> Why does Vayobi's name tingle the tongue?
Vayobi is the Cunning Linguist who "standardized a new speech, taking the best of the old dialects and discarding anything inappropriate". Wouldn't _your_ tongue be tingling? (An Orlanthi might say, "Obviously a description of a Speaking Magical effect...")
> Why to mendicant monks turn gold to lead, and silver to gold?
Likely some sort of Spiritual Lesson is intended. Either that, or they're just 'aving ay larf... Sorry, no specifics.
> Why did Daruda change a circle of life to a circle of Dragonpower?
The rulers of Kralorela have been, since the beginning of the Cosmos, Dragons. However, they seem to have experienced Draconic Devolution, to the point where #3, #4, and certainly False #5 basically weren't.
Daruda, who seems to have been a student of NiangMaoism, possibly of NiangMao himself, or perhaps one of his immediate followers was a hard-core mystics who went right to the cusp of being Liberated from the Cosmos, which had been his intent, but was touched by the plight of the world, and instead remanifested back inside the world, taking the form of a humungous dragon. Indeed, he was the New Ancestral Dragon, which yes, is almost as oxymoronic as it sounds.
A belief that this is some sort of RetCon, and that Daruda invented draconicism out of whole cloth, or nicked hsunchen techniques to do so, clearly that's some misunderstanding brought about by the superficial understandings of the False Dragon's Ring.
> What do extraordinarily fair feminine Legalists get up to?
They Legalise, extraordinarily fairly?
> Who are the enemies of Kralorela?
Kralorela pretty much ignores the rest of the world, though some parts it ignores it more hostilely than others, from time to time. Mainly their neighbours, the Kingdom of Ignorance, the Trowjang amazons, and the Fethlon embyli. Vormain is an ancient enemy, or at least the nearest thing it has to a rival. For example, each has on at least one occassion tried to invade the other, with pretty much equal lack of success on either part. This aspect isn't too topical, though, since the Closing means they can only shake fists at each other across about 500 miles of Kahar's Sea of Fog. (Which is a nasty and scary place, btw, which may contribute to the low invasion success rate...)
The two also have an ancient history (or mythology) in common, having both been part of Abzerad. (See Myth of the Month, passim.)
> What RW books/films/tv would give a flavour of Kralori daily life/adventurous
> life?
> (I'm thinking Water Margin? Monkey? War Lords by Sima Qian? Bridge of Birds by
> Barry Hughart? )
Not familiar with War Lords. Otherwise: Yes, yes, and very much yes!, respectively...
Slan,
Alex.
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