From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Subject: Re: An Interesting Question
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 23:29:28 GMT


   >		The question is this...
   >	
   >	Would a speak with dead work on the hawk since the
   >	sword managed to retain its personality when polymorphed?	


Ask yourself this question:

Does the sword have a real soul, a real spirit, or simply is an artificial
intelligence?

If it has a soul, then the "standard" speak to the dead works.
If it has neither soul nor spirit, then bye bye sword. It's like trying to
see the electric patterns from a computer which isn't connected to the
eletrical network.


In my campaign, all magic intelligent swords (except when there is an
excetion, of course) have spirits, either some kind of elemental spirit, or
an higher plane spirit.

When an entity wit a soul is brought back to life, we say it is
either "raised" or "resurrected".

When it's an entity with a spirit, we say it is "restored", and
raising or resurrection is sometimes used by those who don't know the
difference between a soul and a spirit.

When an entity without any of the first two is brought back to "life", the
correct term is "repaired", "brought back online", and instead of life it
should be "put back in functionning mode" or whatever. But these entities
are then more machines and less being. They don't like to think they aren't
truly alive, and those who like them also think they are alive.

If beings with souls (or to a lesser degree spririts) like/love/stay friend
with an entity without any soul or spirit, these will develop a spirit of
their own, or even sometimes a soul. The reason is that as the wishes of
those around the object are reflected in the Void, a wandering spirit or
soul matchbing the entity's personnality might take it as his own home. The
nearer the two personnalities, the bigger the chances for a match.

In my world, souls can NEVER die. They can be reduced to tiny specks of
energy, completely absorbed into a demon/s own energy or something, but
they're still alive somehow, even if undetectable by all means short of a
Greater Wish. But in time, even if it takes millions of years, the soul
will be back to full power. Demons don't have souls, by the way.

Spirits can be destroyed, althought it's VERY hard to, and far easier
simply to disrupt them. But it's not TOO difficult. The problem is that
souls can create spirits, ising their own energy, and very powerful spirits
have been known to create spirits too. all sorts of things are possible,
like using the energy of a soul to create a spirit, whatever. Spirits are
there because somebody wished them to be there. Souls can create other
souls, but spirits can't create souls (although they can shred souls inot
their component parts, like say a demon slashing everything good in you to
"speck of energy" state, while shaping your evil side into a horrendous
beast, which will try to make sure your good side won't ever fuse with it
again, and even if it does (which it will always do, in time), it will take
millenias before the evil creature stop being so evil... and start
remembering.)

A short example of common spirit creation:

A group of normal people "create" the stats of a person which doesn't
exist. Then they have spiritism sceances to "call" that person to them.
After years of hard work and belief, finally the "ghost" of that person
appears. In short, it was 'created", a new spirit was created.

Now, supposed you go and destroy a spirit. After some years, if the spirit
was powerful/notable, then the simple beliefs of those who knew him will
recrete it back. It's not the same spirit, but it thinks, acts, and look
like the previous one, and remewmber exactly what the previous one did when
it was "alive": so it's the "same" spirit.


Some beings are part-soul, part-spirit. Or, beter said, they have both a
soul and a matching spirit. Example: Animal totems, people who have gardian
angels, etc... Rare cases of fusion between a soul and a spirit exist.

Elves as a person have a spirit, but it is always fused with the elven
soul, which is the same soul for all their race. All "spirit" races have a
unique archetype which is a true soul.


Anyway, it's just a bunch of ideas.


My guess is that I would allow a "normal" speak to death to work on the
owl-sword. The polymorph affected only the physical, material form, not the
soul/spirit/whatever. I'd allow a contact higher plane + speak to dead, +
special ritual, to work if the sword has a spirit. Nothing short of a wish
for an entity without soul nor spirit, and then it's more like repairing
the thing "temporarily" and directly talking to it, than talking to it's
"consciousness" situated in another plane. But such entities, in my world,
are very rare. Artificial intelligence is hard to do, especially in a
sword. It's just so much easier to bind a spirit to the item.

And that explains why most intelligent swords have such uniques
personnalities... 




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/---------------------------\
| Patrick "Paradak" Rannou. |
| Rannou@info.polymtl.ca    |
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