>To the Dara Happans, a man who has committed vicious and evil
>criminal acts at some point in his life really has very little hope of
>redemption,
This is very bleak. What ever happened to the concept of extirpation or purification of the bad deed? And Yelm got tossed into the Deepest Pits and yet he got out.
>but to the Lunars such a person can be forgiven if they follow
>the right path, which includes surviving the suffering of the 4th Hell as
>Danfive survived.
I think the manner of one's death also plays a large part of this. Personally I do not think the Lunars or the Dara Happans care about vicious and evil criminal acts as off themselves but what it does to their 'justice' (ie their incarnated stellar energies in Yuthuppaspeak). If one worships Shargash, then one goes to the Red Planet after death. Peasants worshipping Lodril are drawn down to his palace and so forth.
However if one commits a act which is hallowed to one of the Demons who dwell within the Hells, then one incarnates some Black Radiation and is drawn down towards the Underworld to suffer. For instance, ruling by Fear is Kazkurtum's Magic and so a Noble that ruled in such a manner would be dragged by demons after his death to the Sky of Dead Gods.
The Lunar principle is this as far as I can make out is that performance of these dark deeds _helps_ them get into Heaven. This does not mean that a Lunar has be an evil bastard (although some are undoubtedly are so for this reason) to reach Heaven but to gain enlightenment, one normally goes HeroQuesting in Hell and have bad things happen to them.
>>Personally I think the Lunars do not believe that Lodril's Underworld
>>is a part of Hell as Plentonius claims but that Hell begins at the
>>regions beneath Lodril's Palace.
>Remember the Dara Happans (and presumably the Lunars) use the term
>Hell to mean just about anything beneath their feet. Hell does not
>necessarily denote a place of suffering as we think of it, though to
>a Yelmite zealot anything beneath the ground is cut off from Yelms
>light and therefore suffering terribly even if they don't know it.
This Yelmite Zealot would have to be a Heretic and Raving Madman to boot. Yelm _spends_ half his time in Hell.
>So I think Hell begins just underneath their sandals. That is only
>the first Hell, of course. I thought it was the Fourth Hell that began in
>the regions underneath Lodrils Palace.
Plentonius said it was so. This does not mean that the Modern Lunars believe it to be so. They could have (like, y'know) clarified the picture. 'Mr P. was correct in his progression of the various underworlds but he was Politically Incorrect in describing the first three underworlds as Hells and he was ignorant as to what lay beyond the doors leading into Ershkintu'.
Tim Torres:
>COLORS: Works for me if I think of color magic as an independent magic
>system which might also be manipulated by cults. In my mind, the 5+0 colors
>represent spiritual vibrations which are qualitatively and quantitatively
>different. I guess in practice, it still ends up parallelling runic systems.
The parallel is unavoidable as the Color Magic was intended to be a comprehensive metaphor for the world by its inventors IMO. Saying that it parallels runic systems merely means that it is to the Vorumainen what the Runes were to the God Learners and their fellow travellers.
>She may even experiment and find herself progressing through
>experiences with "higher" colors until reaching the void (was
>it sapphire?).
It's really up to her what the final color is. The intention of the inventors was that White = Valzain was the color that should be aspired towards (they were Imperial Nobility). However since Color Magic is so piable in its interpretation, various doctrines have sprung up about What It Really Means including some really loopy ones IMO. Frex, an Aum 'Supreme Truth' like Cult which believes that Zaktirra is the Ultimate Principle and goes round trying to poison people is perfectly feasible.
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