Ancient Names

I think I may have … hm. This is an informed guess, but it is just a guess, but I think we might be hitting upon the names the Ancients used for our various planes. I was wondering if people (especially the Samudrans in the audience) could advise?

Alsos: “The Grove” or a “Sacred Grove.” See further discussion here. Seems very likely to be Almachadta?

Teratourgeion: I’m not sure what this means, but it was used to refer to Luĉja. A translation would be helpful here.

Are there any other names for Samudra that anyone knows of?

Well, in terms of the Ancient language, those are both– attested terms, at any rate.

Your translation of ‘sacred grove’ for Alsos is accurate to our understanding, and– hmm. Makes me think of something the noöplankton return to again and again. They have mentioned a grove. One wonders.

As far as ‘teratourgeion’, I’d venture… miracle-works? monster factory? It’s hard to translate into one word that carries all of the correct connotations.

Why would the Ancient world have had words for the Beast and Almachadta? (And what was their word for Samudra? I’d offer myself as a guinea pig here if I could.)

Alsos had a secondary meaning of “sanctuary” when I discussed it with the Pearl who specialized in such things. Is there a similar meaning in ‘teratourgeion’?

“Miracle” and “monster” both make sense I think? Is it like our term “awe” means something terrible and something sublime at the same time?

And that … is an interesting point about why the ancients had such words. Was there a grove and a miracle-works on the unsundered world? Did our planes exist as aspects in that ancient world?

I’ll try to pin down Archie as a guinea pig once I figure out if there’s any value in casting the Rite.

Well, keep in mind we found an entire city under the ice. And we know Zosimos was out there doing… whatever he was doing. It’s not unreasonable to think a handful of other “ancients” might have survived whatever sundered the world and developed Old Words for new places before new words replaced them…? Alternatively, the Architect mentioned the planes were not unlike experiments, yes? Perhaps based on previously existing models or thought experiments. (thought experiments… heh wonder if that has a different connotation on Samudra)

Oh good point. Also can you imagine our current system being something like the third or fourth draft? I wonder if there were other models and what they looked like?

Though counterpoint: The stars themselves use the language of the ancients; that’s where I was called Salme tou Alsos. How and why would the constellations know newly-coined words.

Though shit, why are there commonalities at all. Hm unless the Duelist’s Mask was relying on the words available within the Mask itself.

“New Words”, in this case, being the language we currently use, as well as the names we know the planes by (ie Almachadta, Samudra). (It’s very strange that we know the names of our planes if you ever stop and think about it too hard)

As for the Duelist’s Mask itself… well, given the hundreds upon hundreds of years it spent observing your locales and conversing with its wielders, it’s be far more strange if it hadn’t picked up our language at some point.

Ah I meant “newly-coined terms in the language of the Ancients” not our language. If the constellation had just used my language I don’t think it’d be weird?

Though Light, I’m not actually sure how much the Mask and the constellation are in conversation with each other. I could maybe try to speak to it again?

Two more for you, Caion.

tou Asilos

tou Philaisia

Also, synomote, which I suppose is actually three.

…And, I suppose, does “gestalt” have any particular meaning to you, though I already know what it meant within the given context.

Hmm. “asilos” looks like a derivation of the Ancient word for haven or refuge. I don’t have a good, clear definition for “philaisia”, though. Love or apprecation of… something, I’m just not sure what. I’ll do some research.

‘synomote’ is attested, very loosely, as a term for… co-conspirators in a plot.

Just what have you all been getting up to over there? Ought I be concerned?

(This last is in jest, to be clear. Hoping you’re all doing quite well!)

As far as ‘gestalt’, I think I’ve mentioned this before actually at some point, but it’s the word we use here for what Pearls are - a whole greater than the sum of its parts, an organised and perpetuating pattern comprised of what had previously been distinct elements.

Okay so. You know Alethic Rites, right? Of course you don’t. Well, there’s a library entry on how to access them now you may want to refer to before coming back here.

All good? Okay. So we decided to cast libra on ourselves, for science. (Me, Salme and Awa.) ‘Aurelius tou Asilos’ and ‘??? tou Philaisia’, to go along with ‘Salme tou Alsos’ and uh… whatever Lucja’s was.

Oh, huh. I hadn’t realized you used that word for Pearls as well, though I suppose it does make sense.

Would … “sanctuary” be a reasonable translation of “asilos”?

I was referred to as a “beloved synomote” of. Two people. What an interesting choice of words?

Wasn’t Sanctuary a translation of Alsos already…?

I think… to me, at least, and I’m not an expert so take this with a grain of salt. But to me, ‘sanctuary’ and ‘asilon’ seems like a much cleaner translation. ‘alsos’ could be a sanctuary, the… same way that Salme’s island could be considered a sanctuary, I think, but it’s not its primary meaning, whereas ‘asilon’– there’s a theory that the Ancient language inflected and influenced our own in key ways, and ‘asilon’ is one of the words where you can see it clearly, if you look at ‘asilon’ next to our word ‘asylum’, in the sense of a place of safety and protection.

Feel like language would be a lot easier if worlds couldn’t have multiple meanings for no damned reason.

That’s the fucking truth.

Yeah, the Samudran scholar that gave me the translation of “Alsos” said it was a tertiary definition at best.

This is kind of a longshot, but is there any word in Ancient that might sound like “hero” but mean something closer to “dreamer” or … some sense of someone who carries forth memories of the past?

Nothing comes to mind immediately, but I’ll ask some associates who’ve a deeper understanding and familiarity with the Ancient language. What are you chasing down, if I may ask?

Duškomira mentioned that there used to be a word for people who dreamed like Wolf does and the Irós do. It’s a word that Jae apparently heard as “hero.” I’m not trying to relitigate the past but I was hoping uncovering the term might reveal more about the dreams.

Also I need to point Wolf to this discussion; I was just hoping for something more substantial first.

I can’t be the first one to have drawn a line between the pronunciation of ‘yeresh’, ‘irós’, and ‘hero’ at this point, right? It certainly does make my ‘Ancient basis for the term’ whiskers tingle. I’ll ring my fancy Academician’s bell that summons the relevant expert as soon as I can find it under all the memory crystals piled on my desk to review.

Caion I … do suspect you were the first person to notice that. Maybe Wolf might’ve had he read this first but I certaintly didn’t.

Oh. Well. The line’s been drawn, then, I suppose? It feels plausible to me, at least, that all three of those words derive from an ancestral, forgotten term, probably in the Ancient tongue, is all.

Oh I absolutely suspect you’re right. I was mostly poking fun at your assuming your ability to make brilliant connections was a given. Apologies if it seemed otherwise.

Please ring that fancy bell as soon as possible I’m deeply excited myself.

The other word was “jernos” by the way, Caion. Your theory is looking more and more likely I think.

…What does being a “Hero” have to do with seeing visions from time displaced…? That’s generally a trait attached to Oracles or Sage, not… Heroes. Hm

I don’t think it does. Those three words: yeresh, jernos, and irós, I think all point to a common word in Ancient that perhaps sounds a lot like “Hero” but isn’t the same term. My initial thought was to simply recover the jernos term, but (thanks to Jae, who helpfully just told me) now I’m following Caion’s thread about the terms all sounding similar and sharing a common ancient root.

Here’s another name for you: “Synydron,” from when I cast Libra on Archie (you can find the text in the library under Libra if you want, Caion)

For whatever it’s worth, “synydron” fairly straightforwardly means “a confluence of waters”, which… I suppose makes sense as a thing that my plane might be called.

I wonder, actually, and the thing that I’ve been gnawing on for some hours now. If you squint, you can imagine that our word for our own world might have come from synydron. We know that we have words that derive from Ancient, either straightforwardly or… otherwise. What if Samudra itself is one of them? Synydron -> Symmudron -> Samudra. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it, honestly. I’ve always wondered why things are named the way they’re named, as long as I can remember, so of course this is what I’d latch on to and not let go, but…

That would make a lot of sense, I think. It makes me wonder if it’s the same for my plane—“Alsos” to “Almachadta,” though there’d obviously be the accretion of an additional term.

Oh! I finally found the lexicon you slipped us, and I think I might have your root for “jernos,” “irós,” “yeresh,” and, I think, “yazhn”? Or, two possible candidates: “hieros” from “hierophant” or “oneiros” from “oneiromancy”? Sacrality and dreams? Does that check out?

…I can see that, yes. Different pathways of conflation of concepts with one another, epenthesis of the resultant compound, and then different manners of erosion over time… Scholar-Archaeolinguists proper are fairly scattered to the waves these days (and I’ve been searching…), so don’t take that as definitive, or anything. But that seems plausible to me.

Is … so. Would “Alsos Machedatos” becoming “Almachadta” be a case of epenthesis? I was given a sense of the name as “a sacred grove, a proving ground, a place of holy and beautiful struggle, of life and death.”

I also think we have all of them now:

Almachadta: Alsos Machedatos
Samudra: Synydron
The Beast: Teratourgeion
Mu: Musterion
Valaïs: Philaisia

I’m not sure about “Musterion” and could use some guidance there. It is interesting that … it seems like Mu and Valaïs lost letters, but Samudra and Almachadta retained them, and “The Beast” transformed entirely. It is interesting also that Libra called her “The Scorpion Queen of the Beast” but Luĉja was “Luĉja tou Teratourgeion.”

Plus, also, whatever “Asilos” is, if it is just the place the Architect called “Sanctuary,” or if it extends beyond that.

Hm. Do you have any thoughts on the terms “tellurian” and “sidereal,” Caion? And how they might relate to our world? I know they aren’t ancient, and I know what they mean in our language, but.

Yeah, real curious how the hell you get from ‘Teratourgeion” to “Beast”, although I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me if SQ just Shrugged and changed the entire name of the world after discovering what its Deal was…?

There’s a clear correlation between “Musterion” and our extant word “mystery” that I’m confident on without even consulting any texts; both words derive from a root term that pertains to closing of the mouth or of eyes, so as to keep and maintain a secret.

Aside from the known meanings of ‘tellurian’ and ‘sidereal’ as pertaining to our world and to the sky and heavens, I know that tellurian has been used in reference to those rite-tones which are chiefly physical in their basis, and associated with the aspects, or schools, of the Fang, the Claw, the Scale, and the Breath, whereas sidereal rite-tones involve the clear invocation of gnosis. That’s… true for at least your world and also for Samudra, which surprised me when I learned it, but perhaps should not have done.

That’s actually consistent all over so far.

Yeah that’s just true of the Rite-tones. However, if you look at the latest entry on the Libra folio it seems to refer to more than that.

Yeah, that’s fascinating. I’ll poke my nose into some corners and see if I can find any attestation of the terms at all in our records over here outside of the context of the Rite.

HEY CAION, WANT TO LOOK AT SOMETHING COOL: A Letter Inscribed In Crystal.

Anyway, some words:

Calyx
Telesterion
Stoicheia
Anyder
Tekton and Lysios (these are names)
syzygy (you’ve done this one before, but for clarity) temenos

And, additionally: Aletheia.

Also, since I don’t know what the word means, “methexis.”

(I’m working on updating my glossary).

Oh, this is… this is a rich text. I’ve got some thoughts, but I’ll hold those for later, and provide translations as best as possible first.

Calyx is a word we still use for the outermost whorl of a flower; it derives from Ancient directly, but meant the same thing in that context as far as we know.

“Telesterion” I’ve got nothing for, although - the parallel with “Musterion” suggests itself to me immediately. “A place of-“, with one being a place of mystery and obfuscation, as described above, and Telesterion as a place of completion, or fulfillment, or initiation into a sacred rite.

“Stoicheia” is- interesting. Its most direct translation is “Elemental”, in several senses - ‘stoicheia’ could mean the base things of which matter is constructed, or it could mean ‘the elemental axioms of a theory’, or literally ‘the ABCs’ - the basic building blocks of a word or syllable, letters themselves.

As for “Anyder”… I…

It feels to me like it could be… what our “River Without Water” is simply a translation of. It means “Waterless”– and something in the text implies the existence of literal trees growing by its banks, which is fascinating to me. Could there have been a literal river, named…? It’s the sort of joke my Academy would have made. And I do… recognise something of myself and our ways, in these words, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Tekton” means builder or constructor - it comes from the same word as our ‘text’ or ‘textile’. “Lysios” is tougher to track down. There’s a connotation of ‘loosening’ or ‘dissolving’ - there are some terms of art in Samudran chemistry which, I believe, derive from the same root - but I think there’s a deeper metaphorical meaning here which I’m missing, as a name.

A “temenos” is a sacred, closed-off space; it’s attested frequently enough in Ancient but it’s frustratingly ill-defined.

“Aletheia” carries some kind of connotation of ‘truth’, and it, too, is attested in Ancient texts with some sort of deeper metaphysical meaning that’s discussed, but not ever properly defined in any texts which survive.

I’ll do some more research, and see if I can determine anything else about the rest!

Hah! I found it.

‘As for a syzygy - it’s clearly attested as an alignment of multiple celestial objects that persists in some fashion for some amount of time, or is otherwise markedly notable. It’s applied, not very consistently, as a metaphor as pertains to humans - the Ancients loved their physical and cosmological metaphors. No text in Ancient can ever be read on just one level; it’s both frustrating and, to some of us, at least, wildly rewarding.’

Which seems oddly pertinent to the entire current discussion…

Thank you Caion. I apologize for just throwing a word list at you; I’m doing some correlation with the information we’ve just found out and there’s a lot to comb through. I wanted to add my read on some of this information. It’s a bit chaotic, so if I need to expand of file things down please let me know.

“Telesterion” and its relationship with “Musterion.” I was wondering if these might have some relation to each other as well due to how similar they are, but I didn’t know if that was … a reasonable assumption or not. I appreciate that you thought the same thing (could it also have some kind of relationship to “Πότε ἐπελεύσεται τελείως?” That’s … also a word there, yeah? T-e-l-e-i-o-s?)

“Stoicheia” is … I think I know what that is. I think you gave me the pieces to put something together. First, there are creatures on Mu known as the Elementals. I can’t remember if I told you about them or not, but they are odd … cracks in the world, with no physical existence, really, able to inflict horrible amounts of damage in the Rite. (You can see their specialized Rite-tones in this folio on veiled Rite-tones). There are also Shades. Shades appear as … glyphs in the rough shape of a human, with shadow hanging from them. When I gave this description to Jae, she mentioned that she’s encountered deeply powerful creatures made of glyphs that would arrive to assist worlds in peril (you can see the discussion in this folio on the Shades of Mu; I think I’ve extracted everything useful from our DMs).

Anyway, the thing that struck Jae, and I’ve been wondering about, is … aside from a specific shade that is bound with a human, the shades are not particularly powerful; they’re certainly not the massively powerful creatures that Jae describes. However, if “stoicheia” can be … “the ABCs” … would literally reading it as a reference to their being made of glyphs make any sense? The way the author talks about the stoicheia and their recent arrival seems to line up with Jae’s description of how they operate. And then …

Did whatever happen break apart the shades from their destructive potential? Their destructive potential thus becoming Elementals (and getting our language as a reference to that term)?. One of the Rite-tones carries the words “I AM THE COST OF SAYING NO” along with it, and the Libra text implies the shades were a willing sacrifice when something(?) happened, while the Elementals stayed when they could have left. I had thought maybe they were parallels, but what if they were once the same thing?

On “Anyder”—on a fifth read-through, this seems immensely plausible, at least from how you’ve explained the “River Without Water” to me. Did you ever see this description of the First City? I know Aurelius sent you images, but there is a river here—or the suggestion of one. What if it never had water?

I do think it’s interesting that the “Anyder” is more that a river, though, right? “Anyder does not have a working relationship with them yet” is … something that can have a working relationship, yeah? But also something is “grown along the Anyder for show” which is how you’d talk about a river, right?

And also the River Without Water … “nothing anyone downriver would notice, but I sit closer to the crystal than most.” I’m not sure what “the crystal” or “the glass” could mean, but “downriver” makes me think about your discussions about the nature of time as a river. This seems to be a very … lived experience the writer is discussing, yeah? At least, I thought there was something here about the flow of time.

Your translation of the names “Tekton” and “Lysios” seems to mirror the … names of the Architect and the Omniclast, don’t they? And they once worked together … were “in syzygy” with how I understand it? I don’t know if it’s them or something else, some … echo of them, but it feels. Very heavily geared towards them.

Last note, and this is maybe more superficial, but … this is written in our language. Ciphered, certainly, and with Ancient terms in use, but our language. Is that … does that make sense to you? Do we know … I mean, I guess, how are our languages related?

Yes! You’re already very good at this! Also, more obliquely, part of the core of ‘entelecheia’.

This all makes a rather alarming amount of sense to me, I think. I am reminded of what occurs sometimes when one of our Pearls is of two minds concerning something, and splits down the middle in order to do both things at once; neither descendant Pearl is the Pearl that made the decision to undergo fission, and they are both the outcome of that process.

Or it did have water and… Oh, First Principles, I’d love to get down there with Archie and explore. Oh, my goodness. Imagine what secrets could be held there! But - and this would not be out of character for the Academy which I am increasingly certain descends from that Ancient institution - I’m willing to bet they named the River they were founded next to after a core ideological principle, which was also either a synecdoche for, or an actual formal name of, their Academy. That the true River would follow them, wherever they went and whatever happened.

Forgive the sentimentality, it’s just… slightly overwhelming to me to think that it did live on in the hearts and habits of a people who have never even seen a river in their life, and yet somehow still know what one is. That’s… I think that’s very lovely.

I don’t think that’s a superficial question at all, Salme! As I’ve said, we’re reasonably confident that the common language shared between all the planes derives in some way from the Ancient language, and there is attested evidence from Ancient sources available to us that discuss another, more common language that was spoken in the world at the time.

Our sources hadn’t attested any examples of this language, and I admit I am truly hornswoggled to see a language that is so recognisably my own! I suppose it makes sense that the Academy of the time would be sticklers for the more formal and archaic speech patterns in all of their text which managed to survive to this day…

Can you tell me more about … “fission”?

Oh! That makes perfect sense. I’ll updated our glossary with that theory.

And I think it’s perfectly … “normal” is kind of an odd word to use here, but. I get it. Discovering something has persisted that long, especially when it’s something you yourself love … that seems deeply special.

A couple questions about this: even within a given cycle, Almachadta’s language will shift a bit. There are dialects, of course, across the plane, but while the language the first Sword-Saint uses and the last Sword-Saint uses are usually mutually intelligible, there’s often difference in vocabulary, sentence structure, and … spellings I’m pretty sure. But this could have been a DM from you to me. And I find that … strange.

I was also curious, since “Ancient” is the parent-language of our language (probably) … how old do we think the Ancient world was before whatever happened (the Apoleia?) happened? Is there any scholarly work on the different periods and ages of the world?

What would you like to know? If you want more than what was implied by the context of my usage you’re probably best off asking a Pearl, not me, although I can of course relay any questions you might have to a Pearl scholar, I’m sure I can find one willing to answer questions. This is the Academy, it’s what we do when we’re not asking them.

I find it remarkably strange. It is– one of several details which I find myself returning to every time I revisit the letter in my mind, which has, I must admit, taken up a startling proportion of my hours since I first read its deciphered text.

The Apoleia, yes. There is absolutely no conclusive evidence we’ve been able to find concerning how long their world existed before it ceased to do so; there are references to things having existed, or planned to exist, ‘as long as the eternal tetrad’ scattered sufficiently through their documents to convince me that their accepted fiction was that their world had simply always existed in the same form, but i see no compelling reason to take that as anything other than a literary flourish.

I suppose what the process entails? Is it just a splitting apart? A separation? What does the process look like? Is it agreed upon somehow, or does it happen through a series of accidents? I guess … hm. We’ve got a lot of things splitting apart in the metaphysics of our world. I’m curious if Pearl fission is an … echo of that or something else?

Eternal tetrad? That’s … a group of four, yes? Is there … do you know anything else about them? Do you think it could have anything to do with the “Them” mentioned in reference to the “Games”? That’s an enormous leap, and possibly an erroneous one, but. Hm.

Pearl fission is usually an accident. A sufficient shock can cause decoherence, or– if a Pearl wishes to do, or be, two different things at the same time, and cannot come to an internal consensus (often this comes in the case of a messy Circle fragmentation, where a Pearl cannot decide which descendant Circle to join) some proportion of the Pearl will go one way, and some proportion the other, each somewhat lesser than when they were one, each before too long very much their own person.

Frustratingly, we know little. It is referenced, obliquely, in documents we’ve managed to recover, and - I was about to say it was unclear whether the term referred to institutions or people when I realised how closely my words were mirroring those of the letter. Hm indeed. It seems used as a synecdoche for the Ancient way of life and its culture, though, in a way that suggests to me that they did not expect it to be capable of having a demarcated endpoint.

That makes sense re: fission, and I wonder if that’s maybe … I don’t know if that sounds like what happened with Zosimos or not but it sounds like an echo of something, even if I don’t know what.

But we don’t know the elements of it? Hm.

I think … hm. Does any culture expect to have a demarcated endpoint? I guess I’m curious if this feels unique to the ancients or if this is sort of a universal social idea. Mu expects an end—a happy one, certainly, but an end nevertheless. Almachadta is deeply rooted in life cycles, though only the Sword-Saint knows there is a concrete end, but there’s no expected end of the world. I’m less sure about Samudra, obviously, or the Beast. I suppose I’m asking if there a difference here that I’m not seeing?

Well… not to put too fine a point on it, but even before – anything we found out about the worlds being doomed to periodic catastrophe, we knew on Samudra that the recorded history of the world was three and change times longer than our recorded year, and we assumed that our recorded year had just… started over from 0 at some sufficiently document-rending thoughtstorm. I don’t think anyone expected our Academy to last very long, let alone forever. So it’s… strange to me, but I suppose there’s lots of people for whom that wouldn’t seem strange at all.

I don’t think it’s that strange, really and it makes sense on Samudra you’d be very aware of the temporary nature of things, considering the thoughtstorms. And on Almachadta there is very much the idea that living things do eventually die, so … hm.

I didn’t realize that about your recorded history vs. your recorded year, actually; for some reason I was under the impression that you only had information reaching back 1,296 years. How far back do your records go?

I apologise, I mis-spoke (or, well, edited my ripple halfway through writing it and failed to edit everything I needed to.)

Most of our records only go back a couple hundred years - the history of the ‘current’ Academy only goes back that long, but our recorded history goes back 1,296 years. We have some very few records dating to nearly that time, and absolutely nothing before that, unless you count verifiably remnant Ancient texts (for which we haven’t a date at all) rather than more-recent copies. But– prior to your arrival, and this is information that’s only even been shared with a few people here, the assumption made was that there must have been documents before that date that were utterly lost. Now… well. I’m not sure.

Can I ask actually … how do you have ancient texts? Are they inscribed in crystal like this note? Are they on paper? Where did you find them?

And what do you mean about being less certain about the idea that there were documents that were lost? Are you less sure because now you think Samudra is wholesale destroyed and remade or do you have a different theory?

Given the information we’ve uncovered, I’m now reasonably certain that Samudra also experiences a totalising catastrophe on the same cadence as Almachadta and the Beast. For obvious reasons, this is not a hypothesis I’ve shared widely, but I’d be shocked if it is incorrect. I am… attempting to prepare countermeasures based on the radiant wall that protected the Academy from the thoughtstorm, but that’s a different topic entirely.

As for the provenance of our Ancient texts! It varies - the Geode in which we met is not the only sealed-off structure we’ve discovered. One of the reasons people go exploring where the sea ceases to ‘make sense’ in the first place is that, for whatever reason, you’re more likely to find artifacts there. Also, occasionally, there are caches tangled up in kelp-forests, or in islands either on the surface, or floating beneath the surface of the water. Inscribed stonework, inscribed crystal. It’s lucky for us that the Ancients seemed to like writing on things that would survive significant water damage! There was also a reasonably significant cache brought back from the very first expeditions to the Septentrione prior to Tasna’s work we actually had a MUCH sparser concept of the Ancient world and its language, really, and we’re -still- actively accessioning and studying things that got brought back from her early expeditions.

Ah, I suppose I had assumed, perhaps foolishly, that whatever reset your calendar would be inherently catastrophic on a similar level as whatever happens to the Beast and Almachadta as a matter of course, so that’s where my confusion come from. I’m sorry that … that is something you’re having to contend with. I both can and can’t imagine the pressure of it.

Oh this is fascinating and makes sense for how you’d be able to (re)discover so many Ancient texts. I do wonder if … all things considered, it’s not an accident that they’re inscribed on water-resistant materials?

As I’ve mentioned previously, my capacity to believe in accidents is degrading faster than my commitment to the Virtue of Parsimony can keep up. Willing to elaborate on your thoughts, here? (In our void ripple is fine, if they’re not ready for the refectory stage yet.)

The probably pre-sundering stuff I found in the towers on the Beast used paper and the like rather than crystal slates, fwiw.

Oh that’s a good point. It was paper and … photographs? Still images, like we can store in the library, right?

Also some news: I think I’ve discovered what the name of the void-gnosis trio is: ἀμφιλύκη. That is … “amphilyke” if I’m transliterating correctly? It means something like … twilight? Specifically before the “dawn”? (As opposed to in the “evening”?)

Correct. With the first half, no idea on the second.

That’s a correct transliteration, yes.

Did you find a cache of Ancient text during your time on Mu?! That would be fascinating data, if so, and I’d love to get my hands on it if it’d be possible to get me a copy…

Er. Not … quite. I was able to uh. Hold the three gnoses that make up amphilyke within myself and sort of. Knew the name when I did so?

That probably sounds insane, but I’m certain that is the correct name for it, at least in Ancient.

That’s… utterly fascinating, and also theoretically and to my prior knowledge practically impossible, which makes this data very exciting! I have some experiments I’d love to run, next time we have the chance.

Why would that be impossible???

Yeah same question as Aury.

If I am correctly understanding the meaning of ‘held the gnosis within myself’, and I may not be, it is widely considered to be impossible - although, clearly, not provably impossible, and we may now have an existence proof - to hold more than one gnosis-weave within the form of your own body at one time. There are workings which require somatic assumption of more than two gnosis types and it is well-understood that those such workings require more than one person working in collaboration to perform! I’m very curious if this is simply something that we believed was true and, because we believed it, it was true, or if the rules are different for you in some capacity; I find either explanation plausible at this time.

“…of more than two gnosis types…” ought to read ‘one’, there. I need to remember to carefully re-read my ripples. These damnable inventions encourage a tendency to excitedly say what I am thinking without properly checking my work, whoever produced them ought to be castigated for their malfeasance.

What a weird assumption for someone to have made? People demonstratively are aligned with and capable of utilizing all types of gnosis, even if some people might be better with some types than the others. And I’ve never found mixing them to be particularly difficult when making things outside the rite. (and even inside the rite if you stack up enough enchantments, that’s more or less what you wind up doing…?)

I did not say that people were not aligned with or capable of utilising more than one type of gnosis? That would be silly; our life-patterns demonstrably contain all five, even given what we now can recognise as the alignment of each world strongly towards one or another type, and many external workings of gnosis involve the weaving of more than one type within the same working.

The thing that’s strange is what we in Samudra at least call ‘somatic assumption’ - when you draw gnosis into your own body, and suffuse yourself with it to the point of becoming the working itself. It’s a reasonably common technique in more advanced gnosis-work, although to my knowledge there are no Rite-tones that take advantage of the technique. (Enchantments are more like the Bubbling technique we use here, or– think of them as fancy, fashionable scarves you wear over your body. You can wear several in multiple fetching colours! Somatic assumption is a temporary change to the body itself.)

Hmm… what purpose would that even serve?

Well, I did that with burning to avoid getting roasted alive in the Meat Cathedral. I’ve done it with tenebrous to. Er. Get around my discomfort in caves.

I did hold all three recently, yes. It took significant effort for … well, the payoff was what I was seeking, though no great work was achieved. I can accession the memories for you, Caion.

I am curious about the uses in Samudra though.

Oh, that’s a very clever use of somatic assumption of burning gnosis.

Off the top of my head as well as it being useful, sometimes, when engaging in more complicated/taxing gnosis-weaves, you can use Pellucid gnosis suffusion to be able to breathe underwater without a Naiad like me extending our capacities to make it otherwise possible. (For some reason, there is a consistent association between gnosis types and certain physical phenomena - pellucid, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, being associated with water and fluid dynamics.)

I see.

I had wondered if pellucid might work in that way. I had been curious to try, back on Samudra. I’m not quite sure what flourishing would be—roots and leaves, probably? Plant life. I have been curious to try on Almachadta.

Tenebrous is … shadow, but it is also wind. It is formlessness as radiant is the form that gives it meaning. Radiant itself is … things that protect or define, in my understanding. Bone and stone; light, insomuch that light defines shadow.

Liminal is. Hm. To see oneself from every angle. To take disparate things and make them more than they are. I’m not sure that’s a good description but … it’s a description.

I don’t know again if holding all three serves a function. I was … er. Trying to understand something about myself?

It’s much easier to draw gnosis out of oneself or manipulate ambient gnosis in the atmosphere I think? At least to me? This has, again, served mostly as a tool for … shifting oneself to adapt to a physical space.

Yes, it’s always much easier to pull on your own resources or on those of your environment than it is to perform somatic assumption; there are many who can’t do it at all, and not for a lack of trying.

I, myself, underwent a kind of…I am not sure what to call it. Ritual? Experience? Wherein I channeled all six types of gnosis in sequence to reshape a liminal space and create (or release?) a Key to a room in the Library. I do not think I was holding them simultaneously…I think? But the experience seems to have been quite similar. I am not sure how useful that information is to the discussion, but I felt it worth contributing, just in case.

Caion, does Samudra have any records of something called the “Phthora”? The word itself seems to mean something like “corruption” or “decay”? It may also have something to do with mortality, if I’m reading this right?

There’s a particular kind of pernicious metaphysical mold which attacks coral that is called “the thora”, suspected to be a derivation of an Ancient term for corruption or decay - we’ve lost a couple of towers to it over the years. I doubt it’s related to whatever you’ve found, rather than just a re-use of the same word, but that one seems to have survived in some form, here, at least!