A summary of what I have been "up to"! Options

[Ryan]

The more entropy allowed to exist and consume worlds, the more stories of the World Eater or similar such threats will spread. And this will greatly hasten the demise of even more worlds if allowed to proceed unchallenged.

Sirac

I’ve mentioned in private but in public for completeness

I think this is the key argument for why “starting the wheel” is probably bad knowing that the process of moving the worlds around creates more entropy not less. It’s the process of stopping the world that should have come to ascendancy being destroyed we need to fix in my opinion at least.

Louis

[Netheril]

I’ve mentioned in private but in public for completeness

I think this is the key argument for why “starting the wheel” is probably bad knowing that the process of moving the worlds around creates more entropy not less. It’s the process of stopping the world that should have come to ascendancy being destroyed we need to fix in my opinion at least.

Louis

I am no expert but from what I have been told, this is partially true. More entropy wont have the mentioned results, or nowhere near as significantly as the destruction of worlds will. But nonetheless it is absolutely not a desirable result that more entropy and destruction be caused across the cosmos.

And totally agree, and always have done, that the absolute priority is saving worlds from destruction without the chaos caused by Labyrinthia moving on if at all possible. Which it very much seems is indeed achievable.

Sirac

[dnsmantra]

Regarding planes "At Risk". We can assume that best-case a plane takes Primacy a period of time before it would fail. After that time it begins to wane and eventually fades. This means all planes that have been "skipped" are savable but maybe in bad shape.
Worst case a Plane is destroyed the moment after it is skipped. This means we can do nothing for the 3 planes that have been passed over and the 4th plane will be destroyed in a little over 950 years at the start of the 4th Age.

Gawlys, the home world of the Ggrutuck, and also the Blauz home world whose name I forget, and I believe the Duidoin home all decayed and were lost, by the 'world thief/eater' in the early years of this Age. If we assume the theories Owl/Sirac have stated are true, regardless of my general scepticism of anything that old, this would be at least 3 worlds which have already been lost this Age, shortly after the dawn. This likely implies that no other world is at threat for at least the next 980 years or so. This would need confirmation, and my instinct is that those were not the only worlds that were lost at the time. They certainly were though, as it was what led to those peoples using the Hasleracht (the windswept isle) to escape to Primus and coming under the sway of the Spiter.

If we assume all the above, this implies that these three worlds were probably the extent of those 'skipped' over. It is not possible to skip more than one world per thousand years, and we can only guess at what happened before the 1st Age, let alone thousands of years before that. We have no idea of the original timeline at which the exostance came into being. It may have only been a thousand or a few before that, it may have been millions of years. We will likely never know.

One thing that doesn't add up though, is why they were all at the point of loss and decay at the same time, if they were skipped in a staggered fashion. Can a world essentially survive indefinitely if it is skipped until there is some external trigger that causes its collapse? Was their collapse unrelated? Does the collapse of one such world cause a chain reaction of deprivation to nearby worlds, much like an implosion, explosion or black hole like phenomena might?

Some scrying around these matters, which are likely open and not shielded would seem productive, at least to work out why some things don't quite add up. If those world that have already been lost were the worlds at risk this age, and so on. If they were, then there's at least 900 years to work out a better solution, be that an exostance tree, or perhaps a web, where one plane sits in the centre and others 'orbit' around it.

Another idea is perhaps that there are multiple central planes. Primus and a its twins, one above and one below, or a triangle. Primus is a fixed anchor point and the other planes rotate in and align each dawn, two per dawn, and are renewed, and then move on, much like an hour glass, or the infinity symbol. So each year Primus has two twins, which share the cosmic heartland.

If we could also change the way renewal happens so it is more regular, but smaller, a wave each dawn that spreads outwards from Primus perhaps. Anyway, lots of options and ideas for solutions. And if, as I hope, we have hundreds of years, plenty of time to check, implement and find a way.

I believe Tertius' maths is sound, at least from a theoretical standpoint.

Nexus

[Netheril]

Gawlys, the home world of the Ggrutuck, and also the Blauz home world whose name I forget, and I believe the Duidoin home all decayed and were lost, by the 'world thief/eater' in the early years of this Age. If we assume the theories Owl/Sirac have stated are true, regardless of my general scepticism of anything that old, this would be at least 3 worlds which have already been lost. This likely implies that no other world is at threat for at least the next 980 years or so. This would need confirmation, and my instinct is that those were not the only worlds that were lost at the time. They certainly were though, as it was what led to those peoples using the Hasleracht (the windswept isle) to escape and coming under the sway of the Spiter.

Nexus

As mentioned in my reply to Tertius, if worlds continue to be destroyed, the process will become exponentially faster as belief in a world eater or similar malign force grows across the cosmos.

Sirac

[dnsmantra]

This was 20 years ago though Sirac, and the 'force/decay' ceased and hasn't been heard of or mentioned since that time until you mentioned it again. No worlds to my knowledge have further been lost. Something doesn't add up here and I'd like to know what. Mostly so that it doesn't come back and bite us in the [----] later.

It could be, that one world, lets say Gawyls was lost, and in so doing it caused exponential decay and the fall of the others, but I'd like to be sure.

As an aside, and to be helpful, for those perhaps less familiar with old theory, the Gazeteer has some interesting background on at least the current structure and principles of existance.

It is missing the nice hourglass diagram which shows the current planar structure of principle, prime and epidal planes in an hourglass, but it would be useful background reading to any who didn't travel at the time it was widely available reading. While interesting it also provides a number of potential 'tools' that we have to perhaps alter or shape reality.

Nexus

[Netheril]

This was 20 years ago though Sirac.

Nexus

Oh, absolutely. I agree it should be a very long time until the next world is actually destroyed, so long as we do not let tales of the world eater get out of hand.

But I thought the information that it would not always be increments of a thousand years but could be significantly hastened was important to share.

I see you added to your missive, so to be clear again, I had never heard of the World Eater. It was Watching Owl that brought that into the discussions. But I am concerned at rumours I am hearing of deliberate attempts to spread that tale too.

Sirac

[dnsmantra]

I agree on all three counts. The hastening is worrying indeed, as are the spreading of such rumours. I will do what I can to calm the people I know and to counter such as drunken tavern talk or similar nonsense.

And sorry, I have a bad habit of writing, re-reading and realising I've missed something and adding it (like I've just done now, with this).

Nexus

[Netheril]

I agree on all three counts. The hastening is worrying indeed, as are the spreading of such rumours. I will do what I can to calm the people I know and to counter such as drunken tavern talk or similar nonsense.

And sorry, I have a bad habit of writing, re-reading and realising I've missed something and adding it (like I've just done now, with this).

Nexus

I have divined, and whilst those responsible for this are shielded, it is being done deliberately. The answer I received was "Some people like to watch the world burn"

Sirac

[Ryan]

This was 20 years ago though Sirac, and the 'force/decay' ceased and hasn't been heard of or mentioned since that time until you mentioned it again. No worlds to my knowledge have further been lost. Something doesn't add up here and I'd like to know what. Mostly so that it doesn't come back and bite us in the [----] later.

Nexus

I actually think the Knights encountered the World Eater in the Flesh within the last 15 years, I’d point you at Tavis or Gimly

Louis

[RichFromant]

We did, while we were in the Land of Legend for nearly a week dealing with the Knights of Dark Renown we travelled to another plane which I unfortunately can't remember the name of or find notes off. There was someone intentionally hiding out on this world, we travelled there and killed them but it knocked unconscious most of our group there. While that was going on the World Eater was on the horizon, a giant supernatural being that was literally consuming the world.
From what I remember we did some quick scrying to find out if we could save that world or if we could fight the World Eater but neither was possible, we ended up rescuing as many people as we could while fighting smaller manifestations of the World Eater.

So, it is definitely something that has taken some form in the past and something that I remember being discussed and viewed as a threat previously, which is probably why rumours of it can spread so quickly.

Gimly