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    Canonfire :: View topic - Chronomancy
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    Chronomancy
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    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Oct 10, 2001
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    Sat Mar 14, 2009 5:02 am  
    Chronomancy

    I sent this one out to the GreyTalk list, as well.

    In my campaign there is a night hag, Xaetra. Currently she is a spirit hag, inhabiting the dreams and nightmares of those she knew in life. It was foretold in an omen that she would one day return to life, before traveling far into the past. I have been mulling over ideas for such an event... I think perhaps in the future she traveled into the past to leave clues, in the form of temporally-displaced geocaches, that she might need. The first such clue is hidden in Turucambi, where my current campaign began. More on Xaetra here - http://web.me.com/aeolius/turucambi/Home/Entries/2009/1/21_The_Hubris_of_Hags.html

    And now... the musings...

    "Locations of power can be used for various purposes within a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Some, such as the earth nodes described in the FORGOTTEN REALMS product Underdark, might serve as sites for the working of especially powerful magic. Others, such as the planar touchstones described in Planar Handbook, might unlock potential advancement opportunities or special abilities in characters. Still others, such as the rune circles described in Races of Stone, could allow PCs to create permanent magical effects bound to tightly confined areas. But as compelling as those ideas are, at least one interesting concept for magical locations remains unexplored - that of a location imbued with magicalpower that is available for the taking." - DMG II, pg. 235


    "Evidence suggests that a group of Guardians-like chronomancers exists on Oerth, but little is known of them. The Codex of Infinite Planes has a cryptic reference to the Monitors of Infinity, "drawn from all places in Time," but this is the sum of the evidence. Chronomancers risk pursuit by the Monitors or by an avatar of a time-related deity if a major disruption of history occurs.
    Two quasi-deities, Heward and Murlynd, are thought to be chronomancers or have time-travel powers from devices, psionics, or artifacts. Both have collected items from various periods in Earth history, and both have domiciles with multiple gate links across time and space to many worlds (see DRAGON(R) issue #71, pages 19-21, and module EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.) The mad demigod Zagyg likely travels Temporal Prime, which is here usually called the Plane or Demiplane of Time; the demigod Vecna certainly knows of chronomancy.
    The ancient Suloise-Baklunish conflict may have involved time battles between rival chronomancers. Istus (goddess of fate and destiny) is Baklunish; Lendor (god of time) is Suel. The outcome of such battles (if there were any), and any involvement of the Monitors or godly avatars, are unknown. Rumors circulate from time to time that small groups of hostile, destructive Suel wizards, often loners, appear in the Sea of Dust, either arising from magical suspended animation or arriving from chronomantic travel.
    Chronomancy might also be known to elven wizards worshiping Labelas Enoreth, the elven deity of longevity, history, and time; to wizards of Boccob, the Oerik god of magic; and to wizards of Cyndor, the Oerik god of time, continuity, and infinity.
    Chronomancers may wish to explore Tovag Baragu, the Stone Circles, whose arches sometimes open into Oerth's past. Some portions of Oerth's distant past appear to resemble our Earth's early Cenozoic period (the Age of Mammals) up to Pleistocene times. (See GREYHAWK Adventures, pages 98-99, and the adventure Vecna Lives!. Chronomancers should be warned that exploring Tovag Baragu might possibly lead to an alternate timeline of Oerth in which the demigod Vecna triumphs (as per the "Vecna Wins" scenario outlined on page 68 of Vecna Lives!. See also the potentially dangerous time-altering properties of the wildspace objects called The Sisters, in Oerth's crystal sphere of Greyspace (see Greyspace, pages 71-72).
    There is speculation that the humans and centaurs who live near Tovag Baragu might have knowledge of some basic elements of chronomancy from their years of cautiously observing this artifact, though it is unlikely they openly practice this magic." - Chronomancy and the Multiverse, http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/chrono.rtf


    "Tovag Baragu should be treated as an artifact, as described in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Its powers, and the times at which it is activated, depend on astronomical phenomena of Oerth. Each circle is linked to a particular moon or planet and operates only when it is visible in the sky. The actions of those in the circle at such times can affect the outcome, but player characters should not be permitted to learn all that is required for proper control. The most frequent full connection is to a Pleistocene setting. Whether the city seen represents the past or an alternate world or the future is up to the DM. Player characters might be allowed to gather the impression that Tovag Baragu maintains the Sea of Dust's present condition, but they ought not to be able to do anything about it until they
    reach extremely high levels, if then. If the campaign includes the Cup and Talisman of Al'Akbar which are described under Artifacts in the Dungeon Masters Guide, a number of interactions might be set up between it and Tovag Baragu. " - Greyhawk Adventures


    "The wreck on the east side of Turucambi is of a clipper ship, such as was known on Earth in the 1800s. (Naturally, the characters will never have heard of such a thing.) Its cargo consisted of china plates and tea, now mostly ruined. Its origin is possibly extraplanar; it might hail from across the Oljatt or simply be unexplained, according to the needs of the campaign." - Greyhawk Adventures


    "There is a ship made of metal, with no mast or oars, and charts of unknown seas." - Greyhawk Glossography, pertaining to the Jungle of Lost Ships
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:20 am  

    There is also, if you want to use/acknowledge it, the whole Greyhawk 2000 future history, which meshes with the "magic is dying" note about the future in the Glossography introduction to the 83 Box.
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    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:09 am  

    I was thinking more along the lines of what Oerth might look like a thousand years after Tharizdun escaped imprisonment. ;)
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:56 am  

    There's a possible answer here: http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dreo/2009March

    "The sharns alone stand sentinel over this world of bones and ruins. Having achieved his ends, Tharizdun abandoned this universe eons ago. So mighty had the mad god become that he shed his divinity in a grand apotheosis, becoming something beyond a god -- something perverse and outside the known.

    "The sharns remained as the sentient remnant of all Tharizdun had destroyed and abandoned -- a collective of merged consciousnesses. For a time, forsaken and alone on a dying world, this chaotic amalgam watched and waited. It's unclear whether curiosity or boredom drove it to act, but soon the roiling amorphous form of pitch-black "sharnstuff" began to move across the brittle landscape. Something within drove it to explore and catalog the dying world."
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:48 am  

    per the Canonfire wiki:
    "For the last decade or so, Drawmij has focused on the theories of chronomancy, magic involving hte manipulation of time. He has grown increasingly eccentric of late."

    Where did this reference come from?
    GreySage

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    Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:01 am  

    Aeolius wrote:
    per the Canonfire wiki:
    "For the last decade or so, Drawmij has focused on the theories of chronomancy, magic involving hte manipulation of time. He has grown increasingly eccentric of late."

    Where did this reference come from?


    It's from Living Greyhawk Journal #0.
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:48 pm  

    I posted this over at EN World, in a thread about Doctor Who and D&D, but it seemed a good fit for the thread.

    "Chronomancy is a major influence in my current campaign, also set in the World of Greyhawk. The undersea adventure centers around three “Mysterious Places”; Turucambi, The Sinking Isle, and the Jungle of Lost Ships. The party seeks to thwart the plans of the blackwater hag Diadema, who wishes to awaken three magical maelstroms to drain the ocean.

    Per prior publications, in the Jungle of Lost Ships there is a "ship made of metal, with no mast or oars...", while in Turucambi there is "a huge sunken hulk more than a hundred feet long, with many masts and a slender, shallow body (a clipper ship, such as was known on Earth in the 1800s)”. I added a submersible beneath the Sinking Isle, to complete the set.

    All three were temporally displaced geocaches, clues supposedly placed by the main protagonist NPC, a spirit hag named Xaetra. Each was a “twice-named ship” with the name Enora Norray placed over the actual ship’s name (I made the metal ship in the JoLS the ironclad USS Monitor). Within each ship was a specific tome detailing the means by which Xaetra could be restored to life, from her current existence as an ethereal spirit hag.

    It was foretold that Xaetra would be restored to life, take on the mantle of Chronomancer, then travel back in time to leave clues detailing the means of her resurrection; i.e. everything I know about time travel, I learned from Bill & Ted. ;) At some point, Xaetra would travel into the distant past, where she would lose her memory and begin life anew, transformed into the likeness of a human.

    The prophesy was misinterpreted, for it was not Xaetra who would learn to swim the streams of time. It was her daughter Jaenan. In her time beneath the surface of the Dramidj Ocean, Xaetra bonded with the cold machinations of a metal construct devised by her paramour Zander, a powerful lich. Zander had used the remains of clockwork horrors, a quarut inevitable, and the mysterious metal orichalcum to craft his creation. The iron hag, amalgamation of spirit and steel, became known as grandmother clock. Together the two conceived a mechanatrix child, Jaenan, daughter of skin, steel, and sorcery.

    Jaenan was not a typical child, for she aged in unpredictable spurts. Within the matter of a year, she had aged to resemble a child of twelve. Jaenan had been charged with protecting the remains of the iron hag, after it was destroyed by the abyssal hag Syliah. Jaenan had learned to incorporate bits of the construct into her own being, wearing a half-mask and single gauntlet made from Grandmother Clock.

    For a time, Jaenan was on her own. Inadvertently, she had released the hydrimera, a beast who became known as the Leviathan of the Devils’ Purse. She sought to atone for her mistake. She made her way to the undersea fortress of Drawmij, which she found seemingly abandoned. There, she learned the ways of Chronomancy.

    Using the gauntlet of the iron hag, she forged Xaetra’s handwriting to pen the three Tomes of Apotheosis. Using the mask of the iron hag, she watched Xaetra’s every move. Jaenan traveled back in time, to place the clues within the twice-named ships she had summoned. Yet it was the last of the vessels, lodged within the Weed-Sea, which would be her undoing.

    When the USS Monitor returned to the time beyond time, Jaenan was lost. The party would never know that Jaenan would be the one to travel into the distant past, lose her memory and begin her life anew. In time, Jaenan, now known as Chrysa, would be cursed. At the hands of a marid, she was transformed into a living whirlpool and driven mad.

    In her elemental form, Chrysa would have many children. These tiny elementals, known as elementites, would in time form three magical maelstroms. Only by swimming within each vortex, could the party learn their secrets to become the Masters of the Maelstrom. "
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Sun Feb 12, 2012 7:04 am  

    Drawmij... Chronomancy... Water Clock !
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