# Abyss versus Far Realm



## Dausuul (Jan 9, 2008)

So, apparently we are going to have the Far Realm as a part of the core cosmology of 4E, rather than the bolt-on addition it was in 3.X.

What I wonder is how this fits with the Abyss.  There seems to be an awful lot of conceptual overlap--each purports to be the realm of insanity, hideous abominations, and horrific evil.  With the new focus on demons as "inhuman monsters out to destroy reality," that's even more true.

How do you think these planes should relate to each other?  Is there really room for both, or should one of them be scrapped?  If there's room for both, what ought the difference between them to be?  And if one should be scrapped, which one and why?


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## Scribble (Jan 9, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> So, apparently we are going to have the Far Realm as a part of the core cosmology of 4E, rather than the bolt-on addition it was in 3.X.
> 
> What I wonder is how this fits with the Abyss.  There seems to be an awful lot of conceptual overlap--each purports to be the realm of insanity, hideous abominations, and horrific evil.  With the new focus on demons as "inhuman monsters out to destroy reality," that's even more true.
> 
> How do you think these planes should relate to each other?  Is there really room for both, or should one of them be scrapped?  If there's room for both, what ought the difference between them to be?  And if one should be scrapped, which one and why?





My guess is the Abyss, is the realm of not insanity, but animalistic base chaos. A realm of giving in to ones basic desires or needs.

One could step into the Abyss and see it as a horrific chaotic place, but still maintain his own sense of self.

Far Realms ill be the land of true insanity.

Once you step into the farm realms maintaining your own self will be difficult...

To add to this: The abyss is more about say, tearing physical bodies up and causing death and pain...

Far relams is about tearing someone's mind up, and destroying one's ability to understand pain...


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## Lord Zardoz (Jan 9, 2008)

I have a different interpretation of the differences.

The Abyss is a realm of immortal evil full of demons bent on destruction.  It is a dark pit of hatred, anger, and the denizens therein are bent on causing destruction and pain 'because its fun'.  The general goal of any abyssal type is to cause mortal suffering.  If an abyssal demon sees a person on the street, it will run over and stab and torture him.

The Far Realm is a realm of cosmic evil with no discernable motivation.  It is a nightmarish and twisted place devoid of anything resembling reason.  The denizens of this realm cause destruction and pain due to simply not caring that the pursuit of their own goals will cause the destruction of mortal souls.  The general goal of anything from the far realms is by definition impossible to comprehend.  If something from the far realms saw a mortal on the street, it would probably not notice if it stepped on it.

END COMMUNICATION


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## Satori (Jan 9, 2008)

Tarrasque versus Cthulu


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## Aloïsius (Jan 9, 2008)

This leads to the question : Which is stronger, ninjas or pirates ? I mean, what happens when Far Realms entity interact with the abyss, or vice-versa ? How do they view each other ? Tools ? Rivals ? 
What happens if a city of mind-flayers is located near a portal to the abyss ? Which one will be corrupted by the other ?


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## FickleGM (Jan 9, 2008)

Scribble said:
			
		

> Once you step into the *farm* realms maintaining your own self will be difficult...



You don't know how right you are.  I know, I live in Wisconsin.


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## Dausuul (Jan 9, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> I have a different interpretation of the differences.
> 
> The Abyss is a realm of immortal evil full of demons bent on destruction.  It is a dark pit of hatred, anger, and the denizens therein are bent on causing destruction and pain 'because its fun'.  The general goal of any abyssal type is to cause mortal suffering.  If an abyssal demon sees a person on the street, it will run over and stab and torture him.
> 
> The Far Realm is a realm of cosmic evil with no discernable motivation.  It is a nightmarish and twisted place devoid of anything resembling reason.  The denizens of this realm cause destruction and pain due to simply not caring that the pursuit of their own goals will cause the destruction of mortal souls.  The general goal of anything from the far realms is by definition impossible to comprehend.  If something from the far realms saw a mortal on the street, it would probably not notice if it stepped on it.




Do you really think that's enough to distinguish the two from a player perspective, though?  My experience has been that the details of a monster's motivations and psychology, or the cosmological nuances of a given plane, are generally lost on players.  One nightmarish realm of unreasoning chaos, full of horrible things with tentacles, looks much like another.  Whether the denizens are attacking because they like to see people cry, or whether it's part of some incomprehensible alien scheme, doesn't much matter to the people fighting for their lives.  They both boil down to "It's attacking you because it feels like it, and there is nothing you can do that will make it change its mind."


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## Stormtalon (Jan 9, 2008)

I don't really see the Far Realm as being focused on destruction of everything, per se.  The schtick of the place is that the motivations of its residents are simply incomprehensible to mortal minds.  Thought, dimension, space, time -- they all function so _differently_ from what people are used to that it appears chaotic to an extreme, although there may be some sort of underlying order and design to the place.  It's just that the PCs (and the rest of the world they live in) simply can't begin to fathom what it might be.  

It might even be that the two are ultimately totally incompatible and when the two attempt to mix/overlap, neither escapes "uncorrupted."  So, where the Far Realm impinges on the "real world," plant and animal life changes in weird and unpredictable ways, but within the Far Realm itself, a small canker of "normalness" might be created.  Beings that originated in the Far Realm (aboleths, illithids, etc) upon moving into the normal world find themselves, perhaps unknowingly, altered such that they become at least somewhat comprehensible to the natives, and conversely would be viewed as corrupt and impure by their brethren "back home."

The Abyss, meanwhile _is_ understandable.  It is a roiling tempest of hatred for all existence.  The motives of those who reside there are likewise easy to comprehend: they simply exist to kill, destroy and unmake everything within their reach.  Some may have long-reaching plans that encompass years and many seemingly unconnected events, but in the end they all aim towards the same goal: destruction of as much as they can encompass within their grasp and reach.

They're quite distinct concepts -- and each has its own place in the cosmology.


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## Scribble (Jan 9, 2008)

FickleGM said:
			
		

> You don't know how right you are.  I know, I live in Wisconsin.




Begone evil minion of cheese!!!


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## Desdichado (Jan 9, 2008)

They don't have a substantial enough distinction.

The idea that "they're so alien we can't understand it, but the Abyss isn't alien---just really FUBARed" doesn't work.  If we can't understand it, we can't present it to our players.  Therefore we end up falling back on the exact same conventions and tropes as the Abyss uses.

Besides, the Abyss has gotten much more Lovecraftian in recent years, with detail on guys like Dagon, etc. surfacing.

Then again, I think all this splitting of fiends into all these different races is overlap/overkill anyway.  In my settings, a fiend is a fiend is a fiend, even when it's not.  Any evil outsider is a fiend.  Demons.  Devils.  Yugoloths.  Efreet.  Night hags.  Heck, Slaadi.  I can't see the point of having them all be fundamentally different in concept, but fundamentally the same in execution.


			
				Scribble said:
			
		

> Once you step into the farm realms maintaining your own self will be difficult...



It is hard to assert your individuality when you're spending so much time milking the cows, plowing the fields, bailing hay, etc.


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## GreatLemur (Jan 9, 2008)

Aloïsius said:
			
		

> I mean, what happens when Far Realms entity interact with the abyss, or vice-versa ? How do they view each other ? Tools ? Rivals ?



I'm thinking the Far Realms entities are just as incomprehensible and disturbing to demons as they are to mortals.

Reminds me of a conversation from the first Discworld novel about the blatantly-Lovecraftian temple of Bel-Shamharoth:



			
				Terry Pratchett said:
			
		

> "I don't like it," said the picture imp, from his box around Twoflower's neck.
> 
> "Why not?" inquired Twoflower.
> 
> ...


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## tomBitonti (Jan 9, 2008)

*Abyss a subset of the far realms?*

Hi,

From where I set, the Abyss (even though it has an infinity of planes) has the seeming of being the most comprehensible fringe of the outer planes.  The top layers are _relatively_ benign, but the deeper layers get to be indistinguishable from far realms.

There is a key difference in that demons have a grounding in religion, whereas the far realms is more grounded in horror literature.  Also, there are _some_ demons that still have a recognizable psychology, while many far realms creatures, by definition, do not.


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## Piratecat (Jan 9, 2008)

Aloïsius said:
			
		

> This leads to the question : Which is stronger, ninjas or pirates ?



Lava.


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## Scribble (Jan 9, 2008)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Lava.




Yeah but that one guy from the abyss was a navy seal. and he had a nuclear bomb on a crazy robot thing. And flying water creatures. Can lava beat that?


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## Desdichado (Jan 9, 2008)

Scribble said:
			
		

> Yeah but that one guy from the abyss was a navy seal. and he had a nuclear bomb on a crazy robot thing. And flying water creatures. Can lava beat that?



Confused.  Yes, of course.  If a navy seal with a nuclear bomb and a crazy robot mount with flying water creatures falls into lava what happens?

He dies.  No save.


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## Rechan (Jan 9, 2008)

In all honesty, I don't really attribute the Far Realms to evil, necessarily. It's just alien. Madness comes from the human mind introduced to the changing properties of the Far Realm. It's chaos in the sense of change. True CN given magical property.

The Abyss is Destruction. The Demons, it seems, want to basically Unmake everything, to tear it down brick by metaphysical brick. The Abyss is like a sentient black hole, intent on consuming all and thus _ending it_. 

Sure, "The End" may be Cthulu's gig, but I'm more along the lines of "Made in my image where I rule" attributed to the Far Realms, and "Death to Everything" as the Abyss.

edit: Woah, Stormtalon said what I wanted to, several posts above mine!


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## rkanodia (Jan 9, 2008)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Lava.



Now THAT is a Far Realms answer 

Personally, I really like the concept of the Far Realms 'spilling over' into the regular world.  At the least extreme end, it allows there to be a sprinkling of weird monsters popping up in different places without having to explain how they fit into the local ecosystem.  At the most extreme end, well, I always liked the concept of the 'non-Euclidean geometry' favored by the Old Ones, and combat maps with tiles shifting around every turn won't be the half of it.

"I charge at the monster."
"As you run, the ground makes a 72-degree turn.  You think you are falling into some kind of tunnel, but then your foot makes solid contact with the underside of the hull of a Spelljamming vessel.  The ship shakes with the impact of a ballista bolt, sending you reeling off the edge.  You land with a thud in a cheese shop.  You don't see the monster anywhere."


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## D.Shaffer (Jan 9, 2008)

Possibly borrow from Warhammer a bit here with its gods of Chaos.

The abyss is the chaos of hatred and destruction.  It seeks only destruction. Blood, ash, entropy.  An end goal of nothingness.

The far realm is the chaos of creation.   It doesnt want to destroy, it wants to create, shape, and change into completely new forms...all of which appear as abominations to us as they are formed using utterly different rules then we're used to. Rules that change each moment.


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## Dausuul (Jan 9, 2008)

D.Shaffer said:
			
		

> The far realm is the chaos of creation.   It doesnt want to destroy, it wants to create, shape, and change into completely new forms...




Isn't that the Elemental Chaos?


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## D.Shaffer (Jan 9, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Isn't that the Elemental Chaos?



The elemental chaos is the primordial chaos. The substance from which all things were initially formed.  It is the building blocks of the universe, swirling and mixing.  It follows rules we're aware of...Fire+Water=Steam. 

Far Realm is taking these building blocks and warping them into completely new and different way.  It takes Fire+Water and gives us a fractal crystal that is nothing like its building blocks.


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## Sadrik (Jan 9, 2008)

Scrap the far realm. I agree, it is redundant. As an option make the far realm just a "layer" of the abyss. The abyss is a warping of the basic elements and one of the most basic elements is reality. Can it.


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## Cadfan (Jan 9, 2008)

Abyss= stuff you know about, twisted and horrific.
Far Realm= stuff you never even thought to imagine.

They also do different genres, which is useful.


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## Umbran (Jan 9, 2008)

I'm not up on the "official" Far Realm, but going off the Lovecraftian roots...

The Abyss is the place of chaos and evil that means it.  The Abyss is the chaos and evil of intent and desire.  The things in the Abyss _want_ to do evil - that's how they get their jollies.

The Far Realm, however doesn't give a hoot.  It is the evil of apathy - the things in the Far Realm care about the harm they do about the same as you care about the harm you do to an anthill as you mow your lawn.


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## Incenjucar (Jan 9, 2008)

I have to say there is an amazing amount of "chaos" in 4E.

Feywild, Elemental Chaos, Abyss, Far Realm...

The Prime worlds must all look like Mechanus to the rest of the universe.


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## frankthedm (Jan 9, 2008)

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> The Prime worlds must all look like Mechanus to the rest of the universe.



Laws of reality and what not.


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## Lord Zardoz (Jan 9, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Do you really think that's enough to distinguish the two from a player perspective, though?






			
				Stormtalon said:
			
		

> Saying a bunch of stuff I basically agree with.




I do think it is enough to differentiate the two, though I suppose it is like the difference between 1st degree murder, and 2nd degree murder.  In one case, someone wants to kill you for the sake of killing you.  In the other case, someone ends up killing you as a byproduct of another act (literally depraved indifference).  In either case, you are still dead though.

Thematically, I never did associate the Abyss with 'tentacle horrors' though.

Simple examples of how I differentiate between The Nine Hells, The Abyss, and The Far Realm.

The Nine Hells:  Obey and Worship me or I will destroy you and all you love.
The Abyss:  Your life offends me.  I shall end it.
The Far Realm:  Your thinking gives me a headache.  I am going to kill you to make my headache go away.

As I see it, the denizens from the Far Realm hate human life for the same reason you hate your neighbors yap dog.  Or the cockroaches that run around your kitchen.  If you never heard the dog, or the cockroaches were in someone elses house, you would not care.

END COMMUNICATION


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## DreamChaser (Jan 9, 2008)

Far Realm = madness and insanity
-- corruption of thought and form
-- realm of horror caused by the unknowable
-- the creatures of the Far Realm lurk forever behind you no matter where you turn, infiltrate your mind to turn you against yourself, and reform creation into geometries never conceived within reality.

Shadowfell = fear and darkness
-- corruption of spirit and senses
-- realm of horror caused by the unknown
-- the creatures of the Shadowfell lurk at the edge of perception or shift through the darkness; they corrupt your spirit and pull you from the world of light.

Abyss = rage and destruction
-- corruption of stasis and order
-- realm of horror caused by the uncontrollable
-- the creatures of the Abyss destroy because they hate creation and seek return to the formlessness that the Elemental Chaos embodies; they are as elemental as the storm or volcano but rather than striking by chance they strike from rage.

Hell = tyranny and betrayal
-- corruption of honor and virtue
-- realm of horror caused by the known (the desires we keep within ourselves)
-- the creatures of Hell whisper into you ear to bring you down, they are the authors of the tragedy. they seek to justify their ancient betrayal by bringing all of creation into their court.


They all seem perfectly distinct to me.

DC


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## Ahrimon (Jan 9, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> Simple examples of how I differentiate between The Nine Hells, The Abyss, and The Far Realm.
> 
> The Nine Hells:  Obey and Worship me or I will destroy you and all you love.
> The Abyss:  Your life offends me.  I shall end it.
> The Far Realm:  Your thinking gives me a headache.  I am going to kill you to make my headache go away.




I'd go more with:
The Far Realm:  Did I just step in somthing?  Eh. /shrug


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## Fallen Seraph (Jan 9, 2008)

This is how I picture the Abyss and the Far Realm

*The Abyss:* The Abyss is nothingness it is devoid of life, thought, magic, even the very atoms of the universe are missing in the Abyss. It is a stark contrast to the Elemental Chaos around it, which is the building blocks of the Material Worlds. As the Abyss slowly grows consuming more and more of the endless Elemental Chaos, the nothingness begins to take form. That form is of a Demon.

Demons do not destroy for the love of destruction, nor for any affront given to them in years passed. They destroy because they are of the Abyss and they wish to spread the Abyss across all the planes of creation.

*The Far Realm:* The realities of our world see no light in the Far Realm. It is a plane of twisting and reforming laws, realities, truths and lies. 

The creatures who live there embody this principle, their cunning minds and powerful abilities find the lives and realities of other-beings amusing trifles. They are the ones who prod and poke, whisper and listen. They let the madness and chaos of their being and their world seep into ours for reasons why do not understand, nor ever will.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 9, 2008)

I'm wondering about this issue for my Ptolus campaign, since deep cosmological stuff is at the heart of the setting. Whether the Galchutt are from the Far Realm (which fits their flavor) or from the Abyss (which fits their politics) will be something I need to chew over for a while.


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## StarFyre (Jan 9, 2008)

*well*

In all the stuff from 2e and 3e on the far realm, and the great stuff in i think, dragon magazine... it sounds like the far realm is much worse and the stuff is far more powerful. the describe god likebeings, more powerful than anything, gods included, in the regular universe, just floating around, in their own insanity.


the thing is, they are all insane, so they may not do anything or interact; stuck in their own thoughts.

The environment, if it can be called that is also much harsher.

I gotta start sculpting some far realm stuff...it's so much fun 

Sanjay


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## Fallen Seraph (Jan 9, 2008)

I am already looking through the Lords of Madness book to pick which monsters/beings my party will first run into and also what non-Aberration monsters I will convert to Aberrations.


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## Stone Dog (Jan 9, 2008)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> I'm wondering about this issue for my Ptolus campaign, since deep cosmological stuff is at the heart of the setting. Whether the Galchutt are from the Far Realm (which fits their flavor) or from the Abyss (which fits their politics) will be something I need to chew over for a while.



It depends... do the Galchutt want to leave the world a smoldering ruin or make it into something of their own image?  Demons hate the world and want it gone.  Aboleths want to make the world into something they want it to be.  Which are closer to the Galchutt?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jan 9, 2008)

Stone Dog said:
			
		

> It depends... do the Galchutt want to leave the world a smoldering ruin or make it into something of their own image?  Demons hate the world and want it gone.  Aboleths want to make the world into something they want it to be.  Which are closer to the Galchutt?



The Galcutt are, in 3E, the progenitors of the demons who currently rule the Abyss, but unlike them, they're forces of unmaking, more chaotic than evil (although still plenty evil). So, in 4E, they'd seem like a natural fit for ancient Abyssal lords.

In Ptolus, though, mindflayers, aboleths and the like were all servitor races of the Galchutt (along with most of the stuff from the Book of Vile Darkness). So that strongly conflicts with 4E.

I had just been hoping for a happy marriage of Ptolus and the 4E cosmology. Not a big deal; I'll likely just use Beyond Countless Doorways if my campaign every goes planar anyway, which I don't see happening, beyond using the Plane of Mirrors.


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## Lurks-no-More (Jan 9, 2008)

Got to say that I've never particularly cared for Far Realm in D&D. I do like Lovecrafty elements, but I've always thought they work better if they're either rooted to already-existing things (the inhuman and maddening obyriths in Fiendish Codex I were an excellent example of this), or are weird and inexplicable anomalies that have no place in the cosmology, _yet they're there_.

Also, in practice, FR tends to end up as "yet another plane of evil, but more potent than any other", whereas it should be "bizarre and dangerous thing which isn't any more evil than it's good, just fatally _alien_". (It can be argued that the Lovecraft's Great Old Ones and Outer Gods, with the likely exception of Nyarlathotep, are not evil at all, merely uncaring and very, very dangerous.)

It's one thing I likely will _not_ be using in my 4e games.


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## Mirtek (Jan 9, 2008)

Hobo said:
			
		

> They don't have a substantial enough distinction.
> 
> The idea that "they're so alien we can't understand it, but the Abyss isn't alien---just really FUBARed" doesn't work.  If we can't understand it, we can't present it to our players.  Therefore we end up falling back on the exact same conventions and tropes as the Abyss uses.



Same problem with the obyrith demons. The fluff text says that their forms are inconceivable for us mortals, yet all the pictures of the obyriths were drawn by mortals and I as a mortal can see and comprehend them. So the statement in the fluff text is wrong, it has to be wrong.

There is absolutely no way that mortal game designers can describe something that mortals can't comprehend, because if they can describe it, then it's not something that mortals can't understand


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## kennew142 (Jan 9, 2008)

Far Realms is something I will definitely be using in my next 4e campaign, even though my cosmology will likely be very different from the official D&D cosmology. IMC demons are a more mundane sort of evil, the sort that wants to destroy creation because it exists. Creatures from the Far Realms do not want to destroy anything. They are like alien, uncaring terraformers (exoformers?), changind the rules of reality to better suit themselves, with no regard for any sophonts who may happen to exist in our universe. They have no malice towards our form of life; they just don't care.

That said, I have been thinking of connecting the abyss and the far realms in some way. Since I don't use gods in my campaign, perhaps the abyss is the result of the far realms intruding into the normal universe via the Elemental Chaos (the weakest point it could find in normal space?).

As a fan of all things Lovecraftian, I am not sure that there should be any place on the map (cosmologically speaking) that you can point at and label _The Far Realms_.


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## Stone Dog (Jan 9, 2008)

kennew142 said:
			
		

> As a fan of all things Lovecraftian, I am not sure that there should be any place on the map (cosmologically speaking) that you can point at and label _The Far Realms_.



Maybe not the map, but there are a few stars you can point at and say "There.  We don't talk about That Star at this time of year, but keep your eye on it all the same.  Things may come down from it toward the Old Hill.  If you see that, sound the alarm."


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## hopeless (Jan 9, 2008)

*Hmm...*



			
				Dausuul said:
			
		

> So, apparently we are going to have the Far Realm as a part of the core cosmology of 4E, rather than the bolt-on addition it was in 3.X.
> 
> What I wonder is how this fits with the Abyss.  There seems to be an awful lot of conceptual overlap--each purports to be the realm of insanity, hideous abominations, and horrific evil.  With the new focus on demons as "inhuman monsters out to destroy reality," that's even more true.
> 
> How do you think these planes should relate to each other?  Is there really room for both, or should one of them be scrapped?  If there's room for both, what ought the difference between them to be?  And if one should be scrapped, which one and why?




I look at this and I think... Xoriat.

Do you agree?


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## kennew142 (Jan 9, 2008)

Stone Dog said:
			
		

> Maybe not the map, but there are a few stars you can point at and say "There.  We don't talk about That Star at this time of year, but keep your eye on it all the same.  Things may come down from it toward the Old Hill.  If you see that, sound the alarm."




This I agree with. It reminds me of Babylon 5, and the _walkers at sigma 957_. To them, we are just ants.

It is fine to have places that the Old Hill, Goatswood and Sigma 957 in your cosmology, but it's better not to have a discrete place on the map where the old ones hang out whenever they're *not * disturbing the natural laws in our neck of the cosmos. IMO this makes them trite, and steals their mystery.



			
				Hopeless said:
			
		

> I look at this and I think... Xoriat.
> 
> Do you agree?




I do. And Xoriat is so far realmsy that its orbit has a random period. While technically on the map, it is hard to point to.


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## Nahat Anoj (Jan 9, 2008)

I'll be interested in seeing how they differentiate the Far Realm and Abyss as well.

The main difference I can see is that the Far Realm houses many Lovecraftian beings and seems inimical to reality as we know it, but as a rule it doesn't seem "evil."  It's just a strange place whose laws of physics run counter to our own.  Or, alternatively, it operates on vastly different laws and what we see as evil isn't necessarily evil in the Far Realm.

Now, some inhabitants of the Far Realm (aboleths and mind flayers) wish to do ill and harm.  But I can see the possibility of abberations who are "good" or at least not actively wishing to do harm.  They just have an essentially different perspective on things.

The Abyss is actively evil and seeks the destruction of the universe.  So in theory, demons would seek the destruction of the Far Realm in addition to all other things.  So it's all about utter nihilism and ceaseless hate.


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## Incenjucar (Jan 10, 2008)

I just hope the flumphs are from the Far Realms.  That would make it okay.


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## Fallen Seraph (Jan 10, 2008)

Jonathan Moyer said:
			
		

> I'll be interested in seeing how they differentiate the Far Realm and Abyss as well.
> 
> The main difference I can see is that the Far Realm houses many Lovecraftian beings and seems inimical to reality as we know it, but as a rule it doesn't seem "evil."  It's just a strange place whose laws of physics run counter to our own.  Or, alternatively, it operates on vastly different laws and what we see as evil isn't necessarily evil in the Far Realm.
> 
> ...




I certainly don't see any reason as you said there can't be "good" aberrations, hell there are good beings in Lovecraft anyways, so if the Far Realm will be heavily influenced by Lovecraft there could be good ones, like the Elder Gods and the Great Race of Yith. 

Neither are necessarily "good" but they aren't evil and occasionally benefit us, and help us. The Elder Gods in that they sometimes sympathize and have similar goals as us humans and the Yith who give some of us great knowledge from their libraries in exchange for body-swapping/trading of knowledge.


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## Nifft (Jan 10, 2008)

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> I just hope the flumphs are from the Far Realms.  That would make it okay.



 "Our lawful goodness is INSANE!"

Crazy Flumphy, -- N


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## Cadfan (Jan 10, 2008)

I've always envisioned the Far Realms as a sort of other universe.  As in, they've got their own version of the Prime Material Plane, and whatever.  Its just different and wrong.  And you can't put it on a map necessarily, because its, well, really far away.  Not just in a distance sense, but in a metaphysical "its the set of planes of reality that you basically can't get to unless things are really FUBAR" sense.

And the places where things from the Far Realms bleed into normal reality, by their nature, are sort of Far Realms Lite.  Aboleths and such.  Because you can't describe the actual Far Realms, because by definition its unknowable by a sane person.  You can just provide a taste, and suggest that there's much, much worse out there.


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## Hussar (Jan 10, 2008)

I think there is a pretty big difference between the Far Realms and the Abyss.

It's not demons vs devils, it's demons vs Aboleth, or Chaos Beasts or Beholders.

Never mind the tentacular stuff that Paizo added in Dragon.  

Lots of teeth, claws and muscles and wants to rip you into bitty pieces - demon

Lots of tentacles and whatnots and wants to violate you? - Far Realms beastie.

Different strokes.

Honestly, you could do some overlap of course.  Shadows of Innsmouth could be done with demons or Far Realms critters.  It's more the difference between different brands of horror.  Do you want to go Friday the 13th or Ring?  I could see Sadako as a Far Realms creation easily.  

As someone so rightly put it, the difference is the Tarrasque vs Cthulu.

Or, another way is to think of it this way.  Demons are incredibly destructive because they actively seek to destroy.  The Far Realms are just so inherently hostile that they destroy by their very presence.


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## Lurks-no-More (Jan 10, 2008)

Mirtek said:
			
		

> Same problem with the obyrith demons. The fluff text says that their forms are inconceivable for us mortals, yet all the pictures of the obyriths were drawn by mortals and I as a mortal can see and comprehend them. So the statement in the fluff text is wrong, it has to be wrong.
> 
> There is absolutely no way that mortal game designers can describe something that mortals can't comprehend, because if they can describe it, then it's not something that mortals can't understand




I agree with you about the near-impossibility of meaningfully using utterly incomprehensible or indescribable things in gaming or fiction; even Lovecraft had to draw upon real-world elements for his description of Cthulhu or the shoggoths or whatnot. (The most indescribable thing in his stories, I think, is the Color Out of Space; and it's probably not coincidence that it's one of the most terrifying elements.)

However, the obyriths did work pretty well for me at least; I always thought the mind-warping effect wasn't based on merely their bizarre appearance, but that they were surrounded some kind of a psychic static which infested your mind.


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## Li Shenron (Jan 10, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> If there's room for both, what ought the difference between them to be?




The natives of the Far Realms are mortal beings. Although they are utterly alien and weird, they are born, live and die like natives of the material plane. In fact, besides the name, the Far Realms is pretty much a material plane, with lots of twists.

The natives of the Abyss are immortal beings. They are not alive in the same sense as the mortals.

Of course, a lot of the nature of the afterlife has been screwed up by really bad moves such as adding enclaves of mortals living there with unknown permission.


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## Samuel Leming (Jan 10, 2008)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Lots of tentacles and whatnots and wants to violate you? - Far Realms beastie.



More like Anime Realms...

I've had the misfortune of having a DM ruin a game by including an encounter with an 'amorous' roper.  Ugh! 

When I run 4e, the Far Realms will be a 'whatnot' free zone... 

Sam


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## Samuel Leming (Jan 10, 2008)

Sure there's room for both the Abyss and the Far Realms.

My opinion is that the thematic overlap isn't really that great.  Can anyone picture the Flumph originating from the Abyss?  Doesn't work does it.  Now picture them coming from the Far Realms.

Sam


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## Steely Dan (Jan 10, 2008)

Satori said:
			
		

> Tarrasque versus Cthulu




Demogorgon vs. Azathoth!


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## Lord Zardoz (Jan 10, 2008)

Ahrimon said:
			
		

> I'd go more with:
> The Far Realm:  Did I just step in somthing?  Eh. /shrug




I chose to go with the 'desire to end a headache' approach because in most of the HP Lovecraft fiction I have read, there is as often as not a sense of malevolence coming off the creatures in those stories.

A good example would be Mind Flayers.  They eat the brains of sentient creatures.  They have about as much outright hatred of humans as humans have of cows.  Consider for a moment if a cow was sentient and aware of its fate, but was born wild.

One day strangely misshapen creatures show up and abduct you.  They keep you in a small pen, and you now receive your food and water from unusual recepticals.  One of the creatures takes a burning hot object constructed with technology you had no idea was possible, and burns a mark into your ass.  If your a female, machines are hooked up to your breasts and your milk is sucked out.  If your a male, if your not among the most fit, your balls are cut off.  To your horror, you realize that some of your keepers are wearing foot coverings and torso coverings made out of the flesh of your people!  You try to escape, but you encounter an impassible barrier that causes much more pain than it should if you touch it.  Time passes, and occasionally, you are fortunate to still have intact reproductive organs, you are forced to breed.  Once in a while, your keepers take some of the other prisoners away.  If you happen to get sick, one of your keepers will administer strange medicines, or even force one of his appendages up into your rectum.  One day, they come for you, and you are herded into a great machine where you are killed, and have the flesh stripped from your bones.  You are now a $20 New York Striploin dinner at the Keg Steakhouse.

As a cow, you never know why these things are happening to you.  If you were aware of any of it, you would be horrified.  But, the full scope of activities of humans are beyond the comprehension of cows.  Does that mean that humans hate cows?

Oh, and for what its worth, after writing down the above example, I really want to go out and eat a nice steak dinner.

END COMMUNICATION


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## Dausuul (Jan 11, 2008)

Do note that my original question was about the Far Realms versus the Abyss--not aberrations versus demons.  So far, there's been a lot of discussion about the differences between denizens of the two planes, but not nearly as much about the planes themselves.

Every other plane in the 4E cosmology can be defined on its own terms, without reference to its inhabitants.

The Feywild is a reflection of the mortal world, but filled with life and untouched by civilization.

The Shadowfell is another mirror plane, this one full of shadows, death, and ruin.

The Elemental Tempest is a swirling chaos of raw elemental forces.

The Abyss is an unstable, ever-changing nightmare realm.

The Astral Sea is a silvery void which contains the domains of the gods.

But the Far Realm seems to be just "that place where aberrations come from."  Is that enough to justify a whole plane?  What is it about the Far Realm itself that makes it different from the Abyss?

My own inclination would be to make aberrations into holdovers from the dawn of creation.  We don't know a lot about the war between the primordials and the gods, but perhaps aberrations came into being after the primordials made the world.  Then the gods came along, beat down the primordials, and made their own creatures.  The surviving aberrations fled to the depths of the sea, or the black pits of the Underdark, and hid themselves away from the wrathful gods.


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## StarFyre (Jan 11, 2008)

*the difference*

Since I already use the far realm in my cosmology/campaigns, if the 4E version is 'more normal',i'll use the current style one instead..

You asked what is the difference of the Far Realm..i can give some notes based on the 2e/3e version (mainly 3E where they fleshed it out a lot more and better than 2e).

Essentially it's a place of insanity...think of every possible reality/dream/nightmare happening at the same time...all in the same place; causing reality itself to rip itself apart.

Imagine standing in one dimension and seeing 1000s of other worlds/dimensions all around you, some on different angles, intersecting, etc.  gods, giant creatures floating aroundd thru the air, rambling in insanity.  Rain made from acid that turns into insects as it hits teh ground that then bore into minds of things and do whatever they will..then maybe even burst out and turn back to rain and 'fall' up towards the sky from where they came.

their 'lords' or 'gods' whatever u call them are said to be more powerful than even the beings of the prime..mainly , as someone mentioned, since their existence is anathema to other realities...they twist and destroy and convert other realities just by their existence as they come thru into other worlds.

It's supposed to be a place that no prime beings can comprehend but of course, that logically can't be written down via a human, so just take the most insane, reality bending, wierd stuff you can think of, and have them all happening around the characters, etc at the same time.

The abyss is technically, while hostile, and some places the air is poisonous, etc, it's still a prime universe place.  Stuff can be explained.  It's basically violence come to life.  Unpredictable creatures, chaotic energies, wild magic, etc.

Far Realm is supposed to be insanity itself come to life.  No logic, no reason.  No real alignment for it's creatures, although 3E lists them as CE or NE, really they don't kill cause of a desire too...they kill cause they want to change all reality to match their own, which is insane...OR cause their presence causes stuff around them to die even if they don't do anything. 

Something I plan to do to my players, when they meet up with the far realm again..as they walk around, imagine seeing yourself in the distance on another plane that intersects with the one you are on, you see a creature slashing at your clone, but as it happens, you start to get hurt, get cuts, etc..yet it's not even you that it's happening to.  

Also, it says the 'air' is actually some thick mucous like substance, so surviving there isn't easy without magic or special items that allow it, although most fail anyways, since the reality altering nature doesn't seem to like that stuff.

I am sure some here, can give a better description than I just did....but if you aren't familiar with it, I can give references to creatures from the far realm so you can look them up.  

In Eberron, Xoriat is supposed to be the far realm as it makes it blot (where it intersects into the prime realities).  

ALl that said, many of the weaker far realm beings, find it hard to survive without their resin armours, and their version of 'magic' (really, just the powers to alter reality it appears) and they will melt away and die in prime worlds.  

The more powerful ones are quite .... crazy, in ever sense of the word.

Sanjay


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## Belorin (Jan 11, 2008)

Two things right off;
1) the biggest difference between the Far Realms and the Abyss is the Far Realms are multi-dimensional as are it's denizens. 
2) the 4E Far Realms will most likely be a re-imagining of the 3.x Far Realms and therefore will be harder to compare.


 Bel


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## Doug McCrae (Jan 11, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> Oh, and for what its worth, after writing down the above example, I really want to go out and eat a nice steak dinner.



I hope they serve human. Tastee brains.


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## Abstraction (Jan 11, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> I've always envisioned the Far Realms as a sort of other universe.  As in, they've got their own version of the Prime Material Plane, and whatever.  Its just different and wrong.



Isn't this where Bizarro comes froms?


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Jan 11, 2008)

IMO, the Far Realms aren't really "chaotic" so much as they are "inscrutable." 

The Abyss is the ultimate locus of brutality, rage, and hatred, entropy and destruction. When you make a deal with a demon, you know exactly what he's after in the long run. He wants to tear the world apart.

The Far Realms is... strange. It's a world whose laws, whose very logic is utterly different from our own, such that any extended visit there invites madness in all but the most trained minds.

I'm not sure if anyone would get the reference, but the Far Realms makes me think of the spider from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station even more than I think of Lovecraft. Far Realms denizens are in fact sane and often very intelligent, but their world and their understanding of the universe is so utterly removed from our own that we can't begin to hope to treat with them. All we can know is that Far Realms creatures are incredibly powerful and utterly unpredictable.


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## mhacdebhandia (Jan 11, 2008)

ZombieRoboNinja said:
			
		

> I'm not sure if anyone would get the reference, but the Far Realms makes me think of the spider from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station even more than I think of Lovecraft. Far Realms denizens are in fact sane and often very intelligent, but their world and their understanding of the universe is so utterly removed from our own that we can't begin to hope to treat with them. All we can know is that Far Realms creatures are incredibly powerful and utterly unpredictable.



I agree, and it's a good reference. The Far Realms has more often struck me as a place which simply does not play by our universe's rules more than a place which harbours malevolence towards our universe.

What some people forget is that Lovecraft wrote about lots of different things. His ghouls are terrifying because they live beneath our cities and eat us, not because to merely gaze upon them is to drive us mad. Not everything is sanity-blasting angles and weird sounds.


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## Robert Ranting (Jan 11, 2008)

Does anyone else remember the bit of information we got a while back about how *the Abyss was formed when Tharzidun threw something terrible into the Elemental Chaos and it broke through* the fabric of the plane?  Well, think of it this way.  The Abyss is like a hole in a piece of paper.  On one side, the one we understand, is the Elemental Chaos and the realms of reality as we know them.  On the other side is the Far Realm, a universe that does not play by our rules.  If you think of the entirety of the planar cosmology as being contained within a finite (but so large as makes no difference) space, then the Far Realm is all that lies beyond it...or another sphere entirely seperate across the void...and the Abyss is the entryway or a wormhole, the place where the madness of that place has touched the elemental chaos.  Just as when you stand in a doorway you are in neither room, so is being in the Abyss being caught between two alien universes.

The Far Realm is not a place of insanity, evil, destruction or tentacle monsters.  That is just how our brains try to interpret the ab-light that ab-reflects off their ab-surfaces.  Our brains simply were never rigged to perceive such things, so our minds go into overdrive, trying to conjure up something, anything, that makes more sense than what our senses are trying to tell us.  Everything you experience in the Far Realms is a hysterical delusion crafted by your own mind in a vain effort to save you from true madness.  Some people, especially the incredibly unintelligent and vapid, might even peer into the Far Realm and see nothing at all (Zaphod anyone?).  Most people simply can't cope with the experience and lose touch with reality.  If something so alien can exist, can be so traumatic to even attempt to perceive, truly it must be evil...or at least that is what we think.  In fact, the Far Realm simply "is" in a way that nothing else in our universe "is" and may or may not care about us...we simply don't know, and we can't ask it/them.

Creatures such as Aboleths, Mind Flayers, Mooncalves and other creatures of the Far Realm are tainted by this universe.  The powers which hold our universe together, decree that all that exists must conform to certain rules, rules of Magi-Physics and Alignment.  Forced to conform, but railing at the very notion, they always result in hideous abominations, composite creatures out of nightmare that push the boundary of what is possible in our universe.  Often, characters encounter such creatures before they visit the Far Realm, and thus, the guises of the Far Realm's lost children in our universe bias the thoughts of what the Far Realm will be like.  Tentacles creatures become our frame of reference for the Far Realm, and so if we go there expecting them, then it is easy for our minds to dredge up similar images once it is faced with ab-reality.

You can also think of the Demons as being Chaos Cultists.  They have looked into the Far Realm, and upon returning, they have gone mad in a more conventional sense.  Unable to articulate the feelings of helplessness and terror, they act out violently against all around them.  Their primitive minds simply cannot distinguish between the desire to fight or flee...and so they do both, attempting to move away from the Far Realm, deeper in our universe, and to take their misery out on us all. 

 It is not surprising then, that a few corrupted Primordials, the so-called Demon Lords would try and command the demons as an army, to give direction and purpose to their mindless violence by aiming it at the Gods and their creations.  So fundamentally rooted in the nature of the world, and wise from their long existance and power, these Demon Lords dip into the Abyss while averting their eyes from the Far Realm.  They lead by looking away from the gap, back toward our universe.  It gives them enough focus and clear vision to keep on waging their war against creation.  True, they seek to unmake all that has been made, but they do not seek to help the Far Realm's reality prevail.  If they thought they had a chance, they might try to invade the Far Realm and extinguish it's maddening influence forever as well...perhaps they have tried and failed many times since the Abyss was born.  Perhaps their impotence in being able to do so is what drives them to destroy this universe, a tangible, perceivable, comprehensible thing that they actually can destroy.

In any case, this is pretty much what the universe was like in my last couple of homebrews, and I will probably stick with something similar in 4e.

Robert "Thinks that you could easily put both The Demonweb Pits and Hell Into This Mess Too" Ranting


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## Hussar (Jan 11, 2008)

ZombieRoboNinja said:
			
		

> IMO, the Far Realms aren't really "chaotic" so much as they are "inscrutable."
> 
> The Abyss is the ultimate locus of brutality, rage, and hatred, entropy and destruction. When you make a deal with a demon, you know exactly what he's after in the long run. He wants to tear the world apart.
> 
> ...




Yeah, I could totally see that.  The Spider isn't evil, just completely weird with totally unknowable goals.  I see the Far Realms as and M C Escher painting after a REALLY bad trip.  

Not evil, or pissed off, just, very, very strange.

The abyss and those that live in it are sometimes very strange, but, they're always really angry.


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## Death Dealer (Jan 11, 2008)

Abstraction said:
			
		

> Isn't this where Bizarro comes froms?




Mr. Mxyzptlk


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## Death Dealer (Jan 11, 2008)

Jonathan Moyer said:
			
		

> I'll be interested in seeing how they differentiate the Far Realm and Abyss as well.
> 
> The main difference I can see is that the Far Realm houses many Lovecraftian beings and seems inimical to reality as we know it, but as a rule it doesn't seem "evil."  It's just a strange place whose laws of physics run counter to our own.  Or, alternatively, it operates on vastly different laws and what we see as evil isn't necessarily evil in the Far Realm.
> 
> ...




The Abyss is a giant hole in the Elemntal Chaos.  Demons are Elementals who were sucked into/corrupted by the Abyss.  They are the primordial "Evil" who's purpose is chaos & destruction.
The Far Realms is the realm of madness.  Some things may be evil, but most are probably unaligned.  Creatures of the Far Realm are too alien to mortals to think in terms of good & evil.  They are uncaring in terms of human/mortal ethics.


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## SpiderMonkey (Jan 11, 2008)

Robert Ranting said:
			
		

> Does anyone else remember the bit of information we got a while back about how *the Abyss was formed when Tharzidun threw something terrible into the Elemental Chaos and it broke through* the fabric of the plane?  Well, think of it this way.  The Abyss is like a hole in a piece of paper.  On one side, the one we understand, is the Elemental Chaos and the realms of reality as we know them.  On the other side is the Far Realm, a universe that does not play by our rules.  If you think of the entirety of the planar cosmology as being contained within a finite (but so large as makes no difference) space, then the Far Realm is all that lies beyond it...or another sphere entirely seperate across the void...and the Abyss is the entryway or a wormhole, the place where the madness of that place has touched the elemental chaos.  Just as when you stand in a doorway you are in neither room, so is being in the Abyss being caught between two alien universes.
> 
> The Far Realm is not a place of insanity, evil, destruction or tentacle monsters.  That is just how our brains try to interpret the ab-light that ab-reflects off their ab-surfaces.  Our brains simply were never rigged to perceive such things, so our minds go into overdrive, trying to conjure up something, anything, that makes more sense than what our senses are trying to tell us.  Everything you experience in the Far Realms is a hysterical delusion crafted by your own mind in a vain effort to save you from true madness.  Some people, especially the incredibly unintelligent and vapid, might even peer into the Far Realm and see nothing at all (Zaphod anyone?).  Most people simply can't cope with the experience and lose touch with reality.  If something so alien can exist, can be so traumatic to even attempt to perceive, truly it must be evil...or at least that is what we think.  In fact, the Far Realm simply "is" in a way that nothing else in our universe "is" and may or may not care about us...we simply don't know, and we can't ask it/them.
> 
> ...




My hero! And btw, "Yoink!"


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## Kesh (Jan 11, 2008)

Satori said:
			
		

> Tarrasque versus Cthulu



 Who said anything about "versus"? I plan on making the tarrasque very much a product of the Far Realms.


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## Orius (Jan 12, 2008)

I use the Far Realm IMC, and it's not a place of destruction or evil or any of that.  It exists beyond and outside the normal planes, it's a higher level of existance in which the known multiverse occupies a small pocket.  A very small, infinitesimal pocket at that.  It existed long before the planes existed, and will exist long after the plaes have died.  The mortal races simply aren't evolved enough to even begin to understand the reality of the Far Realm, and encountering it destroys their minds.


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## Kobu (Jan 12, 2008)

FickleGM said:
			
		

> You don't know how right you are.  I know, I live in Wisconsin.




Yeah? Well, I live in Madtown itself.


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## Lackhand (Jan 12, 2008)

Kobu said:
			
		

> Yeah? Well, I live in Madtown itself.



"Madtown? THIS. IS. WIISCONSIIIIIIIIN!"

(eat hearty, for tonight we dine in the Abyss?  )


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## Lonely Tylenol (Jan 12, 2008)

Robert Ranting said:
			
		

> Does anyone else remember the bit of information we got a while back about how *the Abyss was formed when Tharzidun threw something terrible into the Elemental Chaos and it broke through* the fabric of the plane?  Well, think of it this way.  The Abyss is like a hole in a piece of paper.  On one side, the one we understand, is the Elemental Chaos and the realms of reality as we know them.  On the other side is the Far Realm, a universe that does not play by our rules.  If you think of the entirety of the planar cosmology as being contained within a finite (but so large as makes no difference) space, then the Far Realm is all that lies beyond it...or another sphere entirely seperate across the void...and the Abyss is the entryway or a wormhole, the place where the madness of that place has touched the elemental chaos.  Just as when you stand in a doorway you are in neither room, so is being in the Abyss being caught between two alien universes.
> *snip*
> In any case, this is pretty much what the universe was like in my last couple of homebrews, and I will probably stick with something similar in 4e.
> 
> Robert "Thinks that you could easily put both The Demonweb Pits and Hell Into This Mess Too" Ranting



Nice stuff.  All this is exactly what I like about the Far Realms, and why I'm happy they've decided to carry them forward.


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## Stoat (Jan 13, 2008)

There is an inherent tension between the Far Realms and the Abyss, and I am interested to see how WotC attempts to resolve it.

The Abyss, and the Great Wheel as a whole, is both moral and anthropomorphic.  By "moral" I refer to the Great Wheel's concern with alignment.  Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are objective elements and each is in some way inherent to the multiverse.  Thus the Abyss exists as part of a philosophical outlook that is intensely concerned with the concepts of objective morality.  It is in many ways similar to the concept of "hell" as found in any number of real world religions.

By "anthropormorphic"  I mean two things.  First, the natives of the Abyss generally have emotional and psychological states that are recognizable to mortals.  They hate, they scheme, they lust.  In some cases, Abyssal lords are personifications of mortal sin.  Malcanthet is lust made flesh.  Kostchtchie is an incarnation of anger and hate.  Consider Savage Tide, the numerous demon lords presented there are evil, but they reason, form alliances, betray one another and otherwise act in an understandable way.  The second thing I mean by "anthropomorphic" is that natives of the Abyss are interested in the prime material plane.  They seek to steal our souls.  They want to conquer the land.  They set up kingdoms and realms in the mortal world.  Again, consider the Savage Tide.

On the other hand, the Far Realm, when it is at its most Lovecraftian, is neither moral nor anthropomorphic.  Lovecraft was an atheist and a skeptic.  His creations are decidedly amoral.  His universe does not contain objective good and evil.  Things won't go well for us when Cthulhu awakens, but Cthulhu isn't Lucifer.  The greater entities, Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, are more like forces of nature than demons.  This amoral worldview is incompatable with the objective morality inherent in the Great Wheel.

Nor are Lovecraftian creatures anthropomorphic.  For the most part, they lack recognizable personality or emotion.  It cannot be said that Cthulhu is a personification of any mortal ideal.  The Color out of Space may or may not be sentient.  Azathoth is a blind idiot.  Nor are mythos beings particularly concerned with earth or humanity.  To the contrary, Lovecraft's horror is based on humanity's insignficance.

In summary: the Abyss and the Far Realm are products of two different and incompatible world views.  The Abyss envisions a moral multiverse where the actions of humanity are significant.  The Far Realm envisions an amoral multiverse which cares nothing for humanity.  

Of course, we know that 4E is removing the great wheel and sharply curtailing the importance of alignment, and I suspect that the Abyss will wind up looking more like the Far Realms as a result.


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