The voice of the Great Spirit of Wise Raven cawed throughout Gloriana, his vast cries stabbing like a knife deep into the forest’s soul. An enormous bolt of black lightning sundered the Great Ravenwood Tree and the forest trembled until we thought we were doomed. - From the Histories.

I assume that the black bolt of lightning is from Mother Night; during most of the rituals for Crow, She sends down lightning. My theory is that Mother Night destroyed the Ravenwood Tree as one last act of desperation before She was tainted.

If this isn't the case, however, then I don't see why the Taint would have destroyed it. The Taint hit the Stone of Truth with far more force, and on 4 different planes, to boot, so i'd think that would have a greater chance of breaking under the force of Kethuru's touch. On the other hand, maybe the Ravenwood just wasn't as resilient because it was a natural nexus?

Any insights?

Oh, by the way: TRANSCENDENT! Hoo-hah!

The Stone of Truth was different for several reasons.


Emperor Landantine was trying to channel power -through- the nexus, when it was tainted, that is why it effected it so severely.



I presume two things.


The Lightning was from the'Taint Storm', and as lightning tends to do, it struck the largest object so it would have the path of least resistance.

Or, as you believe, Mother Night did it to try to save the Ethereal.

I tend to agree with the belief that it was Mother Night attempting to save the Ethereal, possibly attempting to prevent another entirely tainted civilization (IE second Magnagora).

and, Merloch, he was attempting to channel -to- the nexus, not through. He was the conduit, not the Stone.

And simply because the Stone of Truth exists on four planes does not mean it exists on more. It existed on the Astral when they first came to it, and there are millions and millions of planes. I imagine it exists on likewise linked planes, as well. I imagine the presence of the Stone on multiple planes means very little, however. Just think segmented bendy straw.

I don't know if it exists on any more than those planes. After all, it's all pathetic and dodgy on Astral, so who's to say it exists at all further out?

I believe they exist outwards from the elemental plane. At least as far as elemental nexus go. So, look at it as a circle, and the hub being the elemental plane, and in each direction along the spokes it gets weaker. Celestia is closer to the hub than say prime, which has a layer of space where the Ethereal exists.

At least, how I percieve it. You can see the Astral as just before the rim of the hub, or the rim itself.

EDIT: Even better, view it as many different etheric wheels, and the hub being each elemental plane, and the prime between them, and the ethereal encircling the prime, more or less. Think ven diagram, kinna. Kinna.

I'm not sure I follow you there. I thought it was more like the Prime in the centre, then the Ether, then the Elements, then the Cosms, then the Astral...

I should think it would have existed on the Prime at its strongest state, because yeah, they're elemental looking, but they were actually created by Prime Material mages, right?

Yes, it was. However, notice the Pool of Stars in Celest, and then the Pool of Stars on Elemental Water. Water is much bigger (ie more powerful), and the histories point out that a pyro mancer is stronger on fire plane, etc etc.

I'm not saying it IS that way, only a theory, or a way of explaining it. I'm in one of my poorely descriptive moods.

I think the fact that they're bigger on the elements is more due to the design of the Nexi than their physical (or dimensional, or planar, or WHATEVER) placement, though. It just makes more sense to me for the planes to be going more alien as you get outwards, and the prime to be a sort of mix of all of them. Like, this plane is everything, then there's the Ether (which I don't really get, I figure it's like an alternate Prime, or maybe...life, as in the forests, but not affected by the other things?), then the elements that compose the world, then the rather more vague alignments represented by the cosms, then the...very...obscure things represented by the Astral.

Most likely it was the taint cloud that sent the black bolt into the Raven Tree. then it curropted Night and Raven.

The Nexuses do get weaker farther out. It says somewhere in the histories that the Eternal Flame was just a small pile of burning books, and that the Stone of Truth was a little rock, or something.

People are stronger on their relative planes because they don't have to cast taint etc. in every room before melding, and it's probably all demesned already

I beleive Ethereal is just the source of the Low Magics while Astral is the source of the High Magics.

It's very reasonable momma Night did it, in a Merilynth-esque attempt to protect something. Rather dead than Tainted.

Given this, and considering the Nexus are constructs of Magic (Mostly High, I believe), the reason they are so weak is they are relatively minor in comparisons to the HM floating around/existing in the Astral Plane.

Cute theory Erion, but I belive the High and Low magic help files state that High and Low are in no way related to their relative Powers.

Who says the nexus was destroyed? The tree was sundered by the lightning, but I wouldn't assume anything about the underlying nexus...

Mysterious and true. The tree itself is just a physical symbol of what is essentially an abstract and intangible (in a physical sense) entity.

One of the main reasons I figured it couldn't be a Nexus is because anyone, not just a Dark Council member or whatev, could pass through the Master Ravenwood with only basic Planar training as opposed to near-transcendant. You can't do that to any of the other Nexi, why would you be able to do it to this one? I figured it'd dissipated and just turned into a sort of hollow gate, with only the remnants of its own power.

Still not destroyed though, is it?