Richard:
> Whither the cult of Caladra and Aurelion, which used to have both the Earth and Fire or Fire/Sky runes?
It's a funny cult, Richard, and I'd just make the following comments:
- To my immediate recollection, the major recent [sic] write-ups [Cults Compendium; Tales #7] gave them Heat rather than Fire, as a function of the Twins' heritage (Veskarthan). A problem is that 'heat' is a pretty unenthralling word in the English language, so 'fire' can be favoured for its poetic value in writing. And distinctions between the two have often been somewhat loose.
- Though often described as a 'Fire and Earth' cult, IMO I'd suggest that their most important runic association is Harmony. This sometimes gets forgotten, but I find its elements (and products, as in Unisonance) the most interesting in the cult's make-up, and not simply in the wedding of two (often disparate) elements.
- It is a God Learner-authored cult and fairly peculiar one. Indeed, through much of its published history the cult's (secret) conceit was that it was a product of (ultimately) 'good', well-intentioned God Learnerism; a God Learner experiment that worked and survived the cataclysms that affected much of their world. Subsquent writings have tended to diminish this aspect, more through accident than design.
I'm hesitant to try and categorise it within the ideas presented in this discussion. But if I did, I'd suggest that it'd tend to sidle towards the 'Exception That Proves the Rule' door. Whatever the question...
Stew.