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Topics - Somnambulist

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General Misc. / Oats Studios
« on: July 12, 2017, 09:11:48 pm »
So, these short films are pretty awesome.  Figured the fine folks here will appreciate these.  If any director would 'get' The Second Apocalypse, it's Neill Blomkamp.  Someone get him these books.

Firebase https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm0V24IEHao

Rakka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs

Zygote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKWB-MVJ4sQ

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General Earwa / Monster of the Week: Nonmen
« on: July 22, 2016, 08:04:59 pm »
Robert Lamb has written up another article on Stuff To Blow Your Mind, this one on the Nonmen.

http://www.stufftoblowyourmind.com/blog/monster-of-the-week-the-nonmen-of-earwa/

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The Great Ordeal / (TGO Teasers) Promo Illustrations through Overlook
« on: June 13, 2016, 05:11:33 pm »
I've completed five promo illustrations, which Overlook will release every Monday until The Great Ordeal is available on July 12.  They just published the first one today.  This is it.


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The Forum of Interesting Things / Monster of the Week
« on: July 17, 2015, 07:03:31 pm »
Robert Lamb of howstuffworks.com did a cool blog about Bakker's skin-spies.  Here's the link:

http://www.stufftoblowyourmind.com/blog/monster-of-the-week-the-consult-skin-spy/

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General Earwa / Eärwa Maps
« on: September 25, 2014, 05:01:02 pm »
Anyone have the maps from White-Luck Warrior scanned?  I seem to remember a map of the Istyuli Plains in that book.  A google search turns up nada.  My WLW book is MIA and I need to reference the maps ASAP.  Not really ASAP, I got carried away with acronyms.   :)  Cheers!

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General Earwa / TSA related art and stuff. (III)
« on: December 30, 2013, 04:47:11 pm »
Probably because they are works of art, fool.

Amazing. I feel like I'm most impressed with the light emanating from Achamian's eyes and mouth, despite the angle. What detail!

LOL.  I always feel like I should be faster, but I guess that's just my distorted sense of effort over time.  Cheers for the comments, Madness!

EDIT [Madness]: Changed thread title.

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General Earwa / Is Kellhus actually one of the Few?
« on: November 18, 2013, 06:04:30 pm »
"What!?" you cry.  'What nonsense is this?  Of course he's one of the Few.  He works sorcery!"  Well, since you asked, I'll tell you the reasons I believe Kel may actually not be one of the Few, at least in the traditional sense.  Pardon if this subject has already been breached.  But here goes:

Evidence for being one of the Few:

1)  He works sorcery, and is apparently vulnerable to chorae (salt on his hand after battle of Sakarpus).

Evidence against being one of the Few:

1)  He doesn't comment on the Nonman's mark in the prologue to TDTCB.  If he could perceive the onta, surely he would have seen this metaphysically fucked up Nonman, not just his mundane appearance, which is all that's described.  Even if the Dunyain suppressed all knowledge of sorcery, wouldn't his inborn ability to perceive the onta still have seen the bruise, whether he believed in sorcery or not?

2)  When he tells Akka in TWP that he is one of the Few, subsequently leading to the Wathi doll test, it doesn't mean he's telling the truth.  He'd been with world-born men long enough by then to be able to use his facial recognition software abilities to determine who was Few and who was not.  He could simply have been testing himself (through Akka) to see if he could manipulate the conditions of sorcery to produce the same effect as actual sorcerers.

3)  Even though we have the benefit of Kel's internal monologues (to a degree) in PON series, I don't believe he is ever described as having commented on someone's mark, possibly leading to the conclusion he can't actually see it.

4)  When Akka confronts Kel at the end of TTT, he offers no commentary on Kel's mark, either.  This one's a bit flimsy.  Even though Kel had pulled off a meta-gnostic cant a few days previous (several times in succession), it still could have been not enough to leave a bruise of significance.  I'll grant that.  Don't know enough about MG cants to know if they damage the onta more or less than normal cants.  Anyway, this leads to the AE series, wherein no-one is saying anything about Kel's mark, or if he even has one.  People are either so taken with his divinity they simply refuse to acknowledge it, or they are too afraid to say anything lest the judges come a'callin' in the night.  I think that may be one of the  "Whaaaaaaaat?" moments if/when Akka finally sees Kel again, as to whether or not he even has a mark.

So, in summation, these are the core reasons I think Kel (and all Dunyain by extension, I suppose) may not actually be amongst the Few.  Just occurred to me, but this might possibly be why we have the perspective of Sorweel as the eyes of the Ordeal:  he is not one of the Few and couldn't comment on Kel's or Serwa's marks (or, for purposes of this thread, their lack thereof).  Alright then, let the debunking begin!

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General Earwa / Kellhus' Limits
« on: November 12, 2013, 05:03:12 am »
This is kind of a catch-all speculation post regarding Kellhus and his limits (or lack thereof).  I'm going to wander around some topics, but please feel free to insert more if you're so inclined.  Some of these will have been touched on before, but I'm trying to get an overall baseline for what people think Kellhus is actually capable of, and what he is not.  Some points to start:

1)  Teleportation:  It's been accepted as doctrine that a metagnostic sorcerer can teleport the distance of horizon to horizon, or distances relative to that which they can reasonably see.  While this may be true of world-born sorcerers (and half-Dunyain for that matter), I'm not so sure it applies to Kellhus himself, being full Dunyain.  Leaving the underground Mansion after knifing Moenghus, he obviously couldn't 'see' Shimeh, yet he popped into the sky above it, assumedly straight from that underground room.  With his mental faculties, he could easily have studied the landscape and held that target in his mind for probably an indefinite period of time, thus negating the need to see his destination.  Likewise, twenty years later, he's supposedly making many jumps from the location of the Great Ordeal back to Momemn, and he plays like he's tired because of it.  He may very well be tired, but I don't think he's actually making the same jumps others would.  I think he's tired because it's more arduous to teleport to someplace you can't directly see.  I think he made one jump, straight from the Ordeal and into the throne room on the Adiamine Heights, but it was taxing even for him.  On a tangent, but directly related to this subject, back when Sasheoka was assassinated by the Cishaurim, thus sparking the war between the Scarlet Spires and the snakeheads, I think it was Eleazaras who related that the Cishaurim simply popped into view in their deepest, most secure sanctum.  So, the Cish not only had the ability to teleport, but to teleport to someplace they couldn't see directly.  This, to me, is evidence that Moenghus had the knowledge, if not the power, on how to accomplish this feat.  Maybe the fact that they're blind actually helped them, as they can't really 'see' in the traditional sense anyway.  Just food for thought.

2)  Meta-Daimos:  This has been brought up in another thread as a possibility.  I think it's an inevitability.  If Iyokus can summon and control three Ciphrang at once, surely Kellhus can up the ante exponentially.  I would imagine he could field a small army of Ciphrang, and most likely control them to a much greater degree.  And/or he could probably yoke more powerful demons.  Imagine behemoths the likes of which no one has ever been able to control before, powers out of reach of world-born men and their frailties.  And Kellhus, imo, is not deterred by fears of damnation or eternal torment.  He's gone all-in and intends to come out on top.  Might be his ace-in-the-hole in the war: an army that doesn't need to be marched anywhere, just summoned when you got there.

3)  Meta-Compulsions:  So, if compulsions are indistinguishable from one's own thoughts, and with Kel's advanced conditioning taken into account, would he not just be able to outright re-write someone's psyche to become whatever he wants them to be?  When Esmenet was possessed by Aurang (Aurax? sorry, can never remember which is which), Kellhus was able to suppress some of those experiences in her (am I remembering that right?)  Regardless, I believe his compulsions could, in theory, become a tool by which he could dominate/enslave/compel virtually anyone.  Isn't this essentially what the Whelming is?  Couple this with dream communication.  Moenghus was able to communicate via dream, even though he was supposedly weak in the water, all the way to Ishual.  Kellhus would have been easily more adept at this kind of thing.  My postulation, in this instance, is that he could have dream-contacted the people he knew before he left and put the whammy on them (scientific term here).  In this scenario, once he had them firmly under his control, he may have used them the purge the rest of the Dunyain, leaving only those loyal to him left.  Then he shows up, completes their whelming, destroys Ishual and inserts his slaves into his army.  Others have postulated that there may be full Dunyain under Kel's control.  Not my idea, but if that were true, maybe this is how he did it.

Okay, I'm losing steam.  There may have been other specifics I had in mind, but I can't remember them if there were.  What do you think?  Bullshit?  Something?  Would love to hear what anyone else might think about any of this.

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General Earwa / 144,000
« on: August 28, 2013, 04:55:11 pm »
So, I'm not sure if this has been brought up before.  If it has, please just disregard.  Otherwise, I have some speculations/gripes about this magical number.

1)  This is a special/known number to Earwans:
   a) Mentioned by Akka to Mimara in one of their discussions
   b) In an excerpt of a chapter heading by some author in Earwan history (in WLW, don't remember specific chapter)

2)  Also has meaning to the Inchoroi, as revealed by Wutteat (sp?), in that they reduced the populations of many worlds to this magical quantity

So, are we to believe two separately-evolved species hailing from different planets both hold this number to be holy, some like universal truth?  Or is it that the inchoroi brought the number with them and it became, over time, known for one reason or another to human civilizations?  Seems it could go either way, but I'm interested in what everyone else's opinions might be.

The number has real-world significance to some religions, popularly indicating the number of saved souls already in or going to heaven (to basely summarize).  I find it interesting that Bakker (no surprise at all) turned this concept on it's head as well and suggests that heaven (salvation) is the absence of living in god's presence (damnation).  In that respect, with Earwan metaphysics in mind, the inchoroi have it right if everyone is damned no matter what anyway.  On the other hand, if they succeed, you're stuck on a planet with no divine intervention, inhabited by all-powerful rape-demons and their cronies.  Damned anyway... again.  Looks like Earwans got a rough deal either way you look at it.

Anyway, my last nit is this.  Who is the poor bastard census taker, traveling the world, tallying the 144,000??  Does it have to be exactly this number or just under this number?  If it's exactly 144,000, the Inchoroi need a better way to keep track.  Maybe a Dunyain could do the trick...

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