[Fantasy] Celestial Ocean Chronicles. Striving for a deliberately exotic fantasy

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

So, you see lots of threads by me that are tagged [fantasy]. Many of them are related to a project of mine, a game setting that's intentionally made very unlike the mainstream type of fantasy settings. I'm writing this here with mixed feelings - part willing to get constructive critique in order to improve it along the lines of its concept, part fearful that the project will fail because there will be no way to make sure it makes sense and that it encourages a sufficient amount of suspension of disbelief.

So, here's the intro:

Originally Posted by Legends of the Islanders

Before the Great Changes, the People lived carelessly: the world to them was a simple collection of islands, the ocean below, and the sky they never cared to even look at. All too careless they were, for the sky held the great fire - the sun.

Night after night the Sun spent in the ocean, diving each evening and surfacing each morning. But one day, the Sun fell down, swifter than ever, and it was seen that it would not come back. The People did not care much at first, living by the light of the moon and the cold stars. But the Sun did not disappear. While drowned in the great ocean, it nonetheless kept burning. Soon, the waters started to heat up.

Then the wise men warned of the upcoming threat. They explained that in less than one moon, the waters will boil, and no fish will stay alive in them. But they knew one way to salvation, and they went to the chieftains of the People’s tribes to explain what needs to be done.

The wise men’s advice was to hunt down as many of those birds that never touched the ground and never slept, and to gather as many of their feathers as possible. Then, the craftsmen were to adorn the sails of the People’s ships - as many as possible - with those feathers. After that, the People had to wait.

Half of a month has passed, and the wise men ordered the People to board the feather-adorned ships, and to sail towards the east, where the full moon was about to rise. And so they did.

Once the moon showed up from the water, it made a path of light - from ships to where it joined the ocean and the sky. The ships went along the path. The wise men ordered that all ships follow the path no matter what.

Soon the moon went higher, so high that it no longer touched the almost-boiling waters of the ocean. But the ships kept going along the path, higher and higher, as they followed the path to the moon.

Only one ship’s crew dared disobey, and it swiftly fell to the ocean below as it went off the moon’s path.

After a day of such travel, the People found a new archipelago, not in the boiling ocean, but in the sky itself. Only then did the wise men allow to divert from the moon’s path, and to steer towards the coast. This became the new home of the People, a new beginning for the youngest race of the ocean in the sky.

Of course, the truth was more banal: the 'Sun' was actually just a big hot star, the 'endless' ocean was but a lake hanging in a pit in the really endless sky. The wise men were just a bunch of crazy mages with a silly paradigm - they knew not the truth, but merely were gifted in enchanting the world around them. In truth, the primitive moonships were only able to fly out of the pit thanks to a verse of a poet singing of the upcoming exodus. 'Banal' is relative.

Okay, that's the intro. Will add races etc. - sooner or later depending on my time. For those who haven't heard before: TL(1+3), about 7-8 races, about 15 cultures, and very weird natural laws. Magic is twofold: the everyday magic as part of all craft-related skills (actually uses those Mechanic/Smith/etc. skills; no FP etc.) and MtA-ish Realm magic consisting of four realms ('Trivium'/Matter, 'Vessel'/Life, Forces/Energy, Fate/Destiny).

Thanks in advance to all those willing to discuss it!

[talonthehand]

All in all, I'm quite interested in it. I'm looking forward to any additions you throw in.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

All in all, I'm quite interested in it. I'm looking forward to any additions you throw in.

I recently killed my HDD, so any additions will come as soon as (i) I have the time to ponder them or recall the details AND (ii) time to type them out.

[vicky_molokh]

What the world looks like:

First of all, the inhabited part of the world is 'flat'. It is a layer ranges from 10 to several tens of meters (probably more where the islands have mountains and 'deep rocks'). Gravity exists, and pulls down, but it's as if space itself has a density. Thus, denser objects tend to stabilize lower than less dense ones, but any entity experiences a clear 'down' direction. This 'density of space' does not necessarily change uniformly. In fact, there are naturally more or less dense 'spaces', and they drift through the sky.

Second, there are locations which have different complexity for different substances. For instance, there are natural 'lakes' where water holds at a certain level, or 'cloudwalks', where clouds are pushed to a certain level with such a force that a human can walk on them, yet they are prevented from turning into water. And then of course there are islands and even microcontinents kept afloat by the same mechanism. And stars, but there's more than that to stars.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I recently killed my HDD, so any additions will come as soon as (i) I have the time to ponder them or recall the details AND (ii) time to type them out.

Have you tried Obsidian Portal? It's a free (well, for two campaigns) site that lets you make a wiki for a pen and paper thing. I've been trying it with a space setting that I work on during bouts of insomnia, but I haven't really had a chance to do much with it. It might be useful for this setting though.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Sounds interesting!
I hope this "silly paradigm" continues to be the basis of your setting's Realm Magic, because it looks fun. Also, I love the idea that everyday craft skills are inherently magical. It's a concept that gets too little attention in most fantasy, IMHO.


I was having a similar idea last Friday (inspired by randomly watching Last Exile) about a fantasy setting involving big islands and rivers in the sky. Though, in my idea, there was no gravity once you stepped off the islands, so it was sort of outer space, with air. (I say this now so that, if I ever decide to do anything with it and post about it here, I'll be less likely to be accused of copying Molokh!)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Sounds interesting!
I hope this "silly paradigm" continues to be the basis of your setting's Realm Magic, because it looks fun. Also, I love the idea that everyday craft skills are inherently magical. It's a concept that gets too little attention in most fantasy, IMHO.

No, the silly paradigm was the assumption that the right feathers are the only defining feature of a sky-sailing ship. In truth it's more complicated, but I haven't finished coming up with all the ideas. I want the 'moonships' to require several mystical components (mostly for control, as almost anything not too dense will 'float' under normal circumstances). The sails (+feathers), the proper rudder, and probably something in the 'core' of the ship should be required for full functionality. The improvised moonships of the Islanders were only good enough to get out of the 'pit' to the nearest bunch of islands.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

I love the idea that everyday craft skills are inherently magical. It's a concept that gets too little attention in most fantasy, IMHO. (...)

I'm glad to see this. In most ancient cultures, crafts were closely related with the divine and the supernatural in general.

For my part, I will need time for reading the entire thread for then seeing and thinking if this Celestial Ocean could have any plausible and interesting relation with the pre-modern cosmologic view of the Heaven as the Upper Waters.

Also, I think a sort of sketch or picture of the cosmic framework of this setting could be useful.

Cheer

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Greetings, all!

So, you see lots of threads by me that are tagged [fantasy]. Many of them are related to a project of mine, a game setting that's intentionally made very unlike the mainstream type of fantasy settings. I'm writing this here with mixed feelings - part willing to get constructive critique in order to improve it along the lines of its concept, part fearful that the project will fail because there will be no way to make sure it makes sense and that it encourages a sufficient amount of suspension of disbelief.

<snip>

Thanks in advance to all those willing to discuss it!

You asked me about animals and encouraged me to reply in this thread. So here goes ...

I've been thinking a lot about dragons, lately, and they have long been a subject of my study - their myths and archetypes and principles and symbolism along with real life dragons such as the giant constrictors, crocodiles, and monitor lizards plus vipers and cobras. So I'll start with these. The medieval image of a bat-winged reptilian monster spouting gouts of flame seems out of place, somehow. The more serpentine and ethereal eastern dragons may be a better fit - lofty beings commanding the elemental forces of nature, bringing storms and floods, or denying them, at their whim. They may be sighted far off, snaking their way through the sky, or dancing amongst the lightning bolts of storm clouds. They don't need to fit exactly the descriptions of the Long or Rong or Tatsu described by the people of the far east - similar archetypes are known from Australia and Africa, where great serpents are also elemental forces of creation and destruction, responsible for rain and rivers and storms (and, moreso than in east Asia, associated with rainbows).
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/2200/asiaqc1.jpg

The image of the sea serpent is an enduring one. The earliest legends of dragons are always associated with water, and giant water reptiles seem to resonate with a particular deep part of our psyche (Leviathan, the Midgard serpent, Tiamat, and Apophis are all particularly powerful manifestations of this archetype). The storm dragons described above are one aspect of the water serpent (although storm dragons are as much creatures of the sky as of water), but other great serpents may be found living in deep bodies of water. As you get to shallower bodies of water, many of the dragons become more lizard or crocodile like, although a great many still retain a snake-like conformation. Water dragons may be responsible for floods, fogs, or conversely, rivers drying up or unusually low tides. They are almost universally venomous, but do not tend to breathe flame. The more mundane of these may be little different from modern crocodiles - large aquatic but otherwise mundane critters that ambush prey from the water's edge and eat mostly fish.

When dragons are considered exemplars of elemental forces, it naturally leads to the idea of rock dragons - great reptilian beasts that live within the ground and give rise to earthquakes and volcanoes. These would seem less powerful in your setting, where at most you get floating rocky archipelagos, compared to endless sky or seas, but local rock dragons could still be feared and potent. As you go down the scale to more mundane beasts, nearly any reptile that makes its home in a burrow could be associated with a rocky or earthy element.

A variety of lesser dragons could be found - anything that creeps along the ground could in some sense be called a dragon, as the modern English words viper and worm both stem from the old Germanic root word for dragon (along with wyvern, orm, lindorm, and wyrm, terms often associated with dragons in modern times), and the word dragon itself comes from drakon, a Greek word describing large crawling or slithering reptiles (such as pythons - Python itself was a Greek drakon and quasi-deity). Certainly, modern snakes give rise to an immediate emotional reaction in people, resonating with that same primitive response that gives rise to dragon myths (that emotion might be fear or it might be fascination, but few people are neutral when it comes to serpents). Various venomous crawling and slithering reptiles could fit this role (including venomous lizards - many cultures hold that some lizards are highly venomous, and a few of them actually are such as beaded lizards, Gila monsters, and apparently some monitor lizards). The famous basilisk, for example, renowned as the most venomous animal on earth, could well have been based on local beliefs about cobras or the desert monitor lizard (which may be mildly venomous, but is universally considered deadly venomous by the locals where it lives).

The problem with developing a bestiary of terrestrial animals for this setting is that they are likely to be local to a particular archipelago, lacking means of dispersal between widely separated bodies of land. One way around this may be to call on various legends of winged serpents which tend to pop up in cultures as diverse as Egypt to Meso-America. Often feathered rather than bat-winged, flying snakes could migrate among the islands. You could also get more whimsical - this butterfly-winged wyvern could fit, for example
http://people.tribe.net/shay/photos/...8-0227c45483e4.

Many dragons of mythology are one-offs, true monsters in the sense of uniquely deformed or created beings rather than one of a populous race. These tend to feature bizarre deformities, such as multiple heads or being chimeras of several species spliced together (including, of course, the original Chimera of Greek legend, as well as Laodon and Hydra from the same culture). Monster dragons are never natural, but the spawn of cosmic or supernatural forces.

In addition to being symbols of the elemental forces of nature, dragons and serpents are also associated with both life and death throughout the world - both healing and pestilence, renewal and destruction. The life giving element is often shown through the sloughing of the skin, rejuvenating a dull and tired beast into a new and vibrant being. Snakes and lizards also disappear during the winter/dry season/season of death, to re-appear in the spring/wet season/season of renewal, thus becoming living representatives of the near universal myth of the fertility god(des) who symbolically dies in winter to be reborn in spring. That, plus the phallic shape of snakes adds to their association with fertility. Furthermore, the elemental associations with water and earth lead to associations with growing things - both elements are considered to be nurturing and life-bringers. The association with death, of course, comes with the venomous nature of many of these beings.

Another universal association of dragons and serpents is with hidden secrets. They are universally thought to be wise and highly perceptive, and know about things which are hidden to human perception and senses. Much of this may be due to their association with water and earth - the earth holds unknown riches and the sea has many secrets in its depth. This leads to another association of dragons and their ilk - they tend to remain hidden and secretive themselves. You can preserve a sense of mystery by keeping them mostly seen from afar, or never fully emerging from beneath the waves or their earthy burrows. This was recently driven home to me when watching footage of crocodiles in the excellent Planet Earth series - their scaly, sinuous forms only partially exposed as they roil in the water or explode from the river to snatch a gnu left an abiding sense of mystery and powerful sense of the draconic, even though I knew perfectly well what they were like when fully exposed.

Taking these archetypes and fitting them to your setting can allow you to tap into primal responses resident within all of us. You can, of course, add your own twists to the legends of Earth so that the reptilian beasts of the Celestial ocean are not just imported Earth dragons, but by borrowing from their mythological meanings and associations, you can make them more powerful symbols in your own game.

I hope this helps,

Luke

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

[ . . . ]My only suggestion is that since it is so alien, it is hard to visualize. If you could find artwork that captured the mood or concepts and post a link to that, it could help. I keep thinking of paintings by Roger Dean, but don't know if that is the feel you are going for.

Luke

As noted by Luke, a quick search proved that Roger Dean's artwork mostly matches the concept of the world. Especially:
http://www.teacherweb.com/LA/JHMS/JBUSH/gallery1.stm
http://www.rogerdean.com/floatingisl...e/partone.html

I have an image that fits pretty well too, but I can't post it to my deviant account out of fear of infringing copyright (I don't even remember where I got it).

Some of the images of Oneiros from Clive Bark's Undying are also fitting.

[vicky_molokh]

Regarding dragons, I agree with many of your ideas. I want to make no 'dragons' in the European sense, but rather big Wyrms, which are indeed worm-like. Some of them will be aquatic, others cosmo-aquatic, but some will actually be able to fly (but not hover).

Regarding land-dwelling species: most of them will be able to travel through the zero-layer somehow (remember, even a human can 'swim' in the zero-layer of the CO, although with many problems; but at least he won't drown), probably by making them Open-Ocean Adapted (see Perky Powers above). That will make migrations possible, but not easy, for those creatures.

Regarding the sky/ocean lifeforms, I'm planning to draw heavily on some marine concepts. Some lifeforms from the Future Is Wild will be all but yanked. ;)

I want some panzer-mollusks (cancer/mollusk cross? snail-like mollusk? no idea).

Planning more carnivorous plants than we have, but most of them only dangerous to small critters (but some exceptions . . .).

I'm trying to stay as far as possible from Mammals.

An idea from a cartoon I still can't identify:
Treehuggers. Treehuggers are diffuse entities that usually envelop plants while idle. However, when they're hungry and an appropriate lifeform approaches, they quickly jump from the tree to it, envelop/suffocate it, and pull it back to their home (tree) for digesting.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Regarding the sky/ocean lifeforms, I'm planning to draw heavily on some marine concepts. Some lifeforms from the Future Is Wild will be all but yanked. ;)

I keep meaning to get that DVD. I've watched parts of it, it seems fascinating.

Originally Posted by Molokh

I want some panzer-mollusks (cancer/mollusk cross? snail-like mollusk? no idea).

By cancer you mean crab or crustacean? Or a spreading tumor?

Is the idea to have a well armored mollusk? A large, fast moving mollusk? Plenty of mollusks have armored shells (snails, ammonites, nautiluses, clams, oysters). The Neverending Story featured a racing snail - a giant snail that could be ridden and was actually quite fast.

I have visions of nautiluses bobbing their way through the air, or hovering jet-propelled sky-squid. Perhaps you could have leg trapping land clams, that sit waiting with their shells open, the edges lines with razor sharp teeth, waiting for something to trod upon them so they can snap shut and eat the foot.

Real life features cone snails - predatory snails with extremely toxic venom delivered by stinging with their harpoon-tongues. Now imagine those infesting every damp place. Cone snails have insanely beautiful shells, adorning insanely deadly mollusks. If damp areas also featured other venomous slimy critters, like land equivalents of the blue-ringed octopus, people will be very cautious about putting their hands or feet where they can't see (especially under rotting logs, under rocks in damp places, or squelching along any surface in tropical jungles).

Velvet worms may also offer some inspiration. These are worms that walk on dozens of feet - centipede-like - but are soft and squishy except for claws on the feet. They catch prey by squirting sticky fluid at it, entangling the victim and allowing the worm to move in and start munching.

The free living bristle worms can also offer inspiration. These worms, like velvet worms, have leg-like structures, but they are used more for swimming than walking and also contain the worm's gills. They have sharp-fanged jaws that they can extrude - alien-style - from their mouths. Real life bristle worms can just give a painful pinch, but if you had a 6 meter long flying bristle worm winding/gliding its way through the air, that could cause some concern.

Floating jellyfish like polyps are another idea, with nasty stinging tentacles (or even electrical zaps to stun their prey - not seen in real life, but occasionally used in fiction).

Originally Posted by Molokh

Planning more carnivorous plants than we have, but most of them only dangerous to small critters (but some exceptions . . .).

Awesomeness on toast.

Plant-like predatory polyps are another possibility. With venomous stinging tentacles that wind around and trap their prey, they could be quite nasty. Especially when the stings actually stick to their prey by shooting out microscopic harpoons tethered to the tentacle.

Some polyps have weird life cycles, where one phase is sedentary and plant like, but instead of shedding unicellular gametes, they produce multicellular mobile reproductive units. These beings start small but eat, hunt, and grow to adulthood while still having only half the genetic component of the sedentary polyp that shed them. Then they meet with another mobile reproductive polyp and merge their genes, creating the seed for a new sedentary polyp. You could envision this giving rise to unique social groupings, where a "tree" polyp is groomed and protected by swarms of the mobile "sperm/egg" polyps. The latter occasionally journey out to meet with the swarms from other "trees", so they can mate and complete the reproductive cycle.

Originally Posted by Molokh

I'm trying to stay as far as possible from Mammals.

So no sky-whales or dolphins? No hunting wild swine on lush tropical islands? No rats on sky-ships? I suppose you could have reptilian or amphibian or invertebrate analogues of these things, though. Dicynodonts are rather swine-like, for example, but still somewhat reptilian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicynodont

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

By cancer you mean crab or crustacean? Or a spreading tumor?

The crab-like creature. They're found in our lakes or rivers.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Is the idea to have a well armored mollusk? A large, fast moving mollusk? Plenty of mollusks have armored shells (snails, ammonites, nautiluses, clams, oysters). The Neverending Story featured a racing snail - a giant snail that could be ridden and was actually quite fast.

Mostly I meant something not too large (2" to 1'), but well armored for its size.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

I have visions of nautiluses bobbing their way through the air, or hovering jet-propelled sky-squid. Perhaps you could have leg trapping land clams, that sit waiting with their shells open, the edges lines with razor sharp teeth, waiting for something to trod upon them so they can snap shut and eat the foot.

Consider these yanked.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Real life features cone snails - predatory snails with extremely toxic venom delivered by stinging with their harpoon-tongues. Now imagine those infesting every damp place. Cone snails have insanely beautiful shells, adorning insanely deadly mollusks. If damp areas also featured other venomous slimy critters, like land equivalents of the blue-ringed octopus, people will be very cautious about putting their hands or feet where they can't see (especially under rotting logs, under rocks in damp places, or squelching along any surface in tropical jungles).

Well, maybe too nasty, but it's certainly something I'm willing to add.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Velvet worms may also offer some inspiration. These are worms that walk on dozens of feet - centipede-like - but are soft and squishy except for claws on the feet. They catch prey by squirting sticky fluid at it, entangling the victim and allowing the worm to move in and start munching.

As mentioned before, I'm going to use as many worm-ideas as possible.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

The free living bristle worms can also offer inspiration. These worms, like velvet worms, have leg-like structures, but they are used more for swimming than walking and also contain the worm's gills. They have sharp-fanged jaws that they can extrude - alien-style - from their mouths. Real life bristle worms can just give a painful pinch, but if you had a 6 meter long flying bristle worm winding/gliding its way through the air, that could cause some concern.

That's one of them Wyrms. ;)

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Floating jellyfish like polyps are another idea, with nasty stinging tentacles (or even electrical zaps to stun their prey - not seen in real life, but occasionally used in fiction).

Oh, that certainly. Though I'm not quite sure about the lightning attack. But I'm certainly going to have some electrical attack for some creatures.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Awesomeness on toast.

Didn't expect that.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Plant-like predatory polyps are another possibility. With venomous stinging tentacles that wind around and trap their prey, they could be quite nasty. Especially when the stings actually stick to their prey by shooting out microscopic harpoons tethered to the tentacle.

Some polyps have weird life cycles, where one phase is sedentary and plant like, but instead of shedding unicellular gametes, they produce multicellular mobile reproductive units. These beings start small but eat, hunt, and grow to adulthood while still having only half the genetic component of the sedentary polyp that shed them. Then they meet with another mobile reproductive polyp and merge their genes, creating the seed for a new sedentary polyp. You could envision this giving rise to unique social groupings, where a "tree" polyp is groomed and protected by swarms of the mobile "sperm/egg" polyps. The latter occasionally journey out to meet with the swarms from other "trees", so they can mate and complete the reproductive cycle.

Cool. BTW, are corals and polyps just different phases of the same creatures?

Originally Posted by lwcamp

So no sky-whales or dolphins? No hunting wild swine on lush tropical islands? No rats on sky-ships? I suppose you could have reptilian or amphibian or invertebrate analogues of these things, though. Dicynodonts are rather swine-like, for example, but still somewhat reptilian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicynodont

No, cetaceans are so blasé. I want to get away from the mainstream. Space Whales are just so overused. I'm not even sure that quadrupeds will be the main locomotion form. Centipede-like animals, or even rolling ones, are probably much more exotic. Yeah, I want to make big centipedes (with lungs, duh) replace rats. And then there are cocroaches too.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Molokh

As noted by Luke, a quick search proved that Roger Dean's artwork mostly matches the concept of the world. Especially:
http://www.teacherweb.com/LA/JHMS/JBUSH/gallery1.stm
http://www.rogerdean.com/floatingisl...e/partone.html

I have an image that fits pretty well too, but I can't post it to my deviant account out of fear of infringing copyright (I don't even remember where I got it).

Some of the images of Oneiros from Clive Bark's Undying are also fitting.

Some of the descriptions also reminded me of the animations of René Laloux, the physical description of one of the races made me think of the deformed mutant men of Gandahar, for example.

Do you have screen shots of Oneiros? I haven't played that game.

The feel of this setting also reminds me of the Myst family of games, with isolated surreal places to explore.

Luke

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Some of the descriptions also reminded me of the animations of René Laloux, the physical description of one of the races made me think of the deformed mutant men of Gandahar, for example.

Oh, my ex also thought so. But they're ugly because of scar tissue and other tissue-level deformities. The optional extra limbs don't factor much.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Do you have screen shots of Oneiros? I haven't played that game.

No, and I won't be installing the game anytime soon, so sorry. You can maybe try a search. Basically, it's floating architecture on small rocks.

Originally Posted by lwcamp

The feel of this setting also reminds me of the Myst family of games, with isolated surreal places to explore.

No idea. I've only been exposed to the first (rather bland) world of some Myst-series game.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Greetings, all!

So, you see lots of threads by me that are tagged [fantasy]. Many of them are related to a project of mine, a game setting that's intentionally made very unlike the mainstream type of fantasy settings. I'm writing this here with mixed feelings - part willing to get constructive critique in order to improve it along the lines of its concept, part fearful that the project will fail because there will be no way to make sure it makes sense and that it encourages a sufficient amount of suspension of disbelief. ...

Of course, the truth was more banal: the 'Sun' was actually just a big hot star, the 'endless' ocean was but a lake hanging in a pit in the sky. The wise men were just a bunch of crazy mages with a silly paradigm. In truth, the primitive moonships were only able to fly out of the pit thanks to a verse of a poet who truly believed in their ability to fly.

I was with you until that last paragraph.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

I was with you until that last paragraph.

Sounds funny, but could you please elaborate?

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Sounds funny, but could you please elaborate?

The legendary style description seemed like a more than adequate foundation for a fantasy universe. It was sufficiently intact unto itself to generate suspension of disbelief. The final paragraph in contrast veered away from what had come before and disrupted it.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

The legendary style description seemed like a more than adequate foundation for a fantasy universe. It was sufficiently intact unto itself to generate suspension of disbelief. The final paragraph in contrast veered away from what had come before and disrupted it.

I'm trying to highlight an ironic point:

The Islanders, being naïve and uneducated at that time, wrote down their history so-and-so.
The other folks try to point out where the Islanders were wrong.
But it turns out that what they consider the usual, cynical truth, turns out to be no less mythical.

Perhaps there's a better way to say it?

[vicky_molokh]

Canopies: roots that grow into stems, made of tissue similar to both wood and bone at the same time (in different aspects). The stems reach for the sky, then for each other, forming 'roofs'. On top, these roofs gather light, rain and the songs of singing stars. Beneath, they form a shelter for animals, bear fruit (with seeds, so that these animals help them spread), and even provide a small amount of illumination through bioluminiscence.

Sponges: Celestial Ocean's sponges are numerous, quick-growing, nutrient-rich and variable. Sponges actually serve as one of the major lifeforms used in farming.

Slimes: not exactly sessile, but rather reaaly slow-moving. Slimes are the streetsweepers of the land, gathering what other lifeforms would not. Needless to say, encountering one is nasty, but completely safe (unless you happen to try to eat it, or fall into a pit filled with it . . .).

Grasses: a collective term for plant-like entities that lack a solid stem - which happens to include 4-yard high ones too. And bread crops. And flowers. And weeds. And fence-like almost-bushes that still lack the solid structure that distinguishes a Canopy. You get the idea.

Trappers: carnivorous grass-like entities, distinguished by the ability to attract and catch small animals, and a somewhat more rigid exterior. Still no match for the mighty foot-stop.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Molokh

The Other Path is a name that is meant to signify its divergence from The Road of Thorns. According to its teachings, Destiny is indeed a great power, but not exactly a benevolent one. (...)
If the walker succeeds in avoiding destiny's road at this final moment, s/he/it attains freedom from destiny. After that, a walker loses any remaining Luck, Serendipity, Daredevil, Signature Gear, Unluckiness, King's Two Bodies, or other similar destiny-related traits. Some walkers have reported achieving Mage's Enlightenment, and/or becoming Illuminated. (...)

Interesting. Could be this another example of fortuitous fabulisimilitude?

Striving against Destiny, this being a particularly difficult path, and finally leading to the freedom of conditioning (even if part of it are "advantages"), has some almost exact correspondences with that what in Hinduism is/was called The Path of the Left Hand. However, for pointing a difference with your "Other Path", failure in The Path of the Left Hand (*) was likely to result in things much worse than physical death. Another difference is: according real world spiritual teachings, if complete Enlightenment is attained (or even starting from certain level of it), that result can't be lost.

...However, this raises here a notable exception: the post-medieval european mystics were of a very special sort: they were attached to a religious and exoteric point of view, lacking of real teachings nor doctrine... Most of them only could to "catch" glimpses of a partial Enlightenment, and very rarely in a permanent way. It could be said they were seeking Salvation instead Enlightenment. Yes, the post-medieval Spanish mystics of the so-called "Golden Age" are included here. Unfortunately, today the word "mystic" bears more often than not a meaning related with them, their practices and limited perspective, instead keeping the original one, resulting in many confusions.

My apologies for answering to posts as this without having read the entire thread. Besides, I'm using here the term Enlightenment as synonym of Illumination despite knowing in your setting both terms have different meanings.

(*) It was reserved for "heroes" (vira) because its sheer difficulty, and was even more esoteric (here in the sense of "hidden" and "inaccessible") than usual because their potentially subversive social impact upon the people.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Interesting. Could be this another example of fortuitous fabulisimilitude?

You tell me. I'm still trying to figure the full scope of the word.

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Striving against Destiny, this being a particularly difficult path, and finally leading to the freedom of conditioning (even if part of it are "advantages"), has some almost exact correspondences with that what in Hinduism is/was called The Path of the Left Hand. However, for pointing a difference with your "Other Path", failure in The Path of the Left Hand (*) was likely to result in things much worse than physical death.

Such as?

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Another difference is: according real world spiritual teachings, if complete Enlightenment is attained (or even starting from certain level of it), that result can't be lost.

Be sure to check the difference between Enlightenment and Illumination. Enlightenment is only lost when the mind gets damaged in some way - when understanding is lots. Illumination is mostly beyond understanding in the first place.

Originally Posted by demonsbane

...However, this raises here a notable exception: the post-medieval european mystics were of a very special sort: they were attached to a religious and exoteric point of view, lacking of real teachings nor doctrine... Most of them only could to "catch" glimpses of a partial Enlightenment, and very rarely in a permanent way. It could be said they were seeking Salvation instead Enlightenment. Yes, the post-medieval Spanish mystics of the so-called "Golden Age" are included here. Unfortunately, today the word "mystic" bears more often than not a meaning related with them, their practices and limited perspective, instead keeping the original one, resulting in many confusions.

Well, the Sapients of CO don't need salvation. There's no afterlife. In fact, the lack of afterlife and the focus on life are very important points of all religions in the setting.

Originally Posted by demonsbane

My apologies for answering to posts as this without having read the entire thread.

It's okay. I'm thankful for any comments, and I'm doubly grateful for such detailed answers.

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Besides, I'm using here the term Enlightenment as synonym of Illumination despite knowing in your setting both terms have different meanings.

Whoops. Assumption clash.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Such as?

Perpetual damnation or several cycles of damnation; reborn as a demonic being in a different existence; be cursed forever with a sort of Unholy Investiture and a subsequent annihilation into the substantial pole... And such >;^D

Originally Posted by Molokh

Well, the Sapients of CO don't need salvation. There's no afterlife. In fact, the lack of afterlife and the focus on life are very important points of all religions in the setting.

Then, because what I just said above does implies a continuity of life beyond the corporeal experience, it doesn't seems very useful for your CO setting.

Originally Posted by Molokh

Whoops. Assumption clash.

No worries. The issue is Enlightenment and Illumination are, for me, the same thing. If there is a difference between both terms in your setting, for the moment I let these details to you.