Draxorith banishement

[Delbareth]

Hi
After our discussion on the second demon war timeline, I was thinking about the Draxorith banishement.
It is a major event I think, and I'm not confortable with the fact to remove it from the lineline.
I understand your arugment (to let GM decide when this event occurs), but this very argument is also applicable on a lot of other events.

What is disturbing is that as this event is not related, we have no information about that. Info can only be found in your campaign notes.
And I would love to see it described somewhere.

Moreover, I think it has a great role on Duthelm.
We already have this discussion a long time ago, but I think the Draxorith semi-banishement is something very special, which has an impact on the Draxorith religion. How could this religion be as strong as before if they have lost their god? For 150 years, no cleric was able to "contact" Draxorith, and strictly speaking to obtain "powers" from him.

If anyone is interested in, how I "play" it is :
- after the first Demon War, Duthelm was in chaos, and as Draxorith was banished, it was understandable that he didn't want to answer. He was sort of sulking (is it correct?)
- after several years, answer began to come
- it tooks tens of years for Draxorith high priests to realize it was not him, but probably a sort of former lieutenant who usurped his throne
- they decided to keep this secret ("Hey guy, finally it's not Draxorith anymore, it's Characxul !") and explain to other that Draxorith was angry about Duthelmian people (that is probably true )
- the new "lord" didn't match the Draxorith's power, and especially his ability to send this power on Khoras priests ; that's why the priests and knight abilities were greatly reduced.
It was very difficult for those who have known the previous war time, to get used to these new conditions... So it was difficult times for the Draxorith Church.
- Draxorith high priest, helped by Black Sorcerers, began to unveiled the banishement events, look for the avisarr and so on... (I don't remember exactly these events)
- after the banishement completion, Draxorith will have to recover his throne, to re-establish his authority... he will be quite busy but will support Duthelmian priests again.

[David Roomes]

I like your description a lot. And I agree with it. The Draxorith priests and knights would have been weakened while Draxorith was trapped between dimensions and basically "out of contact". Your lesser lieutenant demon idea is a good one.

However, if I put all the events around Draxorith's banishment in the timeline, that directly affects the Avisarr campaign. What is better? To leave it out of the timeline and let a DM run his group through it at their own time? Or to put it in the timeline and tell the DM in the Avisarr campaign notes to ignore the timeline and modify it?

And whichever way I do it, I should probably do it that way for all the major events.

For instance, I guess I could do it like this... I put major events on the website as official canon, such as:

Draxorith was banished on X-X-X date by "an adventuring group"
The arch-mage Vellok was defeated by "an adventuring group" on X-X-X
and so on...

And then, in the notes pages of each adventure, just say "DM, ignore any conflicting information in the timeline, if your group is playing this adventure".

That would be one way to resolve it. Thoughts?

[sid6.7]

i'm not all that familiar with crossing an adventure with canon as part of the official timeline it seems wrong but thats just me(i confuse easily)


did in fact(timeline) draxorith get banished or was that just your adventure?

[David Roomes]

Well, the first time I ran the Avisarr campaign, Draxorith was successfully banished. Years later, I ran the Avisarr campaign again and the party actually FAILED to prevent the return of the dark lord, and it wasn't until the later "Jaidor Talisman" campaign that they were able to banish Drax.

So, really the question becomes... should major events from the various campaigns be included on the historical timeline? Or should they be left off so that individual DMs and gaming groups can play out those adventures for themselves and modify history themselves? Which option makes Khoras most useful as a campaign world?

I think I'm leaning toward putting everything on the timeline and then individual DM's can customize things as needed to make their adventures work.

[sid6.7]

okay...i think you should NOT include the avisarr and Jaidor Talisman to the official timeline...this way your players have the option of doing it themselves in thier own campaigns and it does not bung up the works...and as a by product i wont be confused...arf....

[Delbareth]

did in fact(timeline) draxorith get banished or was that just your adventure?

I think it's the core of the problem.
Do you think it is a part of the world, or just an add-on for a campaign?

I think the whole world is affected by the same problem.
What if a GM wants the war between Duthelm and Kitar already finished?
What if a GM wants Caramus was overthrowned by another group and didn't pass the power to Sillar?
What if a GM wants Ithria be sunk underwater?

You see my point. You DESCRIBE the world. You are obliged to give details and some of them can be in conflict with GMs.
Sometime, you let something unprecise to give the GM a lattitude to include his campaign.
As you say at every occasion, if a GM want to change something, he has not to hesitate.

So I completely support the fact to fix the events in the timeline. Not necessarily the way they were played by your players, because as you said it could be rude, but they should be fixed.

[David Roomes]

That's actually the best argument I've heard so far. The idea of "game world playability versus official canon material" could, in theory, be extrapolated to the entire site. Any detail in the world could be contradicted by an individual game master and his group. And that's really the whole idea. Yeah, I think I have to agree with this. I think the only way to really avoid the issue is to simply have a central core "canon" world with all of the details, but each group is free (and expected) to adapt the world to fit their needs. Including the timeline, recent events and whatever else they need to change. I guess it goes without saying that any group of players that gets to be fairly powerful and/or high level could have an impact on the world around them (slay a dragon, rescue a princess, overthrow a king, accidentally burn down a tavern, etc). Stuff in the world around them is going to change.

Sorry Sid6.7... I love ya, but I think Delbareth has a pretty good point.

However, I don't think this really will affect the world that much. In actual practice, we really only seem to have a problem with regards to RECENT history on the timeline which has also been affected by events in a campaign. Historical events in the ancient past aren't giving us any trouble. And smaller adventures that don't show up on the timeline aren't a problem. It's the just Avisarr campaign and the Jaidor Talisman campaign. So, other than those two campaigns and their events, everything else seems to be ok.

And Sid, I get confused too.    That's ok. We can be confused together.

[tanis]

I hate to be a dissenting voice, but I think only certain aspects of those campaigns should be canon.

Here's why: First of all, if we can adapt the source info to our needs, then it doesn't matter whether you add the results of the Avisarr and Jaidor Talisman campaigns to the official timeline, because what's really important with the "recent/current" stuff is setting. Besides, I suspect that Draxorith's failing to be freed from the Avisarr (which I see as the canon), would be unknown to most people in Ithria. The adventurers would know, and probably some of the Duthelmian bureacracy and priesthood and whatnot, but, unless the adventurers went around making a big deal of their accomplishment, I doubt anyone would be aware of it, and if they DID go spreading it around, what's to say anyone would even believe them? What incontrovertible proof would they have of the deed? It's not like Draxorith's priesthood would own up to any such thing, right? That would threaten their interests. So from that perspective, even if it DID happen and IS canon, why list it in the official timeline.

And Jaidor's not much different. Everyone would know about the big wars fought, but no one would know about what happened in the Desolation of Shidar, because the only ones who did would be the handful of people who managed to escape, meaning that even if people were told after these persons' return there's no reason to believe that it would become common knowledge.

But more importantly, as I've always understood it, the purpose of Khorasian canon is, as with the entire site, to provide a setting for roleplay and fiction. If you decide the results of the two biggest campaign hooks in the official timeline, doesn't that change that? Also, since the official timeline doesn't include MOST of the things that are contained in individual articles that serve as plot hooks, and consists primarily of what is more or less common knowledge about big historical events that anyone with a few history tomes would have at least some access to, why include it there?

As for Delbareth's argument regarding things like the Second Demon War being over, or Sillar not coming to power, or whatever else, THAT'S what being able to change things to fit your campaign or adventure means.

Think about it. If you want another group to come to power, then you make it happen. It's up to you, and there's nothing stopping you from overthrowing the Duthelmian government with Avarians and setting up a communist utopia in the Citadel, or sending your group to the shattered remnants of Umbar. So that's not in and of itself a compelling reason to include this specific set of things in the official timeline. If you want it to the year 20,000 and have Khoras be something akin to a Warhammer 40,000 setting, do that. Nothing's stopping you. But you risk turning some of the most intriguing plot hooks in the entire world into bullet points that might stifle that same creativity in others.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man.