Maelstrom: The Resurrection Situation

[Alex319]

I am interested in learning more about our options to increase the rate at which spirits come to our Earth Circle to resurrect. I have heard ideas including making more Earth Circles and I wanted to be clear on the current situation and our options.

If I understand correctly, we currently have about 3-5 people resurrecting per week (or did, in our previous location, we don't know if that will be the same in the new location). Since each circle can handle 1 person per 10 minutes, or approximately 1000 people per week, we are not at any risk of exceeding the capacity of one circle. Rather, the main bottleneck is the ability of lost spirits to find our circle.

I have a few questions to help understand the situation:

- Is there a way for people who aren't spirits to see where spirits are? Perhaps we could see how they seem to be searching, so we could guide them here.
- Can spirits travel through rocks and walls?
- Can spirits interact with the world in any way? Can a spirit open an (ordinary, unlocked) door? Can a spirit go through a Ward?
- Can spirits see normally?
- Do spirits have any ability to "sense" where an Earth Circle is, or do they only know where an Earth Circle is if they see it, the same as a normal living person?
- Presumably there are lots of existing Earth Circles on the surface from before the apocalypse. Maybe if spirits can "sense" Earth Circles, that they are getting so much of a signal from the Earth Circles on the surface (which aren't viable places to resurrect) that it drowns out the signal from the Earth Circles down in the caves. Maybe that's why they're getting discouraged; they just keep going from earth circle to earth circle?
- According to the Alliance Rulebook, spirits by default go to the *closest* Earth Circle. Presumably this means they automatically know where that is so they can go to it. Is that true? Maybe what's happening is that the closest one is on the surface, so they go to that one and can't find anyone to resurrect them. In that case would we need to *destroy* the ones on the surface, so that they'll get the signal from the one here?
- After spirits resurrect, do they remember their time as spirits? (Anyone who has died before should know this.)


Here are some ideas about what we could do:

- Interview resurrectees to ask about their time as spirits. How did they find our circle? Did they go down wrong paths? What stopped them from resurrecting until now? Did they go to other circles, such as on the surface, that weren't viable, before they found this one?
- If we do want to give spirits directions to the Earth Circle, a big challenge will be to find ways to give spirits directions WITHOUT giving our enemies directions. And if we want to create more Earth Circles far away from us to maximize the chances of spirits finding them, then we also have an issue of making sure those circles are manned (so we can start resurrections) and we can safely go back and forth and protect the resurrection point without tipping off the bad guys.
- One interesting idea may be the following: Create an unmanned, remote Earth Circle somewhere way away from us, then inside it put a small closet with directions to the main Earth Circle written on the inside of the closet. Then a spirit would be drawn to the unmanned circle, and would open the closet and see the directions, and could then get to our circle. That way we wouldn't have to man the remote Earth Circle or go back and forth to it. On the other hand, an enemy wouldn't be able to get inside the circle, so they wouldn't be able to see the directions.
- A downside to the above idea is that if the monsters have some way to destroy the Earth Circle, then they can see the directions. So an alternative to the above idea would be to create a remote Earth Circle with someone invested in it, just living in the Earth Circle, with a Spirit Recall available. Then they just stay there, and if a spirit comes to resurrect, they tell the spirit the directions to the main Earth Circle. If an enemy is about to destroy the Earth Circle then the person would Spirit Recall back - and then we could be warned about the enemy force so might be able to mobilize to stop it!
- If we understood in detail the paths and patterns that the spirits are taking to find us, we might be able to use sappers to collapse tunnels in strategic places so as to alter the cave network to make it more likely that the spirits would get to us. For instance if there's a particular path that spirits take a lot but is actually a dead end, then collapsing that path might make the spirit more likely to follow the path we want, which is to our Earth Circle. Again, though, we would also need to more carefully study enemy scouting patterns as well to make sure that we're not also helping our enemies find us.
- If the Earth Circles send out a "signal", is it possible to amplify that signal? Do we know how?

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Clerk Andrew the Bard,

I can answer many of your questions as I am a native of Maelstrom and resurrected here.

Is there a way for people who aren't spirits to see where spirits are? Perhaps we could see how they seem to be searching, so we could guide them here

The spirits do not physically manifest in any way- they aren't like ghosts. I believe Sir Tolgar Undershaft was interested in casting a ritual at one point that would draw the spirits to the circle or maybe even resurrect many of them at once.

Can spirits travel through rocks and walls?

When you are dead you don't walk through the physical realm. You are traveling through death itself. Imagine the circle as a planar gate from death.

Can spirits interact with the world in any way? Can a spirit open an (ordinary, unlocked) door? Can a spirit go through a Ward?

Ghosts and spectral undead have a variety of abilities, but spirits that are going for resurrection again aren't on this plane, so doors are irrelevant. If the earth circle is inside a room and it is locked and/or warded, spirits are still able to get to the circle and be resurrected as the circle itself is a door.

Can spirits see normally?

When I was dead I had no perception of physical reality. I wasn't able to see the physical world until my resurrection was complete and I had a body.

Do spirits have any ability to "sense" where an Earth Circle is, or do they only know where an Earth Circle is if they see it, the same as a normal living person?

There is a general sense and a twinge of active circles. It is a lot easier to sense that twinge the more recently you have died, since you are 'closer' to life.

Presumably there are lots of existing Earth Circles on the surface from before the apocalypse. Maybe if spirits can "sense" Earth Circles, that they are getting so much of a signal from the Earth Circles on the surface (which aren't viable places to resurrect) that it drowns out the signal from the Earth Circles down in the caves. Maybe that's why they're getting discouraged; they just keep going from earth circle to earth circle?

As far as I know, during the fall of the Empire most of the earth circles were destroyed by the elementals, or the elementals would 'camp' next to them killing any spirit that attempted to resurrect. Eventually people ceased resurrecting as their spirits grew weaker.

After spirits resurrect, do they remember their time as spirits? (Anyone who has died before should know this.)

When I resurrected back into this land I had a vague sense of time having passed while I was 'dead' (about 15 years, by the current reckoning). Actual time as a spirit is... Weightless and ethereal. There is no time, space, or anything. 'You' are both everything and nothing and the longer I was dead the more I slipped into nothing (which would have been eventually permanent death as my cling to life was lost). When spirits are resurrected in order to gently restore them to a physical manifestation the person performing the resurrection will tell a story to the spirit- sometimes it just sounds like a story but I've always felt like it was actually happening. The story gently reminds the spirit what being alive is and eventually draws it all the way back to life.

Your idea has been suggested before I believe we have some methods that would result in a mass resurrection of people, perhaps even multiple at once however there are some extremely major issues with it.

1. A great number of people (I can get statistics for you if you are interested) resurrect with 'resurrection sickness.' What causes it appears to be a combination of factors including the long time in death and pre-death trauma. The issue is that it is a long lasting medical condition which requires active treatment. Some people become depressed, some have violent outbursts, hallucinatory episodes, and some are even catatonic. They are (mostly, so far) curable, but it takes time (anything from weeks to months) and sometimes the intervention of people with mental abilities of which we have very few. We do not have the resources at present to handle a flood of hundreds of people with the sickness.

2. Our food and other supplies are finite. So far we have been able to increase our food production to keep up with the resurrection rate (right now I and the clerks are working on additional avenues for food production as our population is starting to outpace it again) but again if the resurrection rate increased significantly or we suddenly resurrected more, even a few hundred, we would all starve in very short order.

If anyone else has any additional information, I would appreciate it if they would add it.

In service,
Clerk Terren

 

[Samyania]

Akemi and I have experienced some minor success in combining her starlight and hope with my bells and (at that time) connection to Death through my laurels. I am uncertain if we could replicate the experiment, but I could try again, should our supply situation stabilize.

Squire Vellis Valeriana Tsalarioth, Psychopompos

 

[Alex319]

Thank you for the information. I wasn't previously aware that time since death was a factor in how likely the resurrection is to be successful. I also was under the impression that a spirit could sense if there are hostiles around the circle so it would know not to resurrect there; perhaps I was misinformed. It sounds though like our population bottleneck doesn't have to do with our ability to bring spirits here for resurrection, but rather with the other factors (availability of food and medical treatment)

I wonder if it's possible to do the "drawing people to our circle" song/spell/connection/whatever in such a way that it is more likely to draw in biata and stone elves? Or perhaps we could recruit biata and stone elves from across the mists to come here and help out, or send resurrectees through the mists to other lands for treatment and then send them back here?

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Clerk Andrew the Bard,

Your experience matches mine. A spirit can sense when a circle is 'hostile' and so not resurrect there. I expect a number still tried though, in an effort to defend our homeland.

I am hoping now that Delerion is dead we will begin to see more Biata and Stone Elves resurrecting, but a way must be devised to make sure they are not zealots to the Empire otherwise the exact same thing will occur again. I have no immediate solutions to that other than mentally checking them directly after their resurrection.

There has been discussion of sending people to other lands- for medical purposes or purely just to evacuate them. So far all of the populace has wanted to be here. We, every person born in the Empire, are soldiers, and we want to defend and recover our homelands. I was also told when I first resurrected that the physical presence of people helped bring mortality and normalcy to the land in a spiritual cosmic sense. I have no proof of that conjecture, and the person who told it to me had no evidence, but it makes general sense. I will look into this avenue further.

In service,
Clerk Terren

 

[MondayMcGee]

Clerk Andrew,

To add a bit of information to what Terren said, in case it was missed by yourself or others in all of the confusion:

The reason for the lack of stone elves and biata among the populace is that Delerion was removing them from the fishing village immediately upon resurrection, and altering their minds so that they would support his cause. Presumably these races were targeted for their mental abilities, so they could assist in the mental alterations of further members of the populace.

Now that Delerion is dead, we are presuming that people of all races will be resurrecting in the expected proportions, without being spirited away and forgotten.

However, the risk with any resurrecting biata and stone elves is that they may be from the group taken by Delerion, and therefore may still be under the effects of his mental compulsion. I will be working in the coming months to detect and remove any lingering alterations, and should hopefully have a better solution to share soon.

Best,
Clerk Pluvianella Charbonneau