houseofstrange / Nightlands: Basalt Thoughts (Reply)

I just had a thought that one of the most severe forms of punishment in the northern Nightlands is being transported to penal colonies in the Basalt Realms. It is harsh, brutal, full of hard labour and hard living, and the Basalt Dragons, like their realms, are not gentle.

That in turn brings to mind how the Basalt Dragons differentiate themselves from one another (due to a mental image of a courtroom scene and sentence being passed, specifying a particular Basalt Realm), and I had the thought each basalt dragon has a secondary gem association, one that may even feature in physical form. There could be dragons like Basalt Obsidian, Basalt Sodalite, Basalt Quartz, Basalt Pyrite - the list goes on with any volcanic gemstone involved.

This however also brings up that the Basalt Dragons must have social interactions, a societal structure, and cooperation to manage the related penal colonies under their watch. This means there is a leader, and I would immediately say the leader is Basalt Black Diamond.

Of course as an aside I also think there is an Unseelie Black Diamond, which is likely the dragon of the Unseelie capital realm (though I have alternate thoughts too), and Basalt Black Diamond would take insult to any implication of being in any way Unseelie, as would any of the other darker-toned Basalts (like Obsidian and Hematite).

I am inclined to say Basalt Black Diamond is the Khazâd-Azhâr Basalt Dragon, being the sapient avatar of the Basalt Realm linked to the Dwarven capital's volcanic venting.

Another thought that was linked to the Bssalt Realms was their relationship to the Fae and the Living Stone. I feel it cannot be stated enough that the Basalt Realms being called Fae is a total misnomer. The Fae were created by fleeing magical beings in the face of the Sun Empire's expansion and attack on all magic. The Basalt Realms predate that by millennia, as the relationship between the Khazad and Curwaquendár predate the Sunset War by millennia. Calling the Basalt Realms "Fae" is something only modern post-Nightfall non-Quendár people have done as an association with something they know more about. To a lot of common folk, any arcane realm outside the mandune is "Fae" in their minds. They would view the Living Stone as Fae, the Netherworld as Fae, and probably insult both Dwarves and Quendár in doing so. The fact that the Basalt Realms have dragon avatars would confuse the issue for people who don't know the Basalt Realms came first and it is in fact that Fae that copied them by developing dragon avatars.

There may even be some scholars who study the Fae who believe they have dragon avatars because the Basalt Realms influenced them.

And then that begs the question, what if the Basalt Dragons can communicate with the Fae Dragons? I do certainly think Basalt Black Diamond and Silmá, the Diamond Dragon of the Queen's Realm of the Seelie, might get along decently, considering Silmá is the child of two Quendár.

There was also thoughts related to the relationship between arcane realms about a conceptual hierarchy. This hierarchy would be described in terms of how "deep" into the Arcane a realm is, and even then realms in one group can vary in "depth".

For instance, the shallowest realms are the Fae Realms, considering they can be partially geostationary, with realms being linked to specific gates in the mundane realm. But it's only partial because "deeper" Fae realms can be unfixed and thus be able to reach many places in the mundane, plus even the geostationary ones can have Fae pathways between them that are far shorter than the travel between the mundane locations. The Queen's Domain is in a three-tier nest of realms and is also far deeper than even a third tier might normally mean because it partially touches the Netherworld, an arcane realm considered the deepest that any arcanely talented in the mundane realm can touch.

Moving on, the Basalt Realms are deeper than most of the average Fae Realms (the Queen's Realm notwithstanding). They are considered to be - in this line of thinking of hierarchy - to be closer to the mundane because they are also geostationary realms, but deeper than most of the Fae because they have strong links to the Living Stone.

The Living Stone has it's own arcane realm that is almost exclusively accessible to only Dwarves. This is because a strong arcane alignment to Stone is needed to be able to "hear" the Living Stone, let alone enter it. This arcane alignment is a natural characteristic of Dwarves. If a dwarf loses their link to the Living Stone they are considered Narûg Khazad - a Non-Dwarf - and more than likely exiled to live in surface society. Most Narûg Khazad however are surface-born and raised, having never developed a link with the Living Stone in the first place. Being Narûg Khazad also means they likely do not have any of the dwarven arcane abilities either, as almost all of them are related to the Living Stone.

The Netherworld - the place Quendár souls rest while dead - is the deepest arcane realm known, and in itself has different levels of "depth". A newly dead Quendár is very close to the "surface" and easy for a Quendár priest to hear and call back to life. Longer dead get harder to hear and some souls who have refused to return sink out of hearing range of almost all priests.

Part of the reason why the Queen's Domain is so unusual for a Fae Realm is because it intersects with a part of the Netherworld that is far deeper than most priest can normally hear. The Queen, when she first claimed rule of the Seelie, found that her new Fae powers and her abilities as a Quendár priestess intersected and she could call her husband back to life, but in doing so caused the Queen's Domain to form. There a place where the Domain and the Netherworld overlap where the Queen's second youngest son sleeps in the Netherworld, guarded by his mother's Fae powers and by Silmá, the Diamond Dragon.

There are beliefs of other unseen realms beyond these major ones, like realms that mortal dead go to, a realm that dwarven dead go to, the realm of the Arcane (as a godly entity) exists, the realm of the Kessír gods, which is now mostly considered the same thing as the Realm of the Arcane.