Wyrmlord said:
Avellone's out-of-game and more elaborate explanation:
The Paranoid Nameless One said that if he dies three more deaths, he will forget no more. However, his mind is becoming weaker, and he is on the verge of becoming a mindless zombie. As he becomes a mindless zombie, the Transcendental One himself is withering away into near nothingness (think Pratchett's Small Gods). You could say that they are in a state where even death dies. So his current incarnation is his last chance to set things right, since he is no longer forgetting, but is also becoming weaker and weaker.
Where's that from? As far as I know the Transcendental One isn't withering at all.
MCA's take:<blockquote>RPGWatch: Could you clear up once and for all the exact relation between the Nameless One's deaths, his amnesia and the three incarnations?
Chris Avellone: Spoilers! Don't read any farther if you intend to play the game.
Every time the Nameless One dies before the start of the game, his personality is erased. This is the result of the magic that the night hag Ravel performed on him to make him immortal, since everything Ravel did always had a brutal drawback that unmakes all her altruistic efforts. She discovered that he lost his memory after she “tested” her work by killing the player - the player woke up and had forgotten her and the reason he had asked for immortality in the first place. Rinse and repeat for a few thousand incarnations or more.
As the start of the game, however, Ravel's "blessing" is breaking down, and the Nameless One is actually able to remember his previous deaths up until the start of the game. Ironically, this coincides with the fact that his mental degradation is also escalating, and the longer he is killed and reborn, he will eventually become nothing more than a mindless zombie that is impossible to kill. Once he loses his will, there will be no way for him to save himself - or at least discover what drove him to this state. The events of the game is his last chance in his lifetimes to put things right.
The three incarnations the player meets at the end game are (1) the practical incarnation who discovered that someone was purposely killing the player and did a great many unethical things to strike back (led the assault on the Fortress, assembled Deionarra, Dak'kon, Xachariah, and Morte, built the trapped tomb for the killer, left notes on the player's back, deceived (?) Dak'kon with the Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon), (2) the insane incarnation who did all sorts of historical damage and tried to dismantle and ruin all that the practical one did (the two obviously hate each other at the end - the paranoid incarnation made the dodecahedron trapped journal, got mazed by the Lady of Pain, killed the linguist Fin and strangled a bunch of other people in Sigil), and (3) the seemingly well-meaning incarnation, who is actually the one who started this whole ball rolling by being a bastard, and then suddenly realizing that the karmic wheel was going to roll around for him and tried to change his ways.
It's important to say, however, that the well-meaning original incarnation genuinely felt remorse for what he had done, and he wanted to try to fix it - the only problem is, after the first death, he forgot his grand goal and doomed thousands of incarnations to immortality. I always felt that this was the proper way to handle this because I always felt that the “immortality fix” he tried to achieve was a quick fix, when in fact, he should have just owed up and paid the piper in the first place.</blockquote>In fact, your question about Morte is cleared up in that interview too, KC.<blockquote>RPGWatch: What's Morte's story exactly and where did the inspiration for the character come from?
Chris Avellone: Spoilers: Morte was yanked from the Pillar of Skulls by the player after swearing an oath to serve him. The player did this because he thought Morte would retain all the knowledge of the Pillar of Skulls once he was removed from it – he was wrong.
Morte is responsible for the deaths of more than one of the player's incarnations and is believed to be responsible for the death of the first incarnation as well, but there is no evidence for this other than Morte's suspicion.
Morte sticks with the player seemingly out of “Mimir” responsibility (he's not a Mimir), but in fact, it is Morte's guilt - the one noble emotion he has, although he refuses to confront it - is what drives him to try to help the player on his quest.
Incarnations in the past, however, have considered the floating skull to be deceptive and did not trust it, thus, the warnings in the player's tomb concerning Morte. </blockquote>
Krokar said:
Did anyone read Planescape: Torment by Rhys Hess? Is it any good?
Been meaning to. I read the official novelization from TSR, which is pretty meh, if perhaps more setting-accurate and having a more plausible explanation for TNO's memories returning.
