Pameltelan Orlanthi heroes and British school boys

From: Jeff Richard <jrichard_at_cnw.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 16:37:56 -0800


As the new year approaches it seems folk are getting testy. I'm not going to touch "Tal Meta" or Peter Maranci's comments with a twenty-foot pole (or a forty-foot one for that matter), except to say that, golly, we Seattleites seem to be able to run a pretty spiffy series of games nearly every week.

Rather I wanted to address to comments of the mighty Mr. Bell. First, regarding the use of sylphs to fly from Umathela (or wherever) to Kerofin:

>Rather easy, actually... Sylphs. A bound Sylph of large enough size could
>take someone over the sea for the arduous journey.

That would be a pretty damn impressive feat. Sounds like the origin of pretty cool hero-cult "we follow the great hero Snog the Flier, who summoned a host of Umbroli to carry him to the edge of the world to the great sacred Spike, who came back with new secrets." Or something like that. I doubt it is routinely done.

> Or, failing that, a Divine Intervention to Mastakos or ORlanth could
"allow us to reach our
>storm-worshipping brethren in Pamaltela."

I'm afraid most Dragon Pass Heortlings (not to mention Ralians) would say, "Pamel-what?"

>I've always seen Orlanth as more of a trans-cultural God than most,
anyway, and a major reason for the
>conflict between The Red Goddess and Orlanth may well be the fact that the
Lord of Winds is as close
>to a universal deity as Genertela may have, along with Ernalda and the
Invisible God, a role that Rulfelza >wants for herself.

I really don't think so. In my opinion, Orlanth and the Red Goddess are both CULTURAL deities. Look, the folk of Kestineddi, Kralorela, and all the other places not heavily influenced by the great "Orlanthi" confederations of the First and Second ages could care less about the big O. They have their own air/storm gods and they seem to do just fine, thank you very much.

Finally, Nick rants about evil folk who are trying to eliminate all traces of the Yelmalio cult. I agree - how dare folk try to get rid of that vegetable cult! As the foremost foe of Yelmalio, even I understand and sympathize with Nick's nostalgic fondness for the "British school-boys" cult in Sun County.

Jeff


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