Irregular Webcomic! #2086

Some people believe that there is a network of significant lines of force spanning the globe, often called ley lines. Such things are not restricted to western mysticism either. For some reason as yet undiscovered, the ancient Nazca people felt compelled to carve great lines across the high desert plateau where they lived, in what is now Peru. And the Aboriginal people of Australia still keep alive their culture's concept of songlines - lines of spiritual energy criss-crossing the land.

For those who interpret these as based on some sort of underlying reality, there are several possible explanations/consequences. Either the lines of force are pre-existing and have been somehow detected and recognised by various cultures over time, resulting in them assigning signficance to them or building monuments and other structures on them. Or alternatively, the actions of humans have created the lines - by building or designating certain places as sacred, the Earth has somehow responded by joining the dots, and creating a network to connect these places. Perhaps there is a little of both involved.

Indulge me for a minute further. Whatever the origin of these lines of power, we end up with important spiritual sites of more or less mysterious nature to our modern eyes occupying the intersection points of the lines. Some people have interpreted the lines as conduits of mystical energy, allowing... something... to flow between the sites.

Now, what happens if you go around digging up archaeological sites, places where ancient people tended to conduct their sacred rites or build their monuments, and bring bits and pieces of these places home for people to study or to look at? Museums all over the world are now enormous concentrations of these potentially powerful objects. Perhaps the ley lines of our modern world now run through museums, connecting all the major cities of the world in a grid of ancient energy.

Imagine, if you will, an archaeological expedition to some remote place. The scientists collect various relics, then carry them halfway around the world, dragging part of the ley line with them, as though they had snagged it with a grappling hook. The Earth would resemble a net, with threads and strings being pulled loose here and there and swept across the globe, to be anchored at new locations, places where many threads from different places eventually congregate to form new knots in the skein.

I don't go in for this sort of thing myself, but it's still an interesting image to contemplate next time you visit a museum of cultural artefacts.

2020-07-25 Rerun commentary: I made use of ley lines in one of the fantasy roleplayng games I ran, many years ago now. The idea was that wizards and other magic-using individuals (including village witches, wise women, and so on) drew on natural magical energy or mana that was present in the earth. Only it wasn't present everywhere in uniform amounts or potencies. It was concentrated into a network of linear filaments that spanned the landscape in a web - ley lines. Wizards had the most power when standing on a ley line, and it diminished with distance. So, for obvious reasons, wizards tended to build their towers of magical research on the nexus of ley lines, and to guard them fiercely from competitors.

Adventuring wizards had to keep a careful accounting of how far away they were from a ley line, so they knew their capabilities and limitations when adventuring in the field. Fortunately, for much the same reasons, ancient liches and so on also liked to build their now-abandoned dungeons near ley lines too.

EDIT: I've been informed that ley lines feature heavily in the roleplaying game Rifts by Palladium. Being a veteran roleplayer, I have of course heard of Rifts, but alas I have never played it, and did not know that the game setting features ley lines as a significant magical force. Now my curiousity has been piqued, and I must seek out a copy of the game some time.