On Sun, 31 Aug 2003, Philip Hart wrote: >I thought we knew where the Sea was, roughly - I had thought south, If it was mentioned, I would greatly appreciate the textev. >Anyway, it's something that one can wade into if foolhardy, hence >likely not in the middle of a prosaic ocean. Nope, the one that can be waded into is the Lesser Sea, which is indeed inland. > (I still don't understand about Orlaan in this context - she seems >to be doing direct Elder Sorcery, not stone-mediated.) Note that Orlaan doesn't wade into it herself. And we don't know that her sorcerous power is not stone-mediated. For example, note that Vlad is able to create a chaos-stone from the amorphia; perhaps this is what she was doing when she "came to an understanding" with the Lesser Sea. As I understand it, what the e'Kieron line can do is actually create amorphia, and turn that into stones which can then be used to perform certain types of Elder Sorcery. But creating a stone from already existing amorphia may be possible for non-e'Kierons. > Anyway, we know that features of Dragaeran topography are >non-natural - the Eastern mountain range, Dzur Mountain Dzur Mountain I will concede has been mentioned as a possibility, but not as a certainty. But the Eastern Mountain range? > - so I don't feel so concerned about the (possibly there-be-dragons) >Maelstrom. But there is a difference between a mountain and the Maelstrom: The Mountain, if created, was the result of great forces exterted once. The Maelstrom sounds like it results from far greater forces that are still active. Where do these forces come from, and why are they there? If they are not the result of the Great Sea of Chaos, that is. >Also I don't see any ocean-Sea interaction at all, as we know the >Lesser Sea just inexplicably sits there, a big blob of Universal >Solvent not solving. Well, the Lesser Sea *doesn't* just sit there. It flows and ebbs and glows different colors in different places, and occasionally lashes out. Apparantly it refrains from solving because the gods damn well keep it from doing so, using the Orb. If it were in or under water, those fluxions might well result in what is seen from the outside as the Maelstrom.