> Greg Stafford <Greg_at_...> wrote:
>> [The OOO] was the ruler as far as anyone from the surface world >> was concerned. However, this is typical troll behavior. They are much >> too smart to let anyone from the outside, all of whom of course carry >> pollution, corruption and wrong headedness, get close to the real >> sources of power: the women.
> Well, dang. I should've realized that myself. Though I suppose one could
> distinguish between "Ruler of (what would later be called) the Holy
> Country", and "Ruler of the Trolls of WWLBC the Holy Country". I could
> imagine that the OOO had more direct control over, say, *Heortland* than
> he did over the trolls.
Is that news? At one point he even had to prove that he was a troll.
I sort of doubt the direct control over Heortland, though - on the Plateau he did have the male trolls, armies of spear-kin and the Darkness-worshipping humans under his control. A situation not dissimilar to the split of power between King Guilmarn the Fat and the Ecclesiarch in Seshnela - a mundane authority with control mostly over temporal forces, and a religious authority (the Great Mothers) controlling the magical forces. Whatever undertaking there is requires cooperation.
> That is, the Great Mothers could always veto any of his actions,
> but they'd be far more likely to interfere with his actions over
> Uz than with his rule of the subject peoples.
Since the OOO was not really a troll (unless proven to be one), I doubt their vetoing power went quite as far.
> One wonders... when the Pharaoh defeated the OOO, how much did he really
> affect the underlying power structure?
He certainly upset the entire economy, mundane as well as magical. Huge amounts of magic had flown into the leaden serpent, and not retrieved - a disaster second only to the Battles of Hanroo Fields and Night and Day. And it ruined the surface of the Shadow Plateau, forced the surviving Kitori into the Marzeel Valley, and probably (almost) wiped out a couple of clans.
> Presumably the Trolls of the Holy Country went on being ruled the
> same way they always had, by the Great Mothers (perhaps through some
> new figurehead)--but their direct control over the other
> peoples was ended. But they'd be working to reverse things.
I dimly remember reading a mention of a daughter of the Only Old One taking over as troll ruler/spokesperson to the Pharaoh, but that may have been on http://kethaela.free.fr
> Hm... do you suppose they had anything to do with Jar-Eel's attack? Secret
> instigators? Hidden allies? Manipulators behind the scenes? (e.g. they
> might have staged a magical attack on the Pharaoh from Hell, just when
> Jar-Eel was attacking in the mundane world.)
> The mind wobbles...
I don't see the immediate gain from such a heavy expenditure of magic, other than a late revenge.
> Oh, and another thought: The OOO could serve another purpose, by being the
> one who deals with the bound Lodril. A fire god is too useful a tool to
> throw away, but it would be magically disastrous to let the Great Mothers
> interact with him directly (and be contaminated by Death). Having an
> intermediary like the OOO would be the right approach--and he'd have to be
> very powerful to carry it off.
> Or am I completely wrong about that?
Probably not.
Another important intermediary role for the OOO is as bearer of fertility. Prior to the slaying of Durgados/Urnfazan, the Leaden Serpent, the Shadow Plateau was about as fertile as the Heortland Plateau, and heavily gardened.
However, in order to regain this, one would need to bind Vestkarthen/Caladra once more, and completely rebuild the top of the Plateau, melt all the Obsidian shards and re-cast the Palace of Black Glass. Quite a bit of work...
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