Æalogist - Revision history

Clé: /* Specialists */ That was dumb. I said there was no name for that specialty, then named it in the next paragraph...

2013-05-11T10:55:20Z

Specialists: That was dumb. I said there was no name for that specialty, then named it in the next paragraph...

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:55, 11 May 2013
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	Æalogy is a complex field with many facets, and those few scholars who do pursue it tend to find it necessary to focus on one aspect. While a competent æalogist may be knowledgeable in all aspects of the field, he will probably still have some particular specialty in which he is particularly learned. Some æalogists specialize in the study of specific planes or [[chorodesis\|chorodeses]], or in particular types of planes; one might be an expert on [[elemental plane]]s, another on [[propositional plane]]s. A [[perologist]] specializes in [[pocket plane]]s; a [[pampherologist]] in cosmoi rather than planes.		Æalogy is a complex field with many facets, and those few scholars who do pursue it tend to find it necessary to focus on one aspect. While a competent æalogist may be knowledgeable in all aspects of the field, he will probably still have some particular specialty in which he is particularly learned. Some æalogists specialize in the study of specific planes or [[chorodesis\|chorodeses]], or in particular types of planes; one might be an expert on [[elemental plane]]s, another on [[propositional plane]]s. A [[perologist]] specializes in [[pocket plane]]s; a [[pampherologist]] in cosmoi rather than planes.

	Aside from specializing in specific planes, a æalogist may choose to specialize in particular ''aspects'' of planes instead, or of phenomena associated with or recurring in multiple planes. A [[detologist]], for instance, specializes in chorodeses and in how planes interact. An [[antiologist]] specializes in [[alternate world]]s, and in the manner of their coming into existence. A [[pylologist]] studies portals, and connections between planes; a [[pantothologist]] studies [[panypar]]es; a [[pollachologist]] [[passivite]]s; a [[palillologist]] [[ontological resonance]]. Not all specialties, of course, have well-established specific names; it is quite possible, for instance, for a æalogist to specialize in the study of [[chorogenesis]], or in the ~~comparative study of the~~ [[~~physics~~]] of different ~~cosmoi~~, but there are no terms in wide use for these specialties.		Aside from specializing in specific planes, a æalogist may choose to specialize in particular ''aspects'' of planes instead, or of phenomena associated with or recurring in multiple planes. A [[detologist]], for instance, specializes in chorodeses and in how planes interact. An [[antiologist]] specializes in [[alternate world]]s, and in the manner of their coming into existence. A [[pylologist]] studies portals, and connections between planes; a [[pantothologist]] studies [[panypar]]es; a [[pollachologist]] [[passivite]]s; a [[palillologist]] [[ontological resonance]]. Not all specialties, of course, have well-established specific names; it is quite possible, for instance, for a æalogist to specialize in the study of [[chorogenesis]], or in the shapes and [[topology\|topologies]] of different planes, but there are no terms in wide use for these specialties.

	===Crossdisciplinary scholars===		===Crossdisciplinary scholars===

Clé: Added alternate spelling

2013-03-17T15:49:00Z

Added alternate spelling

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:49, 17 March 2013
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	An '''æalogist''' (pronounced {{IPA\|/iːˈælədʒɪst/}}; also spelled ''aealogist'' or, rarely, ''aialogist'') is a scholar who specializes in [[æalogy]], the study of [[plane]]s and [[cosmos\|cosmoi]], their comparative characteristics, and their interaction. Æalogists are very few in number compared to scholars in most other fields, because of the requirements to be able to pursue such a study. Many people aren't even aware of the existence of other planes and cosmoi as anything more than speculation and rumor, and of those who are few know anything about them more than their existence, and very few have a means of pursuing their study. Learning more about other planes and cosmoi requires either a reliable source of information on the subject, which isn't easy to come by, or a means of [[interplanar travel\|traveling between planes]] oneself, which may be even harder to obtain.		An '''æalogist''' (pronounced {{IPA\|/iːˈælədʒɪst/}}; also spelled ''aealogist'', ''ealogist'', or, rarely, ''aialogist'') is a scholar who specializes in [[æalogy]], the study of [[plane]]s and [[cosmos\|cosmoi]], their comparative characteristics, and their interaction. Æalogists are very few in number compared to scholars in most other fields, because of the requirements to be able to pursue such a study. Many people aren't even aware of the existence of other planes and cosmoi as anything more than speculation and rumor, and of those who are few know anything about them more than their existence, and very few have a means of pursuing their study. Learning more about other planes and cosmoi requires either a reliable source of information on the subject, which isn't easy to come by, or a means of [[interplanar travel\|traveling between planes]] oneself, which may be even harder to obtain.

	Despite all this, there are some who do manage to learn of other planes and cosmoi, and ascertain enough about them to be considered scholars on the subject. On most [[world]]s, true æalogists are rare, with only a handful existing on an entire [[mound]]. They are substantially more common, however, in [[millevia]]e and other [[compit]]s, which provide relatively easy access to other planes and thus facilitate æalogical studies.		Despite all this, there are some who do manage to learn of other planes and cosmoi, and ascertain enough about them to be considered scholars on the subject. On most [[world]]s, true æalogists are rare, with only a handful existing on an entire [[mound]]. They are substantially more common, however, in [[millevia]]e and other [[compit]]s, which provide relatively easy access to other planes and thus facilitate æalogical studies.

Clé: Fixed piping error

2013-03-17T15:23:46Z

Fixed piping error

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:23, 17 March 2013
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	===Experience===		===Experience===
	Some æalogists have had the opportunity to have direct experience with other planes, and to have [[interplanar travel\|traveled]] themselves to other planes and perhaps even other cosmoi. Often this simply comes from their living in a place with many interplanar [[portals]], giving them an easy way to visit many different planes. Outside such areas, special [[power (celemology)]]s are required to visit other planes—powers that are not easy to come by; mastering [[spell]]s of interplanar travel may require [[year]]s of study. These plane-traveling powers do not have to be inherent, however; some æalogists are known to avail themselves of appropriate [[talisman]]s for their travels, such as [[magic doorknob]]s or [[betath\|betthoi]]. (In principle, [[goltheth\|golthoi]] would seem to be ideally suited to pursue æalogy, but few if any are known to have done so... then again, golthoi are extremely rare to begin with.) Some æalogists are scions of famed adventurers or other powerful individuals, motivated by stories told by their ancestors and empowered by talismans or [[paracarminical magic]]s passed down from them.		Some æalogists have had the opportunity to have direct experience with other planes, and to have [[interplanar travel\|traveled]] themselves to other planes and perhaps even other cosmoi. Often this simply comes from their living in a place with many interplanar [[portals]], giving them an easy way to visit many different planes. Outside such areas, special [[power (celemology)\|power]]s are required to visit other planes—powers that are not easy to come by; mastering [[spell]]s of interplanar travel may require [[year]]s of study. These plane-traveling powers do not have to be inherent, however; some æalogists are known to avail themselves of appropriate [[talisman]]s for their travels, such as [[magic doorknob]]s or [[betath\|betthoi]]. (In principle, [[goltheth\|golthoi]] would seem to be ideally suited to pursue æalogy, but few if any are known to have done so... then again, golthoi are extremely rare to begin with.) Some æalogists are scions of famed adventurers or other powerful individuals, motivated by stories told by their ancestors and empowered by talismans or [[paracarminical magic]]s passed down from them.

	There are, however, some means of learning æalogy that do not require personal experience traveling other planes. While perhaps less exciting and less thorough, these means still give the scholar an edge over those who have made no study of æalogy at all—and, of course, even those who ''have'' traveled the planes themselves may find these means useful to supplement their knowledge and find out the current state of the field.		There are, however, some means of learning æalogy that do not require personal experience traveling other planes. While perhaps less exciting and less thorough, these means still give the scholar an edge over those who have made no study of æalogy at all—and, of course, even those who ''have'' traveled the planes themselves may find these means useful to supplement their knowledge and find out the current state of the field.

Clé: Pediology -> æalogy (also, added pronunciation while I'm at it)

2013-03-17T04:08:12Z

Pediology -> æalogy (also, added pronunciation while I'm at it)

Show changes

Clé: Clé moved page Pediologist to Æalogist without leaving a redirect: Change of term

2013-03-17T03:48:55Z

Clé moved page Pediologist to Æalogist without leaving a redirect: Change of term

← Older revision	Revision as of 22:48, 16 March 2013
(No difference)

Clé: Created page with "A '''pediologist''' is a scholar who specializes in pediology, the study of planes and cosmoi, their comparative characteristics, and their interaction. Pe..."

2013-02-18T11:24:16Z

Created page with "A '''pediologist''' is a scholar who specializes in pediology, the study of planes and cosmoi, their comparative characteristics, and their interaction. Pe..."

New page

A '''pediologist''' is a scholar who specializes in [[pediology]], the study of [[plane]]s and [[cosmos|cosmoi]], their comparative characteristics, and their interaction. Pediologists are very few in number compared to scholars in most other fields, because of the requirements to be able to pursue such a study. Many people aren't even aware of the existence of other planes and cosmoi as anything more than speculation and rumor, and of those who are few know anything about them more than their existence, and very few have a means of pursuing their study. Learning more about other planes and cosmoi requires either a reliable source of information on the subject, which isn't easy to come by, or a means of [[interplanar travel|traveling between planes]] oneself, which may be even harder to obtain.

Despite all this, there are some who do manage to learn of other planes and cosmoi, and ascertain enough about them to be considered scholars on the subject. On most [[world]]s, true pediologists are rare, with only a handful existing on an entire [[mound]]. They are substantially more common, however, in [[millevia]]e and other [[compit]]s, which provide relatively easy access to other planes and thus facilitate pediological studies.

==Education==
Trapped in their [[homeworld]]s, most people never have the opportunity to learn much about [[pediology]]. Even those who have heard of other planes and want to study them may find it hard to find a reliable source of in-depth information about them. There are those who have no real knowledge of pediology but who ''claim'' to be pediologists—or at least who claim to be expert scholars of the planes; not having come into contact with actual pediologists they may not even be familiar with the word—and whose supposed learning is all from guesswork, misunderstanding, or sheer fabrication. There are, however, legitimate pediologists, who may come by their arcane knowledge by a number of different means.

===Experience===
Some pediologists have had the opportunity to have direct experience with other planes, and to have [[interplanar travel|traveled]] themselves to other planes and perhaps even other cosmoi. Often this simply comes from their living in a place with many interplanar [[portals]], giving them an easy way to visit many different planes. Outside such areas, special [[power (celemology)]]s are required to visit other planes—powers that are not easy to come by; mastering [[spell]]s of interplanar travel may require [[year]]s of study. These plane-traveling powers do not have to be inherent, however; some pediologists are known to avail themselves of appropriate [[talisman]]s for their travels, such as [[magic doorknob]]s or [[betath|betthoi]]. (In principle, [[goltheth|golthoi]] would seem to be ideally suited to pursue pediology, but few if any are known to have done so... then again, golthoi are extremely rare to begin with.) Some pediologists are scions of famed adventurers or other powerful individuals, motivated by stories told by their ancestors and empowered by talismans or [[paracarminical magic]]s passed down from them.

There are, however, some means of learning pediology that do not require personal experience traveling other planes. While perhaps less exciting and less thorough, these means still give the scholar an edge over those who have made no study of pediology at all—and, of course, even those who ''have'' traveled the planes themselves may find these means useful to supplement their knowledge and find out the current state of the field.

===Books===
Few as pediologists are to begin with, fewer are those who have taken the time to write [[book]]s on the subject. Still, some such pediological texts do exist, such as [[Lali Naka|Naka]]'s ''[[Viae Entis]]''; ''[[The Crystal Cotillion]]'', by [[Ragi Okoro]]; and the anonymously written ''[[Wanderer's Guide]]''. While also useful for those who ''do'' travel the planes, as reference works or as preparatory reading, these books have sometimes been used as a basis for a pediological education by those with no means of traveling the planes themselves. Pediologists with actual experience with other planes are likely to look down on those who learned their subject entirely out of books, and not altogether without reason; those books on the topic that have reached wide circulation tend to be somewhat outdated and to lack information on recent developments and include old ideas since discredited, and/or to be platforms for the authors' pet [[theory|theories]] that are at odds with the mainstream view (insofar as there are enough pediologists for there to exist a "mainstream" in the first place). Still, if not as reliable and enlightening as first-hand experience or discussion with other scholars, even these books are sufficient to give those without recourse to actual planar travel at least some cursory grounding on the subject.

===Mentors===
Some pediologists learned their information not from books, or not solely from books, but from predecessive mentors learned in the subject. A knowledgeable mentor can be an invaluable teacher, able to share their own learning and experience, to correct any misapprehensions the student may blunder into, and to answer questions that occur to the student's mind—even if the answer to many pediological questions may be "nobody knows". Unfortunately, not all such mentors are as knowledgeable as they present themselves, and the "education" one gleans from a mentor who has learned his subject only from unreliable books may be worse than one acquired from reading those books directly, as the mentor layers his own miscomprehensions and speculations over those already present in his sources. In the absence of any personal experience or correction by other parties, errors accumulate with each discipular generations, until the latest in a long line of would-be pediologists taught at the feet of their precursors with no outside source of information may have learned nothing but misconceptions and misinformation and be utterly ignorant of the real state of pediological knowledge.

===Schools===
Many of the potential disadvantages of learning from lone mentors are ameliorated by studying at a pediological school. While there may be some isolated such schools where the faculty feed into each others' folly, for the most part the interaction with other pediologists keeps them from going too far astray, more so if the faculty also communicate with those of other schools. The disadvantage, of course, is that, given the rarity of pediologists, schools with good pediological programs are very few and far between. Generally such schools exist only in [[millevia]]e where travel to other planes is easy, though there are some notable exceptions, such as the [[School of the Iris]] in the [[eidopolis]] of [[Maithe]].

If schools that competently teach pediology are rare, those that teach it to prepubescent students are even rarer. Nearly all pediological schools are [[university|universities]], their students adults or at least in their late adolescence. There do exist some schools where younger students learn pediology, and where it even is considered to make up a part of the core curriculum, but they are extremely rare, and generally exist only in places where powerful [[magic]] is omnipresent and considered a basic aspect of life.

==Career==
Many pediologists are supported by patronage by [[sovereign state|state]]s or powerful individuals who see value in their knowledge. Others pursue pediology as an avocation but pursue some other employment—or rely on hoarded or inherited wealth—as their principal course of income. Those with a means of interplanar or [[intercosmic travel]] often take advantage of that for their earnings, making money by trade between different worlds.

There are, however, pediologists who make their living from their learning. A competent pediologist (or possibly even one who is incompetent but convincing) has a number of avenues they can take to earn a livelihood from it. One obvious means is teaching, but this is only an option in those rare places where pediology is covered in education. Some pediologists work as consultants to various organizations, corporations, or individuals with pediological interests; others simply earn money through writing or lecturing about their knowledge.

==Specialists==
Pediology is a complex field with many facets, and those few scholars who do pursue it tend to find it necessary to focus on one aspect. While a competent pediologist may be knowledgeable in all aspects of the field, he will probably still have some particular specialty in which he is particularly learned. Some pediologists specialize in the study of specific planes or [[chorodesis|chorodeses]], or in particular types of planes; one might be an expert on [[elemental plane]]s, another on [[propositional plane]]s. A [[perologist]] specializes in [[pocket plane]]s; a [[pampherologist]] in cosmoi rather than planes.

Aside from specializing in specific planes, a pediologist may choose to specialize in particular ''aspects'' of planes instead, or of phenomena associated with or recurring in multiple planes. A [[detologist]], for instance, specializes in chorodeses and in how planes interact. An [[antiologist]] specializes in [[alternate world]]s, and in the manner of their coming into existence. A [[pylologist]] studies portals, and connections between planes; a [[pantothologist]] studies [[panypar]]es; a [[pollachologist]] [[passivite]]s; a [[palillologist]] [[ontological resonance]]. Not all specialties, of course, have well-established specific names; it is quite possible, for instance, for a pediologist to specialize in the study of [[chorogenesis]], or in the comparative study of the [[physics]] of different cosmoi, but there are no terms in wide use for these specialties.

===Crossdisciplinary scholars===
There are savants who study not just pediology alone, but the overlap of pediology with other fields of learning. [[Comparative physicist]]s, for instance, study the variations in the [[physics]] of different cosmoi; [[xenetorist]]s study their [[life form]]s. Other comparative fields of pediological study exist, but are represented by very small numbers of adherents.

==Organizations==
Despite the small numbers of pediologists, there does exist something of a pediological community, or communities. Pediologists are, after all, aware as no others of other worlds and other cosmoi, and so it's not infeasible for them to find out about and make contact with alimundane counterparts. This isn't to say there aren't many pediologists who work in isolation, or in company with only a small group unconnected to any larger community; in fact, such lone pediologists may form a majority. But pediological communities do exist, both in the broad sense of an informal "community" of pediologists who know each other, or at least are acquainted with each other's works, and in the more specific sense of formal organizations of pediologists.

Many of these pediological organizations are devoted to particular specialties or other common interests. The [[Curio Society]] specializes in [[pantothology]], the [[Mirror Men]] in [[antiology]]. The [[Cartularium]] maintains a comprehensive listing of known planes, especially pocket planes, which it publishes, in very limited circulation, in an enormous tome called the [[Choric Compendium]]. Other organizations, however, share nothing but a common origin, social ties, or the like; the whimsical [[Gamins' Guild]] originated with a like-minded group of young students in the millevia of [[Wickerloke]] and accepts new members by invitation only, while the secretive [[Purple Front]] share a goal of using their pediological knowledge to increase their own power.

One unusually activist pediological organization is the [[Ameldry]], which devotes itself to sharing pediological information with isolated worlds in preparation to their incipient contact with others. Another pediological organization that has set itself a particular purview is the [[Council for Intercosmic Terminological Standardization]], which strives to promulgate the use of the same terms for concepts in [[celemology]], [[etory]], and other complex disciplines pursued in multiple [[plane]]s. While the CITS likes to take credit for this standardization, however, it's not clear how much is really due to their efforts and how much due to the same effects of [[ontological resonance]] responsible for the existence of such phenomena as [[panyparic language]]s.
[[Category:Pediology]][[Category:Scholars]]