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AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

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Mod Raven said (in the 78th post of the 17-1-2017 Lore Corner): Original message details are unavailable.
AttilaSquare said: Original message details are unavailable.
Is there any chance of more diversity in the metaphysical theories, e.g. an Armadylean planar theory, a Saradominist theory of magic, a Fremennik anima theory, etc? I've proposed this recently here and here . This might allow for some more creativity and contradiction on these topics.

If I were to ask a really self-serving question, I'd ask, What do you think of this thread , in which I've drawn together 10 years of lorehounding? - it is my response to a conversation begun with Mod Raven in Dec 2006. I don't think we're going to (publically) go into quite the detail that you have on your thread (I have read it, but don't have the time for a really detailed response I'm afraid).

I'm not wholly keen on giving detailed explanations to how more esoteric things work as I think it hinders, rather than enhances story. I am a fan of leaving some questions unanswered and with just enough mystery to get people talking.

If we explained everything, we wouldn't see threads like yours and that would make me sad.

On a side note, you have made some assumptions about characters in your thread that are really really not true. :P

But I did enjoy the thread muchly.

= Raven =

17-Jan-2017 21:58:29 - Last edited on 17-Jan-2017 22:03:20 by AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Hey, Mod Raven,

I'm always happy to get feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed the thread. Unfortunately I'm disappointed to hear that you don't plan to go into this sort of detail (you could always take up the work already done here and employ it in the story as needed).

Regarding esoteric things, I think I can agree and think the opposite too - I think a lot of story potential is lost because some topics go undeveloped and are later discarded as childish and as fit only for childish stories - thus myth becomes a childish thing and not as impressive as, say, Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

My own days of grand threads are probably finished. I have thought through here all of the questions I originally wanted to address - ten years and a month ago. For fun, I did end up taking non-Euclidean geometry during my senior year in college, and married the woman next to whom I sat (we'd started dating the year before). Now I'm working on my PhD.

I think that I was inspired to work on this because there was lots of mystery in the lore, but I was equally inspired by the possibility that maybe my work would contribute to the growing deposit of lore, so I hope you and the other Jmods will not shy away from canonizing some deep work like this. It's also easy to do if the esoteric theories become linked with perspectives of various factions and are not canon of an unquestionable sort.

17-Jan-2017 21:58:48

AttilaSquare

AttilaSquare

Posts: 1,792 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Regarding the characters, I only made use of a few in the Epic - Armadyl, Ikov, Tumeken, and Zaros a little. It was written in November 2015, when we knew much less about each of them - it's unclear to me whether there must be any contradiction in their characters. Elsewhere in the thread, I develop Thormac a lot and discuss Saradomin, Guthix, Bandos, V, Jack, Urval, Camorra, Aesa, Gunnar, the pests, and the spirit beast - I don't necessarily see contradictions here either, just more opportunity for character development. The School of Lesarkus could easily be renamed or removed entirely - all of this is meant only to provide more texture to Gielinor anyway.

The biggest problems with lore I see come from my critique of the language with which we currently speak of planes, realms, worlds, planets, the universe, time, magic, soul, life, life-force, anima, god anima, energy, etc. I'm just not a fan of talking of worlds like cheese and life like oil - where's the profundity in that? RuneScape's lore has so much more potential if these topics are taken seriously, and properly married to the religious outlooks of each of the factions, which themselves could use some further sophistication.

The Memorial to Guthix has also made things more difficult - it provides a different backstory for the Standing Stones and it relates rather than identifies life-force and anima, which multiplies our esoteric concepts. It also has a slightly different description of portal construction. It's probably obvious, but my strategy is to relate spiritual concepts back to the lived experiences in which they are constituted - I think this serves the profundity of the story.

Anyway, I'm glad you read and enjoyed this, and I hope some of it will be helpful. Thinking through these questions has been tremendously helpful for me. I wish you and the Lore Council the best with your work.

Your lorehound friend,
Attila Square

17-Jan-2017 21:59:03

Kailithnir
May Member 2006

Kailithnir

Posts: 2,107 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The last few months now, I've been part of a team making a game set in the Yoruba mythos, for my senior-year game design sequence (I'm majoring in game design). Whenever I think of the Yoruba concept of ase, I cannot help but to compare it to your idea of anima under sorcery and mysticism. Ase is described as "the power to make things happen and produce change," (Wikipedia), much as anima is understood by sorcerers as a certain receptivity to guiding native and principle spirits. It's kind of uncanny - if only my teammates would have any idea what I was talking about if I made the comparison. :P

Personally, I'm rather disappointed to see Jagex seemingly already moving away from anything like the mystic understanding of magic with new content. I know we're in medieval stasis and all, but is this to say that in twelve thousand years (or even within only 1200, were you to have your way), our model for understanding magic has never changed?

01-Jun-2017 09:38:07

A Mighty

A Mighty

Posts: 2,337 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Hey Attila,

Did you see the RuneFest lore session? There was some juicy lore about planes and the universe in general there...
To those cursed by war and pest, Come into the light of Armadyl and rest. This is the law of Armadyl.

06-Oct-2017 22:14:10

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