Re: MoLaD

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 97 23:54 MET DST


Steven E. Barnes

>OK, something that has been bugging me for about 15 years:

>Why would anyone want to participate in the Masters of Luck and
>Death tourney?

Apart from the fact that the participants aren't really volunteers, but chosen from the Kethaelan populace by means only known to the Pharaoh (if at all), the tournament offers a unique opportunity to encounter, study, and harvest the magics of the Holy Country. There are many quite anonymous participants all over the country who get to test themselves as heroquesters, and those who return (I suppose there is a certain loss involved by those people making blatantly wrong decisions) are magically and personally strengthened by their experience. I believe that many of the leaders in the Holy Country (though far from all of them) participated in the Tournament. I am as certain as I can be without an official source saying so that all recently apotheosized Kethaelans (Sartar, Dormal) had participated, and had done well enough to _almost_ win the Tournament.

>The big prize is that the Pharaoh gets to take over
>your body.

>And what happens to the losers? Since the contest
>has "Death" in its title, I would assume the penalty for failure is
>harsh...

Blatant failure: surely. However, as I envision the tournament, there are many participants who do the supporting cast, i.e. populate the magical Holy Country just being themselves and representing their personal and cultural part of the Holy Country. A lot of them will participate in the "qualification round", and some of them will enter the further tests. IMO the individual tournament experiences follow Campbell's "The Adventure of the Hero" in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" quite closely, although the various stages may deviate in certain ways.

"The Call to Adventure" will be a personal experience for each quester. I tried (and continue to try, soon more) to write up such an experience in my Freca Tales (the relevant part available at: http://www.toppoint.de/~joe/freca1.html or http://www.toppoint.de/~joe/Freca1.html; our server is case-sensitive and I cannot remember whether I used upper case or not)

Those who fail to enter the real tournament ("Refusal of the Call", and no re-thinking) may stick around as landscape or supporters for a while, but usually will wake up with a strange memory, and a sense of loss.

Those who enter the Tournament will experience some very personal moments mixed with matters close to the heart of Belintar's realm. I might produce a couple of new fragments of Freca's experience soonish, as I recently had a boost of inspiration.

>I guess there are promises of spiritual rewards, but it sounds like
>a con game to me. Many of the most "qualified" might not want to
>participate (unless gullibility is one of the qualities the Pharaoh is
>looking for)

IMO there will be some kind of final round, after all the obstacle have been overcome by the best of the questers, and after some very real loss of questers, where the participants are led before the assembly of the Pharaoh(s), after returning from the Goddess. They all have managed the proof versus the Father (IMO a mixture of their very personal experiences, their cultural and religious experiences and expectations, and a confrontation with the Pharaoh), and now it is time to receive the Ultimate Boon.

Campbell's list of stages in the Initiation (the second, real part of the quest) goes:

  1. The Road of Trials: the sieving of the fittest characters. Lots of threshold, "traditional heroquesting" (i.e. close to "Super-RuneQuest"-style HQing) stuff.
  2. The Meeting with the Goddess: This is essential for the aim of the TotMoLaD. Only those participants who become one with the land, and get the blessing of the goddess, can obviously enter the finals. This will be less the personal, Freudian stuff, and more aimed at the sovereignty aspect of the quest.
  3. Woman as the Temptress: IMO a minor stage in the TotMoLaD. (Also, I am far from convinced that all the participants in the Tournament are male, or human. Whoever wins will be physically altered, IMO.) However, remember that the Goddess in question is Esrola, i.e. Asrelia in all three/six of her aspects. "Our Lady who Giveth and Taketh", i.e. the Luck aspect, will be tested here. IMO a preparatory stage of:
  4. Atonement with the Father: the questers have to prove themselves before the Pharaoh.

Campbell goes on with

5. Apotheosis

and

6. The Ultimate Boon.

In my view of the TotMoLaD, these steps occur in reverse order, i.e. first there will be the boons to be received, and the apotheosis will only be granted to the final victor of the tournament.

The questers will receive a choice, or a set of choices, which defines the nature of their boon. Many will go for the meaningless (personal enhancement, for instance) and may get that, with all its drawbacks, a few will see further and make the right choices. These will include the most powerful questers, and they will have to decide when to decline and take the lesser boon - if they want to decline. Heroes with a purpose, like Sartar and Dormal, will have gone very high in this high-stake gamble to come out second, though I suppose many questers will want to remain in the magical version of the Holy Country where everything is more intense.

The return from the quest will be a last threshold for the "losers", in which they will have to overcome the drawback of the boon they have chosen. People who fail in this stage become part of the transcendental side of the City of Wonders IMO. They join some shift of servants, or so - I'll have to work on this a bit, input greatly appreciated. Those who do return, and keep (all of) their elixir, are destined to greatness. Again, I cite both Sartar and Dormal.

The victor _will_ remain in the magical version of the Holy Country, and he will receive a "land grant" there to do with it as he wants. Imagine you're offered your own star without all the duties attached to it by the normal way!

I am not sure whether the winner of the tournament remains free of obligations to the Pharaoh. This seems to be the case when Belintar disappears, but we have no idea where to Belintar disappears. He might well be trapped in a Lunar paradise (for a change - why must it alway be Lunar hells?), and that would also be the last place any rescue party would look. (At its worst, the acting Pharaoh is sent to where the winners of previous tournaments have gone, and enjoys his reward, somehow having forgotten that there was a country to rule.)

IMG there is a sizeable subcult of Humakt in the Holy Country that is big into the Masters of Luck and Death thing. The winners of the Tournament _might_ be approachable as einheriar of this special subcult... Another approach might be through Asrelia's Blessed Fields, as detailed by Erik. But this is just optional, they might as well have lost all ties to the mundane world.


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