I don't understand the timeline (Spoilers)

[Sippik]

Hi guys,

First of all, please be aware that I will spoil a lot of things about the campaign Return of the Runelords and if you plan to play the the campaign as players, please don’t read this thread

So, I have a question for the game masters. I will play this campaign with my group but I’m a bit confusing regarding the timeline of the 5th and 6th adventures of this campaign. It’s about time travelling and it’s always tough to understand everything.

So, for me, the first four books of the adventure path are clears. But what I don’t understand is what Alaznist did with the Scepter of Ages. She damages the past to create a new thassilon. From the moment she damages time, the present changes and some of the historical events are altered (the seven wounds). But how Xanderghul is aware of those changes? He says in his notes (cf Temple of the Peacock Spirit). He wrote that he thinks Alaznist change something in the past even if he can’t prove it. But if Alaznist already changed the past, the present should be different right? Xanderghul says that the timeline must be altered and that the historicals texts changed, but actually they didn’t as the creation of Shiedron for example is still correct in the current timeline (as the Sihedron Heroes wears it).

So the PC must goes to Xin-Edasseril to find what changed in their world, but actually they don’t have to do that as the timeline isn’t altered for now. The timeline is altered only when the PC are back in their world at the beginning of the 6th adventure (Korvosa is destroyed, Magnimar is invaded by sinspawns, etc.).

Basically, I don’t get it. My main question is how Xanderghul could know that timeline changed from use of Scepter of Ages as he lived in a world where the timeline is the good one, not altered by Alaznist ?

I hope this make sense for you, please help me ☹

PS : and sorry for my poor english. I’m French and maybe I miss some key points when reading the campaign.

[magnuskn]

The same way the PC's know it, the adventures make clear that throughout the AP the PC's have problems with certain Knowledge checks, due to the damage to the time stream. Xanderghul suffers from the same phenomenon and since he has in-game knowledge of the Scepter of Ages, can make sense of what is happening. The PC's encounter his findings in his journal, IIRC, and therefore try to reverse the damage done by Alaznist.

[Sippik]

You mean, Xanderghul is in the same status as the PC. As he’s involved in the time paradox, he has some memory of what happened when Alaznist used the scepter of ages ?

In terms of timeline, it would be something like that:
- The PC emerge in the actual world.
- When the adventure path begins, Alaznist rise and kill Xanderghul.
- At the begnining of the second tome, the Sihedron Heroes are trap in the past by Alaznist.
- During the same adventure path, or at the beginning of the next one, Alaznist start to use the scepter of ages to damage the past. By doing so, the PC start having difficulties to remember some event of their past. In fact, at this moment, the PC saved the actual world by remove Alaznist damage. If they didn’t do that, the world would be different from the start of the third tome.
- The PC continue their way in the adventure path and they arrive in the Temple of the Peacock Spirit to confront Xanderghul. They defeat him and stole their notes.
- As Xanderghul is also affected by the damaged time, he has some memories of what Alazsnit did and so, he can give this information to the PC.
- After taking the notes, the PC are ready to go to Crystalian to learn what Alaznist change in the past. When they comeback to the curent time, they have to go to the dimension of time to heal the wounds.

It still doesn’t explain why at a sudden point of the adventures, the damages that Alaznist inflicts to the past affect the current timeline. If they PC resolve those issues, then they shouldn’t appears, and if they didn’t, they should occurs earlier…

Where am I wrong?

[Chakat Firepaw]

You are assuming single-path monodimensional time. It's common to use at least bidemensional time in fiction involving time travel.

Think of there being a 'history' dimension and a 'perception' dimension. Normally, people's lives trace a straight diagonal¹, but time travel changes that. When you travel into the past, your line of existence jumps along the history axis but stays at the same point in the perception axis.

So, if a time traveler causes a change to history at p=n₁ and another reverses it at p=n₂, the 'graph of history' will have three bands: Two bands with the 'original' history when looking below p=n₁ or above p=n₂ and one band between those two lines with the changed history.

With this sort of setup, all you have to assume is that time travel, (or at least the relevant forms of it), grants the ability to remember lines of history from earlier points in your perception.

1: If you were to account for relativity, there would be curvature but it would always remain positive in both dimensions.

[Sippik]

Hi guy,

That's make sense. Thank you for your explanation.
That would means that from books 1 to 4, players are on a second history axis on which the past already changed twice, and they have some memories of thoses changes. And it's the same for Xanderghul.

At the beginning of book 6, they appear on another history axis on which they didn't change the past but Alaznist did. And at the end of the campaign, they are on the "right" history line as there is only one line at this point?

Am I right?

[Senko]

Timelines are . . . tricky, especially to play. I'm afraid I can't be of much help as I've been too busy to really keep up with pathfinder and only got drawn back when I found out about the last two adventure paths. However there's been a number of way's of trying to deal with this in fiction including . . .

1) Back to the future style changes. Once the past is changed it takes time to slowly shift to its new path and while from the perspective of those in that timeline their lives have aways been different those exposed to time travel take time to be erased and replaced by their new version and can be aware of the changes as they slowly progress by tracking the differences in what they remember vs what they see.

2) Dr who style time travel where there are devices that allow protection against paradox's and allow someone to continue existing for a time even if they've been erased from history.

3) DC style time travel where the traveller again slowly gets overwritten by their new version as their memories are replaced and eventually they become who they are here.

4) Travel where the person remembers both timelines due to some natural abiltiy.

5) Time travel can't change the past only create universes so universe A has a person make a decision forming universe B where they don't invent time travel and universe C where they do. They then go back in time to "change the past" which creates universe D where they were present for those events, B where they weren't and didn't invent time travel and C where they weren't and did. Which is why you don't run into a paradox of killing your own parents because your own personal history in universe C is unaffected.

Going by what I've seen I'd say its sort of like this . . .

1) Azlantist changes the past creating her new world.
2) The PC's are somewhat protected because of their future involvement with the scepter of ages meaning their memories take time to fade and change to match the new history.

At this point we get a split universe.

3A) The PC's die.
3B) The Pc's take too long to reach the scepter and Azlanttists new world becomes permanent as everyone only remembers that history.
3C) The Pc's reach the scepter and create universe . . .
3D) The damage to history is fixed and they "return" to a universe that match's their memories.