Specters, Ghosts? in Carcosa?

[Zulgyan]

Question for Geoffrey:

I know the answer is "have it your way", but given that Carcosa is a world of no afterlife, and no planes, can specters or ghosts exist in Carcosa?

Yes? No? Why?

[snorri]

I suspect the real answer is that Geoffrey strongly dislike undeads, as he stated somewhere in DF - mummy being an exception.

But there is at least another explanation:

Carcosa IS the dead world, where souls go after their mortal life. Or, in some ways, we*, earth mortal beings, are the ghosts of carcosans beings.

* you, in fact, as I'm a carcosan immortal purple cyborg stegosaurus. Don't tell it anyone.

[geoffrey]

May 28, 2009 17:28:30 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

Question for Geoffrey:

I know the answer is "have it your way", but given that Carcosa is a world of no afterlife, and no planes, can specters or ghosts exist in Carcosa?

Yes? No? Why?

In my home Carcosa campaign, the assumed philosophical truth is that of atheistic, mechanistic determinism (a la H. P. Lovecraft). There are no spirits, souls, or anything of that sort. Even the most bizarre being in Carcosa is made of some form of matter and/or energy, however outre. Therefore there are no spectres or ghosts in Carcosa.

You'll notice that there are only three forms of undead described in Supplement V: CARCOSA:

1. mummies: Which (just like you and me) still have physical brains inside their skulls. No spirits here.

2. mummy brains: The literal brains alone (after the rest of the body has crumbled to dust) of mummies. No spirits here.

3. unquiet worms: Nonsentient worms feed on the brains of dead sorcerers. By so feeding, the molecular organization of the worms transforms into patterns extremely similar to the patterns in the consumed brain. No spirits here.

As can be seen, the undead in my Carcosa campaign are thoroughly physical. They have nothing to do with the typical spirits, ghosts, and such.

Of course, tweak (or majorly overhaul!) as you like!

[snorri]

It confirms a weird idea for another carcosan city I'll post soon :[

[TheMyth]

May 28, 2009 20:57:33 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

May 28, 2009 17:28:30 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

Question for Geoffrey:

I know the answer is "have it your way", but given that Carcosa is a world of no afterlife, and no planes, can specters or ghosts exist in Carcosa?

Yes? No? Why?

In my home Carcosa campaign, the assumed philosophical truth is that of atheistic, mechanistic determinism (a la H. P. Lovecraft). There are no spirits, souls, or anything of that sort. Even the most bizarre being in Carcosa is made of some form of matter and/or energy, however outre. Therefore there are no spectres or ghosts in Carcosa.

So, then, just imagine ghosts and specters as malevolent, life-draining energy creatures.

[bert]

No planes, but IMO there are almost certainly dimensions other than our dull and conventional up- down, back-forth and sideways, as exemplified by the odd Non-Euclidean ruin and the odd semi incorporeal jelly or invisible flesh rending demon. Indeed the existence of the colours Jale and Ulfire immediately suggests a direction in which radiation can vibrate other than the conventional three.

Whether these dimensions correspond to the 'kep', 'per', 'enjeq', and 'sanu:r' known to the ancient worshippers of the Goddess of the Pale Bone and cited in the Third Octant (see MAR Barker's 'Grammar of Sunuz') I do not know, but certainly there are beings for whom the directions left and right are as foreign to their nature as travelling in time is to our own (unless you are a Jale man of course).

The wise say that the mysterious fate of the ancient Pnakopts is merely that they all turned kep-wards one day, due to a Non-Euclidean kink in their ceremonial processional way introduced by a malevolent demon and that they have been wandering lost ever since. They cannot eat, most food on Carcosa being resolutely three dimensional, and have resorted to biting and tearing at ordinary humans for sustenance, since their minds and souls project beyond the mundane three, as shown by their ability to see dimly forwards in time to a limited extent, and a long way backwards in a clearer way through the faculty of memory. These are the 'spectres' of popular legend, men who have walked the way of the Hounds, and cannot return.

Another possible consequence of turning round in the fourth or higher dimension is that this vision of time can be distorted - one sees into the future clearly, but forgets events as they pass behind one in the fourth dimension. Many a hermit in a high cave has suffered this fate through immoderate meditation.

Fractal dimensions are another matter entirely of course...

[Deleted]

Wow, Bert! That was brilliant!

I didn't understand a word, mind ... but it was brilliant!