Ok for EQ1 anyway: http://achievements.eqresource.com/spiderbear.php The rip it is referring to is when EQ2's 'Lendiniara the Keeper' busted into EQ1's universe (resulting in one of EQ1's game updates). So to have our own spider bears or 'ursarachnids' the etherenere needs to 'leak' into our Norrath. Otherwise there has to be a means where we encounter EQ1's or some other universes spider bears. I've been wondering with the ethernere being shared across all Norraths and all these shenanigans going on if there is a Norrath just being used as an dimensional dumping ground. A Norrath where all the excess energy and side effects of these travels and fights is getting shunted too. Just a mish-mash junkyard of energy and power resulting in some sort of wide awake nightmare with elements from every where and completely new ones all its own. Things that don't, can't and won't ever exist in the other realities.
I doubt that a Norrath would exist for that express purpose. If anything, that is what the Void would exist for. More likely each and every thread deals with its own problems, with the occasional plane of existence coming into being to absorb the new influence where there was no influence to guide it before. Most of the greater deities of influence came into existence this way. Cazic Thule, Rallos, Tunare and the other gods that weren't born from other gods but simply came into existence. While that doesn't apply to elemental deities (which were created by the Nameless) the deities of influence can spontaneously come into existence due to some extreme event. Heck, with all the chronomagic that has been thrown around it wouldn't be surprising for dev to introduce a deity of time (which might put a stop to chronomagic, or at least limit the damage it creates). And of course that deity would be a gnome.
I'm not suggesting one was created specifically for that, but it just happened to one. An 'unlucky thread' more or less. The passing of living beings in and out of the ethernere is 'unnatural' even when things like gods and planes coming into existence are. Being that it is not natural the side effects wouldn't fit into the 'natural' system of things. Think of it as very toxic or potent man made pollution, this would just be more of a 'high fantasy' variety. Then again, it is OUR 'EverQuest 2' thread that has been piercing through to the ethernere more than any others. To the point of using it as a bridge to other threads. I suppose If anyone were most likely to be subject of the unforeseen after effects, it would be us. What if the other threads got sick of our nosing around and started throwing stuff our way to try and shut us down? Like dinos, spider bears and akheva? lol.
That will probably be the case once the new expansion comes out. Or maybe once the player has beaten the X2 it would change the sky personally for them. Who honestly knows.
Chronomancy is the only way it would work. he basically turned back the time on Luclin's fragments just enough to make the chunks floating up there reconnect. even Geomancy only effects the place you're in, you have to 'commune' with the earth to get it to work. and he shoved the pieces back together, but his chronomancy wasn't strong enough to uproot the fragments on Norrath and thrown them back up there, even WITH the Tear and him being the best chronomancer outside of possibly Miss L herself. all he did was focus on the broken shards up there, and shove each one to the place it was the what, 50 odd years it was since the shattering, fusing them back together (Notice the Luclin moon is still full of huge cracks and still looks like someone just roughly glued it back together) just like he does to Grendish in Underdepths. he just shoves him to where he was X hours or minutes or days ago to buy us time. My guess is that Lady L is coming back, but in the same manner she left. they have to force her through to us, and it'll prolly leave a tear we'll have to deal with. or just tearing her from that time to our time is going to bring things with it that are going to adapt and quickly to our Norrath. though with someone mentioning the spiderbears are nightmare related...maybe we're finally going to see Terris and Morrelle get thier full strength back...and we're there to make sure Terris doesn't get out of hand or take advatange of all the chronomancy and ethereal things happening.
I think it was more about the fact that it was a Fire Dragon (like Nagafen) and an Ice Dragon (like Vox) - but as far as I know it wasn't those two - mating. They are essentially opposite types. It is possible that I'm wrong. When I was doing that content, I wasn't paying much attention to the deep lore.
The key to making a prismatic dragon is having two dragons of opposing elemental types mating. The dragons credit Veeshan with leaving behind a set of laws that all dragons are suppose to follow. The two we know of are that dragons are forbidden to kill other dragons and that dragons of opposing elemental types are not allowed to breed. What constitutes an opposing element is a bit squiffy. Sure, fire and ice (a form of water) are obviously opposing. Out of the Norrathian elements that leaves Air and Earth. But...what exactly is an Air dragon? Veeshan herself should be an air dragon since she is the Goddess of Sky. Lightning dragons...in Norrath's magic system Lightning is a pure magic attack. Resistance type arcane. That could be considered Air...or not. I don't remember any dragons who have a primary attack Air. Though if Air is closely associated with magic...then Leandra and other very mystical dragons with no other obvious elemental type might be Air dragons. Earth dragons. I can't think of any really good examples honestly. The only one that comes to mind is Woushi, and he is a Growth dragon, not earth. Out of the elements Growth would be a elemental combination of mostly earth and either water or (unlikely) fire. There probably are a few earth type dragons we've faced but I honestly can't think of them. Poison and Acid dragons we've seen a plenty. Those would be Water and Earth elements. I surmise that a hybrid dragon wouldn't be able to create a Prismatic dragon since they technically don't have an opposing element. Or it might be possible, but only if you stumbled onto another hybrid dragon that had the correct percentages of the other two opposing elements and it all worked out somehow... Lets just say there are a lot more Ice and Fire dragons around than Air and Earth dragons and call it done at that. One thing of interest is the Gold and Silver dragons of the Desert of Flames expansion. They are from a different thread and they don't appear to be elemental but sun and moon based. If they were forced to be considered elemental they would be a fire and ice type, but they aren't from our thread so I don't think they are. Still, it is possible that if they managed to have a brood they might create prismatic dragons.
Disclaimer: Spoiler Alert (Sort of - I mean that if one has not played the current content on live, then there are spoilers herein.) One thing I've noted is that, although they've taken many of the dragon tropes (e.g. red dragons breath fire, white dragons breath ice, etc.) from the tabletop game fantasy genre (specifically D&D), they haven't taken them all (i.e. not all chromatic / elemental dragons are evil; not all metallic dragons are good). For example, gold dragons in D&D are considered essentially the paragons of virtue, while a gold (Darathar) in EQ2 deceives folks and manipulates them quite handily, then tries to possess someone in order to escape the Ethernere. So, clearly, they've set it so that a dragon's actions determine whether they are good or evil, rather than the existence of prejudice determining whether a being is good or evil. To bad they couldn't have done that with character classes.
Dragons aren't good or evil. Dragons have personalities. Lets look at a few examples. Trakanon was a poison dragon. He studied magic, got interested in Necromancy and managed to get himself cursed into a half-dead state. That happened while he was leading a young, impatient and intolerant faction of the Ring of Scale against the Satharian Empire (the first one). Somehow he managed to cure his cures and became the leader of the Ring of Scale in our time. Good? Evil? I don't think either applies here. Trakanon was a person with motivations. Woushi was enamored with Growth, and life. He took care of the Bloom of Growth, both while it was in the Waking Lands and after he removed it to the Lesser Feydark. He became obsessed with the Bloom and considered it his and denied the claim other worshipers of Tunare had on it. Did this make Woushi "good"? Did it make him "evil"? There isn't any clear line in this. Lord Nagafen conspired with Lady Vox to create a clutch of prismatic dragons. Their plot was discovered and both were banished to their respective lairs and trapped there by draconic magic. Nagafen used a network of agents to influence the mortals that visited his lair to keep track of dealings in the dragon realm. He expanded his power and influence in an attempt to make his plans come to fruition. Eventually the Cataclysm happened and his bonds were destroyed. He managed to make his dream come true...but at the loss of Lady Vox. You actually get the feeling that he does deeply care for her and is greatly angered at her loss. He is guarding his prismatic clutch and making sure that no one else benefits from it. Nagafen is greedy, manipulative, scheming and can't be trusted. Is he evil? There is a strong case for it, but I think trying to pain him as just evil diminishes him as a character. All of the major dragons have rich characters. They aren't cardboard cutouts ready to do evil for the sake of being bad and to die to the first true hero to come along. They aren't princess kidnapping treasure horders that exist to amuse themselves with human misery. That is what makes them interesting instead of just plot devices to fufill given fantasy trophs.
I wasn't saying "good or evil as perceived by dragons" - they don't see things as we do. I was merely stating that their actions - in life and/or in the afterlife (i.e. on Vesspyr Isles) - determine whether they are perceived as good or evil by players. And suggesting that maybe that determinant, instead of arbitrary alignment assignments, should perhaps be applied to players. Although they seem polar opposites and a binary condition (i.e. one or the other), few beings are totally good or totally evil. We've all bounced between beneficence and selfishness (although there are those, in both directions, that take it to extremes). Yet, in this game world, a necro must be evil and a conjy must be good; a swashbuckler is good while a brigand must be evil. Never mind that the necro could be studying to find out what causes death (and thus prevent it from occurring to those about which he / she cares); or that the conjy might be a borderline pyromaniac. And disregard the fact that neither death nor the elements is either good or evil. Disregard that the swashbuckler could be the most vicious pirate ever to sail the Norrathian waters. Disregard that the brigand could be robbing the rich and distributing the wealth to the poor (ala Robin Hood). In Norrath, certain players don't get defined by their actions, they get stereotyped. To bring it back to the original subject, though, I think we are quibbling over degrees of a given state rather than having a complete disagreement. We both recognize that their actions determine the manner in which they are perceived. And that is how it should be. No being, whether dragon or humanoid, should be lumped under a stereotype without their actions being able to determine whether another sees them as good or evil.
Instead of putting it in terms of good and evil its probably easier to say that Gorowin and Neriak don't train Conjurors and Swashbucklers (really, why wouldn't Neriak train swashbucklers? Dark Elf pirates have no panache?) Kelethin doesn't train brigands and necromancers, and the pilgrims who travel to New Halas don't follow those professions either. (technically, New Halas doesn't train anybody, your coming from somewhere else.) The alignment system in EQ mainly applies to the cities and the NPCs from there. You expect "evil" NPCs to be...evil. Mostly you expect the "good" NPCs to be helpful. Not all NPCs follow the stereotype but most do...so the stereotype is reinforced. Stereotypes are created because they are useful. If they weren't useful in the majority of interactions they would change. How players act has always been up to them. Trust me, the "good" PCs usually aren't. Unless you consider mass slaughter to be alignment neutral.
Getting back on topic, I noticed during the quest that when Firiona recieves the Lifeguide staff back she notices it has been corrupted or touched by some evil forces. Maybe a hint towards the expansion?
We only touch the staff in the actual zone. I'm talking about when she receives the staff from Lendinaria in Yelinak's Fall. In Eq1, the Lifeguide staff is originally from Eq2 and the players are charged into going to our timeline to pick it up from Firiona Vie and bring it back to Zeboxurok to make preparations for sending Lendinaria back to us. During the time the Lifeguide Staff is over there it probably gets used by Lanys T'vyl (duaghter of Innoruk) and Zeboxurok himself, so that maybe what she is referencing to when she gets the Lifeguide Staff back. Only curious 'cuz it could tie-in with Altar of Malice expansion, since that has a lot to do with Innoruk and Lanys, which could mean that would be the official expansion for Eq2 and the storyline included in the expansion. Just my theory.
Wait...what? Firiona Vie has had the Lifeguard Staff since her Kunark "rescue me from this evil shaman" days. It is her signature weapon. Lucan didn't gain the Soulfire until EQ2's story started, but everybody else has had their signature weapons since EQ1 if they were around then. Why couldn't the EQ1 players use EQ1's Lifeguard staff from their Firona Vie? (Or is she already in another castle waiting to be rescued?) Actually better question, if they could send adventurers to our Firona Vie why didn't they send Lendinaria instead?
So your saying in the meeting where Lucan kills Vishra, and you ask FV where her staff is and she tells us not to worry about it, that it was actually sent to Eq1 so they could use it with I assume the Claymore and/or Soulfire to send her back to us. So in theory someone sent for it to use I can only guess as a 'focus' so they could send her to the correct thread. which could mean anyone with 'malice' in them who is a major figure works...so that could be Lanys, Kyle, Lucan, Mayong as the mostly likely targets at Kyle had the claymore so they'd have to deal with him, Lucan might have needed to deal with for Soulfire, and Mayong and Lanys have always been at odds with FV and the Dragons, respectively.
That's why they go to Eq2's Firiona Vie and ask her for her Lifeguide Staff to bring back to Eq1 to Lanys and Zebuxorok to help send Lendiniara back to Eq2.
