Ah, I think I may see your confusion.
You are thinking about the original magical nature of EM and the inky blackness inside the giants as antimus, yes?
In hindsight, T-A-G was very sloppy to allow that confusion. Shame on him.
It gets complicated, and things are different for animana bodies or whatever you want to call what demons and avatars have and their corporal forms but...simplest answer is this.
The Abyss and Outer Planes are not affected by what Egary Gygax called the Positive and Negative Planes, or the polarizing forces of both animus and matter. Producing animus and antimus and matter and antimatter.
So, in those planes, polarization just doesn't exist and all animus is animus and matter is matter, except there is no matter in the Outer Planes and the Abyss is--difficult to reconcile.
However, when an immortal spirit in a mana body as we sort of call them--our true forms---travel to a material plane, our animus takes on the polarization of that plane, so anything that antimus on that plane is antimus to us as well because we don't come into the plane "the wrong way"
See, it's that "wrong way" that creates the problem. In theory, one should never ever see "antimus" in any plane (regardless of polarization) it doesn't show up there "naturally" by which I mean the normal order of physics for the majority of material planes.
However, certain individuals (loosely called necromancers or necromasters) can do things (usually cast spells) that brings it into the plane, and when it does, it has certain benefits, i.e. it is easier to bond the antimus version of someone's spirit to its dead body, or some other dead body than doing it the "right way" (Resurrection)
It's the act of necromancy (on a magical world) that twists what might otherwise be neutral or same polarization animus in such away as to reverse its polarization and thus they can bind it to the dead flesh.
The point is, someone or something is expending mana to turn animus into antimus in a given plane so that it keeps dead bodies alive.
I.e. I use necromancy to resurrect your grandfather's corpse. Say with his soul. He wasn't antimus in his real life, but in order to bring him back and bind him to his flesh, I have to "make him antimus"
It is not a natural state, it's a twisted or "skew" state of animus within that particular material plane.
As far as soul sucking swords and such? That is a higher level of necromancy, and it comes from the skewing---but what's happening there is that raw negative material energy and antimus are coming in direct contact with animus unshielded, and the animus and equivalent antimus are destroyed like matter and antimatter colliding.
Again, it's a very artifical magical thing and some "evil" types really like creating such nasty things.
What Tom was seeing inside the giants was basically a necromantic antimus field shielded by flesh, surrounding the animus core of the giants. They were basically prisoners inside their own "negatively animated" bodies. I.e. there was an antimus spirit controlling their bodies (like a corpse with someone else's soul) and they were trapped inside.
Does this make sense or just add to the confusion?
You know which one I am hoping for? Yes?
Tizzy
Edited by user Monday, November 25, 2019 2:52:28 PM(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified