wrote:
>&>The second one I came up with was Betrayal, which would combine Truth >&>and Illusion, but I never did get a rune I liked out of it.
I replied:
>& . . . >& Why not: \ / or | ? >& . | . / \ >& .
> It looked like a fancy combination of Light and Truth rather
> than Illusion and Truth. (But then, maybe that means that
> Solanthos et al in Sun County are all closet Krarshti....)
Er, Light is the circle isn't it? Or have I been gregged by Lords of Terror? (I don't have it yet).
Curtis Shenton:
wrote:
>>> The Red Emperor is made up of several beings who live on the Moon,
I said:
>> Should be 'was', here. TakenEgi disappeared, presumed dead, after loosing >> the Mad Sultanate of Tork. Before the Egi could resummon him, they were all >> set upon and slain by Sheng Seleris.
To which he replied:
>All? I thought only some of the Egi had been slain by Sheng. From >reading both the fortunate succession and bits on the digest I got the >impression there were now mortal Egi as well as the remaining originals >who are immortal.
True, but the Lunars, eager to counteract the impression that the Current Red Emperor is not the same as TakenEgi say that the Masks are all United with the Soul of Antirius. Given that this is true of just about Every Emperor since Khordavu, this is tantamount to admitting yes the masks are not TakenEgi. Given that this is the best truth they could come up with I don't have much hope of survival for the original Egi.
Furthermore, look on the plus side of the Emperors being all different. It enhances the ability of the Emperor to act politically. Take the example of Emperor Robustus plundering the tombs of the Eel-Ariash clan after they pissed him off. Do you really think that when he laid the original goods, he 'had planned, then, to come and recover it now. Although he told no-one of this plan in the old days, he had really done it for future investemnt...he did not need to explain imperial policy to anybody but his mother and the Egi'. This sort of thing would not happen if the original Egi were still alive and contributing to the conciousness of the Emperor.
>The way i see it the Emperor "dies" and is reborn during a change over >in the mortal Egi.
So how did Harrek amost others manage to effect a change in the mask of the Red Emperor?
>I wonder if they have Dart Wars on the Moon?
Probably do. The way I see it is that a clan pledges to make a HeroQuest to replace one of the Egi slain by Sheng Seleris. The proto-Egi confronts a terrible demon who was of the [insert enemy clan name here] born during the time of their craven submission to Sheng Seleris. After the successful defeat of the enemy demon, the questor becomes one of the Egi. The fact that an opposing clan has actually _lost_ an Egi is not a material fact...
IMO, the Egi don't actually fight amongst themselves. That would be ... detrimental to the Lunar way. What they do try to do is subtely influence the Magics of the Red Emperor to cause him to make a decision favouring their clan or withold their magics at an opportune time so that the Emperor accidentally perishes and a more favourable Emperor can actually be selected.
For example:
Red Emperor: My Mother! The White Bear has the Strength of Ten Moonchasers!
Egi! To Me! Smite thou this abomination with My Mothers Holy
Light now!
Rebellious Egi: The Wind howls and drowns out Thy Divine Voice. Could thy
August Radiance, Prince of Princes please repeat the Sacred
Command?
Red Emperor: Thedding Bastards! I'll get you for th....[splat!]
This presents a more lively Lunar Empire to my mind as the Emperor is constantly looking over his sholder for Byzantine intriuges rather than carrying out a coherent philosophy of World Domination instead of the group hero you suggest. Although the Egi and the Red Emperor can still communciate mentally/spiritually/whatever, The Egi cannot really directly influence the Emperor.
>>>Which came first, Arkat or the people trying to be Arkat?
>> I really think Arkat was a single person. Troll Gods contains an >> Eyewitness testimony which distinguishes Arkat from the People >> trying to emulate him. Ditto for the Red Goddess and the Lightbringers.
>Well first of all Arkat became a troll very late in the wars. The group >could have had plenty of time to HeroQuest to 'make' Arkat.
Who 'made' Arkat? The Brithini? The Seshnegi? Why did Arkat betray the people who made him? 'Arkat is a group hero' tells us nothing.
>In fact as I >see it at least some of Arkat's companions went on the Lightbringer >Quest with Harmast in order to find/rescue/create Arkat.
Which didn't happen until 425 ST whereas the Vampire Kings of Tanisor shat bricks every time they heard his name some twenty five years earlier.
>Assuming you
>buy the whole idea that group of Egi=Red Emperor, 7 mothers=Red Goddess.
Look, I'm not saying the idea is dumb, in fact it exists in Glorantha to some extent, the Wyters of various units being a prime example. What I dislike is that the Red Emperor, Arkat et al. are made of the joint consciousness of the Egi/Lightbringers Ring etc. That makes them more likely to be boring (like the 'Judas' contributing the trait for betrayal in Arkat would be drowned out by his other supporters).
Nils Weinander:
>Are there any published encounter tables for the Gloranthan seas? >Has anyone made their own lists?
The closest I can see is Sea Princes of the Purple Towns which is a Stormbringer Supplement. You may wish to brouse through that for ideas.
Alison Place:
Wrote an interesting article but I won't quibble with much save for:
>I know that there are supposedly cultures on Earth that claim not to have >figured out that males are essential, but I believe that closer examination >usually shows this to be a polite fiction. (Got any better info, John >Hughes?). They're in the minority now, anyway.
AFAIK This mainly occurs among the non-pastoral hunter-gatherers. When sheep etc are domesticated, the Herders who usually happen to be male begin to notice a correlation between the time the ram services the ewes etc and the lambing season. The human brain was suuficiently intelligent then to make the connection between the sheeps cycle of reproduction and his own activities with the missus and her productivity thereby.
>The pairs are not >merely God Learner constructs, despite Peter Metcalfe's and Greybeard's >assertions to the contrary.
I didn't mean to assert the 'opposed pairs' were GL constructs just merely say that we don't have to take the GL's word on what the realtionship of the runes with each other are as the absolute truth.
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