Speculation: The plan of the DPs?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I know little of Vecna's escape, but I have this small, niggling theory I'd like to share.

Vecna discovered the secret plan of the DPs, correct? And this allowed him to escape into Sigil, which is basically the gateway to all the worlds in the D&D cosmos. While there, he was impossible to shift for the Lady of Pain.
All this after discovering the big secret.

What if the DPs' eventual plan is to brew up enough evil, concentrate and distil it, until they can launch their end product into Sigil from their place in the Mists, and let it spread like a plague over the multiverse? The way each Darklord is bottled up, they can either repent or spiral deeper and deeper into greater depravity, increasing the spiritual wickedness of their realm through their link with it. The DPs might know some secret way to keep the Lady of Pain from interfering with them, and once their evil plague was unleashed into the multiverse, it might be too late to stop it because it would breed.

Opinions?

[cure]

Vecna discovered discovered, or at least made the educated guess, that the Dark Powers could not hold a greater god. He then found the ritual to make himself into one, lured the necessary ingredient into reach (another lesser god), and made good his escape.

The existence of Fen Hounds is but one fly in the oinetment as concerns the Dark Power being out to distill pure evil or being themselves pure evil.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

It's true that Vecna discovered something significant about the DPs, but that something wasn't necessary their intentions. He might simply have discovered how they can send the Mists to virtually every corner of the multiverse (and other cosmologies as well, if they took Maligno from Gothic Earth). That knowledge, in itself, could suffice for him to sidestep the usual barriers that keep gods out of Sigil.

IMO, the fact that the DPs did take a darklord from Gothic Earth -- a world that was never situated in the mainstream D&D cosmology -- and another from Mystara -- a world that, for the majority of its publishing history, was a part of the OD&D game's cosmos rather than AD&D's -- suggests that their interests may not be confined to a single cosmology, either. If that's true, then Sigil might (no offense, planers! ) be a smaller target than whatever it is they're truly after.

[Kaitou Kage]

Gonna preface this post with the following: I'm quite a newbie to RL and only really saw this thread cuz Rock pointed it out to me. Pretty much everything I'm learning about RL beyond the basics, I'm learning through direct RP immersion. So! If I say something completely retarded, feel free to smack me and set me straight.

That being said, I am an avid Planewalker, and though I've never read it, I've heard of DVD, and it doesn't get good reviews at all from my side of the fence, and is usually NOT considered canon Planescape. The biggest crime it apparently commits is attempting to attach some sort of definition to Her Serenity. Something about the conflict between some force Vecna represents (the Serpent or something?) and how the Lady represents the opposite force. Something like that? Either way, most Planewalkers I know of don't like the module. It's not a Planescape module, it's generic D&D. I don't know what the Ravenloft take is on it, but it's not very well-received among Planescape fans, to my knowledge.

At any rate. Back to the original post. First, a couple things about Her Serenity. Her edict forbids gods from entering Sigil, sure. But it's also technically possible for a god to enter Sigil. Finder Wyvernspur did it in Finder's Bane, though that's a Forgotten Realms book, not Planescape, so I'm not sure how well-received that is among Planewalkers. Anyway, it is perfectly possible to enter Sigil as a god, it's just that as soon as you do, the Lady shows up and turns you into a floating island of rock on the Astral Plane.

Second, the Lady's motives are inscrutable, and are meant to be that way. There's nothing to suggest that She really cares about what happens in the Multiverse outside of Her city.

Third, the Lady has demonstrated the ability to control any and all the portals in Sigil at a whim. The portals in the city are constantly shifting. Some remain for ages, others are there only for moments. It's impossible to document them all because of how many places they could possibly show up (remember, any bounded space), and all the keys that are needed to do it. During the Faction War, She shut the city down completely, and nobody was able to enter or leave. So, while Sigil is the "center of the Multiverse," so to speak, as far as anyone can tell, it's only that because She allows it to be. So presumably, even if the DPs could and did depose the Lady (gods forbid, pleasedon'tflayme), theoretically, Sigil would just become inert and stop existing as the preeminent planar hub. At the same time, even if the Dark Powers could get into Sigil, theoretically, they would have to know all the portal keys to use the city's portals effectively.

My counter-question to the original idea is this, though. As I understand it, the Mists can just kinda appear anywhere and take anyone and transport them off to the Demiplane of Dread, right? If that's the case, why do they need Sigil? They can already go anywhere they want, so they don't really need to take the center of the Multiverse. I think the matter is more that there's just so much conflicting influence in the Multiverse that prevents the Dark Powers from taking over. The Blood War, the Celestials, the Modrons, the Rilmani, the countless pantheons and gods. The Dark Powers might have this unknown scheme they're working on, but there's also an infinite number of powerful entities out there who have their own schemes and plots and designs for the Multiverse. Even Graz'zt, for all his evil, probably isn't too fond of the idea of some other evil force like the Dark Powers shouldering its way in and trying to establish dominance. Again, this is all based on my pretty rudimentary understanding of Ravenloft.

One thing I can say for sure is this. Neither Her Serenity nor the Dark Powers are entities I'd want to cross the wrong way.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

The Dark Powers didn't put Vecna in Sigil, nor did they ever (AFAWK) try to oust the Lady of Pain from power. Vecna is the one who wanted to go to Sigil and supplant the Lady's control of it, and he may well have stolen one of the Dark Powers' own tricks (i.e. control of the Mists, which bypass the portals and the Lady's control over them) in order to do it.

[Kaitou Kage]

*nods* That's sorta what I wanted to say, only in a far more concise version.

The original theory presented sounds like the Dark Powers want Sigil, Vecna got wind of that, and I guess the theory here is that he tried to beat them to the punch? Not sure exactly, but what I'm getting from the original post is a theory of the Dark Powers wanting Sigil. My question is why? Doesn't make sense to me when they can just pluck people from wherever they want already anyway.

EDIT: As I understand DVD, the conflict between Vecna and the Lady wasn't so much an issue of the Dark Powers as it was Vecna's own ambition at work.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Exactly. So far as their past behavior (choice of darklords, etc) seems to indicate, the Dark Powers seem far more interested in the Material Plane -- and humans in particular, for whatever reason -- than in any of the Outer Planes. Vecna's involvement with Sigil was entirely a consequence of his own agenda, not that of the Dark Powers. Vecna is the only deity they've ever seen fit to ensnare, for one thing, and that could well have been because he was once a human; for another, the only fiend who's a true darklord (Ebonbane) happens to be imprisoned in a sword ... one that was forged for human hands.

In fact, the Dark Powers might have once gone out of their way (with Gwydion) to head off a powerful inhuman outsider's approach before he could fully enter Ravenloft.

[Garudos Celestar]

As I understand it, the Mists can just kinda appear anywhere and take anyone and transport them off to the Demiplane of Dread, right? If that's the case, why do they need Sigil? They can already go anywhere they want, so they don't really need to take the center of the Multiverse.

"Can" and "It's easy and efficient to do so" are two completely different things. How many times have the DP's reached into the primes in the 400-ish years of the demiplane's canon existance? They've canonically hit prime material Mordent twice (once during the events of THoGH, once to grab the Renier family), prime material Barovia about three times, Forfar once, Cerilia once, Oerth somewhere between six and a dozen times, Gothic Earth once, etc. Krynn and Toril seem to be their most common targets, and while both of those may be upwards of a dozen canon instances, it's still an incredibly rare event when you consider how many decades the DP's have been at it.

In short, it seems to be extremely rare for the DP's to successfully snatch someone out of the material plane. It's either very difficult for them to break through, or possibly that it's so rare for them to get a glimpse into what's happening on the primes that they rarely have any reason to try. I personally go with the latter - the DP's are not omniscient about the multiverse any more than one of us can keep track of what's happening on all 235+ satellite channels we get at once. However, every now and then as they're flipping through, they spot a show or ad that piques their interest, and they make an effort to acquire the merchandise.

[Eric the Light Bringer]

"Can" and "It's easy and efficient to do so" are two completely different things. How many times have the DP's reached into the primes in the 400-ish years of the demiplane's canon existance? They've canonically hit prime material Mordent twice (once during the events of THoGH, once to grab the Renier family), prime material Barovia about three times, Forfar once, Cerilia once, Oerth somewhere between six and a dozen times, Gothic Earth once, etc. Krynn and Toril seem to be their most common targets, and while both of those may be upwards of a dozen canon instances, it's still an incredibly rare event when you consider how many decades the DP's have been at it.

In short, it seems to be extremely rare for the DP's to successfully snatch someone out of the material plane. It's either very difficult for them to break through, or possibly that it's so rare for them to get a glimpse into what's happening on the primes that they rarely have any reason to try. I personally go with the latter - the DP's are not omniscient about the multiverse any more than one of us can keep track of what's happening on all 235+ satellite channels we get at once. However, every now and then as they're flipping through, they spot a show or ad that piques their interest, and they make an effort to acquire the merchandise.

I know what you are saying and it makes sense but I'm not sure I agree with it; a lack of the DP snatching domains does not really indicate their omniscience or the ease to snatch a domain, it could be just as likely they are omniscient and they have a great plan and only snatch domains when it is neccessary. Like the question of why villans greater than many of the Dark Lords aren't given their own domains, the existing number of (canon) domains is just one of those unanswerable DP theories, IMO.

There is also the point on how large the actual demi-plane is, there could be thousands of pockets and islands of terror that form and then dissolve without anyone in the core any the wiser (thats one of the things I like about the Ravenloft RPG, that it is easy and logical to drop in homebrewed material with little to no adjustment to cannon material). The canon events are just that, the examples that the designers have given to make the RPG setting.

Also, assuming the entry of Barovia is the point of creation of the Ravenloft demi-plane then the demiplane is (roughly) a little over 500 years old, that is less than an elves lifetime...assuming no cataclysm rends the demiplane apart how large could the core be in 1000 years or 10,000 years?

Eric

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Seems like you're only counting darklords' abductions there, Garudos. What about the thousands of adventurers and innocent bystanders who've gotten snatched up over the centuries? If the Mists have been stealing outlanders at anywhere near the same rate throughout history as they had, during the 2E "Weekend-in-Hell" era, the abduction-count might even be in the millions, depending on how many outlanders the average Ravenloft monster eats in a year.


FWIW, I think there are probably a number of criteria by which the DPs choose whether or not to abduct a given individual -- let alone, make them into a darklord -- some of which are their own, and others of which are dictated by outside forces. Personally, I'm rather attached to the idea that the Mists can only permanently claim a person (as opposed to dropping them off for a Weekend-in-Hell adventure ) if that person was already fated to be slain in the Material Plane. That was certainly the case with Castle Ravenloft's inhabitants -- all of whom would've died in the Dilisnya bloodbath or the retaliations that followed it -- or of Azalin and Gondegal, each of whom escaped into the Mists with a horde of enemies on his tail. But that's just me; YMMV.

[Garudos Celestar]

Seems like you're only counting darklords' abductions there, Garudos. What about the thousands of adventurers and innocent bystanders who've gotten snatched up over the centuries? If the Mists have been stealing outlanders at anywhere near the same rate throughout history as they had, during the 2E "Weekend-in-Hell" era, the abduction-count might even be in the millions, depending on how many outlanders the average Ravenloft monster eats in a year.

Well, let's see... 25-ish published adventures, so that's an additional 25 cases where the DP's have canonically (or maybe not, since most of them at least suggest the option that the adventure is being played by natives/people already in Ravenloft) reached into various primes (some undefined; some, like with The Forgotten Terror, explicitly stated which world) over the course of some 15-20 years. Thus, we can extrapolate that they successfully reach into various primes an average of about twice a year (with the number of victims varying with each capture).

Also, of course the number of people abducted can be quite high - think Forlorn and Homlack - but those two are good examples of single manifestations of the Mists. They've canonically hit Forfar once, and even though they got a hefty prize from the extraction, there isn't any indication that they've successfully managed to reach into that world a second time (barring the DM's option to make one of the PC's a relative of the Minstrel ApBlanc). Homlack's home world has been hit three times - once to grab the Crown of Souls, once to snag Radaga, and once to grab the town of Homlack - and that's over the course of a few centuries.

Taking Vampire of the Mists as another example, when Jander Sunstar is pulled into the Mists, we learn over the next few decades exactly one other case of the Mists hitting Toril (and, considering that it is canon that the Mists' targets may float around for a while before being spat out, it's entirely possible that the Faerunian traveling party was captured during the same manifestation that grabbed Jander). In Knight of the Black Rose, the neutral wizard that Soth encounters is (as far as Strahd knows) unique in Barovia as a native of Krynn... and it had been years since his party was pulled into the demiplane.

[cure]

SI'm rather attached to the idea that the Mists can only permanently claim a person (as opposed to dropping them off for a Weekend-in-Hell adventure ) if that person was already fated to be slain in the Material Plane. That was certainly the case with Castle Ravenloft's inhabitants -- all of whom would've died in the Dilisnya bloodbath or the retaliations that followed it -- or of Azalin and Gondegal, each of whom escaped into the Mists with a horde of enemies on his tail. But that's just me; YMMV.

Now that is nice. And to keep the karma in balance, now that we the DP have just saved your life, it is ours to play with and torment as we like. Love it!

[The Giamarga]

What if the DPs' eventual plan is to brew up enough evil, concentrate and distil it, until they can launch their end product into Sigil from their place in the Mists, and let it spread like a plague over the multiverse? The way each Darklord is bottled up, they can either repent or spiral deeper and deeper into greater depravity, increasing the spiritual wickedness of their realm through their link with it. The DPs might know some secret way to keep the Lady of Pain from interfering with them, and once their evil plague was unleashed into the multiverse, it might be too late to stop it because it would breed.

Opinions?

Vecna alone and many evil outsiders, like the fiends who are evil incarnate, are a lot more evil than any of the darklords. You can easily find much greater evil on the outer planes. Ravenloft does not distill D&D evilness, it distills gothic mortal evilness. If the DPs do an experiment it is somehow centered on mortals.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Actually, Kaitou, I think Planescape fans are probably more irked over the definition of what Sigil is than anything else:

Gods are warded from Sigil for a very important reason. The celestial ring beneath the city is the physical manifestation of the multiverse's fulcrum. The torus's nature is such that it cannot abide coexistence with point-source divine energy. A god in Sigil disrupts the fulcrum, and thus the entire multiverse. Given enough time, it is conceivable that all the planes could be thrown into wrack and ruin. Such was Vecna's diabolical scheme, and as the perpetrator of the planar ruin, Vecna furthermore proposed to set himself up as the supreme deity of the new multiversal order.

That never really bothered me, though. Die, Vecna Die! was intended to be the last 2nd edition product, the last of the "D&D multiverse"--where all campaign settings were linked into one big super-setting...and it's apparent that the authors knew that Planescape would not be published under the 3rd edition, so they decided to provide some answers in what they thought may have been the last Planescape book.

Planescape fans can certainly object--Ravenloft fans don't like everything that was published, either (*cough*Champions of Darkness*cough*), however Die Vecna Die! is considered to be canon by WotC, for whatever that is worth.

[Kaitou Kage]

Couple things here:

Actually, Kaitou, I think Planescape fans are probably more irked over the definition of what Sigil is than anything else:

Not at all. What you quoted is more or less already "known," so to speak, about Sigil. It is physically located above the Spire at the center of the Outlands, and the Outlands are "physically located" in the center of the Great Wheel. It's something that we've known for much of the time.

Now, the torus's nature part is rather nonsense. Aoskar could and did exist in Sigil quite readily until he got uppity. Then the Lady riddled him with blades and tossed his broken husk into the Astral.

No, what irks Planescape is the Lady's prominent role in the end of the module. They tried to give Her definition as a particular force that specifically opposed the force Vecna represented. The Lady is meant to be an inscrutable plot device, a being that a few certain facts are known about, but her reasoning for these facts, and her overall purpose are supposed to be obscure. DVD kinda ruined that.

Planescape fans can certainly object--Ravenloft fans don't like everything that was published, either (*cough*Champions of Darkness*cough*), however Die Vecna Die! is considered to be canon by WotC, for whatever that is worth.

*nods* And that doesn't surprise me. But, whatever WotC would like to think about their planes, and whatever fantasies they have about being the new Planescape, Manual of the Planes and Planar's Handbook are not Planescape (and the latter book was a bunch of nonsense anyway). They're WotC. WotC does have the rights to the Planescape license, but they are not publishing under it. Official non-profit creative rights have been given to the folks at Planewalker. It's sort of like how Ravenloft was in the hands of Kargatane, or how Dark Sun is under the folks at Athas.org. Sure, WotC can revoke those rights at any time, but until they do, and they start producing specifically under those titles (like they did with Forgotten Realms), then the side groups dictate what is canon development.

And in Planescape 3.xE, the Multiverse is laid out the same as it was in 2E.