On the Nature of the Ziggurat

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[SIZE="5"]On the Nature of the Ziggurat[/SIZE]

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The page following the title is furnished with a drawing of the side of a halfling's face looking off to the left.  There is a small smile on his face, and his head is tilted slightly upward.  Beneath the head in bold lettering the words William Bell University appear.

It is a scenario I have not only lived, but seen played out time and time again; people being deposited here by the Mythallar with no understanding of how they have come to be here or why.  To this day people continue to ask me why this is, and I am not yet satisfied with the answer I am forced to give.

Garlin's Selection Theory: Sentient Determinism

As most of us know this place was originally a penal colony to the Netherese empire ages ago, and it was here that those prisoners originally fought and unleashed all manner of torments upon one another.  While many of the details are of course lost to time, even today we live in the aftermath of that chaos; magically engineered diseases like Y'krish designed by the Netherese to kill the indigenous Stargazers, islands forever scarred or changed from their experiments, and prisoners that yet exist, immortal and dangerous.

We can surmise from this being a penal colony that it once operated "correctly," in that it removed unwholesome elements of their empire.  While the average opportunist or thug might make us think that it yet fulfills its original purpose, this is easily contrasted by the appearance of paladins, scholars, and the like.  This would suggest that we have all been brought here at random, except for the fact that originally the Netherese would have had a way to control the magic of this place in order to target who was, in their mind, an undesirable.  It stands to reason that there was a method of control for this phenomenon.

Given that we have established there was control, we are now left with the question of why so long after their demise we are to suffer this misfortune?  In answer to this there are at this point in time two possibilities.  Many individuals who have explored the interior of these ruins have noted the presence of seemingly broken structures of arcane design, obelisks that have suffered damage of a type.  We are left to question if these structures are significant to the teleportative function of the Ziggurat, whether or not they were damaged with intent, and if their repair can ultimately lead to a way back home.

Yet, in spite of the damage done to these structures, there was originally control of this function.  Even in the most complicated mechanisms a Gondsman might design, how would the ravages of time or malicious intent change what was once a thing that was operated to a thing that simply works from time to time?  To put this idea more simply, let us say I made a ballista and we all found a way home tomorrow, and fifty or however many years later more people came and found that ballista I had made.  What are the odds that ballista would randomly aim itself at people and fire?  While my analogy fails in that we are dealing with powerful magical artifacts rather than siege weaponry, I believe it makes a valid point in that the switch from operated to random phenomenon is quite a stretch of the imagination.

I believe that to this day, there is a being (or group there of) that is actively choosing what people are drawn here by this power.  While I could offer several possibilities, the number of prisoners and beings that benefit from our presence here is too great for me to make any reasonable claim about the responsible party at this time.  All I can say is that several things want us to be here, and until we confront them and their mysteries we will yet remain.

Other Theories of Note:

The first theory that most seemed to have adopted is that the pull of the Ziggurat is truly random.  I have taken great lengths to argue that the opposite could be true, but ultimately, there is almost no criteria for selecting something to be pulled through.  While humans remain the most prevalent of the displaced population, there is no shortage of other goodly races, yet there has also been the appearance of things strange or foul.  Of the more unsavory beings, there have been kobolds, minotaurs, and even a sentient weapon that could charm its wielder into acts of great barbarism, a thing seemingly made on this very island.  Once something entirely inanimate appears like a box or crate, the only criterion we have established, the presence of sentience, fails in the face of an engine of true chaos.

One of the earliest deterministic theories about the nature of the Ziggurat was that it sought to create a continuous state of engineered chaos, or rather, that each being brought here was done so with the belief that they would grossly contradict another in some fashion and we would forever be subject to a sustained state of anarchy.  One must keep in mind that when the Militia was a faltering force and thugs like de Olid did as they pleased, before the name Sharboneth was even known to this place, it seemed much more plausible.  I think that even today it bares mentioning for the fact that we are beings drawn from seemingly every corner of Toril, and while chaos is likely the result of our varying mindsets, ethics, and faith, rather than the intent, it remains in my mind an interesting thought experiment.

More than a few have stated their belief that a deity has brought them here, and while I think there is merit in this statement in that if the gods did not by and large will this it would not be, I think very few people, if any, were actively chosen by a deity for teleportation.  Consider the misfortunes the people here have suffered.  What sort of god, save one like Cyric or Beshaba, would honestly wish this existence on their faithful?  With slavers on one corner, orcs in the other, and all manner of ancient evils in between, I'd argue we might be able to replace a layer of the Nine with this place.  In the end, I suppose this place will ultimately become what we make of it, but I hope you'll forgive me if I take a chance at escape should it present itself.


Asdon Garlin, Lorekeeper of Oghma and Founder of William Bell University