Re: Magical sight

From: plarsen_at_...
Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 14:02:25 -0500 (CDT)


Merlin Cox says:

> The mythic sight of the Heortlings is described in 'Morden Defends the
> Camp'
> ('Colors clarified into keen brightness. Ordinary things dropped away,
> so
> that artful decoration faded, insignificant details disappearing so that
> one
> suit of armor or shield looked like any other...'). 'Sense Gods Nearby'
> isn't the perfect name for this ability.

What Morden experiences may not be the godi's "Sense" abilities; it may be part of heroforming. Modern is essentially forcing his opponents to come to him on mythic ground and fight his ancestor/hero. They do predictably poorly (except for the guy who can heroform and, therefor, match Morden myth for myth).

I imagine the godi's powers to be more "sensing" than seeing -- sort of the way Uroxi sense chaos by a variety of pains -- so a godi in the presence of gods (or , presumably, daimons) knows they are there, but it's not necessarily visual (nor the same for each kind of force). Perhaps Umbroli are sensed as changes in the air pressure; Earth daimons and gods make the earth quiver or smell like fresh turned soil and growing things (or like moldy tombs or old blood for the Dark Earth). When Humakt or His followers are present, the cold air of Death blows on the godi's neck, while the forces of the Sky are heralded by a beating heat. The higher a character's ability and the more familiar the force, the better the identification. Orlanthi godir worth their salt should be able to detect and identify Umbroli with a fair degree of precision and do pretty well with the Earth forces. An Ernaldan would do the reverse. Either may or may not have a harder time with, say Darkness or Fire forces, depending on their experiences, traditional foes, etc. So a Vingan godi would know a fair amount about Air (Valind's followers, too), Earth, and Darkness theist beings, but be weaker identifying Solar or Lunar forces (she'd know something was there, but not exactly what it was).

Sensing Spirits is probably even more vague -- a feeling that "something strange is nearby." I would tend to give major penalties for anything beyond a) a spirit is present and b) it's elemental (and maybe other runic) associations. Maybe if a spirit or type of spirit was common on a tula (a famous dryad, say, or ghosts left over from Jaldon's last raid), I'd let the godi identify it more precisely and know what the clan's theisticly-biased take on the spirit(s) was. Anything more definite should require the services of a spirit-talker.

"Spirit Sight" involves seeing all the intangible animist forces inhabiting all sorts of things. This explains why shaman spend a lot of time staring at things that aren't there and stumbling around. I have no idea about "Symbolic Sight" unless it shows the user the runic or religious codes for the beings in question -- saints might appear as their icons, relatively uniform people identified by their attributes ("He's got a Saw; he has to be St. Ethlred, martyred most savagely by saw" (and Patron of Carpenters)). Essences perhaps appear as their idealized forms, not however they might look to a normal person. But I really have no clue about that.

Anyway, that's my take on it. No doubt there will be others.

Peter Larsen

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