Signup
Welcome to... Canonfire! World of GreyhawK
Features
Postcards from the Flanaess
Adventures
in Greyhawk
Cities of
Oerth
Deadly
Denizens
Jason Zavoda Presents
The Gord Novels
Greyhawk Wiki
#greytalk
JOIN THE CHAT
ON DISCORD
    Canonfire :: View topic - Kingdom of Moil
    Canonfire Forum Index -> World of Greyhawk Discussion
    Kingdom of Moil
    Author Message
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Oct 30, 2007
    Posts: 71
    From: Nevond-Nevnend, Duchy of Tenh

    Send private message
    Fri Aug 12, 2016 7:47 am  
    Kingdom of Moil

    In Return to the Tomb of Horrors, they refer to Moil with magic items etc, is the Kingdom of Moil an ancient kingdom where the Vast Swamp now sits? Is there any canon on it at all, or is it just a blip with a few items and a 3.5 feat Black Lore of Moil?
    _________________
    Servant of Azmekidom the Most Prudent Despot, The Unapproachable One
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
    Posts: 3310
    From: Michigan

    Send private message
    Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:15 am  

    Moil is also known as the City That Waits. It's a demiplane that Orcus pulled from another world, called Ranais. There's more about it in the Planescape adventure Dead Gods (where the PCs can visit Ranais) and in A Guide to the Ethereal Plane.

    Return to the Tomb of Horrors describes the City That Waits beginning on page 56. The PCs reach it through the demon's mouth in the Tomb of Horrors. If they have a pinch of dust from Acererak's discarded material form, the mouth turns into a portal to Moil rather than a sphere of annihilation.

    On the world of Ranais, the city of Moil was a bright place of polished marble and ornate statues. In the city's youth, the citizens chose Orcus as their patron, but as the city matured the citizens began to worship less bloodthirsty gods. In retribution, Orcus cast a magical slumber upon the city, cursing its citizens to sleep until woken by the dawning of the sun. Then he pulled the city from the Material Plane and cast it into a demiplane where sunlight would never touch it. Unable to eat or drink, with the demiplane devoid of heat, the sleeping people of Moil soon died in their sleep, leaving the demiplane haunted by their unquiet spirits.

    According to Dead Gods, after Moil was pulled from Ranais, the rest of the world fell into chaos and cataclysms and the entire planet soon died, some of its citizens escaping into the planes. It doesn't say this anywhere, but Ranais might be a candidate for Mayaheine's world of origin.

    Later, after Orcus was killed by Kiaransalee, Acererak found the demiplane of Moil and used some of the dead citizens there as an undead workforce to build his fortress.

    The 3rd edition sourcebook Libris Mortis calls the undead citizens of Moil "bleakborn," or moil zombies (Return to the Tomb of Horrors calls them Moilian zombies), and stats the "dream vestige" (Return to the Tomb of Horrors and A Guide to the Ethereal Plane call this simply the Vestige), an undead monster born from the nightmares of the citizens of Moil as they slept.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Oct 30, 2007
    Posts: 71
    From: Nevond-Nevnend, Duchy of Tenh

    Send private message
    Fri Aug 12, 2016 10:40 am  

    Ahhh! So the City that Waits is Moil! Thanks for the info Rasgon, appreciate it!
    _________________
    Servant of Azmekidom the Most Prudent Despot, The Unapproachable One
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Jan 11, 2009
    Posts: 228
    From: Gulf Breeze, Florida

    Send private message
    Sat Aug 13, 2016 5:05 am  

    Return to the Tomb of Horrors is one of my favorite adventures. It's insanely tough and challenging to even higher level groups. Speaking of Orcus, I've been thinking about how different his powers appear to be between 1st edition and 2nd edition. In 1st edition he is powerful, along the lines of the other demons in Monster Manual 1, but he doesn't appear to have "godlike" powers. If you've ever played the adventure Mines of Bloodstone (FR) you get a chance to fight him at the end and although he is tough, he's not impossible for a group of high level PCs to defeat, or at least drive away. In 2nd edition though Orcus seems to have grown in power significantly, at least in later 2nd edition products. For example, his ability to grab the city of Moil and it's numerous inhabitants from it's world and put it into a demi-plane seems to suggest powers beyond a typical demon prince. I think part of this change is related to some demon princes gaining power from being worshipped by people/humanoids from the Prime. From what I understand this has made some demon princes into godlike beings. The second part of the change may just be related to how certain creatures increased in power between editions (like dragons). I'd be interested to hear anyone's take on this.
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: May 12, 2005
    Posts: 933
    From: Woonsocket, RI, USA

    Send private message
    Sat Aug 13, 2016 6:48 am  

    xo42 wrote:
    Return to the Tomb of Horrors is one of my favorite adventures. It's insanely tough and challenging to even higher level groups. Speaking of Orcus, I've been thinking about how different his powers appear to be between 1st edition and 2nd edition. In 1st edition he is powerful, along the lines of the other demons in Monster Manual 1, but he doesn't appear to have "godlike" powers. If you've ever played the adventure Mines of Bloodstone (FR) you get a chance to fight him at the end and although he is tough, he's not impossible for a group of high level PCs to defeat, or at least drive away. In 2nd edition though Orcus seems to have grown in power significantly, at least in later 2nd edition products. For example, his ability to grab the city of Moil and it's numerous inhabitants from it's world and put it into a demi-plane seems to suggest powers beyond a typical demon prince. I think part of this change is related to some demon princes gaining power from being worshipped by people/humanoids from the Prime. From what I understand this has made some demon princes into godlike beings. The second part of the change may just be related to how certain creatures increased in power between editions (like dragons). I'd be interested to hear anyone's take on this.

    The 1E Deities & Demigods canonized all demon princes and arch-devils as lesser gods. Perhaps by 2E, Orcus had grown in power to an intermediate god.
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
    Posts: 3310
    From: Michigan

    Send private message
    Sun Aug 14, 2016 1:17 pm  

    xo42 wrote:
    In 2nd edition though Orcus seems to have grown in power significantly, at least in later 2nd edition products. For example, his ability to grab the city of Moil and it's numerous inhabitants from it's world and put it into a demi-plane seems to suggest powers beyond a typical demon prince.


    As DM Prata pointed out, demon princes were said to have the powers of lesser deities per Deities & Demigods and the 1st edition Manual of the Planes. Those powers didn't, in first edition, include the ability to mass plane shift entire cities into demiplanes, but 2nd edition products often had a looser style than 1st edition ones, hand-waiving the abilities of gods because PCs weren't expected to ever be powerful enough to battle them directly.

    Return to the Tomb of Horrors doesn't specify how Orcus managed this feat (it literally didn't matter for the purposes of that adventure), but it could be that he used an artifact, employed specialized demons, tricked the inhabitants of Moil into activating the effect for him, or utilized the properties of an obscure Abyssal layer or pre-existent demiplane or the world of Ranais itself. Perhaps he woke some ancient, sleeping entity that tore apart the world as an automatic reflex before subsiding back into torpor. That is to say, it didn't have to be part of Orcus's innate power set, and it didn't have to be something he could do more than once. Since an entire world ended up dying as a result of this act of petty vengeance, I think it's apparent that this is more a case of Orcus invoking some greater force that he couldn't control rather than something that came fully from his own strength.

    I know some DMs prefer to ground the backgrounds of their worlds in tighter game mechanics. In this case, I definitely wouldn't give Orcus a "rip a city away from the Material Plane" power as part of his stat block. Even an intermediate deity probably shouldn't be able to invoke this level of power easily.

    On the other hand, it's not like "create the Isle of the Ape" is on Zagyg's stat block.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 13, 2007
    Posts: 6


    Send private message
    Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:53 am  

    City falling to Orcus could be a metaphor.
    Orcus cult gains influence / control of city.
    Then it descends into civil war and inevitably collapses.
    Flan cities/ Kingdoms collapse a lot according to the pre migration History.
    Display posts from previous:   
       Canonfire Forum Index -> World of Greyhawk Discussion All times are GMT - 8 Hours
    Page 1 of 1

    Jump to:  

    You cannot post new topics in this forum
    You cannot reply to topics in this forum
    You cannot edit your posts in this forum
    You cannot delete your posts in this forum
    You cannot vote in polls in this forum




    Canonfire! is a production of the Thursday Group in assocation with GREYtalk and Canonfire! Enterprises

    Contact the Webmaster.  Long Live Spidasa!


    Greyhawk Gothic Font by Darlene Pekul is used under the Creative Commons License.

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.33 Seconds