> -----Original Message----- > From: David Silberstein [mailto:davids at kithrup.com] > Sent: Tuesday, 2002 October 08 16:19 > To: Dragaera > Subject: Re: Souls and Great Weapons > > > On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > >On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, David Silberstein wrote: > > > >#[1] Although what was up with that Dark Water business, > anyway? Why > >#should it *matter* if plain, ordinary ground water has been > exposed to > >#light or not? > > > >It doesn't *matter* in our universe, where there are AFAWK no such > >things as magic, psychic traces, undead, and so on. IMHO > it's perfectly > >believeable in the Dragaeran universe. If you accept those > as part of > >the story, you have to be willing to accept this at least as a > >possibility. > But the water wasn't modified deliberately, as far as we are told. > It's just water, from the ground, that hasn't been exposed to Actually, that's not strictly true. There was a discussion between Vlad and Savn about places of power, presumably where prior magics had been performed, they mention that the place that Loraan did his necromatic work would probably be one of those places. One could assume that the water flowing through caves where "necromancy" has been performed extensively, taints the water, and for some reason exposure to "light" (light confuses the issue, given the "overcast") mitigates the effect. Or the water isn't different at all. Undead simply have an aversion to water contained (which makes me want to go offer Kiera a glass of water!). Hmm. Was the water flowing? I can't remember. Or was it in stagnant pools? That could be the critical difference, and actually, I've read something besides a Vlad novel where stagnant water was significant with undead/magic (I no longer recall what, though). Iain