[OOC] The Prophecy

[cthulu]

@Shien I'll be waiting on DJ to post at the very least and reevaluate the situation after.

[Shienvien]

Ah, good, the thing's back up.

@cthulu: Yep, it is obviously Jack's post next on the collab-side of things. (My question back then was largely aimed at Merc/Rhae and everyone else.)

Random question of the day: Would the light from the ???-character's runesword (or most other magical invocations of light [where do they take all those photons from?]) hurt vampires? Or, more generally, what in Reniam's case makes it so that, say, the light from a campfire wouldn't, but a sun's light would hurt a vampire?
- (I usually tend to think they are especially sensitive to (some part of) the ultraviolet spectrum - well, so are humans, though we just get sunburned if we get too much of it, and more so when the individual under question is light-skinned ... except me, for some reason, even if I am paler than almost all other people I know. I have never gotten sunburned to a notable extent, even when everyone else does badly.)

[cthulu]

Gosh I thought we were in for another long wait for a fix. After that scare I've decided that I'm going to entrust you all with my e-mail address in case it does go down for long periods of time and there's nothing we can do. I know the boards aren't exactly private but I doubt too many people outside of this group would be interested in my e-mail address. So should you want it and should you need to log it in case of another long term crash of the site its: [e-mail]
I do have a skype account, I believe the name on that is hymusia but should be registered to the same address.
I can't/don't use Yahoo being in England and I don't really use MSN either.

Edit: Also sorry for IC post, I was sure I clicked OOC and had just read Shien's post here.

[Dark Jack]

Yeah, it's my turn to post in the collab. I've been trying to pull myself together and figure out just how many things I'll have to take into account in that post for a while now, but I'll get it done soon enough... I think. And good thing the RPGuild is back. You did give out your email once before, actually, Nessa (back on page one of the thread, at the time of which I wrote it down on my little note here kept in the most obvious place on my desk, moreso than where I have my hundred or so of other little notes), but I appreciate the thought nonetheless. My own email, in the event of a disaster, is [e-mail]

I did actually start dipping into my old physics documents and start researching a little online to put together a scientific explanation as to where the photons come from, and had thought about several things to point out about photons and their interactions with the mass-bound world beyond that of visible light - things that you probably already know - but luckily I managed to stop myself before I delved too deeply into the mire of science and had to write an entire essay on the subject. Instead I'll give a much quicker and simpler answer: they are formed from magical energy, taken from the Spirit Realm.
And no, the light of the runesword (hmm... English grammar taken into consideration, it actually does make more sense to write that without the hyphen) would not harm vampires beyond simply blinding them the same as it would any other mortal creature. It is not even possible to reproduce the harmful effect of sunlight through magic (not yet, at least) because the reason it hurts vampires is not connected to ultraviolet light, or any part of the spectrum; rather, the light hurts them simply because it is from the sun. Why? Because Rilon decided that it should be that way. He thought it would be fun.

[Shienvien]

Ah, but you see here is what was always my issue - if you can make photons out of magical energy and still have energy to spare, you automatically can also make that which is commonly referred to as matter. Photons themselves naturally turn into matter all the time (and vice versa, obviously), as I've mentioned. Granted, in the last quarter of the now-gone OoC, you did briefly mention that what limits the ability of people to form matter is not so much the impossibility of it, but lack of knowledge. (I don't know whether you redid some of the theory behind the magic in the world, since previously you've said things that contradicted a bit. [If knowing what light is like suffices to make photons, why doesn't the same apply to matter? More different particles?])
- I probably have specified it already, but I tend to approach these matters from the quantum physicist perspective (something I first took interest in myself ... and then got back to with a wide circle a long time later, through quantum cryptography and everything else), and that one is rather adamant on there being practically no difference whatsoever (it is one of the few things on which most - if not practically all - of the quantum theories actually agree on) whether you're making photons or, say, quarks.
If we were to dissect things further - old question, again -, then if there is magical energy, then what is magic itself (besides something that is present in living things and the Spirit Realm)? Energy is only something's potential to affect something else, and thusly cannot exist on its own, but must necessarily always belong to something - to "carrier"-particles, so to speak. Well, and once again vice versa, since that which carries no energy can't obviously affect anything...
[Okay, I *will* stop here.]

Uhh... How many things you'd have to take account of when writing the collab-post? Can I help with it, somehow? I know I promised to elaborate further on Koraakan and those matters (and have been idly pondering about how exactly to put it all)...

(I occasionally tend to make small notes for myself, too, utilizing whatever paper surface I find available in vicinity ... I never use said notes, and I clear them out quite often, but I guess there simply is something about actually writing things down on paper...? - And moreso, not simply writing them down in one of the half-dozen text files filled with random snippets present on literally all of my desktops. Nothing beats writing all your login info for different sites on brightly colored post-it notes and sticking those to the edge of your monitor as one person I know does, though.)

[Dark Jack]

Indeed, and thereby comes the paradox of magic that the inhabitants of present-day Reniam don't understand yet because their knowledge doesn't extend far enough to completely understand what they're doing. As I once wrote in the Compendium under the Sixth Law of Magic (Change Never Exceeds What You Know) you cannot use magic to affect something that is beyond your understanding, but simply seeing a flame will qualify you as knowing that this is what fire is - but this is only very basic understanding, and thus magic creates a flame based only on what the caster knows. This is also why things such as magical fire behaves highly atypically compared to regular fire, because while present-day Reniam residents see flame and know that it burns stuff and is hot, but don't know the science of it that we do like, say, photons, or chemical energy (which is to some degree substituted for magical energy) and so on. It is the same with light; simply seeing a sunray qualifies one as knowing what light is, but one doesn't know about electromagnetic waves or particles, let alone the fact that while photons are massless, the energy they are charged with is converted to mass when absorbed by surrounding matter... which is why it doesn't happen. They don't know this yet, and so magic only creates unstable faux photons based on what the peoples of Reniam know, meaning that whenever energy would normally have been transferred from one object to another, mainly through photons (since photons carry energy and force in a lot of other cases than just with light), the lack of understanding makes it so that whenever a magically invoked physical energy would have manifested otherwise (like kinetic to thermal, for instance, or energy to matter - they have some understanding of light making heat, so that is one exception to the rule) it is instead converted back into magical energy and will either return to the Spirit Realm or be absorbed by ambient life.
So magic creates photons, yes, but not true photons altogether due to the lack of knowledge, but unstable ones that are liable to convert back into magical energy once they lose their initial manifestation... This is what the energy binds to when magic is invoked; as long as it is actually magical energy it can only bind itself to the lifeforce of living beings, but when it is used in spells and such it is arbitrarily converted to other kinds of energy. In a future Reniam where a greater understanding of physics and chemistry has been obtained magic would behave a lot differently and creating matter (as I think I mentioned once) would be entirely possible, as would creating life.
Err... I sort of lost track somewhere in there, but I think it kind of makes sense. Maybe?

What strains me about the post at the moment is mainly the fact that I have to keep track of what exactly everyone is doing, saying and thinking all at once, and that currently I am directly in control of Jaelnec, a very confused Olan, and several members of the Ducal Guard, all of whom are very much involved in what is happening at the moment. The scene with Koraakan and Rilon is relatively simple, really, since I only have to control Rilon, but having to simulate so many minds in my head at once takes a little pondering and thinking ahead to prepare for. I'll get it done, I just need to run the scenario through my head a few times until I figure out what actually happens.

EDIT: @Ashgan: If you want to advance time for Jillian and co. further before making her wake up, the three of them will land in Pelgaid, a dozen miles or so west-northwest from Pelgaid City and the Land of Eternal Night, in an area composed of a number of relatively tall rock-formations (the tallest being a bit over thirty feet) to shield them from prying eyes and with a small lake in the center.

[Ashgan]

Yo, sorry for the lateish OOC reply; been somewhat busy the last couple days, and then there was also one day where RPG was down in between there, so there's that. Title: Jill's probably gonna enjoy some form of renown, but it's up in the air how much of a benefit that is to her (and by extension, Gerald) given that there have been attempts on her life before. I do wonder though, if word is spreading across all of Rodoria, how much time has passed since the battle? I'll have to assume that word will spread as we play, otherwise Jill would have been out cold for probably weeks, right?

As for time jumpin, I got it from here. I'll most likely make her wake up in the campsite as you described it, given her groggy condition on waking I won't need more details than what you presented. It'll be just the two of them, right? The dragon won't be there I guess?

[Dark Jack]

My phrasing on the title-description is actually chosen quite on purpose in regard of them obtaining renown, namely using is spreading about word of their actions; in other words knowledge of the Battle of Anaxim has only started spreading, but it will probably take an IC week or more before it has actually become widespread enough for most Rodorians to know of it. Right now their chances of finding someone who has heard of the battle and their part in it are quite minor (it is slightly higher for the other characters, since they are a day ahead), but it'll get there.
The main reason that Aemoten's group hasn't earned any particular renown just yet is mainly due to the lack of someone to spread the word for them... once they leave the borderpost behind and the guards to their own devices, word will probably start spreading in accordance with what the guardsmen know of what has happened, earning them a title as well... possibly. Presuming the guards are left alive and have any real idea of what actually did happen.

As for the campsite the dragon will actually be there; he'll stick with Jillian and Gerald for the time being. He'll be rolled up beside the lake and probably be snoozing a bit if it takes her a while to actually wake up, whereas Gerald will be sitting on a rock several yards from where Jillian is resting and staring into their campfire (with his hood up, now).

[Shienvien]

Technically, you don't even need to make the photons be absorbed by something - simply managing to get enough photons into a small enough space is one of the things which can cause spontaneous conversion, for example. (- Energy to matter is in reality slightly inaccurate, since you're essentially just taking particles carrying one kind of energy and turning them into particles carrying another kind of energy ... fermion to boson would be more apt way of putting it.) Also, I realized after posting the last OoC message that there is another, rather obvious case which not only suggests that creating matter is possible, but presumably simply goes forth and does it: lightning magic. Something that, I figure, follows the exact same laws you just described as the light-creating magic does. I also can't help to think that all at least semi-successful attempts to create matter inevitably resulted in blocks of pseudo-quarks, packed tight like the insides of a neuron star, and immediately after a subsequent explosion. Since, hey, how are middle-age Reniam people supposed to know that "solid" is actually mostly empty space within which sparse clumps of particles float? I'd think having wrong ideas about something can have even worse consequences than simply the lack of knowledge.
- And yeah, at least as far as I am concerned, what you wrote makes perfect sense.

Sort-of-relatedly, I have also been pondering over *why* would a soulless body die (let alone in a rather disturbing or gruesome manner) rather than just live on as a being without magic or afterlife, but I have the distinct feeling that this particular conversation would end up being more a combination of physics, biochemistry and ideology discussion and recounting of various more or less personal experiences and findings than something that directly relates to the RP if to be taken any farther from here ... and unquestionably interesting as those topics might be, I figure I should better not further distract you from pondering over the IC posts that much (well, and I might be diverting the OoC a bit *too* often to begin with ... possibly?). - I also had to stop myself from writing a rather elaborate comparison of magic as it is in Reniam and tergan magic (the most common and diverse form of magic in my fantasy worlds [second common is the "absolutes' magic", native to deities and a number of other super-beings ... then there are semi-realistic extreme examples of what is essentially conscious or semi-conscious control of one's body functions (I have mentioned such practices before), a number of things vaguely derived from various folklores/tales ... exotic non-mainstream stuff], uh, in any case, tergan magic is the thing which people almost exceptionlessly think of when the word "magic" is spoken, to recap) complete with the analysis of said differences somewhere along the way. (I don't know how interesting something like that would be to you all?)

@cthulu: Tried to send you a short e-mail from one of my main more general-purpose accounts so you'd have an e-mail address for contacting me, too (also will find out whether or not any spambots will try to eat it - it would be unfortunate if it happened when there was no other contact and it was not discovered before ... even if I personally do check the spam folder every now and then. Those pesky overzealous bots have attempted to smuggle aside contracts and other important stuff before.).

[Ashgan]

Yo Shien, admittedly I didn't read the entire post you wrote (nor did I read much of the discussion as a whole), but while skimming I saw your question over why a soulless body would die. I'm hoping I'm on the same page here, suspecting that you refer to what happens to a body after, say, the Withering or theoretical maximum magical exhaustion? If so, I recall Jack stating that a body's soul always determines the best possible condition for said body (but not the worst possible), so wouldn't that mean that a body without a soul (or a depleted/dead soul, whatever) would technically have a best possible condition of "dead"?

[Shienvien]

I recall that, Ashgan - my question, though, is more about about ... how that determining happens? What breaks when the soul is no longer there?

[Yeah, I am trying to make fantasy make sense in terms of reality, once more. Or, well, get an explanation to why would things not work as they do in reality in the said fantasy-world. Cue biochemistry, physics and ideology discussion as the real world is brought to focus as an object of comparison.]

[cthulu]

So......Happy Easter guys... Have a good one.

[Shienvien]

...Happy Easter indeed!

I myself drove half across the country yesterday so I could spend the first half of this day digging holes into the ground and planting tiny birch trees and the second half of the day handling pieces of tree trunks, which I am not particularly certain is a traditional way of celebrating it in any culture ... but then again, it was a nice change - helping my father and other relatives with forest-work, that is -, and I got to see several people I haven't met since the last summer. We also made a five-meter-tall fire in the evening and all (away from any trees). We don't particularly celebrate Easter over here, aside of having the Friday free ... today several people actually went to (paid, official) work, and that despite of the fact that today (or, looking at the time, yesterday) was a Saturday atop of a holiday.
It was also a warm, sunny day ... I was wearing a T-shirt through most of it and it was still too hot. (Meanwhile, my Finnish person I know told me they have snow over there last weekend... Our winter lasted the entirety of two and half weeks this year - no snow at all before the second half of January and come the end of the first third of February, snowdrops and snowflakes are already blossoming...)

(Did you ever get an e-mail from me Hymusia/cthulu?)

[Dark Jack]

Well, generally you will actually expire a while before you manage to empty your store of energy due to one or more parts of your organism failing with your progressively worsening health, and while this will result in a specter due to your severely weakened soul at the time of death, you won't actually die from complete magical depletion. The details of how you die will differ, but it's safe to say that at least one vital organ will have suffered critical failure. It'd take some very special cirumstances to truly remove all the energy of a body - not counting the Withering, since it is bound to the soul rather than the body and will keep draining even after the body has died - like a sudden immense loss of energy that somehow removes all of your energy at once, leaving only a shred of soul too weak to cling to its body. It's an interesting detail to think about, though, because the body won't actually deteriorate from this beyond obviously being clinically dead and lacking lifeforce; if a new lifeforce was introduced into such a body, similar to how a lich moves its lifeforce to a phylactery, before the consequences of death became irrevocable and it was restored to decent health, the body would actually live on as the host to its new soul without any medical drawbacks aside from those that may come with its new soul itself. One lich could occupy the body of another immediately after this had vacated its own body, for instance, and live in it as comfortably as it would its own body.

And oh yeah, happy Easter. Hottest day in Denmark this year yet; it's really starting to feel like proper summer's-coming-soon spring is here.

[Shienvien]

Uh... Rephrase of question - what does the lifeforce/soul actually do in a body that is necessary for something to function properly (and which is not already done by, say, adenosine triphosphate [one of the main energy carriers/very short-term storagers in cells])? What role does it fill aside of being something that can carry on to afterlife and provide magic? Why would underabundancy of it be harmful in the first place? How does the lessened amount of it damage the body?

(Tired?)

[cthulu]

@Shien I did thank you, sorry I thought I'd replied to it but not sure I did. If it makes you feel any better my Easter was spent sans any family or friends, including my children and consisted of a lot of spring cleaning and chores. Not very existing, I can't even enjoy the chocolate either. Still it rained today so the week long headache I've had is finely easing off some.

[Dark Jack]

Ah, I see what you mean now. The soul serves exactly no purpose at all in the body except allowing it to toggle its functions "on", as it is merely a condition to make life possible in the first place. Nothing in the body's functions requires magical energy, and left to its own devices the body would consume no magical energy on its own, either (the mind would passively waste small amounts, but not the body). Rather than trying to make sense of the soul as an energy that exists within the body, it would probably be more sensible to view it as a second body within the body; an incorporeal copy of it, one could say, that simply happens to occupy the same space in the Planes as one's physical body does. The soul can exist and function without a body, as seen upon death, undeath and dreaming, whereas the body can only be alive when occupied by a soul; thus injuring the body will usually not harm the soul, but when the soul is weakened the body... well, in lack of a better way to describe it I'd say that it tries to alter its own condition to match that of its soul in order to remain compatible with it. Careful usage of magical energy will thus only leave the body feeling weak and fatigued, but not actually do any damage to it, but recklessly spending it will start to leave the soul "incomplete", which the body responds to by slowly disassembling itself.
...Or something like that, I think.

[Mercinus3]

Hey guys,

I do apologize if I haven't been on in a while. Things reared its ugly head at university (possibly one of the worst things that could happen during university, a death of a flatmate, occurred over the Easter holidays), so my mind has been occupied with other things. I'll try and get a post up here as soon as possible, but just so you guys know of the circumstances.

M3

[yoshua171]

Fyi, I have been trying to get this damned collab with syn done for the longest time. So hopefully it'll be done soon and things can properly progress on my end >_>

[cthulu]

@Shien and DJ for the time being i won't be posting in the collab so you two can feel free to post back and forth until then. She'll heal (if Rilon lets her) but she'll remain asleep unless someone wakes her.