Maianel Istor
Citizen
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2021
- Messages
- 60
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- She - Her
If you're someone who breaks out in hives at alteration to canon, look away, because this is going full alternate universe.
I have a yen to run a WOT tabletop RPG someday for my friends. The genesis for it came about thusly:
- It would be interesting to run something set in Hawkwing's time. There's lots of interesting people and stuff there -- Hawkwing himself, Bonwhin, Guaire Amalasan, the War of the Second Dragon, etc. Very useful for building a campaign.
- Oh, and that bit about Jalwin Moerad being Ishamael in disguise. What plot would I make out of that?
- . . . huh. You know, this would be fun way to mess with my players: they'll assume that since this is taking place centuries before the series proper, it isn't about the Dragon Reborn. But what if it IS about the Dragon Reborn?
So here's the idea, leading up to the bit I'm sticking on: My notion is that the Wheel didn't wait thousands of years to spin LTT's soul out as Rand. It's actually spun him out multiple times; some (though certainly not all) false Dragons have been more like failed Dragons. There's a tipping point -- probably Callandor -- that would cement someone as the Real True Dragon Reborn and start fate marching more rapidly toward Tarmon Gai'don . . . but time and time again, Dragons have failed to make it that far, being killed or gentled before they can achieve their destiny.
In fact, part of the reason they keep failing is the interference of Ishamael and the Black Ajah. The sooner the Last Battle happens, the stronger the seals are when it takes place; an early Last Battle is a Last Battle the Light has a better chance of winning. Ergo, the plot of the game would be that Guaire is actually (another) Dragon Reborn, and sort of fate-bound to Hawkwing through them both being strongly ta'veren. (One of the fan theories from back in the day was that all three of Rand, Perrin, and Mat were ta'veren to keep Rand from basically ripping a hole in the Pattern by having all that weight centered on himself. I can't remember if canon ever said anything one way or another on that.) Hawkwing is meant to wind up supporting Guaire, but Moerad interferes to prevent that and ensure Guaire's failure. Enter the player-characters, etc. etc. plot ensues.
Here's the bit I'm sticking on: the Karaethon Cycle. The parts of it that aren't just flowery prophetic mutterings are rather obviously tailored to Rand's life (since canonically he's the only one they're talking about), but that doesn't work well for my scenario. It would be way too obvious if multiple guys all fit that exact biographical profile. I know Logain says something at one point about how if he'd succeeded in his bid then undoubtedly the histories would show he'd been born on Dragonmount -- but he wasn't, and "people will just forget the truth" feels to me like an unsatisfactory answer for dealing with prophecy. Chewing on this so far, here are the options I've come up with:
1) Rewrite the Prophecies of the Dragon to be vaguer and more flexible, so they can plausibly apply to multiple people. Downside is that "vague and flexible" tends to be the opposite of "flavorful and compelling."
2) Lean into the fact that Seanchan has their own prophecies and the Shadow has their own prophecies, and these things don't always agree; therefore, there could be multiple contradictory texts of the Karaethon Cycle. Downside is that I'm pretty sure canon just positions these alternatives as wrong, and also it feels a bit weird to say "there is totally fate in this setting, but it's frequently multiple-choice." On the other hand, that maybe fits with the idea that the Dragon Reborn isn't fully the Dragon Reborn until he fulfills a specific condition? On the other other hand, I feel like if people in this world know there are multiple versions, some Brown sister would have figured out that maybe it means the Dragon will reincarnate more than once, and I don't want that being a theory that exists at the start of the game.
3) Lean into Darkfriend interference, and say they somehow corrupted the text of the Karaethon Cycle so that it's just wrong and everybody but them is looking for the wrong thing. Downside is that this doesn't actually let me have multiple possible Dragons, since the real text would presumably still lay out descriptors for how he's born etc., which either puts me back to the original problem or turns this into option #1.
4) . . . something something Mirror Worlds? I don't really know how to leverage this. They fit with the idea that there are different ways this can play out, but branching events creating new Mirror Worlds doesn't mean that retroactively changes the text of prophecy -- and even if it did, the characters would only have access to the version that now exists in their world; anything they found via Portal Stone or Tel'aran'rhiod or any means of accessing a Mirror World would seem like it applies only to that world, not their own. But this feels like a very cool way to go, if only I can figure out a way to make it work.
Anybody have a suggestion for that last one, or other alternatives I've overlooked? (The *finn? Nakomi? Did we ever learn what's up with her?)
I have a yen to run a WOT tabletop RPG someday for my friends. The genesis for it came about thusly:
- It would be interesting to run something set in Hawkwing's time. There's lots of interesting people and stuff there -- Hawkwing himself, Bonwhin, Guaire Amalasan, the War of the Second Dragon, etc. Very useful for building a campaign.
- Oh, and that bit about Jalwin Moerad being Ishamael in disguise. What plot would I make out of that?
- . . . huh. You know, this would be fun way to mess with my players: they'll assume that since this is taking place centuries before the series proper, it isn't about the Dragon Reborn. But what if it IS about the Dragon Reborn?
So here's the idea, leading up to the bit I'm sticking on: My notion is that the Wheel didn't wait thousands of years to spin LTT's soul out as Rand. It's actually spun him out multiple times; some (though certainly not all) false Dragons have been more like failed Dragons. There's a tipping point -- probably Callandor -- that would cement someone as the Real True Dragon Reborn and start fate marching more rapidly toward Tarmon Gai'don . . . but time and time again, Dragons have failed to make it that far, being killed or gentled before they can achieve their destiny.
In fact, part of the reason they keep failing is the interference of Ishamael and the Black Ajah. The sooner the Last Battle happens, the stronger the seals are when it takes place; an early Last Battle is a Last Battle the Light has a better chance of winning. Ergo, the plot of the game would be that Guaire is actually (another) Dragon Reborn, and sort of fate-bound to Hawkwing through them both being strongly ta'veren. (One of the fan theories from back in the day was that all three of Rand, Perrin, and Mat were ta'veren to keep Rand from basically ripping a hole in the Pattern by having all that weight centered on himself. I can't remember if canon ever said anything one way or another on that.) Hawkwing is meant to wind up supporting Guaire, but Moerad interferes to prevent that and ensure Guaire's failure. Enter the player-characters, etc. etc. plot ensues.
Here's the bit I'm sticking on: the Karaethon Cycle. The parts of it that aren't just flowery prophetic mutterings are rather obviously tailored to Rand's life (since canonically he's the only one they're talking about), but that doesn't work well for my scenario. It would be way too obvious if multiple guys all fit that exact biographical profile. I know Logain says something at one point about how if he'd succeeded in his bid then undoubtedly the histories would show he'd been born on Dragonmount -- but he wasn't, and "people will just forget the truth" feels to me like an unsatisfactory answer for dealing with prophecy. Chewing on this so far, here are the options I've come up with:
1) Rewrite the Prophecies of the Dragon to be vaguer and more flexible, so they can plausibly apply to multiple people. Downside is that "vague and flexible" tends to be the opposite of "flavorful and compelling."
2) Lean into the fact that Seanchan has their own prophecies and the Shadow has their own prophecies, and these things don't always agree; therefore, there could be multiple contradictory texts of the Karaethon Cycle. Downside is that I'm pretty sure canon just positions these alternatives as wrong, and also it feels a bit weird to say "there is totally fate in this setting, but it's frequently multiple-choice." On the other hand, that maybe fits with the idea that the Dragon Reborn isn't fully the Dragon Reborn until he fulfills a specific condition? On the other other hand, I feel like if people in this world know there are multiple versions, some Brown sister would have figured out that maybe it means the Dragon will reincarnate more than once, and I don't want that being a theory that exists at the start of the game.
3) Lean into Darkfriend interference, and say they somehow corrupted the text of the Karaethon Cycle so that it's just wrong and everybody but them is looking for the wrong thing. Downside is that this doesn't actually let me have multiple possible Dragons, since the real text would presumably still lay out descriptors for how he's born etc., which either puts me back to the original problem or turns this into option #1.
4) . . . something something Mirror Worlds? I don't really know how to leverage this. They fit with the idea that there are different ways this can play out, but branching events creating new Mirror Worlds doesn't mean that retroactively changes the text of prophecy -- and even if it did, the characters would only have access to the version that now exists in their world; anything they found via Portal Stone or Tel'aran'rhiod or any means of accessing a Mirror World would seem like it applies only to that world, not their own. But this feels like a very cool way to go, if only I can figure out a way to make it work.
Anybody have a suggestion for that last one, or other alternatives I've overlooked? (The *finn? Nakomi? Did we ever learn what's up with her?)