3d: Gladys First Flight

Mabellyne teaching spelljamming engine. Fun.

Mary: "I am surprised that an elf can handle machinery so well."

Sofonisba: (ಠ_ಠ)

Socialite: "Foot in mouth. Not mine this time. Potential conflict. Defuse."
Engineer: "Give technical details. Always helps, calms things down."

Speak. "Back in the Third Age of the world, engineering and magic were separate knowledge skills. But when Fourth Age dawned, the foundations of reality were altered, and knowledge became more unified. Now anyone trained in Arcana knows magic and machinery. They are all based on math and equations.

Sofonisba: (>_<)

Mary: Ages of the world?

Ra fal ovearhears, joins in: "The character of the gods determines the character of the world. Each new chapter of their story is a new age of the world. The Fourth Age happened when the modrons, unfathomable alien creatures of gears and clockwork, overpowered the gods and swarmed all over creation. They devoured almost all of the planes, vanquished most of the gods, gained control of the foundations of the universe, and started to rewrite the rules of reality. They tried to change the world into one that ran on their ideal of clockwork mechanical perfection, and as they did so, they drained all life and character from it. But when all hope seemed lost, the old gods returned from the void, shattered the power of the modrons, restored the planes, and returned life and joy to the world, forming the Fifth Age in which we now live."

Metaphysician: "Wrong. Correct error."
Socialite: "Be polite."
Ego: "Sustained."

Nod. Speak. "Yes, the Modrons nearly ate our world before all of the gods, both good and evil, combined forces to defeat them. But to the best of our knowledge, events in our world do not determine when Ages change. Ages change in many worlds at once, driven by vast unknown forces even larger than the gods.

Ra fal shrugs, wanders off.

Mary: "Other worlds? Do you mean like the feywild?"

Speak. "The feywild is just another plane in our world. I mean other worlds entirely."

Mary: :-/

Sofonisba: "Imagine a large picture book. Everything we see, all the world we live in, is one page in that book. The feywild is on the next page, and after that there are pages for the realms of the gods. Each page is called a plane. With effort, we can move to other planes, other pages in our book. But there are also other books, ones that we can never travel to."

Engineer: "Just said that."
Anthropologist: "Good analogy for explaining. remember it."

Mary: So how do we know anything about those worlds?

Speak. "In the second age, people could use spelljamming ships to travel to them. That stopped in the third age, but information still leaks through in dreams and visions. And some special people seem to have information from beyond this world. Usually they are normal, but at other times, special times of drama and crisis, they act differently, almost as if they are being inhabited by spirits from beyond. They say strange things, things that make no sense to us, but that give glimpses of other worlds. We can learn about the nature of our world and others by watching them. I think that Martin and his companions are people like that."

Sofonisba: "That is just superstition."

Speak: "Knowledge is that which can make accurate predictions about reality. I predict that if you listen to Martin talk with his party when they think nobody else is around, you will hear them speak of things not of this world."

Sofonisba: "Every group has in-jokes and stories that make no sense to outsiders. The group has several people not native to the Gray Ridge, and they have famously explored many places, talked to many peoples, read many ancient tomes. Do you know all of the myths of the Zhonghua Empire and the Svirfneblin? Things from other cultures often appear otherworldly."

Logic: "From an outside perspective, her probabilistic logic is sound. Hearing a group talk of strange things is not strong evidence for the outworld-control hypothesis."
Metaphysician: "Have accumulated evidence that encourages much higher prior on outworld-control."
Socialite: "Now is not the time to discuss such evidence, others not receptive."
Engineer: "Concur. Want to learn spelljamming engine."
Adventurer: "Concur." 
Socialite: "Exit conversation gracefully. Concede point and move on."
Metaphysician. "Do not tell any lies about belief probabilities! Have good evidence for them!"
Logic: "Crafting suitable response."
Socialite: "Hurry. Taking too long, others staring."

Speak. "I understand why you would think that. I have more evidence that supports my beliefs, but I understand that this is not the time for that talk. Mabellyne, I am sorry for interrupting, please continue."

Mabellyne teaching spelljamming engine. Fun.

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