Three Kinda Random Questions

[Bohemond]

These all grew out of a gaming session, so they're not actually totally random, but they look like it. 

1) Can the Aldryami be brought back as the Undead?

2) How do dryads reproduce? Will the seeds of their tree produce a dryad or is something more required?

3) Anyone have any idea what the wyter of the Jonstown Library is? 

[jajagappa]

2 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

1) Can the Aldryami be brought back as the Undead?

Why not? 

2 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

2) How do dryads reproduce? Will the seeds of their tree produce a dryad or is something more required?

Usually with elves. Although there may be other ways that dryads reproduce too.

3 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

3) Anyone have any idea what the wyter of the Jonstown Library is?

Not specifically - don't think ever noted. But likely something that will protect the knowledge (e.g. suppress fires).  Perhaps it is resident in the great catalog wheel? 

[soltakss]

54 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

1) Can the Aldryami be brought back as the Undead?

Yes, of course, they are living, after all.

55 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

2) How do dryads reproduce? Will the seeds of their tree produce a dryad or is something more required?

I have them mating with Elves and producing a seed that is planted.

Alternatively, a dryad could just spontaneously appear in a tree, in effect awakening the tree.

56 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

3) Anyone have any idea what the wyter of the Jonstown Library is? 

Probably just a Lhankor Mhy Temple Guardian spirit.

Perhaps the wyter just takes the form of the library itself, or is just a random collection of books, or a face appearing in a book, or a ghostly librarian, or a ghostly orangutan.

 

[French Desperate WindChild]

2 hours ago, Bohemond said:

1) Can the Aldryami be brought back as the Undead?

no answer but a though :

As Aldryami are plants, they follow the life - death - rebirth cycle, don't they ?

It seems to me a different "way of life" than troll / human / duck / etc..

[soltakss]

55 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

As Aldryami are plants, they follow the life - death - rebirth cycle, don't they ?

Probably, yes.

Life - Death - Undead for those Aldryami brought back.

56 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

It seems to me a different "way of life" than troll / human / duck / etc..

Some cultures have souls that are reborn. I think Uz do, but I am not sure. I remember reading that souls wait in the Otherworld until they are reborn.

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

As Aldryami are plants, they follow the life - death - rebirth cycle, don't they ?

 

I wouldn't necessarily say that plants are reborn anymore than beasts are. Now, admittedly, plants can be really weird, such as colony-plants, saplings, and so on - but in general, once a specific individual perishes, it's at least not physically coming back. Winter hibernation and spring regrowth doesn't count anymore as death than the sleep of bears or Rathori, imho. 

Now, on the spiritual plane I could be wrong. Maybe Aldryami spirits gather in the underworld with Flamal's dead aspect, and he put them back into seeds or something - but I don't know anything about that. 

I guess what I mean is that if there's a dead elf body-trunk lying about, turning it into a plant-zombie seems entirely plausible.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[dumuzid]

Just now, soltakss said:

Probably, yes.

Life - Death - Undead for those Aldryami brought back.

Some cultures have souls that are reborn. I think Uz do, but I am not sure. I remember reading that souls wait in the Otherworld until they are reborn.

Uz beliefs on their afterlife vary by cult, same as humans, but they tend to share a theme or goal of returning the worshipers' souls to Darkness.  Most Uz cults believe their souls simply return to the Underworld, which the Uz call Wonderhome, to dwell with one or another Darkness gods.  Argan Argar's cult believes they join his mother Xentha, the goddess of night, and process across the surface world each evening bringing night's Darkness.

[Ian Absentia]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

As Aldryami are plants, they follow the life - death - rebirth cycle, don't they ?

Not to get too Earth-sciency, but it depends on the plant, and where it's at in its life cycle.  Some follow a growth-dormancy-reemergence cycle, not actually dying the true death until much later.

So, regarding a not-dead-but-dormant soul, does it change upon reemergence come Spring/Sea Season, or whenever it reawakens?  Will it reemerge with a different or renewed personality?

!i!

[Psullie]

3 hours ago, Bohemond said:

1) Can the Aldryami be brought back as the Undead?

Skeletons or Zombies are animations, so making a zombie elf is possible. Ghouls, wraiths and ghosts are Spirits, as elves possess POW it would be possible for their Spirit to return. Vampires are Rune Lords of Vivamort which accepts elves so a vampire elf is possible.

4 hours ago, Bohemond said:

How do dryads reproduce?

Dryads are embodied spirts tied to specific trees. New dryads likely come into existence when the strength of the Adryami community would support her.

4 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Anyone have any idea what the wyter of the Jonstown Library is? 

Dewey, an organisation spirit 😉

[jajagappa]

5 minutes ago, Psullie said:

Dewey, an organisation spirit 😉

Now we know from the fact of the Jonstown Compendium and its multitude of labeling and classification schemes that the Jonstown temple has not been visited by Dewey! 😉

[Sir_Godspeed]

14 minutes ago, Psullie said:

Dryads are embodied spirts tied to specific trees. New dryads likely come into existence when the strength of the Adryami community would support her.

 

So dryads are a race of sort-of-pseudo-Wyters? I quite like that, if applicable.

[Joerg]

6 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

 

So dryads are a race of sort-of-pseudo-Wyters? I quite like that, if applicable.

Dryads are nymphs, genii loci who require a certain amount of ambient life force to thrive. In case of a dryad, this means a grove, trees and lesser plants whose spirits support the dryad.

You might use something like wyter-support to determine the environmental power of a dryad, with beast and plant worshipers counted in.

[Shiningbrow]

12 hours ago, Bohemond said:

3) Anyone have any idea what the wyter of the Jonstown Library is? 

The Reference desk

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, Psullie said:

Dewey, an organisation spirit 😉

A duck hero, the middle of three brothers? Fond of counting down from ten?

[Bill the barbarian]

16 hours ago, soltakss said:

Perhaps the wyter just takes the form of the library itself, or is just a random collection of books, or a face appearing in a book, or a ghostly librarian, or a ghostly orangutan.

 

ook, ook!

[Kloster]

On 1/26/2020 at 5:42 PM, Bohemond said:

1) Can the Aldryami be brought back as the Undead?

If not an Humakti, of course, they are living, so can become dead so can be resurected or become undead.

On 1/26/2020 at 5:42 PM, Bohemond said:

3) Anyone have any idea what the wyter of the Jonstown Library is? 

The inventory.

[davecake]

On 1/27/2020 at 4:09 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Winter hibernation and spring regrowth doesn't count anymore as death than the sleep of bears or Rathori, imho. 

Now, on the spiritual plane I could be wrong. Maybe Aldryami spirits gather in the underworld with Flamal's dead aspect, and he put them back into seeds or something - but I don't know anything about that. 

I think on the spirit plane they do tend towards the Underworld, though perhaps those merely dormant don't go as 'deep'. Shamans of Aldrya exclusively visit the underworld, though I suspect for Aldryami the underworld begins at the top soil. My private theory is that they extend their elf sense into the earth, and then just go down. 

[Bohemond]

17 hours ago, Kloster said:

The inventory.

So no one's ever managed to interact with the Wyter?

[Bohemond]

So to explain where the Undead Aldryami question comes from, my PCs decided that they could weaken Delecti by killing Horalin, the corrupted dryad who is the source of the Blackthorn trees that Delecti uses to expand the Marsh. They put a lot of effort into this---they did a quest to get the ability to cleanse chaos from things, forced Polgo Hoarfoot into helping them find the EWF ruins in the Marsh, cleansed Horalin and then killed her (because they knew that since they couldn't move her, Delecti could just corrupt her again). 

As I considered Delecti's response, I hit on the idea of him reviving her as undead. She won't be able to provide any more Blackthorn rods for him since she and her tree are dead now, but I figured it was too macabre an idea to pass up. Not sure how they're gonna find out what he's done, but at some point, they probably will 

[Sir_Godspeed]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

I think on the spirit plane they do tend towards the Underworld, though perhaps those merely dormant don't go as 'deep'. Shamans of Aldrya exclusively visit the underworld, though I suspect for Aldryami the underworld begins at the top soil. My private theory is that they extend their elf sense into the earth, and then just go down. 

I don't doubt that there is material that says this, so fair enough - though I think it's a bit weird that the elves would be barred from the sky world, given that plants are the only living organisms that can gain direct metabolic energy from sunlight (ie. they're autotrophs). 

Maybe there's some attempted justification in that the White Elves of the Sky are gone, and Flamal never went there or something, I don't know. 

I do agree with the assesment that Aldryami underworld starts in the soil, though. That's a theme we find in the Entekosiad as well.

30 minutes ago, Bohemond said:

So to explain where the Undead Aldryami question comes from, my PCs decided that they could weaken Delecti by killing Horalin, the corrupted dryad who is the source of the Blackthorn trees that Delecti uses to expand the Marsh. They put a lot of effort into this---they did a quest to get the ability to cleanse chaos from things, forced Polgo Hoarfoot into helping them find the EWF ruins in the Marsh, cleansed Horalin and then killed her (because they knew that since they couldn't move her, Delecti could just corrupt her again). 

As I considered Delecti's response, I hit on the idea of him reviving her as undead. She won't be able to provide any more Blackthorn rods for him since she and her tree are dead now, but I figured it was too macabre an idea to pass up. Not sure how they're gonna find out what he's done, but at some point, they probably will 

Sounds rad!

[Bohemond]

12 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I don't doubt that there is material that says this, so fair enough - though I think it's a bit weird that the elves would be barred from the sky world, given that plants are the only living organisms that can gain direct metabolic energy from sunlight (ie. they're autotrophs). 

Maybe there's some attempted justification in that the White Elves of the Sky are gone, and Flamal never went there or something, I don't know. 

 

Whenever I think about Glorantha, I try to avoid anything scientific. So I don't think elves 'gain metabolic energy from sunlight'. I think it's probably something more spiritual, like it allows them to regenerate their MPs (in RQ terms) or something like that. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Bohemond said:

Whenever I think about Glorantha, I try to avoid anything scientific. So I don't think elves 'gain metabolic energy from sunlight'. I think it's probably something more spiritual, like it allows them to regenerate their MPs (in RQ terms) or something like that. 

I don't look for direct scientific processes either, but, I mean... plants go with sun. It's a pretty intuitive connection at the most fundamental level. 

Halamalo is a part of Grower, ostensibly described as Flamal's "wife" (these are human-friendly translations, I suspect Elves have a more alien perspective, but that's besides the point), so it's not like they haven't got mythical avenues to visit the Sky world or commune with it. 

Maybe I'm being difficult, but I don't really see the point in arbitrarily limiting the elves to the Underworld(s) - if by that we mean the Earth/Darkness(Water?) realm below (as opposed to the occasional usage where Underworld is synonymous with the Otherworlds in general). 

I should add that I have no issue with them having a more direct, or common, connection to the Underworld (roots, hibernation, seeding acting as thematic connections). I just don't quite gel with the idea that it's their sole otherworld.

[Jeff]

On 1/26/2020 at 5:42 PM, Bohemond said:

These all grew out of a gaming session, so they're not actually totally random, but they look like it. 

1) Can the Aldryami be brought back as the Undead?

Yes. Deadwood was haunted by zombie Aldryami who tended their dead groves.

On 1/26/2020 at 5:42 PM, Bohemond said:

2) How do dryads reproduce? Will the seeds of their tree produce a dryad or is something more required?

With ritual, dance, and need. Although some say that the result is less reproduction than awakening what was already there.

On 1/26/2020 at 5:42 PM, Bohemond said:

3) Anyone have any idea what the wyter of the Jonstown Library is? 

The spirit of Knowledge inhabits the stacks itself. It defends the library from theft, fire, water, wind, rats, beetles, and other damage.

[HeartQuintessence]

On 1/26/2020 at 12:41 PM, soltakss said:

Yes, of course, they are living, after all.

I have them mating with Elves and producing a seed that is planted.

Alternatively, a dryad could just spontaneously appear in a tree, in effect awakening the tree.

Probably just a Lhankor Mhy Temple Guardian spirit.

Perhaps the wyter just takes the form of the library itself, or is just a random collection of books, or a face appearing in a book, or a ghostly librarian, or a ghostly orangutan.

 

Now I am just imagining Won tzi Tong from ATLA (yes the library owl spirit)  as the Wyter of the Jonstown Library.

 

I think that is the only answer.

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, HeartQuintessence said:

Now I am just imagining Won tzi Tong from ATLA (yes the library owl spirit)  as the Wyter of the Jonstown Library.

 

I think that is the only answer.

Giant owls are cool, I have no problem with this.