# [Eberron] Warforged Origins - SPOILERS!



## Jürgen Hubert (Jul 13, 2006)

OK, thanks to "Secrets of Xen'drik" (which I got yesterday and browsed through) we now know that the original warforged were created by the quori in their war against the giants.

Still, these warforged seem to be ordinary constructs, with no intelligence or free will. So why does the new generation of warforged seem to have both of them? Just how did House Cannith alter their creation process? (It's probably significant that they only managed to get truly intelligent warforged at a later date, and that their first attempts were rather dim creatures like the Warforged Titans...)

And wasn't there some sort of rumor in the "Eberron Player's Handbook" about a "city of warforged" in Xen'drik? I suppose that if that does exist, it won't consist of ordinary, non-intelligent "quorforged"...


What's your theories on all this?


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## shilsen (Jul 13, 2006)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> OK, thanks to "Secrets of Xen'drik" (which I got yesterday and browsed through) we now know that the original warforged were created by the quori in their war against the giants.




Interesting. In my game I made it the other way around, the giants having created warforged because an army of warriors who don't sleep would be perfect for use against enemies who can invade and attack you in your dreams.



> Still, these warforged seem to be ordinary constructs, with no intelligence or free will. So why does the new generation of warforged seem to have both of them? Just how did House Cannith alter their creation process? (It's probably significant that they only managed to get truly intelligent warforged at a later date, and that their first attempts were rather dim creatures like the Warforged Titans...)
> 
> And wasn't there some sort of rumor in the "Eberron Player's Handbook" about a "city of warforged" in Xen'drik? I suppose that if that does exist, it won't consist of ordinary, non-intelligent "quorforged"...
> 
> What's your theories on all this?




A few possibilities, based on who/what you want to be behind it all, and the ramifications thereof:

* The quorforged were prototypes, with the built-in potential to be advanced to attain sentience later. House Cannith managed to stumble on that aspect. Which then raises all sorts of interesting possibilities, like the new warforged being susceptible to eventual quori control in some way.

* The experts on manipulating life in various ways, the daelkyr, had some of their minions infect important people (Aaren?) at House Cannith and teach them how to imbue the warforged with sentience. What is the eventual aim of the daelkyr? Nobody knows, but don't say I didn't warn you when a warforged juggernaut with tentacles comes for you.

* The main thing needed for sentience is the existence of a soul. And where do warforged souls come from? Remember a particular mystical flame supposedly made up of souls from the ages? Now think what would happen if a particular Lord of Dust found a way for the creation of each warforged to result in the loss of a soul from that Flame.

* Gnomes. The gnomes are behind it all. Why/how? Who the hell knows - they're *gnomes*!


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## Stone Dog (Jul 13, 2006)

Cross quoting from WotC boards...



			
				Hellcow said:
			
		

> Honestly, I don't remember precisely how the information is presented in the book, and as such whether it's presented in vague or concrete terms. But the key is that knowing who created the first warforged doesn't tell you who created Warforged X that you encounter in Xen'drik. The section on docents may say that culture A created the first docents, and culture B then copied them for its own purposes... and that still leaves the possibilities of cultures C and D. So when you find a docent in Xen'drik - or a warforged - you've still got many options to explore.




Docents are going to be key in my book.  the forged will be meant as host bodies for the Quori using the docents as focus devices.  This is mainly because they didn't have time to breed the Inspired as yet and needed forms to reliably posess.  During the great ritual that shatered Xen'Drik and locked Dal Quor away many Quori were trapped in their docents.  Some of them have degraded to mere shadows of their former selves and are as harmless and useful as the listing in the ECB.  However, some of them have been supremely patient and wait for a new body to influence.


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## MarkB (Jul 13, 2006)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> OK, thanks to "Secrets of Xen'drik" (which I got yesterday and browsed through) we now know that the original warforged were created by the quori in their war against the giants.
> 
> Still, these warforged seem to be ordinary constructs, with no intelligence or free will. So why does the new generation of warforged seem to have both of them? Just how did House Cannith alter their creation process? (It's probably significant that they only managed to get truly intelligent warforged at a later date, and that their first attempts were rather dim creatures like the Warforged Titans...)



Oh, that's simple enough. Warforged had a secondary function, largely unexploited in the giant/quori war, that they could be used as interim housing for a displaced quori soul. Now that the quori can no longer physically travel to Eberron, they have been using warforged as the ultimate possession host, even better than an Inspired, and downloading themselves wholesale ever since House Cannith perfected the constriction process.

At the moment, every quori who possesses a warforged (with a few selected exceptions) voluntarily has all its memories suppressed to avoid arousing suspicion. But as soon as the quori are ready to take on Khorvaire, they will activate their monolith network and send out the signals which will re-awaken the latent quori memories in every warforged on Eberron, giving them an instantaneous army that's already spread and infiltrated throughout the continent.


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## Driddle (Jul 13, 2006)

Rule 0.1: When in doubt, blame gnomes.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 13, 2006)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> OK, thanks to "Secrets of Xen'drik" (which I got yesterday and browsed through) we now know that the original warforged were created by the quori in their war against the giants.
> 
> And wasn't there some sort of rumor in the "Eberron Player's Handbook" about a "city of warforged" in Xen'drik? I suppose that if that does exist, it won't consist of ordinary, non-intelligent "quorforged"...




Those are ordinary (current design) warforged. Most of them would be warforged who switched allegiance to the Lord of Blades with the end of the Last War, and a few others may have been made by the LoB's barely functional forge.

There's no reason at all for these warforged to be different from regular warforged.


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## XCorvis (Jul 13, 2006)

Haven't picked up SX yet, but I will soon. 

For some further info, in the novel _Tales of the Last War_, there is a story involving warforged, quori and a giant ("War Machines -- 992 YK" by Ian Burton-Oakes). The giant says explicitly that the quori first created the warforged, but that they stole the idea from the dreams of the giants. I'm not sure how much of that is canon, considering how uninformed some of the Eberron fiction writers are, but it seems to jive with what you've said here.


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## Desdichado (Jul 13, 2006)

MarkB said:
			
		

> they will activate their monolith network



??


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jul 13, 2006)

shilsen said:
			
		

> Interesting. In my game I made it the other way around, the giants having created warforged because an army of warriors who don't sleep would be perfect for use against enemies who can invade and attack you in your dreams.



But that could also have been a reason for the Quori to build Warforged - they needed a way to attack the Giants on all fronts - night, day, dream. A constant stream of attack would finally break throught he Giants defenses...



			
				MarkB said:
			
		

> Oh, that's simple enough. Warforged had a secondary function, largely unexploited in the giant/quori war, that they could be used as interim housing for a displaced quori soul. Now that the quori can no longer physically travel to Eberron, they have been using warforged as the ultimate possession host, even better than an Inspired, and downloading themselves wholesale ever since House Cannith perfected the constriction process.
> 
> At the moment, every quori who possesses a warforged (with a few selected exceptions) voluntarily has all its memories suppressed to avoid arousing suspicion. But as soon as the quori are ready to take on Khorvaire, they will activate their monolith network and send out the signals which will re-awaken the latent quori memories in every warforged on Eberron, giving them an instantaneous army that's already spread and infiltrated throughout the continent.



Or maybe they were only supposed as housings for quori spirits. Unfortunately, the "soul housing" became independent, and created its own soul, eventually resulting in souled and sentient/sapient Warforged. The Quori's plan might fail, unless they find a way to reverse the process. 

(I think there was a series of novels by Piers Anthony (or by some other Sci-Fi author) that had a similar concept - a powerful master race developed the ability to create their own universes - including our own - and then strived for eternal life, creating a housing for their mind. Unfortunately, this housing became intelligent and these two races are now effectively at war)

Or the Warforged gained to much independent sentience, and the attempt to reawaken might lead to a inner conflict between Quori and Warforged spirit, resulting in chaos among the Warforged as some Warforged souls win, some lose, and others ally themselves, some even creating their own "amalganous" spirit, resulting in a new, independend faction.

Ah... so many possiblities...


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## Glyfair (Jul 13, 2006)

Driddle said:
			
		

> Rule 0.1: When in doubt, blame gnomes.



Given the pervasiveness of the Trust (the Zilargo secret police), I think that may no be very safe.  People who spend a lot of time blaming the gnomes tend to disappear or have a lot of "accidents."


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## Grymar (Jul 13, 2006)

Has anyone else thougth of the possibilities this brings up with the Dreaming Dark and the Lord of Blades?  Hmmmmm....


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## werk (Jul 13, 2006)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> OK, thanks to "Secrets of Xen'drik" (which I got yesterday and browsed through) we now know that the original warforged were created by the quori in their war against the giants.
> 
> Still, these warforged seem to be ordinary constructs, with no intelligence or free will. So why does the new generation of warforged seem to have both of them? Just how did House Cannith alter their creation process? (It's probably significant that they only managed to get truly intelligent warforged at a later date, and that their first attempts were rather dim creatures like the Warforged Titans...)




Maybe the warforged made excellent hosts for the quori, so they were able to fight the giants without having to worry about rebellious slaves.  Lacking the quori, House Cannith had to find other ways to power the machines, and that's where it all went wrong.

My character in the Eberron campaign that I play in has some of his own theories (He's from Cyre, now a refugee, and is a fairly intelligent cleric, LN).  He thinks that the Cannites were breathing life into their constructs using actual life energies, or souls.  Killing people to get their soul is really counterproductive to what they were trying to accomplish, so he also believes that the nature of the creation forge allowed them to basically acquire the souls on credit.  That is, souls from the past or future, times other than the current, but primarily from the future, and due to their limited knowledge...the near future.  Thirdly, he believes that a single warforged requires mutiple souls to animate, like 3 or 4.  So the day of mourning was just Eberron calling in it's debts and balancing the books.

He loves warforged, though.  Any warforged on the street could be his dead mother, or father, or sister that all died on That Day.  He's just very opposed to trying to make new 'forged, and will do everything possible to prevent that mistake from happening again.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 13, 2006)

A couple things;
1) It's important to remember that Dal Quor has rebooted since then. The current Quori are as in the dark about Xen Drik as just about everyone, so they know little of the Warforged origins.
2) Dreaming Dark is Keith Bakers trilogy of novels. Book two, Shattered Lands is set in Xen Drik for the most part, and stuff will be touched on in book 3 I'm sure.


Werk> my idea was that warforged are animated by Incarnum, I think Magic of Incarnum had living constructs in it also.


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## hbarsquared (Jul 13, 2006)

werk said:
			
		

> So the day of mourning was just Eberron calling in it's debts and balancing the books.




That idea is... awesome.


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## Tzarevitch (Jul 13, 2006)

shilsen said:
			
		

> Interesting. In my game I made it the other way around, the giants having created warforged because an army of warriors who don't sleep would be perfect for use against enemies who can invade and attack you in your dreams.




That is my logic too. It just makes more sense. Why would creatures that live in dreams use minions that don't dream? Your are building the seeds of your own destruction because you can't mind control them. It just doen't ring true to me. Unsleeping warriors built to fight creatures that attack your dreams however; THAT makes more sense.

I plan on using the quorcraft as experimental quori knock-offs of the originals (originals being those like the one at the end of the Grasp of the Emerald Claw module). 


Tzarevitch


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## JohnSnow (Jul 13, 2006)

jeremy_dnd said:
			
		

> werk said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




What's funny is that I had a very similar idea. GMTA I guess.

Actually, if you think about it, it makes a certain amount of sense. The Mourning has to have SOMETHING to do with Cyre. To have it be the unintended result of House Cannith's efforts to prolong the Last War is just...well, it's cool is what it is.

Or, maybe Cannith opened a gateway to the realm of dreams to get the spirits it needed to power Warforged. That gateway got out of control, seeped into the real world and Cyre was forced to use some magical shield to close it...fortunately confining the Mourning to Cyre alone.

As an aside, one of the things I like about _Eberron_ is that providing the answer to one mystery just creates a dozen more...

That's just cool.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 13, 2006)

Tzarevitch said:
			
		

> That is my logic too. It just makes more sense. Why would creatures that live in dreams use minions that don't dream? Your are building the seeds of your own destruction because you can't mind control them. It just doen't ring true to me. Unsleeping warriors built to fight creatures that attack your dreams however; THAT makes more sense.




I like the Quori doing it because I like the idea of Docents housing Quori spirits that control the host 'forged. I can also see the giants wanting the unsleeping warriors. It's pretty easy to see that whichever invented them, the other copied them quickly as there's advantages for each side.


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## MarkB (Jul 13, 2006)

J-Dawg said:
			
		

> ??



Close, but not quite.


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## Stone Dog (Jul 13, 2006)

And an interior...


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jul 14, 2006)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
			
		

> Those are ordinary (current design) warforged. Most of them would be warforged who switched allegiance to the Lord of Blades with the end of the Last War, and a few others may have been made by the LoB's barely functional forge.
> 
> There's no reason at all for these warforged to be different from regular warforged.




Didn't that rumor specify that those warforged were _independent_ from those produced by House Cannith?

I'll have to look that up again...


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 14, 2006)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> Didn't that rumor specify that those warforged were _independent_ from those produced by House Cannith?




Yes, but so are most warforged. House Cannith doesn't make their warforged loyal to Cannith. They're not supposed to attack Cannith noncombatants, but this might have been an order, rather than "programming" or indoctrination.


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## MarkB (Jul 14, 2006)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
			
		

> Yes, but so are most warforged. House Cannith doesn't make their warforged loyal to Cannith. They're not supposed to attack Cannith noncombatants, but this might have been an order, rather than "programming" or indoctrination.



I think he meant "produced independently".


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## JoeGKushner (Jul 14, 2006)

Be easy to tie Incarnum to Warforged in thinking of 'soul' power.


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## MadMaxim (Jul 14, 2006)

I just got the book yesterday, and it got me thinking whether the Lord of Blades is working on behalf of the quori (most likely unknowingly), if all the quori need to do is flip a switch through their monolith network to get all warforged back on their side? Or is the Lord of Blades truly a renegade warforged that's about to throw a monkey wrench in the quori plans for world domination?

So many questions, so many possibilities...


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Jul 14, 2006)

MarkB said:
			
		

> I think he meant "produced independently".




Oh, ok. At least some of the Mournland-dwelling warforged (including those in the city) were made by the Lord of Blades' forge. I kind of doubt they all would have been, however. They do recruit warforged outside the Mournland.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jul 17, 2006)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
			
		

> Oh, ok. At least some of the Mournland-dwelling warforged (including those in the city) were made by the Lord of Blades' forge. I kind of doubt they all would have been, however. They do recruit warforged outside the Mournland.




I guess the Lord of Blades could create _all_ sorts of mischief if he can capture an intact Creation Forge in Xen'drik. Even if he doesn't figure out how to create intelligent warforged with it, his cause can always use more cannon fodder...


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## vulcan_idic (Jul 17, 2006)

MadMaxim said:
			
		

> I just got the book yesterday, and it got me thinking whether the Lord of Blades is working on behalf of the quori (most likely unknowingly), if all the quori need to do is flip a switch through their monolith network to get all warforged back on their side? Or is the Lord of Blades truly a renegade warforged that's about to throw a monkey wrench in the quori plans for world domination?
> 
> So many questions, so many possibilities...




And quite possibly both possibilities apply to the Lord of Blades - those you manipulate into unknowingly working for you have a rather annoying habit of zigging just when you want them to zag only at the worst possible moment.


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## MadMaxim (Jul 17, 2006)

vulcan_idic said:
			
		

> And quite possibly both possibilities apply to the Lord of Blades - those you manipulate into unknowingly working for you have a rather annoying habit of zigging just when you want them to zag only at the worst possible moment.



Just like my group (and plenty of other groups for that matter)


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## Anti-Sean (Jul 17, 2006)

MadMaxim said:
			
		

> Or is the Lord of Blades truly a renegade warforged that's about to throw a monkey wrench in the quori plans for world domination?



Ooooooh, me likey! "Congratulations, adventurers! After many long struggles, you have finally defeated your nemesis, the Lord of Blades. Unfortunately, he was all that was standing between Khorvaire and the Quori. Enjoy your lifetime ofservitude beneath your new Inspired overlords!"


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## fnork de sporg (Jul 18, 2006)

Now, don't forget the Psi-Forged as well. If ever there was a perfect quori host they would be it. There's even a pretty obvious quori attack described in their fluff.

Here's my theory. 

The original warforged were most likely not designed as hosts, since I don't think the quori needed hosts until after their war with the giants. Perhaps they were designed to replace the flesh and blood creatures after the war was won. 

Unless of course the Quori predicted how the war would end. Which would seem unlikely at first since they failed to prevent it, but perhaps it was a unpopular theory at first followed only by a few who would no doubt later gain great staus for their prescience.

The original idea is that you take the creation forge and download a quori spirit in to a newly crafted superior and unaging physical body quickly spewing out a new army. But for whatever reason the process doesn't work, or else we'd already be seeing quori warforged armies running rampant.

Ooo, maybe the warforged were designed to be hosts, since immortal quori might be unhappy about throwing their lives away in physical combat, and it was only after the end of the war that the concept gained much greater importance and was adpated in to the Inspired.

So you have creation forges tuned to transmit souls from Dal Quor but they can no longer reach that plane. This might also explain the mindless warforged from SoX. Then house cannith takes the idea of the forge and redirects it to draw not from Dal Quor but another plane, probably Kythri the plane of chaos. It might be irian as well, but Kythri makes more sense since it's orbit is impossible to predict. A bunch of open creation forges drawing primal chaos-stuff to make souls would be fine up until Kythri becomes coterminous at which point you get the decidedly Kythri-esque day of mourning.

The fact that the warforged never sleep and thus are immune to quori possession is probably just delicious irony. The psi-forged were probably warforged retrofitted by quori agents to reverse this, making warforged that they could possess. Good thing for eberron that they've proved too cunning, and maybe rare, for that plan.

So, there that's my big theory. What do you think?


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 18, 2006)

I still think the original 'forged were unintelligent for a reason, Quori were bound to Docents and took over the construct when needed. Then when the body was destroyed, they were simply moved to another. Or any animating force was bound to the docent.

I like to think that Canniths achievement was binding the animating force to the Warforged rather than through the docent.


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## Taraxia (Jul 18, 2006)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
			
		

> Those are ordinary (current design) warforged. Most of them would be warforged who switched allegiance to the Lord of Blades with the end of the Last War, and a few others may have been made by the LoB's barely functional forge.
> 
> There's no reason at all for these warforged to be different from regular warforged.




No. That's the city of Construct, in the Mournland. The city of warforged in Xen'Drik is given no official explanation and isn't even officially confirmed to exist -- it's just a rumor -- but it almost certainly has nothing to do with the Lord of Blades. There's no conceivable strategic reason for him to set up an outpost there, and the Xen'drik city is supposed to be self-contained and to have remained hidden for countless generations and such. They're probably giant-manufactured warforged of some kind.

As for my theory on the transition from Quorcraft Warforged to the standard model:

Quori make quori warforged, as a vessel to hold quori spirits.

Giants copy the design but, being giants, attune it to *their own* forms rather than the quori.

But giant spirits *can't* inhabit warforged -- there's no natural way in which giants' spirits can come detached from their bodies and inhabit other corporeal forms. None except high-powered necromantic effects... or death.

Imagine the giants building warforged and attuning them to giant souls rather than quori, and the warforged seeking out a connection to the *wrong plane* -- the only source of giants' souls and other mortal souls, Dolurrh, and interrupting the process of fading (and possibly the cycle of reincarnation) to take mortal souls and shove them into shiny new metal bodies.

I've always liked the idea of warforged as forcibly reincarnated mortals, and the whole quorforged thing only adds to it, in my mind -- the idea that warforged are only vessels for spirits, and that the warforged *body* by itself has no inherent power to produce sentience.


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## Glyfair (Jul 18, 2006)

I think it's misplaced to focus on Quori possessing warforged too much.  Sure they could.  They also clearly used the docents for that purpose somewhat.  Possession wasn't as important to  them then as it is now, though.  At that time they could get here!  They can't do that now, and are limited to possession to get here.


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## Vocenoctum (Jul 18, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> I think it's misplaced to focus on Quori possessing warforged too much.  Sure they could.  They also clearly used the docents for that purpose somewhat.  Possession wasn't as important to  them then as it is now, though.  At that time they could get here!  They can't do that now, and are limited to possession to get here.




Well, I'd imagine it has to do with.. death.

A quori physically present could be killed. (Sure he'd respawn, but he'd not be himself anymore, so I assume they don't want that.) A quori possessing a docent or 'forged would not risk more than displacement.


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## Glyfair (Jul 18, 2006)

Vocenoctum said:
			
		

> Well, I'd imagine it has to do with.. death.
> 
> A quori physically present could be killed. (Sure he'd respawn, but he'd not be himself anymore, so I assume they don't want that.) A quori possessing a docent or 'forged would not risk more than displacement.




Except, if they could get here, in theory the giants could go _there_ where their bodies would be sitting ducks.

Then again, we haven't heard too much about either of these battle being taken back to the other planes (neither Dal Quor, or Xoriat).


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## mhacdebhandia (Jul 18, 2006)

While the "modern" quori, who created the Inspired, are unrelated to the quori who fought the giants and created the warforged, it's plausible that the Inspired is this iteration of quori's version of the impulse that led to the warforged first time around.


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## Taraxia (Jul 18, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> Except, if they could get here, in theory the giants could go _there_ where their bodies would be sitting ducks.
> 
> Then again, we haven't heard too much about either of these battle being taken back to the other planes (neither Dal Quor, or Xoriat).




No, I don't think the quori's physical body still exists while it's possessing someone. It sort of turns into an incorporeal entity that channels itself into the host -- it uses the Fiend Folio rules for possession, which don't assume an interplanar interface (in Fiend Folio a succubus can walk right up to you and possess you by jumping into your body).

In any case, Keith Baker has said that the reason for the quorforged was the quori's fear of the Turning of the Age -- if the Age turns and the Quor Tarai changes its nature, all existing quori, no matter where they are, die and turn into the new generation of quori. These quori wanted to prevent that, which was the reason they invaded the Material Plane in the first place -- they thought if they could conquer the giants they could prevent whatever change in giant civilization was going to cause the Turning. The quorforged were insurance in case they failed -- they thought by turning themselves into docents, and not being quori anymore, their consciousness would continue even if Quor Tarai changed.


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## Glyfair (Jul 18, 2006)

Taraxia said:
			
		

> No, I don't think the quori's physical body still exists while it's possessing someone. It sort of turns into an incorporeal entity that channels itself into the host -- it uses the Fiend Folio rules for possession, which don't assume an interplanar interface (in Fiend Folio a succubus can walk right up to you and possess you by jumping into your body).




I'm pretty sure this is covered in _Dragon_ #324 (the one that covers the Quori).  Unfortunately, my copy has vanished (not an uncommon occurance with my D&D books scattered in various places in my apartment).  I don't remember whether they do or don't.  

I do remember some comments about how dangerous it is for a quori to "switch sides" because of the qualities of Dal Quor.  They are pretty vague right now.


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## Hellcow (Jul 18, 2006)

Taraxia said:
			
		

> The quorforged were insurance in case they failed -- they thought by turning themselves into docents, and not being quori anymore, their consciousness would continue even if Quor Tarai changed.



Essentially correct. Here's a post I put on another board or thread (I don't even remember!) about this subject:

[sblock]In asking why the Quori would create a race of creatures that cannot dream, you're missing the point. Quorcraft warforged were useful to the Quori precisely BECAUSE they didn't dream. 

Quorcraft warforged are flat constructs. They are not built to be an independent race. They are, essentially, bodies for docents. Read the description of the artifact docent more closely; at least one group of the quori of that age were trying to sever all ties to Dal Quor in the hopes of surviving the Change. The point is that the quori believed that even if they were physically present on Eberron, the turn of the age would destroy them, just as the Inspired believe it will destroy THEM. The docent program was creating an anchor, distiling the quori spirit and severing it from body and plane (using artifact level magic). The Quorcraft warforged is a disposable pair of arms and legs for this indestructible soul. 

Now, members of various giant civilizations see Quorcraft warforged in use. They even see docents, apparently serving as advisors to warforged. They take this inspiration and create their OWN warforged (which as noted, would be useful, dreamless troops). THIS is where you get Xulo from Grasp of the Emerald Claw. And this is where you can develop your own path for the warforged, if you don't like Xulo OR the Quorcraft history. The Sul'at League may have created a form of warforged empowered by elementals; in the Shattered Land, we see an obsidian golem, so the League understands the principles of constructs. The Group of Eleven may have created docents holding the bound spirits of mighty giant sages. Cannith drew inspiration for the warforged from Xen'drik. But WHERE did it find its inspiration? The Quorcraft warforged? Xulo? Or something entirely different? 

"Warforged" are like "four-wheeled transports". In our history, you can find horse-carts, automobiles of various designs and engineering, even a child's wagon. Someone had the idea first, but a later idea - though superficially similar in form and function - may be completely different under the hood. The giant docent uses the same principles as a sentient sword, while the quori docent is an anchor for a spirit from another plane. From the outside? They look the same, and seem to perform roughly the same function. But they are far different in nature and full potential. The Quorcraft warforged ARE less advanced that modern warforged. But that doesn't stop you from having advanced warforged created by an ancient society in your campaign. [/sblock]
As noted in the last paragraph, this still leaves room for any number of other warforged paths. The Quorcraft warforged were not intended to be sentient, meaning that the modern warforged have taken some sort of serious jog in the path - whether it's the work of House Cannith, or whether modern warforged are based on a giant design. If you want to say that modern warforged are sleeper agents for the Quori, you certainly could... though I'd suggest that the key to this would be hidden in Xen'drik, since the quori of the modern age were not the creators of the Quorcraft. 

Again, ultimately, everything is suggestion. In my mind, the Quorcraft warforged are another piece of the puzzle. But the fact that they aren't sentient - and weren't designed to be sentient - shows that there's still pieces missing and space for you to fill in. And if that's not enough - if you just hate the Quorcraft, or have a better idea - don't use them! It's your game too.


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## Archetype (Jul 18, 2006)

Hmmm.

That all makes perfect sense Keith, thanks.

But it fails to answer the really _important_ mystery:

How do the _Sleestacks of Xen'drik_ fit into all of this? 

Were the gold, advanced Sleestack an early attempt for the quori to create "perfect corporeal vessels," a failed prototype for the Inspired?

The Sleestack pyramids: first generation quori monoliths?

Sleestack power crystals?   The first "docents"?

And just what did Wi'ra d'Cannith find on his "routine expedition" to Xen'drik?  Should he have brought the primitive native Chakka back to Cyre to help with his Creation Forge?  (Was Chakka ultimately responsible for the Day of Mourning?)

And what of his sister Ha'ree d'Cannith?  Does she now wander the jungles of Xen'drik alone, mastering the ancient Sleestak crystal technology?  Or has she become possessed by an ancient quori spirit from a docent she uncovered, now an unwitting agent of Dal Quor?

These and other mysteries must be uncovered!


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## Hellcow (Jul 18, 2006)

Archetype said:
			
		

> How do the _Sleestacks of Xen'drik_ fit into all of this?



That's the NEXT sourcebook; it also includes the exotic lost city of Lidsville.


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## Glyfair (Jul 18, 2006)

Hellcow said:
			
		

> That's the NEXT sourcebook; it also includes the exotic lost city of Lidsville.




I hear there is an artifact flute that's very good.  Apparently the Dreaming Dark is chasing after it, but the party will have a member of the chamber who is helping protect it.


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## Von Ether (Jul 18, 2006)

It seems that I was with the program. Oh. If I had only got to finish up my Eberron campaign. The warforged theif was hearing Quori voices when he dreamed.

I was hoping to finish with a big climax where in the end all the warforged suddenly realized they had lost memories from a previous civilization ... as the giants. This was just in time for the race as a whole to provide a grand sacrifice to defeat the Dreaming Dark one more time.

All with the help of the PCs, of course.


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