Me>>Look at the spells of the Flintnail Cult. It's solely concerned
>>with masonry and cutting stone. How does a Quicksilver come to
>>teach these magics? I think the identification of Flintnail with
>>Isidilian to be spurious on these grounds alone.
>These spells (Shape Metal, Mold Rock, Animate Warrior of "Stone") do not
>seem, to me, to be Rock Mostali secrets -- they seem to be generic
>dwarf-type spells.
I note Stephen fails to mention Support. The nearest equivalent of this is the Rock Caste enchantment Stablize Masonry. Of course 'each caste has its own spells, and each dwarf is taught only those spells necessary to the performance of his job' ES p23.
>After all, I think that any well-taught dwarf would be
>able to deal with _basic_ aspects of the other castes -- to be a proper
>alchemist, you have to have a working knowledge of minerals, be able to
>cut gems to the right shape, etc.
Which contradicts the behaviour of Dwarves depicted in Elder Secrets. They are more likely to be bred for one task and one task only which is true even for the openhandists in the Elder Secrets scenario.
>In addition, as an Ancient Mostali, I find it entirely possible that
>Isidilian the Quicksilver Mostali had some rock dwarfs, gold dwarfs, etc
>with him, to help carve up the statue.
All of which depends on Isidilian being Flintnail which is unproven at best and highly doubtful IMO.
>So, even discounting the fact that Isidilian is firmly in print as a
>Quicksilver Mostali, and that the evidence for him being Flintnail is
>quite strong, [...]
Really. Flintnail teaches magic appropiate to the _rock_ caste. Isidilian is a _quicksilver_ mostali. There is no alchemy taught by the RQ2 cult writeup. So what is this other 'strong' evidence besides the rumour in the Flintnail Cult Writeup?
>I don't see the Divine spells of an aberrant cult of dwarf
>apostates a barrier to his being the originator of the cult. Hell, it
>could have been something of a joke on his part.
Why would the originator damn his creations to oblivion and never give them a chance to experience the World Machine through Diamondhood?
>>Furthermore, if
>>the Flintnail mostali were apostate, most of them would be dead over
>>the six-hundred plus years and there are apparently no other dwarves
>>other than the masons.
>I don't understand this comment. It is stated in a couple of places in
>print that the dwarfs at Pavis are apostate.
No. It is stated that they are _considered_ apostate by nearly all other dwarfs according to the Flintnail Cult writup. Now with the knowledge of Elder Secrets and Different Worlds, we can see that their error is merely Openhandism which is not apostacy as such.
This leaves their supposed Rune Magic. This proves nothing with respect to apostacy as a) there were no sorcery rules in RQ2 and b) the Greatway Dwarves in Griffin Mountain were given spirit and rune magic.
>This means, by definition, that they do age, and they do die.
And Ginkizzie has been king of Dwarftown since Dorasor arrived (in 1550 ST) and had been distressed at the sight of riff-raff founding Badside (in 1490 ST). That's over 100 years of rule which is stretching it for an apostate mostali.
>Certainly the dwarfs there are not
>immortal like most dwarfs, that has been fairly well established.
When and where?
Powered by hypermail