Re: Yet more on the two Argrath's

From: Roger McCarthy <rogermccarthy_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 19:11:00 GMT


Jane and MoB - thanks for the positive comments on the two Argrath's.

Re Dorasor's other children in the genealogy on KoS p48 I'd missed these (maybe because Argrath's not on it) but it does of course contain several obvious howlers - not least that it is of the Startar Dynasty - although having perpetrated 'the two Argraths feel out big time around 1630' I can hardly criticise other people's typos...for a start at least three of the prince's regnal years are wrong and if Eonistaran the Sage was really born in 1517 he is rather unlikely to have a third son old enough to go out and found Pavis in 1550.

However it does give Dorasor another couple of children in Daringle and Brenna as heirs who fail to succeed him in 1579 - presumably if they both exist these are legitimate children in which case they and their descendants are all killed off in the Lunar sweep of known Sartar heirs in 1610.

As to whether Dorasor's grand-daughter Brenna in Argarth of Pavis is named after her putative aunt Brenna on the p48 table, this does raise the interesting question of why Sartarites never seem to call their children after close or even quite distant relatives - sure there's alliteration galore - particularly if Jar/Sar and Tar/Ter sound the same in Sartarite as judging by variant spellings the ending ar/or certainly does - but barring two Loricon's on the page 48 genealogy who are only 3rd cousins, I can't think of any other examples.

As this rule also seems to apply in Dara Happa and Carmania as well (at least based on the emperor and king lists), presumably this means that there are good magical and ritual reasons for it and that both naming a child and taking on a new name as an adult are extremely serious steps with real magical consequences (no doubt the Malkioni have some numerological system that explains it).

Is it not therefore possible that Argrath Whitebull's/Argrath senior's original name is in fact 'Garrath' and that Argrath is the nom-de-guerre?

After all according to Greg it does mean 'liberator' as well as Arkat and therefore by taking this name he is consciously attempting to emulate and heroform both Arkat and the earlier Argrath in KoS who had led the night jumpers against the Kitori trolls 60 years before.

Similarly my Argrath of Pavis/Argrath junior's original given name may have actually been Enostar and he only took on the Argrath name when his true identity was revealed in 1625 - possibly in some sort of ceremony to re-establish the son-parent bond sundered in 1610 (see below).

Re MoB's suggestion that Garrath must have had twins as that is what usually happens when two people re-enact the union of storm and earth in a harvest festival ritual, this sounds pretty convincing - as to what happened to the other twin (surely a daughter based on other known examples of magical twins)Argrath's Saga possibly provides an answer:

'When Argrath got there [Pavis] he quickly proved himself to be a leader amongst the exiles. But the sorcery of the Red Moon followed him out to Pavis. For a while Argrath and his men fought a secret war against the Lunars who lived there but after his women were turned into succubae [not a pleasant thought at all if this includes his 6 or 7 year old daughter] Argrath had to flee into the Wastelands'...

This suggests to me that after leaving Garhound in 1604 Garrath, his wife Brenna and two children (Enostar and say Enerin or Enothea) moved to Pavis where Garrath became a well known young Orlanthi warleader.

In 1610 when the lunars arrive he and his followers try to organise a guerilla war but for the good reasons Nick and others put forward a long while back this doesn't make him too popular and the resistance ends abruptly when the lunars track him down and use chaos magics to transform his wife and daughter into succubae and he only escapes by fleeing into the wastes where he is enslaved by the bison riders and is unaware that his son Enostar had also somehow managed to escape.

By 1614 he has returned to civilisation (sort of) and become a priest of Orlanth at the Adari temple, having at some point acquired the name Argrath and the mysterious Dragonspear (perhaps as part of Praxian rebirth/initiation ceremony).

This leaves him the years 1614-21 to re-establish himself in Pavis as Garrath Sharpsword the weaponmaster (maybe there's been an amnesty or something), to adventure with the Wolf Pirates (who are active around Corflu in 1614 according to Biturian Varosh)and to build up the White Bull Brotherhood and several other Praxian or Pavic secret societies (OK he's a busy guy but remember he's got Fly and Teleport and a lot of motivation...)

Young Enostar on the other hand grows up a poverty-stricken street urchin in Pavis, consorting with lunars and other dubious foreigners, hiding out in the Rubble when Sor Eel organises a Zero Tolerance sweep of the poorer quarters and picking up at least one seriously weird power - his 'convey nightmare laugh' and the ability to divine and exploit the deepest fears of the lunar soldiery...which probably comes easier when you've had as traumatised a childhood as he has.

Given that Pavis is a small place maybe it's odd that father and son never meet but there are probably powerful unseen forces that are busily ensuring that that doesn't happen...



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