> The Impression the Third Age book gives (to me at least) is that
> pretty
> much the entire West uses the Abiding Book as its core text. The
> Abiding
> Book is the core text of Malkionism as it is known in the Third Age.
> I
> think the Stygian heresy might be the only one specifically mentioned as
> predating the Book.
Most sects use something analogous to the Abiding Book, and usually incorporating significant sections of that text, but they don't all use the exact same book (or call it the same thing, for that matter).
>
> it seems here that there is no
> reason Fronela would have the Abiding Book as any kind of base text.
They don't, really.
> Whatever main text they had before would still be what they should
> be
> using, barring some later revelation I don't know about.
Well, there's Siglat's Dream, but that's more a supplement to the core Fronelan Hrestoli book (which is called "First Times", incidentally), than a replacement of it. Although the White Book of the Jonatings is a newer thing.
> I've never been
> under the impression they followed Rokar, who had his stripped down
> Abiding Book. So what's the deal here?
Nope, no Rokari in Fronela. Or very few, and those mostly Seshnegi expats.
> Then there's Caste. Again, I'm not sure how this works. G:IttHW says
> something about being born into caste and that's it, but I thought
> that
> was merely a Rokari interpretation.
Not *just* the Rokari, although they are the largest sect that supports this interpretation.
> As for Caste among the the Malkioni in general, it is always
> described
> differently, but we never here what they are basing this on. It
> seems to
> come from Malkion, which means regardless of book, there should be
> something about it in all the Malkioni texts.
There is - but not all the Malkioni texts agree with each other :)
>
> It
> seems some interpretations are that you are born into a caste and
> cannot
> change, which means magic is basically inherited.
Among the Rokari, yes.
>
> I personally like the idea that Malkion described something true -
> people were in one of these 4 categories - but didn't necessarily insist
> on caste travelling by inheritance and being unchangeable.
The operative word being "necessarily" :)
>
> I think a situation where the caste laws actually from Malkion are
> vague
> and open to interpretation the most interesting story wise. I'd
> include
> women there, with it unclear whether they are supposed to be treated
> as
> the caste of their father or brother or husband, or whether they
> outside the caste system entirely in a way.
The various Malkioni sects do argue about this sort of thing. A lot.
-- Trotsky Gamer and Skeptic ------------------------------------------------------ Trotsky's RPG website: http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ Not a Dead Communist: http://jrevell.blogspot.com/
Powered by hypermail