Star Pacts and forbidden lore:
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In a game of high fantasy, there is a lot of knowledge to be had. -Much more than even in the real world. For every law of science held in our world, there are a dozen Arcane Alterations, Divine Exceptions and parallel pseudo-science laws. Among this entire cosmos of knowledge there is a thousand elven lifetimes of knowledge forgotten, hidden away for millennia. Your character is a bad ass, a cut above the rest. But he does not understand as -You- do.
-Star Pacts: madness. Leviathan. The Abyss that gazes back into you. The characters lucky enough to happen on this hard-to-gain knowledge are immediately crushed by the weight of it. Driven mad by the power and complete lack of any experiential knowledge. Star Pacts are amazing. They are also largely unheard of.
You don't know what a Star Pact is. The person possessed by the stars has no idea what is happening. They are turned mad by simply -knowing- that a thing called star pact -exists-. You don't have this knowledge. For if you did, your life would be a constant battle for sanity. This is what makes them so dangerous. The power is enough to make a seasoned adventurer think twice. But the chance of insanity, true insanity, would make a Cyrist blush and turn away.
This knowledge is dangerous. Not just to pursue, but to have in mind at all, in any way. Simply having a concept of the Far Realms turns people to madness and slavery, therefore, your academic knowledge of this matter is moot. Because if you are NOT locked in a constant struggle against the madness of the God-killers, then you are doing it wrong.
I don't care if you've been in a hundred wars, have +40 will, or have been a Road Captain for a hundred years. If you glean even a small amount of actual knowledge about Star Pacts, the stars start whispering immediately.
Treat star pacts how they are supposed to be treated. With fear, no TERROR, and contempt!
Lord AO Lord AO is the governor of gods in Forgotten realms. Not even the -God- of gods, but upper management. The gods do not talk to Lord AO. They don't have pow-wows around a fire and discuss driven tariffs. No.
The gods listen for his voice as they pray and obey him when he says "Become mortal and descend to the realms". Unless your God makes it a habit to keep his clergy informed about something other than your gods wants and desires, you have no business knowing about Lord Ao. Your years of academic training may make you privy to his existence, but again, you have no intimate knowledge of him. There are no readily available primers on Ao. No teachers of ways. No clergy to recieve his blessings. He is, for all intents and purposes, forbidden lore. The only thing you should know less about is STAR PACTS.
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Please add to this list. I think it should be vetted and placed in the Player Resource Forum.
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There's an IG book on the Time of Troubles that has…a lot of information on what happened to the gods that likely would never be consolidated in a book. If a DM wants to look at it, it's in Valor's PD chest. Mind you, he just treats it as "an interesting read" and not fact.
I believe I picked it up on the ruins quest (Garronious the Explorer: To the Rescue!).
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That's true, but the question remains "Who the hell is AO and why is it boss of the gods?"
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There's an IG book on the Time of Troubles that has…a lot of information on what happened to the gods that likely would never be consolidated in a book. If a DM wants to look at it, it's in Valor's PD chest. Mind you, he just treats it as "an interesting read" and not fact.
Yeah, apparently it contains a part claiming Ibrandul was killed by Shar and replaced, despite no one (not even the other gods) knowing that.
I'd suggest removing that book or editing it. -
being as i dont know any of this stuff anyway this is actually making the things less of a mystery to me.
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Get out of here Shades. Good job not Meta-gaming!
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really, its an Irrelevant discussion. The moment someone's spell bounces, or certain GFX appear, players will go "Rift" or "starpact" as if they knew all about it.
Unless of course, said person with unknown magics is a quest buddy. -
Yeah, apparently it contains a part claiming Ibrandul was killed by Shar and replaced, despite no one (not even the other gods) knowing that.
I'd suggest removing that book or editing it.Yeah that could be bad if any of us ever want to do crazy Ibrandul cultists…Ahem.
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The cat is already out of the bag. There's been posters about battling rift things.
Ao is in books or known by high lore characters, but there's no details of him other than the Time of Troubles which is relevant to certain plots.
CoA =/= Call of Cthulhu.
On a later note, we don't know if Ibrandul is alive canonically in CoA. The DMs could make him alive or possibly have his spark reclaimed to be reborn in the era of Silence.
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AO is not know to anyone what so ever. Time of Troubles book sounds like it is a NwN standard book? Please report where it is found for removal by bug report
Lore in regards of the star is roughly known in Arabel, but is NOT common knowledge. Players need to remember that with new characters comes a blank sheet
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There's a book in the Mystran shrine that specifically mentions Ao.
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AO is not know to anyone what so ever. Time of Troubles book sounds like it is a NwN standard book? Please report where it is found for removal by bug report
Difficult to report where. They're everywhere. Mainly in book cases or book piles in places like the Haunted Halls and the slaad quest in the ruins.
It's probably also in the book shop in the Citadel. -
Gives me an idea where it is at least, I will look into removing them.
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Personally if people are RP off the bat with fresh characters metagaming as the masters of rift lore, they are knowing too much. So go send assassins that kill people that know too much. Or delete them.
I haven't seen anyone actually do it without exploring the places to actually know what's going on.
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The book known as, "The Lament for the Dry Sun" speaks about Ao, Amaunatur, and Lathander equally. I have it in my inventory at the moment.
As well, the book known as, "The Wisdom of Kheldon-Fazak", speaks about Star Pacts, which I have as well. I'm going to trash both, just thought it worth mentioning.
I also read the next book in my inventory, "A Final Testament." It's about star pacts, and describes that they are immensely powerful, yet you shouldn't call upon them.
Okay, make that five books.
Add, "ascension to Phlogiston" and "book of Ineffable madness". The former is star cultist, the later is either star cult or limbo, i'm not sure
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book of Ineffable madness is probably about Limbo since its the summon book for CN(?) stuff. Chaotic stuff anyway. Like Slaadi.
The Library in the spire has a few bookshelves that are persistent storage. Puffy, you can start there at least. I
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Star pacts are not unknown there are books in game that describes npc's of old that gained powers from "X".
Having just spent months with a group concept uncovering lots of this forbidden lore alot of the clues about it are found in "old books" written by mad men.
So books about star pacts are totally fine in fact without them all the cultists that people play shouldn't exist as they would have no way to learn about such powers.
Books about Ao i honestly think should not exist as it has zero impact on the setting. -
-Largely Unknown-
You spent months playing someone investigating them, and found a couple books that had all of what? Maybe two pages total talking about them? Half of that babbling prose with point of reference because its psycho babble? I get that they are not unknown. But the knowledge of them is the dangerous part, because people who go digging after them end up buried.I hope this doesn't sound aggressive. All I know about them are the DMmessages I'd recieve while investigating them. The saves as well.
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is this Rift stuff one and the same with the Lyss rift stuff people had access to in the end of v4 and to a lesser extend in the start of v5?
all i know is what i came across with my character was not it, but characters who had gained power of the rift(lyss?) it was pretty scary stuff as far as my character is concerned and wanted nothing to do with it, bsaically stuck my fingers in my ears and went LALALALALALALA, anything that messes with what i can do, i want no part of, especially if the ones effected become as the ones i had known and seen in the past, targets for crusades