| From: | Jani Fikouras <feanor@**********.UNI-BREMEN.DE> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: To C or N, the Rub |
| Date: | Sat, 1 Apr 1995 19:23:42 +0200 |
> philosophies, particularly when The Rules are lacking. However, what
Me too.
> Ok, Damion, my remark about short range in astral comes from the line,
> under Astral Combat that says "Astral combat works exactly like Melee
> Combat, because the nature of astral space prevents ranged attacks."
This doesnt have to mean that there is no ranged combat because you
cant see. How about its impossible because you cant get ahold of anything
to throw - when you are in the astral you cant just grab a pebble and
proceed to heurl it - and thats a fact.
> That's out of SRII. As spell casting at another aura is a ranged attack,
> this doesn't seem to make sense.
I doesnt say that its a ranged attack, it says its reated like a ranged
attack.
> Now, the "light" source in astral space, or the etheric plane, comes from
> radiant life energy. The largest source of this light is Gaia herself. This
Who says that there is such a thing as "gaia" ? The only thing that
remotly resembles gaia in SR is elemental earth (or any other element)
and this substance certainly ist sentient.
> is backed up by the remark in the Grimoire, under Etheric Terrain,
> concerning "the glow of Earth's biosphere" permeating the etheric. To
> further "muddy" the etheric, the previous page under Other Beings, lists
> plants, animals, rocks, sand, and soil as things which are obstacles to
> astral travel, and therefore astral LOS. Are you still with me. My take on
> all this is that we all exist in Gaia's aura. We travel out of it, we die. Her
> aura extends to the edge of the atmosphere (probably just coincidence.
> NOT.) Just as everyone's aura extends a distance, so does Hers.
I'd rather you used the term biosphere instead of gaia, as the biosphere
is nothing more than a collection of living organisms, whereas you seem
to use gaia as if it has some sort of intelligence.
As for living things blocking your vision, well of course they do -
they block your movement dont they ?
> The astral perception vision modifiers are based on densities and
> intensities of the space. Air is normally not a problem. However, there is
> also the comment that transparent objects retain their quality. This
> leaves us with opaque objects retaining their's. A glass lense is
> transparent. How about 12 feet of glass. Not so transparent. Continue
> with this line. Eventually everything gets to be opaque. Therefore there
> is a limit.
Let me elaborate on this, light as we know it doesnt exist in the astral.
We suppose that astral vision is facilitated by the presense of a different
kind of "light" emited by all life forms. This "astral light" however
does not
obey the laws of physics as we know them - yet it makes it possible to
see through materials we know to be transparent from our native plane.
So what makes you think that 4 meters of glass will be less transparent
than 1 cm, when we dont even know why glass is transparent in the astral ????
> Where does this get us with respect to Vincent's original posit.
> 1-The spellcasting process was accomplished by opening partially to the
> atral plane.
> 2-We can uses binocular to cast spell.
>
> 1) Yes, with caveats. Is it enough of a shift to make a caster susceptible
> to astral attack? That's gonna be a GM call. There is no gate. There is
> not an actual shift of perception, just an opening up of the caster's
> senses. Specifically not a shifting.
If I am not grossly mistaken someone has already asked the DLoH this question
and the answer is that the spellcasting process canot be used as a grounding
gate.
> 2) Well the books give us that cute little picture, so the answer is going to
> be yes. Along with the fact that SRII states it specifically.
The answer is definitely yes and the reason for it is the same as
for mirrors working in the astral. The caster expects them to work because
they work in the physical and so they seemingly do. Whether he actualy
uses them to extend his sight or simply uses this excuse as a mental
cruch to boost his sences is a different question.
> But the sidebar to the question was astral perception through the
> binoculars, and then the ability to see further with astral perception in
> general. Well, that depends on how retentive you want to get. Seems
> like astral perception relies heavily on meteorilogical conditions. Clear
> day, away from Gaia, you have better vision. (The bit about being away
> from the Earth, comes from an analogy of standing next to a light source,
> and standing further away. Blinded by the light, background count, if you
> want a name for it.)
This has got nothing to do with it, read Hunter and Prey - the references
to space stations and the kind of magic being researched on them make it
clear that magic in space is feasible.
--
"Believe in Angels." -- The Crow
GCS d H s+: !g p1 !au a- w+ v-(?) C++++ UA++S++L+>++++ L+>+++ E--- N++ W(+)(---)
M-- !V(--) -po+(---) Y+ t++ 5++ R+++ tv b++ e+ u++(-) h*(+) f+ r- n!(-) y?
