Mirrors and Portals

[Sunoril]

As I understand the history of the Mirror in South Forest, it once was connected to another place, a room with several mirrors in it. It now connects to the "mirror snell" on Sky Island (folks call it a cloud, but clouds aren't made of dirt and rocks and don't support wildlife). The mirrors in the mirror room connected to other places, some safe, some not so safe. But in all the history of the mirrors I've read, there has been no mention of "portals" such as we see now connected to the two mirrors on Sky Island - and apparently to each other as well. So... is this a new thing? If so, who created these new mirrors and their portals, and why? If not, is there a way to "fix" the portals in place? Do we want to do that? If so, where? One in Falinea's garden, and one, if we can figure out how to get it there, in the Mirror Room? For that matter who created the original mirrors, and why? Why is there one in South Forest? Of the destinations out of the mirror room, one (the desert) also has a mirror. The others do not. Yet they have "exits" back to the mirror room. Why are these exits not mirrors themselves? Where is the desert? Is it on Puddleby Island?



So many questions. Any ideas how we might find answers?

[Baff]

As I understand the history of the Mirror in South Forest, it once was connected to another place, a room with several mirrors in it.

Its been a long time, but I believe it was called The Castle or something like that. There were several rooms, and 3 locked doors.

It now connects to the "mirror snell" on Sky Island (folks call it a cloud, but clouds aren't made of dirt and rocks and don't support wildlife).

True, but from the ground it looks like a dark cloud.

The mirrors in the mirror room connected to other places, some safe, some not so safe. But in all the history of the mirrors I've read, there has been no mention of "portals" such as we see now connected to the two mirrors on Sky Island - and apparently to each other as well. So... is this a new thing?

Portals aren't new, but movable portals certainly are.

So many questions. Any ideas how we might find answers?

You might try exploring the flaoting island with a full pathfinder and a mystic. You might turn up something nobody else has spotted.



The Brions seem to be interested in the mirror, perhaps they may have some information on the origins.



G'luck

[Klur]

The mirrors have existed since exiles have just as PuddleBy. When first they existed I think it led to the dungeons of Mobius castle. It was another fast method for him to deliver exiles to the island.



Over time I think he realized that having such an exit to the main land was not a good idea. So removed them for a period and modified them. Mobius is always looking to find ways to distract exiles attention from him and get them to either fight amongst us or focus on the inhabitants of the island. Anything to distract us an occupy our minds is better than us focusing on returning to remove him from power.



These portals so far have done exactly as desired they are taking out attention away from Mobius and focused or thoughts on each other. The sooner we realize this and solve the problem among us we can get back to focusing on going after Mobius. However Mobius would in fact much rather see us continue to fight among our self's.

[Ootog]

Of all the portal threads on the Sentinel, this one seems most oriented towards understanding the mirrors and least oriented in simply bashing the PMs.



I'm a relative noob, but have been reading through much of the info here and elsewhere that discusses the mirrors. So, I'm not exactly sure I understand what alls been tried and what's feaseable.



I wonder, though, has anyone ever tried bringing the portals together? The one out on KI and the one that takes you up to the cloud? If it's true that Mobius at one point did something to alter the mirrors from their original makeup so that there wasn't such a direct exile access to his turf (perhaps he looked out a castle turret and saw many an exile lurking), maybe we can try to undo what he did. And since he apparently made his alteration to all the portals, I'm guessing that we would need them all together to undo his work.



Clearly, these portals aren't here simply to provide a shorter hunt commute, though in the meantime this approach seems a worthwhile use for them. However, continueing to use them as a mass transit system seems somewhat short sighted to me.

[Brune]

klur suggested:

When first they existed I think it led to the dungeons of Mobius castle. It was another fast method for him to deliver exiles to the island.

You must have been in some classy dungeons. The mirror led to a well kept room (barring the death vermine) adjacent to a lovely courtyard with a fountain. The room had mirrors leading to other locations. Hardly a secure pathway to keep exiles on a distant island.



It was not mobius' castle, but rather a castle belonging to a Good King, possibly married to a Good Witch. I'll check the library



Yes, we need to understand them. I think it's ideal to learn about them by using them. Makes sense?

[Drablak]

If we stay clear of politics I can offer some of the info I've heard about the mirror in SF.



The Brions say that the mirror was there before they arrived in the Lok'Groton island chain, and they do not understand its nature (meaning that they don't know who build it or how it works). The Brions were here a long time before exiles started coming. They say that exiles started coming after their protective spells started to degrade, which allowed us to come here. They don't exactly understand how and why their protective spells degraded, but they suspect it has something to do with the SF mirror. I'd be very surprised if Moebius had anything to do with the mirror, considering the above.



I would speculate that it originally led to a castle belonging to the one (?) who build it, and that later she/he/it felt it needed to be closed to prevent access to the castle. Now it has 'reopened' in a different way than before, and it's not clear why or how. Perhaps another entity took control of it. Perhaps it's nature's way of returning to balance.

[Seld'kar]

Ok, I'm just gonna state the facts for those of you who don't know all about the current mirror/cloud relationship.



The mirror shut down after the Rip war and remained inactive untill the apearance of the Dark Cloud. When the cloud was close to the mirror. The Mirror sparkles whenever the cloud is near, but not close enoghf for trasport. After some time, a few weeks (OOC) someine touched the mirror when the cloud was over head and apeared on the cloud. SSing the news many people swarmed over to the mirror. Now, at time of its documented discovery the purplr and green portals were inside the bottom of the cloud, this was a small wite room with a large bit of cloud fluf at the north end, so entering either of the mirrors on the cloud sent you there. Heres whant happened next:



Ô Person walks into cloud fluff and plumets to SF, falls to deep impact

Ô Someone dicovered: Exile thinks "Watch out for those colored lights they HURT!"

Ô Exile is teleported short distance but dose not realize what happened

Ô Exile walks into cloud fluff falls to sf

Ô Many people walk into cloud fluff

Ô Eventualy someone drags one of the portals with them and lands in the outpost.

Ô Cloud drifts within aproximently 45 seconds of portal drop

Ô Mirror closes for those who had not been throgh them allready

Ô Other portal drops soon afer first and lands near scout (the cloud obviolus was drifing north by then).

[Ootog]

Some questions:



Do we know where the Brions come from? where were they before arriving in the Lok'Groton island chain?



Could it be possible that the reasons the Brions were so interested in acquiring the Orga stones from us is because the stones are the key to the portals and with them in their hands, the Brions effectively prevent us from every fully understanding the portals?



In Babajaga's scrolls, there is a map of the Etherial Zodiac, in which the outer ring of symbols (the rat, the cat...etc.) match the symbols read and numbered in the grid left to right on the top and bottom rows. Do these symbols have anything to do with the Brions?

[Xel]

These portals so far have done exactly as desired they are taking out attention away from Mobius and focused or thoughts on each other. The sooner we realize this and solve the problem among us we can get back to focusing on going after Mobius. However Mobius would in fact much rather see us continue to fight among our self's.

Yes, quite, thank you for contributing to the feud yourself.



As to the portals/mirrors.. Some have speculated that mirror-like devices transported the Ghorak Zo from wherever they came from to Mobius' front door, at which point a great war was fought.. I believe that the Zo had to retreat however and destroyed their means of transportation before going back.. The end result, some Zo are still among us today.



I could be wrong, however, I only have a small bit of knowledge about Ascendancy history..



-Xel

[Baff]

I wonder, though, has anyone ever tried bringing the portals together? The one out on KI and the one that takes you up to the cloud?

The portals have made contact with each other many times.



The mirror in SF leads to the cloud. The mirrors on the cloud lead to the portals. The portals lead to each other, so they only lead to the cloud if one of them happens to be on the cloud.

Could it be possible that the reasons the Brions were so interested in acquiring the Orga stones from us is because the stones are the key to the portals and with them in their hands, the Brions effectively prevent us from every fully understanding the portals?

The Brion's don't have all the orga stones.

In Babajaga's scrolls, there is a map of the Etherial Zodiac...

Could you provide a link to this? I took a glance but didn't see what you were refering to.

[Ootog]

The portals have made contact with each other many times.



The mirror in SF leads to the cloud. The mirrors on the cloud lead to the portals. The portals lead to each other, so they only lead to the cloud if one of them happens to be on the cloud.



The Brion's don't have all the orga stones.



Could you provide a link to this? I took a glance but didn't see what you were refering to.

Who has the rest of the orga stones? have they all been found? and are the Brions making any effort to acquire more of them from us?



Here are a few links to Babajaga's Diary, starting with the first scroll:



home page:

http://www.red-quill.org/babajaga/library/brions/brionsep.html



Etherial Zodiac Map:

http://www.red-quill.org/babajaga/library/maps/Etheral_Zodiac_Map.GIF



There are several other links off of the homepage that I have yet to explore.



here's a question right out of the noob manual: what do the Brions look like?

[Xel]

The Brions look like your average sylvan, but with some more.. odd.. clothing and hairstyles..



As for orga stones, there is no set number of them that we know of at present. They are sometimes found one at a time in the fourth Orga Camp. But there has been no known or encountered limit to them as of yet.. There are just so few because there are so few FM's suitable for using them, and they can only be acquired once every zodiac.



-Xel

[Baff]

Etherial Zodiac Map:

http://www.red-quill.org/babajaga/library/maps/Etheral_Zodiac_Map.GIF

Ahh. The symbols are the signs of the zodiac (similar to OOC capricorn, aquarius, sagitarius, etc.), based on vague patterns of stars in the night sky. As far as I know, the symbols pre-date the Brions by probably a few thousand years (just a guess). After you take a healer/fighter test, you will be told to come back when Enba the Rat (etc) is rising. In other words, come back next month (OOC week).



The numbers on the map seem to be arbitrary, just to show that the zodiac symbols appear in a similar order both in the sky and in EP.

[Drablak]

About the zodiac: the map you refer to has some speculative info on it (like 6 planes of Earth) and some more tangible numbers (there are 6 zodiac circles in the 1st sphere of the Ethereal plane).



As Baff said, there are 12 zodiacs constellations in the sky and one of them "rises with the Sun" each month, so a month is often refered to as a "zodiac" (OOC a month in Puddleby is a week IRL) and called by the constellation that rises with the Sun during that month. There is an order that repeats itself each Puddle year.



The Zodiac don't have anything to do with the Brions, they exist separatly from them and are not a result of anything they did. But the Brions 'use' a lot the zodiacs. That is because a lot of things in the Lok'Groton are influenced by the rising zodiac. For instance, each Brion has a keep and in it (or near it) there is usually what we call a 'zodiac maze,' which is a maze which solution is dependant on the rising zodiac. That means you need to know the rising zodiac, and the 'key' to the maze (which often depends on the rising zodiac) to get through it. All the 'zodiac mazes' lead, if you get through them properly, to a 'zodiac circle' which is a place in the Ethereal Plane that is circled in stones and which has zodiac signs all around (plus one in the middle near the kuyem).



BTW I am not convinced that the Brions made the zodiac mazes, I think they just found them and settled near them because of their proprieties.



Edit: About the order given on the map: the numbers assigned to each zodiac are arbritary in the sense that the 1st one is arbritrary. What is important is the order in which they appear. And that order in which they rise is different than the order of the symbols representing the zodiacs as they appear in most places, like in the zodiac circles for instance.

[Sunblaze]

How about the winged centaurs? They could have something to do with the mirror. Anybody seen Falinea recently?



If the mirror predates the 'bions, then should the mirror even predate the Ascendancy, too.