Apologies for taking so long to respond to the questions. The short version is: Bob is a genius and his understanding of S&K is humbling to me (didn't think anyone paid that close attention. Thank you for the compliment. > Was there any sort of determination about the survival of Miracradasa? I > think it likely that she was badly injured, but still survived? > ------- > Hmm... I read this a couple of months back, in serialized form, and don't recall Miracradasa as being that special. Just an individual, very human-like, but with lots of power. > ------- Exactly. If the girl was who she thought she was (an issue never clarified), then at most Miracradasa lost an avatar or a horse only. > The eerith themselves strike me as a type of djinn (and that in turn > makes me wonder about djinni and the destruction of Atlantis). Not that > they ARE djinn, but this gives me enough of a hook towards understanding > them. > -------- > Well, they clearly function as a sort of Genius Locii or elemental, although my take on it was that they were a race of beings in the Dreaming who formed their own group mind and have since been trying to undo the damage caused by it. See the comments in that piece about several of the Eerith being elementals, or connected to the elements, in one sense or another. An awful lot like the Borg, only now they (or at least some of them) realize it was a mistake. > ------------- Elementals. If it helps to understand, they are effectively the earth-spirits of primative shamanism documented by the anthropologist Frazer. The spirit of the river, the spirit of the tree, etc. of early polytheism. > The eerith cannot currently sense the workings of the espiri, though > they can, of course, perceive the _results_ of those workings. I have to > wonder whether they can sense the use of any sort of divine authority > and if they can learn to do so. > ------------- > I wouldn't be so sure about this -- if they have their own ability to sense Authority Magic (and as you see, they consider almost all magic to be Authority-based, although possibly through intermediaries who handle the details, like Obeah and Elementals), then your Espiri should be perceptible, just as the Mirrish Mages were. Whether or not it's worth the effort for them to understand what a single Espiri wants to do is another question. Whether it's of Divine origin or 'mere' Essence, they still /appear/ to sense it. (Juuso?) > > I will admit to a little concern about 'suddenly' investing a group with an immunity that Mir hasn't been able to invent, let alone make workable. > ------------- The only thing they cannot 'see' are the wyrms proper and even then only when one is fully grown. The Dragon issue I'll leave to Jusso to elaborate on for reasons he understands. If it lives, if it breathes, if it is upon the land--the Eerith know of it (they may even be of it). The imbalance of the race compared to game play is one of the reasons I chose to use them and move them into a semi-NPS status. > Most of the gods on Qaiyore seem to invest a great deal of power in a > few individuals. Feroze operates in the opposite manner, investing a > little power in a far larger number of individuals. From what I can tell > the overall power involved is pretty much the same. > ------------- > My impression, once again, is that this is more the kind of story you hear. People talk about the Avatars, and you rarely hear about the legions of 'ordinary' priests who act to better the lot of all people. I can't judge power levels (and will admit to an innate distrust of that, anyway: Gods are qualitatively different from mortals, IMO, and judging them by mortal standards reduces them to the shallow beings depicted on 'Xena'. I'd love to hear Juuso's opinion about this; a game of 'which god can get the most power' is very different from what I've been trying to play, but interesting... > ------------- Qai history definitely follows the precepts of the monomyth--the one individual who changes all things. This was part of the original Aria game design and it has carried over into Qai. > Rohain vs. coterie could be remarkably bloody. Their powers are almost > completely opposite. Rohain cannot match coterie members as individuals, > but they can (potentially, no one currently knows the technique) sever > the power flow and isolate them. The most likely result is the rohain > taking tremendous losses before severing the power flow and destroying > the coterie. Of course, that same opposition would make them even more > powerful if they cooperated. Rohain could protect (and possibly > stabilize) the power flow and _keep_ it from being severed and support > the advances of the coterie fronts. > --------------- > I think this was mentioned in the story: Some of the members of a Coterie are there to act as anchors to stabilize the power the rest of the coterie invests in the individuals. My own impression is that cutting short that power flow would leave the Coterie with a small reserve that they could use to attack the individuals blocking them. Add a few of your Exquaisito warriors to protect whoever tried such a thing, and the Rohain might survive long enough for the Coterie to run down, but as you say it would be bloody. The use you suggest when they work together, however, would simply (again, from my interpretation) leave the Coterie with a larger 'battery'. > -------------- > The _Book of Travels_ left by Feroze contains a small piece of himself. > A spirit seed, you might call it. This is one of his "links" or "gates" > to Celandra the others being the links to each of the spell-using > espiri. Should the book be destroyed and all the espiri die, Feroze > would have to forge a new link before being he would be able to affect > Celandra again. > > Rohain have an authority over spirit similar to a mortal's normal > authority over matter. This means that they can hurt and potentially > kill spirits (including eerith). The eerith would have discovered this > no later than the last game year. I wonder what they think of it. > --------------- > These are interesting ideas. My impression has been that no 'normal' magic has been able to touch Eerith, so once again that's a remarkably useful design. I'd expect it to need some modification to make it fit logically with the idea that nobody else has matched it (i.e. perhaps they can -- but none of those who wrote about Eerith ever mentioned it). Of course, as I said, I'm going off of what I recall from reading back in September, or so. I'll add that my tendency in almost any 'new power' discussion is towards minimizing the power (different, not stronger). > ------------------ "Killing" Eerith is either impossible or fairly easy depending on your definition. The V'raal were able to bind Eerith to items. Dioya 'killed' an Eerith in single combat. The Onagir have (unexercised) considerable authority over the Eerith. > Also, have the eerith assigned an advisor to Exquaestio? If so, what is > the form of that contact? > ------------------ > I think it goes the other way. You have to ask for one. The Ka'Shari, for example, haven't made any effort to do so, although they may. I'd expect the contact to appear human. > Exactly so. In point of fact, many Eerith advisors actually are human (ex-Shanari or refugees). Telling which are which is nigh unto impossible and they switch around alot. As far as I know, Exquaestio has not requested an advisor. mk ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
