Watchdog and God Learners

From: Peter Metcalfe <P.Metcalfe_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 11:55:43 +1200


Thomas Doniol-Valcroze:

>I don't think I quite understand the Watchdog of Corflu...
>The only thing I could find about it was in RoC, and it was pretty
>unclear to me.
>Would anyone be nice enough to explain it to me?

There is a picture of the Watchdog in the original Pavis Boxed Set. It was a partial reconstruction of a Jrusteli magic statue. Although huge, it only has a head, an upper part of the torso and two arms. It walks about on its arms. It is called the Watchdog because the Lunars use it to guard Corflu against the invaders from the sea.

Chris Lemens:


>There has been lots of discussion of the interrelations of Yelm, Yelmalio,
>Elmal, and Lightfore (and their various varieties). Perhaps the unification
>of the sun gods was another incomplete GL project.

The chief problem with this is that the God Learners could only affect the cults in the areas they control. Since Elmal and Yelm were outside their sphere of influence, the God Learners can do little to unify all the gloranthan sun gods under their banner.

What they did do was to fuse all the Solar Cults in the areas that they controlled into one solar cult, Ehilm. But unification also took place in other areas : Yelm in Peloria is the best example.

> "Ernalda" seems awfully far spread for an earth mother figure.

She isn't. She's only strong in South-central genertela. She is known in Ralios but Ralia eclipses her. She is also known in South Peloria, but Oria is the earth mother figure in the rest of the basin.

>I see nothing that I could chalk up to the GLs for water and earth.

In water, they were hugely successful. Wachaza, for example, was originally a God Learner War diety and every mer-race today knows of him. Wachaza even replaced Magasta (who had been spread by the Waertagi) as the King of the Sea Gods after the Battle of Tanian's Victory, but was demoted after confused political wrangling during the Fireberg crisis.

For earth, they were content to have just one earth goddess for each land they controlled (ie Seshna for Seshnela, Ralia for Ralios etc). They could have attempted to make one earth goddess to for the whole of their dominions but I think this would have been politically unacceptable in most regions - the Emperor would have loved it, but the Lord of the World's Knowlege, the Archduke of Slontos, the Grand Vizier of the Soul Pearl, the King of Nomia etc would have all hated it as it would have eroded their authority.

>Perhaps they had similar projects to unify
>the shamanistic deities geographically (e.g. that dude who challenges
>shamans to be is all over the place) and with non-shamanistic pantheons
>(e.g. trickster and raven).

I don't think the God Learners cared much about Shamanic dieties except as raw materials for their experiments. One God Learner did attempt to unify Eurmal but the experiment was a complete disaster.

>One question is what was their ultimate goal?

The usual, peace and happiness for everybody in the world. Under their firm hand, of course. If there was a hidden purpose to their machinations, no record of it has survived.

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