Mercury
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Tizzy are we getting close to a release on any of the books this year? i’m desperate for new content, most of the authors i’ve been watching have been very slow and i’ve been kind of deprived for books for half a year now.
Are the outer planes encrypted like holy mana streams are, or somehow locked onto their deities? I know the five siblings could tear down their parents afterlife if they wanted, but is that because its connected to theirs, or because the parents are absent and the siblings are strong? If a very strong deity or group of deities invade another deities plane, can they take control or at least fight for control, or is it locked in to its owner until they are defeated or something?
Is Mercury part of the element of water? The only reason to associate it with Earth is the fact that it is a metal. In its characteristics it is a perfect match for elemental water.
I could see it being a para-element, even though scientifically it is a pure element.
If it is part of Water or a combo of Earth and Water, there should have been mana generation occurring at Hell Springs Eternal.
Also, Mercury should be a gas at the temperature of the Abyss, which defeats all of my points, but brings up the question of how its a liquid. Unless I’m remembering wrong and Hell Springs Eternal didn’t have Mercury baths and only Mt. Doom did.
Excellent question, given the right temperatures, all of the elements change form or phase.
Of course, temperature is an intrinsic property of the element of fire, which (fire) is thought of as the element of change.
You note that in the Abyss, where it’s HOT, the temperature is just below the phase change point of water to a steam, a para-elemental state.
I actually think there is a treatise written on this somewhere in the library on this site, but maybe it was a Doom or in Freehold, but I definitely remember reading about this somewhere.
Of course, the people who understand this best are the Djinn. It’s unfortunate that our resident Djinni isn’t in the forums or she could tell us directly.
I will look around to see if I can find that treatise.
Tizzy
Well, that’s the “sea level temperature” if we had a sea that is.
We do have lakes at very high altitudes. Circa twenty to thirty thousand feet. Even taller mountains have interesting flavors of ice.
The temperature is actually remarkabl7 consistent over altitude varying only a few degrees over several thousand feet.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t necessarily get hotter below “sea level” although in some places it does.
There are enough interesting “features” to the Abyss that things like altitude are not the sole determination of temperature. And some of those climate altering features are sentient so…well…you get the idea, things can get pretty wacky.
I mean, not as wacky as the Outer Planes where “might” literally makes “right” at least in terms of environment.
I can’t speak for all of them, just the ones I know about.
It all depends on what safeguards are put in place by the deities that live there.
For example Asgard isolated itself in such a way that the only way to get between there and Midgard, the material planes was via Asbru, their bridge.
Although there are rumors that there is a “back door” in Jotunheim that leads to Midgard but according to rumors it was only known to Odin (Loki hinted to me he knew of it).
So…anyway, they were pretty isolated and “buried” behind (or nested within) other Outer Planes.
But yes, in general the Outer Planes are very well fortified and protected, in particular since that’s where gods keep their god pools.
Encrypted…not so much, but they have defenses, including those big soldiers we saw in book II with Tiernon.
So once another god gets onto a plane they can manipulate it? They arent locked into the gods who created the plane? I guess that explains why they care so much about defending their planes.
The animus signature is very hard to forge, of course, very few people can actually read/verify that. You’d have to have a keyed device and see that it doesn’t work.
Wait?????
Were animus signature/keys discussed in Books 1, 2, 3? Pretty sure that discussion doesn’t come up until Book IV? Animakeys are pretty complex stuff.
Have you guys managed to hack T-A-G’s server? And are reading the book?
[SPOILER]
[i]Top Secret stuff you can’t see….[/i]“Animakeyed?” Tom asked, he wasn’t familiar with the term.
“It’s a method of keying a device to a specific user. There’s a key matching algorithm on the device so that it can only be wielded by someone with a specific animus pattern.” Völund said.
That set Tom back for a moment. “So, it’s not worthiness, but a specific individual?” His stomach started to sink. How was he using the wand?
“Worthiness is a wishy wash term used by lazy lay people to explain something complex.” Völund explained. “Animus patterns are not completely unique, they do repeat, like fingerprints.”
“I thought fingerprints were unique?” Tom said.
“Only down to the resolution and quality of measurement. At a sufficiently sloppy level of measurements, two different fingerprints could appear to repeat in a sufficiently large sample.” Völund said.
“And…” he continued, “because animus changes, and grows, over time much more than mortal fingerprints, when creating an animakey, we have to allow a much wider tolerance.”
“So, it’s possible that other people could wield Mjölnir?” [i]Or the wand. [/i] Tom asked.
“Aye, most definitely. Quite a few.” Völund agreed, allowing Tom to relax. “About 2 in every 3.745 billion individuals.”[/SPOILER]
Knowing how people treat security, there are probably tons of places that Tom could get into if he could use Doom to mimic the Animus signatures of his prisoners. I wonder if the Olympians made their own plane or just re-purposed the titans.
If he could somehow disguise himself as his prisoners, he could hit every pantheon, since they would never admit to having such a huge security flaw and being robbed or broken into or whatever Tom decides to do.
Well, that’s a complex question and it depends on the god and the relationships they have with each other.
But yes, you are right there are controls set down as to who can manipulate what, at least in most of these planes, but not necessarily in all.
At the very least, huge warning alarms should go off. Even Mount Doom has that, as will be discussed in Book IV.
Tom was able to make good headway in Tierhallon for several reasons, one, the encrypted arrowhead and two, it’s likely he had some “visitation” provisions from before as Tiernon’s brother in law. They may or may not have revoked those permissions once Orcus was dead. Good security would, of course, require it, but did they follow it?
???
It just seemed kinda obvious that that’s how things would work. Otherwise it would be super easy for extraplanar beings to impersonate each other. The only other ways they would have to identify each other would be secrets, codes, and links, and you couldn’t have a link to everyone and wouldn’t want to let everyone know who or what you have links to. And secrets and codes can be compromised. I bet all the gods and higher powered beings recognize each other mostly off of their animus. Obviously any devices would be a lot more specific and exacting, but demon sight or saint sight or god sight can probably recognize people pretty well. Like remembering a face vs facial recognition software.
Obviously this wouldn’t work when they are in disguise and are hiding their animus in some way, but when they are with allies and trying to prove who they are, its a simple method that would be almost impossible to fake.
That’s basically the discussion in OOA. Supernatural beings look at more than just physical appearance, they look at auras and animus/mana levels etc.
There is a lot more to recognizing “a god” than physical appearance. So imitating someone else is difficult to do when the other people know the individual well. Obviously, not that hard to fool mortals.
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