Much-ado-about-Mishram he/him Posted October 15, 2020 Posted October 15, 2020 What would Shadesmar (or the Rosharan cognitive realm) be like for an aquatic sapient being if it were to cross into the realm? Surely they would not appear and exists in a mess of beads, would they? Would the air above the water be beads to them? Or would the air still be air and the sub-aquatic terrain be beads? Asking for a friend
Chasmgoat he/him Posted October 15, 2020 Posted October 15, 2020 (edited) I think that they would be in beads, Shadesmar does not change depending on the person there (I think) Excellent question! Edit: I was not thinking... I thought that the water turned into the beads and land stayed as land. My bad... Actually since water becomes land I think the creature may become underground or on top of land. I am not sure. Edited October 15, 2020 by Chasmgoat
Quantus he/him Posted October 15, 2020 Posted October 15, 2020 23 minutes ago, Chasmgoat said: I think that they would be in beads, Shadesmar does not change depending on the person there (I think) Excellent question! Edit: I was not thinking... I thought that the water turned into the beads and land stayed as land. My bad... Actually since water becomes land I think the creature may become underground or on top of land. I am not sure. The beads and flames dont rigidly co-terminate with their physical realm counterparts, so they could easily get shunted to the "surface" instead of appearing in solid ground. The bigger issue is that we know from human travel that Shadesmar feels no need to make itself habitable, so just like humans need to find work-arounds to get drinkable water, a fish might need shenanigans to get breathable water. On the other hand, there might be regional differences. For example, The Nexus Of Imagination corresponds to the "Southern Depths" ocean of Roshar, where no land-based people live, but sentient aquatic things like Santhids and Tai-Na (Greatshell Islands) might. In a region where the PR residents are entirely aquatic, Shadesmar might be different (ie an ocean atmosphere instead of humid air) above the same bead sea structure.
Much-ado-about-Mishram he/him Posted October 15, 2020 Author Posted October 15, 2020 Oh yeah, I was thinking about that backward and got my mind all flipped around! While not necessarily habitable, the cognitive realm does roughly correspond to the perspective of the being to some extent (I think? not that many examples). So if an aquatic being were to transit to the cognitive realm they would be on/in a mountain of beads making mountains into the sky conversely to their depth in the physical and need to flop/roll/scoot to what was land in the physical realm which would be water to them? I am trying to think analogous to humans where the native physical environment is inhospitable beads in the and vice-versa.
Honorless he/him Posted October 15, 2020 Posted October 15, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Much-ado-about-Mishram said: Oh yeah, I was thinking about that backward and got my mind all flipped around! While not necessarily habitable, the cognitive realm does roughly correspond to the perspective of the being to some extent (I think? not that many examples). So if an aquatic being were to transit to the cognitive realm they would be on/in a mountain of beads making mountains into the sky conversely to their depth in the physical and need to flop/roll/scoot to what was land in the physical realm which would be water to them? I am trying to think analogous to humans where the native physical environment is inhospitable beads in the and vice-versa. The Cognitive Realm is indeed affected by perception but that's not nearly enough to change its make-up for one (aquatic) person. Think of gravity, every object with mass produces gravity, but how much do you really affect the Earth? A Shardworld's Cognitive Realm is affected by its inhabitants' minds over millenia, a single traveller is simply not going to change its geography. Now, the Cognitive Realm of a Shardworld with an aquatic civilization on the other hand... Edited October 15, 2020 by Honorless 1
Much-ado-about-Mishram he/him Posted October 15, 2020 Author Posted October 15, 2020 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Honorless said: The Cognitive Realm is indeed affected by perception but that's not nearly enough to change its make-up for one (aquatic) person. Think of gravity, every object with mass produces gravity, but how much do you really affect the Earth? A Shardworld's Cognitive Realm is affected by its inhabitants' minds over millenia, a single traveller is simply not going to change its geography. Now, the Cognitive Realm of a Shardworld with an aquatic civilization on the other hand... Gotcha. Vivenna in the Rosharan cognitive realm shows that its structure and make-up doesn’t change based on the person’s perception. In my fuzzy brained hypothetical I was imagining an entirely aquatic civilization native to Roshar that existed in parallel with the land dwellers but I guess that itself would have changed Shadesmar in a way that we wouldn’t be discussing oceans of beads and such... Sign me up for a Shardworld with an aquatic civilization!!! <3 Edited October 15, 2020 by Much-ado-about-Mishram
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