>Consider: the God Learners _started_ the EWF by freely distributing the
>teachings of Drolgrd. Later, they did not understand it, nor were they
>able to negate its magics.
I must interject here. The "God Learners" (the time was 570 ST when they had not even unified Jrustela - IMO the people referred to are Slontans) did understand Draconic Speech and Thinking. Several hundreds of them lost all memory and understanding of spoken Old Wyrmish in 1042 ST. What the God Learners were ignorant of IMO were secrets like Vistikos's Second Formula and the Waltzing and Hunting Bands. One could argue that the RuneQuest Sight prevented the God Learners from discovering these secrets on their own but I do not feel that Speaking Old Wyrmish was useless to the God Learners.
>IMO the increased insight which Illumination claims to confer would
>hamper the belief that Lodril is Turos is Solf is Baba Ulodra, and
>while it would hide these doubts to the cult concerned, the arrogant
>confidence which seems to be the hallmark of God Learners and Storm Bulls
>alike would have been gone.
Which seems incompatible with Lokaymadon's creation of the New Wind Cult of Orlanth and the Amalgam Deities in Dorastor (FS p77). Likewise the First Age Dara Happan viewpoint (cf GRoY) indicates that Illumination is the process where the Many can come into contact with the One.
>Was Illumination the only thing the cult of Nysalor offered?
>And was it to spread Illumination which the Bright Empire's missionaries
>sought in Seshnela, or was it to gain more people donate magical power
>to the leaders in Dorastor (which appears to be what Lokamayadon did with
>the Orlanthi - is there any reason to assume that he was the only Dorastan
>leader to do so?)
I don't see why making people donate more power to the leaders in Dorastor was an aim or mystery of the Nysalor Cult. For instance, centralising cult so that the worship confers power on a Big Leader is not a big mystery. The Dara Happans have managed it from scratch. Secondly the affairs of the Kingdom of Dari and Tanisor were independant of the Cult in Dorastor so I do not think that the citizens of those lands donated power to the Leaders in Dorastor.
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