- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Madness - sublimity of the intelligence, or so it has been said.
It's that time again! Where I bombard the thread with more theories about this fascinating place and the creatures that inhabit it.
Now about gnawing ones. The following quote is from Elder Jiao's interlude in forge of destiny.
"Gnawing Ones, hm," it had been clear enough to see pale, long faced figures loping in the dark, and a great deal of teeth, flesh and spirit offered in return for the tools of vengeance.
This is are only real description of the gnawing ones that I have been able to find. Now lets look at our new found batteries, I mean enemies.
"Their flesh was glistening and pale like a maggots, and their movements betrayed a certain repellant softness at odds with their shape. They resemble humans, if humans had been forced to crawl on all fours like bugs until their limbs bent unnaturally out, lending them a skittering rodent like gait. Their heads were worse, eyeless and bald, pale, blue veined flesh stretched thin over empty eye sockets. Bristling whiskers protruded from their otherwise hairless skin just below their elongated nose and chattering teeth. Their visages were like some hideous combination of human and rat."
The key point against our enemies being gnawing ones is their gait. Elder Jiao describes them as loping which are long bounding strides. Our new friends do not have that gait. Instead they move like a "skittering rodent." These are nearly opposite of each other. Along with that we see from Elder Jiao's musing that gnawing ones are not simple beasts. They are able to strike deals and bargains and have tools. These tools very likely refer to arts or rituals but still arts and rituals are not something mindless beasts can create. Right now given the mindless actions of the few red realms that have attacked us and knowing that even mortal humans can still reason tells me that these beings may be mindless and thus not gnawing ones. We will see what the greens have to offer if their gait is more loping and have actual minds but for right now I believe that the upcoming conflict will not be against gnawing ones.
My current belief is that our foe acts as a locust swarm devouring everything in it's path as it constantly looks to nourish it's members. I believe that they will try to use weak individuals with overwhelming numbers to bury things in a literal wall of flesh. The horde may be simple too focused on food to even realize how badly we are destroying them and simply keep coming until they flow around us or are all dead.
A moment of respite. A chance to steel oneself against the coming horrors.
Now lets move onto those tasty tasty cores.
So looking over these past updates I have decided to shelve the theory of mine that these creatures use impurities instead of qi in order to grow stronger because of the different examples of the impure antlion using qi to influence the world.
However that still leaves those fascinating cores. They seem to pull impurities from the surroundings into the core. We see this from the statement Suyin makes.
"contact with an empty core will rupture and poison flesh at and near the point of contact. It is very… messy."
The rupture part is likely from impurities being pulled at such a rate or with such force that they literally break skin upon trying to exit.
Here I would like to state that nature develops solutions to problems. So the question becomes what problem necessitated this solution. If these creatures are not using the impurities gathered as a resources why are they gathering them instead of expelling them? From this line of questioning came an interesting line of ideas.
1. Lets assume that this environment is a impurity heavy environment. (This is based upon my earlier idea that qi rises while impurities sink.)
2. Impurities are not set on birth but increase in the body as one lives life. (I believe there is in story reference to this or a WOG but I can not find either, but my memory states that the reason it is harder to awaken later in life is do to loss of talent and a greater number of impurities. If anyone can find a statement dealing with this either for or against I would be really happy. )
3. One of the fundamentals of imperial cultivation is that one can lose impurities faster than one gains them.
4. There are other methods of cultivation than the imperial method. For example see the stone men in the Xuan interlude.
5. One can gain strength by taking strength from the flesh of others. See stone men again.
So a new theory is that this new environment acts a great deal like a fully zerg environment. Things eat things and add beneficial traits to themselves as a form of super fast evolution on a individual scale. The weaker a creature is the closer it is to its baseline. One gets stronger and more qi by devouring others and adding that flesh to it's own. However this has a down side. This is an impurity rich environment. So in order to get more qi they drain impurities inward and store them in the core. This allows them to fill their flesh with the gained qi, much like how Ling Qi pushes qi into her flesh during physical cultivation, and then they are able to use that qi to achieve their techniques.
So this new theory helps solve way the antlion had such weird additions, arms like an ape, for an insect. It also helps solve the core being filled with impurities and thus useless for storing qi and the fact that these creatures use qi as the antlion showed. This theory does have quite a few holes such as why these creatures can't just shed impurities like normal or how such a transformation of the spirit core took place. Also with only one good example it is kind of flimsy still. Hopeful during the big fight we can see variance in the greens. An extra limb, additional eyes and other such things that are different for each being. This would help solidly this theory of devouring flesh to add to ones own. If all of the higher level creatures are fairly uniform in physical appearance to each other that would mean I would ditch this theory as well. But that is O.K! Because I will always be back with more theories about this really interesting and unsettling part of the world that Yrs has built. Until next time this has been a tin hat production.
Leave nothing unchecked, there is much to be found in forgotten places.
It's that time again! Where I bombard the thread with more theories about this fascinating place and the creatures that inhabit it.
Now about gnawing ones. The following quote is from Elder Jiao's interlude in forge of destiny.
"Gnawing Ones, hm," it had been clear enough to see pale, long faced figures loping in the dark, and a great deal of teeth, flesh and spirit offered in return for the tools of vengeance.
This is are only real description of the gnawing ones that I have been able to find. Now lets look at our new found batteries, I mean enemies.
"Their flesh was glistening and pale like a maggots, and their movements betrayed a certain repellant softness at odds with their shape. They resemble humans, if humans had been forced to crawl on all fours like bugs until their limbs bent unnaturally out, lending them a skittering rodent like gait. Their heads were worse, eyeless and bald, pale, blue veined flesh stretched thin over empty eye sockets. Bristling whiskers protruded from their otherwise hairless skin just below their elongated nose and chattering teeth. Their visages were like some hideous combination of human and rat."
The key point against our enemies being gnawing ones is their gait. Elder Jiao describes them as loping which are long bounding strides. Our new friends do not have that gait. Instead they move like a "skittering rodent." These are nearly opposite of each other. Along with that we see from Elder Jiao's musing that gnawing ones are not simple beasts. They are able to strike deals and bargains and have tools. These tools very likely refer to arts or rituals but still arts and rituals are not something mindless beasts can create. Right now given the mindless actions of the few red realms that have attacked us and knowing that even mortal humans can still reason tells me that these beings may be mindless and thus not gnawing ones. We will see what the greens have to offer if their gait is more loping and have actual minds but for right now I believe that the upcoming conflict will not be against gnawing ones.
My current belief is that our foe acts as a locust swarm devouring everything in it's path as it constantly looks to nourish it's members. I believe that they will try to use weak individuals with overwhelming numbers to bury things in a literal wall of flesh. The horde may be simple too focused on food to even realize how badly we are destroying them and simply keep coming until they flow around us or are all dead.
A moment of respite. A chance to steel oneself against the coming horrors.
Now lets move onto those tasty tasty cores.
So looking over these past updates I have decided to shelve the theory of mine that these creatures use impurities instead of qi in order to grow stronger because of the different examples of the impure antlion using qi to influence the world.
However that still leaves those fascinating cores. They seem to pull impurities from the surroundings into the core. We see this from the statement Suyin makes.
"contact with an empty core will rupture and poison flesh at and near the point of contact. It is very… messy."
The rupture part is likely from impurities being pulled at such a rate or with such force that they literally break skin upon trying to exit.
Here I would like to state that nature develops solutions to problems. So the question becomes what problem necessitated this solution. If these creatures are not using the impurities gathered as a resources why are they gathering them instead of expelling them? From this line of questioning came an interesting line of ideas.
1. Lets assume that this environment is a impurity heavy environment. (This is based upon my earlier idea that qi rises while impurities sink.)
2. Impurities are not set on birth but increase in the body as one lives life. (I believe there is in story reference to this or a WOG but I can not find either, but my memory states that the reason it is harder to awaken later in life is do to loss of talent and a greater number of impurities. If anyone can find a statement dealing with this either for or against I would be really happy. )
3. One of the fundamentals of imperial cultivation is that one can lose impurities faster than one gains them.
4. There are other methods of cultivation than the imperial method. For example see the stone men in the Xuan interlude.
5. One can gain strength by taking strength from the flesh of others. See stone men again.
So a new theory is that this new environment acts a great deal like a fully zerg environment. Things eat things and add beneficial traits to themselves as a form of super fast evolution on a individual scale. The weaker a creature is the closer it is to its baseline. One gets stronger and more qi by devouring others and adding that flesh to it's own. However this has a down side. This is an impurity rich environment. So in order to get more qi they drain impurities inward and store them in the core. This allows them to fill their flesh with the gained qi, much like how Ling Qi pushes qi into her flesh during physical cultivation, and then they are able to use that qi to achieve their techniques.
So this new theory helps solve way the antlion had such weird additions, arms like an ape, for an insect. It also helps solve the core being filled with impurities and thus useless for storing qi and the fact that these creatures use qi as the antlion showed. This theory does have quite a few holes such as why these creatures can't just shed impurities like normal or how such a transformation of the spirit core took place. Also with only one good example it is kind of flimsy still. Hopeful during the big fight we can see variance in the greens. An extra limb, additional eyes and other such things that are different for each being. This would help solidly this theory of devouring flesh to add to ones own. If all of the higher level creatures are fairly uniform in physical appearance to each other that would mean I would ditch this theory as well. But that is O.K! Because I will always be back with more theories about this really interesting and unsettling part of the world that Yrs has built. Until next time this has been a tin hat production.
Leave nothing unchecked, there is much to be found in forgotten places.
