> To make matters worse, I am not personally convinced that the trollish brain is susceptible to Illumination at all. I think their grounding in darkness and disorder protects them from being broken that way - or their fundamental simplicity prevents them from attaining that degree of "enlightened awareness." I suspect that resistance to illumination might have been part of why Arkat had to become a Troll to attain his victory - as a human, he could not have resisted Nysalor's corruption long enough to bring him to final battle.
I don't think that's true at all, your next point is more on the mark.
> For trolls, I think that "Mystical Insight" comes from Darkness. Subere is their goddess of "the unknowable" and "secrets mortals cannot comprehend." For trolls, the great transcendent mystery is the darkness untouched by light, from which everything that is, was or could yet become, emerges. Heat and Light are just enemy powers, not sources of secret wisdom.
Good stuff, though I think the unknowable primal goddess of the darkness before all and from whom all proceeds, Nakala, is most likely the focus of mystical contemplation. The fact that Nakala doesn't appear to have an active cult is if anything confirmation that 'she' (actualy I think we should say 'it') is a mystical being beyond worship through the normal animist, theist or sorcerous means.
Simon Hibbs
Powered by hypermail