some more timely musings

From: Peter Metcalfe <P.Metcalfe_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 18:10:15 +1200


Reposting as it appears not to have made it the first time around

Philip Hibbs:


>Before Time, there was no cause and effect, but there was Power and
>effect. In order to truly achieve something, a Power had to be invoked,
>such as Death being used on Yelm.

Invoking a Power is still a cause. However people did not 'Invoke Powers' in the Good Old Days. For example in The Orlanthi Sword Story, Grandfather Mortal and Humakt are clearly ignorant of nature of the Sword. Yet Grandfather Mortal still gets killed. Hence cause and effect existed before Time.

Frank Rafaelsen:


I said that 10% of the Ralian Telmori are pure because

Me>> No outsider distinguishes between them IMO and
>> so since the Werewolfs have a survival advantage, the number of
>> Pure ones remains small.
 

>I'm not sure I agree with this. Even though they are pretty hard to kill,
>I can't imagine that goin raving mad once a week is going to be an
>survival advantage. They do after all lose most of their intellect, and
>start acting bestial. A serious disadvantage if their enemies knows it
>(The pure ones for instance)

They do not go raving mad once a week, they turn into magical wolves. Wolves are still pretty smart despite being bestial. And although the Pure Ones 'know it', they are not enemies of the Cursed Ones and do not seek to exterminate them as the Safelstrans and Orlanthi do. Why should they? It is the not-wolves who seek to destroy the Pure Ones and their totems. In fact, the Pure Ones probably even help out their Cursed Kin on raids upon not-wolf settlements.

Yes, one can attempt to split the Pure Ones from the Cursed Ones but I don't think that anybody in Safelster has even thought of this considering they are unaware of the distinction. I would leave this sort of thing up to the PC's to discover.

>And after having chequed with Dorastor loD I saw
>that the Ralian Telmori was characterised as pure ones. This is becuse
>most of them never followed Nysalor, and therefor never got the curse.

It says that the Pure Ones are descended from the Ralian Telmori who never recieved Nysalor's blessing. But they were enemies of Nysalor (having fought the World Council at Zebrawood) and so did not fare very well during Nysalor's time and few survive. There are Cursed Ones in Ralios as Arkat is noted to have sacked the City of the Wolves and thus in the slow rebuild of Telmori population, the Cursed Ones have the advantage.

Carl Fink:


SP>>All this postulates that life after the Dawn was more or less similar to
>>life before the Dawn . . .

>This is a very dangerous assumption, although the Brithini, Mostali,
>and some Dara Happans would agree . . . but the Aldryami, Uz,
>Theyalans, etc. would not.

Considering that the Elves of Dinal are so ignorant that 'many of the beings do not know of the beginning of Time, and believe themselves  still to be in the Gods Age', I don't think the lack of acknowlegement of linear time then by Elves in general is solid proof.

The Uz would reckon the destruction of Wombtime from the entry of Death into Hell rather than the Dawn. As for the Theyalans, they do mention 10 nobles and 294 commoners in the Emperor's Godtime Court. Where did the number of commoners come from?

I think Saravan's assumption is pretty safe...

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