Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

[Alibear]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

What would poor people do? The people who can't afford ellaborate burial service. Prop them in the cold store with the winter vegetables and hope for the best?

[Markdoc]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

I like this idea. I have to research how much of an issue rodents/rats would be in Antarctica. I'd also have to figure out what would make for an appropriate ratter.

 

Snakes. Not only do they like rats, but they are not good at gnawing so they are unlikely to chew on torpid Aunty Ugluk's nose, and they don't need huge amounts of food. In addition, they shed their skin, being "reborn" and often become torpid, indicating a clear link to the Dream World. The only catch is that you would need to keep them relatively warm, which suggests that Torporia need to be well-insulated.

 

So to "funerary cult, the bone sisters, and the "Ghosts," you get to add ... snake cults! Honestly, this just keeps getting better

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

What would poor people do? The people who can't afford ellaborate burial service. Prop them in the cold store with the winter vegetables and hope for the best?

 

I doubt it. Torpid or not, I doubt that being frozen through would be good for you. More likely stack 'em in the cheapest section of the public torporium - begging and borrowing money to cover the cost if necessary. It wouldn't be the first culture where people beggar themselves to provide for appropriate burial for the departed.

 

cheers, Mark

[Alibear]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

But snakes are cold blooded and it's set in a cold climate... which will be a problem. I reckon minks or weasels of something of sort would work well. Perhaps even wolverines!

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

What would poor people do? The people who can't afford ellaborate burial service. Prop them in the cold store with the winter vegetables and hope for the best?

 

It seems likely that they'd have a dedicated room in the house or an outbuilding for keeping the bodies. Or perhaps the funerary cult runs charity torporiums for the poor.

 

Either way, the practice of burying the dead with food and tools for the afterlife would probably have an equivalent here. Twenty years in hibernation is bound to work up a serious appetite/thirst. Torporiums would likely be stocked with preserved foods and fresh water.

 

Not much different from propping them up in the root cellar now that I think about it....

[Markdoc]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

But snakes are cold blooded and it's set in a cold climate... which will be a problem. I reckon minks or weasels of something of sort would work well. Perhaps even wolverines!

 

Yeah, I noted that you would need to keep the torporia warm. I'm not sure that entrusting flesh - even cool flesh - to a hungry wolverine is a good idea though - you'll need bears to keep 'em under control. And to keep the bears under control, you'll need ....

 

cheers, Mark

[Alibear]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

Point taken. Not sure there is anything which suits as well as a well-trained dog. There is a reason dogs are our best freinds and not wolverines I suppose.

[Markdoc]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

Point taken. Not sure there is anything which suits as well as a well-trained dog.

 

Plus, they're tasty!

 

cheers, Mark

[Vondy]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

But snakes are cold blooded and it's set in a cold climate... which will be a problem. I reckon minks or weasels of something of sort would work well. Perhaps even wolverines!

 

It turns out its not that big an issue. Antarctica is the only continent without rodents. I can work from the premise that, even in a warmer deglaciated clime, they aren't one of the spectrum of species who were imported. Odd, but workable.

[Alibear]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

Do you still have penguins or would such large, and presumably tasty flightless birds be too easy for man and Polar bears to wipe out?

[Markdoc]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

There aren't any polar bears in antarctica - in fact there aren't any native land mammals at all, which is precisely why large, slow tasty* birds survive on land there.

 

*Given that all but the smallest penguins have been rapidly driven to extinction or near extinction whenever mammals turned up where they lived, I think we can assume they are tasty.

 

cheers, Mark

[Vondy]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

Do you still have penguins or would such large' date=' and presumably tasty flightless birds be too easy for man and Polar bears to wipe out?[/quote']

 

There aren't any polar bears in antarctica - in fact there aren't any native land mammals at all, which is precisely why large, slow tasty* birds survive on land there.

 

*Given that all but the smallest penguins have been rapidly driven to extinction or near extinction whenever mammals turned up where they lived, I think we can assume they are tasty.

 

cheers, Mark

 

In the OTHER THREAD there was some discussion of the flora and fauna to be found. I did have some imports, mostly from the arctic circle. It didn't include rodents, but it did include arctic fox, polar bears, caribou, elk, snow leapard, snow rabbits (oddly closer related to horses than mice), snowy owl, an two new breeds of extant animals: a woolly ibex and a derivative of great pyranees and wolf. This list isn't exhaustive. It may be I need lemmings to support the fox and owl population. Or that I need to jettison foxes and owls. It seems probable, with the climate change, that some species of birds currently seen in the southern reaches of south america, tazmania, etcetera might also be seen in some parts of a deglaciated antarctica. As for penguins, they would probably be far less prolific on the mainland, but they might still exist on the islands.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

I'm considering rolling this thread and the postapocalyptic antarctica thread into one. I may take two concepts from there: the funerary cult and the possibility of someone being declared a "ghost" into one. If the funerary cult is responsible for administering the torporiums (for lack of a better word at this point) then perhaps ghosts - those who did not meet strict manhood requirements/etc - are the attendants of those in torpor. They would also be able to find useful work in assisting the bone sister caste that deals in carcasses' date=' decaying corpses, tanning hides, etc. It would be a bit rococo - funerary cult, the bone sisters, and the "Ghosts," but a lot of cultures have sophisticated group interplay.[/quote']

 

It sounds like your game sessions might benefit from images of The Museum of the Dead in Palermo and The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic .

[Lucius]

Re: Altered Life Death Cycle Effects

 

I would suggest that those who return form a separate social class, with unique privileges and responsibilities.

 

I honestly find it hard to imagine otherwise. It seems there's no way to return to old social roles, old relationships familial, marital, and otherwise, would be irrevocably transformed, and such people are automatically rare enough to be extraordinary in any case.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I start to become torpid, then the palindromedary kicks me...