The Ultimate Adventurer's Guide to Norrath has many things to say on the subject of time and suspended animation. It's is often assumed that when the world stops around you, and things appear in front of and behind you in the blink of an eyelash, that time itslef has in fact paused, restarted, paused again, restarted, and so on. This is actually not the case, as while the world is paused, time itself continues. This was proven when it was discovered that plants are not effected by world pausing. The theory is, that the Gods are not actually gone, but out for a long lunchbreak, and only pop back into our lives on occasion to check up on things (See Gods: Where are They Now?). When a God wants to reveal him/herself among us, they must do so in a very discrete manner, for if we were to see a God among us in thier natural form we would immediately die in reverence on the spot. Thus, the God must pause the world, move--while avoiding any Norrathian's line of site--into a discrete locationt and transform themselves into an inconspiuous Norratian citizen. This also explains why this process takes a lot longer in crowded areas, and almost no time at all in densely populated areas. There is one documentation of a Wood Elf druid who shapechanged into a large oak (thus escaping the effect of world pausing as plants are immune) and was able to witness a God in the action. Of course the poor Wood Elf died on the spot in reverence, but only in spirit. He was unable to revert to his normal form and later died again by a Barbarian logging expedition. He then spent a large part of his time in a Qeynos tavern serving as tables, chairs, and an unpollished coat rack until he died, yet again, when the tavern was burnt to the ground in freak accident involving a blue frog, a mop, a candle, and a room full of drunked Dwarves. Scabble Skattlebinks (a half-mad Gnome engineer) says that time was not something made by the Gods, but by him, and fellow Gnome inventors. According to Scabble, when Norrath was created it was stuck on "Infinite Now" and constant daylight. He says the Gnomes grew tired of the daylight and ventured deep into the heart of the world to create a machine that set Norrath in rotation, thus starting the night/day cycle. Other races who were created the same day deny this fact as they say ever since creation there has been a night and day. The Gnome, however, says that the whole time it too them to grow tired of the sun, venture into the heart of the world, and create the Time Machine, was only twenty-four hours, therefore, other races would have never noticed there was no time before then. When asked about the occasional world pause and suspended animation he replied "Sometimes Gnome engineers fall into the gears of the Time Machine causing them to lock up. Sometimes they are crushed in a blink of an eye, and sometimes it takes us awhile to get them out This causes the gears to stop or jerk forward and backward erratically". When asked how plant life continued to grow, and was seemingy uneffected by the stopage of time, he squinted, blanched, and quietly died of a heart attack. This was taken as a sign that the Gods still are around (although still out to lunch) and were quite annoyed by Scabble trying to steal thier credit. [/QUOTE] Great info every adventurer needs!UAG2N: The Methods of Making Money (pg 4,532,871) UAG2N: Aggressive Fish of Norrath (pg 128,477) UAG2N: Time and Suspended Animation (pg 32) **ooc: lag** UAG2N: The Importance of a Fork (pg 17)
