The Cadaverous Earth

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Yeah, all witchcraft is based around the same basic mechanics - if The Dying Earth's magic is meant to be an extension of mathematics, The Cadaverous Earth's is meant to be an extension of semiotics.  You draw (or speak) an essentially arbitrary symbol, then infuse it with meaning, an act of reading concretized through the "invocation" process.[/ooc]

[Superfluous Crow]

yeah, i was just thinking you might have some lesser disciplines such as Mieville's subvocalurgy, the Hidden Moment, or crisis science.

[LordVreeg]

[ooc]Yeah, all witchcraft is based around the same basic mechanics - if The Dying Earth's magic is meant to be an extension of matehmatics, The Cadaverous Earth's is meant to be an extension of semiotics.  You draw (or speak) an essentially arbitrary symbol, then infuse it with meaning, an act of reading concretized through the "invocation" process.[/ooc]

So to extend the metaphor, learning magic is more like learning an intricate and alien written alphabet/language?  And when you say it is essentially arbitrary, you are saying it that the invocation [or language) imparts the meaning and power?

[Steerpike]

[ooc][blockquote=Cataclysmic Crow]yeah, i was just thinking you might have some lesser disciplines such as Mieville's subvocalurgy, the Hidden Moment, or crisis science.[/blockquote]Yeah, I should think up more of these.  Skinchanging comes to mind, which is just shapeshifting - I hadn't thought up all the details of this one yet, but maybe I'll make it grisly and ritualistic in some way.  I love the Hidden Moment stuff in Iron Council...[blockquote=Lord Vreeg]So to extend the metaphor, learning magic is more like learning an intricate and alien written alphabet/language? And when you say it is essentially arbitrary, you are saying it that the invocation [or language) imparts the meaning and power?[/blockquote]Learning witchcraft in CE is much like learning an alien language - or more accurately, learning a set of symbols and "formulae" or texts in a particular language (usually, but not always, Hextongue).  This language is arbitrary in the sense that there's nothing essential about the particular language that makes it "magic"; you're correct in asserting that it's the act of invocation (or interpretation) that imparts meaning and thus eldritch power.  The witch therefore corresponds both to a kind of author/poet figure, a speaker or utterer or writer who creates symbols, and to a reader or critic, who interprets those symbols and imbues them with meaning.  A glyph or spoken hex is the signifier, its arcane effect is the signified.

The words still "matter" in the same way that words "matter" when we read.  When we read Keat's Ode to a Nightingale, we're looking at a series of totally arbitrary marks on a piece of paper with no relation to a nightingale whatsoever; the word "nightingale" is not essentially tied to its signified.  If we all suddenly decided that the word nightingale didn't signify a bird but, in fact, an automobile, there's nothing about the word itself to prevent such a transference.  However, because we've agreed on a set of meanings, we still read Ode to a Nightingale as signifying a narrative about a nightingale (among other things).  We don't, for example, interpret it as a poem about a penguin (although, arguably, there's nothing to actually stop us from doing so).  We must, however, still perform an interpretive act to relate the arbitrary signs that comprise the poem into a sequence of meanings.  Invocation in CE just throws in the arcane energy of "numina" into the equation to give words a different sort of power.[/ooc]

[LD]

If you may humour me... I decided to experiment a bit writing like how I believe one of your albinos might think.

[ic=Kiss]Kiss
black... bitter... death... cold...
the spiderwalker moves with spindly legs
in and out and around the walls.
i watch and smile; a wolf-one crawls between my lip.

i climbed to the top, on web of silk
thin
emaciated i moved, 'gainst wall
i was in the caverns
often i looked up
wanting
like the spider
to climb

i was a spider
i scurried hence
had others squeeze
me
till i was thin

backs turned, i slithered up
chains fall loose when
flesh does sag

up i climb
hard to see
hard to sense

up i go
hear spiderchatter curse
up i go
hear humanslicer clang
up i go
like
a spider
so i climb
arch my back
hiss and tssssssiiikkk

then
i fall
black... bitter... death... cold...
until i wake,

now
i
lie
in
spider web
with
my breed.
covered

in
silken
cocoon
i
do
rest

close
my eyes
as
spider-mate
tucks
me in.
romance
this is.
i feel
her
kiss.

and
...
...
i
s
l
e
e
p
.[/ic]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Niiiiiice!  So creepy.  Really a poem as much as an interior monologue.  I think the second stanza, with its strange pining, is my favorite.

[blockquote=Crow]yeah, i was just thinking you might have some lesser disciplines such as Mieville's subvocalurgy, the Hidden Moment, or crisis science.[/blockquote]Xell is going to have a lot of stuff like this, I think.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Added a section on Leechkin Beggary to Lophius, just beneath Fashion/Architecture.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]...And also a new character (also leechkin), Mr. Rasp, at the end of the Characters section.

EDIT: and added a minor race, the zerda, to the Inhumans section.  The closest thing CE has to a "cute" race.[/ooc]

[LD]

The more I read about the foxfolk, the more I want to read about the Jinni... from carrion-Jinni to others.

[LD]

>>"accompanied by four strikingly unique bodyguards,"
How unique? I'm interested.

"and has perfected a technique unknown amongst other leechkin for speaking in two distinct languages simultaneously."
Very interesting. Though I wonder how this would be useful? How does he practically use this? Translation perhaps is the only use I can see for it?

[Steerpike]

[ooc][blockquote=Ligth Dragon]>>"accompanied by four strikingly unique bodyguards,"
How unique? I'm interested.[/blockquote]I added them in: "'" Yesheleb with his plethora of unlikely limbs and his fluid pugilism, the cloaked, mercenary thing that merely calls itself The Cowl, the lilix swordsman Illiszan of Weave-Haven in Crepuscle, and red-masked Chaa-Ibl, witch-priestess of the Bloodletter '"".

The double-speech thing would be to address individuals speaking different languages simultaneously.  If you're meeting with a magister from Skein and a hagman priest simultaneously it'd probably come in handy, to save time at the very least.

As for the jinni, they'er still a little inchoate at the moment, but they're probably going to be a race of daeva.[/ooc]

[Superfluous Crow]

What kind of terrain is the Firesong Marches? You refer to it as a desert, which seems odd considering the name; is it simply a classical dune desert or does it also consist of more swampy elements?
How big are the Zerda? Are they ewok-sized, or are they just equivalent height to short humans/young adults?
Their turtle-culture reminds me of the Chelona turtles from Iron Council.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Actually "marches" means boundary zone or border, whereas "marshes" means swamp/wetland.

Damn, I forgot about the Chelona... Mieville steals all the good ideas.

And zerda are quite small, halfling sort of size, so I guess roughly the size of an ewok.  They're not my absolutely favorite race, but they've been tehre since day one, and could be quite fun (and frustrating for PCs) to have in an adventure; also just good for adding more diversity to a cosmopolitan crowd for that whole Star Wars Cantina/Troll Market effect...[/ooc]

[Superfluous Crow]

Oh, my mistake...
Yeah, i know exactly what you are talking about with that Cantina feel. I have even had points in my own setting creation process where i have tried aiming for that. Although i might have digressed a bit at the moment; my city of Tatterdemalion was made expressly for this purpose though.
And the Zerda do sound... strange. They feel a bit out of place, yet not so much that it hurts the setting.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Yeah they're not quite so centrally on the theme of death/decay/grotesquerie as the other races; they're not bloodusckers or anthropomorphic eels, or scions of a wormfolk empire, or undead.

On the other hand, it might be a good thing to have at least one or two races that aren't completely centered around degeneration and collapse, to give the world at least some variation from its single note of darkness...

Their first appearance was in a story I was writing whose world prefigures the Cadaverous Earth (it wasn't a dying earth, but it was a world that'd just been decimated by a demonic war).  Shades and tenebrals were the same thing in that world, and were hostile demonic forces kind of like the borg; there was a great scene, if I do so so myself, of a zerda getting possessed by one of them, so the zerda have their origins as a sort of comic-relief/Chew Toy.

Actually, I still have the passage I was talking about:

[ic=Excerpt]Despite Nechu's barked warnings and near-intuitive understanding of the desert, their journey to the necropolis was not without incident.  They entered the ruins of a desiccated manse, a few decaying walls and a row of broken columns, an obelisk reduced to a shapeless lump by sandstorms; Ilahna, sensing a node of memory in the once-palatial shell, lapsed into the trance-like state of chronoleurgic hypnosis, chasing echoes like fluttering bats in some unfathomable mnemonic cavern.  Suddenly Siril bristled, hooted with avian-feline precognition.'

The creatures stepped from black shadows cast by decrepit age-eaten walls, like shades of the manse's former inhabitants: four shriveled bodies jerking towards them, fleshy marionettes on unseen strings with blandly staring eyes and fingers curled into claws.  Three were once human, the fourth a foxfolk with matted fur.  Abyssal parasites pulsed with queasy rhythms beneath their host-puppets' necrotic gooseflesh, rippling subdermal presences.
   'Tenebrals!' Julian snapped with fearful recognition, his own extraplanar symbionts quivering under his skin as the listless horrors emerged from the gloom, treading with slow, exaggerated movements, ridiculously theatrical.  'Their hosts are dead - they're looking for new bodies!'

(there was a long, rather tedious fight scene here)

...Now the tenebrals counter-attacked: the closest began to ripple at a greater tempo, its slack mouth gaping open, jaw distended, till with a horrific spasm the thing vomited forth a gout of the demoniac shadow-stuff, a writhing projectile aimed at Uzrik.  Intuitively the northerner rolled to the side, snapping off another shot; the tenebral's living missile hit Nechu instead and immediately attached itself, smothering the foxfolk's terrified barks with choking tendrils.  The other host slumped to the ground but now the thing that once was Nechu turned with claws bared, leaping towards Eldred.  Siril pounced and tore Nechu's head from her body with a single swipe, hissing and withdrawing as the tenebral inside spurted out black and predatory.  Abruptly Ilahna snapped from her trance and screamed with sudden recognition.  Eldred, emptying the rest of his ammunition into the walking corpses, holstered his pistols and reached for his sword as the remaining tenebrals closed in.[/ic] [/ooc].