What was really fun was seeing the page appear in front of my eyes while I held the tome.

Thanks to Iytha who was asking me to translate the Book of Igasho while this was going on.

I echo the above. Bollikin's is perhaps the most heart-wrenching of all the Elder Books. For now, at least.

NOOOOOOOO!!!



Loved the story though, even with all my furrikin bouncing hate , got all sad over Bollikin.

It's sadder because Tae doesn't really understand what's going on. I shouldn't've read it at work -- at least no one else is in today to wonder why I was just suddenly crying at my desk.

So cool! I wonder if the other realities might possibly be the other IRE worlds, or even... earth!? Humans had to come from somewhere, after all. It's been so long since I read the histories, can't remember what happened after they went into the Void.

There are other worlds nearby that have humans. Good ol' IRE stories, give rise to much speculation.

*cough*Achaea*cough*

Worlds, not a black hole.


(Black hole because it sucks.)

Hrm, I thought one theory was that humans are the shards of the Son of Yudhe?


And I totally totally agree with everyone. I was shocked into speechlessness, and just stared at the ending of the Book of Bollikin.

The histories actually say so. But that doesn't preclude the place they come from being Achaea. Yudhe Jr. went somewhere and sharded and then some or all of the shards came back with Estarra. Maybe that somewhere was a world that was frequently mistaken, particularly by the people who lived there, for being another MUD.

I can't find anywhere in the histories that say they're the Nameless Son's shards. From the Coming of Estarra:



And



Are the only two references to humans I could find.

Ah, here's one more:



I really don't know if Yudhe's Son 'sharded' or not, but Estarra is comprised of Magnora, Dynara and the 'spirit of Yudhe' - which is another name for the Nameless Son. So I think there's more to it than one may realize! (Estarra won't tell me - says she needs something to keep me coming around. Pah.)

Maybe he landed on prehistoric Mars and shattered into Martians, who millions of years later would, as they were leaving their dying world, seed Earth with the microorganisms that evolved into modern humans that were retrieved by Estarra and Roark.

http://www.lusternia.com/library.php?inc=cosmogenesis

I don't know why this line gets missed so often.

Admittedly, you could argue that "essence...scattered" doesn't have to be the same as "shard" but I think that's reaching way too hard. The same words are used elsewhere to describe the same thing.

I always assumed it'd turn out this is why humans can crossbreed with everything: they're from an earlier model of Elder God which is less differentiated than the Elder Gods that sharded into the more specialized races. So they're compatible the way a mother's genetics are compatible with all of her children's, but the children's aren't necessarily compatible with one another.

I edited my post before you posted!

(I even once made an argument that the Unnameable Horror was the result of Yudhe's Spirit being eaten by Magnora and popping out of Lusternia's multiverse and into Achaea's. Thus the nameless son's essence is carried on (from the rape of Maya) into the human race. Later on a human combined with it (to become Eris) and later absorbed Dynara/Magnora and so became Estarra - who promptly hit me with a shoe at the suggestion.)

Actually, the whole part about how Yudhe goes into both humans and Estarra demands an interesting answer, and one can formulate ideas forever, including about a dozen ones that are so easy they're almost cop-outs. My favorite one, though, is that it's a special case of the Collective Spirit idea. The shards of the son of Yudhe, which are humans, are able to form a Collective Spirit, just like how deer formed White Hart. But since the Nameless Son is a rather bigger and better form of existence than mere deer or ravens, the Collective Spirit they form is a whole different animal, one that can attract and absorb the leftover bits of Magnora and Dynara. And that's the recipe to make your own Estarra. (High heels sold separately.)

According to the Book of Elfenehoala:



But in this newest Book of Bollikin:



-flail-

Which is the true one?

I've actually had a half-baked theory about how the organisations/Nexii are the Collective Spirits of the assorted shards that gather under them. Never quite got about elaborating or seeing if the theory even works.

Edit: All the discrepancies in names can be easily explained. Elfenehoala and Bollikin each call the forests by different names.
As for the creator of Lion, maybe he/she had a name change. I'd assume even the Divine gets one free name change.

You know, hilariously enough, I was thinking that JUST a bit ago before I read this. No shoe please!

There is a handful of names that change spelling. Like Elfenehoala is spelled different in the earlier books.

Maybe it's just misunderstanding when translated from the Divine.

You know, like Arabic languages translated to English. They don't know what to call Khadafi or Osama.