Upon the Funeral for the Outside World.
>I wonder what parts of the world will remain within the emperor's
>transition - Ignorance, Fethlon?
>
>Will the land of Kralorela (not just the people) be transited to
>Vithela, or beyond to draconic bliss?
IMO the Funeral of the Outside World was a result of domestic economic pressures. I feel Kralorela has a currency of indulgences/hell banknotes where citizens by doing their duty could be officially rewarded for remission of evil deeds. These are actually bribes to the demons and officials who run the Underworld to make the dead person's existance more pleasant and perhaps even help him enter the Palace of Excellent Reward. Perhaps the God Learners introduced this system.
These notes will be used as inducements to ensure compliance with the governmental authorities. A farmer who remits his grain to the state granaries on time will be rewarded with these notes. To use them, he then burns them in a ceremony. He could also burn them on a behalf of an ancestor or relative to ensure his wellbeing in the underworld. Mandarins are exempt from this because they are assured of the Palace of Excellent Reward on death (which helps to prevent official abuses).
This system is of late breaking down as the notes are running out of kilter with the official currency. As the coinage becomes debased, the Hell notes are being preferred to legal tender. This has debased Kralori society as a result: Assasins are being paid in Hell notes at such a rate that their wickedness is forgiven leaving a tidy sum of money left over.
To restore morality to the Land of Splendor, the Government has decided to publically burn this year's production of Hell notes (in the funeral for the Outside World) to drive up their value in relation to the official coinage, thus forcing the public to use legal tender once again.
NW>>Then again, that's not an altogether desirable route, to judge
>>by the example of Brithos...
>How so? As far as we know Brithos has transited into Solace (or
>something similar, a state of absolute logic) very much like the
>City of Malkonwal did during the Darkness (I Fought We Won?).
It's claimed by the Sorcerers of Arolanit who have no proof. Even then the Brithini don't believe in Solace and already live lives of Pure Logic.
Sandy Petersen:
Some synthesis may be possible between Sandy's theory and the ideas of Greg as reported by Stephen. I just remembered that Sandy felt that the reason why Yanoor had to flee the God Learners was that he had renounced some powers that Shang-Hsa had wielded when he became Emperor. This may be why there was no 'proper' Dragon Emperor between the Sunstop and Godunya's accension. Naturally when Godunya was enthroned Emperor, the Exarchs decided they had made a mistake and therefore invested Godunya with the powers that Yanoor had renounced.
>>Thus the Kralori do have an afterlife. How to reconcile this with the
>>Palace of Excellent Reward mentioned in GoG (and the mass suicide
>>following Yanoor's flight) is interesting but I won't pursue it in this
>>post.
> To elucidate. The Kralori afterlife is as follows (for most
>Kralori -- there are exceptions, of course): upon death, the soul goes
>to Vithela, the Land of Dawn, where it awaits the Emperor's Passing On.
>When the Emperor dies, all the souls who died during his reign move
>ahead with him to the next stage of existence. This "next stage" was
>equated with the Malkioni Solace by the God-Learners. The Kralori do
>_not_ believe that this is the end, though -- they say that eventually
>everyone passes on to yet _another_ stage of existence past that, and
>then another, and so forth, an eternal progression. This is why there
>was the mass suicide at Yanoor's Passing -- it looked like there would
>never be another emperor, and so if you died, you'd be stuck in Vithela
>for always, unable to advance and progress. So they killed themselves in
>hopes that their souls would "catch the last train" to heaven, so to
>speak.
Here I must obey my primal urges and brutally punch holes in the above. It is clear from the quoted passage about Thalurzni that people can and do return from Vithela. I do not believe the Palace of Excellent Reward to be in Vithela for the Tortured Dead plague Kralorela and not the East Isles.
What I believe the Kralori afterlife to be like is this:
When a Kralori dies and if he is good enough to be admitted to the Palace in Kralorela (those who fail are sent to hell and then reincarnated) then he waits there in the blessed shadow of the Emperor. When the Emperor passes on, he and his hanger-ons Go East to Vithela and reside in a Heavenly Kingdom there. Thus one can travel and find the lands of Thalurzni, Daruda, Vayobi and all the other myriad Emperors (although where Shang-Hsa, Yanoor and the False Emperors reside, no-one knows). The older an Emperor is, the more difficult it is to reach his lands. No one has ever returned from Aether's lands.
Commerce and embassies of a sort travel between the Kingdoms and in the old days magificent embassies in Barges of Gold travelled from the Heavenly Kingdoms to Kralorela. This was halted by the Closing which was why the New Dragon's Ring concealed the fact. Nowadays at every Sacred Time, the Imperial Fleet sends a opulent barge filled to the brim with tribute and crewed by the devout eastwards in the hope of contacting the Heavenly Kingdoms and telling them that the Seas are now Open. Some ships have returned without success, some have been plundered by pirates and others have never returned. A suitable Kralori HQ would be to travel on the one of these ships and successfully reach Vithela. The real heroism lies in returning.
I do feel that some citizens of the Heavenly Kingdoms do decide to visit Kralorela for occult reasons and incarnate as Holy Men and such like.
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