A valid point. I'm sure if I had time I could come up with a good justification for why nothing else would do in the last few centuries.
One possibility is that the God Learner changes to the magical ecology caused some change which also prevented the Giants from creating a guardian properly out of anything they have had in the meantime. This is weak, I know, but I still prefer multiple guardians.
It could also be that other things might have worked, but that the Closing of the Oceans had affected the giants as well. Once the Closing was broken, the giants took a moment or two to make sure things looked OK (keeping in mind that "a moment or two" to an Elder Giant could easily be 60 years). Or, it might take 60 years to make a giant baby, and the newly-resurrected Gold Wheel Dancer was the handiest thing to use.
Though I admit this is also weak -- the fact that Pinchining wsa resurrected sometime after 1611, but was still used as the guardian a mere ten years later, implies a link between the giants and the GWD's.
However, I still dislike having the GWD's as the sole possible guardian of a Cradle -- ultimately, my best argument is that it just does not _feel_ right to me, or at least there is some major component missing from the calculation. I am still stuck with the statement that GWD's were extinct by the end of the First Age. Unless -- my memory is tickling me, is there an alternate source which mentions the Second Age in connection with the GWD's? Nick, Peter, anyone?
Nick Brooke:
>Nice parallel between Cwim and the Gold Wheel Dancers, BTW: now we
>have to work out who it was that "merged" the Giant Baby and his
>"pilot" into this monstrous chaotic form...
Damn, I can't believe I didn't make the connection, since I suggested both of the components (my Cwim suggestion came at about the same time as Nick's). Yes, this is too close a parallel not to be true, and another good reason for the sunken Cradle at the Sunstop.
And as to the source of their merger, really, any major chaotic force would work. And since chaos was probably stronger in Prax in the Dawn Ages (as opposed to the Wastes, where it has always been strong), there are a lot of possibilities. Perhaps the GWD sought aid for its charge at a local oasis, and met Thed instead? Cwim is said to be the child of Thed, after all.
David Cake
>According to the RQ Rules, its more like Gods have hordes of Spell
>spirits that attend them and flow from them, that can be summoned by the
>Spell Teaching magic. Of course, many religions will consider these
spell
>spirits to be small parts of the god that flow to his worshippers.
Others
>might not.
As this is more a game mechanic than a Gloranthan description, I don't think it is something we have to hold to. My personal belief about Divine cults granting "Spirit Magic" is that they don't -- they teach minor Blessings to their cultists, which work for them as well as their Divine Magic does. None of this POWx5 stuff, I give them a straight 95% chance of success, like Divine Magic. For simplicity's sake, we can use identical spell descriptions and mechanics to describe a Spirit Spell-learned Bladesharp and the Bless Sword spell the Humakti Sword teaches his initiates.
I think that what RQ describes as "Spriti Magic" is actually a more general Common Magic, which serves as the basis of Low Sorcery and other less powerful magic systems. It is a magic based in the difference between animals and humans, and gods. All "Form Rune" creatures have the capability to use this magic, and the exact religious background they have determines how this manifests itself. If their religious background is Malkioni, this is expressed primarily as Low Sorcery. Which must be learned as a Skill, used to cast any of the specific spells known.
Mixing occurs when the individual comes from a mixed religious tradition - -- the Orlanthi have both strong shamanic and strong Divine backgrounds, and so they are familiar with both forms, and can even learn both at the same time! but, when a Humakti learns Disrupt from a shaman, he is stuck at POWx5%, because he expects that the spirit's magic is not as powerful as the god's.
I like this because it leads to peasants in the West with a Low Sorcery skill of 25% sneaking into the woods to learn Bladesharp/Plowsharp from a heathen shaman at POWx5%, probably better than 25%. Just don't let the priest catch you using this heathen magic, and make sure to confess before you die. :)
Weekly Digest
I would prefer that articles NOT be posted directly to the Weekly -- the
point of the Weekly, as I understand it, is to offer an alternative forum
for people to "get the good stuff" out of the Digest (not that the
discussion is bad, of course, it's just a phrase). Posting directly to
the Weekly would mean that people who read the daily Digest would have to
closely watch the Weekly for new material they have never read.
Also, I don't know what the legalities or general etiquettes are, but I personally think that articles from the Digest should not be placed on Web Pages without permission of the poster. Archiving them with a link is cool, but excerpting stuff is not cool, IMO. Not that this is what people are suggesting, it's just that the mention of permission by Doyle got me thinking.
Trotsky
>OTOH, he [Lightfore] is the 'timekeeper', which could well suggest
>his period was the same pre-Darkness as it is in present times.
Well, Greg's current idea is that Lokarnos has a different period now than he did before the Second Age. Per discussions with him, in The Book of Drastic Resolutions: Volume Prax I reported that Lokarnos originally had a period of 14 days -- 7 in the sky, 7 in the Underworld, making him the marker of the 7-day Theyalan week.
Towards the end of the Second Age (in 952) he began to slow, probably as a result of EWF tampering. Eventually, his speed stabalized again (in 1042), at its current and much-longer period. Finally, in 1051 he leaped across the sky at one point, but then continued on with his current speed. This last was probably not caused by the EWF.
This could all change, but Greg seems to really want Lokarnos to be the orignal Timekeeper in the sense that his movement created the most common week.
Based upon this, my belief is that the Doraddi 6-day week is based upon the movements of the Twinstars, which have a six-day period (3 in the sky, 3 in the Underworld).
Stephen Martin
ilium_at_juno.com
- -----------------------------------------------The Book of Drastic Resolutions
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