Argrath and Orlanth's Ring

From: Nick Brooke <100270.337_at_compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 03:52:41 -0500



Steven muses on Argrath and Orlanth's Ring. I guess it must be a case of "great minds think alike," 'cos his story is very similar to one I told Greg a couple of years back, when working on the Ephemeris. Or maybe that's where the crossover in ideas comes from.

The most important part of the disruption IMHO was that Argrath's participants moved their Ring through the Lunar-priestly Stars at "very greatly accelerated speed" (Steve's words). Normally, Orlanth's Ring cannot be seen moving against the background of the Sky Dome (except to Mostali, Buserians, or other folk with a perverse sense of time and motion): it rotates at exactly the same speed as the rest of the Dome, and gradually moves upwards towards the centre as it does so, taking a week to cover the distance between Stormgate and Polaris. But Argrath's Ring visibly "cut their spiral design across the dance": ergo, they were rushing it, and thereby created in the stellar mirror on Earth which the Lunars had provided that very change they desired to see in the heavens above.

As Lunar philosophers say, "The Mortal World is a reflection of the Eternal World, and vice versa. The Mystical World, then, may be seen as a mirror. But on which side do we stand?"

(+1% Illumination to anyone who reads this far).

> I think Argrath made a permanent change in the heavens. After this event,
> Orlanth's Ring was no longer gone for a week after entering the Pole Star
> Gate. Orlanth had been freed, and now he rose each week, disappeared,
> then rose again almost immediately.

Possible. But is there a necessary connection between Orlanth's Ring disappearing and Orlanth the god not "being free"? Did the Ring perhaps not disappear at some prior point in history?



Phil writes:

> Habitual eating of human flesh could result in transformation into an
ogre, and
> eventually the stat gains as well, as the cannibal becomes more than
human.

Certainly true, and the Cannibal Cult gives us some mechanisms to abuse when working out how to do this. But I think it's a gradual process, not: "Plane crash in the Andes, and you survived? You're an Ogre now, so your stats have gone up!"



Nick

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