[Ben Adephon Delat]

From what I read they seem to be somehow connected the Jaghut or at least a Jaghut and they appear despite for all intents and purposes being the aggressors to view humans as being on the offensive rather than on the defensive

[Sinisdar Toste]

its been speculated that they are denizens of Omtose Phellack and that a massive jaghut ritual gone awry allowed them to touch the world of malaz and survive in the oceans. nobody is quite sure but RCG SPOILER

Spoiler

Greymane and Ruthan Gudd seem to have a connection to and perhaps even a greater understanding of the riders.

i'm excited to read ICE's stonewielder as it's supposedly takes place on korelri

This post has been edited by Abyss: 01 November 2010 - 08:41 PM
Reason for edit: SPOILER FU STRIKE!

[Ben Adephon Delat]

Ah so they're the equivalent of the demons that dwell within Shadow

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Ben Adephon Delat, on 03 November 2009 - 03:09 PM, said:

Ah so they're the equivalent of the demons that dwell within Shadow

Interesting, I hadn't thought of them like that before.

My original take was that they had actually manifested themselves out of a particularly strong and focused vein of Jaghut sorcery.

[Ben Adephon Delat]

So basically there's nothing concrete about what they are

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Something just popped up into my head about this during a re-read. Is it possible that the Stormriders have some sort of connection with the Crippled God? In GotM Kruppe is reading in Mammot's study and comes across this passage "In the Calling Down many lands were sundered by the God's Fists, and things were born and things were released. Chained and Crippled was this God."

Korel is right next to Jacuruku where the Fall happened,

Spoiler

and is apparently also known as Fist to some people

. The Stormriders are found in the Sea of Storms right next to Korel. And in the second part of the quote above it states that things were born and released by the fall. Is it possible that the fall created, or unleashed the stormriders?

[Urizen]

DOD SPOILER

Spoiler

QB (at the end of DoD)seems to imply that the Stormriders have some sort of connection to Nerruse as well.

This post has been edited by Abyss: 01 November 2010 - 08:42 PM
Reason for edit: SPOILER FU STRIKE!!!!

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

If thatsa DoD spoiler I can't read it yet...but if this is a RAFO moment, just let me know

This post has been edited by Abyss: 01 November 2010 - 08:43 PM
Reason for edit: still more spoiler fu

[Urizen]

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 01 December 2009 - 03:23 PM, said:

Urizen, on 01 December 2009 - 08:42 AM, said:

Spoiler

QB (at the end of DoD)seems to imply that the Stormriders have some sort of connection to Nerruse as well.

If thatsa DoD spoiler I can't read it yet...but if this is a RAFO moment, just let me know

It's a DoD spoiler...

[Bauchelain the Evil]

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 01 December 2009 - 05:50 AM, said:

Something just popped up into my head about this during a re-read. Is it possible that the Stormriders have some sort of connection with the Crippled God? In GotM Kruppe is reading in Mammot's study and comes across this passage "In the Calling Down many lands were sundered by the God's Fists, and things were born and things were released. Chained and Crippled was this God."

Korel is right next to Jacuruku where the Fall happened,

Spoiler

and is apparently also known as Fist to some people

. The Stormriders are found in the Sea of Storms right next to Korel. And in the second part of the quote above it states that things were born and released by the fall. Is it possible that the fall created, or unleashed the stormriders?

I don't know. I think that the "things were born and things were released" refers to (MoI spoiler)

Spoiler

the Great Ravens

which, as we know, were born from the CG

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Bauchelain the Evil, on 03 December 2009 - 03:16 PM, said:

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on 01 December 2009 - 05:50 AM, said:

Something just popped up into my head about this during a re-read. Is it possible that the Stormriders have some sort of connection with the Crippled God? In GotM Kruppe is reading in Mammot's study and comes across this passage "In the Calling Down many lands were sundered by the God's Fists, and things were born and things were released. Chained and Crippled was this God."

Korel is right next to Jacuruku where the Fall happened,

Spoiler

and is apparently also known as Fist to some people

. The Stormriders are found in the Sea of Storms right next to Korel. And in the second part of the quote above it states that things were born and released by the fall. Is it possible that the fall created, or unleashed the stormriders?

I don't know. I think that the "things were born and things were released" refers to (MoI spoiler)

Spoiler

the Great Ravens

which, as we know, were born from the CG

Yea I know about that part, but it seems to me that the quote implies more than just them. Plus they were born of his flesh, the quote seems to imply that it was the fall and sundering that created/released these things. And since it seems apparent that the stormriders aren't of this world and popped up in that area, it made sense that they were them.

[Sinisdar Toste]

born yes, but the released could very well refer to the stormriders. who knows how the fall of the CG weakened the fabric between the warrens, the stormriders could have spilled into the world somehow

[maro]

I've just finished NoK - the bit about the Stormrider asking why they are being killed implies they are fighting back - is this clarified in RoTCG?

[geNESis]

Not to any satisfactory conclusion as far as a can discern, though I've only read it twice.

Spoiler

Though they do show up on a few occassions.

[Lucky Revenant]

I know it's been said already, but I always figured the Stormriders were just demons from Omtose Phellack. From what I remember, they have stated connections to the Jaghut, they also love to use Ice...and I can't think of any other reasons, really, but based off this evidence it just seemed the most likely answer, to me.

[Thel Akai]

I must admit I didn't like the stormriders much when I read about them in RoTCG (which I read before NoK). To me they didn't seem to fit.. I mean, the Malazan world is full of alien entities, but the stormriders feel alien in a different way.. as if, say, the Silver Surfer showed up.

In NoK we learn that they 'radiate cold'. But you can't radiate cold. Cold doesn't exist (except in Discworld), there's only absence of heat. So, to "radiate" cold you would instead suck heat from the environment (or someone standing close). So, where do those bodies suck the heat _to_? With Omtose Phellack one can imagine that the ice is created by transferring heat en masse to somewhere else (somewhere large). But, unless the not-big bodies of the riders are portals to some black hole for heat it doesn't make sense for them to 'radiate cold'.

And what do the stormriders _do_? Except riding, I mean. Is there a society, a civilization? A lone Jaghut in a tower makes immensely more sense than a bunch of ice surfers.
I feel the storm riders concept to be a bit of a stretch really. But we'll see how it turns out, I expect there'll be more later.

This post has been edited by Thel Akai: 22 October 2010 - 11:00 AM

[Gothos]

Are you trying to apply physics to magic?

[Thel Akai]

Gothos, on 22 October 2010 - 11:32 AM, said:

Are you trying to apply physics to magic?

Yes. Why not? There are always rules, magic or not. You can have a lot of magic and still observe general rules. Including physics. Magic in the SE/ICE world is mostly manifested as lots of energy, or manipulation of energy. The Stormrider quote is the only place I've seen something literally 'radiating cold', which you can't do, unless you create a world where every opposite explicitly exist (as in the beforementioned Discworld).

But my main problem with the Stormriders is, as far as they've so far been described, that they to me seems misfit in the universe of the books.

[Gothos]

There hasn't really been much info about them so far. Stonewielder apparently delves deeper into the subject. Notice how little we could've guessed about the K'Chain Che'malle and Forkrul Assail based on, say, GotM/DG/MoI.
They rub my interest in an interesting way as well, but I've too little to even speculate.

Also, if you want an odd question... How do the memories and personality of a shapeshifter persist through shapechanging the brain?

Besides... 'radiating cold' might just be an ill-chosen combination of words. A layman might say that liquid nitrogen radiates cold much like flame radiates heat, physical mechanics nothwithstanding.

[Thel Akai]

Gothos, on 22 October 2010 - 12:00 PM, said:

Also, if you want an odd question... How do the memories and personality of a shapeshifter persist through shapechanging the brain?

Ah, here's where we have a genuine enormous difference between our universe and that one.. although one reflecting a myth so very popular in our own religions and whatnot: That thinking is actually done in a soul, and a physical brain can at the most degrade the thinking, but otherwise not affect it (as in: sick or dying brain, thinking becomes befuddled, until you die, then the soul, maybe manifested as a ghost, can stand back and think clearly again).

Quote

Besides... 'radiating cold' might just be an ill-chosen combination of words. A layman might say that liquid nitrogen radiates cold much like flame radiates heat, physical mechanics nothwithstanding.

Yes. I think there are room for improvements in ICE's writing, and I'm sure it _will_ improve. (What I mean is: A layman (as in ourselves) can imagine that something might radiate cold, including liquid nitrogen, but that's mostly because we haven't actually experienced it in practice. I've been standing centimeters from a glacier wall, and it doesn't radiate cold.. as you get very very close your skin feels cold because it's losing heat by heating the ice. (What's cold is the whole environment, so after a while you'll feel cold too, in general.) So, what I mean is that even though a reader may imagine that things are so-and-so, the writer should try to get things right, as they _really are_, not necessarily what an uninformed reader might believe.