Last Convulsion I asked in the Lore Auction what it is that makes a stellar body a moon. I got no answer, only the reply that that was a good question, and Sandy's opinion that it had something to do with phases. I'll ask the same question again, now Greg had 2 years to meditate on the nature of moons...
In reply to Peter Metcalfe(?):
>>What's to
>>stop Yelm or Shargash being made a Moon by this argument?
> The Lunars don't believe it. Both Yelm and Shargash have other
>parts within their religion. If you want to make Yelm or Shargash 'moons',
>then start your own lunar religion - just expect it to encounter some
>opposition, both magical and mundane, from the existing one.
I'm not that sure about the Lunars disbelieving the moon nature of Shargash entirely. Shargash is associated with the red wandering celestial body elsewhere known as Tol or Tolat. In some very early writing of Greg there were two moons mentioned named Tol and Arta, in the meantime known as Southpath Planets.
As for Yelm - some peoples believe that he originated as a moon (or other stellar body) suffering from uncurable hubris. Check the Entekosiad for the Goddesses' mistake.
> NB - the Annilla writeup appears to be an attempt to squash at
>least two, probably three or more, different blue moon cults that had
>little to do with each other into one.
Like the various sun cults as well?
Which different cults? Do you think there is a strong Artmali influence in the TG writeup? I agree about the importance of the Blue Moon Plateau trolls' believes in that piece, but there seem to be some informations from the Good Giants' ancestral cult as well, and probably a few influences from the (extinct?) Blue People of western Pelanda.
> So thats it. I think the 'moons' of the east islanders may not
>necessarily all be 'moons' by the Dara Happans definition (i.e. some of
>them may be what the Dara Happans call planets), and some of them may not
>actually appear in the sky of mundane world (i.e. they appear in dreams),
>but I don't know much about them anyway, so if Nils or Sandy cares to
>correct me I'll happily agree.
>I am pretty unclear about the Black Moon - I
>have heard the theory that there is a black moon, though, which orbits the
>Red Moon, and is the reason it has phases (it is invisible to normal folk,
>but gives off black moonlight, which only affects moon material).
I have heard that that was the Black Sun, once, which was said to be why the trolls aren't fanatical anti-Lunar.
The Black Moon theory makes some sense.
Another mind-boggling theory: The red Lunar glow is not a form of light. Someone (Nick?) once claimed that Darkness was just the absence of Light, and seemed somewhat to agree with my reasoning that Moonglow was just the absence of Darkness, thus the absence of an absence, not a real thing.
>If it
>does exist, I am sure the Lunars just think it is another part of the Red
>Goddess, which she must capture and make part of herself again, before she
>is perfect once more (ie the White Moon will not have phases).
If the White Moon has no phases, why do you call it a moon? Wouldn't it be just another lower celestial sphere like the triple spheres above the Dara Happan Tripolis' greatest ziggurats? Shining day and night, though in the day easily outshone by Yelm?
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