Recently some disasters assailed me in the personal field: two close friends are suffering severe romance problems and I am the shoulder to cry on; my contractor is trying to cheat me out of $6000; my landscaper absconded with over $1000 and didn't finish my yard, which meant that the condos south of me got mud in their living rooms for which they are talking about suing me; and tornadoes came howling practically through my yard, which rendered me a nervous wreck Wednesday (tornado) night. And I still have all the difficulties of everyday life common to anyone having five kids and a full-time job. All these problems are temporary, and will be resolved (well, not the five kids and full-time job, I hope), but in the meantime I realize that my writing has become more acidic than usual. I ask those whom I've offended to give me a break, and I promise to be a nice guy again some day. Thanks.
Now, on to something completely different.
Graeme Lindsell and myself have been discussing some Kralori and Lunar Empire topics, and I now wish to share some of our insights with the Digest. Note that Graeme gets at _least_ as much credit as me for these insights. Probably more.
Purely military changes would presumably have been retained by the Pentans even after the Nights of Horror. But after all their shamans were killed, the idea of massed shamans would be a tough one to come up with again (after all, for a century or two, the shamans were thinly spread to administer to all the population -- it simply wasn't possible to mass them). We don't know who came up with the massed firepower theory of the lunars, and yet we know that in their early (pre-Sheng) battles, the credit for their successes is always given to their use of Chaos. Maybe this is true. Maybe they didn't adopt the massed magicians till Sheng showed 'em how. I think this makes a lot of sense. Maybe now they don't need the heavy-duty Chaos stuff. Except they will in the future (KoS: Monster Empire), when Argrath, after adopting their technique, becomes as dangerous as they are, militarily. So they need to revert to Chaos to save themselves.
2) KRALORELA VS. THE LUNAR PHILOSOPHY: Both of these empires are based on a magic structure. Unlike the barbarians and Westerners, who seem to concentrate their magic in temples or heroes (i.e., concentrating the worship of society), the Lunars and Kralori are doing something different. And here's what (in my opinion).
The Lunars receive their power from on high. The Goddess dispenses the Lunar Glow, she provides the Bat, she gives her strength to the Seven Mothers and the other gods, and Nysalor grants Illumination to all who seek it. The Red Emperor uses his power to rule the tax demons and through them the various governors, etc. etc. The entire basis of the Lunar Empire is rule from the top down. Dissent is, of course, suppressed (though subtly). Differing philosophies are gradually absorbed and subverted, transformed into slightly different faces of the Lunar Way. The Lunar Way is the dream of minimaxers, because all aspects of it are aimed at providing the recipient with benefits. Why is Seven Mothers the best cult in Cults of Prax? Because that's the way the Lunars designed it.
On the other hand, the Kralorelans receive _their_ power from the bottom up. The peasants worship through the Mandarins, which is channeled to the Exarchs, who provide power to Godunya, making him probably the single most magically-powerful mortal on the face of the earth. The peasants worship their hero cults, or city gods, or Rice Mother, or whoever, and thus the Rice Mother is empowered to give her blessings. It is quite normal, even expected, for a person's worship to provide him with no direct benefits. Look at the Path of Immanent Mastery, possibly the lamest cult in all GoG, or Godunya, which provides essentially _nothing_ to its initiates. Differing philosophies, and dissent, are tolerated, to the extent that they do not harm existing institutions. The Path of Immanent Mastery folk don't worship Godunya, but are not persecuted. The Kingdom of Ignorance is still steeped in weirdness, but this is not only tolerated, but the Exarch of this territory is _himself_ stark raving mad, and is not replaced! This would not happen among the Lunars.
Godunya's legitimacy is based on the fact that he is worshiped. The Red Emperor is worshiped based on the fact that he is legitimate. It's not just a semantic difference.
3) DRAGON MAGIC AND KRALORELA: Graeme suggests that the influx of Dragon Magic under Daruda may have actually been an invasion by dragonewts, their allies, and dragon hsunchen, this invasion's nature being later masked in the Kralorelan writings. I think this is not only possible, but probable, and wonder how many other pre-time emperors represent such "changings of the guard."
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