Elementals

[LiadansWhisper]

There is also an NPC in the Conjurers' Guild who makes mention of being haunted by "voices" but having done nothing to anger the elementals to his knowledge. Is the implication there that he's got the abilities of a Hearer as well?

 

 

It could be.  It could also be that it's undead (you'll note there are voidsent and undead infesting parts of the Shroud, in testament to the sickness in the forest).  It might also indicate that if you incur the ire of the Elementals, they'll make themselves known - one way or another.

[ansemaru]

Are there any precedents for the undead or Voidsent actively communicating to people through dreams, though? IIRC the only Voidsent that actually gets anything approaching speech attributed to it is Mormo in the THM quest line.

[LiadansWhisper]

Are there any precedents for the undead or Voidsent actively communicating to people through dreams, though? IIRC the only Voidsent that actually gets anything approaching speech attributed to it is Mormo in the THM quest line.

 

It might not be in his dreams.  He could be literally hearing the voices of the voidsent skulking around his home.  He says it's "waking me in the night," which would imply that they're loud enough to wake him from sleep (as opposed to being a dream).

[ansemaru]

Okay, revising my question: have we any precedent for the Voidsent doing that? They seem to primarily stick to dungeons and dark places of the world unless specifically summoned, and the worst that show up in the world at large are trickster imps. We know that the elementals are evidently incapable of warding these creatures off, so it's not surprising that they wouldn't be able to drive them away from this man, but at the same time I really have to wonder how likely it is for Voidsent to sneak into a person's home, wake him, and depart without him seeing them.

 

I'd honestly put more faith in this NPC being an untrained hearer than on the idea that he's got secret Voidsent breaking into his home. Occam's Razor and all that.

[LiadansWhisper]

Okay, revising my question: have we any precedent for the Voidsent doing that? They seem to primarily stick to dungeons and dark places of the world unless specifically summoned, and the worst that show up in the world at large are trickster imps. We know that the elementals are evidently incapable of warding these creatures off, so it's not surprising that they wouldn't be able to drive them away from this man, but at the same time I really have to wonder how likely it is for Voidsent to sneak into a person's home, wake him, and depart without him seeing them.

 

I'd honestly put more faith in this NPC being an untrained hearer than on the idea that he's got secret Voidsent breaking into his home. Occam's Razor and all that.

 

It could be either, but, Voidsent are not just in dungeons.  There are various sorts of voidsent across the Shroud.  They tend to congregate in "darker" areas, yes, but that doesn't mean that they don't move, or that there isn't a wound in the Shroud that either draws the Voidsent there or is created by them.

 

But yes, he could be an untrained Hearer, and like in the case of Sylphie, mortals born with the ability can misinterpret what they are hearing.

[ansemaru]

Thing is, he's pretty clearly not a trained conjurer at all. He looks like an ordinary Gridanian citizen! So if he was hearing the voices of elementals without any education in conjury (he's old enough to have missed the recent edict for children to be trained in conjury mentioned in the text of some levequests), he could very well be scared and uninformed regarding just what he's actually hearing. And because of the authority of the conjurers in Gridania regarding matters magical, they'd be the first people citizens would turn to for advice or help. He already suspects it's elementals, so he made the choice to go to the people who understand how elementals work better than the rest of the world.

 

And if he turns out to have a hearer's powers but no training, they're the best-equipped to teach him how to cope with hearing the voices of elementals and turn it to a blessing, rather than a curse.

 

I mean, we already know that hearers are born, not made, and that even a hearer who's been educated in conjury may not actually understand the nature of the voices they're hearing. It stands to follow that a born hearer with no education in conjury as a baseline would be even more bewildered by these voices than someone in the same boat as Sylphie or her mother, and would even (thanks to superstition) assume that the elementals were angry at them for no reason.

[LiadansWhisper]

Thing is, he's pretty clearly not a trained conjurer at all. He looks like an ordinary Gridanian citizen! So if he was hearing the voices of elementals without any education in conjury (he's old enough to have missed the recent edict for children to be trained in conjury mentioned in the text of some levequests), he could very well be scared and uninformed regarding just what he's actually hearing. And because of the authority of the conjurers in Gridania regarding matters magical, they'd be the first people citizens would turn to for advice or help. He already suspects it's elementals, so he made the choice to go to the people who understand how elementals work better than the rest of the world.

 

And if he turns out to have a hearer's powers but no training, they're the best-equipped to teach him how to cope with hearing the voices of elementals and turn it to a blessing, rather than a curse.

 

I mean, we already know that hearers are born, not made, and that even a hearer who's been educated in conjury may not actually understand the nature of the voices they're hearing. It stands to follow that a born hearer with no education in conjury as a baseline would be even more bewildered by these voices than someone in the same boat as Sylphie or her mother, and would even (thanks to superstition) assume that the elementals were angry at them for no reason.

 

Agreed!  :thumbsup: