I am not a massive Loretracker like some here on this thread but I have been for the life of me trying to figure out how The Void fits in with Norrath as well as Odus. I was hoping some Lore savvy players could help me out. I would be very appreciative as I am designing my own Void Plane for a world building exercise in DnD/Pathfinder. I don't want to duplicate EQ2's Void but I am interested in another conceptual vision of the existence. As it stands in my world the Void Plane is a sub-level of existence created as a form of vacuum of reality meant to supersede reality should it collapse. The "material plane" in DnD terms is like ours and Norraths but as with DnD there is a sub-level of existence in shadow or the Shadow Plane. The Void is the subset of Shadow. I am still working past this idea but just am curious about EQ2's lore behind it. Sorry if that was a bit wordy hope I don't confuse anyone.
Unfortunately I don't think there is anything to answer your question. In the original Everquest the shadowmen were invisible beings that could only be seen by their name text and whatever object or weapon they were holding. They were spread out all over Norrath in either camps or near shrines. Their purpose was unknown and I don't know if the original EQ added anymore lore for them. Before the Shadow Odyssey and Sentinals Fate expansions, we actually first saw the "Void" in the base game; it was a zone called The Obelisk of Lost Souls. http://eq2.zam.com/wiki/Shadowed_Man_(EQ2_Mob_Race) As I'm sure you noticed, the concept art for the obelisk and later zones don't match at all. The only concept they stuck with was the "reality" anchors that bind the Void to points in Norrath, which are always towers. Such as the various spiral towers in Feerrott and Faydark, or later on they turned Kurns tower into a Void anchor. Just to clarify, Odus exists in the dimension of Ultera, not the void. I wanted to point that out because you asked how the void fits into Norrath and Odus, well beyond those reality anchors it doesn't.
I had figured the Norrath and Odus were separate planes of reality in a sense that Odus was part of Ulterra which is separate from whatever plane Norrath resides on. Thanks though I had felt that the Void had been very underplayed in how it connects. Seems that it is mostly just "there" at best with notable exceptions of interaction such as Munzok's invasion and Rohen Theers banishement... oh and I guess Anashti'Sul's fall from being the Prime Healer.
Ah, the Void. Lets talk about the origin of existance. Before Time, before Existance there was only the Nameless and he existed in the Void. The Nameless created a thing called Time. Into this he created the Elemental Dieties. Each he gave dominion over a portion of existance and told them to create more and they did. They in turn created the stars and the planets. They also created the lesser gods, or as we know them the Dieties of Influence. (actually not all dieties of influence were created by the Elemental dieities, but the first were while others arose spontaniously or ascended from a mortal existance later). They in turn started to seed the universe with life. The Nameless is said to watch over his creation from within the Void. Is this Void the same as the prison tha contained Rohen Theer and Anashti'sul? Maybe. Does the Nameless even exist? Several gods claim that he does, but the Nameless never interferes in our existance. We assume he watches, we assume he exists. It could be the Nameless ceased to exist, or never existed. How would we know if he does nothing? He doesn't answer prayers. It seems he doesn't even aid his own avatar. The Void where Theer was held is a dimension dominated by a gigantic whirlpool of blackness that pulls things to the center where things cease to exist. As things from outside of The Void spiral towards its center they cease to be. Theer and the Shadowmen would travel from rock to rock to avoid the fate all things that are pulled into the middle experience. The Shadowmen eventually created Void Anchors to prolong the existance of certain rocks. This has the side-effect of linking the planet to the rock, so eventually the entire planet gets pulled into The Void and is consumed. Norrath has 5 void anchors that were installed in the last 500 years. How long until Norrath is consumed? Odus is also a problem. When it was severed from Norrath and pushed into Ulteria it formed a ballancing act between the attraction to the Void, and its attraction to The Underfoot (Brell's dimension). Odus is being sucked into both planes, and if either wins Norrath will share Odus' fate. Fortunately there are many who are concerned with this and I'm sure none of the parties want Norrath to be destroyed so the ballancing act will go on.
Thanks. So basically the void is the Origin Story for all of Existence in Everquest 2? As such it is the "end all" as well?
I'm curious if you could elaborate on this. I'm not aware of the nameless having an avatar, are you sure there is no confusion with the faceless AKA cazic thule?
Theer is the 'avatar' of the Nameless. Not 'avatar' like the big killable mobs, mind you, but in the sense of a (presumably) once-mortal being that acts as the vessel for the essence and will of the deity. That's probably not an entirely accurate description, but it's as close as I can manage at the moment. (Yes, like Baelon for Cazic, now that I think about it...)
It's complicated. There are indications that the Void as we know it isn't in existence in EQ1, or is at least very different, which would indicate the true point of variance is very, very far in the past of the timeline.
There isn't anything that would lead us to believe that Rohen Theer was ever mortal. An Avatar is a projection of a dieties power that acts in their place to carry out their will. Rohen Theer is known by several names, one of which is the Avatar of Ballance. He is a creation of the Nameless and was charged with maintaining the "ballance" between gods and striking down those that transgressed. What is ballance? Good question, nobody other than Theer knows. Apparently it made him such a pain that the gods conspired together and got rid of him. There isn't anything about being an Avatar that means you have a mortal origin. Most of the Avatars we see in EQ2 are projections of the diety themself with no seperate existance. Around the time the Gods withdrew from Norrath several did leave behind mortal avatars as this was a way to circumvent the agreement and leave a small portion of their influence on Norrath while they were away. This lead to a battle between 4 avatars and the Greenmist. Ok, it wasn't much of a fight once the Greenmist got involved. Theer we can only assume was suppose to control and shape how the dieties related to the rest of existance. A way for the Nameless to shape things without actually acting himself every time things went "wrong". In a very real way, the Nameless seems to be avoiding taking direct action on creation. Maybe it would cause major amounts of chaos or destruction if he did. Maybe our universe isn't the first he's created and he knows what happens if he touches it afterward and he is avoiding it? When talking about the Nameless, mostly we have conjecture and unknowns.
More that the Nameless is the origin story of all existance and the Void is the description of the non-space/time that is his existance. More or less I think the "void" that we all know and experience in EQ2 is actually a portal to the real void where the Nameless exists. Kind of a really shallow plane of existance between (our) Norrath and non-existance where Theer, Anashti and the Shadowmen did their little rock dance to avoid destruction. That nearness also seems to mess with time as we meet the Ethernaughts there and for them it has only been a matter of days.
So the idea I am going for is somewhat similar as a subset or reality or existence. Though in my case it supersedes Existence if destroyed instead of being the connection to "non-existence" Very neat though. I had hoped there was some grounding to the Void considering a whole expansion was based on it.
The Void is where you send things to make completely sure they are destroyed. basically the Void is the cracks in reality were nothing exists. if the Material plane was a puzzle, the Void is were the pieces fit together. but yes it is basically a giant, planar black hole, that the closer you get to the center, the more you are consumed until you cease to be. Ultera is a plane that you pass through every time you teleport.I would imagine Ultera is like DnDs Astral Plane. if your going to the 9th layer of the Abyss, you go Material Plane > Astral > material plane/Abyss. for Norrath it's Material realm > Ultera > diety plane/material realm. the balancing act in Ultera is from Theer being in the Void, and using Odus to be his super stepping stone to norrath, and Brell's link to Norrath on Odus fighting a stalemated tug of war. if Odus goes into the Void, taking the Underfoot with it...that sucks everything the Underfoot is attached to into the Void. if the Vault of living stone wasn't on Odus...Odus being sucked into the Void wouldn't effect us. Time pretty much stands still in the Void. While in the Void, your time flow is stagnant, though time flows for the other realms. that why the Ethernaughts are still there, Anashti was still there...but they had no idea of events outside of the Void (save what they knew/know from minions in other realities/the ones in the anchors) hence why Anashti wasn't aware of Bertox until she got herself out, or of Rodcet Nife. why the Ethernaughts didn't know about Qeynos or the bayle line and Eylee was shocked people knew about and had followed her stories. Theer was created by the Nameless to balance the Gods. so that none of them would become strong enough on thier own to overrule or potentially threaten existance, like what Rallos tried to do. but the Gods never liked the idea of being controlled. the Goods gods painted him as a tyrant that would make everything stagnant, the evil gods portrayed him as a huge obstacle to thier true power.
They way I look at it, is the old onion layer example: Norrath exists on the physical planes somewhere in the middle of the onion. (Which might include a second Norrath that is larger poking into the main Norrath plain in the form of floating isles-but that is just my own pet theory, no backing for it was writing a story that uses that concept) The Void exist (or lacks existence) at one one end (The surface layer maybe) while the deific planes closer to the core. All the planes they exist on the same XYZ axis, just one different ABC axis. Odus has been displaced from the physical plans closer to the void but it is also being pulled by the Brell deific plane.
the floating isles are the remains of the Plane of Sky, as is the Shimmering Citadel/Djinn Master's prism.
Umm...I believe the explination we got was that the Underfoot was just as much of a threat as the Void to Odus' existance, and eventually all of Norrath's existance. That Odus was linked via The Hole directly to the Underfoot. While everything was on Norrath the Underfoot was only attempting to spill out into Norrath and the seal placed on it prevented it from becomming a threat. When Odus transfered into Ulteria and became linked with The Void as part of Theer's escape plan the pull of the Void caused the link with the Underfoot to go from a passive invasion of Odus to a tug of war where if either link was ever broken the other side would swallow Odus and then the rest of Norrath. So at this point the Underfoot isn't threatened, it is a threat.
This seems odd. What role does the Nexus play in teleportation? The Quelthullian Nexus is the one the current teleportation network uses. That nexus is *in* Ulteria when it was origionally built to operate on Norrath. The former Nexus was firmly in this plane of reality on the moon of Luclin. They both seem to work equally well. What exactly is this Nexus doing for us? What exactly is having the Nexus physically located in Ulteria (where a good portion of the teleportation network's inner workings are located) doing to the Network? There should be some side effect (not that anyone would want to write such a thing in...story wise its perty booring stuff to have to fix the network when it goes beyond what it was designed to do. I suppose its a good excuse for a live event though). Though you could equally well say that El'Arad knew his Nexus would be operating in Ulteria since he designed the entire "accident" and was going to use the Quellthulian Nexus to bridge between Odus/Ulteria and Norrath in aiding Theer to escape the Void. So maybe the Quellthulian Nexus was designed to accout for all of this and would stop working if transported to Norrath?
the Nexus worked more like a satellite relay point. you zapped yourself through ultera, the nexus drew you in, then redirected your path. they mention it at the combine spires that's basically how they integrated the combine into their network. they created a magical shunt/off ramp that shoved you to a combine spire...and they also mentioned there were several failed attempts that resulted in deaths trying to get that to work.
The Void is the transitive dimension between existence and Oblivion. Both the Void and Ultera are alternate dimensions, not planes. There is a distiction between plane and dimension in the EQ2 cosmology.
