crystal;

[arkitect]

FORM: crystal
SENDER: Emet-Selch
RECIPIENT: Everybody in Riftwatch
NOTES: none atm!

Well, a bit late is better than never, as they say.

[perhaps 'late' isn't entirely accurate, given that the delay was intentional on his part, but. details! sometimes you show up and things get busy, and that certainly isn't his fault.]

If we haven't met previously, I am Emet-Selch-- and as I suppose my presence here makes any titles not currently applicable, we may leave it at that for now.

But for those of you not currently occupied with more... pressing matters, I have a curiosity or two of my own I should like to satisfy, wherever the time may be found for them. Further study of this world's magicks, for one, particularly if you've much experience in the field of creation; reading may be helpful enough, but I find there to be no true substitution for first-hand demonstration. If you happen to have the talent and the inclination to indulge a relatively new arrival's questions, then do let me know.

On a separate and more mundane subject, however, if you're familiar with the stars and celestial bodies of Thedas: I have some interest in them as well, whether the mythology and constellations you know, or more practical applications such as navigation. My interests do lean more toward the former, but there's nothing wrong with a more well-rounded study.

Comments

[notathreat]

I'm not an astronomer or anything but I've been trying to chart some of 'em. Wysteria lent me a telescope.

[arkitect]

If you're of a mind to share, then I would be quite interested in seeing them.

[notathreat]

Sure, if you want. I'm on the top of the mage tower during clear nights.

Any funny business and you get thrown off, though. Fair warning.

[arkitect]

Is that so? [light amusement, there.] Well, I will endeavor to keep my humor in check.

[notathreat]

[The skip in Ellie's voice betrays a small laugh. Not at him, just unexpected.]

H'okay, dude.

You study space back home or something?

[arkitect]

I'm fairly familiar with it, yes, though I would not exactly say it was my focus. 'Tis only curiosity, for the most part, that leads me to ask after it now-- particular constellations were symbols of some import, back then.

[notathreat]

What were the constellations back there? We had stuff like the Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Orion, Cassiopeia... they had some mythology around 'em too.

[arkitect]

It does change, on occasion. A practitioner of astromancy would likely name a few such as the Bole, the Spear, the Balance, but the gods those constellations represent did not always exist, nor did the sky always appear precisely the way that it does now. Just as yours are unfamiliar in name, I expect you would not recognize any of those I'm aware of.

[notathreat]

Gotcha. Guess you'd only know if they were the same ones from a star chart.

Are they actual gods, where you're from? Or myths?

[Said like someone who's encountered both.]

[arkitect]

I should be able to draw them out, if you find yourself curious enough.

As for the gods-- well. They do exist, and to those who worship them, yes, they may as well be deities.

[notathreat]

Sure, I'd like that. I could try for ours, but my memory's kinda fuzzy on some of 'em.

Do they, uh- have actual powers or anything?

[arkitect]

Most in that world have the capacity for them, so it would be quite difficult to believe something deemed a god did not.

[notathreat]

Sounds like an easy recipe for some fucked up stuff.

[arkitect]

I suppose it depends largely on what you consider to be "fucked up stuff". People hardly need the help of magic for that, by my reckoning.

[notathreat]

No, but they sure will take any excuse. And gods make easy ones.

[Gods, she says, not magic. And definitely no mention of what she'd consider "fucked up".]

[arkitect]

So they do. The threat posed by lesser ones was the subject of more than one conflict, although... were they not fighting over primals, I am sure another disagreement would have been found.

[notathreat]

Primals?

[arkitect]

Ah- the name given to such lesser entities.

[notathreat]

What's the difference between primals and gods?

[arkitect]

Technically speaking, there is not. There is primarily a difference between what one calls the gods of other civilizations.

[notathreat]

My-god-is-the-right-god types? Everybody else has it wrong?

[arkitect]

Something of the sort. But every being considered to be a deity is similar, at its core: something created through faith, through prayer, through sacrifice. The lesser manifestations were somewhat fairly treated as a threat, as their nature makes it nigh impossible for them to be truly benign presences even if they wish it to be so... but as I said, they could be an excuse as much as a true danger.

[notathreat]

Gotcha.

Here, they're mostly not involved. Or at least I haven't seen any real evidence of 'em yet.

[arkitect]

Merely uninvolved, more likely than not. Where one finds believers, so too will you find the object of their worship-- whether it existed before them or they brought it into being.

[notathreat]

In my world plenty of people believed in things that never showed up.

... but I've seen enough things show up now to wonder.