Orlanth Holds His Breath?

From: Hughes, John (NAT) <"Hughes,>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 11:34:06 +1100


Heys Folks

Andrew:

> If Orlanth was imprisoned after the fall of Whitewall, does
>that mean he wasn't available for Divination, Divine Intervention, and
>powering Rune magic?

This is a question, like that of the truth and identity of the Five Returning Arkats, where I think any definitive 'top down' answer divorced from the daily life of your characters totally buggers up a whole lot of the fun.

Take my Far Point campaign: yes the wind has died, few winds blow and the crops are starting to fail. And yes, I play that Orlanthi Rune magics are fading. Fading fast: unreliable, and increasingly unattainable. Most of the godis and Wind Lords are dead. No one can say what is happening. More and more tribesfolk are abandoning the Lord of the Air for other gods whose worship doesn't carry the constant threat of getting your throat cut.

For player characters, this uncertainty is very real. Is their God weakened? Is the Moon triumphant? But what is the reason? It might be:

  1. The Lord has been imprisoned by Nysalora and her minions. He is weakened, wounded, dying.
  2. Orlanth is punishing the clan for abandoning his ways.
  3. Orlanth is strengthening and testing his faithful before the Great Storm.
  4. the most desperate, the most poetic, the most hopeful explanation comes from Braggi Afraid of the Dark. If you are about to blow hard, he says, you breathe in deep. You *hold your breath for a moment.* Then you blooooow! Orlanth is merely drawing in breath, holding it, waiting to unleash the Hurricane of Change. It's the Calm Before The Storm.

Certainly Far Point history records other times when the winds failed to blow, sometimes for years at a time. No one suggested then that the Lord was imprisoned. Its just the way of the winds, constantly changing, never predictable.

Dramatically its the darkest time of the night. The Lagerwater Orlanthi cling defiantly to Orlanthi worship at great cost and for increasingly small return. Harvar Ironfist has triumphed, the Yelmalion tribal king is demanding the most humiliating kind of tribute (hundreds of live insects and snakes and crawling creatures), the clan ring is about to change to a Yelmalion model, news from Sartar says that Whitewall has fallen, the Vingan Cradledaughter has left the stead in disgust, and the another round of kinstrife is threatening to bring yet more bloodshead and ruin upon the entire clan. People guess, people argue, people prophesy and apostacise and look longingly to cults where the magic is more reliable.

What hope in the darkness? What solace in prophecy or stories of Black Thunderbird or Starbrow or rebels in Prax, when all around you is bleeding in hunger and disarray? What hope in heroes?

It's uncertain. There are no answers. It's *great*.

Come the Hurricane.

Cheers

John 

nysalor_at_primus.com.au                           John Hughes
nysalor_at_yahoo.com
johnp.hughes_at_dva.gov.au      

I will make incursions / throught the fertile land of Ireland my battalions all in arms / my amazons beside me (not just to steal a bull / not over beasts this battle - but for an honour price / a thousand times more precious - my dignity!
I will make fierce incursions.

"Medb Speaks", Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill.

Powered by hypermail