Argrathing on...

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 98 21:05 MET DST


>> Venharl ... still seems to have appeared in Greg's house campaign ...
>> around 1614...
>He did? I knew he rescued her at some point, but had no idea it was then.

"helped your friend Errol Silksword when she was lost in the cave" - that birth is fairly well documented, and which other cave would you think would be worth mentioning? Occam's Razor suggests that there is one cave incident where help would have been crucial, not a series of them. (But then the same reasoning speaks against multiple Argraths...)

>I was re-thinking my ideas on Venharl anyway, and this may fit nicely. We
>have Venharl as a wanderer, basically. We know he has at least one son in
>Pavis.

Arnbord... Who may have been a cover of Garrath, or a relative.

>Suppose he fathered young Garrath on some woman or other in Pavis,

Doubt it. I don't see why Garrath should have been born in Pavis.

>wandered around, came back to find she'd died and he was left with a son
>to take care of. Kids and adventuring don't mix. So he takes the brat
>down to Sartar and dumps him on his old friends Maniski and Yanioth,

Apart from Yanioth's role in this, there is the matter of Venharl's (alleged? real?) death when Garrath was a little kid.

>Garrath stays there until about 1602/3 when the Lunars kill M&Y, he
>kills a Lunar, and he runs back to Pavis.

I still disagree - strongly - with your statement that Yanioth was Maniski the Stickpicker's wife; IMO Yanioth was Argrath's natural wife, and for all I know Maniski the Stickpicker never could afford to marry.

And that Brenna as his mother "lead" is extremely dubious.

>The only hole left is where Garrath gets his supposed Sartar blood from.
>The main possibilities I can see are:
>1) he doesn't have any

Unlikely.

>2) the unknown mother (Brenna??)

Yanioth Two-Sight isn't exactly unknown, and serves well as his natural mother, especially since Maniski the Stickpicker is hardly a good match to any woman.

>3) Venharl - on the female side somewhere. As you point out yourself,
>there are lots of ways this could have happened.

Possible, but with Venharl as husband of Yanioth and Garrath as the son born to both of them it's easy.

>> ...Sartarite rebels ready to defend the Telmori against Jomes Wulf in
>> 1607. In 1621, of course, these warriors would be toothless old men, at
>> least 15 years out of their fighting prime...
>Not sure of the significance of 1621, but I can think of at least one who
>was probably present for 1607 and 1625. And I doubt if she was toothless
>or past it (ask Gunda).

IMO most of the veterans who had fought alongside the Telmori and _may_ have felt sympathy for brave brothers in arms and hatred for the Lunars were at least in their thirties (the last battles with Orlanthi Sartarites and Telmori fighting alongside were fought in 1602). Kallyr would have been among the younger participants in 1607.

>> IMO Kallyr's "local solution" to the Lunar threat was doomed to perish
>> within the generation.
>Shall I say it again? We have no idea what Kallyr's solution was, because
>our only source is CHDP. Possibly she thought Garrath's antics were
>pretty stupid, possibly she was using him and Aldachar as a buffer,
>possibly she was doing her own politics in the background. We don't know.
>Until we find the full version of Min. Blue's memoirs, we're not going to
>know. So criticising her for a lack of ideas is pretty poor logic.

I criticise Kallyr for lack of results against the Lunars. Especially in 1627...

Kallyr seems to want to sit out the problem with Lunar reprisals. Her victories against the invading Tarshites (only) were more a matter of luck than a matter of sound politics.

And you can't blame all the dissension in 1627 and following years on Garrath alone - even Densesros tells us that there were many warlords active in and around Sartar at that time.

>> instance, one has to unite all local powers against the outside
>> threat. A feat Argrath managed admirably
>You mean like in 1627? When he'd just won Sword Hill, and she *still* had more
>support than he did? 1625, when she united the tribes, and he had a few
>dozen rabble in Pavis? He was doing his best to DIS-unify Sartar - even
>CHDP admits it!

I doubt that that was his aim when he took away followers from Kallyr...

Garrath displayed astonishing prowess in putting together cohesive warbands from very diverse people. I'd say that his purpose was to unify all the powers standing against the Lunars, perhaps the only role he had already played at the liberation of Pavis where the active leaders were Argrath White Bull who led the nomads and Enostar Bad Dream who led the resistance inside the city.

>>> The promise to the Telmori was to help free them of
>>> their curse, wasn't it? Well, he did. Dead wolves aren't cursed.
>> That's not the way Sartar's promises turn out, IMO, which is why I
>> don't think this is a viable route of thought to follow IMG.
>I agree that it is not what Sartar would have wanted. Would this have
>stopped Garrath?

Such is the magic of Sartar, that it even affected distant successors. IMO at least.

Illuminating the Telmori:
>Simply killing them was too easy an answer.

Yes.

Better/more effective ruler: IMO an effective ruler is better than an idealistic but uneffective ruler. Otherwise Temertain would have been the pinnacle of Sartarite rulership...

Jeff Richard makes quite a lot of sense, too. As usual.


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