Comments on The Mortii

I like this a lot, and I look forward to the actual racial profile for them rather than a written chronicle which may differ from the true account.

This does bring into question people's perceptions of 'death energy', and likely that it's such an... exasperating(?) phrase to say that they should probably also have a simpler word for it, or at least or more poetic phrase. Yeah, I know, it's my fault that it's there, but if we're going to look into renaming the Gods under Kar'Kaish then we should look into this as well. Kinda separate topic, but I wanted your take on it.

Again, love this account, and I'd also love to see the actual racial profile.

I actually was kind of hoping we could leave the racial profile for in-game development. Keep the ambiguity and make finding their origins a side-plot thing. In any case provided no one objects could we move this to the Land And It's People?

While that'd be interesting, a lot of in-game development is needed already. I mean, it's not like characters will just know who the Kailzim are even if the players personally read up on them, you know? Unless you intentionally mean to have stuff like this that makes both the characters AND the players just go "What the fuck is this? I've never heard of this before!" which is a good idea, too.

Maybe a section that's kept from players and open only to the developers like the old site has so that things can be made that even the players know nothing about, but are still discussed and whatnot?

I think the racial profile is still important because it reveals more than this article and gives them more... 'legality'? I don't want the Mortii to be botched later on because it seems like nothing was ever really made for them.

I actually think we should have a development section for people like us who might be future GM's or co-GM's for campaigns. But that definitely isn't needed at this point in time. And yes I was thinking more of the latter. I mean who wants be the Mortii who goes on the quest to find out their secrets when they already know them? I think it makes it far more compelling to roleplay when their is a personal gain for the actual person as well. As far as legality I have no issue in writing in more stuff for this article that you feel would be needed for people to roleplay as the Mortii.

Well maybe a more mechanical description of how it works so that players would be able to utilize the actual selling point of their character rather than leave everything to guesswork, but that alone would be pretty... meh.

Perhaps you should write up the Campaign, or at least a draft, with that information? Would be nice to have more able to be roleplayed, although people currently don't care too much about it I guess...

I'd suggest this. For now we don't want any super-crazy Antivan style Mortii so younglings probably won't have anymore than this basic knowledge. Now, I have lore on their powers and origins that I can sort of set up as a side campaign for Mortii characters to learn about (or reward them with for being kickass in other RP's) but I kind of would like to just see what people make of it. I'm really sold on the idea of concrete systems but I think we should keep them relatively vague simply so that they can be interpreted a little. The one thing I really would need to do is write up more on the draining process and the limitations of it. Beyond that I think someone who wanted to play a Mortii really doesn't need anymore information at this point.

...sounds like an STD...

It's...

It's not is it?

Wouldn't you like to know?

No, in that cause I really don't want to know...

Could we move this to Land And It's People as well as make it an informational sticky for the Characters of the Realm forum.

You need a "Character Relevant Information: Mortii" for that. I'll move it eventually, I'd still really like more literal background and mechanics and stuff, but I guess that'll have to go with the Character Relevant Information. I suppose, though, since it's already accepted, I should just move it, but I'll keep it around for a bit so you have time to read this comment.

Comment read. Will do. Move please.

Bump. Move please.

They can take just a piece of a person's life force, leaving the subject/victim of the draining effect alive. I assume this leaves the victim in a somewhat weakened state? Do normal people/non-mortii recover their stolen life force over time? Or are they left permanently weakened/damaged by the experience of being drained?

I would guess that victims who're only partially drained MUST recover their stolen life force, given time, or else there's no way that Morgana could have operated for so long without it being noticed that loads of her clientele were permanently weakened after visiting her. Yes she was creating more Mortii, but she'd have to feed too.

That brings up the question: Can a Mortii feed on another Mortii? Or does the same ability to drain life force (even at a distance, given experience) also enable a Mortii to hold their own life force to them (ie: the vacuum inside them is so closely tied to their personal life force and already creating a permanent drain on it, thus preventing external draws upon it)?

Is the ability to draw on life force at a distance a field-like effect, or is it exclusively directed, or can it be either, subject to the desire/intent of the Mortii in question?

Finally, I'd say that mages would probably be better/faster at recovering stolen life energy than "normal people" because of the simple fact that the first King Kail who originally discovered blood magic "found that life amplified mana." If life amplifies mana, and as that first article on blood magic goes on to say, it is possible to take the blood inside your body and directly convert it into mana to fuel spells (which is what the children did at first and why they were dying - blood loss/sickness due to removing too much blood from their bodies to fuel spells), then it's a very small extension to say that it would be possible for a mage to take external mana and convert it back to life energy to replenish his stolen energy. This would of course necessitate the mages in question knowing the connection between life and mana, so most likely only those who've learned of blood magic could use it this way to counteract the effects of a Morti's drain.

(ps: just a question on terminology: I'm assuming that Mortii is the plural form yes? So would the singular form be Mortius? or Morti? or something else? Thanks, and really cool article!)

1. Yes but this energy would eventually come back. How long that takes would be depedent on how much was drained. With a Mortii with a lot of control it might be comparable to someone who just got done with several hours of exercise and needs to rest for the day. A Mortii with less control might weaken someone to the point where they need days to recover like a bad flu.

2. A Mortii could absolutely feed off of another though the Mortii who was fed off of would probably need to go feed off of someone shortly afterwords. Remember though that Morgana wasn't just feeding. She was straight turning most of her customers.

3. It depends on the skill and strength. Most Mortii would feed directly through physical touch but someone like Antivan could probably drain a select group of people from a distance or just suck life from everything in a field around him.

4. You'd have to confirm that with Chaos because he authored the blood magic but from a purely theoretical standpoint absolutely. If you could find a way to create new life energy to supplement your own then that would counteract the Mortii's drain.

5. It works as a singular and a plural. Like sheep.

Good questions. And thanks.

2. So basically while Morgana used her profession to turn people in to more Mortii, she kept her "work" and "pleasure" separate, so to speak (pun intended, haha, sorry)? That is she kept her "feeding" separate from her "turning," only feeding on those unconnected to her work to keep the association from being made with her?


If people DO recover their life energy over time, and if life-energy and mana can be converted between each other (and if mana is conserved, then life-energy and mana must share a similar relation that that of matter and energy IRL?), then even "normal" people with very little or no Sense (in the magical meaning) are still performing a "natural" magical conversion of ambient mana to personal life energy to recover it. They couldn't be manufacturing it from withing them selves, as that would break conservation of mana laws. Just an interesting observation.

My theory then, given these observations: "Life Energy" and mana are connected, yet at the same time at odds with each other. Mana is inherently chaotic in nature, so perhaps Life Energy (just to be called "life" from here on) is inherently ordered? This would fit with the fact that all beings of life possess very precise, ordered ways of operating, with complex biological machinery and processes. Thus, similar to how matter and energy are essentially equivalent, but matter is the highly condensed, more "ordered" form of the pair, while energy tends to be observed in much less dense/concentrated ways and tends to diffuse out as much as possible.

The "natural" conversion of ambient mana back to life to replenish that which is lost to a Mortii's feeding could also be explained by this theory. Life, being inherently ordered, seeks to maintain its own order. Life, being the more concentrated of the two energies, has a greater ability to influence low concentrations of mana than mana can influence life energy in return. Thus, the remaining life within those upon whom a Mortii has fed will seek to reestablish the ordered state of the being in which it resides, naturally exerting its ordered nature on the very diffuse ambient mana around the person and converting some of that mana to life.

Finally, the behavior of blood magic can also be explained by this theory. Using the life energy of beings (represented &/or contained within their blood) to help fuel the performance of magic would of course make the resulting magic stronger. Because life is the more concentrated form of energy, it would only take a small amount of life added to a spell to greatly increase its potency.

Human blood (life energy) is more potent than animal blood because humans are more "ordered" than animals, as humans possess sentience. Not only are they biologically ordered, but their thoughts and actions are inherently ordered because they possess the ability to reason (which is an ordered method of approaching the world and existence). There is no record of any other sentient form of life's blood being tested in the use of blood magic, so of course no such explanation had yet been given regarding sentience as the purpose of the extra potency of human blood in blood magic. If one were to discover blood magic and also have some other sentient form of life with which to assist him in experiments (perhaps those "monsters" described in "Monsters, Spirits, and Wilderness Wars?"), further breakthroughs into the nature of magic, life energy, and their connection could be established?


Wow, that's a lot of thinking and text. What do you think of it all? I'm actually kinda surprised how well it seems to fit together.

I'm going to link this page to Chaos and ask him to take a look at my musings and theory as well.

Okay, okay, there's been some discussion that seriously breaks what we've got so far. Hold off on everything since I'm about to retcon some of what Crom said, and I don't think I ever revised blood magic to flow with the new system (it still exists, so do the Kailzim, but I don't believe it's edited fully so I don't want people talking based on possibly outdated speculation).

I'll need to look over this when I have time (tomorrow night/afteroon), and then I'll have time to mess with it.

I said he would have to confirm with you Chaos so there is nothing to retcon. And as for combating Mortii drain I was thinking more of Druids myself which from a theoretical standpoint could feed a Mortii with the energies from their markings instead their own life force.

Well like I said. It was a theory pending approval, modification, or debunking. I just thought it fit really well and was a cool idea. I don't think there'd be any risk of breaking anything existing within the official article/content (I've not read every thread in the magic & divine forum yet, but thus far I've not found anything that this would contradict, break, or "combo with" to give any sort of potentially unwanted magical possibilities). Of course it's just a theory though that I came up with on the spot and thought was cool.

Caligstro Smith wrote:They can take just a piece of a person's life force, leaving the subject/victim of the draining effect alive. I assume this leaves the victim in a somewhat weakened state? Do normal people/non-mortii recover their stolen life force over time? Or are they left permanently weakened/damaged by the experience of being drained?

CromTheConqueror wrote:1. Yes but this energy would eventually come back. How long that takes would be depedent on how much was drained. With a Mortii with a lot of control it might be comparable to someone who just got done with several hours of exercise and needs to rest for the day. A Mortii with less control might weaken someone to the point where they need days to recover like a bad flu.

If it is literally life energy that is being drained (the Mortii thread is very fluff heavy, especially since it's presented as an article and not as an official racial thread like I've bugged Crom about a ton of times before *glares*), then this can't be so. Creatures die because their life energy is essentially cancelled out as time goes on. If the process can be reversed, then immortality is a very easy thing.
We can change what constitutes life energy and what its definitions are, but under the current understanding what you say isn't possible.

I would guess that victims who're only partially drained MUST recover their stolen life force, given time, or else there's no way that Morgana could have operated for so long without it being noticed that loads of her clientele were permanently weakened after visiting her. Yes she was creating more Mortii, but she'd have to feed too.

I assume that the effects could be subtle enough to avoid detection for a good amount of time.

That brings up the question: Can a Mortii feed on another Mortii? Or does the same ability to drain life force (even at a distance, given experience) also enable a Mortii to hold their own life force to them (ie: the vacuum inside them is so closely tied to their personal life force and already creating a permanent drain on it, thus preventing external draws upon it)?

Is the ability to draw on life force at a distance a field-like effect, or is it exclusively directed, or can it be either, subject to the desire/intent of the Mortii in question?

2. A Mortii could absolutely feed off of another though the Mortii who was fed off of would probably need to go feed off of someone shortly afterwords. Remember though that Morgana wasn't just feeding. She was straight turning most of her customers.

3. It depends on the skill and strength. Most Mortii would feed directly through physical touch but someone like Antivan could probably drain a select group of people from a distance or just suck life from everything in a field around him.

Crom's domain, this seems fine.

Finally, I'd say that mages would probably be better/faster at recovering stolen life energy than "normal people" because of the simple fact that the first King Kail who originally discovered blood magic "found that life amplified mana."

This is a more literal interpretation of Kail's discovery. That was more of a fluff statement, referencing that the things normally associated with life, such as blood, amplify mana. I've already stated the deal with recovering life energy.

If life amplifies mana, and as that first article on blood magic goes on to say, it is possible to take the blood inside your body and directly convert it into mana to fuel spells (which is what the children did at first and why they were dying - blood loss/sickness due to removing too much blood from their bodies to fuel spells),

It's more like tearing away the mana which just converts the blood into waste (the Kailzim were also created with manipulated physiology that also required them to have blood, not just for normal circulation throughout the body, but to also survive in the same way regular humans need water and food).

then it's a very small extension to say that it would be possible for a mage to take external mana and convert it back to life energy to replenish his stolen energy. This would of course necessitate the mages in question knowing the connection between life and mana, so most likely only those who've learned of blood magic could use it this way to counteract the effects of a Morti's drain.

Incorrect. The process is not blood -> mana, but mana being dense in blood and taking it away. Blood is also not life energy, so there is no life energy -> mana. Neither is there a reverse process of mana -> life energy (Except for the Kishae and the Elder Gods who have enough control over mana to do pretty much whatever they want with it). In addition, there is no accurate reverse process of mana -> blood, unless elemental power is also used to actually reconstruct blood by its constituent ingredients.

Caligstro Smith wrote:
If people DO recover their life energy over time, and if life-energy and mana can be converted between each other (and if mana is conserved, then life-energy and mana must share a similar relation that that of matter and energy IRL?), then even "normal" people with very little or no Sense (in the magical meaning) are still performing a "natural" magical conversion of ambient mana to personal life energy to recover it. They couldn't be manufacturing it from withing them selves, as that would break conservation of mana laws. Just an interesting observation.

They are not making a natural magical conversion.

My theory then, given these observations: "Life Energy" and mana are connected, yet at the same time at odds with each other. Mana is inherently chaotic in nature, so perhaps Life Energy (just to be called "life" from here on) is inherently ordered? This would fit with the fact that all beings of life possess very precise, ordered ways of operating, with complex biological machinery and processes. Thus, similar to how matter and energy are essentially equivalent, but matter is the highly condensed, more "ordered" form of the pair, while energy tends to be observed in much less dense/concentrated ways and tends to diffuse out as much as possible.

Life Energy is basically mana that was changed to have certain properties (under the current working definition anyway). They share an inherent relationship because they are pretty much the same thing with different rules. Of the two, Life Energy is far more ordered than mana, but it's not antithetical to mana.

The "natural" conversion of ambient mana back to life to replenish that which is lost to a Mortii's feeding could also be explained by this theory. Life, being inherently ordered, seeks to maintain its own order. Life, being the more concentrated of the two energies, has a greater ability to influence low concentrations of mana than mana can influence life energy in return. Thus, the remaining life within those upon whom a Mortii has fed will seek to reestablish the ordered state of the being in which it resides, naturally exerting its ordered nature on the very diffuse ambient mana around the person and converting some of that mana to life.

While the observations of life being inherently ordered and seeks to maintain order is true, the rest still doesn't jive with the definition of life energy.

Finally, the behavior of blood magic can also be explained by this theory. Using the life energy of beings (represented &/or contained within their blood) to help fuel the performance of magic would of course make the resulting magic stronger. Because life is the more concentrated form of energy, it would only take a small amount of life added to a spell to greatly increase its potency.

Life Energy is never used to do anything by humans because humans don't have a good enough control. Blood magic is already explained by drawing out mana from blood, it has nothing to do with life energy.

Human blood (life energy)

The two are not interchangeable at all.

is more potent than animal blood because humans are more "ordered" than animals, as humans possess sentience. Not only are they biologically ordered, but their thoughts and actions are inherently ordered because they possess the ability to reason (which is an ordered method of approaching the world and existence). There is no record of any other sentient form of life's blood being tested in the use of blood magic, so of course no such explanation had yet been given regarding sentience as the purpose of the extra potency of human blood in blood magic. If one were to discover blood magic and also have some other sentient form of life with which to assist him in experiments (perhaps those "monsters" described in "Monsters, Spirits, and Wilderness Wars?"), further breakthroughs into the nature of magic, life energy, and their connection could be established?

Interesting thoughts. What I was thinking was a step further back than what you're saying. It isn't sentience that gives human blood a one-up, but that sentience is given to being who are chosen to be greater creations of the Life Gods. Being inherently superior in creation is what gives them a one-up. Their blood is more densely packed with mana.

:sadface:

It was such a cool theory.


Also, regarding:

Chaoswizkid wrote:The process is not blood -> mana, but mana being dense in blood and taking it away.

And:

Chaoswizkid wrote:It's more like tearing away the mana which just converts the blood into waste (the Kailzim were also created with manipulated physiology that also required them to have blood, not just for normal circulation throughout the body, but to also survive in the same way regular humans need water and food).

is that the original blood magic post said:

The Sea, The Land, The Blood: Kailzim wrote:Starting with children as to hide his discovery from the others, he found that they could become proficient in blood magic without any real teaching, nor bleeding to amplify the effects, but quickly became ill afterwards and perished.

Followed by:

The Sea, The Land, The Blood: Kailzim wrote:He realized the children did not have to bleed to produce these effects because they used their own internal blood to amplify the mana. This removed the blood from their system, causing them to die.

(emphasis mine)

If blood is inherently mana-dense, and the process of blood magic strips the mana away from the blood, then the blood will still be there. The blood isn't wasted, it's just not mana-dense anymore. Why would removing mana (a non-biological component) from blood (a biological component) cause the blood not to function properly in its biological purpose (aka become "waste")?

Also, the two quotes from the original article point out that while the Kailzim were indeed designed with the biological extra blood + blood metabolism thing, the original children test subjects to whom those quotes refer did not, and were merely taking their naturally mana-dense blood and stripping away the mana from it.

Basically I'm pointing all this out not because I'm arguing that it should work differently (it's your content afterall), I'm just asking for a better understanding of its mechanics. If the mana is being taken FROM the blood, and not CONVERTED, I don't understand why it leaves the blood "waste" if it hasn't taken anything out of its biological make up?

Do you see my point/source of confusion?

Caligstro Smith wrote::sadface:

It was such a cool theory.


Also, regarding:

Chaoswizkid wrote:The process is not blood -> mana, but mana being dense in blood and taking it away.

And:

Chaoswizkid wrote:It's more like tearing away the mana which just converts the blood into waste (the Kailzim were also created with manipulated physiology that also required them to have blood, not just for normal circulation throughout the body, but to also survive in the same way regular humans need water and food).

is that the original blood magic post said:

The Sea, The Land, The Blood: Kailzim wrote:Starting with children as to hide his discovery from the others, he found that they could become proficient in blood magic without any real teaching, nor bleeding to amplify the effects, but quickly became ill afterwards and perished.

Followed by:

The Sea, The Land, The Blood: Kailzim wrote:He realized the children did not have to bleed to produce these effects because they used their own internal blood to amplify the mana. This removed the blood from their system, causing them to die.

(emphasis mine)

If blood is inherently mana-dense, and the process of blood magic strips the mana away from the blood, then the blood will still be there. The blood isn't wasted, it's just not mana-dense anymore. Why would removing mana (a non-biological component) from blood (a biological component) cause the blood not to function properly in its biological purpose (aka become "waste")?

First of all, that is not the original blood magic post. This is. That is a kingdom/racial profile combination that heavily relies upon blood magic, but in no way explains how or why it works.

Note: The following explanation is not yet canon but is part of the intended revision for blood magic.
The reason why it becomes 'waste' is because mana is tied into everything, and the imperfect manipulation of mana (mortal magic) causes feedback. One the reasons why blood magic is so powerful is because blood serves as a ground for the feedback instead of requiring an external feedback found in 'traditional' magic. Feedback causes things to disassociate, so the blood will disassociate into its parts (which may or may not further disassociate into their own base parts and eventually into atoms). Therefore, it turns into 'waste' because it becomes useless.

Also, the two quotes from the original article point out that while the Kailzim were indeed designed with the biological extra blood + blood metabolism thing, the original children test subjects to whom those quotes refer did not, and were merely taking their naturally mana-dense blood and stripping away the mana from it.

Those were the first test subjects. The final version would eventually include physiological functions.

Basically I'm pointing all this out not because I'm arguing that it should work differently (it's your content afterall), I'm just asking for a better understanding of its mechanics. If the mana is being taken FROM the blood, and not CONVERTED, I don't understand why it leaves the blood "waste" if it hasn't taken anything out of its biological make up?

Does it make sense now?

Do you see my point/source of confusion?

Yes, but hopefully the actual blood magic thread and this clarification helps clear it up sufficiently.

Chaoswizkid wrote:One the reasons why blood magic is so powerful is because blood serves as a ground for the feedback instead of requiring an external feedback found in 'traditional' magic. Feedback causes things to disassociate, so the blood will disassociate into its parts (which may or may not further disassociate into their own base parts and eventually into atoms). Therefore, it turns into 'waste' because it becomes useless.

THIS. That's the kinda explanation I was looking for. Also, it would have been FOREVER (relatively speaking - well over a week) before I got to that article since it's buried in R&D. No wonder I was having trouble with the level of explanation in the other articles. The actual magic description article isn't up in official forumspace yet.

Due to the move and revamping and almost re-creating the world, a lot of what is made and posted outside of R&D needs to be touched up and a lot of things that are already considered in the world are sitting in R&D. If it's an older article in R&D, consider that it's around in some form or another, but it's not developed enough for everything in the article to be canon.

If you don't have any more questions or comments, I'm going to clean this thread by moving the discussion to the basket and post a reply linking to the discussion.