My apologies if this appears again, but I fear it may have previously turned into one of those mysterious
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false posts that have appeared to blight us on the Digest of late. Anyway, here's what I said (again). This is all to do with Jane William's thought-provoking question about the Sun Dome Coup of 1613.
This has all arisen from Jane William's post about the events of 1613 in Sun County (the circumstances of Solanthos Ironpike becoming Count). It's got me thinking about stuff in the book and drawing links I never thought existed from all over the place!
Believe it or not, my version of events, which I described as prosaic and pedestrian but which Ian Gorlick saw fit to call gritty and 'film noir', and Peter Metcalf's brilliantly loopy version are gradually coalescing into a coherent whole.
It now feels to me that we are like historians writing about the same events from two entirely different perspectives, one, the gritty political realist, the other the religious/philosophical. The real story probably lies betwixt the two...
Meanwhile, we've got some really cool stuff from Jane Williams too, but she is reluctant to post it here NOT because she is afraid people will scorn her ideas any longer, but because she doesn't want her players getting in on the plot before they play through it (her game is set in 1597, by the way).
Anyway, enough of intros, here's some stuff I've burbled up about the Light Captain of the Sun Dome, Invictus:
As you can read in Sun County, Invictus the Light Captain of the Sun Dome divorces his wife Vega, of the influential Goldbreath family. Soon after, some might say indecently soon, he marries her twin sister Penta*. Jane, Peter and I have pretty much fixed on the idea that this took place in 1613.
In my theory, posted recently, he divorces her at a critical moment in the crisis which saw Solanthos Ironpike and his isolationist policy come to the fore at the Sun Dome, at the expense of the pro-Lunar Varthanis II who found himself packed off to a retirement tower. This all occurs during Starbrow's Rebellion, when Lunar attention is diverted elsewhere.
Vega Goldbreath had begun her climb to the top in the relatively liberal period of Lunar influence over Sun County (1610-1613); so too during this time had Invictus won the rank of Light Captain. Valuing his rank more than his marriage, Invictus voluntarily took upon himself the geas "Love only Earth Cultists" divorcing his potentially embarrassing wife. He adroitly switched sides, bringing the Sun Dome Templars over with him and so, despite his associations with the previous regime and his friendship with the Lunars, was confirmed in his status as Light Captain by the new count, Solanthos, who began instituting an isolationist policy, purging the county of corrupting Lunar influences.
But why did Invictus marry Penta, Vega's sister?
Up to this point was she still unmarried, an old maid, virtually on the shelf at 26, despite being from an influential and powerful family and presumably being quite attractive (given her twin sister is listed as APP 16)?
My first thought is just so Invictus can keep in good with the Goldbreath family and the Count, as Penta is a traditional Sun Dome gal, but this still doesn't explain why she was unmarried in the first place (maybe she has a lousy personality?) Obviously, there's more to it!
Here's some loopy ideas, forming in brain as I write: The Count, Solanthos, is unmarried. Was Penta promised to him? We all know, that is *suspect*, the Count has, shall we say, *other* interests (cf. Promidius in Melisande's Hand), which is why Yelmalio has gradually saddled him up with all the celibacy geases over the years. Maybe despite the betrothal, he kept putting the wedding day off OR maybe they WERE in fact married, but in sensational circumstances Penta got a divorce on the grounds that it was never consummated and - rumoured to be up the duff thanks to Invictus - she went off and married him. He's newly divorced too, remember. But though this explains why she was unmarried at 26, such actions are more likely to enrage Solanthos than curry his favour, which is what Invictus rather desperately needed to do at the time...
Hmmm, maybe Solanthos wanted to get his bethrothed/wife Penta off his hands for some reason, and Invictus stepped in and offered to help? That would make Sol well-disposed to Invictus. Ideas welcome!
*The marriage actually took place the day following his divorce from her
sister. Some people whisper that Penta was in fact pregnant to him *before*
they married; certainly her twins were born at a time at the very bounds of
decency afterward (two big bouncy babes, born say the Gloranthan equivalent to
six months later).
Here's a few others bits 'n pieces about the time of the coup, which may be of
interest:
The High Priest during all of this is Perimides the Chaste (Sun County, p.11). His deputy, the Light Keeper, was Kariel the Pure until Solanthos's coup, when he was packed off to Pavis. Gaumata the Strange, one of Solanthos's leading conspirators, took his post. I imagine Perimides as a sort of Deng Xiou Ping type character, held in reverential awe by everyone, and too popular and too well-entrenched to be removed, yet so old and so virtually non compos mentis that all his talking is done through the Light Keeper and he only appears at important ceremonies. That he appears at Harpoon, in public, and talks to PC adventurer scum as described in the scenario in River of Cradles is utter bollocks - I told 'em so at the time but it didn't get changed. Substitute either the Light Guide or the Light Keeper instead).
Hmmm, what was Laertes Coatilon's role in the coup of 1613? He's the Light Guide, who directs internal affairs of the County. In Sun County he is described as a pro-Lunar, though of unquestioned loyalty to the County. I leave it to Peter to give this dude some mythico-religious angle to his stance, but I suggest he realises that the Sun Dome economy is now dependent on the Lunars (salt monopoly, grain exports, Hazia?) and Solanthos's policy of isolation will only bring about economic collapse. Hence his push for closer trade ties with the Lunars and possibly breaking the exclusive little club of Lokarnos traders who have traditionally handled Sun Dome's imports/exports, but who are no longer up to the task.
Further ideas welcome!
Cheers
MOB
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #91
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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