Answer the first

[sythyry]

moosl asks: I am an off-worlder and view your world sporadically. Where can one learn of your world succintly?

IC: I must admit that I have never, myself, left the World Tree, and I am not as familiar as I might be with whatever books may appear in offworld bookstores.

For that matter, do offworlds even use proper books? On the Water-Tree, evidently, there are speaking icicles used instead of books ... though, in other stories, someone does talk about "peeling the hero's hide off and using it to bind some low-grade pornography." Perhaps speaking icicles are sold in leather sheaths, I suppose.

Still, I daresay that you live in a somewhat more real universe than the Water-Tree. What do books look like there?

OOC: You can buy the World Tree book. The first half of it is a travelogue or fictional ethnography of the World Tree. The second half is the actual RPG rules. We did intend that the first half stand on its own, as a work of fictional nonfiction, and many non-gamers have enjoyed it as that.

Comments

Re: Our ball world

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

We have gravity as well. In some theories, it reflects the orientation of the goddess Virid when she created the tree. In other theories, it is a form of structuring which the space-god "Here" produces, either for general convenience or for structuring the universe. In still other theories, it is an agreement between Kvarse, Lenhirrik, Merklundum, and Tenmen -- the four gods whose elements are subject to gravity -- about how their materials will behave.

In any case, gravity on our world is entirely uniform, in strength and direction, throughout the explored and readily-observed universe. Of course a great deal cannot be seen through the world-foliage, but we have been able to cast excellent far-seeing spells and observe that far-distant world-leaves fall at the same way that nearby ones do, counting air resistance.

Of course we don't know what the bottom of the Tree is like (or if there is one); it's too far away. I suppose gravity could change down there. If there is a "there". Similarly, our observations about the heights of the sky are somewhat limited, though I vaguely remember something about Flokin dropping a star and having it fall at a normal pattern, counting air resistance.

In any case, non-uniform gravity must be hideously confusing. If gravity always goes towards the center of the ball, how is it that the sun and moons and star-serpent and whatnot don't fall to the ground? Our sun is supported by a track, but the track is horizontal and the sun can roll nicely along it. How do you manage yours? For that matter, do you even have a sun?

The first set of pictures is impressive. The second one is simply baffling -- if those are the leaves of your world, they seem singularly ratty; and if they are not, what are they?

I do like the idea of artificial moons... if I ever get exceedingly good at enchantment, perhaps I shall make one.

With wishes that you find ... um ... whatever creatures such as yourself find desirable,
I remain,
Sythyry

Re: Our ball world

[redbird]

Yes, we have a sun.

Instead of the sun going around our world, our world goes around its sun. So do several other worlds, but we are not aware of anyone living on them. This is, in fact, a matter that our people have argued about for many lifetimes: does anyone live on the other worlds, and if so, what are they like? Some people think that there may be plants or very small animals (do you have bacteria on the World Tree?) on the other worlds, but no intelligent beings or even large animals. Others think that the other worlds have very strange beings living in them, drifting through the air.

Re: Our ball world

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Hmm... how, then, is it that everything falls towards the center of your world, but the sun does not? Does your World Ball roll on some sort of track, like our sun?

We do, indeed, have plants and very small animals. And strange beings who drift through the air; some of them are Khtsoyis [the aerial cephalopod prime species.]

For that matter, I have been known to drift through the air myself.

Re: Our ball world

[(Anonymous)]

That might be the easiest way for you to picture it.
We also have a moon, which travels around our world in a similar fashion.

Re: Our ball world

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

And, I should imagine, a sub-moon which circles the moon, and then an infra-moon which circles -- not the sub-moon -- but spirals eccentrically around the sub-moon's track. And of course the infra-moon has its own accompaniment, twirling and tweedling with it all around the sky.

You don't live in a world. You live in a whirled.

Re: Our ball world

[(Anonymous)]

Um.... No.

Might imagine up a world that does have such things though, so thanks for the idea.

Re: Our ball world

[redbird]

Not yet, but give us time to build more artificial moons, and we may.

It certainly feels as though we live in a whirled, sometimes.