[Osric]

Something has been bothering me for a while now. Every time I read about warrens I try and imagine what they look like and fail. I don't know if this has been discussed before, if it has Im terribly sorry and please point me in the right direction.

Anyway, obviously warrens are planes that you can enter, that people live on. Some warren's are pretty easy to figure out, how they look. Like the warren of shadow, it's pretty well described, basically a mirror image of the real world that's constantly in flux. The imperial warren is just a load of dust because Kallor burned everything, that's pretty easy to imagine as well. But when it comes to the more abstract warrens Im at a loss.
Warren of darkness? It's been described before, as just plain darkness, nothing else, cant see your own nose. So how did people used to live in it? Can the tistii andii see in the dark? That could be a reasonable explenation but what about some others?

Warren of Light? It's been descibed as one big place that's on fire or something, might be wrong. Or is it just light? If it is how can the tisti liosan live in it? I dunno if you ever looked into a lamp but you can't really see much.

Warrens like the warren of air are even harder to understand, but I guess you're going into warren mechanics there. My point is, how am I supposed to imagine these warrens? How do people live in total darkness or light? Maybe it's just my mind that's too slow to comprehend but yeah, if anyone can give some insight it'll be much appreciated.

[Lisheo]

Theyre essentially worlds with certain aspects. The Tiste Andii can indeed see in darkness, and Liosan, Thyrr, Thryllan and whatever, the Light warrens, they are essentially places filled with fire, but as Truth, Stormy and Gesler demonstrated, its not normal fire.
The Liosan, Andii and Edur are all evolved/created in such a way as to be at home in such harsh elements.

Warrens of Air? Imagine a place with very little earth, perhaps just floating chunks of it. The inhabitants can naturally fly. Places like Mockra and Meanas are more complex, I dunno how you'd visualise them myself, but I see them as places with no fixed shape or form.

[Urb]

Osric, on Oct 7 2008, 11:25 AM, said:

Warren of darkness? It's been described before, as just plain darkness, nothing else, cant see your own nose. So how did people used to live in it? Can the tistii andii see in the dark? That could be a reasonable explenation but what about some others?

There is a part of Udinaas and co's travels with Clip in Reaper's Gale that describe the warren of Darkness quite well I thought. They can see in there, but somehow, not with their eyes.

Osric, on Oct 7 2008, 11:25 AM, said:

Warren of Light? It's been descibed as one big place that's on fire or something, might be wrong. Or is it just light? If it is how can the tisti liosan live in it? I dunno if you ever looked into a lamp but you can't really see much.

In Return of the Crimson Guard there are some characters who find themselves wandering through the warren of Light at one point. I'll not post anything resembling a spoiler here, but basically it was described as a sort of landscape with white firestorms rushing over your head everywhere. Personally I imagine it alike to that prisoner planet in the movie: Chronicles of Riddick.

Osric, on Oct 7 2008, 11:25 AM, said:

Warrens like the warren of air are even harder to understand, but I guess you're going into warren mechanics there. My point is, how am I supposed to imagine these warrens? How do people live in total darkness or light? Maybe it's just my mind that's too slow to comprehend but yeah, if anyone can give some insight it'll be much appreciated.

If I remember correctly, SE once said in an interview that the warren mechanics are such an important part of the main storyline, that he has to be a bit vague with describing their nature. So as not to give too much away. That's just how I understand it though, might be I remember something wrong.

[Osric]

Hmm I see, thanks, at least it clears up my origional question. And yeah I forgot about them going through the warren of darkness in Reapers Gale, I'll reread that bit. I havent read rotcg yet since it costs a bit much and I need to save up. My girlfriend didnt share my opinion that food was less important than the book. But then I guess that for the denizens of the warren's are able to see and deal with the circumstances, but if "ordinary" humans went in, it'd either kill us or we wouldnt be able to see. Maybe if you use sorcery, but I guess that's past of "mastering" the realm, like tayscrenn must have.

But yeah I didnt really wanna get into the whole warren mechanics cos theres other topics for it, I was more wondering about how to imagine it in my mind, wether it looked anything like our own "reality" but different.. Or if it's totally different with different universal rules and laws. But thanks, it helped clear it up.

This post has been edited by Osric: 07 October 2008 - 12:13 PM

[Lisheo]

Pshah, Malaz is ALWAYS more important than food. And women lmao

[SiriusL]

It seems to me that some warrens aren't really worlds, but just sources of power. In fact, most of the "Paths" that humans use for magic are like this, I think. Tennes, Mockra, Meanas...I don't think they have a physical manifestation that you can visit.

Then again, is the Shadow Realm actually Meanas, or is it something else? Is the freaky underground place with the giant mud people Tennes, or is it just Burn's warren?

One other thing: I have trouble visualizing how the warrens touch one another. Are they layers upon layers, over the Abyss, or are they all just separate dimensions of the same reality? Or neither.

[Lisheo]

Shadow Realm is a fragment of Kurald Emurlahn. And Kulp in DG said the problem with Meanas was that it had nothing resembling water, and in tBH, Pearl was planning on escaping into Mockra before Kalam's Otataral blades and Apsalar's normal blades got in the way, so we can asume they have some kind of form.

I'm under the impression that if you visualise the inside of a human torso, imagine each warren is an organ, and then Chaos is the linings that keep them seperate, but its also one big organ itself.

Tennes can't be the warren that was in Burn, cus in there it was said that the T'lan Imass couldn't find Pannion and the final unveiling of Omtose Phellack, and it wouldn't be too hard for them to get into Tellan, if they can breach Omtose. That place was probably the parent Elder Warren of Tennes.

[SiriusL]

Lisheo, on Oct 7 2008, 08:34 AM, said:

Shadow Realm is a fragment of Kurald Emurlahn. And Kulp in DG said the problem with Meanas was that it had nothing resembling water, and in tBH, Pearl was planning on escaping into Mockra before Kalam's Otataral blades and Apsalar's normal blades got in the way, so we can asume they have some kind of form.

I'm under the impression that if you visualise the inside of a human torso, imagine each warren is an organ, and then Chaos is the linings that keep them seperate, but its also one big organ itself.

Tennes can't be the warren that was in Burn, cus in there it was said that the T'lan Imass couldn't find Pannion and the final unveiling of Omtose Phellack, and it wouldn't be too hard for them to get into Tellan, if they can breach Omtose. That place was probably the parent Elder Warren of Tennes.

Didn't the Tellan ritual bind the warren to the T'lan Imass? Something like that, where Tellan is not longer a warren in the usual sense, but is actually part of the people.

We also have a quote from MoI, I think, where Caladan Brood says that he "is Tennes," whatever that means.

[Lisheo]

Tellan is both a warren (think refugium and the Mhybe's dream, a primal place that lives on in the mind of the T'lan Imass), and the T'lan Imass themselves. Their bodies are sustained by Tellan.

Aye, I vaguely remember something like that Caladan Brood is, for want of a better title, the Knight of Tennes.

[Sinisdar Toste]

thinking of MoI, remember how QB goes about testing out his warrens after the poison is deflected by talamandas? entering serc and suddenly seeing all the currents of the air? entering d'riss and being able to move through stone? human warrens, paths, for me are more like layers on top of the material plane, not actual worlds in themselves.

[Osric]

Lisheo, on Oct 7 2008, 04:01 PM, said:

Pshah, Malaz is ALWAYS more important than food. And women lmao

Well you have a point, but sex won over ICE's book.. for now.. Barely.

Sinisdar Toste said:

thinking of MoI, remember how QB goes about testing out his warrens after the poison is deflected by talamandas? entering serc and suddenly seeing all the currents of the air? entering d'riss and being able to move through stone? human warrens, paths, for me are more like layers on top of the material plane, not actual worlds in themselves.

Yes that's how I've been looking at some warrens as well. On top of that it's often been demonstrated that people could see into the "real world" through a warren. Like Apsalar could make out Paran in his boat in BH, because he was such a strong force while she was traveling through the shadow realm.
Maybe the shadow realm is different though, because the origional realm was shattered and all that, and some pieces kind of overlap Burn's world?

But then there's realms like Dark that don't seem like this at all, they seem totally different worlds. It's still all pretty confusing imo, but I understand that it isn't SE's style to just give an explenation and that we have to piece together everything from clues and hints and bits of conversation.

I guess they could be compared to organs, but then they also overlap a lot, so maybe it's more accurate to see them as dimensions?

[Lisheo]

Well, isn't the idea of Shadow that its the piece of Kurald Emurlahn that overlaps the mortal realm?
Rememer, a full unveiling of Kurald Galain makes a small chunk of Wu eternally dark
So its possible that the same could be achieved by a warren with a person of Quick Ben's skill?