> So, bringing things to a swift conclusion,
> battle
> is joined with Valind, his sons, and his followers.
> Vinga calls up the Defender's Wind, defeats Hend
> Valindsson in personal combat,
er.... wasn't he a human hero from an Age or so later?
> There's some handwaving involved, as I know the
> chronology doesn't quite square with what's
> published.
If it's pre-Time, no problem with chronology. It's causality you need to be careful of.
> E.g., such as Vinga first showing her life-saving
> Defender's Wind against Valind during the Greater
> Darkness (p.168, Storm Tribe).
But at the time she did that, clearly *she* knew she had it, it was just that Orlanth hadn't seen it before. Maybe it was on the trip north that she figured out how to do it? For once, she's the only one present born of the Storm Tribe, the only possible source of wind. And we start to get a new myth for the next time someone wants to learn a Defender Wind feat :)
> Most of the scanty references that I've seen to
> the Kalikos Icebreaker Quest mention priestesses
> performing the rites. This tied in with our Vingan
> hypothesis, but doesn't answer the question of how
> the Pentans learn the Quest.
Direct worship of this departed "hero"?
> I have some vague idea of
> Vinga teaching one of the more independent women
> (perhaps Yelorna?) how to call the Defender's Wind,
> and leaving Kalikos with her. The men credit
> Kalikos
> with all the power, and name the Quest so.
The idea's good, but I'd be reluctant to give Yelorna Wind powers. She just doesn't have them. Nor does she use a javelin, the bow's her weapon. Pick another woman, any other woman, one you just invented for this purpose. So Kalikos isn't in fact Vinga, (s)he's one of Vinga's pupils. With, perhaps, a promise to return Vinga's javelin when she comes back for it? There's a link for the Orlanthi to disrupt things!
Or indeed at that rate, leave the Pentan Kalikos as a man, who takes over her javelin. (A good-looking one. She lets him have the javelin because she quite fancies him and can't admit it).
> There's got to be some improvements possible,
> or
> perhaps something completely different has occurred
> to
> someone. Have at it!
If you're making it Pentans in particular rather than horse-nomads in general, one other thing occurs to me. Red hair. The present-day Lunars have a thing about red-haired Pentans, and as far as I know there's never been a reason given for it. Can that somehow be linked in?
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