Sartar is known to have had access to dwarven secrets. Try taking a look at the Flintnail cult, in Pavis. It's a cult of dwarven and human masons, working in conjunction with a city founded with Sartarite rituals. Not the same, no, but it may well give some strong hints.
Magic v. tech: Boldhome's walls were apparently raised overnight. Sounds like magic to me. (OTOH, we're told that Merlin built Stonehenge overnight - - stories have been known to change over the years.) Still, Boldhome's a modern city. There probably wasn't that much exaggeration.
It's been suggested that Sartar had access to earth powers, quite apart from the dwarf links. Compare with the Building Wall?
Another suggestion has been that Sartar came from an Aeolian Orlanthi area, and used sorcery. His habit of changing people into other things is then mastery of Shapechange (as a result of the Movement rune). Could some of his tricks with stone be to do with Form/Set spells?
I agree with you that Sartar the Mason is a sub-cult of Sartar (other sub-cults being Sartar the Ancestor, and Geo). I suspect he's got a Mint link as well: he seems to have actually introduced paper currency, not just coinage. Any guesses about the Flame? Do we have Sartar/Quivin, as well, as a volcano/fire spirit?
As soon as we link masons and magic, I start thinking of the early "history" (much of it unproven to my mind) of the Freemasons. It might be worth reading up about them, if you haven't already.
Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.ukhttp://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/index.shtml
Powered by hypermail