Flamal & ZZ; elf methods

From: Lemens, Chris <CNU!AUSTIN3!lemens_at_cnucorp.attmail.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 1997 13:23:00 +0000


Erik Sieurin again brings up the problem of why ZZ didn't eat Flamal.  (Sorry, Erik, I asked this question when I first posted an outline of the SeedQuest.) I looked in CoP and it says only the ZZ killed him (even in the ZZ writeup). I think it is because ZZ was escaping with death-on-an-axe at the time. I suspect Flamal and others were pursuing.

Erik also suggests that the really cool plants be gifts from Aldrya. I'd buy that because these things ought to be rare. On the other hand, there will be useful plants that elves have bred that are not quite so cool. My spear plant might be an example (though some will say it is too extreme to be naturally occurring).

Me:
>> It takes too long to grow a new tool and a normal gardening elf
>>will need to do far too much work to do it all with magic.

Eric:
>Huh? Too long? Real world carpenters did similar things on a
>smaller scale during the last century and into this one. I remember
>walking the forest with my father as a kid, and he could stop now
>and then and say, "That tree will be a perfect this-and-that in a
>couple of years." Especially boatwrights and woodcarvers would
>tie trees or prune them to make sure they would grow into good
>shape. And I'm sure elves take a far longer perspective than
>man - though they might not be immortal, and a lot of them actually
>live no longer than man, they are tree-like. Hurrying things does
>not seem tree-like to me. And IF you are in a hurry, THEN you
>might have spells to help you.

I must have been ambiguous. What I was objecting to was the idea that elves have sufficient magic that, when they need to do some gardening, they just use magic to do it or ask a tree to make a tool on the spot. I think that elves _do_ invest years in growing good tools, which is precisely why they carry them around and do not discard them for a long time.

Erik:
>[E]nchanting in the human way may not be a good word for it.
>They grow stuff they need, and they are much better at it because
>they have such a deep understanding for what they are growing.
>It just seems magical to humans.

I think this links up with the song of Aldrya. The song gives them the understanding and avenue of creation. By singing the song with a tree, and elf can convince the tree to grow a nice spear for him. This may, as a mechanic, involve the expenditure of MP or POW. So we put a name on it. I think there is lots of ritual involved, but that the ritual is very everyday for elves.

Erik:
>Stone and wood are kin - distant but kin. Elves may abhore "dead
>things" - but they are dead because THEY killed them. The wise elves
>may know this, others may just hate stone and metal.

I think they abhored Stone before they killed him. (Otherwise, why kill him?) But this is a reason in addition to it being dead and distasteful to elf-sense.

>Why are not the copper trees and bronze bushes dead? Because
>they were closer kin to the elves, and did not get involved in the
>fight until very late. They lost fewer numbers.

I'd distinguish between copper and bronze. Copper is the fiber of living Ga (except the copper sands that are part of the dead body of Genert out in the wastes?). Bronze is the bone of dead storm gods. Crystals are the blood of dead gods. Hence, copper plants would be OK, but not bronze or crystal plants, IMO.

If plants were once more copperish, were fish more mercurial, wind children more silver, trolls more leaden? I think metallic and metalish beings are the domain of the Mostali. But YGMV.

Chris Lemens


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