Wracu

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« Reply #15 on: May 07, 2013, 12:43:56 am »
Quote from: Borque
We don't really know how dragons were controlled by the Inchoroi or the No-God, but that process could be a sorcerous one.

If so, by giving a dragon a chorae you wouldn't be able to control it. And that would mean that it most probably would take off to do more rewarding stuff than whatever you wanted it to.

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« Reply #16 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:02 am »
Quote from: Cynical Cat
I've been giving it some thought, because frankly it does seem to be a giant "I win button" to give a chorae to a Wracu.  While that hasn't been revealed yet I do have two pet theories.

1) As previously mentioned, if the method of influencing/controlling Wracu is sorcerous then you cannot give them a chorae

2) If any of their abilities are sorcerously derived, then you can't give them chorae without crippling/killing them.  I tend to lean this way, given that the Father of All Dragons does appear to have a connection to the Outside and little things like flying and firebreath become much more plausible if you have sorcery fueling them, but there's so little evidence about Wracu and how the Tekne works that this remains just a theory.

and, of course:

3) The real reason is much more disturbing and awesome than 1 or 2.

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« Reply #17 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:08 am »
Quote from: The Sharmat
If Wutteat was something along the lines of a mini Wight-of-the-Mountain then a chorae would be ineffective.

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« Reply #18 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:14 am »
Quote from: Cynical Cat
Quote from: The Sharmat
If Wutteat was something along the lines of a mini Wight-of-the-Mountain then a chorae would be ineffective.

That's not necessarily true, even if that is correct.  Chorae killed Ciphrang (or at least the forms they wore in the World) just fine.  Was the Wight immune to chorae?  I never saw that definitively stated.  And if he is, is that because he's in the World because of the topos allowing the Outside to leak into the World without sorcery?  We also don't know how Wutteat's connection to the Outside matches up against that of other dragons.  He is the first and he has experiences the others don't.  We know chorae interfere with magical artifacts.  If the Wracu are essentially biological sorcerous artifacts then having chorae imbedded into their hide isn't going to be healthy for them.

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« Reply #19 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:19 am »
Quote from: The Sharmat
It is definitively stated that the Chorae should have had no effect on the Wight from Akka's POV. That's why Mimara's banishing it was remarkable.

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« Reply #20 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:25 am »
Quote from: Cynical Cat
Quote from: The Sharmat
It is definitively stated that the Chorae should have had no effect on the Wight from Akka's POV. That's why Mimara's banishing it was remarkable.

Yes and there's the problem with that statement.  Akka's certainly a reliable source, but he's not an omniscient one.  Even if he's correct (which is likely), it is far from established that Wracu and Wights are identical in that particular respect.

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« Reply #21 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:30 am »
Quote from: Curethan
I think you may be missing the point of why the chorae shouldn't work on the wight.  Its because he was still in the outside; he effectively rendered his surroundings as a separate dimension.  The ciphrang, OTOH are bound within their bodies.  I doubt there is any similarity here between Wracu and the wight, there is no indication that Wracu drag inter-dimensional seals around with them.

I think Wracu work quite differently from other races, weapon or other.  They are not perversions like sranc, bashrag and other synthese. 
Wutteat is the father of dragons, a title reserved for the inchies amongst the synthese. 
I tend to think he made them and the inchies either grafted him a soul or removed them from his 'children'. 
Whatever the case, they seem unable to reproduce - whether this is because Wutteat is broken or lost knowledge of the tekne is required, wracu are likely not biologically viable and soul-less.

There simply is no obvious reason why they can't be equipped with chorae apart from the narrative fact that sorcery is the only thing that can counter them and therefore the inchies would have won long since. 

So I'll go with some spurious rationalization and choose to believe that dragons have the same 'magnetic' charge as the metal that chorae are made from.  (After all, giant flying money hoarding mecha-lizards are just as self-contradictory as chorae, surely?)  So chorae just repel away from them. 
Easy peazy lemon squeezy.

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« Reply #22 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:37 am »
Quote from: sciborg2
Yeah, chorae + dragons is something Bakker is going to have to explain. I trust in him to have an explanation, or at minimum to retcon one in that makes sense. ;-)

I think the key is something to do with the ability to spew molten metal. There's nothing we've seen that can justify this in a biological creature, so it's possible that dragons "apprehend the onta" in a different way from sorcerers.

Something inside them allows for this, and I think it has to relate to some break in reality. Which is why the chorae interfere with their ability, but since the actual lava spew is non-magical chorae don't protect you from the blast.

In WLW, I have to check but is Wutteat breathing actual fire?

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« Reply #23 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:46 am »
Quote from: The Sharmat
Quote from: Cynical Cat
Even if he's correct (which is likely), it is far from established that Wracu and Wights are identical in that particular respect.
Not in general, no. But Wutteat specifically. I got the impression he was a 'living' topos, much like the Wight of the Mountain.

Also in regards to fire breathing and biological implausibility: Just because Wutteat was probably the wild-type Wracu from which the Inchoroi derived the weaponized version doesn't mean they didn't go back and mess with his biology too.

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« Reply #24 on: May 07, 2013, 12:44:53 am »
Quote from: Cynical Cat
Quote from: Curethan
I think you may be missing the point of why the chorae shouldn't work on the wight.  Its because he was still in the outside; he effectively rendered his surroundings as a separate dimension.  The ciphrang, OTOH are bound within their bodies.  I doubt there is any similarity here between Wracu and the wight, there is no indication that Wracu drag inter-dimensional seals around with them.


You mistake me.  I fully understand that.  I am simply unwilling to say that chorae, which function based on negation of an ability directly tied to a connection to the Outside, have no effect on things of the Outside based on how little knowledge of the Outside we possess.  Scott's hording secrets and I am unwilling to state certainties when I know myself to be on unsafe ground. 

I'm not at all convinced Wracu are soulless.  Seswetha actually talks with Skraffa, which he wouldn't do with Sranc.  Now they could be merely as intelligent as Skin Spies, but in the Judging Eye it indicates that dragons "know", not being merely slaves to violent instinct.  A few hundred dragons with souls aren't going to screw up the Inchoroi's genocidal math so it isn't necessary for them to be soulless.

Nor do they need to be sorcerers to be sorcerous.  We've seen animate Wrathi dolls, magical armour, and magic weapons as well as young priest use the Gnosis to physically augment himself.  If anyone is going to produce a race of magically enhanced reptilian death machines, it is the Inchoroi with their access to the Gnosis and the Tekne.

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« Reply #25 on: May 07, 2013, 12:46:55 am »
Quote from: Madness
I don't actually have much of an opinion on the Wracu. However, a couple thoughts that have occurred to me - none of can I really commit to.

- Wracu have never struck me as soulless.
- I believe, their fire is described as sorcerous. Certainly, Skafra's fire breaks across Seswatha's (Nautzera's dream) wards as if it is sorcerous in TWP.
- Wutteat might be another species from which the Inchoroi derived the Wracu.

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« Reply #26 on: May 07, 2013, 12:47:03 am »
Quote from: sciborg2
I wonder what sorcery the Inchies use? Because when Aurang comes for Esmi he says:

Quote
"Walking between Wards is easy," a voice hummed, "when their author practises other arcana."

I'm assuming she was protected by the Gnosis, so I'm assuming Aurang uses the Aporos.

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« Reply #27 on: May 07, 2013, 12:47:10 am »
Quote from: Cynical Cat
Quote from: sciborg2
I wonder what sorcery the Inchies use? Because when Aurang comes for Esmi he says:

Quote
"Walking between Wards is easy," a voice hummed, "when their author practises other arcana."

I'm assuming she was protected by the Gnosis, so I'm assuming Aurang uses the Aporos.


That's not what I got from that.  Rather I got that the "author" referred to the "author of the wards" and Aurang simply meant that subverting wards is easier when their creator is distracted with other sorcery.

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« Reply #28 on: May 07, 2013, 12:47:18 am »
Quote from: The Sharmat
Quote from: Madness
- I believe, their fire is described as sorcerous. Certainly, Skafra's fire breaks across Seswatha's (Nautzera's dream) wards as if it is sorcerous in TWP.

So do conventional arrows. Wards aren't purely anti-sorcery.

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« Reply #29 on: May 07, 2013, 12:47:26 am »
Quote from: Curethan
My point as to why the wight could not be affected by chorae comes from the fact that he has no sorcerous connection to Earwa, his seal is a gate to the outside - a hole in objective reality rather than a conjured manifestion of the outside injected into the onta.  The aporos negates sorcery, undoes the mark and what remains is unbound from its original form (e.g. sorcerers become salt).
It seems Mimara instead managed to open her own conduit to the outside via the chorae's mechanism and thereby close the wight's gate/seal. 
I don't see any way to relate this to dragons.

My assumption of Wracu as souless comes from the fact that the no-god could dominate them as he did with the other weapon races.  The inchies created them (according to TTT glossary) and were able to control them before the no-god, but the consult don't seem to be able to do so. 
Wutteat's status as father of dragons implies they are created from him, but they are more like clones and allies than the other weapon races (which are twisted and bred with inchie limbic control mechanisms installed).
Maybe they do have souls, but they don't seem concerned about damnation and they don't weild sorcery (as we know it).  As products of the tekne I think it unlikely.