Inside protected areas

Heh..why am I not surprised

the Ethereal has about zero benefit to us, other then a -maximum- measily 270 power a weave (as for policing it, we have slightly more say on who goes were, but now you are talking about travel TO and FROM the elementals, which the cities can get to without going through faethorn anyway, so that's really moot)


back on topic, I think an expansion to the elemental planes would be nice, possibly another 50 rooms in each, with slightly harder creatures then are there now. It would encourage more off-prime bashing, and thus more off-prime PK

Villages and quests on elementals? I wouldn't really like to see that, keeping most quests on Prime is a good thing. It we place some Super awsome neato quests on the elementals they are going to turn into what Faethorn used to be, Super contested, the cities would start watching theirs 24/7 and I don't think they want that.(don't they already have enough problems with their Ladies/Lords?)

Except that said earth lords come back to life as normal mobs, yeah.

Right sort of idea though. Elemental planes have always been a bit lame compared to cosms. Although dreamweaving alleviated this slightly.

oh on the suggestion of sylphs, undines, salamanders and gnomes. we already have sylphs but perhaps these could be some form of fae as another link between ethereal and the elemental planes.

perhaps sylphs are the secret to unlocking halifax ( )

Absolutely.

But.. I get itchy when people start talking about putting villages and the like on the elemental planes. The Gorgogs can stay right out for a start. They're an elemental hybrid... made of mud with steam attacks, fire in their eyes, etc. They may be made of elements, but they belong to no specific elemental plane as they are currently. I mean when you get down to it, we're all created from the elements, just not quite so obviously. The Elemental Planes are to their elements what Faethorn is to the forests... and we need to remember that while nature has spirits, critters, and in some senses, trees are alive, Earth isn't to anything like the same extent. The RockLords are sentient because they are of the dreaming as well as of Earth. Gargoyles, and stoneghasts and the rest are not, and there'd be something really wrong if they were. I guess what I'm attempting to say is.. nature is self-aware, but Earth kind of.. isn't... and it would be wrong if its denizens became self-aware... just as it would be wrong if the Elemental planes became re-defined in terms of parasitic, non-elemental things on them - gorgogs/villages of things camped on an elemental plane, etc. I'm not making sense. But I hope there's a discernable pattern in my confusion.

... i still don't get it

i would however like to see a glimpse of pre-tainted earth and shallamar to actually see what they were like.
though i would like to see the reasoning behind why there couldn't be sentient creatures there, from what i've seen (admittedly not much) every plane but Astral has some form of sentient life (if you count the elemental lords)

And who said that earth isn't sentient? *pouts* i'm really going to have to start having Saran actually look into how the elements meld into ethereal and prime.

Saran..

There IS a glimpse of pre-tainted earth in the histories. Project Hope goes to Astral through the Megalith of Doom - then Stone of Truth, and up the Earth Plane and Shallamar. Not very much, but there is a little description.

My points about the earth plane were garbled. Hopefully this makes more sense.

Aiakon regards the Earth plane as an archetype for all types of earth, clay, loam, stone, rock, sand, etc; a sort of primal pattern. He argues that the Earth (and variants) of the Prime Reality is intrinsically linked to the Earth of the Earth Plane - because the Earth plane represents a sort of Earthy quintessence. Thus, he argues that because Earth's Archetype was Tainted (or blessed depending on your standpoint) by Kethuru, in some small sense EVERYTHING that contains anything of the element of Earth is tainted, though it be even the slightest, minutest part. He argues that the Geomancer's power over Earth is derived from that part of the Flesh that is composed of Earthy derivatives - that just as the spirit/soul orders the body and the body is earth, so the spirit/soul can order the earth itself. Alongside this comes a total fear of water - because the water in the flesh is linked to the Element of Water in the same way that the Earth in the Flesh is linked to Earth. Aiakon is increasingly becoming a crazed hydrophobe - but then HELP GEOMANCERS does say that geomancers are supposed to be insane. The problem is complicated further, because Earth is tainted, and Water is not. Thus, where the two elements interacted with air and fire to create and sustain life in the past, there is now a conflict born of the fundamental difference between them - taint and not taint. (This is not to say that they aren't naturally in conflict anyway - eg water in rock, freezing, expanding, breaking; but that now they're REALLY antipodean)

I've gone completely off the point.

Aiakon would argue that Earth is only self-aware at the most basic levels. Sentience requires an admix of the four elements and a fifth, being spirit (which Aiakon might attempt to argue is represented by the Cosmic Planes.. on an allegorical level at least). Just as mortals are composed of the four elements in flesh terms, and then have a soul.. so one of those elements cannot become self-aware on its own. Statues can be enchanted.. they can be tuned, but they cannot make up their own mind who to attack. The Elemental plane currently supports this hypothesis - Gargoyles and Stoneghasts have some semblance of intelligence - they can forage, they can hit you... but they're little more than jelly fish on an intellectual scale. They cannot speak, they cannot talk, they cannot argue... if you kill one, it does not occur to the rest to band against you. The Earth Lords CAN reason, but they are only partially of earth - they are also of the Dreaming - they contain a spiritual portion. If the denizens of the Elemental planes are intended to be composed of the element that makes them up, and only that.. then they must necessarily be equivalent to what there is there already.. they cannot make homes and villages and be civilised.. they cannot be REASONABLE because they lack the element of spirit within them.


Does that make sense...

kinda, though Saran would probably aruge against all reason that either there was a fifth elemental plane that is inaccessable because only one not connected to any element could exist there
or
Ethereal is where the elements are blended together to create spirits and as such is why the fae call it their home though they do not continue on through either choice or due to an elemental imbalance and is why a wiccan is sometimes needed to help them to prime