mayong then escapes from the collapsing Mystmyr (back to?) Norrath, with a hatred of dragons and a healthy distrust of the gods.Again, not a lot to work with, but that's how I arrange the pieces so far.</blockquote>I like the theory that ewer was created long ago, but only utilized/attempted to cure death outright later on norrath. Lore indicates that the Ewer was created speciffically to cure death and its first use lead to Anashti releasing the curse of undeath. She was banished for this action. Much much later after her banishment it was used by followers of an unknown fallen god in an attempt to gain immortality and protect them from the Curse of Ro. Ahket Aken is the living tombs you see today.Saying ydal creation tainted ewer is a cool twist.if river of life is really about undeath and not stream of conscousness of souls, that is too bad. the river that flows thru the celestial worlds. river of life... This is how the undead in Ahket Aken describe the ewer. You can see how accurate their vision was, right?i like creation myth like this. the nameless makes major planes, and rhoen theer, gives rhoen theer 2 artifacts(soulfire/claymore). major planes manifest elemental gods. elemental gods create planes of influence/gods of influence. rhoeen theer comissions anashti(influence god of health) to create river for souls to enter norrath (and exit to ethernere). she creates artifact, the ewer, (from some special materials from rhoen theer) as tool for accomplishing her project. she uses ewer to create connection to celestial worlds, now playing board is set. no current use left/known for ewer.But the creation mythos goes like this: The Nameless creates the elemental dieties and Norrath. Each diety seems to generate their own plane. The existance of the hero planes lead to a different conclusion. It seems like any sufficiently powerful being generates a plane of existance. So the most powerful being on Norrath may continue to exist in a wierd fashion on their own planes of existance long after they have died. This could be fueled by legends told by bards and people fantasizing about the heros and villans of ages long gone.gods makes races, inny is only a destructive force, cant create, uses artifact on a drop of his blood, taints ewer, smuggles it back to anashti. bertoxXULOUS ascends to god of influence (who was disease before that-maybe thats one of gods theer killed, how convenient its from plane opposite anashtiHEALTH<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />ISEASE). later on anashti decides to take on a project (heretical project from theers view btw, imbalancing health/disease), to cure death completely, she tries using her artifact, undeath results, whether from taint or its just a bad idea. she gets banished, rodcet (xulous?) ascends to god of influence.When Anashti was released from the Void, she professes to have no knowledge of Bertoxxulous. Both Bertoxxulous and Rodcet Knife come into the pathenon long after Anashi is banished and forgotten. As for Theer? If Theer was around he could simply kill Anashti for disrupting the ballance. Instead a councel of the gods banishes here just like Theer was. All evidence points to Theer being banished before undeath was created.Also after Anashti was released from the void her first action was to recover the Ewer. If something is that central to a gods power base, it is highly unlikely that Inny could simply borrow it to create a race. alternate use for ewer is discovered, besides making river of life, making ydal, making sul'dae...making vampires.actually making vampires was a use discovered by the guy who brought ewer to takish-haz, BEFORE anashti was banished, thats before sul'dae right? so vampirism is disconnected from her project that got her banished(undeath is diff from vampirism/or a superset of vamp).Many things wrong here. First, Takish-haz doesn't have undead. It has elves that have been transformed into living sand. More or less they operate in a golem like fashion and recreate themselves after being destoyed and continue doing a mockery of what they did in life. Kinda like the Unrest curse without the involvement of a diety. The Ewer was brought to Ahket Aken, and during the time when the Curse of Ro was sent. i dont like the theory that anashti made the ewer for the original purpose of solving death for takish-haz. its too unambitious a role for the artifact. so did ewer make ydal immortal? did it cure death? did it make them all 'undead'? technically they could have been undead, even if they killed each other, since undead can perma kill each other.either way, the connection between ewer, undeath, and vampirism is tenuous. it seems 'undeath' didnt occur until takish-haz, when anashti tried to solve death permanently. a different project then mere immortality, which dragons enjoy, and it appears myong as well.1 question: why didnt myong die? does he only make mini=me vampires by having them suck his blood, but never partaking of others blood? was he created from a first batch drop before ewer was fully tainted? or were only loyal ydal granted vampire ritual from ewer shortly after their creation? could say ewer creation + vamp ritual w/ewer = extinct undead. a ritual myong declined, so he lived.my goal is apotheosis, so I have a few projects of my own in game. been conducting research, and experiments on my disciples(alts). there are several open planes of influence, afaik.I almost have every book from nizari, which contains much information on the xulous, and is next door to Zebuxoruk who lives in shin. some day i may publish my in game house, containing my gigantic library, along with my own research notes, speculations, conclusions, efforts. personally i suspect lichdom may be involved somehow, but instead of possessing yourself into a single artifact, you possess yourself into a plane itself. i suspect zeb went the easy route with mana(plane of mana?). mana is ever present in norrath, and created the behemoths out of nothing at all before veeshan ever arrived. great way to regenerate yourself if you dont have a plane/demiplane.</blockquote>My comments above in red.

MixxitNDance_Live

11-15-2011, 01:09 AM

These last fews post do raise an important point about Bertoxxulous and Lxanvon - Anshati'Sul must have created the Ewer and been banished before the point of Bertoxxulous's creation and Rodcet's transcendence but it's difficult to place the Ruins of Lxanvon lore in the timeline

ratbast

11-15-2011, 03:14 AM

<cite>MixxitNDance_Live wrote:</cite><blockquote>These last fews post do raise an important point about Bertoxxulous and Lxanvon - Anshati'Sul must have created the Ewer and been banished before the point of Bertoxxulous's creation and Rodcet's transcendence but it's difficult to place the Ruins of Lxanvon lore in the timeline</blockquote>of course she was banished no later than rodcet ascension, but how is anashti banishment before bertoxx rise?i would argue xulous were during age of scale when no other humanoid races were around to record history. a godless humanoid race plopped down in the middle of norrath before most (if not all) gods seeded norrath. norrath existed long enough for mana infused universe to autospawn the behemoths before veeshan ever came. surely norrath wasnt first planet gods of influence bickered over. planet hopping xulous beat gods to norrath? sounds like jel'reth.side note, assuming rodcet and bert are same race (is that rumor or fact?)bertoxxulous rose from the destruction of the xulous, who were a race on norrath during age of scale. they were a bamf race of dragon warriors who worshipped their ancestors (very asian tbh, like shin), so bertoxx impersonated their ancestors and put on a xulous corpse outfit and got their king to do some icky ritual. resulting disease destroyed them all. would be crazy to find out he used the ewer on them!big question there is whether bertoxxulous name is result of him doing them in and he is jel'reth, or if he is xulous also, or whether they are in fact the same race. still its interesting that jel'reth are only known race to ascend to god of influence, and they are of same order (influence) and spectrum (health-disease). ydal to demiplane of blood, zeb(dont know his race) to demiplane of knowledge?the biggest mystery there is the timeline of the jel'reth race, how bertoxxulous is from same race as rodcet, yet they ascended at different times.if bertoxxulous is not xulous, what was he doing on norrath at that point in time. if the races are 1 and the same, it just means there would have to be other jel'reth societies in the universe to continue reproducing to produce rodcet at a later date (or rodcet was somehow immortal/long-lived before his ascension). there is pretty strong evidence of interplanetary alliance/communication.what kind of race worships their ancestors anyway...races are created by gods, who in turn expect to be worshipped. are there any gods of influence so indifferent to abandon their creation like veeshan? or possibly a bored god who descended from godhood after creating them to live out a mortal life and pass into ethernere and explore the beyond...i think myong only descended from godhood for 1 reason, take another bite at the apple. he didnt like being a lesser god, lesser than both bertoxx and rodcet. he wants a queen too, propagation seems to be a key to unlocking power and serious goal of the gods. if boredom was his driving force he would test out death and go past deathtoll tower.

Mixxit

11-15-2011, 03:41 AM

<cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>MixxitNDance_Live wrote:</cite><blockquote>These last fews post do raise an important point about Bertoxxulous and Lxanvon - Anshati'Sul must have created the Ewer and been banished before the point of Bertoxxulous's creation and Rodcet's transcendence but it's difficult to place the Ruins of Lxanvon lore in the timeline</blockquote>of course she was banished no later than rodcet ascension, but how is anashti banishment before bertoxx rise?From the Anashti'Sul deity quest we inform Anshti'Sul of Bertoxxulous who has replaced her old enemy (i need to find the quote of the name of that enemy)i would argue xulous were during age of scale when no other humanoid races were around to record history.There were others around for sure as it quotes the Xulous king as calling upon them to assist him but all failed until Ultor Szanvon the Putrid cameside note, assuming rodcet and bert are same race (is that rumor or fact?)This could cause the thread to derail so don't want to touch on this too much but it's believed Rodcet Nife was a Jal'Raeth and Bertoxxulous was born from the dead kings of the Xulous (two seperate races) - the Jal'Reath were immortal and became obssessed with ruins they found in the dead hills such as Envar - the xulous however were not immortal (as we know from their crypts of kings) - Rodcet rose up as Jal'Reath against this obsession with death and somehow ascended during this time and we didn't hear much more till he came to Qeynos and asked if the Xulous had arrived yet - so i'm assuming he went away to fight a war with them and then came back, no doubt Envar was one of the Xulous castles bertoxxulous rose from the destruction of the xulous, who were a race on norrath during age of scale. they were a bamf race of dragon warriors who worshipped their ancestors (very asian tbh, like shin), so bertoxx impersonated their ancestors and put on a xulous corpse outfit and got their king to do some icky ritual. resulting disease destroyed them all. would be crazy to find out he used the ewer on them!The xulous were known to fight the dragons so we can put it pretty far back for the creation of Bertox but i think the way he managed to do it was because Ultor tricked him into bringing the king to the crypt which was what he needed or something (not sure exactly would need to reread the two different versions (eq1 fabled planes of power version and the one from eq2)big question there is whether bertoxxulous name is result of him doing them in and he is jel'reth, or if he is xulous also, or whether they are in fact the same race. still its interesting that jel'reth are only known race to ascend to god of influence, and they are on same order (influence) and spectrum (health-disease). ydal to demiplane of blood, zeb(dont know his race) to demiplane of knowledge?Not sure exactly what bertox is but it would make sense that he took his form name from the xulousthe biggest mystery there is the timeline of the jel'reth race, how bertoxxulous is from same race as rodcet, yet they ascended at different times.It's possible they are originally from the same race but I honestly doubt it - the TSO lore about Dr Oculous etc doesn't sound much like the beings of magic that the Jal'Raeth were - i think that's just some other parallel universe outside of the universe of order and it's telling the same story but slightly differentif bertoxxulous is not xulous, what was he doing on norrath at that point in time. if the races are 1 and the same, it just means there would have to be other jel'reth societies in the universe to continue reproducing to produce rodcet at a later date (or rodcet was somehow immortal/long-lived before his ascension). there is pretty strong evidence of interplanetary alliance.I would be willing to bet that whoever Anashti'Sul's old enemy was probably formed bertoxulous or replaced himwhat kind of race worships their ancestors anyway...races are created by gods, who expect to be worshipped. are there any gods of influence so indifferent to abandon their creation like veeshan? or possibly a bored god who descended from godhood after creating them to live out a mortal life and pass into ethernere and explore the beyond...i think myong only descended from godhood for 1 reason, take another bite at the apple. he didnt like being a lesser god, lesser than both bertoxx and rodcet. he wants a queen too. if boredom was his driving force he would test out death and go past deathtoll tower.I would love to know! Hopefully this will be covered at some point but I have a feeling that he came across something and maybe he needed to be a mortal again for a certain reason or just hated the sound of all of his worshippers constantly perstering him! (Or maybe didn't want to die from lack of worship)</blockquote>

Mary the Prophetess

11-15-2011, 03:53 AM

It is really a shame that Vhalen (et al) have moved on. I know there are those here that are acquainted with them personally, and it is possible they still stop by here from time to time anonymously.I don't know if they have legal prohibitions from commenting on what they originally intended to lore to say, I would guess there are, as well as a personel professional courtesy to those who shape(d) the lore after their departure.Still, if only we could see those lost tomes, (now probably gathering dust in a storage box somewhere).......just a glimpse...just once...../sighs

Mixxit

11-15-2011, 04:02 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>It is really a shame that Vhalen (et al) have moved on. I know there are those here that are acquainted with them personally, and it is possible they still stop by here from time to time anonymously.I don't know if they have legal prohibitions from commenting on what they originally intended to lore to say, I would guess there are, as well as a personel professional courtesy to those who shape(d) the lore after their departure.Still, if only we could see those lost tomes, (now probably gathering dust in a storage box somewhere).......just a glimpse...just once...../sighs</blockquote>The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_qMagfZtv8&ob=av2e" target="_blank">man in this video</a> saw those tomes and look what happened to him - some things just aren't meant to be known!

ratbast

11-15-2011, 05:39 AM

had to go back to my books to get this, but 'the necropolis of lxanvon volume I" makes some statements that contradict a lot of the anashti didnt know bert, no races but dragons in age of scale theory. -------------------------------------------- The Necropolis of Lxanvon and the Arrival of the Plague Bringer In a Norrathian age long past, when dragons ruled the lands, seas, and skies, an ancient race did spring forth from the will of an unknown god. They were a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh world ruled by the scaled children of Veeshan. The true name of this extinct civilization has been lost to the mists of time, the evidence of their existence buried and all but destroyed by the elements and the forces of change. The eldest of dragons sometimes whisper tales of this lost race of beings who were the first to stand against and slay the great children of Veeshan. They speak of them to their young, as a human mother would tell ghost stories to her child. The dragons whispered tales of a great kingdom of wicked yet noble beings that built cities from the bones and sinew of the slain children of Veeshan. This is one such tale, passed down to the scribes of New Tanaan many years past by the dragon sorcerer Ulvaxazoviak. Many ages ago, in a time that only the spirits of the ancestor dragons can recall, a long dead ancient race, The Xulous they are called in the tales of my kind, did build upon the lands that would become Tunaria a great necropolis to house their dead kings. The crypts of the necropolis were fashioned from preserved remains of slain dragons and it was called Lxanvon, which means in the tongue of the Xulous, 'Kings Rest'. As the necropolis filled with the dead Xulous royalty, honored and revered in death as much as in life, a festering evil began to take over in the lowest bowels of the crypts of the kings. The Xulous, through their adoration and reverence of their rotting kings, their defilement of the dead children of Veeshan, and their dependence on the deaths of dragons for the expansion of their kingdoms did unknowingly bring a powerful and ancient evil to Norrath. As years passed, the evil presence in the bowels of Lxanvon grew stronger, and there, within the rotting corpses of those ancient kings, Bertoxxulous was born. -------------------------- i have a hard time saying either 1) bertoxx was ascended after anashti banishment 2) xulous werent around during age of scale. if you disagree or see a contradiction, could you please say why, with source/references i can check? the reason i think its relevent to this thread 1) second example of age of scale humanoids (myong said he saw veeshan lay her eggs) 2) debunk anashti timeline relative to ewer creation (date unknown) and her banishment: i contend ewer was created long before norrath. after all, didnt malkonis the vampire have possession of ewer, bring it to the elves, which they recovered and then anashti used to get banished? seems ewer was created, then ydal, then malkonis, then anashti cure/banishment.

Mixxit

11-15-2011, 07:00 AM

I'll have a bash at answering this for you<cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote>had to go back to my books to get this, but 'the necropolis of lxanvon volume I" makes some statements that contradict a lot of the anashti didnt know bert, no races but dragons in age of scale theory. -------------------------------------------- The Necropolis of Lxanvon and the Arrival of the Plague Bringer In a Norrathian age long past, when dragons ruled the lands, seas, and skies, an ancient race did spring forth from the will of an unknown god. They were a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh world ruled by the scaled children of Veeshan. The true name of this extinct civilization has been lost to the mists of time, the evidence of their existence buried and all but destroyed by the elements and the forces of change. The eldest of dragons sometimes whisper tales of this lost race of beings who were the first to stand against and slay the great children of Veeshan. They speak of them to their young, as a human mother would tell ghost stories to her child. The dragons whispered tales of a great kingdom of wicked yet noble beings that built cities from the bones and sinew of the slain children of Veeshan. This is one such tale, passed down to the scribes of New Tanaan many years past by the dragon sorcerer Ulvaxazoviak. Many ages ago, in a time that only the spirits of the ancestor dragons can recall, a long dead ancient race, The Xulous they are called in the tales of my kind, did build upon the lands that would become Tunaria a great necropolis to house their dead kings. The crypts of the necropolis were fashioned from preserved remains of slain dragons and it was called Lxanvon, which means in the tongue of the Xulous, 'Kings Rest'. As the necropolis filled with the dead Xulous royalty, honored and revered in death as much as in life, a festering evil began to take over in the lowest bowels of the crypts of the kings. The Xulous, through their adoration and reverence of their rotting kings, their defilement of the dead children of Veeshan, and their dependence on the deaths of dragons for the expansion of their kingdoms did unknowingly bring a powerful and ancient evil to Norrath. As years passed, the evil presence in the bowels of Lxanvon grew stronger, and there, within the rotting corpses of those ancient kings, Bertoxxulous was born. -------------------------- i have a hard time saying either 1) bertoxx was ascended after anashti banishment Here is why bertox was ascended after Anashti'Sul's banishment and the evidence is in what says when you do the diety questaNPC 26701 Avatar of the Forgotten:Avatar of the Forgotten/a says to you, "Hmm... I do not feel the presence of Xul'Varien, but instead I sense this new being -- Bertoxxulous, if I have heard correctly, who is evidently the new Lord of Pestilence. I will be watching that one carefully. However, I have a more pressing matter at hand, which is the one who replaced me, Rodcet Nife." 2) xulous werent around during age of scale. I'm not sure i'd say they weren't they certainly were there very early fighting dragons 'The eldest of dragons sometimes whisper tales of this lost race of beings who were the first to stand against and slay the great children of Veeshan' if you disagree or see a contradiction, could you please say why, with source/references i can check? the reason i think its relevent to this thread 1) second example of age of scale humanoids (myong said he saw veeshan lay her eggs) 2) debunk anashti timeline relative to ewer creation (date unknown) and her banishment: i contend ewer was created long before norrath. after all, didnt malkonis the vampire have possession of ewer, bring it to the elves, which they recovered and then anashti used to get banished? seems ewer was created, then ydal, then malkonis, then anashti cure/banishment. </blockquote>*edit* before you ask your next quest if mayong was a xulous - a <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=49997#top" target="_blank">dev has already debunked that</a><div></div>

Anaogi

11-15-2011, 03:02 PM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Anaogi@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think you're in the ballpark here. Since I started this thread way back when, I'll add in my working theory...<ul><li>Anashti created the Ewer in ages unknown, before the Gods came to Norrath.</li><li>Each of the Gods of that time had created (or adopted?) servitor races.</li><li>Inny was in a bind...Hate is not exactly a force conducive to creation or fostering; mostly he had to corrupt others.</li><li>This probably got him in trouble a lot.</li><li>To put a stop to that, he figured he needed a little extra 'oomph' to back him up...</li><li>So, the Ewer. I'd be surprised if Anashti even knew what he was up to; he probably did the deed in secret...</li><li>...and accidentally tainted the Ewer in the process. Hate tends to do that to what it touches.</li><li>So then, Norrath.</li><li>Eventually, conflict with the dragons, and some need to cure the results...</li><li>...yeah, you see where that's headed.</li></ul>In short, a fusion of the original and new origins of undeath--Anashti took the fall for what Innorruuk did, wittingly or not.I suspect it was all fairly close together. One possiblity I'm kicking around is that the Ydal were intended for the colonization of Norrath, but the unintended results turned up...and the Ydal got hastily relocated to the Plane of Hate so as to cover Inny's tracks (and keep him from getting chucked into the Void)...and that was when they showed their true nature. Mayong then escapes from the collapsing Mystmyr (back to?) Norrath, with a hatred of dragons and a healthy distrust of the gods.Again, not a lot to work with, but that's how I arrange the pieces so far.</blockquote>I like the theory that ewer was created long ago, but only utilized/attempted to cure death outright later on norrath. Lore indicates that the Ewer was created speciffically to cure death and its first use lead to Anashti releasing the curse of undeath. She was banished for this action. Much much later after her banishment it was used by followers of an unknown fallen god in an attempt to gain immortality and protect them from the Curse of Ro. Ahket Aken is the living tombs you see today.Point me to this--not saying you're wrong, but I like to make sure our sources are solid. Besides, it never hurts to revisit things forgotten.Saying ydal creation tainted ewer is a cool twist.if river of life is really about undeath and not stream of conscousness of souls, that is too bad. the river that flows thru the celestial worlds. river of life... This is how the undead in Ahket Aken describe the ewer. You can see how accurate their vision was, right?i like creation myth like this. the nameless makes major planes, and rhoen theer, gives rhoen theer 2 artifacts(soulfire/claymore). major planes manifest elemental gods. elemental gods create planes of influence/gods of influence. rhoeen theer comissions anashti(influence god of health) to create river for souls to enter norrath (and exit to ethernere). she creates artifact, the ewer, (from some special materials from rhoen theer) as tool for accomplishing her project. she uses ewer to create connection to celestial worlds, now playing board is set. no current use left/known for ewer.But the creation mythos goes like this: The Nameless creates the elemental dieties and Norrath. Each diety seems to generate their own plane. The existance of the hero planes lead to a different conclusion. It seems like any sufficiently powerful being generates a plane of existance. So the most powerful being on Norrath may continue to exist in a wierd fashion on their own planes of existance long after they have died. This could be fueled by legends told by bards and people fantasizing about the heros and villans of ages long gone.gods makes races, inny is only a destructive force, cant create, uses artifact on a drop of his blood, taints ewer, smuggles it back to anashti. bertoxXULOUS ascends to god of influence (who was disease before that-maybe thats one of gods theer killed, how convenient its from plane opposite anashtiHEALTH<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />ISEASE). later on anashti decides to take on a project (heretical project from theers view btw, imbalancing health/disease), to cure death completely, she tries using her artifact, undeath results, whether from taint or its just a bad idea. she gets banished, rodcet (xulous?) ascends to god of influence.When Anashti was released from the Void, she professes to have no knowledge of Bertoxxulous. Both Bertoxxulous and Rodcet Knife come into the pathenon long after Anashi is banished and forgotten. As for Theer? If Theer was around he could simply kill Anashti for disrupting the ballance. Instead a councel of the gods banishes here just like Theer was. All evidence points to Theer being banished before undeath was created.Also after Anashti was released from the void her first action was to recover the Ewer. If something is that central to a gods power base, it is highly unlikely that Inny could simply borrow it to create a race. Inny's a sneaky one. But as I say, I'm conjecturing in the absence of solid lore.alternate use for ewer is discovered, besides making river of life, making ydal, making sul'dae...making vampires.actually making vampires was a use discovered by the guy who brought ewer to takish-haz, BEFORE anashti was banished, thats before sul'dae right? so vampirism is disconnected from her project that got her banished(undeath is diff from vampirism/or a superset of vamp).Many things wrong here. First, Takish-haz doesn't have undead. It has elves that have been transformed into living sand. More or less they operate in a golem like fashion and recreate themselves after being destoyed and continue doing a mockery of what they did in life. Kinda like the Unrest curse without the involvement of a diety. The Ewer was brought to Ahket Aken, and during the time when the Curse of Ro was sent. i dont like the theory that anashti made the ewer for the original purpose of solving death for takish-haz. its too unambitious a role for the artifact. so did ewer make ydal immortal? did it cure death? did it make them all 'undead'? technically they could have been undead, even if they killed each other, since undead can perma kill each other.either way, the connection between ewer, undeath, and vampirism is tenuous. it seems 'undeath' didnt occur until takish-haz, when anashti tried to solve death permanently. a different project then mere immortality, which dragons enjoy, and it appears myong as well.1 question: why didnt myong die? does he only make mini=me vampires by having them suck his blood, but never partaking of others blood? was he created from a first batch drop before ewer was fully tainted? or were only loyal ydal granted vampire ritual from ewer shortly after their creation? could say ewer creation + vamp ritual w/ewer = extinct undead. a ritual myong declined, so he lived.What happened to the Ydal still isn't entirely clear. It's safe to say that Mayong is something different from what passes as modern vampires on Norrath. This may imply interesting things about Tserrina as well, but that's a matter for another thread... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />my goal is apotheosis, so I have a few projects of my own in game. been conducting research, and experiments on my disciples(alts). there are several open planes of influence, afaik.I almost have every book from nizari, which contains much information on the xulous, and is next door to Zebuxoruk who lives in shin. some day i may publish my in game house, containing my gigantic library, along with my own research notes, speculations, conclusions, efforts. personally i suspect lichdom may be involved somehow, but instead of possessing yourself into a single artifact, you possess yourself into a plane itself. i suspect zeb went the easy route with mana(plane of mana?). mana is ever present in norrath, and created the behemoths out of nothing at all before veeshan ever arrived. great way to regenerate yourself if you dont have a plane/demiplane.</blockquote>My comments above in red.</blockquote>And mine in green...

ratbast

11-16-2011, 12:30 AM

too much in those books points to age of scale. i dont think it meshes with anashti's claim she doesnt know of bertox. imagery of dragons roaming the lands, ruling the skies from age of scale is almost identical to era of xulous. i would prefer plot twist that anashti is lying, otherwise "did build upon the lands that would become Tunaria a great necropolis"(necropolis of Lxanvon volume I) basically demands xulous before elves of tunare(before humans, before qeynos), which demands BEFORE anashti banishment. anyway, the perspective some have that dragons were first and solitary is not attractive to me. we already know behemoths were here first, yet dragon creation stories claim otherwise. i came across another mention of xulous from <a href="http://www.lorelibrary.com/?page=website&wid=103&ss=xulous" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.lorelibrary.com/?page=we...d=103&ss=xulous</a> honestly i couldnt find any credentials for the source. seems to be saying rodcet came to norrath (qeynos) hunting diseased planet hopping xulous. IMO appears to be different chapter in xulous lineage than necropolis of Lxanvon. necropolis and qeynos are almost on top of each other geographically. asking them be contemporaries is a bit much to ask, from either voices viewpoint. i say its more reasonable to assume he was pursuing another branch of the race than what bertoxx had doomed, in a different epoch.

Mixxit

11-16-2011, 01:29 AM

Here are some facts that allow the xulous, the ewer of sul'dae and bertoxxulous to exist in the age of scale1) Zebuxorok was ascended to a god by Druzzil Ro but he also gave the unholy writ to the Iksar during the Age of Monuments so it goes to stand that his race existed in or before the age of scale (i'll say in as i like to think the dragons were here first)2) In the age of monuments the iksar had their very own vampire called Chosooth so vampirism was around by that point3) The Xulous, originally from antonica were warped away to another plane. It's possible their new twisted version made by bertoxxulous crossed to other worlds from that place - it's also possible they returned after the shissar, tanaanites, and other mortals started entering the planes and that would explain rodcets return at Qeynos4) We know that the Xulous were one of the first to fight the dragons, so you can put them in or near the age of scaleIgnore this, my timeline is somewhat messed up as I had the Shissar as in the Age of Scale

The_Cheeseman

11-16-2011, 03:04 AM

I was under the impression that the Age of Scale was the period between Veeshan depositing her children and claiming Norrath, and the First Council creating their races (which began the Elder Age). If this is the case, there were no Iksar then, only dragons on the surface and whatever stuff Brell dumped in the Underfoot. The Iksar didn't come into being until the Age of Monuments, according to my understanding.The theory we are discussing is whether the Xulos lived during the Age of Scale, and if so, why they are not talked about in the well-known creation myths.I would like to say also that all this stuff about the Behemoths is very likely untrue. Lore of Fauna books are attributed to a specific in-character writer, and are not "word of god" lore. Heck, the book even says that the writer's colleagues disagreed with his theory. Not only that, but the writer says that the dragons lived in fear of the behemoths, who were capable of single-handedly demolishing entire dragon settlements. Beasts of such terrible power are not mentioned anywhere else, not in draconic lore, not in the lore of the giants (who would very likely have been happy to chronicle the defeats of their hated rivals), not in any racial creation myths or any other stories from that era. Based on the data available, I'm going to have to conclude that Prof. Romiak Jusathorn is just wrong.

Mixxit

11-16-2011, 04:13 AM

You're right sorry my timeline was messed up and i've moved that over - not sure how that got like that but it's now messed up my dates a little!As for discussing Zeb and Bertox, Anashti'Sul the Xulous and Xul'Varien:The Xulous (and because of this conversation, Bertoxxulous which then places the Ewer before the Xulous) can still have existed before the time of Takish'Hiz The crypt was originally built upon Antonica in an age long past to house the dead kings of a long dead ancient raceKnown as The Founder, the first king was the greatest of all the kings buried within the crypt. He carved his kingdom out of a wild land and forged it with blood and steelThey were a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh world ruled by the scaled children of VeeshanThe dragons whispered tales of a great kingdom of wicked yet noble beings that built cities from the bones and sinew of the slain children of Veeshantheir dependence on the deaths of dragons for the expansion of their kingdoms did unknowingly bring a powerful and ancient evil to NorrathMany ages ago, in a time that only the spirits of the ancestor dragons can recall, a long dead ancient race, The Xulous they are called in the tales of my kind, did build upon the lands that would become Tunaria a great necropolisThe ancient dragons watched from afar as the mists cleared, revealing only a barren and broken landscape where the necropolis had once lied------------------------------------------------------As we can see here - the lands that 'would become' tunaria - a race, that 'only the elder dragon spirits can recall' gave birth to Bertoxxulous and then were summoned away by their new deity to the Plane of DiseaseThis area, no doubt 'The Dead Hills' is where the Jal'Raeth are all over in EQOA and Envar, the place their race was fascinated with death<img src="http://loreofnorrath.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/thedeadhills.png" width="182" height="109" />Now Anashti'Sul definately says that Xul'Varien was the old Lord of Pestilence and we know the End Times of the Xulous on Antonica was the birth of Bertoxxulous. ------------------------------------------------------Now, assuming what she said is true - we can now fast forward in time to the height of the Elven Empire as mentioned in the Tales of Maj'Dul lore and we can see:It began long ago in the days when the Dal roamed the land and the sand was a lustrous green. This was the Elddar the great forest from which all sprang. It was within the majesty of this green that the Dal came to existHaldinous of Rynthele lived a great grand life, sculpting for many empires and telling tales of dead hills. He lived a long and prosperous life after escaping the hills, but his work there would lead the evil Mal’Ahkt’s hands around the frail neck of the sculptorThe land that was barren drained all creatures of life and the sculptors knew of this, but did their art for the protection of Norrath.-------------------------------------------------------We can see here that the elves kingdom was still 'a lustrous green' they were telling tales of the 'dead hills' that were already a land 'barren and drained all creatures of life'So this theoretically places Bertoxxulous before the time of the Elves and because of this Anashti'Sul before the time of the Elves meaning she must have created the Ewer before even the Dead Hills were around (and my guess is, she did this whilst combatting Xul'Varien)On a side note it makes you wonder if the word Xul means something related to disease as the Xulous and Xul'Varien share a similar name and both are involved with disease and death at some point

Mixxit

11-16-2011, 05:16 AM

Just to summarise the above i see the order as:AGEOFSCALE - Veeshan comes to norrathELDERAGE - Other gods notice norrathELDERAGE - Xulous are createdELDERAGE - Jal'Reath are createdELDERAGE - Ewer of Sul'Dae is createdELDERAGE - Anashti'Sul is banishedELDERAGE - Elves arriveELDERAGE - Innoruuk uses the Ewer of Sul'DaeELDERAGE - YDal are createdELDERAGE - Mistmoore is bornELDERAGE - YDal fight amongst themselvesELDERAGE - Xul'Varien loses his power / possibly banishedELDERAGE - Bertoxxulous is bornELDERAGE - Xulous transcend to plane of diseaseELDERAGE - Ja'lReath become obsessed with death in EnvarELDERAGE - Rodcet ascends to DeityELDERAGE - Elves are flourishing as a raceELDERAGE - Takish'Hiz is foundedELDERAGE - Elves explore the Dead HillsELDERAGE - Elvish king and queen are snatched by InnoruukAGEOFMONUMENTS - Dark Elves are createdAGEOFBLOOD - Takish'Hiz fallsLOSTAGE - Combine Empire forms*Edit* for a full list of the events so far: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgZpGi6Fgbi2dFBMME9MbVhYRTdqeFUtNS1abEVlV kE#gid=0">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...1abEVlVkE#gid=0</a>

Meirril

11-16-2011, 10:04 PM

Bertoxxulous and Rodcet are actually some of the youngest gods in the pathenon. According to Rodcet's creation lore he was following the "Xulous force" to Norrath from his native planet, which was ravished by the disease. This is most likely recorded in the book "Rememberances: Prime". If that is the case...void anchors are creations of the Shadowmen to prevent their rocks from being sucked into the heart of the void. As far as we know, they didn't come into existance until after Anashti was banished, the Shadowmen being the banished Jal'Rath seen in EQ:OA but not seen in EQ1 or EQ2 until TSO launched.Back on topic, Rodcet's arrival on Norrath is recorded by citizens of Qeynos. Qeynos wasn't founded until after the Lost Age, about the time that humans came into existance. Both Bertoxxulous and Rodcet were added to the pathenon at about the same time.That doesn't mean that the whole Lxanvon story couldn't be involved in Bert's creation. Bert may have origionated there but not become a god. Spirits are lesser beings that are still quite powerful. It could be that Bert had several incarnations before becomming powerful enough (or well known enough) to rise to diety status.FYI: The whole Lxanvon story perty much contradicts with the whole 'Age of' storylines written by the Sage of Ages. So one source or the other MUST be incorrect. The Age of books appear to be written from the dragon point of view.

Mixxit

11-17-2011, 03:26 AM

Bert definately came into existence wayyyy before qeynos as i showed above with the quotes

The_Cheeseman

11-17-2011, 10:28 AM

<cite>Mixxit@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just to summarise the above i see the order as:AGEOFSCALE - Veeshan comes to norrathELDERAGE - Other gods notice norrathELDERAGE - Xulous are createdELDERAGE - Jal'Reath are createdELDERAGE - Ewer of Sul'Dae is createdELDERAGE - Anashti'Sul is banishedELDERAGE - Elves arriveELDERAGE - Innoruuk uses the Ewer of Sul'DaeELDERAGE - YDal are createdELDERAGE - Mistmoore is bornELDERAGE - YDal fight amongst themselvesELDERAGE - Xul'Varien loses his power / possibly banishedELDERAGE - Bertoxxulous is bornELDERAGE - Xulous transcend to plane of diseaseELDERAGE - Ja'lReath become obsessed with death in EnvarELDERAGE - Rodcet ascends to DeityELDERAGE - Elves are flourishing as a raceELDERAGE - Takish'Hiz is foundedELDERAGE - Elves explore the Dead HillsELDERAGE - Elvish king and queen are snatched by InnoruukAGEOFMONUMENTS - Dark Elves are createdAGEOFBLOOD - Takish'Hiz fallsLOSTAGE - Combine Empire forms*Edit* for a full list of the events so far: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgZpGi6Fgbi2dFBMME9MbVhYRTdqeFUtNS1abEVlV kE#gid=0">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...1abEVlVkE#gid=0</a></blockquote>This cannot be correct unless you wish to directly contradict the words of a developer. It has been clearly stated that Mayong is older than any of the common player races, which include the Dwarves, who were among the first races placed upon Norrath by the Gods at the start of the Elder Age. The Ydal, Mayong's race, had to have been created before the First Council of the Gods, which places them during the Age of Scale or before the discovery of Norrath. This also means that the Ewer of Sul'Dae had to exist prior to the Elder Age, as well, since it was used in the creation of the Ydal.

The_Cheeseman

11-17-2011, 11:14 AM

I just thought I'd point out that the events detailed in the story about the Xulos and the Birth of Bertoxxulous seem to match perfectly with "Remembrances: Berrox", including the exact names of people and places. If these two tales are in fact two perspectives on the same story, it would imply that the Shadowed Men were already creating Void Anchors during the era in which the Xulos lived. This would, obviously, mean that either the Xulos came after the Jael'Raeth, or the Jal'Raeth were not the original Shadowed Men.

Mixxit

11-17-2011, 11:32 AM

I know this is just a feeling but it seems so much to me like the Jal'Raeth were two different people1) Like rodcet much before the Jal'Raeth obsession with death, the xulous and envar and how they are seen in EQOA<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3017/2944522805_4d20942b7a_o.jpg" width="639" height="444" />2) The corrupted Jal'Raeth version after the Xulous became what they ended up being<img src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091005054229/eq2/images/thumb/9/96/Executor_Zynos.jpg/269px-Executor_Zynos.jpg" width="269" height="299" />Whatever the tower is, it came after Anashti'Sul had been banished (because of her not know about bert) - it lead to the Xulous being corrupted by Bertoxxulous who then (according to the Xulous/Lxanvon/Berrox lore went about tunaria bringing death and pestilence)Now I don't know where Ultor the Putrid came from originally, but without the Anchor ever arriving he would have never been able to convince King Adan to come to the crypt for him to create BertoxxulousThe question now is, were the Jal'Raeth corrupted as part of the Xulous raiding the lands of Tunaria/Antonica after their dark transformation or was it specifically that they were dabbling in Envar like on EQOAAll we know is that the Xulous after their rampage were then sucked away into the Crypt of Decay/Ruins of Lxanvon by BertoxxulousMaybe after Anashti'Sul was banished for creating the Ewer her old enemy Xul'Varien was banished too and some how he found a way back from the void via the tower and then he became Bertoxxulous but anashti'sul on her recent return said quite clearly she didn't feel Xul'Variens presence any more only BertoxxulousEither way, this all relates to Mayong's history as we can place the Ewer of Sul'Dae before the arrival of Bertoxxulous and we can place the dead hills history deathly transformation via the 1001 tales of maj'dul before the time of the Elves meaning Mayong could have been around to see the first broodPersonally I believe the Elves and YDal were created around the same time but long before the Elves had a huge empire across tunaria and probably long before Takish'Hiz was constructed

Anaogi

11-17-2011, 02:13 PM

There was always an implication that the 'Shadowed Men' were some sort of transdimensional borg--what we saw as different creature types were the result of races from different worlds being used as 'vessels' by some force. The lore supporting the purposes of the anchors--the first we knew of was the Obelisk of Lost Souls--was in EQ2 from the start, even if some details were altered slightly come TSO.Recall, the first known 'invasion' was in the time of the Ethernaughts. It's hard to place Anashti's involvement by those events, because they never confronted each other until they arrived in the Void, where time is a little wonky, to say the least. (See 'poorly patched timeline theory', earlier.) If I remember it right, Theer got involved in the whole deal after that first attempt, resulting in the more subtle 'shadowed men' that was known subsequently; the events leading to TSO were a result of Anashti'Sul jumping the gun on Theer's timeline. (Someone correct or back me up with sources, I don't have immediate access to my usual suspects at the moment...)

Mixxit

11-17-2011, 02:43 PM

Although the Xulous infection must have occured a long time ago and that's what lead to the Jal'Reath becoming vessels and the shadowed men we see todayThe first tower, the one mentioned in Berrox, would have stood there so long ago before even the construction of Takish'Hiz and still stands there in Feerott today so it predates the ethernaut story by hundreds of yearsWhatever the entity is that consumed the xulous and then the jal'raeth does indeed seem not of this worldBut going back on topic, if the Ewer was created before the time of the Xulous then the YDal would have been around to see events like this, assuming they had wondered beyond the plane of hate by that time

Mixxit

11-17-2011, 03:40 PM

For those interested in the EQOA Jal'Raeth rodcet quote<cite>EQOA Plague Event</cite><blockquote>Within the Jal'Raeth writings is mentioned a renegade Jal'Raeth that believe differently than the rest of his kind. This pacifistic Jal'Raeth recognizes that undeath is not a gift of eternal life but a curse. It is written that the renegade Jal'Raeth, Rodcet Nife, has visited many realms to heal and enhance the frail mortal inhabitant According to the tome, Rodcet Nife, possesses great powers of healing and rivaling the dark powers of others of his kind. There are passages that speak of resurrection, and mentions of rituals that enable the Jal'Raeth to communicate across worlds. Please take this tome to Ammathor Lithkin of the Anagogical Order in Qeynos.</blockquote>

Gungo

11-17-2011, 04:20 PM

<cite>Kvanilya wrote:</cite><blockquote>Third, Anashti Sul, so far as I've seen has never been credited with creating Vampires. She's been credited with creating Undeath only. All you ever see of her turned followers are Zombies, or other Undead. No Vampires.</blockquote>Um technically the ewer made the d'morte vampires directly. So she did create vampirism.Mayong is ydalThe ewer needs blood to work. Mayong was created using inny blood and as a result is a special vampire. The d'morte vampire clan used the sul'dae blood(sacrifices). obviously they are weaker vampires then mistmoore clan.All this is pretty much canon. The only issue is conflicting stories between mayong statement of seeing the first brood(dragons) placed n norrath and the fact he is a creation of tunare (elf) and inny(ewer). The only explanation is the ydal was created first in the gods of influence planes. Which is exceptable since ALL gods of influence NEED followers to exist. They draw thier power from worship by mortals even from thier respective planes. Veeshan was stated to be more powerful then the gods of influence, but yet below the elemental gods. My guess is that she is the ONLY creation(god of influence) of 2 conflicting elemental gods. Crystaline= earth, Dragon= AirShe as far as i know controls the 'plane of sky".

Gungo

11-17-2011, 04:41 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>@ CheesemanAnd therein is the problem with the Ydal having been created prior to the arrival of Veeshan. There was no Ewer when Veeshan arrived, and there was no knowledge of Norrath's existence.</blockquote>This is not canon. The ewer very well could of been created to give eternal life to planar creations within the god of influences plane.

Meirril

11-17-2011, 11:27 PM

<cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>@ CheesemanAnd therein is the problem with the Ydal having been created prior to the arrival of Veeshan. There was no Ewer when Veeshan arrived, and there was no knowledge of Norrath's existence.</blockquote>This is not canon. The ewer very well could of been created to give eternal life to planar creations within the god of influences plane.</blockquote>Why would the gods need that? Luclin's first creations were made immortal. If the gods desired for their races to be immortal, they could just make them that way to begin with. Anashti'sul did it for her mortal worshipers, and the curse of undeath was the result. I'm perty sure that the curse of undeath isn't a probem in the planes of influence. You don't see spontanious undead in the Plane of Valor or the Plane of Disease. Only on the planes where undead are welcome do they appear. Only in the moral realm do you find undead rising in unwelcome places. That is the reason Anashti was banished.

Meirril

11-17-2011, 11:34 PM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mixxit@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just to summarise the above i see the order as:AGEOFSCALE - Veeshan comes to norrathELDERAGE - Other gods notice norrathELDERAGE - Xulous are createdELDERAGE - Jal'Reath are createdELDERAGE - Ewer of Sul'Dae is createdELDERAGE - Anashti'Sul is banishedELDERAGE - Elves arriveELDERAGE - Innoruuk uses the Ewer of Sul'DaeELDERAGE - YDal are createdELDERAGE - Mistmoore is bornELDERAGE - YDal fight amongst themselvesELDERAGE - Xul'Varien loses his power / possibly banishedELDERAGE - Bertoxxulous is bornELDERAGE - Xulous transcend to plane of diseaseELDERAGE - Ja'lReath become obsessed with death in EnvarELDERAGE - Rodcet ascends to DeityELDERAGE - Elves are flourishing as a raceELDERAGE - Takish'Hiz is foundedELDERAGE - Elves explore the Dead HillsELDERAGE - Elvish king and queen are snatched by InnoruukAGEOFMONUMENTS - Dark Elves are createdAGEOFBLOOD - Takish'Hiz fallsLOSTAGE - Combine Empire forms*Edit* for a full list of the events so far: <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgZpGi6Fgbi2dFBMME9MbVhYRTdqeFUtNS1abEVlV kE#gid=0">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...1abEVlVkE#gid=0</a></blockquote>This cannot be correct unless you wish to directly contradict the words of a developer. It has been clearly stated that Mayong is older than any of the common player races, which include the Dwarves, who were among the first races placed upon Norrath by the Gods at the start of the Elder Age. The Ydal, Mayong's race, had to have been created before the First Council of the Gods, which places them during the Age of Scale or before the discovery of Norrath. This also means that the Ewer of Sul'Dae had to exist prior to the Elder Age, as well, since it was used in the creation of the Ydal.</blockquote>And we're back to my only solution for this being Time Travel. Flash forward one year from now where you see Miragul disguised as Christopher Lloyd walking up to a young teir'dal "Mayong! Oh, its bad. Its terrible, you've got to come back with me to the past to save the future!"

Mixxit

11-18-2011, 12:34 AM

why cant it be at the start of the elder age just before the dwarves and elves?

Mary the Prophetess

11-18-2011, 01:12 AM

As I understand it, when Vhalen moved from EQ Live to EQ2 in 2004, Vahlar took up his mantle of 'lore developer' at EQ Live (even though in actuality 'lore developer' was never an official job, just something that these developers chose to do in addition to their other responsibilities) She stayed as the lore developer in EQ Live until 2007.ALL of our problems in this thread rest with that single sentence she made in 2007 concerning Mayong's age. It has been a thorn in our side ever since it was made, because it contradicts other official lore. This is not the only time mistakes in the lore or in geography has forced some rather transparent and convoluted ret-cons to be mad to explain away the inconsistencies. The incorrect facing ot the original Qeynos gate in the Elddar grove, the 'lifting' of Befallen out of the Commonlands and it's appearance in Antonica as Stormhold, the mis-translation of the location of Ardathium in the in-game books all come to mind.*IF*, for the sake of argument, we assume that Vahlar mis-spoke about Mayong's age in this instance, then everything else falls into place neatly.Unfortunately neither Vhalen nor Vahlar are going to return from the dead to tell us, nor does it seem likely that any current developer wpold want to walk into a potential lore minefield with any type of clarification; *especially* one that contradicts a previous developers assertions.To me, it seems simple. Reject Vahlar's statement as a mistake, and all of our problems concerning Mayong, the Ydal, the Ewer and Anashti disappear.

Mixxit

11-18-2011, 01:19 AM

Also the maps of myrist says it (another unreliale source)

The_Cheeseman

11-18-2011, 02:35 AM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>As I understand it, when Vhalen moved from EQ Live to EQ2 in 2004, Vahlar took up his mantle of 'lore developer' at EQ Live (even though in actuality 'lore developer' was never an official job, just something that these developers chose to do in addition to their other responsibilities) She stayed as the lore developer in EQ Live until 2007.ALL of our problems in this thread rest with that single sentence she made in 2007 concerning Mayong's age. It has been a thorn in our side ever since it was made, because it contradicts other official lore. This is not the only time mistakes in the lore or in geography has forced some rather transparent and convoluted ret-cons to be mad to explain away the inconsistencies. The incorrect facing ot the original Qeynos gate in the Elddar grove, the 'lifting' of Befallen out of the Commonlands and it's appearance in Antonica as Stormhold, the mis-translation of the location of Ardathium in the in-game books all come to mind.*IF*, for the sake of argument, we assume that Vahlar mis-spoke about Mayong's age in this instance, then everything else falls into place neatly.Unfortunately neither Vhalen nor Vahlar are going to return from the dead to tell us, nor does it seem likely that any current developer wpold want to walk into a potential lore minefield with any type of clarification; *especially* one that contradicts a previous developers assertions.To me, it seems simple. Reject Vahlar's statement as a mistake, and all of our problems concerning Mayong, the Ydal, the Ewer and Anashti disappear.</blockquote>Personally, I don't see any of these major problems of which you speak. In my estimation, we've been making some major headway in figuring out when and where Mayong came from, and what his motivations could be. Thus far, I can't see any retcons, only ideas that challenge commonly held assumptions that never really had any significant support from in-game lore, anyway.You say we should, ignore specific information directly from the mouth of a developer. You also claim that there have been mistakes in the in-game lore as well, which is true. I say, given the fact that the game is created by humans, and humans are fallible, there are bound to be some errors and inaccuracies in the lore both in-game and out of game. Knowing this, when the words of a developer contradict the text of an in-game source, which one should we believe? I would say that it is best to believe the developer, since the "lore dev" is the one in charge of keeping the lore consistent, so that person should have the most complete picture of how the myriad of elements fit together. The in-game books could have been written by interns in the data-entry department, for all we know.However, as I said above, I don't think there are any contradictions so severe that we have to start writing-off any sources as mistakes. We just have to keep an open mind and understand that we are working with limited data, some of which is kept intentionally vague, so some aspects will not be easily understood.Personally, I believe that the Ewer was created before Norrath was populated, and I think both Theer and Anashti were banished before then, as well. Likewise, the Ydal were created on the Plane of Hate either before or during the Age of Scale, and Mayong came to Norrath at some point later. This would leave plenty of time for Anashti or Theer to begin their efforts in the Void so that they could have begun building obelisks during the era of the Xulos (as mentioned in "Remembrances: Berrox").

ratbast

11-18-2011, 03:51 AM

<cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>@ CheesemanAnd therein is the problem with the Ydal having been created prior to the arrival of Veeshan. There was no Ewer when Veeshan arrived, and there was no knowledge of Norrath's existence.</blockquote>This is not canon. The ewer very well could of been created to give eternal life to planar creations within the god of influences plane.</blockquote>Why would the gods need that? Luclin's first creations were made immortal. If the gods desired for their races to be immortal, they could just make them that way to begin with. Anashti'sul did it for her mortal worshipers, and the curse of undeath was the result. I'm perty sure that the curse of undeath isn't a probem in the planes of influence. You don't see spontanious undead in the Plane of Valor or the Plane of Disease. Only on the planes where undead are welcome do they appear. Only in the moral realm do you find undead rising in unwelcome places. That is the reason Anashti was banished.</blockquote>in answer to your question:pure theory, but i think of planar beings (and dieties) as functions of that particular plane, or the universe in general-i dont see earth elemental having a ghost cuz it has no soul, only thing it could have would be an echo, an anomoly of its extinquished existence.whereas mortals are wandering souls who temporarily materialize in this existence. they were neither born here, nor will they be obliterated here. In 1 aspect, they transcend this universe, and are above it.planar beings can have their entire existence begin and end within this universe. mortals pass to ethernere and till yonder.blocking the flow of souls is a major corruption of the universe dynamics. turning mortals, on the hero plane, immortal or undead (or deified) violates conservation of souls or net soul count.if the nameless can see beyond into more advanced forms of existence, he might have a negative perspective on mortals being 'held back' by becoming undead, but not have negative perspective on indigenous(to norrath universe) lifeforms(planar life) with limitless lifespan. their full creation started here, whereas mortals are in different category.imo, immortal planar races, elemental gods,(maybe gods of influence) demigods(not of mortal origin) dont violate sanctity/conservation of life and death.this is what makes mayong so curious to me. no physical process of creation has been described for mortal races afaik. but some creation processes for demigods have been. often they are result of actual physical body of dieties. ydal are actually blood of inny blood. they are blood like a parent and child. makes me think they are a demigod race, not part of the flow of life to ethernere.i would have not problem with ydal not being demigod, since that may be how mortal races come into being. maybe taking raw piece of flesh but not incorporating innate powers, or dividing their essence into it?but on topic: i think this forum has isolated the offending lore fragments that conflict for mayong origin. time travel would be 1 solution(easy way out). i like a mayong who is really old and has a special purpose here but without time travel. time traveling back to see veeshan is pretty lame claim if you just timetraveled...to have old myong without time travel means anashti needs a retcon, and after that, more specific ewer lore would help too. so much room to elaborate in lore with 4 slain gods of 4rune theer, which do not include previous god of disease...xul'whateverplus there are 4 elemental planes between the original 4 elemental planes(8 total elemental planes), and 16 planes of influence total. that makes 24 combined t1 and t2 dieties, plus 5 who were killed. granted not every god has to come to norrath, there are more planets in the cosmos, but some of these other planes are only defined(lava), and their corresponding dieties not even mentioned. what seems bizarre to me is the universe could be destroyed (if zek screws with kerafyrm)without the other gods visiting norrath, where this is really unfolding. if other dieties exist, and havent been killed by theer, the only plausible explanation for not getting involved is they dont know its happening. gods of influence meddle, its in their nature. i would venture a guess that the reason more gods arent brought in is based on game mechanics/too complex of a pantheon.if eq2 ever goes offworld exploring, the unused space for new dieties is very handy.

ratbast

11-18-2011, 04:12 AM

<cite>The_Cheeseman wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>As I understand it, when Vhalen moved from EQ Live to EQ2 in 2004, Vahlar took up his mantle of 'lore developer' at EQ Live (even though in actuality 'lore developer' was never an official job, just something that these developers chose to do in addition to their other responsibilities) She stayed as the lore developer in EQ Live until 2007.ALL of our problems in this thread rest with that single sentence she made in 2007 concerning Mayong's age. It has been a thorn in our side ever since it was made, because it contradicts other official lore. This is not the only time mistakes in the lore or in geography has forced some rather transparent and convoluted ret-cons to be mad to explain away the inconsistencies. The incorrect facing ot the original Qeynos gate in the Elddar grove, the 'lifting' of Befallen out of the Commonlands and it's appearance in Antonica as Stormhold, the mis-translation of the location of Ardathium in the in-game books all come to mind.*IF*, for the sake of argument, we assume that Vahlar mis-spoke about Mayong's age in this instance, then everything else falls into place neatly.Unfortunately neither Vhalen nor Vahlar are going to return from the dead to tell us, nor does it seem likely that any current developer wpold want to walk into a potential lore minefield with any type of clarification; *especially* one that contradicts a previous developers assertions.To me, it seems simple. Reject Vahlar's statement as a mistake, and all of our problems concerning Mayong, the Ydal, the Ewer and Anashti disappear.</blockquote>Personally, I don't see any of these major problems of which you speak. In my estimation, we've been making some major headway in figuring out when and where Mayong came from, and what his motivations could be. Thus far, I can't see any retcons, only ideas that challenge commonly held assumptions that never really had any significant support from in-game lore, anyway.You say we should, ignore specific information directly from the mouth of a developer. You also claim that there have been mistakes in the in-game lore as well, which is true. I say, given the fact that the game is created by humans, and humans are fallible, there are bound to be some errors and inaccuracies in the lore both in-game and out of game. Knowing this, when the words of a developer contradict the text of an in-game source, which one should we believe? I would say that it is best to believe the developer, since the "lore dev" is the one in charge of keeping the lore consistent, so that person should have the most complete picture of how the myriad of elements fit together. The in-game books could have been written by interns in the data-entry department, for all we know.However, as I said above, I don't think there are any contradictions so severe that we have to start writing-off any sources as mistakes. We just have to keep an open mind and understand that we are working with limited data, some of which is kept intentionally vague, so some aspects will not be easily understood.Personally, I believe that the Ewer was created before Norrath was populated, and I think both Theer and Anashti were banished before then, as well. Likewise, the Ydal were created on the Plane of Hate either before or during the Age of Scale, and Mayong came to Norrath at some point later. This would leave plenty of time for Anashti or Theer to begin their efforts in the Void so that they could have begun building obelisks during the era of the Xulos (as mentioned in "Remembrances: Berrox").</blockquote>i like your timeline. i do disagree about necessity of retcon tho. anashti was banished for actions on norrath (with elves afaik). for her to not know of bertox, she would have to be banished before Lxanvon, before tunaria became tunaria, before elves existed on norrath. wouldnt that require retcon?she would have to be working with different races when she unleashed undeath, such as the xulous, who passed on her religion to steward races since they would be unable to carry torch forward.i think a retcon of her statements of bertox would be better(or play it off that she was ashamed to know him/allow his installment as puppet god of pestilence), since retcon of point in time of her banishment alters 'nights of the dead' and probably even more.

Mixxit

11-18-2011, 04:20 AM

i don't think we need a retcon since the end of the age of scale could fit neatly with the xulous and jal'raethydal and very young elddar race the start of the elddar ageit would mean that anashti'sul would have been banished at the end of the age of scale though just before the xulousfor all we know when brell first found the planet he might have dropped some creatures then returned with the other gods and a dealpretty sure there was that lore about <a href="http://www.lorelibrary.com/?page=book&bid=353" target="_blank">'The Kings' of brell</a> that could work with the Adan lineage in an age filled with scale which would explain the Xulous lore about the floating jungles of the desolation

Felshades

11-18-2011, 04:40 AM

Dumb question but...What happened to Vhelen? I never did find out. Think I've asked too, but no dice :/

Mixxit

11-18-2011, 04:26 PM

Eugh now 3 mentions of it *shakes fist at LoN*Legends of Norrath quote'It is whispered that this enigmatic vampire lord of Castle Mistmoore is older than any other creature on the face of Norrath.'Maps of Myrist quote'It is rumored that the builder and inhabitant of the castle is an ancient vampire named Mayong, Lord of Mistmoore, who has lived well over ten thousand years.'EQ 1 Lore Dev'He’s older than any of the common player races. In fact, he’s said to have seen the first of Veeshan’s brood on Norrath. Perhaps something occured in those days that fueled his hatred of dragon kind . . .'

Mary the Prophetess

11-18-2011, 05:06 PM

Only one of those is a problemThe LoN can be written off as a rumor ("It is *whispered*" is synonymous with "It is *rumored*") the 10,000 year reference of Myrist can be accomodated by the length of the ages we have, and how far back each goes. (since Norrathian 'Ages' are marked by events rather than by a specific length of time, it is *possible* (though a bit of a stretch) to accomodate the 10,000 year reference)[Note: Trying to construct a master Norrathian time line has thus far proved to be elusive. There are a number of them out there, but none is definitive. The attempt has even stymied the actual individuals that WROTE the lore! (Jindrack and Vhalen were attempting to construct one before they departed into the mists, but the effort eluded them as well)]Vahlar there is no getting around. We are either forced to take it at face value, or (my preference) to disregard it as a mistake.

Mixxit

11-18-2011, 06:08 PM

<cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>Only one of those is a problemThe LoN can be written off as a rumor ("It is *whispered*" is synonymous with "It is *rumored*") the 10,000 year reference of Myrist can be accomodated by the length of the ages we have, and how far back each goes. (since Norrathian 'Ages' are marked by events rather than by a specific length of time, it is *possible* (though a bit of a stretch) to accomodate the 10,000 year reference)[Note: Trying to construct a master Norrathian time line has thus far proved to be elusive. There are a number of them out there, but none is definitive. The attempt has even stymied the actual individuals that WROTE the lore! (Jindrack and Vhalen were attempting to construct one before they departed into the mists, but the effort eluded them as well)]Vahlar there is no getting around. We are either forced to take it at face value, or (my preference) to disregard it as a mistake.</blockquote>i'd go with 'he's said to have' as the same too *thumbsupsmiley*

The_Cheeseman

11-19-2011, 04:45 AM

Just to keep things in perspective, we're discussing the fictional history of a fantasy franchise that spans 3 MMOs, all controlled by separate development teams who have limited (if any) communication between them. At some point you just have to take the dev's word for it.

Mixxit

11-19-2011, 06:49 AM

looking into the problem is half the fun <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Meirril

11-20-2011, 06:44 AM

<cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Meirril wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mary the Prophetess wrote:</cite><blockquote>@ CheesemanAnd therein is the problem with the Ydal having been created prior to the arrival of Veeshan. There was no Ewer when Veeshan arrived, and there was no knowledge of Norrath's existence.</blockquote>This is not canon. The ewer very well could of been created to give eternal life to planar creations within the god of influences plane.</blockquote>Why would the gods need that? Luclin's first creations were made immortal. If the gods desired for their races to be immortal, they could just make them that way to begin with. Anashti'sul did it for her mortal worshipers, and the curse of undeath was the result. I'm perty sure that the curse of undeath isn't a probem in the planes of influence. You don't see spontanious undead in the Plane of Valor or the Plane of Disease. Only on the planes where undead are welcome do they appear. Only in the moral realm do you find undead rising in unwelcome places. That is the reason Anashti was banished.</blockquote>in answer to your question:pure theory, but i think of planar beings (and dieties) as functions of that particular plane, or the universe in general-i dont see earth elemental having a ghost cuz it has no soul, only thing it could have would be an echo, an anomoly of its extinquished existence.whereas mortals are wandering souls who temporarily materialize in this existence. they were neither born here, nor will they be obliterated here. In 1 aspect, they transcend this universe, and are above it.planar beings can have their entire existence begin and end within this universe. mortals pass to ethernere and till yonder.blocking the flow of souls is a major corruption of the universe dynamics. turning mortals, on the hero plane, immortal or undead (or deified) violates conservation of souls or net soul count.if the nameless can see beyond into more advanced forms of existence, he might have a negative perspective on mortals being 'held back' by becoming undead, but not have negative perspective on indigenous(to norrath universe) lifeforms(planar life) with limitless lifespan. their full creation started here, whereas mortals are in different category.imo, immortal planar races, elemental gods,(maybe gods of influence) demigods(not of mortal origin) dont violate sanctity/conservation of life and death.this is what makes mayong so curious to me. no physical process of creation has been described for mortal races afaik. but some creation processes for demigods have been. often they are result of actual physical body of dieties. ydal are actually blood of inny blood. they are blood like a parent and child. makes me think they are a demigod race, not part of the flow of life to ethernere.i would have not problem with ydal not being demigod, since that may be how mortal races come into being. maybe taking raw piece of flesh but not incorporating innate powers, or dividing their essence into it?but on topic: i think this forum has isolated the offending lore fragments that conflict for mayong origin. time travel would be 1 solution(easy way out). i like a mayong who is really old and has a special purpose here but without time travel. time traveling back to see veeshan is pretty lame claim if you just timetraveled...to have old myong without time travel means anashti needs a retcon, and after that, more specific ewer lore would help too. so much room to elaborate in lore with 4 slain gods of 4rune theer, which do not include previous god of disease...xul'whateverplus there are 4 elemental planes between the original 4 elemental planes(8 total elemental planes), and 16 planes of influence total. that makes 24 combined t1 and t2 dieties, plus 5 who were killed. granted not every god has to come to norrath, there are more planets in the cosmos, but some of these other planes are only defined(lava), and their corresponding dieties not even mentioned. what seems bizarre to me is the universe could be destroyed (if zek screws with kerafyrm)without the other gods visiting norrath, where this is really unfolding. if other dieties exist, and havent been killed by theer, the only plausible explanation for not getting involved is they dont know its happening. gods of influence meddle, its in their nature. i would venture a guess that the reason more gods arent brought in is based on game mechanics/too complex of a pantheon.if eq2 ever goes offworld exploring, the unused space for new dieties is very handy.</blockquote>Some basics: We really don't know much about souls in this game. Did you know that there are ghost plants? Plants have ghosts. Animals have ghosts. We haven't seen any undead rocks yet, but if you had a zombie elemental...who could tell?The Nameless doesn't act. As far as we know the Nameless started everything, created the elemental dieties, and supposidly created Theer perty much as his final act. Then he sat back and watched. We thought he lived in The Void, but it turns out that Rohen Theer and Anashti'sul were banished there. We've seen no signs of The Nameless in our void exploration.Planar beings have been killed. So their existance doesn't begin and end with the universe. Even more bizzar, we've had stories of entire planes being consumed by the greater gods to perserve their power. Planes don't create gods, gods create planes (and can apparently consume them to recoup some of their power).There doesn't seem to be any kind of concern on conseravtion of souls in Norrath. I have no idea where you get this idea. It just doesn't fit into how Norrath exists. Nobody seems to care about "the afterlife". There isn't even a god of the dead or afterlife. Just some vague stories of Etheneer and the Doom Bell.The big violation of undeath seems to be the works of the gods being turned against their purpose. i.e. the dead killing the living. Mortals were created for a reason, undead work against this grand design. Though, after millenia some of the gods have adopted undead as a motief. (most notibly Cazic Thule because people fear undead.)

ratbast

12-19-2011, 07:33 PM

Meirril wrote: Planar beings have been killed. So their existance doesn't begin and end with the universe. Even more bizzar, we've had stories of entire planes being consumed by the greater gods to perserve their power. Planes don't create gods, gods create planes (and can apparently consume them to recoup some of their power). ================= beginning and ending IN this universe is different from beginning and ending WHEN universe started/ended. one is location based, the other is time based. i never said time. 'where' is not violated by planar beings destroyed inside eq2 universe. it would be violated if they were destroyed somewhere beyond the grey fields. i would submit they cant pass there. i will admit my original theory about conservation of souls is misplaced. eq2 universe doesnt deal with original and final disposition of souls. the closest is grey fields and being received into deities plane. in short, there is no reason to believe consciousness originated somewhere besides norrath (for mortals), or that their fate is to eventually travel till yonder. deities consciousness appears to have arisen here tho. which is why i say they must die here also.

Meirril

12-21-2011, 04:57 AM

<cite>ratbastard wrote:</cite><blockquote>Meirril wrote: Planar beings have been killed. So their existance doesn't begin and end with the universe. Even more bizzar, we've had stories of entire planes being consumed by the greater gods to perserve their power. Planes don't create gods, gods create planes (and can apparently consume them to recoup some of their power). ================= beginning and ending IN this universe is different from beginning and ending WHEN universe started/ended. one is location based, the other is time based. i never said time. 'where' is not violated by planar beings destroyed inside eq2 universe. it would be violated if they were destroyed somewhere beyond the grey fields. i would submit they cant pass there. i will admit my original theory about conservation of souls is misplaced. eq2 universe doesnt deal with original and final disposition of souls. the closest is grey fields and being received into deities plane. in short, there is no reason to believe consciousness originated somewhere besides norrath (for mortals), or that their fate is to eventually travel till yonder. deities consciousness appears to have arisen here tho. which is why i say they must die here also.</blockquote>What do you mean by "here"? The first dieties were definately not born on Norrath. The dieties of influence didn't know about Norrath until after Veeshan discovered it.Also souls are used as a source of energy by the Shadowmen. Being used as a source of energy implies that the souls get used up.As for mortal souls, everything we have about the Elysian Fields, Deathtoll and the Bell indicate that souls go Till Yonder. What does that mean? It isn't clear, but I don't see why you want to argue otherwise.