it seems that the hunger is the multi-clawed entity that snatches you from the starry host when you depart as a forsaken. but it doesn't succeed, as some <unknown> protective force brings you back to this plane. i'm not sure whether there is further clarifying messaging with spiteful rebirth, haven't acquired that spell yet.

---

If you are going to damn yourself, my child, you might as well do it all the way.

>it seems that the hunger is the multi-clawed entity that snatches you from the starry host when you depart as a forsaken. but it doesn't succeed, as some <unknown> protective force brings you back to this plane. i'm not sure whether there is further clarifying messaging with spiteful rebirth, haven't acquired that spell yet.

I'm not forsaken, but from what was copy/pasted to me, I got the impression that whatever those claws are, they're what save you from the void. They drag you away from the Starry Host and stuff you back into your body.

There's no indication that those claws are The Hunger, since there are other demons, like the ones used by Xerasyth and Sorrow. Armifer didn't answer that part of my question, actually. Someone was trying to tell me that The Hunger is the -only- demon that involves itself in granting power to mortal Necromancers.

Is that true?

the hunger comes after the starry host, and yet something else "saves" you from that.


"After what seems like an eternity, you reach a gate. Before you stands a stoney-faced being who gives you a distainful look <THIS IS THE STARRY HOST>, as though you were a creature of the basest kind. When he finally speaks, the surrounding constellations brighten and darken alternately in accord with his unearthly voice. "Your place is the Void, decayed soul."

He reaches over to you and grips your incorporeal form in a giant hand of silver and black. The gate beyond begins to open at his command, but suddenly a hundred hooked claws <THE HUNGER> take hold in your spirit, snatching you away from the Starry Host.

You feel yourself dragged upwards, the constellations light plunging into blackness around you.

A wracking sensation fills your soul before everything you can see of the starry realm disappears around you. The blackness is pervasive, and you feel malicious sensations of hunger and longing. Final oblivion seems imminent, as your spirit and self threaten to merge with the starving entity beyond.

A sensation of palapable relief fills you for the briefest moment as you feel yourself crushed back down into the realm of the mundane by <THIS IS THE 3rd, and UNKNOWN, thing> some sudden protective force, your work on Elanthian soil not yet finished.

---

If you are going to damn yourself, my child, you might as well do it all the way.

because the hunger thing wants you to merge with it, but you are not merged. so therefore i am thinking there must be some 3rd force at work.

---

If you are going to damn yourself, my child, you might as well do it all the way.

Hmm... I interpret the 'sudden protective force' as something intervening between you and the starving entity as well. I doubt the Hunger would need to protect you from itself, especially if it only wanted you to help pry open the cracks into the plain of abiding from the side of the living.


Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

There is a god/demon named Grr'Dakat also that the goblins apparently worship, but my understanding is no one has ever really run with it. I imagine there are all sorts of demons.

Based on the wording it appears you are saved from the Hunger, "by some sudden protective force."

IIRC when my roomate was struck down by the gods due to DO, the messaging said he could no longer hear the corus of the gods voices and then he could hear "new" voices. The messaging made me think these were the Dark Aspects that he was hearing. If so, perhaps they could be that unknown force protecting us from the hunger. I am probably WAY off, cause I can't think of what would motivate them to "help" one of us.

---

"Under the sword lifted high, there is hell making you tremble. But go ahead, and you have the land of bliss."

~Miyamoto Musashi

They are plenty of interplanar entities good and bad that are not gods. The immortals keep us from them. When you become forsaken you loose the light of the gods and start to see what really creeps in the dark.

The hunger is one of them.

_______________________

You say, "I don't help your kind"
Necrobaby walks over and kicks you!
Necrobaby says, "Your more my kind than you are yours"

Could be that the Hunger is "accidentally" saving you in an attempt to eat you, but before it can succeed another power (The Old Man, another demon, a guild artifact?) is pulling you away from it.

-pete

>That would fit in with both the necromancers' claims of having found a way to save the soul..

This is the first Ive ever heard of this. Could someone elaborate or at least point me in the direction where this is stated as lore?


Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

>its not so much "salvation of the soul", its "release from the shackles of Death".

Can't be released from the shackles of death, if the big man in the sky tosses your soul/spirit into the garbage, now can you?

The tyranny of the gods could be, in this case, the starry host getting to decide if you get to come back or not.

-pete

>I mean to say they have found a way to save the soul from death and torment, not to rescue it from the void once it's gone in, or to redeem it after it's been damned.

The reason I asked is because this seems to go against the canon that Philosophers stay away from dealing or tinkering with the soul. The answer we seek from the riddle that is the Great Work, as vague and broad of an idea that it is, is to free Elanthians from the torment of nature and the mechanisms of the Immortals. If we already have the answer, why ask the question?

I think it is fairer to admit that we simply do not know why Philosophers, those that deny the will of the immortals, come back after death despite the myriad unknowns that would consume them on the other side. Its best to simply admit that something beyond our current ability to understand sees fit to return their souls to the Plain of Abiding, for reasons equally unknown.


Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

>>If you'll continue to forgive my taste in music,

This explains a lot, although I'm not sure its a good thing anymore.
_______________________

You say, "I don't help your kind"
Necrobaby walks over and kicks you!
Necrobaby says, "Your more my kind than you are yours"

>>Saw this show in November.

I liked them better when they were Savatage.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

Armifer,

Are you a Nightwish fan? If you haven't heard of them go take a look, I have a feeling you will love them.

---

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? " ~ Edgar Allen Poe

>>Are you a Nightwish fan? If you haven't heard of them go take a look, I have a feeling you will love them.

I'm aware of them and I consider them part of the genre I like, but I'm not specifically a fan. I can enjoy them, but in a perfect world I prefer a heavier sound.

If it helps, my own musical background is I'm a bass that specializes in oratorio. I'm definitely not an airy-pleasing-melody sort of person.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

<<I liked them better when they were Savatage.

I agree. They play some older stuff after the seasonal 'story performance'.

---

Let Lyras win.

<<I'd pay good money to see "The Wake of Magellan" performed in concert.

They did not play that this year. But they did play "Hall of the Mountain King".

---

Let Lyras win.

The greatest mix of strings, metal and theatrics is obviously Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksutNW3HFT8

This is one hell of a tangent.

I know Armifer demi-started it, but actual music discussion goes elsewhere, please. :)

-Z