Views of Creation

[The Matt]

Okay, I believe that the Imperial Mountain is visible from just about everywhere on the Blessed Isle, weather permitting.


Now the mountain itself is really high, if not the highest thing. Say I climb it, because I'm an exalt and I need something heroic to do on my vacation. I get past gods and monks and cursed cities because I'm clever and high essence. I reach the summit and look out.


What can I see? How far can I see? If it was the height of Resplendent Fire, and thus fairly dry and clear, could I see Trees growing up to infinity in the East?


While I'm at it, later on I get an airship of some kind, head way out East, and then go as high up as I can. Can I at any point see those huge pole of wood trees? Does the wyld in the way obscure it? What does it look like?


One more: I've got an incredibly advanced first age skyship of some kind now - 5 Metal Shrike level awesome. How high up can I go? What do I see, and what happens?


Right, so I know at least most of this really comes down to ST fiat, but I'm curious what peole have decided or think up. Also, If I've missed some laws about creation, I wouldn't at all mind being educated. And I apologise if this has been recently addressed.

 

[Moonsilver]

I play that the dish of Creation is curved. So its not a hemisphere (that would make it as curved as the earth), but it arcs enough for timezones.


By the time you reach the elemental poles you are dealing with something that is more a metaphysical construct than simple physical reality. But you would see hints of them for sure.


Fly high enough Icarus and one of two things will happen. Sol Invictus decides you are becoming a pain and cuts your engines or you start to enter the Wyld. Good luck with that.

 

[Arthur]

I'm sorry if I have little to add, but I believe it's extremely unlikely that you actually get to see as far as the far east. Even supposing there isn't any solid obstacle on your way, after the first couple thousand miles your view would probably be blocked by the natural dust/fog in the air.

 

[The Matt]

Sol Invictus decides you are becoming a pain and cuts your engines

Well, if you were in the actual 5-metal shrike you could use it's aegis and proceed up more slowly. Now I suppose someone could argue that an effect that turns off your airship isn't actually damage, and thus isn't guarded against by the aegis, but considering that it was made in the First Age when such a thing (the EMP essence burst-type effect) was most likely to be fielded, if it is indeed possible, I'd say the aegis would be proof against it.

or you start to enter the Wyld. Good luck with that.

Is that an actual rule? I though I read some fluff somewhere that long ago someone had gone way up, cut a whole in the sky and entered heaven. In any case, when you're riding around the 5 metal shrike after scaling the Pole of Earth to admire the view, you aren't especially put out by the wyld.


But that's an interesting idea. If you DO enter the wyld if you go high enough, and you aren't near an elemental pole (say on the blessed isle, which doesn't exist in the wyld) would it be elementally neutral wyld?


But I don't really think you hit the wyld going up. If you do, then the sky would have to have some quality that kept the wyld away, like the poles do. At the very least you would have to assume that the sky obscures the wyld, because there isn't any mention of the sky ever being shaped or turning into leaves. Or fair folk raining down on creation for that matter. Besides, the incarna live there, or work there, and the stars are part of creation too, I believe. I think that that points to "up" not leading to the wyld.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

The Blessed Isle contains an Elemental Pole...the Pole of Earth.

 

[The Matt]

The Blessed Isle contains an Elemental Pole...the Pole of Earth.

Yeah, well you know there isn't any wyld around that. It turns raksha into deep gnomes with slightly more benign drow masters.


Anyhow, I thought someone might respond with some epicness from their own game or imagination, not ... this. Nevermind. Maybe it is less interesting than I thought.

 

[Sherwood]

This came up in a different thread a while back.  It says in the CotD: Blessed Isle that the Imperial Mountan can be seen on a clear day from either side of the Isle.  As for seeing farther, you have storms, clouds, flying behemoths and whatnot that will get in the way.  With some Perception Charms, you'd be able to see farther, of course.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Typically I believe what I read in one book is the generaly fear of flying higher than a mile in the air for fear of being struck down by the Sun. And I apply that in my games.

 

[Thenlar]

I go with Creation is flat, so there's no time zones (pain the butt anyways).


I figure, you can probably see as far as your successes and charms let you. Dust, fog, and such will limit things, but with amazing enough successes and perhaps some really advanced Keen <Sense> (vision in this case) Charms.... why not? It's epic enough for me.


I heard from one of my players about that fly high enough to get into Heaven thing, too. I guess, though, like many things in Exalted, what happens is what the ST wants to happen.

 

[Chaka]

Since, as far as I know, the sky in Creation is a giant dome made of adamant, flying high enough results in you  crashing into it.

 

[cyl]

Since, as far as I know, the sky in Creation is a giant dome made of adamant, flying high enough results in you  crashing into it.

Since adamant isn't very resistant, you would surely broke it but beware of the cuts  :lol:

 

[magnificentmomo]

I thought the dome of adamant just surround Yu-Shan, and that adamant was fairly sturdy stuff.

 

[Chaka]

Possibly. I thought the sky was adamant as well.


Also, adamant is rediculously tough to break. To put it mildly, the towers of Chiaroscuro are made of adamant. And it took a bunch of high essence celestials and a few hundred high essence dragon bloods with lots and lots of big guns kicking the shit out of each other in epic explosion-fu technicolour to even make a dent in the fucking things.

 

[Moonsilver]

Moonsilver waits patiently for the new thread:


‘Adamant Plate Armour’ “My new artefact guys, do you think Artefact level 2 is OK for Armour which makes you impervious to everything in Creation?â€

 

[Chaka]

I did give someone an adamant daiklave in a game once. They could break any parrying weapon if they rolled enough successes on a straight Strength roll. Including artifacts.


It was hideous. Fortunately, he was a martial artist who practiced Solar Hero Style, so he didn't use it much.

 

[magnificentmomo]

What a tool.

 

[Torak]

If I'm not mistaken, adamant being a synonym of diamond, yes, it is THE hardest shit there is... in the real world anyways.

 

[Torak]

Although being hard it doesn't make it less fragile... Quite the contrary. Provided enough strength is applied, if something doesn't bend, it breaks.

 

[Jukashi]

But, if you try to crush a diamond with anything other than a diamond, doesn't the thing doing the crushing break first?

 

[Skeptic Tank]

Diamonds are hard in the sense that they can't be scratched by anything but another diamond, but they'll break if you put a hammer to them. For that chemically-appropriate but conventional-wisdom-confusing manner, they won't melt in the strongest acids, but they'll burn just about as easily as coal.


Diamonds are awesome.

 

[Torak]

Not to mention forever

 

[Moonsilver]

So in the madly rich First Age, the Solars could have had hearthside diamond fires?

 

[Smeggedoff]

Not to mention forever

so you missed the burn as easily as coal part?


I've seen a video in chemistry wherin if you superheat a diamond with a blowtorch (glowing hot) and then drop it into a dish of liquid nitrogen (I think that's what it was, was v cold anyway) it'll boil away into nothing


I thought there were two different types of adamant? Chiaroscuro glass and something else


one's unbreakable and one breaks easily but the shards are razor sharp

 

[Flagg]

Chiaruscuro glass is Chiaruscuro glass. Adamant is adamant.

 

[wordman]

There were, however, two slightly different takes on adamant. The one in Time of Tummult (pg. 75) and the version in Autochthonians list very different properties. The one in ToT can probably be ignored, like much of the rest of ToT.