Although one must also note that mortals are in themselves their own predator. They don't hunt for food, but the wars and conflicts of the world also cut the mortal population down to size.

In my view, the Druids and commune dwellers don't need to take care of nature, but more live in harmony with it. Perhaps they do take care of some things, but it's only because they wish to. Nature should take care of itself, and so should we, would be my stance as a commune dweller.

Well, the current Taint, maybe. But the original Taint, that is, the extension of Kethuru's will, and the mere existance of Soulless beneath the Earth, poisoning Nature, did hurt (probably would have eventually killed them, or put them deep asleep to the point they wouldn't wake up) Fae. That's when Ellindel came along and gave them bodies, so they could be healed.

Now, maybe I'm wrong in this view - Fae are essentially the soul of Nature. They're it's spiritual representation. If they die, Nature may or may not go on without them - but then, that begs the question, if one does not have a soul, are they truely alive? I imagine, at least in Lusternia, the answer is yes, to an extent. But it would be a pretty gross representation, and while one cannot deny the existance of unlife, I do not believe saying an undead thing is living anymore. So it's soul is there, but the body is dead - it takes a living body and a soul, at least, such is my definition of life. Lacking one or the other does not constitute life, and, as far as Kalodan is concerned, it is an abomination againt Nature. Kalo holds the hopeful optimism that Night will one day be Healed - of course, we know it isn't true, but he's able to hope. But, he also realizes that it may not be so, and would rather she be destroyed than live this tortured existance as something that really shouldn't be.

I guess that's off-track. Although, after the Tainted Fae event, and reading the Histories, I don't think it's really possible to taint the Fae, at least, any more. The Fae that WERE tainted (Redcaps, Barghest, Slaugh) were also so damaged in the process, they were the Fae equivilent of dead (As far as I can tell). Asleep with little hope of waking up, without the intervention of a Sixth Circle god. Of course, they woke up on their own, but not for some two hundred years after they "died".

Those Fae were only tainted, I imagine, because of their strong link to the Gloriana/Glomdoring and the EtherRavenwood, or perhaps Mother Night - or all three. And that was only with the direct influence of Kethuru.

I guess I see your point, in that, Tainted Nature is still Nature. Although, it begs the question, at least in my mind, if the Fae die, will Nature live? But then I guess it falls into a Terri Schiavo: Lusternian Remix. And who wants to get into that.


Sorry if that seems really all over the place and not well put together. People coming in and out and calling, and I have to stop everything for them. Bleh.

And, I strongly agree with what Auseklis did - Nature WILL survive without us. We don't need to baby the coltsfoot (As amusing an image of Lomdomian and Etanru snuggling a sparkleberry plan is), it will die or live, and everything dies and lives in Nature. However, we (as in, communes) DID step in to repair the damage done to it, serious damage that it may or may not be able to repair over time. I agree with the belief that Soulless are an extraneous entity, and need to be matched likewise.

Again, Nature will live without us. With us, it flourishes. Fairly simple!

If I am reading correctly Kidaen is basically saying that YOUR version of nature may die, but nature itself has not. And is merely in a different form. Glomdoring and Serenwilde are both nature just different forms of nature. It is like a grassland that has become a desert. The desert isnt any less nature than when it was a grassland.

That would be a 'natural' process, Nyla. A grassland becoming a desert. The taint twists and manipulates nature...life itself, turning it something different and unnatural. A gross mutation of its former self. Cancerous even but thriving nonetheless.

Right. But, if I'm reading things right, no one's debating that. We all agree, Nature will survive when natural circumstances cause change. Change is inevitable, and will always be present. It's evolution.

I THINK Gregori is argueing that, while Nature can and will survive natural changes, even if exacted in large or small portions by civilization/humanity, that there IS a breaking point. This is true of all things. There will be a point where Nature totally *dies*. The Soulless are that point. Outside of the Basin, there is no Nature. The imprisoned Soulless pollute and corrupt the land, and the only things there are simply manifestations of that hatred and pure malevolent violence, given form in probably much the same way as Fae. Spirits that cannot die, while their bodies MIGHT be able to.

That's not Nature.

Here is the funny thing though.

The imprisonment of the Soulles in the land caused it the fae to become ill and need to be healed. While Ketheru's touch transformed Gloriana yet the fae were resistant to it and did not become ill. So Ketheru and Soulless are two different forces.

Which is why the Avatars of Night and fae bound in shadows are not tainted.

So taint is not the breaking point.

The seals were weak, not gone. The taint is nothing but an EXTENSION of Kethuru's will. Kethuru possessed the Megalith, and thus had a direct link to anyone in control of the Megalith, and spread the Taint through the element of earth. If ALL the seals broke, no Fae would be safe.


And, before you bring it up, no Soulless knew of the Fae beforehand. Same with the Cosmic half-formed - that, or else they didn't care. Not as good a source as Elder gods.

For the record, I didn't once mention Taint in that.

EDIT: Assuming Nyla was talking to me - which is probably a safe move, given he mentioned breaking point, and Malicia did not.

The Soulless and Ketheru both touched the ethereal plane and fae in some way shape or form. The results, however, were different.


In regards to there being no Nature outside of the basin. This is false. There is nature outside of the basin. We merely do not know in what form.

There is nothing outside the Basin. It's all dead. It's destruction and hate given form. What little was left was destroyed by Kethuru, as he expanded and flexed his mass, wiping out pockets of life and existance with a mere muscle spasm. The nine vernal gods that survived were in the Basin of Life - the only things left are, and I believe it's in the histories, creatures spawned by the Soulless trapped beneath the Earth.

EDIT: Although, it does say what survivors there were pilgrimaged to the Basin - so perhaps there is something out there. I mean, there might be SOMETHING. Wasn't there a third group of humans, that left the Basin? Iunno, but I've been given the impression everything out there was obliterated, as what WAS left was poisoned by the Soulless trapped beneath it.

While this is possible, Gregori also mentioned that there were different circumstances in each era. The first Soulless-taint found Fae (ie, Nature) already sick from the wars against the Soulless themselves, and also there were no great trees to combat the destruction. The Kethuru-taint found Fae exceptionally vibrant and supported by mortals, additionally there were now the Great Trees.

We don't know if there were Great Trees or not prior to the Basin, do we?

A nuklear missile is dropped on a forest. It warps and mutates it... let's say it's like the Taint. Ages and ages later, nature will take over, but it's not nature as we WISH to view it, it's nature adapted to nuklear chemicals. It's still nature, though, and in every way as important and necessary and even BEAUTIFUL as what we think "normal" forests/nature/whatever is. This is to point out Malicia's post, by the way

Whether or not there were great trees before the Divine wars appears irrelevant. By the time they were over, there were none to protect the fae from the Soulless-taint until they were raised by the first people to learn how to do so from the Fae.

And nuklear bombs lead to severe mutations and large quantities of cancerous growths. This is often greated as a tragedy.

Yes, that is quite beautiful.

It is greated as a tragedy only by those with a specific and subjective belief about what it ought to be like. You are allowed to think it is unbeautiful, but what right have you to force that aesthetic choice on others? Does the 'devestation' make it somehow NOT nature? Nope. Still nature. Just not the pretty, lush nature that you subjectively want and decide is 'right.'

Only because people can't live in there due to radiation. If some adapt to those conditions, it becomes their home and they possibly couldn't even live outside of it.

While it might not be particularly true for radioactive contamination (I just don't know), it surely works for taint, as we have proof for that. Namely, Glomdoring.

Actually, dropping a nuke on a forest would just be rediculous. (Not to mention that in the end you would probably just get -exactly- the same plants as earlier but with the ability to resist radiation and pump chemicals out of their cells.) Mutation by radiation is chaotic and leads to cell-death (cancerous growth because of radiation only happens with chronic low radiation, which is definately not going to be your biggest problem when you drop a "nuke" on a field). In contrast to the "hollywood" vision, radiation is like cyanide, it just kills because it is much too dangerous to cause stable mutations that do not impede the functionality and evolutionary position of the organism. To give a comparison, Sunlight has a much much greater chance of inducing a functional mutation then radiation, radiation's mortality rate is just waaaaay too high.

Thats what would happen if you dropped a nuke on a forest... lotsa flames, and bye bye forest for a long long time... After a couple thousand years, ya might get trees that glowed in the dark, who knows...

Back on topic... This threat sorta came outa nowhere, I wrote a bit on the subject in game, but didn't really get into the Taint aspect of it cuz the posts were already sort of epic in length... I guess I'll get around to those too... *shrugs*

Anyways, IG nature in Lusternia seems like its more than capable of taking care of itself now, its debatable to the end of time that if the fae hadn't been healed then nature would or would not have died... the forests would have, but nature would not have.

There are pockets of things outside the basin, the historys hint at them, but their few, far between, and likley very small... and probably very undergrown or sickly, as the taint in the ground from the sealed Soulless is constantly poisoning them...

I know I'm not around this forum that much, and all that, however I have been reading this thread and I have a quick point to make.

Some have basically suggested that nature cannot take care of itself, and that the communes were made to help take care of it for this reason. However, all those who are part of such communes are part of nature, and in taking care of it, it comes to be nature taking care of itself. Thus, Auseklis' statement is correct in regards. Though, on the idea that we don't have to look after it, that it will take care of itself, well the people are part of itself. Yet however, it would still probably thrive fine without the people also.

As for there not being nature outside the basin, didn't the humans come from somewhere else, and Estarra brought them? It's been a long while since I looked at the histories, so I could be wrong on this.

Also, saying that there is no nature outside the basin because it is 'destruction' and 'hate' given form, is ignoring the fact that nature itself often destroys to create. Just because something is afflicted with 'destruction', doesn't mean it's not nature, and it doesn't mean nothing would ever show up later on due to creation by nature. It's a big part of nature really, even the creatures within it feast upon each other in order to continue their own existence, to have the strength to live on, then to reproduce and so on. Dead animals, plants and all can act as fertilizer.

Create would not exist without destroy, for what is creation without an aspect of being unformed, non-existent, destroyed?