What exactly, in this world, is life? ...Generally it is a somewhat poorly defined artificial set of characteristics, and not at all a separate thing in itself - and by that definition it can be a bit hard to speak of "making life possible". The exact same things and processes which take place in and make up living beings can be observed in a vast number of other places, and on the other hand, there is no discernible line between "living" and "not living" to begin with. (When does a chemical process start being alive?)
- It doesn't help that the more advanced organisms still function mostly like colonies of much smaller beings rather than singular entities. White blood cells especially are essentially tiny amoeba ... a type of which actually physically goes and crawls up to nerve endings to ask the brain what it is supposed to do every now and then. And generally, the rest of the cells (except the ones dedicated to deal with this kind of thing) could not care less whether or not something or other somewhere else in the body is dead ... as far as they are concerned, they'd gladly continue living on, except at some point either the environment gets too toxic or - as generally happens first - they simply cannot find anything to sustain themselves on in the vicinity (since the heart has stopped and nutrients are no longer carried around - basically, when the heart stops, the other cells die simply because they "starve to death", and for no other reason whatsoever). If you take a set of cells out and put them in a nutrient solution instead, they will keep living on like nothing happened, aside of receiving very significantly decreased amount of external orders. If by any chance those cells have telomerasis activated, for whatever reason (many types of cancer cells, for example), then those are practically immortal on top of it. (And not only hypothetically so - there is a strain still in laboratories from a woman who herself died several decades ago, at the ripe age of 86...)
"Severe organ failure" is furthermore a rater questionable thing, since the body in entirety can circumvent plenty of things quite decently - happens often enough that people suffer no serious discomfort from it. It would actually feel more natural in those terms if mages often felt no immediate effects (unless very severe - more than quarter of all blood in body - blood loss occurs or something like that ... people often enough do not notice if they have heart attacks were a third of their heart dies, even) and randomly died a few days later. If it is the brain that gets damaged, though, then the change often is immediate and can be very drastic.
...I am not entirely sure where am I going with this anymore, so I leave it at that until I figure out what I actually wanted to say.
In any case, the statement of making life possible has never really made sense to me - these things always automatically work otherwise since that is a part of their chemical/physical nature, but now that the components are within a body physics suddenly no longer apply to them and suddenly they have to be "activated"?
- Souls being mandatory for life (rather than just magic/afterlife), a common fantasy trope as it is, tends to be one of those things that I inevitably end up placing in the box of things I actively avoid thinking of (I probably have to find a bigger box for those things ... soon), since I cannot create anything even remotely reminiscent of a working system with them. My own fantasy settings actually have it established that souls do not exist at all as far as "mortals" are concerned (and mages are more weird compound beings rather than just ordinary mortals ... I guess I *could* have made everyone like that, though)...
- - Uh, and if I am by any case bothering you with my incessant picking apart of things, then honestly, just let me know. It's just you've been nice enough to at least try to explain how everything might fit together, so I've dared to bother you more than I otherwise do...
(Does magical exhaustion never damage the brain? I'd assume thinking / controlling body / memories are at least tightly bound to it in Reniam cases, too... Uh, and mind exists separately from body in other than the figurative sense?)
- Why would the body alter itself after the soul? The soul has been described to "cling" to the body - things sort of get "pulled into place"?
On a random thought - do you (as someone as a person who uses character with a long-sword) know what half-swording is (since I haven't seen you describing anything like it IC, and it seems to be a bit little known that such thing exists, even if it is very useful technique utilized by both modern and old practitioners of sword art)?
(By the way, I did post in the collab some time yesterday ... with nothing but the number to go by it can be hard to tell.)
...I go back to coding and trying to figure out what I wanted to say with most of it. My thoughts are a bit of a mess at the time being.
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Good questions, Jack... I must say I would be somewhat interested in answers myself, especially on the traveling from realm to realm bit (can a magical being travel onto Earth and affect the creatures there, much as described in some folk tales, for example?)...
I would speculate, though, that using their powers might affect differently might also affect different beings differently? I'd imagine such as beings with flight or unnatural strength would simply get tired, witches and warlocks are actually described to mutate physically in the OP, shifters cannot shift for some time in some circumstances as described in the OP, those who passively use their voice and other natural talents probably suffer little, the effect of using elemental powers may vary between actual elementals and angels/demons, and so forth... I kind of have in mind for my own being to have a mix of different effects depending on what power is being used at the time being.
- I actually did start to write something, but did not quite finish ... I have difficulties writing personality-sections out of blue, so I started to fill out the relationship-chart section to figure out what is she like through her views on others and so forth. Well, and I tend to write rather elaborately. Expect the biography to become a short story and kill the forum's character limit.
@Cthulu: Thanks.
I would speculate, though, that using their powers might affect differently might also affect different beings differently? I'd imagine such as beings with flight or unnatural strength would simply get tired, witches and warlocks are actually described to mutate physically in the OP, shifters cannot shift for some time in some circumstances as described in the OP, those who passively use their voice and other natural talents probably suffer little, the effect of using elemental powers may vary between actual elementals and angels/demons, and so forth... I kind of have in mind for my own being to have a mix of different effects depending on what power is being used at the time being.
- I actually did start to write something, but did not quite finish ... I have difficulties writing personality-sections out of blue, so I started to fill out the relationship-chart section to figure out what is she like through her views on others and so forth. Well, and I tend to write rather elaborately. Expect the biography to become a short story and kill the forum's character limit.
@Cthulu: Thanks.
@cthulu: A somewhat random question perhaps, but what is Lao's voice like? Mainly, does he sound as feminine as he looks, or is his voice generally at least identifiable as a man's?
Me, I am still about, and actually did start writing something last night - no the faintest idea about anyone else, though. It just happens I tend to not look at the NRP section all that much with all that generally transpires here...
( - If you can recall, I said I would most likely be working the NSs over the weekend. I'll probably still get them finished just in case others show up, but it is not a priority before I hear the RP may still take off.)
( - If you can recall, I said I would most likely be working the NSs over the weekend. I'll probably still get them finished just in case others show up, but it is not a priority before I hear the RP may still take off.)
Mostly unintentionally (which is to say, I have done a lot of driving these days ... it comes automatically enough for me for my mind to be free to wander as I am at it), I have done a bit of further thinking over what my character would be in this setting... Let me write something up (sometime between now and tomorrow morning) and let's see what our SweetCinderella thinks of her kind. Expect a PM, I say.
A quick question before I post - what kind of tone did the lieutenant use when he asked is question in the end?
(Hmm... And by my understanding only the three guards attacked by the yth were severely injured - of whom two are dead, I presume from the comment about the blankets?)
(Hmm... And by my understanding only the three guards attacked by the yth were severely injured - of whom two are dead, I presume from the comment about the blankets?)
I am still around, so if others (Hymusia/cthulu) are up to it, I am in.
Uh... Rephrase of question - what does the lifeforce/soul actually do in a body that is necessary for something to function properly (and which is not already done by, say, adenosine triphosphate [one of the main energy carriers/very short-term storagers in cells])? What role does it fill aside of being something that can carry on to afterlife and provide magic? Why would underabundancy of it be harmful in the first place? How does the lessened amount of it damage the body?
(Tired?)
(Tired?)
...Happy Easter indeed!
I myself drove half across the country yesterday so I could spend the first half of this day digging holes into the ground and planting tiny birch trees and the second half of the day handling pieces of tree trunks, which I am not particularly certain is a traditional way of celebrating it in any culture ... but then again, it was a nice change - helping my father and other relatives with forest-work, that is -, and I got to see several people I haven't met since the last summer. We also made a five-meter-tall fire in the evening and all (away from any trees). We don't particularly celebrate Easter over here, aside of having the Friday free ... today several people actually went to (paid, official) work, and that despite of the fact that today (or, looking at the time, yesterday) was a Saturday atop of a holiday.
It was also a warm, sunny day ... I was wearing a T-shirt through most of it and it was still too hot. (Meanwhile, my Finnish person I know told me they have snow over there last weekend... Our winter lasted the entirety of two and half weeks this year - no snow at all before the second half of January and come the end of the first third of February, snowdrops and snowflakes are already blossoming...)
(Did you ever get an e-mail from me Hymusia/cthulu?)
I myself drove half across the country yesterday so I could spend the first half of this day digging holes into the ground and planting tiny birch trees and the second half of the day handling pieces of tree trunks, which I am not particularly certain is a traditional way of celebrating it in any culture ... but then again, it was a nice change - helping my father and other relatives with forest-work, that is -, and I got to see several people I haven't met since the last summer. We also made a five-meter-tall fire in the evening and all (away from any trees). We don't particularly celebrate Easter over here, aside of having the Friday free ... today several people actually went to (paid, official) work, and that despite of the fact that today (or, looking at the time, yesterday) was a Saturday atop of a holiday.
It was also a warm, sunny day ... I was wearing a T-shirt through most of it and it was still too hot. (Meanwhile, my Finnish person I know told me they have snow over there last weekend... Our winter lasted the entirety of two and half weeks this year - no snow at all before the second half of January and come the end of the first third of February, snowdrops and snowflakes are already blossoming...)
(Did you ever get an e-mail from me Hymusia/cthulu?)
Perhaps? A RP I have been part of for a few months would be ported over here and I got myself some sheets to redo accordingly, as well as some not-at-all RP-related stuff, but once I've taken care of most of it, you might yet come to meet a dreadwraith* of mine (SweetCinderella approving of the kind of being she is, of course).
*...The first half of the actual name of the being is literally "bone" - to imply residing within in this case -, but the second half? "Torment" has somewhat different connotations, not haunt, rather something done with nightmares - links to the nature of the being, too - ... Ah, just let her be a dreadwraith.
*...The first half of the actual name of the being is literally "bone" - to imply residing within in this case -, but the second half? "Torment" has somewhat different connotations, not haunt, rather something done with nightmares - links to the nature of the being, too - ... Ah, just let her be a dreadwraith.
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