[Dragaera] Questions from Brokedown Palace

[Jonathan Carey, CHRL]

Good afternoon, all,

I'm re-reading everything in anticipation of Vallista, and I had a couple
of questions I wanted to ask the group:

1) Sorcery in the East.  It's clearly possible--Sandor, Miklos, and the
Jhereg assassin can use it.  But in Jhegaala, Vlad says he can no longer
call upon the orb to determine what time it is, though he could do so,
despite the presence of the Phoenix stone, when he is not as far from the
Orb.

Any theories as to this discrepancy?

2) Sandor - I think he's undead.  Any proof otherwise?

3) Bolk's Nature - There is a reference in one of the books that not all
Gods are Lords of Judgement (Iorich, I think?).  If this is true then I
suspect Bolk is one of these "non-LOJ" gods.

4) Bolk speaking different things to different ears - I found this very
interesting, since Bolk's nature seems to prevent him from overlapping too
much with Dragaeran gods, yet Verra displays this trait in Issola.  This
apparent contradiction can be explained if it's a trait of godhood rather
than a trait of LOJ gods. What determines what someone hears seems to be a
mixture of psychological tendencies/biases as well as, perhaps,
causes/beliefs in the listener, implying that the Gods speak
psychically/psionically in such a convincing or pervasive way that they
appear (perhaps retroactively?) to be speaking vocally.  Given that gods
are, at least in one of their aspects, the embodiment of an idea and/or
cause, well, the voice of those ideas are going to speak in different ways
to different individuals based on their own cognitive biases.

5) I believe I've come across psionic as a term in the Vladiad - can anyone
confirm? If so, what's the difference between psionic and psychic in
Dragaera?

6) Verra...wtaf is going on there?  Verra is VERY concerned with Dragaera;
and there are statements to the effect of her being a Goddess of (elder?
elder only, or both elder and "younger" sorcery?) sorcery as well as
witchcraft.  Why then is the River, which has the power of Faerie (younger?
sorcery), seemingly working against her in _BP_?

7) Re: Verra & Godslayer - if Bolk is indigenous to Dragaera, it may be
that he is not unassociated with the Serioli, and by extension the Morganti
weapons including the GWs.  Perhaps Verra's "destruction" will be similar
to Tri'nagore's destruction--ie, being unable to manifest on a certain
plane rather than "killed" as a mortal might be.  In fact, I think that's
all but certain, since Tri'nagore isn't technically "dead" despite
Blackwand...he can still appear in the HOJ and apparently some other
plane(s) of existence...which to bring this back to the point, is very
similar to what happens to Verra in _BP_.  At which point the prophecy
about GS becomes less Dragaera-shaking, at least to a degree; unless her
"death" in this instance has some knock-on effects, like, sorcery ceasing
to work or something like that.  I can't really see the other LOJs being so
keen on that, though.

8) Acryonym for LOJ when plural...is that LsOJ or is LOJs OK :)



Regards,

Jon Carey, B.A.(Hon), CHRL, CHRP