Shardbearer he/him Posted November 9, 2012 Report Share Posted November 9, 2012 I just finished reading TES and was wondering if it was possible for a forger to turn themself into an Elantrian. They could rewrite their history to be born in Arelon and to have been taken by the Shaod. Would this give them access to both AonDor and Forging? How awesome would that be? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LightReader she/her Posted November 9, 2012 Report Share Posted November 9, 2012 That would be totally awesome! My husband and I were just talking about that possibility the other day. I suspect it would be a very difficult soul stamp to make though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted November 10, 2012 Report Share Posted November 10, 2012 Yes, I imagine it would be quite difficult if it were possible. It might be impossible because of sDNA and all (though I think not), but the soulstamp would need to start at "well, first I was born to completely different parents in a different continent, then...", so it might be a bit difficult on the "plausibility scale." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardbearer he/him Posted November 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2012 I think it could become plausible, but probably not for Shai. Imagine a Forger who is the son or daugther of a traveler, say a merchant or diplomat of some sort. The Forger could rewrite their history so that their parent was traveling to one of the Aonic lands and fell in love or had an affair with an Aonic person, resulting in the birth of the Forger, with Aonic blood to make it possible to become an Elantrian as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nepene he/him Posted November 11, 2012 Report Share Posted November 11, 2012 (edited) I'm not sure. Two things are required for you to be an elantrian. Have an Aonic ancestor. I'm not sure if you can change your ancestors with forging. It's not that plausible and it's not necessarily possible to change your parents with a forging as it would be implausible. Have the Shaod chose you. The Shaod is quite possibly the manifestation of Devotion, a shard, even if splintered. Powerfully invested beings like shards are very very resistant to magical attempts to influence them. Being splintered it may be easier to fool. It may be possible to trick the Shaod into choosing you. A forging might not hold indefinitely as it would be implausible, but it may well hold long enough to fool it into giving you magic. You could forge yourself into a very devoted person, get the power, and keep it even when you reverted. What with odium killing the shards the hashcheck of the magic systems should be easier to trick. Edited November 11, 2012 by Nepene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROSHtafARian Posted November 19, 2012 Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 It could be possible for a Forger who didn't know their full ancestry. For instance, someone who was raised not knowing who their father was, thus there's nothing to contradict the Forged possibility their father was Aonic. Add to that the theory that the Shaod chooses people according to their level of Devotion to some ideal or purpose, and the sheer amount of effort, imagination and magical artistry that would have to be committed to the act of Forging an Elantrian Essence Mark could serve as enough Devotion to a cause or purpose that it could be worked into Forging a history where the Shaod chose them. I imagine it would be extremely difficult, it would require a few starting parameters (ie not just any Forger could do it, just a Forger who met certain requirements), and it would take years of study and trial and error...and could potentially backfire in a big way. But it probably IS doable. (And at the very least, I imagine some Forger at some point in Sel's history would try it). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulyssessword he/him Posted November 19, 2012 Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 It could be possible for a Forger who didn't know their full ancestry. For instance, someone who was raised not knowing who their father was, thus there's nothing to contradict the Forged possibility their father was Aonic. I don't think so. It seems like it is always better to have full knowledge of the target of a Forgery, after all, Shai couldn't Forge her window into unbroken plain glass because there was no chance of there being high quality plain glass in it, not because whe knew that it had actually contain stained glass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaeMofo Posted November 20, 2012 Report Share Posted November 20, 2012 (edited) It could be possible for a Forger who didn't know their full ancestry. I don't think so, surely that would contradict the cognitive too much and just be rejected? You might be able to rewrite how you lived your life like Shai did, but actually rewriting who your parents were is a whole different kettle 'o' fish I don't think that it would be possible, or it would take at least a lifetime to complete. EDIT- typo Edited November 20, 2012 by Unnamed Narrator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 I think it might be possible for a Forger who was actually a candidate for being taken by the Shaod, or for one who was exceptionally powerful. It would need to be a pretty intricate stamp, but anyone of the appropriate ancestery could write an alternate past where they got taken by the Shaod. Whether that would actually work on a fundamental level is an open question, though. There's limits to how much a stamp can change, or they wouldn't need to be reapplied and things wouldn't revert if they were removed. Magic system access might be one of those things. Also, I think that for it to work they'd need to understand the Shaod in a way that non-Elantrians clearly don't. They would need to know exactly why certain people became Elantrians and others did not in order to incorporate that into the stamp. And since Shai clearly doesn't know very much about gyorns, I doubt she is terribly familiar with the Shaod. A Dakhor Monk rewrite would probably be much easier to pull off, again assuming it was fundamentally possible, but again that would require being familiar with the monastery in a way no one, not even the Teod spy network, outside of the Derethi hierarchy is. I wouldn't be surprised if no one in the palace has even heard rumors of the Dakhor monks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyman he/him Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 If you actually did know your ancestors and they weren't Aonic, could you imagine the changes that would have to be made to give yourself the right heritage? "Instead of being born to two Jindoeese parents, on that one special night, her father was called away to work and a tall, handsome foreign visitor just happened to be in town..." Pretty sure trying stunts like that would be beyond anything a normal forger could do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millennium Posted December 3, 2012 Report Share Posted December 3, 2012 I can't see a permanent Forgery working, because the Shaod isn't temporary and Elantrians are immune to disease. Essence Marks need daily re-stamping in order to continue functioning, but I can't think of a plausible reason for an Elantrian to need daily re-stamping. Without that reason, the Forgery won't stick. A temporary Forgery might work, especially for people who are already from the appropriate regions, but would that be useful? The transformation would cure any diseases a person had: might that cure stick even when the Forgery fades (since the disease is gone)? That could be interesting: Elantrian transformation as a kind of healing. Or would the disease come back when the Forgery faded, since the person was never actually Elantrian? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner he/him Posted December 3, 2012 Report Share Posted December 3, 2012 Elantrians can get sick. It's not common, but Galladon's father died of heart disease. Of course, he could have gotten that cured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted December 3, 2012 Report Share Posted December 3, 2012 Galladon's father allegedly died of heart disease. I personally believe he went to the Shardpool and Galladon was told he died of heart disease. I'm sure some reasoning could be constructed for an Elantrian to need daily restamping, or at least desire it. But it could also be left out and just be used like the Shaizan stamp, becoming an Elantrian for a day before reverting to being a Forger, then reapplying the stamp if needed. Rewriting ancestry would probably simply fail, or last for a few minutes at most, at least at Shai's level. Parentage is simply too heavily bound up in people's self-image. I guess Vin might have been able to pull it off if she were a Forger, because she knew who her parents were but had no particularly strong connection to them, but I think even so it might be impossible. At most she could swap fathers to another nobleman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lDanielHolm he/him Posted December 3, 2012 Report Share Posted December 3, 2012 Plausibility affects the strength of a Forging; it does not actually prevent the Forging itself. Though it can be so implausible that it doesn't work at all, like the idea of a chain made out of soap. I believe she could do it. If she can change one type of rock to another, surely she can change her own ancestry, as long as she herself believes it is plausible. I'm not sure it would hold very long, but I think she could try it... if she understood exactly what an Elantrian is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted December 3, 2012 Report Share Posted December 3, 2012 I can't see a permanent Forgery working, because the Shaod isn't temporary and Elantrians are immune to disease. Essence Marks need daily re-stamping in order to continue functioning, but I can't think of a plausible reason for an Elantrian to need daily re-stamping. Without that reason, the Forgery won't stick. I don't think the need to re-stamp needs to be quite that fundamental. An pseudo-Elantrian would most likely want to retain his mind/memories, and could simply remember to re-stamp him/herself on a regular basis. The Emperor didn't have "though must stamp thyself" embedded in his consciousness: he had to told and remember it. While the Forgery might fail for a number of reasons, the need to re-stamp wouldn't be one of them. A temporary Forgery might work, especially for people who are already from the appropriate regions, but would that be useful? The transformation would cure any diseases a person had: might that cure stick even when the Forgery fades (since the disease is gone)? That could be interesting: Elantrian transformation as a kind of healing. Or would the disease come back when the Forgery faded, since the person was never actually Elantrian? We actually have an answer to that one. No. It has to do with Cogitive aspects and conceptions of what it is to be healthy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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