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Heh heh!
Go Rosver! Go Rosver!
You’re kicking That Author Guy’s butt!!!!!!
I’m loving it. I told you all he was a shitty transcriber! I got sick and tired of defending his mistakes! You can see why it would be exhausting!
See all the errors he has introduced to my story….
And he still hasn’t delivered the full quota of souls he owes me…the cheapskate!
Something or someone?
If they are in human form it seems to come out the otherside, like a human. According to Tom.
But as a demon, when you eat something it’s pretty much up to you what happens to it. You can get rid of it with or without processing, incinerate it etc.
In general the preferred method of living creatures is to eat them and suck the mana and animus out of them while in your stomach and then get rid of the inert matter in a typical manner.
Yes.
Now, of course, I should add, thinking on it.
Tom is obviously not a virgin. In fact he must have started having sex at age 5 or so.
How else does one explain that he has a son that’s not much more than 5 years younger than himself, a.k.a. Rupert?
Hah!
That would be funny! I love that idea. I think Lenamare would have an aneurysm and Jehenna’s temper would probably freeze the entire Council palace…
You’d want to be safely in the Abyss to avoid their wrath!
=d>
Imagine poor Jenn. She’d find the Abyss very pleasant compared to being anywhere near the two of them after they opened the book.
Delusions and Madness!!!!!
See who’s not going to get to puff on my pipe any more!!!!
Why on earth would we want weeds? (Other than the obvious one) Humans try to get rid of them.
Realize that the Abyss is rather hot, hotter than any desert on Earth.
However, the real reason there isn’t much flora in the Abyss, at large at least, is because it would require animus and thus attract mana…and thus attract demons and others wanting that sort of stuff.
However, there are plenty of plants in the Courts, and various pavilions, like Exador’s. Now, most of these areas are more climate controlled, like anti-green houses or something, they are cooled for plant life that the owner wants.
There has never been any native plant life in the Abyss, or if there were, demons ate it. However, Denubian wormwood and similar planets from that universe can and do grow fine in the abyss, where planted….at least until a demon comes and eats it.
The Abyss is relatively hospitable compared to that world…sheesh…nasty place. At least we have Air in the Abyss. 99.999% of the Denubian plane is just nothingness…they call it a “Vacuum” and the Denubians have to use metal balloons to travel around between floating islands that are so far apart that light can take years to travel from one place to the other.
So anyway, Denubian Wormwood can grow on smaller rocks that tend to orbit larger floating islands that actually have air on them.
As far as where my garden is? Have you been talking to Maelen? He’s been trying to get a hold of my stash also!
Well, it’s only 100 degrees Centrigade or 212 Fahrenheit. I point out that Quicksilver boils at 674.1 degrees Fahrenheit, and 356.7 Centrigrade. So it’s perfectly drinkable in even the hottest regions of the Abyss.
Same with Denubian Choco-Coffee(TM) which is probably even less healthy for humans than QuickSilver.
Other liquid refreshments in the Abyss
Aniline (184.4 C)
Brake Fluid (100-200 C)
Butyric Acid (156 C)
Camphor (204 C)
Ethylene Glycol (197)–[i]Sweet and Tasty[/i]
Glycerine (290C) –Mmmm….Iodine boils at 184 C, that’s got a bit of a bite, but is great!
And I could go on, but I think I’ll just stop with my two favorites: Petroleum at 294 C, Turpentine at 160 C.
Now, of course, if you want something humans like better, then Olive Oil boils at 300 C. So as long as you don’t mind frying your throat, you’ll find that at least digestible.
[quote]How long will the second book be, if you are going for speed it’s long enough, but when did he start typing the book, if it started after the first was published he types fast. and once more i suggest beta testing for small typos and minor critique to better express your thoughts for the novel.[/quote]
It will probably be about the same length as the first, maybe a bit shorter…it depends on where a good break point comes.
The problem, as it was in the first book, isn’t how long “a book is” it’s how long the entire story is and where/how does one break it up? So a shorter book 2 means a longer wait for book 3, etc…
Judging his typing speed is hard. You don’t want to know when he started writing book 1. Let’s just say, Lenamare is probably older than Ned Stark….but then there was no typing for a very long time. However, the issue that put a big pause in the writing has been resolved/passed successfully and the road through book 2 looks like fairly clear sailing.
He says he’s still aiming for end of year, but if I were to guess, that’s probably when the beta release will be.
Yes, a demon can make a pretty good living as an upholsterer in the Abyss.
Of course, if you’ve ever tried to sit on the fiberglass pink insulation you’ll find that it gives wear and tear just as much as it takes.
Now to be fair, this is what I do for furniture. A lot of demons do have just pure metal furniture. For one thing metal working is pretty common in the abyss. We have plenty of heat sources for smithies.
Thank you! And yes, he lost more than a few of my marbles…he seems to portray me as somewhat unbalanced, when obviously, as anyone can see I’m the one who’s balanced and it’s the world that’s tilted.
=d>
As you know, there are two moons. One is twice as far away, but the same size.
They distance to them from Astlan (the planet’s name, not technically the plane’s name–no more than Earth is the name of the one you live on) is on the same scale Earth’s moon.
And there are other planets, other star systems etc. it’s a full universe. (in fact the Author guy makes noises about writing other stories in the same universe but on different planets–i.e. he’s lazy and doesn’t want to have to reinvent a magic system–but wants a totally different history etc.)
That’s too far for a teleport spell. With enough mana you could do a gateway, but you gotta get there first, and nothing flies very fast.
Dragons would be the best bet, I would think. A demon too, mainly because they are immortal and don’t need to eat or breath (like demon dragons)…but the demon would sure get tired and bored flying millions of miles at less than 100 mph.
However…I can’t say too much about this without spoilers. The rest of Astlan’s fierdal system will be of interest in Book 2.
OK…I know this is getting weird, I keep hinting at an implausibly wide variety of things that are going to be in book 2 and how the hell they go together seems implausible…but they should make sense when you read it all together and understand who all the players are.
Demons are greedy, they don’t share.
Actually, many higher up/older demons do all of what you describe, and they probably have labs and secret sanctuaries etc. Hordes of minions building stuff for them. They just don’t tell others, or not many others.
I can really only speak for 1’s, 2’s and 3’s since that’s most of my friends. Boggy and I have several joint ventures we run to pass the time. A lot of it involves trading between planes, etc. So I speak for the average Joe Demon on the Street, not enslaved or affiliated with one of the Big Guys. Although likely enslaved to a wizard.
Exador passes the time living in Astlan playing politics, pretending to be a long line of Exadors, sometimes he’s a wizard, sometimes a priest, a noble, a soldier, etc.
Ramses lived there for a while, he’s also spent quite a bit of time recreating Ancient Greece/Egypt hybrid, creating his own demonic satyrs, minotaurs and centaurs etc. (Why will become clearer in Book 2).
But what they really do is “play the game”
All of what you said about infinite unchanging boredom really applies to the gods as well.
So all the higher ups on both sides of the fence play games upon the Planes of Men.
The Quest for the Book is one that Exador, Bess, Ramses are involved in.
Whew, my brain went out just reading all that. Way beyond my pay grade to say much intelligent.
But I can make some observations:
have you looked at the pictures of me? if Tom’s flying is questionable under your traditional physics, mine is down right impossible.
I know more, but am not saying. Telling people what can and can’t be done in advance, often limits what they can and can not do.As T-A-G and I have pointed out, a lot of the courts are facades and shared illusion. And what I mean by this is rather complex to detail here and now.
But both reality and illusion do change frequently. However, even so, it’s more like rotation. There are only so many archetypes for buildings and styles.
Each building or group of building has so many permutations. Demons cycle them in and out like a museum does art exhibits.And things do just move around, your favorite bar might move to the other side of town over night and change it’s appearance. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll have seen all the variations of each building, new variations aren’t popping up that often.
What really makes it change “a lot” is that all of the buildings tend to change or move randomly, with only somewhat irregular coordination. It’s the multitude of possible combinations that really makes the city chaotic seeming. No single building or group of buildings have that many appearances, but when a building changes and the one next to it on the right also changes, and the one on the left swaps out with something else altogether, the net result can be a lot of change.
[i][b][size=7][color=red]—————below gets into dangerous stuff that you haven’t yet discussed, but is needed to answer some of the questions you’ve raised so it’s getting into spoiler territory———————————————————————–[/color][/size][/b][/i]
Now, the one big thing you guys are missing here; and seriously I can’t believe you are missing this, because having read/dictated book II, it is something that’s bugging Tom.
Economics, trade, money.
Yes there is lots of tribalism, bullying etc. But really most of the smaller demons get that from wizards.
The demon princes have learned that fear and terror of their might only goes so far; and that a combination of carrots and sticks help.
So the fear/terror/torture is the stick, the carrots are rewards for service, good behavior. These rewards are “trinkets” from other worlds, magic items, spells, favors for service (the maybe someday coming Antefalken short stories–Tales of the Demon Bard–or something like that, will focus on this in a lot of detail).
So, smaller demons have all these things, they accumulate them over centuries of toil to the more powerful demons who can provide these things.
The button below really is a sort of spoiler; so don’t read it if you don’t want a mystery of book 1 (somewhat) 2 (definitely) answered now.
[SPOILER]One of the biggest things the council can’t figure out in book 2 is how the hell Exador is able to control so many demons? He doesn’t. He pays them! They work for him, and they expect to get compensated for their services. Yes, he’s a shitty horrible tyrant of a boss…but he is simply a very abusive employer—
And come on silly Fantasy Authors—Does anyone really expect an “Army of Darkness” to work for free? Sure, maybe the undead, but the goblins, trolls, orcs? They need to get paid, and something more than just looting and pillaging—
For how to do this right–>Glenn Cook knows how an Army of Evil should work.
[/SPOILER]Anyway, you notice that there is also money in the Abyss. There is robust trade. Money is issued under the imprint of the Co-Factors (one side of the coins are Sammael, the other Lillith) The banking system is very crude, but the coins are basic barter units to value the ‘trinkets’ and ‘artifacts’ provided by the greater demons to their servants.
So–lampshading—forget your tropes. key rules that can be extract from what T-A-G has said on this forum.
1) Observations are made from different points of view.
A) Different points of view will explain things differently.
B) Maelen will explain what he sees based on what he knows.
C) Jenn/Gastrope’ will explain based on their knowledge
D) Tom will explain based on his knowledge or lack thereof.
E) I will just tell you the unvarnished truth, how it is, what’s real and what’s not.
2) For what Tom sees and notes.
A) He’s 16, yes a very bright/mature 16 year old but kids are often just observing something and shrugging
B) He’s a total book nerd, he’s read a lot of Fantasy and Science Fiction, so if he sees something that’s consistent with Fantasy or D&D, he just says “OK”
C) At many points he’s under duress/stress/ and maybe in a bit of shock, so he may not be fulling processing things, and when he does it’s probably in a more narcistict way, revolving around himself, rather than an objective scientist sort of way.
3) T-A-G has been very explicit that there is [color=darkblue][i][b]some weird shit going on[/b][/i][/color] and that he knows this, it’s intentional, and no he may not explain it all, at least not until book 36.Very interesting and I think closing in on truth…
So spurred by that I bring up Order and Chaos, in particular the concept of Entropy.
There is an analogy here to be found.
Consider also the later beings of creation, they are much more efficient in their use of mana to bind animus to matter.
See discussion of the Sidhe and first races. Worlds with low mana, generally don’t have Sidhe because the sidhe can’t function well there.
In order to live on such a world, you need to be very mana efficient. “Lower Energy Beings” which are also more ordered.
Order corresponds to lower energy states, think alchemy and molecular and atomic states.
Anyway, it had got me thinking about this plane I visited once, where they framed everything in terms of Order and Chaos, they had two different groups of wizards, Order Masters and Chaos Masters….
I am sure there is some tying out that can be done.
Just pondering.
A) Why do you want to know, are you planning to steal them? No one gets to my private stash!
B) Bess is crazy, and rude. Apparently she didn’t like my friendly advances, so she had her goons grab me.
c) Have you seen Lillith? She is hot! Smoking! And she’d pretty decent looking as well having a really high body temperature. As for a relationship with Bess, well Lillith wouldn’t go for me so I went a couple levels down, figuring I had a good shot with her. Boy was I wrong.—sounds to me your big into class and social status…love/lust ignores the limits of class and social status…or at least it does in the books. I’m still working on it in real life…as you know from my fun with Bess–but I’m an optimist!
