Ciphrang Throughout History

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« on: June 04, 2013, 02:57:19 pm »
Quote from: Triskele
Something occurred to me while skimming a reread.

(I wasn't sure of the best spot to place this thread, so please move if appropriate).

The Nonman emissary Nin'sariccas asks Kellhus to confirm if he has, in fact, traveled to the Outside and returned.  Kellhus asks him if he's worried that Kellhus has been replaced by a demon.  I suspect that this is not the case, but Nin'sariccas says that "such substitutions" have happened before. 

That makes me wonder if any of the major historical figures in Earwan history eventually were "replaced" by demons.  Does anyone have any ideas?

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« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2013, 02:57:26 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
Or skin spies throughout history.

If Ciphrang find it painful to be in the world (if I understand it correctly), what would drive them to become a substitute?

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« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2013, 02:57:34 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
Well, I think Psatma is an example of what Trisk is talking about.  She's just an extension of Yatwer now really.
Summoned ciphrang don't have the body to inhabit.  Way I see it is that outside entities have a problem with the surfaces that don't readily yield to desire, being fixed by their shared objective nature granted by the watching 'world soul'.  Being that it is concentrated in souled beings we get the 'needle world' where each pinprick observation reinforces reality.

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« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2013, 02:57:42 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Remember Nin' out and out lies to Kellhus. Maybe he was just trying to make a point of some kind. Also, the Nonman may have incorrectly remembered something. For example, maybe he meant that substitutions have happened, by what they only think/thought was a ciphrang. At some point, maybe even still, they didnt know what skinspys were, so if during the time period of such a memory the Nonmen mistook a skinspy for a Ciphrang... well then maybe thats what he said (regardless of whether or not they currently know the difference). Sorry if that was confusing.

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« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2013, 02:57:50 pm »
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Curethan
Well, I think Psatma is an example of what Trisk is talking about.  She's just an extension of Yatwer now really.
Summoned ciphrang don't have the body to inhabit.  Way I see it is that outside entities have a problem with the surfaces that don't readily yield to desire, being fixed by their shared objective nature granted by the watching 'world soul'.  Being that it is concentrated in souled beings we get the 'needle world' where each pinprick observation reinforces reality.
Something else that's basically identical to Warhammer cosmology, FWIW.

Implication is that possession avoids the limitations inherent to summoning, because the daemon/ciphrang can stay in the Warp/Outside and essentially just act as a replacement for the host's soul, without itself becoming subject to the material world's consensus reality/physical laws.

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« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2013, 02:57:57 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
Something like that Dusky.  I think Yatwer is using Psatma's soul as a lens somehow rather than a straight replacement.  The world still sees Psatma, Meppa can see her as her old self but Yatwer is certainly using her quite directly.  It's like the opposite of sorcery.

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« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2013, 02:58:05 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Maybe not quite the opposite, just a bit different. It doesn't so too terribly different than what the Inchoroi did to Esmi when they possessed her.

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« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2013, 02:58:16 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
If the notion is that souls are like bumps on some big soul, and the big soul is the gods, I kind of imagine Psatma as being her regular soul, but with the big soul pressing in, pushing Psatma towards extinguishment as a crescent on her normal bump, as her bump is stretched towards almost becoming a god itself (without being stretched so much it flattens out and presumably leaves the world/is not bumpy enough to penetrate through to the world)

Heh, I got all that way with intuition! Whether it's worth a dang, who knows?

I still think even with a human body to blunt the pain of raw what you see is what you get (rather than what you wish is what you get), I still think it'd hurt for a ciphrang. Perhaps that's why it happens only rarely?

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« Reply #8 on: June 04, 2013, 02:58:23 pm »
Quote from: Curethan
I was thinking opposite inasmuch as human souls channel power from outside (sorcery) to make the world conform to meaning via their choices, whereas this is power from the outside making the world conform to their meaning via humans.  If you see what I mean. :p

Perhaps reverse sorcery would be more appropriate.  Note that Sorweel can still touch chorae - I imagine this sort of power leaves a bruise of the soul of the individual rather than the onta, probably why the non-man wanted to touch Kellhus (because they can detect such a mark only by touching the boundaries of the soul - an extension of haptic touch, perhaps).

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« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2013, 02:58:30 pm »
Quote from: Madness
+1, Duskweaver - that's an apt metaphor. There's those analogies coming in handy already.

"If he were a demon, then Zeum should arm for immediate war, now, before he achieved his immediate goals, for demons were simply Hungers from the abyss, insatiable in their pursuit of destruction" (WLW, p592) [Malowebi].

Pre-AE I might have suggested that this reflects a dictatorship mythology. Now, it might suggest a historical relevancy...

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« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2013, 02:58:37 pm »
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: Curethan
I was thinking opposite inasmuch as human souls channel power from outside (sorcery) to make the world conform to meaning via their choices, whereas this is power from the outside making the world conform to their meaning via humans.  If you see what I mean. :p
I'm inclined to think Earwa exists because of the outside wishing it so. Schoolmen and Cishurim interfear with the broadcast, so to speak. They don't chanel, the interfear with what is chaneled.

I think if outside powers were trying to affect the world by their wishing, they'd have to compete with the wishes of others in the outside. A human agent is simply direct access to the world. Even if more limited than wishing perse, when wishing competes with other wishing, it's perhaps less effective than one humans actions. Particularly if that human commands many a heart!

It's not so much power from the outside, I'd say, but commanding the meaninglessness of a human being, to trump meaning. The competing meanings of other outside entities.

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« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2013, 02:58:46 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Ah yes, a chance line from the WLW that I stumbled onto.
I believe I was originally brought to the idea of a Kahiht somewhere over in The Almanac some months ago, but I'm not fishing through those topics, and it has come up in this thread too so I figured its fair game.

"No. I tell you this because I truly know very little. The Judging Eye is a fold legend, like the Kahiht or the White-Luck Warrior, notions that have been traded across too many generation to possess any clear meaning ... " page 57 WLW, Achamian's POV to Mimara.

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« Reply #12 on: March 25, 2014, 07:50:33 pm »
If Kosoter is a ciphrang, the next time we see Sarl, the captain's head may do all of the talking!  We need a group photo with Sarl sporting Kosoter's head next to Kellhus with decapitants.

I bet Dunyains take the best selfies.

Ciphrang captured through the daimos + Dunyain knowhow + neuropuncture + skin spies = AN AWESOME SECRET WEAPON

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« Reply #13 on: May 27, 2014, 04:15:10 am »
Thinking about that passage in The Thousandfold Thought where Cnaiur is reminiscing about a conversation with Akka.  Akka told him that souls were like beads of water and when a person went mad, the Outside leaked into the world.

I wonder if Sarl's madness is going to be some kind of mechanism for the Outside to leak into Kosoter's severed head?

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« Reply #14 on: September 05, 2014, 11:12:42 pm »
Perhaps those ciphrang-possessed folks from of old were stopped by other White Luck Warriors?