From: A_Tina_Hall@kruemel.org

 wrote:
> A. Tina Hall  wrote:

>> And the bad guys come from their magic being warped by something not
>> native to the planet, which can be spread by (usually forced)
>> drinking of the contaminated water (that outer-world thing fell
>> into), but also as I found out in the 2nd book, by biting (just
>> slower, due to tiny amount).

> What if the ground water had gotten contaminated, and there was an
> earthquake or something, and so problems started bubbling up from an
> underground source.

Hm. The contaminated pool (and other metal bits they found from what
crash landed there) was on the continent in the steppes.[*] Those
cleaning that up had 5 years to do so, and notice any water drawn up
from deep below being contaminated.

Also, the tribes are on the other side of the globe, even the Summer
tribe currently only roams the western peninsula of the main continent.

[*] Pretty much like India is on the other side of the globe from
Mexico? (Roughly, without checking an atlas.)

Spoiler:
The contaminated pool had been there for hundreds of generations until a
native recurring event (Funznaf orvat obea naq cebzcgvat hayvxryl
pbzovangvbaf bs zvkrq gevorf' bssfcevat) unccrarq ng gur fnzr gvzr nf
gur byq Fhzzre gevor yrnqre jnagvat vzcebirzrag sbe uvf crbcyr (yrggvat
Fhzzre crbcyr abg obea va gur Fhzzre gevor wbva uvf) yrq gb n gbb
pneryrff Fhzzre Qebar snyyvat vagb gur cbby, chyyrq bhg ol n Jneevbe...
(Any contamination closer to the other tribes would have led to disaster
much sooner, and possibly wiped out more people before they knew what
was happening.)

I also think tectonic activity stopped long ago. A lot of what you get
here by physics and natural forces is kept up there by magic. (Like
Earth has a core with iron/liquid iron keeping up magnetic field, I
suspect their planet has a core of magic keeping up a magic field.
Responsible for, for example, the planet's stable axis and orbit even
though they have no moon. It would also explain why they don't have
higher gravity with, from what I calculated, a much larger
circumference.)

> They maybe wouldn't have been expecting that, and so the shields
> wouldn't have been built to stop it?

> Or..., hmm...  Do the shields stop magic only, or everything?

It's less so a shield, than an area with what you could imagine to be an
invisible magic fog. The tribes' territories are covered in magic worked
to trigger on magic that is not of the ten tribes. (The effects actually
vary from tribe to tribe, and also depend on whether they can do it
alone or are using different types of magic. Summer tribe does the
'being certain there's nothing interesting' trick like that group they
found in the Air tribe's mountains, Magic tribe does an actual barrier,
Winter and Spring both combine their magic to have anything that
triggers it go up in flames,...)

So it would not affect a rock rolling off a mountain and into a
territory. :) (And a deer wandering in, or an ant sitting on the rock,
for example, would not trigger it because they are suffused with the
nearest tribe's magic, even if only slightly.)

> Because if the otherworld source whatever it is, had effected
> something else and maybe burst a smaller world apart or something,
> and there  were suddenly waayyy too many meteor showers, that could
> get exciting. :)

Hehe, no, no such excitement in sight, unfortunately. :) I have a pretty
good idea of what it was, basically a not too big amount of scrap metal.

> Depending on the nature of the shields it might disrupt them?

I've been wondering whether the known bad guy that got away might not
become immune after a while at least to the effects that aren't deadly.
Any magic works on the warped ones like it does on anyone else, but it
wears off quickly. But those effects would have that bad guy wandering
in the other direction... He'd just wander back and forth or be unable
to find it, if he tried to get onto a territory and didn't pick one of
those with deadly effects.

Right now I'm not even sure whether he's still alive though. If he is
(or any others smart enough to hide), he'd wonder about how to get at
females.

(The solution the chars aim for isn't only to clean up what might be
left, but also to prevent anything dropping onto their world again.)

> Just a few idea bits that have occured to me.  Ignore them if they're
> off base.

Can't prevent myself from giving details, sorry. (Always hoping that
someone might find something in that that escaped me.) Thank you though.
:)

> And do feel free to keep thinking aloud.  It always seems to help me.
> :)

Yeah, rambling on has hardened the idea that I should involve the magic
itself. I suspect it was going to do something to aid powering something
large enough to cover the entire planet (a few people with different
mixed magic alone wouldn't do it), I think I'll have it show up at the
dance at the festival. Maybe I'll find more viewpoints after that. (My
main immediate problem is still finding a viewpoint for what might
happen next.)

Thanks much.

--
(Sil) "Told you they'd take ages to get to the point."
(Karja) "I merely didn't want you to overuse those fine legs."
(Sil to Senar, throwing up her hands) "If he weren't such a daft bugger
I'd ask you to send him right back to sleep."        -- Magic Earth 7/6


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