Life In Oorah Thrassen: Research into Locador Demons [22 Lage 4385]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Nangbang and I stopped in Oorah Thrassen overnight on our way to Srineia. (Nangbang was — dare I say it? — only slightly sickened by the long teleporting session.) Saza showed me things that I cared about.

Saza: “I have learned certain facts about Locador demons. Indeed, I have learned more about Locador demons than ever before. Strange beasts!”

Me: “Tell me of this matter!”

Saza: “People have become Locador demons altogether, at least temporarily. There is a pattern spell for doing so, or there was; nobody I have asked admits to having a copy. I have asked spell-sellers, so I don’t think they’re lying about it; they would be glad of making a high-priced sale, I should think.”

Me: “A notable fact! I was not sure it could be done at all. Is it relevant to Feralan though?”

Saza: “It might be. Four hundred and some years ago, a Rassimel noble — Icispachi — spent some weeks in the form, and wrote a book about it. I am trying to get a copy of the book. We might get some insight therefrom.”

Me: “That is, at least, more than I knew before.”

Saza: “Don’t look so disappointed, coz!” Zie gave me a flickery licking kiss on the cheek, which rather startled me. “We’ve gone from ‘This is unheard-of!’ to ‘Similar and related things have occurred!’”

Me: “Truly, an important conceptual evolution.”

Saza: “Now, I haven’t tracked down anyone else merged with a Locador demon. But there are cases of merging with the demons of seven or eight other elements — including Magiador, which is tantalizingly similar in various ways.”

Me: “I didn’t know that!”

Saza: “You are clever and inventive, but a bit unaware of things that happened centuries before you hatched.” Zie grinned. “One part naïve and seven parts nubile, coz!”

I blinked at zir a bit.

Saza: “Anyhow, I am prevailing on scribes in various cities to give me records of these various prior spiritual entanglings, and what was done about them. I promise nothing — but I expect everything!”

Me: “I expect no less of you!”

Saza: “And, of course, I am tracking down the locations and qualifications of various experts in disorders and maladies of the spirit. If we need to take Feralan somewhere — Green or Inihithre perhaps — shall we wait until you can come along?”

Me: “Probably so, at least if it is a matter of a few days. We’d need to travel by airship in any case; perhaps mine, which I hope will be repaired by then.”

And so on. No actual answers, but various forms of hope, and many places where further research is possible and might yield answers. It is much easier to do this sort of thing from Ketheria. It is also much easier to do it if one has a thousand-year-long reputation as an ingenious and honorable magus than merely a hundred-year-long one as a nendrai-wrangler and pervert. Hiring Saza was absolutely the right approach.

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Ooh, is there a pattern spell to become a god?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

More or less.

More: It is a spell that I can manage (and Vae can do without effort or even thought) to transform my body into pure fire, or water, or air. In this respect, I become, physically, the same as Flokin, or Merklundum, or Hressh-Huu -- in some close approximation.

Less: The essence of divinity (for those gods) seems to be that they have been used as the fundamental materials for constructing a universe. The other elementals of those substances are, as far as we know, roughly identical in nature to those gods; but they are not gods, because they are not used as such.


The creator gods and their kindred are quite otherwise. I do not believe that any spell of World Tree magic could transform one of us to one of them; I do not think they fall under any Noun.

I think that "Here" is closer to the elemental gods than the creator gods, but performing direct experiments seems troublesome.


Someday I shall have to interest Vae in a cruel little research project, to transform a dozen eggs into a dozen elementals, and make a small world, and use the eggs as the basis for the elements in it. See if Vae, at least, can play the part of a creator god, on a small scale. I don't think it will work -- I think it will be as a horse stepping on a clod of soil and making a rough bowl-shape, and a god doing the same would be like a potter taking the finest porcelain and throwing a beautiful bowl. There is some crude similarity of action and even function, but the one is obviously superior to the other.

In any case, one could presumably work out the ritual spells to become the creator god of one's own private universe: more like a child's first pinch-pot, in the pottery analogy. One should be aware that, although that would make one technically a creator god, it would not in any way change one's powers or capabilities -- at least outside of the constructed world.

So goes my best unresearched guess about the theory. Let me know what happens when you try it!

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the atheists of your world would have some very keen interest in those experiments.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Ah, you have to pick an existing element, because the magic system is elemental. Maybe... could you subdivide the elements? Hybridize them?

And for the creator god thing, of course you can't just use your verbs as nouns. It probably doesn't even seem like a sensible thing to do if you don't speak English.

If your translator and I both live long enough to make the attempt, I'll let you know how it works out.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

The plot of "Morrowind" centers around a group of people who found it, and how things went horribly wrong. I also just discovered "Exalted", a ridiculously over-the-top game which involves demigods discovering it, having things go awesome horribly wrong, then getting addicted to a cosmic video game system.