And here.
This is a long read. If you haven't the time to read it now, then read it later when you do have time. It cannot be completely understood skimmed over. Thank you for understanding.
A brief introduction to the Mists and the Rift.
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Before there were humans or dwarves, before there were even worlds or the stars that light the night sky, there was but one thing in the universe—the Mists. The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together, past present, and future. They are the source of all good and evil, of all matter and knowledge. It is said that all forms of life, no matter how simple or complex, can trace their origins back to this one place.
In the middle of the Mists is a spot where time moves neither forward nor back. It is a tear in the fabric of the cosmos, the point of perfect balance between all forces of the universe. This place is known as the Rift, and there is nothing to which it does not connect, nothing that cannot be reached from inside it. Those who have the know-how to travel across the universe through the Mists must pass through the Rift on their way to all other places. It is the center of all things.
What makes the essence of a God or Goddess? How are they related to the Mists?
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From that look on your face, I suppose you want to know more. How can I put this so that you will understand...Gods are part of this world. Think of these "facets" as one of any number of possible manifestations of those gods.
From this example, I believe that the Gods are merely sentient pipes and faucets of the Mists. From what we’re provided in the description of the Mists in the portion describing Razah, this doesn’t sound too far off.
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The protomatter that makes up the Mists strains toward creation, often spawning demonic creations in nightmarish forms. Not all creatures from the Mists are demonic, however. When the Mists come into contact with a suitable human template, for example, it can copy that form, creating a sentient entity with a humanoid appearance and an almost human mind.
This being the case, it seems highly probable or possible, that the Mists themselves would clump together and coalesce until they formed a power, an aspect of the Mists, which could be directed by a mortal entity. These powers would contain the main element of the Mists that makes the Mists so peculiar, straining towards creation; the mortals that directed these powers, being sentient, however, might have psychological traits that are similar to humans like emotion, caring, and curiosity. This in turn would give reason for certain actions, such as the “creation” of the world and the “Gift” of Magic on the part of the Gods and would explain why they have interacted with sentient species of Tyria and perhaps, other realms, despite possibly being from another plane or world.
The current Gods may have been humans from another world, this is entirely possible. My thoughts, however, are reaching far into the past, before the current Gods to the very essence of the Gods’ power. Their powers may have been formed by concentrated areas of the Mists, which any mortal being may be capable of directing.
The Nature of the Bloodstones, Magic itself, and the Mists.
The most interesting part of Tyria, to me, is the introduction of magic into the world, which was done by Abaddon, as we all know and it states that he handed it out too freely. As I’ve shown in my other research, I think that water conducts magic, but I’ve also come to the logical jump that fluids as a whole conduct magic, and yet that magic itself is the manipulation of the Mists. What I think Abaddon did, was teach many of the races how to interact with the Mists, how to open the connection to them through their souls, or perhaps, some other, unknown means. That he taught the races how to interact with the Mists may have led to the races “misusing” this connection, or learning of certain aspects of the connection the Gods did not wish for them to know, and as such, they punished Abaddon and placed him in the Realm of Torment. In other words, the provision of magic was not the literal creation of it, but perhaps the distribution of knowledge of how to interact with the Mists.
To permit the races too much knowledge of the connection to the Mists would only end in catastrophe, as we know the raw power of the Mists can lead to massive amounts of destruction, and that would only unleash further devastation upon Tyria. If Abaddon did this with that knowledge in mind is unknown, but as a God of Secrets it seems that it may have simply been something that the benefits outweighed the costs. However, the other Gods, had to find some method by which to control this connection, but it could not be done by merely erasing all knowledge of how to utilize the connection, and thus they crafted the Bloodstones…And on that topic..
I believe that they may contain the more destructive forces of magic, but I also believe they act as a barrier against connections to the Mists. A sort of grid that produces interference of some sort, which prevents a soul’s complete connection to the Mists, which keeps the balance of power; another way to view it, could be as white noise, keeping that part of the soul’s connection asleep, or numb, or paralyzed, if you will. In short, we can simply call this the Bloodstone Interference, Magical Interference, or Interference, for short.
The Bloodstones, then, when activated, have to withdraw or increase this Interference, depending on the nature of the interaction. As it can be seen with many cases, this is a very foggy area, as when fighting upon the Bloodstones in Bloodstone Fen and Hell’s Precipice, resurrection skills take much longer, seeming to imply an increase of Interference, whereas with the Bloodstone in Bloodstone Caves, seeming to imply, perhaps, a withdrawal of Interference, as creatures that die nearer to it cause creatures around it to be healed. As such, the Interference from the Bloodstones may affect both connections, incoming, and outgoing, from the Mists. That is, incoming being the Mists themselves producing creatures on Tyria, or directly interacting with Tyria, and outgoing being the soul’s connection to the Mists to utilize it for magic, or other means.
The Interaction between the Mists and Fluids.
Every tragedy that has occurred in Tyria has usually altered the landscape dramatically, by lowering something. In the Margonite War, the water level was lowered, and the seabed exposed due to this. In the Searing, Ascalon was almost completely leveled. Orr plummeted to the depths of the Bay of Sirens (Sea of Sorrows). The Harvest Temple was brought down by the force of Shiro’s death wail which produced a whirlpool that was frozen in jade by that very same death wail.
I believe that, in the case of the Margonite War, Abaddon utilized the energy in the Crystal Sea to somehow direct the meteorites to that location to strike them down. Or perhaps it was merely the alteration of fluids in the atmosphere, somehow solidifying them into meteorites. It is very unclear how this precisely occurred, but it could not have been by the maelstrom which occurred after the creation of the meteorites, as I stated in my original version. It may be that the act that was described was performed by Jadoth himself, and was of an older, unrestrained, magic, prior to the Bloodstones, and so his connection to the Mists was complete and unhindered. However, this does not completely explain the interaction of the Mists with the water of the Crystal Sea, and I am uncertain how the two would precisely connect, unless connections are made stronger in proximities to large amounts of fluids.
In the case of the Harvest Temple, we’re provided a wonderful, wonderful fact that further proves that the Gods are sentient pipes and faucets of the Mists, magic is just a manipulation of the Mists, and that one can sidestep the barrier produced by the Bloodstones through certain methods. In this scenario, the Gods provide the Emperor with a part of their power to distribute among the people to ease their burdens, however, through rituals, Shiro made himself capable of stealing this power, but this could only be done by releasing the power through death. The Emperor was a conduit and a container, which Shiro managed to make himself into as well through his rituals; however, Abaddon manipulated him to bypass the Bloodstone Interference. He wanted to throw the Gods’ power in their face, and used it as a way to get souls to help his other motives. When the power was released by Shiro’s death, it was as though the connection to Mists was unblocked, with no Interference in the way, leading to the power pouring through, and, with nothing sentient or sapient trained to contain it, it was absorbed by the fluids and the people. The fluid being whatever there was a larger concentration of in the area, in the Jade Sea, this would have been water, and in the Echovald, this would have been in the vacuoles of the cells of the plants. The reason for the people is because of their preexisting connection with the Mists, even if it isn’t utilized, it is there if they choose to use it.
When it comes to the Searing and Cataclysm, it would appear that the artifacts themselves held the creator’s magic, and of course when used correctly, bypassed the Bloodstone Interference by the containment of the magic prior to the Interference preventing complete connection to the Mists. If the magic is stored within an object prior to the Interference, well, there was nothing to prevent complete connection to the Mists then, so the raw energies could be channeled into objects for whatever usage.
However, in the case of the Searing, it would appear that the concentrations of water in the region may have had some effect on the meteorites landing sites, as it can be observed that many landed in spots where previously there was water. This is still uncertain though, and it may be an extremely bizarre coincidence that it occurred.
In summary: I don’t have an honest, bloody, clue, how the two interact. When flowing, it makes a degree of sense, as there’s energy there, and it somehow affects the space around it, and if the Mists are in actuality just space that pervades everything, then that may lead to a possible explanation, but I do not have a firm understanding of the dynamics of fluids, so I cannot elaborate.
Souls, Souls, the Never-Ending Energy Source?
So, I’ve come to the conclusion that magic is just the Mists being manipulated, but souls happen to be a key energy source for Margonites, Demons, Mursaat, and perhaps even the Gods themselves. The end conclusion then must be that souls, when within a body, are no different than the Gods themselves; they are pipes and faucets of the Mists, just as the Gods are. The only major difference is that the Gods have found the pipes of the rawer energies of the Mists, and they’ve found a way to connect their pipes to them without breaking their pipes from an overflow of energy. Or, if one prefers the Eternal Alchemy explanation, they examined their gears, and found out how they fit into the gears of the raw energies of the Mists, and thus integrated their gears into those gears without becoming the wrench that causes the gears to tear the universe asunder.
How this relates to souls being utilized as an energy source is rather simple. The souls, jumping back to my pipe comparison as it is better here than the gear one, are pipes. Their bodies were the faucet. Without a body, their connection to the Mists is plugged up, they can’t use magic, and thus they cannot manipulate the Mists. This may be due to the body’s containment of fluids, perhaps displaying their integral role in interacting with the Mists. Whatever the case, at death, the faucet, the body, is removed, and the pipe, the soul, is plugged up. Due to this, they’re just a pipe waiting to burst, full of the Mists’ energy unexpressed. Margonites, perhaps being nothing but walking energy now, and not having a digestive system as far as we can see, then may be forced to consume souls as souls are merely pure energy, and do not require energy. Demons, however, appear completely different, they appear as though they might have a digestive system, so why they consume souls is unknown; it may just be a preference, or an evolutionary adaptation being natural inhabitants of the Mists. The Mursaat use them for obvious means, they use them to seal the Door of Komalie, and as such, their devices, the Soul Batteries, may simply be “soul digestive systems” of sorts. That is, they drain the soul’s energy until it has merely rejoined the Mists, thus, digesting them.
How the Sylvari fit into the Mists.
We have very, very little information on the Sylvari at the moment of my writing, but, there is some interesting information we do have that can lead to elaborations on how they connect to the Mists. It would appear, that the Pale Tree may be a, to use a clock reference to get away from the pipe references, an escapement. That is, it causes the ticking of the clock, the birth of the Sylvari, and it seems that it may be able to store and distribute the memory of the other Sylvari to the newborn Sylvari through the Dream of Dreams, thus, it also manages the time, the memory of the race.
How does this work with the Mists? Well, it’s certainly difficult to say, as it isn’t a system we’ve seen in any of the other existing races or creatures, except perhaps the Great Destroyer and the Destroyers, but this would not be an accurate comparison. The Great Destroyer was the mind of all the Destroyers, whereas the Pale Tree and the Dream of Dreams is not the mind of all the Sylvari, as the Sylvari still seem to maintain independent minds. If anything, it would seem the Sylvari are as much the escapement to the Pale Tree as the Pale Tree is the gear train that powers them, the escapement.
What it would seem to be, however, is that the Pale Tree is very akin to the Soul Batteries of the Mursaat. The Pale Tree, may, in fact, absorb the energy of the souls in the area around it as nourishment, and store the memories, the personalities, of those souls, and then rearrange the personality traits and characteristics and memories of them into what is most essential for survival, and deposit them within the Sylvari. This may provide another explanation for why many of the Sylvari appear female, as Ronan’s memories may have been dominated by his wife and daughter, and the appearance of males, due to the memories of females of their husbands, brothers, etc.
As I’ve posted in another thread, here is a diagram of how it may work…
After the birth of a Sylvari, the connection that provided them with those memories, however, may not be severed. Instead, the Pale Tree may serve as a sort of Central Soul, or Central Mainframe, or physical embodiment of the Dream of Dreams, to which the experiences of all the Sylvari are pooled together, so that, if you were to destroy the Pale Tree, they would still maintain their memories and experiences, but they would no longer have this convenience of pooled knowledge. Perhaps they would lose their memories and experiences though? Perhaps the Pale Tree, if it is the physical embodiment of the Dream of Dreams, would sever their connection to one another. This remains to be seen though…
How the Elder Dragons fit into the Mists.
Honestly, I don’t think there’s much to say about the Elder Dragons and their interaction and relation with the Mists. They appear no different than any other creature we’ve encountered. They’re just a gear that fits into the gears of the rawer energy of the Mists, much like the Gods are. Whether these are the same gears the Gods fit into is unknown though, but whatever the case, the Elder Dragons either have a very leaky faucet, or they just don’t care how much of their energy flows out. Perhaps it was simply due to their hibernation? Rusty gear producing friction to get back into the flow of things? Either way, it simply seems that they tap into the raw energy of the Mists.
Perhaps this is by the same means the Gods may be able to post-Interference, perhaps they tap into an older, less used part of the connection to the Mists, unknown even to the Gods.
At any rate, this is my revised view on the nature of the Mists, I felt it would be appropriate to update this, with the information we now have, and the speculation occurring currently on all of this.
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