@@erroneous6947 C.A.S. is one of my favorite authors, despite his tendency to invent words. Merriam -Webster doesn't recognize "cacodemoniacal" as a word. To his credit though, they always seem to make sense and have clear meaning in context.
this is the kind of lore D&D, Bloodborne, and few other fantasy settings can provide that happen to just scratch my favorite itches. In a perfect world, the lore you cover would have novels dedicated to them that I can just…drown in lol
In the early 80s, I was reading lovecraft, tolkien, niven, earth sea, elric, while watching dr who, star trek and star wars. And I always wanted to know more. I wanted to know why. These are the lore-cumentaries that my sci-fi inner child loves. The "why" is what I put in my games. When a player asks "why not", I want to give them an answer that satisfies them. Your deep dives give me that information. Keep it up.
*draws a gleaming red crystal wand* Your steel will not aid you in this battle, stay close and step not past the lines of powder on the floor if you value your mind.
You are a great lore master one of my favorites. And you add a depth into role-playing games that make them even more fun. I have not played a table top role-playing game in over 20 years I have on PC BG3 being the latest. And if an old nerd that hasn't played in over two decades likes your channel you are doing something right and I'm glad you started covering D&D again.
Tharizdun is deliberately vague as a Greater God but hear me out: It is the Over Deity of Fantasy. He of the Divine Portfolio of Imagination, the Keeper of the Divine Flame that all who wish to be Gods must touch. He became evil in the Dawn Wars due to Imagination being used to fantasize War and Bloodshed, and when He made contact with the Shard of Absolute Evil it twisted him into some sort of nightmare deity.
"Finally, with the knowledge of past and present and future, I see the Weave as a tapestry billowing in a tempest! Karsus was a worm, and all will be seen and judged by THE GREAT EYE!!" The maddened one rushes to a corner of the room and grasps the empty air, whispering in shaky resignation. "Take me to him and let me help how I may."
This tale inspired a thought. What if the Spellweaver ritual was actually designed correctly but a select few malicious members decided to alter the formulas involved just a bit to only empower themselves and when the cataclysm occurred they changed into Baernaloths.
The Sage of Candlekeep leading us onto the mere scraps of knowledge he has to protect the would-be Champions of Reality, while sadly throwing us to spent against the endless secret war for Reality itself...
I just got the best mental image of AJ standing in front of that corkboard in the meme, cigarette in one hand, marker in the other, ranting about Thurizdun and the Far Realms 😂
I've been listening to this one again. And i have to say, this is one of my favorites recently. I've been trying to find out more when I'm on TH-cam. You really are a Sage.
Holy cow . . . This is . . . wow 😳 This makes my lore for the Rebirth of Sardior the Ruby lord into the Diamond Lord much much harder. But I'm still going to give it a shot!
So hear me out: Every edition of DnD is canon. Each one offers a vast change to the history and cosmology of the multiverse, so what causes the change from one to the next could be (corporate greed aside, this is just lore and story postulating) the journeys of remarkable individuals and/or groups that gain the power to remake the multiverse in a way of their choosing. The sort of power and knowledge that would drive even deities mad.
I have been dripfeeding this lore for about 4 years now, they are horrified with every little bit they have, and have only scratched the surface, i have weaved some of this into Karsus's folly that has lead to the karse stone that has led to the return of the netherese empire, there have been other examples, like the nothics, beholders. or the aboleth influences and visions. Iouloum also had an interaction with my players acting as an oracle. they took a deal with him in exchange for knowledge, he has "taken" a some memories, but has secretly implanted a piece of his concious. im using this video as a source for my goals for Iouloum. So much thanks!
idk whats a worse fate going mad learning about tharisdune or irl having to scrape the internet and some guys basement probably to find the lore in the first place
Tharizdun always seems to occupy a god niche but also something greater in all editions. He is also known by many aliases and titles which is always an advantage. X evil entity was actually Tharizdun all along. The spellweavers have a lore almost identical to a race in the 3E epic levels manual, the leshay. Elven survivors from a previous universe that no longer existed and whose attempts to bring back their lost universe ended in a catastrophe that destroyed most of the few original survivors. Too similar to be a coincidence. It would not be strange if there were several universes preceding the current one, or the spellweavers.
0:31-Damnit, it was an introduction to the story of C.E.Smith, where the name Thamagorgos appeared, no doubt, the inspiration for Demodorgon (btw, he was an even more evil enemy of Thasaidon) another mystery from AJ?
Tharizdun and Ao are the oppositional forces of Chaos & Law, possibly. He is the eye of the abyss that stares back at you. If you can understand the titanomachy in Greek mythology, you can understand how to use tharizdun in a game. Tharizdun is the origin of the things like ecatoncharies in Greek mythology, the things that should not be due to an entirely alien biology to human. Tharizdun creates an older layer of the cosmology. It is a being with no beginning or end, unlike AO, who represents the beginning and end that comes to all things, even gods. They are both overgods who live beyond minor trivialities like good & evil that bind younger, less powerful gods. To put it simply, Tharizdun is the answer to the question of “what created the creator?” It is the conscious in the chaos that first opened its eye to look out beyond itself. It is the link between that which is older to that which is newer and more familiar. It occupies the space in the family tree of existence between the gods and the old gods who are unknown even to the gods. If you can understand the creation myth of the ancient Egyptians, Tharizdun makes perfect sense. He is the roiling chaos, out of which the Benben stone first rose. Everything that came after is a part of the chaos from which it came. It is the raw material out of which all of the universe is shaped and formed. All life, all law, all order, came from controlling the chaos and shaping it. If Tharizdun is ever freed from his bindings completely all law, order and even matter itself reverts back to chaos. The reason for the insanity in any who try to free Tharizdun is because it is a grandfather paradox. The loss of reason is the first stage of the undoing of the bindings. Sanity is only possible if there is ordered thought. The closer you get to his prison, the more like him you must become. The more like him you become, the more entrapped you are in his prison, until you are nothing more than a part of him. All of the ways to free him or entrap him are layers of the cage. If you have the means to reach the cage to open it, you are entrapped by it. The number of souls bound within the layers of the cage strengthen the cage. This is a layered cosmology. It creates a point before which nothing can ever be known. Only Tharizdun can ever know what came before him.
I'm loving this channels content brother. I'm liking the meta analysis only you can do. Nobody does deep dive like AJ. You can't out- nerd this guy. Passion speaks for itself. Something WoTC needs a lesson on.
Crazy idea; Spellweavers created the Arcane and gave them the ability to create spelljammer helms and other items. The knowledge of anyone using a helm is transmitted back to the Spellweavers, who use this knowledge in their search for the missing stones they need to reset things. The great ship known as The Spelljammer, which gives the setting its name, is also their creation and is also part of their search. In the Astromundi/ Shatter Sphere setting, the great stellar Mindflayer nation searches for the items they need to create the Sun Slayer. This is an artifact that will allow them to snuff out the main sun at the center of the sphere. This will not only make things more comfortable for the Flayers, but it will cripple the human Antillan empire, their main and more powerful rival. The empire relies on the sun to power their giant crystal ships, as well as certain other magics. One of these Spellweaver crystals could play a key role in the operation of the Sun Slayer.
So i had an idea about a necromancer or lich collecting all the parts of Vecna and fusing them onto a flesh golem But, honestly, seems small fry compared to an ultimate evil god trapped in an ultimate evil crystal prison that requires multiple diety-level artifacts and the genocide of a species that breathes black holes in order to free him.
Much love to one of the greatest Lore Masters on TH-cam! Keep going strong my guy, your mind and videos and insight has done me wonders in my own campaigns. Truly a priceless source of information.
The pay off for this video came with cataclysmic thunder! Well done, my man. Absolute banger soundtrack. As an aside, in a previous video comment, another commenter said the Lady of Pain was a tanar'ri as evidenced in the novel Pages of Pain. I recently read the novel, and it says nothing of the sort. I won't say what origin it claims for her, but it is an amazing novel, highly recommend.
I find it interesting the similarities between the actions of Tharizdun, the Spellweavers and Karsus. I wonder if we'll see similar attempts in the future.
It's all about the crystals! The crystals!!!! I'm not crazy, okay? Just hear me out... The Spellweavers used crystals to make their Nodes, and the much less powerful Mythallar that were based on them are also made of crystal. Tharizdun's crystal prison is made at least partly of spellweaver gems/crystals, maybe pieces of the shattered nodes? He had a minion use a fragment of the crystalline Living Gate in order to make a temporary hole in his prison through which he could unleash the Abyssal Plague aka Voidharrow. The Shard of Evil is a crystal and the Ruby Rod is part of that shard. I believe the Lattice of Heaven was also crystalline due to the idea that astral diamonds are "a side effect of the destruction of the lattice." (Also because the structure of a crystal is always a type of lattice) This video mentions a lattice created by gods also during the dawn war era. Is that a seperate one? It sounds like its creation was different and it was made to protect, rather than to facilitate travel. I think the spellweaver obelisks probably contain crystal at their core, but I'm not sure. (What would happen if they were destroyed? Would the planes start to bleed together?) The crystal spheres are also powerful ancient items from ancient times (dawn era?) which protect the solar systems / worlds inside. All of the crystal things that were shattered are being actively collected in order to bring them together and make cosmic changes. The Goddess Erathis works through the eons to restore the lattice she and Moradin created in the dawn era. The cult of Thoon seek to collect astral dragon gems in order to see their grand plan fulfilled (reminds me of dragonball lol). The Shardminds, themselves pieces of the Living Gate, attempt to reunite all the pieces and reform the Gate. The Spellweavers look to reunite their nodes and return the universe to an earlier iteration. Maybe your group is seeking the pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts... well guess what? Yep, yet another CRYSTAL item of cosmic power which was fractured into pieces and is being collected to do something big.. I'm pretty sure the only time we saw it used was to banish Miska, but I feel like it could do much more...Wish I had a copy of Dragon Magazine 213 where its potential is discussed. What is Series Magic?? (Wrote this before I finished watching and wow... it's even more insanely powerful than I expected!) Seriously, what's up with these dang crystals? I bet Vecna knows but he won't tell anyone >:(
@@AJPickett @AJPickett That makes me wonder more about their creation and where that energy comes from. All the strongest ones come from dawn war or pre-dawn war times, maybe because their energy was the same as the energy the old ones used to shape reality or something.. Maybe the energy did come from different places. The shard of ultimate evil can't be regular negative energy because then the demons would be undead, right? Maybe it's some form of evil energy other than the negative energy we're used to seeing. The rod of law could be made of lawful energy, the living gate of psychic energy, mythals of the energy of the weave etc. Just speculating because I have no idea how any of these things were actually made! I'm guessing smaller stuff like the Ioun stones are also in this category of gnarly cosmic crystals, and maybe... gnomes are too? Imagine gnomish high magic where a circle of gnome wizards sacrifice themselves, turning into into gems full of magical energy for a high priest or whoever to cast powerful spells with! Now that I think about it there was a JRPG that did that exact thing... Chrono Trigger I think? Not sure but what a cool concept!
I always love the dives into the deep lore. I also like that the lore can be contradictory form various sources. I like revealing contradictory lore to players in longer campaigns. It really makes them question things when they think they knew something.
To expand on what you said, The outerplanes some could be also possible alternative what if moments aswell as being pockets in time like the abyss is a what if the shard consumed the entire universe or was dominated by a certain alignment and the outlands is a frozen moment of time and space stopping these potential alternatives from spilling out and effecting the prime material with sigil being the centre held possibly by the lady like if you have ever played crono trigger before the end of time. Would explain why gods cant enter as its separate from any reality they ever existed in.
Hey AJ, love your videos, they are so good. The pics you used are really good, Dwarf Statue, the endless gem dragon 🐲 and the lizardfolk shaman in the end scene. Appreciate what you do. Thanks for everything AJ, you have a wonderful day!
In my game obox-ob was the main threat of my world, my players after many years encountered him on his layer of the abyss, and he revealed that he got the shard of pure evil from a mass of darkness called the "chained one", the chain one told obox-ob that it was a god only because it was so old, every being believed it was a god and thus it was worshipped as one, that day obox-ob plunged the shard into the elemental chaos and made the abyss, making him tharizdun by beings believing he was, thus oberyths, tenari, and every other being created tharizdun by simply believing obox-ob was it.
Great Video, thanks AJ. I give my worlds some breathing space by calling the early period of the cosmos the 'Age of Mythology' Reality isn't fixed in this period at it is porous to belief from the present. This means that all legends can have a grain of truth to them, even if they give contradictory versions of the beginnings and creation.
The single eye connects beholders(I know they got smaller eyes but they only got one main eye) astral juggernauts and ghaunadaur tho nothics are made by vecna he is the guard to therizdune’s prison and as a god of secrets he has likely gleamed some hidden techniques from within it is my belief that this is the 10th timeline of the dnd world I think that is why beholders have 10 eyes in previous timelines therizdune breaks free and mind flayers jump back in time to escape the destruction of the multiverse and not just to run from the gith this restarts the new time line but pieces of it worm their way back into the new time line when therizdune looks into the far realm he glimpses the old time line which infects him and turns him evil and spawns the abyss with beings who survived the chaos of the old world long enough to become the obyrith but one of the obyrith was a part of the old therizdune ghaunadaur waits for this timeline’s therizdune to break free to join with him and gain the power to destroy the multiverse starting the process all over again and is possibly not truly part of him but what made him evil in the first timeline which had no abyss just a primordial chaos or perhaps he played therizdune’s roll back then and just uses the young corrupted god to continue the cycle and do all the heavy lifting he did in the first time line for him thoon is what’s left after ghaunadaur leaves and is what the mind flayers found when they tried to go back
I love this! I am building a homebrew campaign through which to run my regular group that uses this kind of trans-dimensional goodness. (The "Creator" is an Elder Power, the BBEG is another Elder Power, and the "gods" are their "children.")
Oh boy I can't wait to become a nothic with everyone else watching this video! Praise Vecna for the knowledge; curse Vecna for the form we now inhabit.
Hey AJ! I recently found your channel and binged all your Derailed fantasy adventures and your readings of the Dragon magazine stories. Absolutely loved those videos!
Isn't the Makado virtually as strong as an Overgod? My understanding is stellar dragons as a species surpass Time Dragons (The old school epic ones, not the new planescape babies) that they're multiple miles long, and groups of them together could create & destroy crystal spheres, constructs the gods themselves can't break. Oh, and their breath weapons are literal black holes. I guess thats my roundabout way of saying how the hell do the illithids think they have any chance of ever beating that thing?
So I read, "The Mikado" at first... and I just can't help but think that "Three Little Maids From School" would unlock ultimate power in any bard who learned the song
11:23 THE WHAT ARE THE *THAT*? I had in my game notes "if pcs end up in astral sea, here is breakout table of encounters, including something related to a piece or the entire crystal prison- that *those* were *these*? aaaaaaa how rad it would be to have a pc have a *that* and it be a *those*. edit: yes I'm assuming by now the prison is almost totally covered in rhe bulk of these keys because if Eye cults across the cosmos have succeeded even a few times to merely deposit one of these stones here- who would dare remove it? Anyone wise enough to know of its nature would be too spooked to dare float up to it and pluck one away- especially when you'd need to take *each one* without anyrhing going wrong. Tharizdun's got to have like 60% of his shards by 5e's posting of planescape material in 2023. I bet jergal saw in rhe ancient times that like, less than a dozen were located near the Eye's prison, and that his divinity would attract too much attention were he to planeshift there and grab them. Without finding a suitable mortal or construct to get the stones for him (I imagine the qualification challenges for which would give Acerack a run for his money) he realized that the rate of deposited stones versus his ability to find a way to grab them meant he was never gonna catch up and that's why he "went to an honest life on a farm" back on toril.
In my cosmology, the Prime sits inside a sphere of the elemental planes (each one is a piece on the inside and outside of the sphere) connected to them by the ethereal, while the astral projects out from the prime, through the negative, and onto to the vast outer places that sit in a great ring. It is essentially redrawn 2ed made to look like a weird sphere movie projector, projecting reality out into the universe.
Me: Num num num, gimme more! Aj: OK Vecna: MOOOORE?!! *turns everyone Into Nothics* So did Pazuzu and the other Obyrith still have anything to do with the shards' creation?
The only D&D setting I'm familiar with is the Forgotten Realms, which seems to only ever talk about these topics in a very obtuse manner. Am I right in assuming that much of this lore comes from other D&D settings? I just figured out these Stellar Dragons only seem to exist in the Spelljammer setting, for example.
Awesome as ever, but about halfway through the Video , some angry Lich started casting some serious Juju outside my House... Gonna be careful dealing with him, the last lich i offended wished me to "end", which resulted in a rather tedious Tuesday afternoon speedrunning Minecraft.
How would Aboleths factor into this? If the blood queen is an elder evil, does this mean that they have always existed, or were they retroactively created post-disjunction?
All I really know for sure about the Aboleths is that they are one of the oldest species on Toril, and many other worlds. How they factor into the scrambled and rewritten timelines, I do not know.
@@AJPickett Maybe the first aboleth were dreamed into existence by the Great Old Ones, but were not advanced psionically enough to follow when their creator ascended to higher dimensions. You said they sealed the way behind them to prevent meddling with the origin of existence? Perhaps the aboleth were left behind, like the lame child too slow to join the other children following the Pied Piper into the cave.
Could you make a compilation of the most interesting books in D&D history? Like, which would be the best picks of all the D&D books you've encountered through all of the editions of the game?
Thanks for this AJ. Really makes the background for a cosmic horror game tangible. Anyone have access to some pdf player handout that gives players the possibility to dive into it themselves?😊
So how does Tharizdun compare Ao when it comes to the hierarchy of gods? Are they equal in power with one being the manifestation of law and the other being the manifestation of chaos or is Ao being a overgod still above Tharizdun?
AO's domain is limited to the crystal sphere that the Realms are in. Within the sphere he is the highest known power. AO's weakness is that he can't truly do anything to multi planer beings. He can limit their aspect in the Realm space only. You would have to assume that there is at least one power above AO maybe more. There is a hint of one, maybe, in the talks of the outer planes.
I know you're a busy guy but that book cover you showed in the video Lord at the end of everything what is that is that a source book is that a novel is that a comic could you point me in the right direction
“Tried to ascend and realized reality is broken.” Dmt had that effect on me as well.
Also nice choice for the intro. One of lovecrafts buddies.
@@erroneous6947 C.A.S. is one of my favorite authors, despite his tendency to invent words. Merriam -Webster doesn't recognize "cacodemoniacal" as a word. To his credit though, they always seem to make sense and have clear meaning in context.
Psilocybin helps you accept the fractures. LSD helps you see the connections between them all
Know & accept the weave with the help of psilocybin.
"angry vecna noises".
Oh yeah, I am fucked now.
Vecna and his Secret Evil Diary Club are some nasty people
❤❤😂
Secret Squirrel!!
It's a good thing he never gained influence over our realm, otherwise we'd all be gnothics right now
this is the kind of lore D&D, Bloodborne, and few other fantasy settings can provide that happen to just scratch my favorite itches. In a perfect world, the lore you cover would have novels dedicated to them that I can just…drown in lol
In the early 80s, I was reading lovecraft, tolkien, niven, earth sea, elric, while watching dr who, star trek and star wars. And I always wanted to know more. I wanted to know why. These are the lore-cumentaries that my sci-fi inner child loves. The "why" is what I put in my games. When a player asks "why not", I want to give them an answer that satisfies them. Your deep dives give me that information. Keep it up.
I have to read me some more Larry Niven! Luckily I just got a kindle...
*Draws steel.*
Protect Sage Pickett, Vecna's minions are coming to silence him!
*draws a gleaming red crystal wand* Your steel will not aid you in this battle, stay close and step not past the lines of powder on the floor if you value your mind.
"some things are not meant for the mortal mind to comprehend."
So sayeth the wise Alando.
Charming chap, always singing and humming, big fan of pan-fried crab cakes.
You are a great lore master one of my favorites. And you add a depth into role-playing games that make them even more fun. I have not played a table top role-playing game in over 20 years I have on PC BG3 being the latest. And if an old nerd that hasn't played in over two decades likes your channel you are doing something right and I'm glad you started covering D&D again.
Thank you, yeah, me to.
Tharizdun is deliberately vague as a Greater God but hear me out:
It is the Over Deity of Fantasy.
He of the Divine Portfolio of Imagination, the Keeper of the Divine Flame that all who wish to be Gods must touch.
He became evil in the Dawn Wars due to Imagination being used to fantasize War and Bloodshed, and when He made contact with the Shard of Absolute Evil it twisted him into some sort of nightmare deity.
By far the most in depth and complete lore video on the subject. You have taken a patchwork and made a beautiful quilt
"Finally, with the knowledge of past and present and future, I see the Weave as a tapestry billowing in a tempest! Karsus was a worm, and all will be seen and judged by THE GREAT EYE!!" The maddened one rushes to a corner of the room and grasps the empty air, whispering in shaky resignation. "Take me to him and let me help how I may."
Karsus was a pawn in the game of immortals.
This tale inspired a thought. What if the Spellweaver ritual was actually designed correctly but a select few malicious members decided to alter the formulas involved just a bit to only empower themselves and when the cataclysm occurred they changed into Baernaloths.
Oooo, that is pretty juicy
-*Spellweavers:* Fail to save-scum.
-*Mortals:* "You could make all religion out of this!"
The Sage of Candlekeep leading us onto the mere scraps of knowledge he has to protect the would-be Champions of Reality, while sadly throwing us to spent against the endless secret war for Reality itself...
I just got the best mental image of AJ standing in front of that corkboard in the meme, cigarette in one hand, marker in the other, ranting about Thurizdun and the Far Realms 😂
I have Tharizdun featured in my campaign and I've had to struggle to make him compelling, I'm here finally!
This is the deep lore that I come here for.
I've already incorporated seeds of this into my next campaign.
(Mostly based on your Outer Planes videos)
If we dont hear back from aj in a few days we know it was cause of vecna shanking him
Or we do hear back from AJ but his lore now contains false leads and such as Vecna uses him to obfuscate the truth?...
I've been listening to this one again. And i have to say, this is one of my favorites recently. I've been trying to find out more when I'm on TH-cam. You really are a Sage.
Glad you enjoy it!
Holy cow . . . This is . . . wow 😳
This makes my lore for the Rebirth of Sardior the Ruby lord into the Diamond Lord much much harder. But I'm still going to give it a shot!
The Gord of Greyhawk novel's storyline with Tharizdun will leave you slack jawed. I highly recommend it!!
Bigby was always a little hands-ey.
So hear me out:
Every edition of DnD is canon.
Each one offers a vast change to the history and cosmology of the multiverse, so what causes the change from one to the next could be (corporate greed aside, this is just lore and story postulating) the journeys of remarkable individuals and/or groups that gain the power to remake the multiverse in a way of their choosing. The sort of power and knowledge that would drive even deities mad.
Imagine have AJ as a dungeon master.
I have been dripfeeding this lore for about 4 years now, they are horrified with every little bit they have, and have only scratched the surface, i have weaved some of this into Karsus's folly that has lead to the karse stone that has led to the return of the netherese empire, there have been other examples, like the nothics, beholders. or the aboleth influences and visions. Iouloum also had an interaction with my players acting as an oracle. they took a deal with him in exchange for knowledge, he has "taken" a some memories, but has secretly implanted a piece of his concious. im using this video as a source for my goals for Iouloum. So much thanks!
*cackles with evile*
idk whats a worse fate going mad learning about tharisdune or irl having to scrape the internet and some guys basement probably to find the lore in the first place
Tharizdun always seems to occupy a god niche but also something greater in all editions. He is also known by many aliases and titles which is always an advantage. X evil entity was actually Tharizdun all along.
The spellweavers have a lore almost identical to a race in the 3E epic levels manual, the leshay. Elven survivors from a previous universe that no longer existed and whose attempts to bring back their lost universe ended in a catastrophe that destroyed most of the few original survivors. Too similar to be a coincidence. It would not be strange if there were several universes preceding the current one, or the spellweavers.
This is the best example of why i love this channel. Along with ecology of the gods!
0:31-Damnit, it was an introduction to the story of C.E.Smith, where the name Thamagorgos appeared, no doubt, the inspiration for Demodorgon (btw, he was an even more evil enemy of Thasaidon) another mystery from AJ?
*sips tea* I am taking a break from deep lore for about a week.
Tharizdun and Ao are the oppositional forces of Chaos & Law, possibly. He is the eye of the abyss that stares back at you.
If you can understand the titanomachy in Greek mythology, you can understand how to use tharizdun in a game. Tharizdun is the origin of the things like ecatoncharies in Greek mythology, the things that should not be due to an entirely alien biology to human.
Tharizdun creates an older layer of the cosmology. It is a being with no beginning or end, unlike AO, who represents the beginning and end that comes to all things, even gods. They are both overgods who live beyond minor trivialities like good & evil that bind younger, less powerful gods.
To put it simply, Tharizdun is the answer to the question of “what created the creator?” It is the conscious in the chaos that first opened its eye to look out beyond itself. It is the link between that which is older to that which is newer and more familiar. It occupies the space in the family tree of existence between the gods and the old gods who are unknown even to the gods.
If you can understand the creation myth of the ancient Egyptians, Tharizdun makes perfect sense. He is the roiling chaos, out of which the Benben stone first rose. Everything that came after is a part of the chaos from which it came. It is the raw material out of which all of the universe is shaped and formed. All life, all law, all order, came from controlling the chaos and shaping it. If Tharizdun is ever freed from his bindings completely all law, order and even matter itself reverts back to chaos.
The reason for the insanity in any who try to free Tharizdun is because it is a grandfather paradox. The loss of reason is the first stage of the undoing of the bindings. Sanity is only possible if there is ordered thought. The closer you get to his prison, the more like him you must become. The more like him you become, the more entrapped you are in his prison, until you are nothing more than a part of him.
All of the ways to free him or entrap him are layers of the cage. If you have the means to reach the cage to open it, you are entrapped by it. The number of souls bound within the layers of the cage strengthen the cage.
This is a layered cosmology. It creates a point before which nothing can ever be known. Only Tharizdun can ever know what came before him.
I'm loving this channels content brother. I'm liking the meta analysis only you can do. Nobody does deep dive like AJ.
You can't out- nerd this guy. Passion speaks for itself.
Something WoTC needs a lesson on.
I use lots of this lore for my home game. Thank you for shining the light on it AJ! Hope Vecna doesn't get you.
Crazy idea; Spellweavers created the Arcane and gave them the ability to create spelljammer helms and other items. The knowledge of anyone using a helm is transmitted back to the Spellweavers, who use this knowledge in their search for the missing stones they need to reset things. The great ship known as The Spelljammer, which gives the setting its name, is also their creation and is also part of their search.
In the Astromundi/ Shatter Sphere setting, the great stellar Mindflayer nation searches for the items they need to create the Sun Slayer. This is an artifact that will allow them to snuff out the main sun at the center of the sphere. This will not only make things more comfortable for the Flayers, but it will cripple the human Antillan empire, their main and more powerful rival. The empire relies on the sun to power their giant crystal ships, as well as certain other magics. One of these Spellweaver crystals could play a key role in the operation of the Sun Slayer.
That's quite juicy.
@@AJPickett Seems legit. After reading the spelljammer Novell's. Need to find some spell weaver novels.
So i had an idea about a necromancer or lich collecting all the parts of Vecna and fusing them onto a flesh golem
But, honestly, seems small fry compared to an ultimate evil god trapped in an ultimate evil crystal prison that requires multiple diety-level artifacts and the genocide of a species that breathes black holes in order to free him.
Vecna's comin BACK, bicces
And he's looking for his Big Stick
Sir I love every one of these gems you create. Thankyou for your diligence.
Another banger. Great job AJ. Love your videos.
Much love to one of the greatest Lore Masters on TH-cam! Keep going strong my guy, your mind and videos and insight has done me wonders in my own campaigns. Truly a priceless source of information.
Finally, some love for Thasidon and Clark Ashton Smith.
This is exactly the kind of multicampaign story I was going with. Cosmic Horror and a Endgame-like scenario. Very insightful!
I'm old school D&D dating back to the early 80s, some things are best left A mystery that's what made it magical during play. Long time ago...
Same here...early 80s US Army...way back in spacetime
my heart jumped at how close the first word was to "tharizdun"
The pay off for this video came with cataclysmic thunder! Well done, my man. Absolute banger soundtrack.
As an aside, in a previous video comment, another commenter said the Lady of Pain was a tanar'ri as evidenced in the novel Pages of Pain. I recently read the novel, and it says nothing of the sort. I won't say what origin it claims for her, but it is an amazing novel, highly recommend.
Glad you enjoyed it! As for the Lady of Pain, Who knows for sure.
I find it interesting the similarities between the actions of Tharizdun, the Spellweavers and Karsus.
I wonder if we'll see similar attempts in the future.
I've needed this video. You've saved the day again Sage
Wow. Inspiration overload. This was excellent
It's all about the crystals! The crystals!!!! I'm not crazy, okay? Just hear me out...
The Spellweavers used crystals to make their Nodes, and the much less powerful Mythallar that were based on them are also made of crystal. Tharizdun's crystal prison is made at least partly of spellweaver gems/crystals, maybe pieces of the shattered nodes? He had a minion use a fragment of the crystalline Living Gate in order to make a temporary hole in his prison through which he could unleash the Abyssal Plague aka Voidharrow.
The Shard of Evil is a crystal and the Ruby Rod is part of that shard. I believe the Lattice of Heaven was also crystalline due to the idea that astral diamonds are "a side effect of the destruction of the lattice." (Also because the structure of a crystal is always a type of lattice)
This video mentions a lattice created by gods also during the dawn war era. Is that a seperate one? It sounds like its creation was different and it was made to protect, rather than to facilitate travel. I think the spellweaver obelisks probably contain crystal at their core, but I'm not sure. (What would happen if they were destroyed? Would the planes start to bleed together?)
The crystal spheres are also powerful ancient items from ancient times (dawn era?) which protect the solar systems / worlds inside.
All of the crystal things that were shattered are being actively collected in order to bring them together and make cosmic changes. The Goddess Erathis works through the eons to restore the lattice she and Moradin created in the dawn era. The cult of Thoon seek to collect astral dragon gems in order to see their grand plan fulfilled (reminds me of dragonball lol). The Shardminds, themselves pieces of the Living Gate, attempt to reunite all the pieces and reform the Gate. The Spellweavers look to reunite their nodes and return the universe to an earlier iteration.
Maybe your group is seeking the pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts... well guess what? Yep, yet another CRYSTAL item of cosmic power which was fractured into pieces and is being collected to do something big.. I'm pretty sure the only time we saw it used was to banish Miska, but I feel like it could do much more...Wish I had a copy of Dragon Magazine 213 where its potential is discussed. What is Series Magic?? (Wrote this before I finished watching and wow... it's even more insanely powerful than I expected!) Seriously, what's up with these dang crystals? I bet Vecna knows but he won't tell anyone >:(
Crystals are solid vibrations. Condensed energy.
@@AJPickett @AJPickett That makes me wonder more about their creation and where that energy comes from. All the strongest ones come from dawn war or pre-dawn war times, maybe because their energy was the same as the energy the old ones used to shape reality or something..
Maybe the energy did come from different places. The shard of ultimate evil can't be regular negative energy because then the demons would be undead, right? Maybe it's some form of evil energy other than the negative energy we're used to seeing. The rod of law could be made of lawful energy, the living gate of psychic energy, mythals of the energy of the weave etc. Just speculating because I have no idea how any of these things were actually made!
I'm guessing smaller stuff like the Ioun stones are also in this category of gnarly cosmic crystals, and maybe... gnomes are too? Imagine gnomish high magic where a circle of gnome wizards sacrifice themselves, turning into into gems full of magical energy for a high priest or whoever to cast powerful spells with! Now that I think about it there was a JRPG that did that exact thing... Chrono Trigger I think? Not sure but what a cool concept!
Demons are corrupted elementals.
I always love the dives into the deep lore. I also like that the lore can be contradictory form various sources. I like revealing contradictory lore to players in longer campaigns. It really makes them question things when they think they knew something.
To expand on what you said, The outerplanes some could be also possible alternative what if moments aswell as being pockets in time like the abyss is a what if the shard consumed the entire universe or was dominated by a certain alignment and the outlands is a frozen moment of time and space stopping these potential alternatives from spilling out and effecting the prime material with sigil being the centre held possibly by the lady like if you have ever played crono trigger before the end of time. Would explain why gods cant enter as its separate from any reality they ever existed in.
Lady of Pain, Queen of Chaos, Pale Night, all possibly ascended Spellweavers? *grin*
Hey AJ, love your videos, they are so good. The pics you used are really good, Dwarf Statue, the endless gem dragon 🐲 and the lizardfolk shaman in the end scene. Appreciate what you do.
Thanks for everything AJ, you have a wonderful day!
Thanks Matt!
In my game obox-ob was the main threat of my world, my players after many years encountered him on his layer of the abyss, and he revealed that he got the shard of pure evil from a mass of darkness called the "chained one", the chain one told obox-ob that it was a god only because it was so old, every being believed it was a god and thus it was worshipped as one, that day obox-ob plunged the shard into the elemental chaos and made the abyss, making him tharizdun by beings believing he was, thus oberyths, tenari, and every other being created tharizdun by simply believing obox-ob was it.
That sounds like an awesome campaign.
@@stephenclements6158 Thank you.
Great Video, thanks AJ.
I give my worlds some breathing space by calling the early period of the cosmos the 'Age of Mythology' Reality isn't fixed in this period at it is porous to belief from the present. This means that all legends can have a grain of truth to them, even if they give contradictory versions of the beginnings and creation.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED FOR MY CAMPAIGN
You're welcome.
I don't know if you already did this but I would love a cthulhu video.
The spellweaver with 7 arms was horrific
This is one of your best videos yet!! ❤❤❤
Glad you think so!
The single eye connects beholders(I know they got smaller eyes but they only got one main eye) astral juggernauts and ghaunadaur tho nothics are made by vecna he is the guard to therizdune’s prison and as a god of secrets he has likely gleamed some hidden techniques from within it is my belief that this is the 10th timeline of the dnd world I think that is why beholders have 10 eyes in previous timelines therizdune breaks free and mind flayers jump back in time to escape the destruction of the multiverse and not just to run from the gith this restarts the new time line but pieces of it worm their way back into the new time line when therizdune looks into the far realm he glimpses the old time line which infects him and turns him evil and spawns the abyss with beings who survived the chaos of the old world long enough to become the obyrith but one of the obyrith was a part of the old therizdune ghaunadaur waits for this timeline’s therizdune to break free to join with him and gain the power to destroy the multiverse starting the process all over again and is possibly not truly part of him but what made him evil in the first timeline which had no abyss just a primordial chaos or perhaps he played therizdune’s roll back then and just uses the young corrupted god to continue the cycle and do all the heavy lifting he did in the first time line for him thoon is what’s left after ghaunadaur leaves and is what the mind flayers found when they tried to go back
Breathe!
great video AJ
Thanks Chris, I'm proud of this one.
Long live the mighty glue stick
Somehow, I feel like games based around juicy deep lore secrets like these should have Inevitables involved!
Oh, certainly!
I love this! I am building a homebrew campaign through which to run my regular group that uses this kind of trans-dimensional goodness. (The "Creator" is an Elder Power, the BBEG is another Elder Power, and the "gods" are their "children.")
Watching on lunch break, thank you for the amazing content
Oh boy I can't wait to become a nothic with everyone else watching this video! Praise Vecna for the knowledge; curse Vecna for the form we now inhabit.
These vids are why you are my go to for information, thanks AJ
Did not expect Klarkash-Ton.
Hey AJ! I recently found your channel and binged all your Derailed fantasy adventures and your readings of the Dragon magazine stories. Absolutely loved those videos!
Welcome aboard! More readings in the not too distant future.
Isn't the Makado virtually as strong as an Overgod? My understanding is stellar dragons as a species surpass Time Dragons (The old school epic ones, not the new planescape babies) that they're multiple miles long, and groups of them together could create & destroy crystal spheres, constructs the gods themselves can't break. Oh, and their breath weapons are literal black holes. I guess thats my roundabout way of saying how the hell do the illithids think they have any chance of ever beating that thing?
Because Mindflayers are very, very smart and very, very self-assured.
So I read, "The Mikado" at first... and I just can't help but think that "Three Little Maids From School" would unlock ultimate power in any bard who learned the song
Awesome! I'm even starting to hear voices!
I've been waiting for this video, Saint of lore AJ never disappoints
The deepest of lore, you're one of a kind.
Really enjoyed this one AJ. Keep up the amazing work bud. You're killing it.
You're my favorite conspiracy theorist. Seriously though, this was quite fascinating and I'm glad you covered it. 👍
A maddening video! Excellent!
Sooooooo glad for you, thank you for all these lore dumps!!! 🫶
I relay enjoyed this lore, thank you very much.
That's good lore. Thank you.
Wow I had no idea about the precursor to Gary’s god.
good ideas also for a cinematic unreal hobbyist like me too keep up good works
11:23 THE WHAT ARE THE *THAT*?
I had in my game notes "if pcs end up in astral sea, here is breakout table of encounters, including something related to a piece or the entire crystal prison- that *those* were *these*?
aaaaaaa how rad it would be to have a pc have a *that* and it be a *those*.
edit: yes I'm assuming by now the prison is almost totally covered in rhe bulk of these keys because if Eye cults across the cosmos have succeeded even a few times to merely deposit one of these stones here- who would dare remove it? Anyone wise enough to know of its nature would be too spooked to dare float up to it and pluck one away- especially when you'd need to take *each one* without anyrhing going wrong.
Tharizdun's got to have like 60% of his shards by 5e's posting of planescape material in 2023. I bet jergal saw in rhe ancient times that like, less than a dozen were located near the Eye's prison, and that his divinity would attract too much attention were he to planeshift there and grab them. Without finding a suitable mortal or construct to get the stones for him (I imagine the qualification challenges for which would give Acerack a run for his money) he realized that the rate of deposited stones versus his ability to find a way to grab them meant he was never gonna catch up and that's why he "went to an honest life on a farm" back on toril.
imagine infinity war dr strange viewing alternate timelines: "ALL OF THEM ARE BAD DUDE"
This is perfect for my next campaign I'm starting next year. Thank you!
I remember most of this one epic dnd secret. Darm it was not on this video. Gotta rewatch everything lol!
In my cosmology, the Prime sits inside a sphere of the elemental planes (each one is a piece on the inside and outside of the sphere) connected to them by the ethereal, while the astral projects out from the prime, through the negative, and onto to the vast outer places that sit in a great ring.
It is essentially redrawn 2ed made to look like a weird sphere movie projector, projecting reality out into the universe.
Me: Num num num, gimme more!
Aj: OK
Vecna: MOOOORE?!! *turns everyone Into Nothics*
So did Pazuzu and the other Obyrith still have anything to do with the shards' creation?
Well, Tharizdun's worst nightmares, manifested? Hard to say.
I live for this kind of lore video.
My Dregoth looks up intrigued from his tomes....
The only D&D setting I'm familiar with is the Forgotten Realms, which seems to only ever talk about these topics in a very obtuse manner. Am I right in assuming that much of this lore comes from other D&D settings? I just figured out these Stellar Dragons only seem to exist in the Spelljammer setting, for example.
Yeah, mostly.
Awesome as ever, but about halfway through the Video , some angry Lich started casting some serious Juju outside my House...
Gonna be careful dealing with him, the last lich i offended wished me to "end", which resulted in a rather tedious Tuesday afternoon speedrunning Minecraft.
Its true, Minecraft is a lich weakness.. they have terrible depth perception.
Hell yes! Cheers brother. Have a good day
Well I think I know what my next campaign will revolve around
Yea.. that's a sub for you fine sir
How would Aboleths factor into this? If the blood queen is an elder evil, does this mean that they have always existed, or were they retroactively created post-disjunction?
All I really know for sure about the Aboleths is that they are one of the oldest species on Toril, and many other worlds. How they factor into the scrambled and rewritten timelines, I do not know.
@@AJPickett Maybe the first aboleth were dreamed into existence by the Great Old Ones, but were not advanced psionically enough to follow when their creator ascended to higher dimensions. You said they sealed the way behind them to prevent meddling with the origin of existence? Perhaps the aboleth were left behind, like the lame child too slow to join the other children following the Pied Piper into the cave.
Could you make a compilation of the most interesting books in D&D history?
Like, which would be the best picks of all the D&D books you've encountered through all of the editions of the game?
I would 100% recommend the Time of Troubles series.
Of every edition?
What first made me fall in love with D&D were the 3.5 edition books.
Thank you loved this one
Thanks for this AJ. Really makes the background for a cosmic horror game tangible.
Anyone have access to some pdf player handout that gives players the possibility to dive into it themselves?😊
That's a good idea.
This intro to the video has me so excited!
So how does Tharizdun compare Ao when it comes to the hierarchy of gods? Are they equal in power with one being the manifestation of law and the other being the manifestation of chaos or is Ao being a overgod still above Tharizdun?
AO's domain is limited to the crystal sphere that the Realms are in. Within the sphere he is the highest known power.
AO's weakness is that he can't truly do anything to multi planer beings. He can limit their aspect in the Realm space only.
You would have to assume that there is at least one power above AO maybe more. There is a hint of one, maybe, in the talks of the outer planes.
@@rememberstayangry2366 yeah, Ao is more like an Immortal from D&D Basic
I seem to remember at the end of the Avatar Trilogy Ao reclining in the presence of one greater than he.
The Immortals have ranks also.
I thought Ao was... Oh that makes all of this far far worse......... oh wow holy s***
dude, you gotta stop hangin
out with Zaviak! 😮
Great Presentation!!! 😁
👏👍👏👍👏👍👏👍👏💖
Stellar dragon? Have you made a video on them? Or do we need one?
No matches by video title within the first few results of this channel in the "Search in this channel" function provided by TH-cam.
Collaboration video on Dungeon Dad's channel.
so how do the aboleths fit into this?
Thanks AJ keep it up
I know you're a busy guy but that book cover you showed in the video Lord at the end of everything what is that is that a source book is that a novel is that a comic could you point me in the right direction
DrivethruRPG search for Eric Boyd
Ok well thank you for your time
@@mrmackie-qp6lr You're most welcome