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therookery2024-08-09 07:28 am
crystal; rifter cultural exchange war table plot
FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Ness ( aberratic )
RECIPIENT: all y'all
NOTES: This is a long one, she's a yapper. Important points bolded for the tl;dr, not for ic emphasis.
[ she has learned her lesson in contacting jayce far too early in the day; today, when ness gets on the crystal, it's closer to midday than to the first rays of dawn. she wants to reach the largest possible crowd, after all, and can't reach people who are asleep.
so: it is midday, and the first thing heard over crystal is a stack of papers being tapped neatly on a desk. buckle up, riftwatch, this is gonna be a long one. ]
Hello, Riftwatch, Ennaris Tavane speaking. [ does it sound like she's reading off a pre-written script? maybe. look, she has a lot to get through and she doesn't want to miss anything. ] In looking into how I could best make use of myself here, I found that there's quite a lot of information on rifter technology and knowledge that might have a use in Thedas, but it all seems to be a little spread out, in various different offices and projects. My aim now, which I have received permission from Provost Niehaus to undertake, is to gather all this disparate information and compile it to make comprehensive files for each field. To that end, I have requests of our organization, both rifter and native Thedosian alike:
Rifters, I would like to hear from you on technologies available in your world that Thedosians may be able to reproduce. Some of these notes include reference to a Riftwach Cultural Exposition which took place last year, and I would especially welcome input from anyone who attended or presented at that Exposition. Much of the work on this end has already been done by the agents who worked on this endeavour before me, so my goal here is mainly to ensure that I understand exactly what it is I'm compiling, but I welcome new ideas to add to the compilation—and no innovation is too trivial to be included; at the Exposition, a rifter Jude Adjei met with great success in distributing his peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. If it can be achieved by the means and materials we have available to us in our new home, it's worth consideration, at the very least.
Native Thedosians, here I defer to your expertise in our home. The goal of compiling this information is to be able to facilitate a dialogue between ourselves and the rest of Thedas, to bring to bear the knowledge of worlds beyond to make life better across this continent, here and now. The question I put to you is, who would be most receptive to this dialogue? There are some names in these notes, a Monsieur Guillaume du Naigh, Signora Jacqueline Fioranati, and we have experienced no small success in engaging with the University of Orlais—but it has been some time since the Exposition. Have we made any new contacts? Which organizations are of the most open minds? Any names I receive will be listed and turned over to the Provost as contacts for next steps, once the information has been compiled.
Given no significant setbacks, I intend to have this information compiled and ready to set before the Provost within a month. While I welcome any and all contributions, it would be best they come sooner than later.
Thank you for your assistance, Riftwatch.
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You're also familiar with sigil circles? I wonder if we were from similar worlds in our past lives. Is the name Candlekeep familiar to you?
To your point about the circles, though—to my knowledge, true teleportation as we would understand it isn't possible in Thedas. I've read some about gates that require traversing a Crossroads, what you may know as a kind of demiplane, but they aren't common here by any means, and recreating that magic would be taxing to say the least—not necessarily something we have the resources to work on at present, unfortunately.
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I suppose there's not as many planes here than back home. There's no chance at all to make a sigil circle?
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Oh, then we are from the same place! I was on my way to Baldur's Gate before I woke up here in Thedas.
[ and in the middle she was abducted by mindflayers, but that's a bit much to announce over crystal. ]
Not as far as I'm aware, but I'm new here, so I can't be completely certain. What makes you think it should be possible?
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[It's okay, he's got his own secrets.]
There are other rifters with magic and if you haven't read about the Fade, it's an extremely interesting subject.
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Neither have I, I had assumed I was the only one! We shall have to exchange notes one day, it would be nice to talk to someone with a shared background again.
[ ness has done, is doing her best to assimilate to thedosian life and culture, and she doesn't resent that, but you know. sometimes you want to go where someone knows what you mean when you say "fuck the illithid, amirite?" ]
I have read about the Fade, yes! And I've met a few rifters with magic, but magic is so different here, I don't think it's entirely fruitful to consider what's possible in other worlds magically as a basis for what to attempt here. Still, nothing's gained by dismissing an idea out of hand. I'll look into sigil circles, ask some natives if they think there's anything that could be done with the idea.
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Magic is very different here compared to home. If you have any magic, beware using it too much; doing so may cause you to pass out. I've had the misfortune of doing so twice. To make sigil circles work here, the magic would need to be purely Theodosian, which is why I recommend the Fade.
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Yes, I recall—we met in the library, didn't we?
Yes, that makes sense, and tracks with what I've learned in my research. That's part of why I don't think it's possible to make sigil circles here—I don't think the native magic allows for it, at least not true teleportation sigils. There is a concept of what we might be more familiar with as arcane gates, but they're very rare, ancient magic. Mostly it seems transportation via the Fade is limited to short distances, and mages only.
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Hmm. I see. Hopeful thinking on my part, then, I suppose.
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A very intelligent use of your time, in my opinion—I did the same, at first. Now that I've settled into my work in Diplomacy, I'm at my desk more often than I'm in the library, but learning about Thedas remains a top priority for me, as well.
It would be very nice if we could draw some sigils and be able to teleport wherever we please, I agree—but I wasn't using circles in Faerûn any more than I'm using them here, really.
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They're extremely convenient when crossing the continent.