[Dragaera] The Enclouding

[Jon Lincicum]

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> 
> What was Rocza's impression of the Enclouding in Athyra? She held her breath 
> when flying through it, as I recall, but I can't shake loose any particular 
> reference to its basic nature.
 

It did not seem to harm Piro, Lar, and Kytraan when they passed through it in 
/VoA/.

Rocza may just be hanging out with too many superstitious Easterners.

> It's possible (though I won't stretch so far as to say it's likely) that the 
> Easterners think of it as a cloud bank because that's what they see. Even if 
> there was some other mechanism involved in the retreat of the "Hand of 
> Faerie", the average easterner would see a bunch of clouds dissipating and 
> think "it's about time the wind blew those clouds away". They may be 
> perfectly correct, but in reality they're in a poor position for evaluating 
> the phenomenon.

Here's a pararectal theory that might explain these various observations:

The enclouding could be caused by a distortion in space-time centered in the air 
above a region in which sorcery is being practiced. This distortion attracts 
some kind of particles that are the responsible for the actual visibility of the 
phenomenon, but in a strong wind, large concentrations of the particles can be 
blown free of the distortion area (say, over the Eastern Mountains into Fenario) 
for brief periods before being attracted back into the distortion area. 

I think there's a reference somewhere about how sometimes the overcast can be 
blown inland from the west coast of Dragaera, and the Furnace can sometimes be 
seen. Can't recall where this bit might be mentioned, offhand, however. Perhaps near the beginning of /Phoenix/?

> It would be amusing if, in fact, the reason the Hand of Faerie sometimes 
> touches Fenario is that it's attracted to the execution of sorcery in the 
> area; by Sandos, for instance. (Yeah, he's dead, but I'm speaking in a 
> historical context.) 

Based on what we know of the overcast, It doesn't seem likely to me that there 
are really enough practitioners of sorcery in the east over a long enough period 
to really account for this. I must admit however that we don't know enough for 
certain about the phenomenon to dismiss the possibility. 

Majikjon