melor "ghost, zombie" (speaking of the dead in an esoteric manner)
Uh, I somehow though Loroi didn't have a concept of such fictional creatures.
Throughout most of human history and even today, many people thought of ghosts as very real.
The modern Loroi concept of supernatural creatures comes from their heroic mythology, which speaks of entities and phenomena that seemed incomprehensible to the Iron Age Loroi, and so they were interpreted in various supernatural contexts. For Loroi, who possess mental abilities, the supernatural did not seem very far-fetched.
For that matter, given that the Soia created entire /species/ apparently out of whole cloth (no genetic link to their template species), 'bringing the (recently) dead back to life' might not have been outside of their plausible ability.
And to fit this comment better into this thread's topic: is there a Soia Trade word/concept for 'resurrection'?
Barrai Arrir
My Fanfictions: The Past Awakens (Outsider + Halo) [Complete] Specialists (Outsider + Warhammer 40k) [Complete] New Horizons (Outsider) [In Progress]
Another question, one that involves a bit of loroi psychology/history: The Trade lexicon has the word 'boirin' translated as 'cursed.' Do loroi (or at least did pre-modern loroi) believe in a concept of 'magic'? Especially given that a 'curse' in English often carries the implication that there is some sentient supernatural creature carrying out the curse (either a god or some spirit, etc.). I know Trade has the word 'manzatrin' for 'magic/sorcery,' but at least to my maybe-hairsplitting self there's a difference.
That's as in separate from 'some mechanism or process that I don't understand', as perhaps the known descendants of far-greater ancestors might view the world. The way that, say, medieval Europeans knew that the way the Romans had been known to pour liquid rock (concrete) that hardened underwater (which wasn't fully replicated until the 1800s!) wasn't 'magic' but just 'some knowledge that we know our ancestors had but that we've since lost.'
Barrai Arrir
My Fanfictions: The Past Awakens (Outsider + Halo) [Complete] Specialists (Outsider + Warhammer 40k) [Complete] New Horizons (Outsider) [In Progress]
Another question, one that involves a bit of loroi psychology/history: The Trade lexicon has the word 'boirin' translated as 'cursed.' Do loroi (or at least did pre-modern loroi) believe in a concept of 'magic'? Especially given that a 'curse' in English often carries the implication that there is some sentient supernatural creature carrying out the curse (either a god or some spirit, etc.). I know Trade has the word 'manzatrin' for 'magic/sorcery,' but at least to my maybe-hairsplitting self there's a difference.
That's as in separate from 'some mechanism or process that I don't understand', as perhaps the known descendants of far-greater ancestors might view the world. The way that, say, medieval Europeans knew that the way the Romans had been known to pour liquid rock (concrete) that hardened underwater (which wasn't fully replicated until the 1800s!) wasn't 'magic' but just 'some knowledge that we know our ancestors had but that we've since lost.'
I think that belief in the supernatural was pretty universal across human cultures; it's an early attempt to explain the world in the absence of good scientific knowledge or a proper scientific method. It's also fueled by the human need to detect patterns (even when events are random), which is part of why superstitions exist even today in a world of science and technology. I expect that supernatural interpretations of the world will be extremely common if not universal among primitive alien cultures, the Loroi included. Especially when you consider that Loroi actually have supernatural-seeming abilities. Details of these beliefs would vary greatly between subcultures and eras, but some elements persist into modern Loroi culture, as we see in the example of Taben beliefs regarding fate.
