Mr. Holland's Opus, and synesthesia.

[handforged]

Could an echolocative spcies use carefully shaped objects and cavities to create sound-holograms? Regions of space that cause echoes to fold in on themselves and apparently map out interesting objects?

An interesting example of this sort of thing would be a cave where giant bats could commune with their deity through the visions provided by the shapes of the walls. What if the walls were disturbed in some way? There would be no method of communicating with their deity. Earthquake? Mining? Rambling Xorn?

just some food for thought.

Also what about art made of positive energy? Incredibly beautful but invisible to most.

~hf

 

[Piratecat]

Brilliant. Sound as art. Now, if the PCs walked across the acoustically crafted cavern and scuffed the floor as they went, it would be like scrawling across the Mona Lisa with a pencil: erasable, but never the same again afterwards.

I bet the bats would be really upset.

 

[WayneLigon]

was a really effective touch, as the players were a little freaked out when they figured out why the city had no visible art. I think they thought I was just being lazy and didn't want to describe it.

Not only is that an amazing idea, it's amazing that you have players that would remark on such a thing

 

[WayneLigon]

The Kdatlyno in Niven's Known Space series see by a radar sense; the one major story featuring them features a Kdatlyno sculptor. Their sculptures also have texture, since sound reflects differently from different substances.

I've always been interested in a race that speaks via color, their eyes being vastly more sensitive to shading and hue than ours are. They'd make art that perhaps means vastly different things depending on the time of day, and the season, since the light will hit the object slightly differently each day. Perhaps their idea of an epic poem is a sculpture that must be looked at each hour of each day for a year; talk about a puzzle to solve...

An undersea race (sea elves?) might produce music modified by the temperature of the water, or conflicting currents. Music would be something shared among all communities, since it'll travel so far. It might be a means of communication as well, kind of like the whistling speach of some mountaineers - properly done and passed on, the song of an artist could circle the world in no time.

Earth elemental art; that would be something utterly alien. Imagine art based on the density of the medium you're passing through at the time; it would be like art based on air pressure to us.

 

[BSF]

A particularly sensitive, deaf, race might find still find sound to be very artistic. They might niot hear it, but they can feel it. They might also prefer disparate sounds. something that would grate on our ears, but to them provides a rush os sensation.

Air elementals and incense is something I have thought about before. It is an interesting idea.

Blind "painters" that use oils, and perhaps sand, rock, dirt, etc to create a tactile painting. Something that is best experienced by closing your eyes and sliding your hand along the painting.

 

[FireLance]

How about art and the ability to detect magic? What do you sense when you view magical auras with a detect magic spell, anyway? Imagine turning that into art - maybe a tapestry or piece of sculpture where separate sections have different auras of varying strengths which somehow come together to create an aesthetically pleasing whole. Imagine the PCs disassembling it because each individual section is a one-use command-activated item .

 

[FireLance]

How about races with tremorsense? Just as how the art of dance combines the beauty of music and motion, perhaps these races would also find beauty in the combination of music, motion and vibration.

What about races with all-around vision like a beholder? Perhaps their art is visual, but cannot truly be appreciated by a humanoid's limited field of vision. Or perhaps by altering the depth of perception in a way that humanoids cannot, what appears to be only a haphazard mess of colour on the walls becomes something significant, like a 3-D optical illusion.

 

[WayneLigon]

How about art and the ability to detect magic? What do you sense when you view magical auras with a detect magic spell, anyway?

*Yoink* OK, inspiration hit. A 'sculpture' made entirely with a variant of Nystul's Magic Aura, by a host of different wizards, each with their own strength and school contributing a 'color' or 'sense' to the sculpture - it would be the 'symbol of unity of magic' for a large university of wizards. Hmmmm.

 

[kolvar]

Mhm, would a race, that does can only sense the sound through other means than the ears, because all are deaf, regard, what it senses, as music and come to some, for other people very strange, musical concepts? Advanced rythm-styles is one way, but finer airwaves could do other things. Than, it depends strongly on how well developed this other sense is.
Sense-Synergy comes to mind, too. People, who see sound, feal color and smell touch. While these are tricks of the mind, connections of different senses, that force the person to not only use one sense but two or more on one stimulus, it could be like that for races missing one sense - or they would just do not understand what sight or sound is.

Another example for different sensual input comes from Marion Zimmer Bradleys Darkover series. Because the telpaths/ empaths could sense the emotions of their surrounding, they would not touch anyone, because it would be to overwhelming.
Or imagine a creature sensing magic in a world with leylines, constantly dodging the leylines, looking for rooms without any magic ...

 

[eris404]

How about art and the ability to detect magic? What do you sense when you view magical auras with a detect magic spell, anyway? Imagine turning that into art - maybe a tapestry or piece of sculpture where separate sections have different auras of varying strengths which somehow come together to create an aesthetically pleasing whole. Imagine the PCs disassembling it because each individual section is a one-use command-activated item .

In the _Legacy of Dragons_ book, Monte has a race called the Grynloc that can only see magic - no magic present and they are pretty much blind. To quote the book (page 47):

"Grynlocs can create an aura of magical
energy around themselves or other objects. The aura lasts a
number of days equal to the grynloc’s Hit Dice. This ability
has two main uses. First, the grynlocs create beautifully
shaped, often amazingly elaborate magical raiment for themselves
that only members of their race can see. They use
these auras to identify themselves to one another. The other
use allows them to leave brief symbolic messages for others
of their kind to see. While their precision is not such that
they can spell out words, they can leave magical symbols of
warning or welcome, or convey similar, simplistic meanings
for one another."