Should Nightbane origin be defined?

Zenvis · Unread post by **Zenvis** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:50 pm

So...???

Specter · Unread post by **Specter** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:57 pm

keep the origins as mysterious as possible...

Mike Taylor · Unread post by **Mike Taylor** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:50 am

Well, I already know what the original creator's intent was, so the question is moot for me.

drewkitty ~..~ · Wed Jun 23, 2004 12:02 am

if it is truely defined then the GMs don't have wiggle rome to make their oun games unique.

Mike Taylor · Unread post by **Mike Taylor** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 1:54 am

sandhog wrote:Some more hints would be nice I think, though in Cabal Clive Barker didn't exactly say where they were from, only that they had been around for as long as human history so I guess CJ was stumped too

No, he actually had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted to do with the Nightbane as far as their origins. He just never implemented it before he left to do his stuff with Myrmidon Press (and now with Eden Studios).

Mike Taylor · Unread post by **Mike Taylor** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:17 pm

Lord Cre-al PM'd me asking what it was CJ had intended for the 'Banes. Do you want me to post it? It has already been posted and Jason Vey, who wrote the last Nightbane book can confirm this information.

Mike Taylor · Unread post by **Mike Taylor** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:59 pm

Well, that's two votes "yea".

Mike Taylor · Unread post by **Mike Taylor** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 3:02 pm

No new replies, but I will go ahead and post the idea that CJ had.

It's simply this. The Nightbane are the souls of the dead Formless Ones. Being dead, this also answers the second most common question: Can Nightbane reproduce? Which, of course, is no.

Now, bear in mind that since neither CJ nor, Kevin Hassall, nor Jason Vey ever touched on this in the books, GMs are still free to do what they will.

Tinker Dragoon · Mon Jun 28, 2004 2:55 pm

Misfit KotLD wrote:
Mike Taylor wrote:No new replies, but I will go ahead and post the idea that CJ had.

It's simply this. The Nightbane are the souls of the dead Formless Ones. Being dead, this also answers the second most common question: Can Nightbane reproduce? Which, of course, is no.

Now, bear in mind that since neither CJ nor, Kevin Hassall, nor Jason Vey ever touched on this in the books, GMs are still free to do what they will.

So they just appear as orphans?

Pretty much. Sometimes in the woods, sometimes "left" on someone's doorstep, etc.

My personal take on it was loosely based on Kurama in Yu Yu Hakusho (if that means anything to anyone...): Their fractured spirit essences take up residence in unborn children and are born normally into the world, only discovering their true nature later in life (sometimes never).

Zenvis · Unread post by **Zenvis** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:23 pm

Mike Taylor wrote:No new replies, but I will go ahead and post the idea that CJ had.

It's simply this. The Nightbane are the souls of the dead Formless Ones. Being dead, this also answers the second most common question: Can Nightbane reproduce? Which, of course, is no.

Now, bear in mind that since neither CJ nor, Kevin Hassall, nor Jason Vey ever touched on this in the books, GMs are still free to do what they will.

Hmm... It almost makes sense but being non-official stuff leads the next man (or woman) to write more about the bane is more then entitle to creatively cut loose as to the eloofness of the creature called the bane.

Mike Taylor · Unread post by **Mike Taylor** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:03 am

True. However, I've come to like the idea myself and that's the one I'm going to run with.

Mike Taylor · Unread post by **Mike Taylor** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 1:51 am

Ancients? You mean the Lost Race? Nobody alive today knows, except possibly the Nightlords and they certainly aren't talking.

The Guardians are also a mystery, though there are some hints that they may be connected to the creatures that pilot the Void Ships, who do look very similar. So far as is known, none of the writers who worked on Nightbane have spoken on where they wanted to go with either the Lost Race or the Guardians beyond what they published.

For those that want to expand the scope of their campaign by hinting at the other Palladium settings, the Lost Race could easily have been True Atlanteans. It is not outside the realm of possibility.

Tinker Dragoon · Mon Jul 05, 2004 2:54 pm

Mike Taylor wrote:Ancients? You mean the Lost Race? Nobody alive today knows, except possibly the Nightlords and they certainly aren't talking.

The Guardians are also a mystery, though there are some hints that they may be connected to the creatures that pilot the Void Ships, who do look very similar. So far as is known, none of the writers who worked on Nightbane have spoken on where they wanted to go with either the Lost Race or the Guardians beyond what they published.

For those that want to expand the scope of their campaign by hinting at the other Palladium settings, the Lost Race could easily have been True Atlanteans. It is not outside the realm of possibility.

Or perhaps even the Lost Ones from Rifts Mercenaries?

Reagren Wright · Fri Jul 09, 2004 3:08 pm

The idea of the Nightbane being the ghosts of the Formless Ones
goes along with the concept that I always felt about their origin.
The Guardians I always saw as some benevolent force snatching
away good people from violent deaths and given them a rebirth.
Or psychics being taken away and being used as puppets in the
eternal struggle between good and evil. My plea is for anyone
who takes up the pen or in this case the keyboard and writes
these concepts in the next book. On a side note sure be nice if
someone stayed long enough at Palladium to finish a project that
included the origin or at least gave better clues.

Zenvis · Unread post by **Zenvis** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 11:28 am

The origin is best left as a debate.

dark brandon · Unread post by **dark brandon** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 3:36 pm

Reagren Wright wrote:The idea of the Nightbane being the ghosts of the Formless Ones
goes along with the concept that I always felt about their origin.
The Guardians I always saw as some benevolent force snatching
away good people from violent deaths and given them a rebirth.
Or psychics being taken away and being used as puppets in the
eternal struggle between good and evil. My plea is for anyone
who takes up the pen or in this case the keyboard and writes
these concepts in the next book. On a side note sure be nice if
someone stayed long enough at Palladium to finish a project that
included the origin or at least gave better clues.

THe guardians I always felt were the creations of "the Light". Just like "The Darkness" a primordial force, of order and law. and just like Nightlords are pawns of the Darkness, so to are the void ships of light. They are usually concidered "good" guys, but I have it planned out that should it ever gain dominance, the world would be a very Just and Order place. So much so that it would seem almost inhuman. A good example of where I got the idea was from, Oddly enough Mortal Kombat Deception.

Marcethus · Unread post by **Marcethus** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 11:15 pm

I had already figured it had something to do with the Formless Ones since there are plenty of allusions to it through the references of the Reshapers and the Lost Ones. Not that any Nightbane knows this lol

Rex · Unread post by **Rex** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 9:47 am

I like the Gaurdians even less than I like the Nightbane. Well, NB's I can tolerate.

What I want to know more about is the Night Princes. Are they immature Nightlords? How does a Prince become a Lord? I wanted to write up something about it, but I'm pretty damn lazy.

Zer0 Kay · Unread post by **Zer0 Kay** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 2:28 pm

Mike Taylor wrote:No new replies, but I will go ahead and post the idea that CJ had.

It's simply this. The Nightbane are the souls of the dead Formless Ones. Being dead, this also answers the second most common question: Can Nightbane reproduce? Which, of course, is no.

Now, bear in mind that since neither CJ nor, Kevin Hassall, nor Jason Vey ever touched on this in the books, GMs are still free to do what they will.

Well dang I guess that answers the question I was just going to ask if Nightbane are human.

Sanctu · Unread post by **Sanctu** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:05 am

Personally, I don't want a cannon answer for it. Left to imagination is better. Not that I wouldn't want to see ideas from other people, mind you. That's why I read these posts. I just remember being rather disappointed by the Rifter that talked about the Nightbane-like, shapeshifting angels; feeling let down; and vowing never to use that bit of material in my own game.

I like the way things are set-up so that eventually, if they are paying attention, the characters might try to find out their own origins. But those origins aren't written anywhere.

How do you all deal with things when the characters track down the orphanage or whatever?

Sentinel · Unread post by **Sentinel** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 2:21 pm

I like being able to custom-fit the origin of the Nightbane to each campaign, or even keep their origins totally shrouded in mystery.
So, no I don't want an offical story for them.

Gomen_Nagai · Unread post by **Gomen_Nagai** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:01 pm

my own solution is that Nightbanes can induce Lost one souls to reincarnate in humans...
(That's one faction of Banes I have running in my hypothetical Warlords (NB Gang books)

Beelzebozo · Unread post by **Beelzebozo** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:25 pm

There's a bit more information on the origin of the Nightlords in Shadows of Light (as well as obviously in Nightlands). What sort of information were you looking for, exactly?

Oh, and by the by, it's "canon", not "cannon". A cannon goes boom; canon is official.

Beelzebozo · Unread post by **Beelzebozo** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:35 pm

Engaging shameless plug circuit...

You want more Nightlords? Between me and Matt Penn, we've got four of 'em on my site, complete with avatars, Night Prince assistants, two Cults of Night, and three and a half cities (Still working on Nashville...grr...Birmingham and Charleston coming sometime. Eventually. Maybe.)

YARRRRGGG!!!

Sorry, the shameless plug circuit shorted out, electrocuting me. Am now typing this from the Great Beyond.

Officially, we know this: the Formless Ones, the original inhabitants of the Nightlands, are definitely related in some fashion to both the Athanatos and Nightbane. The Formless Ones played a part somehow in the Wars of Light and Darkness, and were destroyed or enslaved somehow by the Nightlords soon after their exile to the Nightlands. We know some of the Athanatos's history of themselves, but we aren't sure how much of it is accurate and how much is myth. Presumably, the Nightbane are a reincarnation of the Formless Ones in some way, whether through bonding with a human (the old theory from the PML) or through recreating themselves as a cowbird-like orphan masquerading as a human (as some people here have hypothesized).

I would assume from this that the reason the Nightbane do so much damage to the Nightlords is because they are created (in whatever fashion) to overthrow the Ba'al and take revenge for the destruction of the Formless Ones. The Nightlords may or may not know that the Nightbane are connected to the Formless Ones (my guess is they do), but the kind of damage an organized group of them can do to Ba'al minions is sure to land them at the top of Moloch's hit list.

Unofficially, I would guess that the Formless Ones, in addition to living in the Nightlands, played some kind of critical role in exiling the Ba'al from Earth. I played around a bit with this in my old Nightbane Fae netbook, but I never did get around to finishing any of the tribes (other than the goblins, who were already in Domhain Dorcha).

Beelzebozo · Unread post by **Beelzebozo** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 7:30 pm

I've always liked the idea that the Nightbane and Ba'al were connected somehow (remember, the name was changed to Nightbane; ie, the bane of the Nightlords).

Now, if you'll excuse me, the taskmaster is yelling at me to get back to work on the Illuminati material. He's getting out the spiked whip this time.

Gomen_Nagai · Unread post by **Gomen_Nagai** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 1:46 am

I think Dark Conversions said that 1000 Nightbanes come into existance for every Nightlord.
and 1000 Cultists are needed before 1 Nightlord can cross over.
.... seems like a big nasty number. No wonder the Nightlords Fear the Nightbanes : )

and really , the nightlands is described as a " balancing realm" in TTGD and NL with the introduction of the nemesis and dopplegangers.

Beelzebozo · Unread post by **Beelzebozo** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 8:06 am

1) It's Dark Conversions. I don't buy Rifts anymore, and wouldn't use it.

2) That's specifically a conversion of the Nightlords, etc, into the Rifts realm. From what I understand, the book significantly alters some of the concepts to make them fit, hence aren't the same as the "standard" Nightbane world. I would say that the "1000" number is that way; ie, complete and total BS that Big Kev pulled out of his arse to make the Nightbane "kewler".

3) Yes, I know about the balancing. I would assume that the Nightbane are part of that (Formless Ones being the inhabitants, possibly the creators/shapers of the dimension).

Beelzebozo · Unread post by **Beelzebozo** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 5:54 pm

You probably heard me mention it (though not in this thread) or read it on my site. Highly unofficial, and I should have mentioned it as such if I didn't. The Third Ba'al Civil War is the creation of Matt Penn, part of the background he came up with when writing Atlanta for Shadows of the South. I expanded the idea a bit for Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham.

Reagren Wright · Wed Sep 14, 2005 2:22 pm

I was chatting with Kevin at Gen Con and he REALLY wants a freelancer
to take up Nightbane and really run with it. He loves the idea of someone
exploring the nature of the Nightbane, going deep into who and what they are.
That's what the problem is, although CJ last two books explored
the Nightbane universe, they didn't go any furhter into talking about the
Bane. In Through the Glass and Shadows of Light, none of these books go
into great detail about the Nightbane, who are after all the main characters
of the Nightbane universe. These are guys are suppost to be the bulk of
the player characters, and everyone is tossing them asside creating new stuff
instead of further developing them. That's what Kevin is looking
for. Someone to talk about the Nightbane for once. Sure you can spice up the world, but let the
meat and pototoes of the book be about the Bane.

Gomen_Nagai · Unread post by **Gomen_Nagai** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:07 pm

I'd love to make a book concentrating on the Nightbane warlords and nightbane Ancients... but since " Bad things " are more my area of experise then ancient history, It would have to be a colaborative effort.

that.. and I Really Want to see the Nightbane Gang based on TOHO monsters in print : )

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