Category: Other Page 94 of 177

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The Grotto-Heavens and the Blissful Lands are worlds believed to exist hidden within famous mountains and beautiful places. They are earthly paradises that do not suffer from floods, wars, epidemics, illnesses, old age or death. Such imaginary places are usually known by the single compound, dongtian fudi. However, the two words originally referred to different things, fudi broadly meaning “paradise” and dongtian denoting an underground utopia.

One of the earliest descriptions of the Blissful Lands is found in the Baopu zi. The major mountains, says Ge Hong, “have gods of their own, and sometimes earthly transcendents (dixian) are to be found there too. Numinous mushrooms (zhi) and grasses grow there. There you can not only compound the medicines, but also escape war and catastrophe” (see Ware 1966, 94).

And, very interesting vis-a-vis Quatrian mythology:

Another feature of the grottoes is that, although each one is independent of the others, they are all linked in a network by underground passages called dimai (“earth channels”).

This actually strikes me as good advice about world-building (archived), based on what I’ve seen in the wild. Plus it references a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon. What more could you ask for?

I’ve become convinced that that’s the real secret to effective worldbuilding in gaming media. Certainly, the “core” of the setting should make sense, but all the peripheral stuff surrounding it? Just throw in a bunch of incomprehensible bullshit seasoned with the occasional bit that almost makes sense, and people will seize on those bits and ratonalise all the rest of it for you – and what they come up with is generally going to be way more interesting than whatever your original plan was, if indeed you had one at all.

Just finished “Hidden Ireland” by Daniel Corkery, which was a great read. I’m trying to determine the provenance of this quote in it on page 180, but not having any luck outside of this book.

“He who understands my music aright is lifted above the sorrows of the world.”

And here’s a link to the quote in context in the book.

Notes from having read this book recently, which I loved.

Page 39:

“Part of the pleasure of being here was that he could listen for and obey such impulses and commands coming from within him, undistorted by external pressures and compulsions.”

Page 73:

“It was being alone here that was the joy of it. Being alone, not having to try to handle other people, their needs, demands, commands.”

“Unlike the majority of early Irish historical tradition, which presents ancient Ireland as largely united under a succession of High Kings, the stories of the Ulster Cycle depict a country with no effective central authority, divided into local and provincial kingdoms often at war with each other. The civilisation depicted is a pagan, pastoral one ruled by a warrior aristocracy. Bonds between aristocratic families are cemented by fosterage of each other’s children. Wealth is reckoned in cattle. Warfare mainly takes the form of cattle raids, or single combats between champions at fords. The characters’ actions are sometimes restricted by religious taboos known as geasa.”

Wikipedia

Our source continues to provide us with some interesting data… This time about the technological patterns of viewers to a conspiracy channel on YouTube.

Interesting stuff!

As you can see, a large percentage of it is served up natively by YouTube across its many product surfaces. According to my read of this data, only about possibly 25-26% of this example traffic source data is potentially originating externally from YouTube itself (including direct/unknown). Pretty wild…