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On the tip o' my tongue for some years now


Ripheus23

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For some reason, the 16/17 thing about the Shards has always subtly reminded me of something, but I couldn't figure it out. The closest was thinking that the 16 might be relevant to a personality test. However, within the last few days, I finally remembered.

The Outer Planes from D&D.

I don't know what state the D&D cosmologies are at today, but while I was growing up, they were still roughly at the, "Sixteen Outer Planes surrounding a seventeeth," stage. Now, the logic behind them is morally slanted, plus only really requires nine examples, but let's imagine that there's a vague possible mapping from the Outer Planes to the Shards, with the 17th Shard being the neutral "center."

Here are my guesses:

Odium: The Gray Wastes (from Wikipedia: "Here, all emotion and compassion is drained away, until only hopelessness, selfishness and apathy remain").

Dominion: Baator

Ruin: The Abyss

Mechanus: Preservation (Wiki: "This clockwork plane is the ultimate in order")

Having a heck of a time with Cultivation, maybe Arcadia, the Beastlands, or Arborea

Honor: Ysgard ("The eternal battleground where true heroes prove their valor": Tranquiline Halls much? though this depends on how much of the TH mythos is Honor's)

Devotion: Elysium

Autonomy: Limbo

Ambition: Pandemonium

Endowment: Bytopia (only "link": the term "BioChromatic Breath")

EDIT: Possible extra Shards Ingenuity/Wisdom and Grief = have neutral planar counterparts?

Also if Honor is not Ysgard, he's Celestia, maybe.

Edited by Ripheus23
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Have any of you seen the King of 8 skit from Sesame Street? When I have to hang out with young kids, I show it to them. That way I don't have to interact with small people; they're sticky, and this is a tangent. Back to your regularly scheduled Sesame Street content: the 16 Shards reminded me of him. That's what I meant to say. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, look it up. It's funny.

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1 hour ago, R J said:

The 16 Shards for me, always reminded me of the 16 Daedric Princes.

Cultivation is Nocturnal, Odium is Molag-bal and Mehrunes-Dagon is Ruin. I can't figure out Preservation and Honor, lol.

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1 hour ago, Krafl said:

Cultivation is Nocturnal, Odium is Molag-bal and Mehrunes-Dagon is Ruin. I can't figure out Preservation and Honor, lol.

I think I made a comparison list, I'll go look at copy it here.

Edit: nope, it was a v/s list

Quote

Odium vs Boethiah! Ruin vs Mehrunes Dagon! Dominion vs Molag Bal! Ambition vs Mephala! Cultivation vs Azura! Wisdom(?) vs Hermaeus Mora! Autonomy vs Sheogorath! Preservation vs Meridia! Honor vs Namira! Devotion vs Vaermina

 

Edited by R J
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24 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

Preservation, maybe.

Agreed.

Wow that is amazing!   .

Now I have to line them up.  OK. So far I have. 

Limbo = Ruin

Arcadia = Honor

Mechanus = Preservation

Edited by Karger
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7 hours ago, Ripheus23 said:

Honor: Ysgard ("The eternal battleground where true heroes prove their valor": Tranquiline Halls much? though this depends on how much of the TH mythos is Honor's)

I think he's more along the lines of Arcadia. He definitely wouldn't be on the chaotic side of the wheel.

I agree with the other ones. 

Edited by ChickenLiberty
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If any of this was an indication of anything, that leaves three more evil (from our POV, or whatever) Shards, one for a prison-plane, one for some floating volcanoes or what IIRC, but where one of the ultimate fiend-lords dwells, and one for another battle-plane.

2 hours ago, Karger said:

I wonder which shard is Mechanus.

Preservation, maybe.

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I'd just like to expand on this a little, maybe get a few more options for each Shard.

The planes have remained mostly unchanged over the years, although there have been some additions to the cosmology, like the Feywild and the Shadowfell.

The new list of outer planes reads: Mount Celestia (Purity and goodness), Bytopia (Productivity), Eylsium (Compassion), The Beastlands (Life and wildness), Arborea (Plane of emotion), Ysgard (Honor and Battle), Limbo (Chaos), Pandemonium (Madness), The Abyss (sadism, basically), Carceri (Prison), Hades (Places w/out joy, hope, or passion), Ghenna (greed), The Nine Hells (Evil, but more lawful), Acheron (War for war's sake), Mechanus (Pure Law), Arcadia (Utopia and teamwork)

The 16 outer planes have all gotten mechanical features, which you can use to sort these more accurately.

Looking at the revised planes and what they represent, these are probably the best options for each Shard:

Odium: He probably isn't represented by Arborea, as the plane is entirely good-aligned. Best options are the Abyss, which mechanically corrupts people to be evil, or Pandemonium, which inflames negative emotions like annoyance and suspicion. 

Ruin: Limbo, the plane of constant change, or The Abyss, because it's of constant destruction.

Dominion: Carceri, the plane of control (probably the least detailed plane), or maybe Arcadia, since the whole plane is an alliance of kingdoms

Preservation is definitely Mechanus.

Cultivation: Most likely the Beastlands, since they represent untamed wilderness.

Honor: Ysgard doesn't really have anything directly to do with oaths and honor, more that it's based off of Norse mythology which is associated with those values. As a replacement I submit Bytopia or Arcadia, both of which have an emphasis on having law and order.

Devotion: Elysium still seems like the most likely candidate, but maybe you could make an argument for Ysgard?

Autonomy: The mechanical feature of Limbo is letting you control and shape the chaos with your mind, my gut feel says this plane fits but either the chaos or the shaping feels off..

Ambition: Ambition is Ghenna, plane of greed. Pandemonium in the most recent version is a bunch of windy tunnels that drive you slowly insane with no natural inhabitants.

Endowment: Mount Celestia seems good for the current shardholder, but one less focused on color and beauty might not fit there.

I also realized that the mechanical attribute of Archeron is literally the thrill, so that might link it to Odium, but it is one of the other planes with little information on it in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Arborea, Hades, and Pandemonium don't seem to fit with any of the current shards.

 

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I made this massive wall of text right when this was posted but couldn't upload until just now, otherwise I would have read through and adjusted it.

*Edit* I'm new and just realized I could edit, lol.

Also that this second post probably wasn't necessary

Edited by Hoidolasium
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On 6/26/2020 at 2:11 PM, Hoidolasium said:

Hades (Places w/out joy, hope, or passion)

Two things, though. Well, three even, but anyway, first, Odium isn't actually "Passion." That's a complex lie of his. The Dawnchant description of Odium was of something that drained all emotion, leaving a void.

Second, supposing Sanderson was inspired enough by any of this to incorporate it into the Shards, it had to have been going back some years, before the planes got these mechanisms tagged to them?

Third, but this is just me, I always preferred yugoloths over baatezu and tanarii, on a conceptual level. I mean, I held strongly to that "neutral good is most good, neutral evil is most evil" notion (I started out as chaotic good but then found out it wasn't "pure" good, so I switched to neutral good, etc.). I feel like Odium's evil is great enough to be the closest in the cosmere (of the Shards we've seen) to pure evil. Now granted, the yugoloths also have a major hub in Gehenna, it's where their lord is after all, but otherwise, the yugoloths supposedly originating in Hades also pushes me in the Odium:Hades direction.

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