Personal Luonto

[Regolith247]

It's a nice idea that whales and dolphins might have magic.....can you imagine how a spell constructed of whalesong might sound?

I've always thought that whale song might count as a spell already- especially when you consider that a majority of the notes of the song are actually inaudible to people, in the ultra and infra sonic ranges

[Róisín]

Have you heard them sing? It's amazing, you don't just hear it with your ears, it's sort of like being next to the biggest tuning fork you can imagine. Recordings don't even vaguely do it justice. Your bones resonate for hours, days. And you can almost, almost make sense of the pattern.

[Regolith247]

Have you heard them sing? It's amazing, you don't just hear it with your ears, it's sort of like being next to the biggest tuning fork you can imagine.

I've lived in land-locked areas my entire life, but someday I do plan to actually visit the ocean. It's on my bucket list. Actually thinking of infra-sound, theory suggests that whales use it to communicate over long distances- sorta like the mage chat room.

[Róisín]

Interesting datum: whalesong changes pattern. And when it changes on one side of Australia, the change shows up on the other side a little over a day later.

[princeofdoom]

I think mine visited me once. It was a white tiger. I was stressed and reading a book to relax, nothing to do with tigers at all. I looked up toward the kitchen at my house at the time, and there was a white tiger as plain as day and totally lifelike, but I didn't feel scared I felt more sure of myself. Then it vanished into nothing.

I could use another visit, when will my luonto come back from the war? :'(

[wavewright62]

Ragnarok: omg :---D I was thinking something a little more subtle about how whales can sing to each other from literally across the ocean and that would be pretty cool for song/rhyme based magic... But well why not just crush everything and anything. : D

Oooo, I like this thinking!  Actually, I like Ragnarok's thinking, too.  Both is good. *nod nod*

As much as I would like to think my luonto is a cat, I know that the grace and patience and guile of a cat will never be mine. 

[OwlsG0]

Interesting datum: whalesong changes pattern. And when it changes on one side of Australia, the change shows up on the other side a little over a day later.

Apparently whales also have different  'accents' according to which part of the world/oceans they have learnt their songs.

[Róisín]

Yeah, I've heard that, from a Myrning marngit who sings to and with them, from an old lady in Callanish who does the same, and another similar bloke in New Zealand.

[Ix]

My luonto would probably be a mole! Seeing as I tend to try and bury myself in other things to escape life and work, am not a very social creature, and am generally more used to shadier or smaller areas than I am in the bright outside world. Makes sense, right?

[Tr]

My luonto would probably be a mole! Seeing as I tend to try and bury myself in other things to escape life and work, am not a very social creature, and am generally more used to shadier or smaller areas than I am in the bright outside world. Makes sense, right?

*nod nods* cool!
A few days ago, my friends decided my spirit animal is a lion. Apparently I am "lazy but smart." (They know me too well  ) I have no idea what those qualities have to do with lions though.
I would really like my luonto to be a snow leopard, because snow leopards are awesome, but I think I'd end up as a snowy owl. They're nocturnal, they fly silently, and I've always thought of them as very focused in what they're doing. (I'm focused too, just not in the morning!)
Question: does your luonto age with you, or does it stay the same age forever? It would be really cool if your luonto's age reflected your maturity, not your physical age.

[Noodles]

.....I feel like I've posted here before but I also don't wanna look for the post to find out.
My luonto would definitely be the Giant Pacific Octopus. They're smart, curious, and like hiding under rocks. Unlike me, they're like 90% muscle and can grab just about anything, and also fit through quarter-sized holes despite being up to 600 lbs/270 kg (they're the largest kind of octopus), which makes them really super good at escaping. Once they get out, they can also survive out of the water for a few minutes, and change colour and texture to match their surroundings. They also live in the body of water that is walking distance from my house.

Spoiler: pictures shamelessly stolen from Google • show

in the process of finding these images I also stumbled across a PDF entitled "Giant Pacific Octopus Care Manual" and it's more interesting than it should be. (i like cephalopods [octopuses, squids, cuttlefish...] a lot ok)

[Regolith247]

Question: does your luonto age with you, or does it stay the same age forever? It would be really cool if your luonto's age reflected your maturity, not your physical age.

Judging from the comparative power levels of Lalli's lynx and Onni's owl, I think that it's a fair bet that a luonto grows in power as the mage grows in experience. So an older mage, with a lot of experience, would have the most developed, and most potent luonto. Maaaaybe.

[Noodles]

Judging from the comparative power levels of Lalli's lynx and Onni's owl, I think that it's a fair bet that a luonto grows in power as the mage grows in experience. So an older mage, with a lot of experience, would have the most developed, and most potent luonto. Maaaaybe.

OH WAIT IN THAT CASE I WOULD START WITH A TINY PALM-SIZED NERD THIS IS PERF

[Laufey]

Judging from the comparative power levels of Lalli's lynx and Onni's owl, I think that it's a fair bet that a luonto grows in power as the mage grows in experience. So an older mage, with a lot of experience, would have the most developed, and most potent luonto. Maaaaybe.

If Minna is taking the traditional route then this is partially correct: it's possible to strengthen one's luonto over a longer period of time, and also to give it an extra oomph in times when it's needed the most. Luonto are not equal in strength as they arrive though, some people simply have stronger luonto by default. My guess is that in this case it could be a bit of both, Onni's luonto simply being a powerful one and his skills and experience amplifying its power further.

Question: does your luonto age with you, or does it stay the same age forever? It would be really cool if your luonto's age reflected your maturity, not your physical age.

The luonto does not age, alas. Although it's technically speaking a soul it's also a separate entity and it might even arrive already old, depending.

Question: is there any information (Minna's comments etc.) whether luonto always has an animal form in the SSSS-verse? Historically that's not necessarily the case, and the luonto info page doesn't explicitly mention it even if all the illustrations depict different animals.

There's no information of that yet, but I think she'll go for animal luonto only for simplicity's sake. The tradition of what exactly a luonto is varies from place to place so in areas where people thought that soul to be a forebear they were always forebears, in areas where it was seen as having an animal form it always had an animal form. What Minna has said however is that Finns are "a distant forest people" who speak an entirely different language, so it's entirely possible the Icelandic skalds would not be entirely in the know of the Finnish tradition.

[Juniper]

This look a little bit of thinking, I knew it would be a bird, and specifically a bird that spends a lot of time around bodies of water, and probably something migratory. I think a heron honestly. I like the fact that they have little to no sexual dimorphism, they can be gregarious but still spend a good part of the year solitary or just with their mate.