Flintnail has Stabilise Masonry, which is generally restricted to the Rock Mostali caste. Its obvious that the Flintnail cult uses Rock Mostali magics, not Quicksilver - I can't recall a reference to them using alchemy at all, while it is well documented that they are both masons and users of masonry related magics.
Apart from the obvious evidence in favour of the Flintnail cult being descended from Rock Mostali, might I just add that I don't understand the desire to conflate all famous Mostali in the dragon pass area into the same person? What evidence is there that Flintnail and Isidilian are the same other than a single rumour? While there is both a reasonable amount of evidence, and many good reasons why they are not likely to be the same person.
What evidence is there that Flintnail and Isidilian are the same person? I know of none, only rumour.
>it seems obvious that either:
>
>1) they know how to make other dwarsf; or
Much as humans know how to make other humans, you mean? While conventional Mostali society has an obsessive dislike and disgust of sex and perform it only out of 'duty' (obligatory comparisons to Victorians here), it is how dwarves reproduce nonetheless. I dare say quite a few of them are capable of working it out for themselves. I imagine the dwarves of the Flintnail cult have worked out the use of their 'mortars' and 'pestles' and produce dwarves in a surprisingly conventional manner. The idea that Mostali must be 'made' is a religious fiction, designed to conceal the disgust that Mostali feel that they themselves are created by Growing, not Making (we see here the insights into the self-loathing, common to most austere religions, that Mostali must feel at being of necessity Grown beings, not true Made beings like the true Mostali).
And as for dwarven immortality - I've always been a wee bit suspicious that there is slightly more to it. I think its quite possible that the Immortality that all non-apostate Mostali experience is quite possibly given a little magical helping hand, in the form of Immortality spells (the special requirement of the spell being strict adherence to the Mostali way, of course). The difference between apostasy and immortality then comes down to whether you are able to convince enough of those who know the Immortality techniques that you are OK, as long as you don't stray enough from the path that the spell is no longer castable.
Cheers
David
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