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Permission/Ping Post
Nov. 8th, 2021 10:39 amStandard permissions go here.
What Others See:
Anyone sensitive to telepathy/minds will get that Penric's is perfectly ordinary, except that it sounds like he's in constant telepathic rapport with someone the telepath can't make out as well. I picture this like listening to someone on the phone. You can hear their side of the conversation clearly, but the other side is muffled so you have to infer based on what you can make out and the responses. If Pen has stepped back and given Desdemona more control of his body/voice, her mind is a lot clearer.
People sensitive to souls or other supernatural things will notice that there is a chaos elemental lodged in Penric's body, and she is exceedingly powerful. In Pen's canon, other sorcerers can tell he's the one in control -- namely that he is a sorcerer, and not just some poor shlub who is possessed.
Desdemona's Sight
Desdemona herself sees more into the realm of souls than bodies, though she also gets Penric's normal human vision. If she sees anything of interest, she will share it with Pen. This seems to cover any sort of possession, humans with supernatural power from an external source, and un-bodied things such as ghosts and things like magical abilities (Des sees a sorcerer launch a bolt of chaos towards someone, for instance).
The canon is human only when it comes to mortals, and all supernatural power comes from interaction with spirits and gods, so I'm willing to say that Desdemona can't sense that someone is, say, a wizard (but could pick up on a D&D-style cleric who has actual power invested in them). I'm willing to punt on characters that are mortal but not human: the more human-like (especially in being mundane without inherent supernatural power), the less likely Des will be able to tell them from humans without practice.
Also, Pen will pick up right away if a god is present and manifesting power, as Des does the mental equivalent of going to hide in a corner and hope she's not seen. (Generally speaking gods in this world have to work through humans, so don't have bodies of their own.)
Examples from Canon:
What Others See:
Anyone sensitive to telepathy/minds will get that Penric's is perfectly ordinary, except that it sounds like he's in constant telepathic rapport with someone the telepath can't make out as well. I picture this like listening to someone on the phone. You can hear their side of the conversation clearly, but the other side is muffled so you have to infer based on what you can make out and the responses. If Pen has stepped back and given Desdemona more control of his body/voice, her mind is a lot clearer.
People sensitive to souls or other supernatural things will notice that there is a chaos elemental lodged in Penric's body, and she is exceedingly powerful. In Pen's canon, other sorcerers can tell he's the one in control -- namely that he is a sorcerer, and not just some poor shlub who is possessed.
Desdemona's Sight
Desdemona herself sees more into the realm of souls than bodies, though she also gets Penric's normal human vision. If she sees anything of interest, she will share it with Pen. This seems to cover any sort of possession, humans with supernatural power from an external source, and un-bodied things such as ghosts and things like magical abilities (Des sees a sorcerer launch a bolt of chaos towards someone, for instance).
The canon is human only when it comes to mortals, and all supernatural power comes from interaction with spirits and gods, so I'm willing to say that Desdemona can't sense that someone is, say, a wizard (but could pick up on a D&D-style cleric who has actual power invested in them). I'm willing to punt on characters that are mortal but not human: the more human-like (especially in being mundane without inherent supernatural power), the less likely Des will be able to tell them from humans without practice.
Also, Pen will pick up right away if a god is present and manifesting power, as Des does the mental equivalent of going to hide in a corner and hope she's not seen. (Generally speaking gods in this world have to work through humans, so don't have bodies of their own.)
Examples from Canon:
- Saints are people who have a channel directly to the divine. We mostly see saints of the Bastard, because those are the people called out to deal with errant demons. The degree to which Des can sense them depends on how close the human is to their god; she can always pick up when their god is working through them, but it can be a lot more low-key if the saint is out and about. HSe still can sense them, and which god they align with.
- The Weald has a tradition of spirit warriors and shamans. Spirit warriors basically graft an animal's soul to their own to gain traits of the animal. Shamans use a great-souled animal: an animal that has been specially soul-grafted over generations to others of its kind to create something with more metaphysical umph. Des can spot not only that someone is one of these, but which animal's soul they have.
- Demons are chaos elementals that escape from the Bastard's Hell and possess animals. Every time their host dies, the demon jumps to whatever it considers the most powerful being nearby. While almost always the demon is in control of an animal, a human with a demon may have either in control. (Temple theology says the one in control is the rider, and the other one is ridden.) Demons accumulate knowledge from living with their hosts. In some sense, they carry copies of their hosts, and after a while start to get their own distinct gestalt personality: that is, Desdemona can call up a prior rider to get their take on things, but she exists as a being separate from any of them. A demon in its first human host is a lot like half pet and half toddler, and another sorcerer can usually tell what the demon's prior animal host was.
