Re: Gregged again! Cragspider this time....

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_timellis.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 14:21:33 +0000


In Digest 441 , Mike Cule writes
>
>He's done it to me again...
>
>From UZ LORE: Book two of Trollpak.
>
>p20 THE SECOND AGE:
>
>The trolls lost strength after the Gbaji wars which could not be
>replaced except through the greatest efforts. In the whole of the five
>centuries only one troll came close to making that effort, though
>hundreds of them heroquested to try for it. That one was Cragspider, a
>dark troll who started in the spider cult and worked her way to deity.
>
>Well, bugger it! In my Glorantha she's a Hero. It's more glorious that
>way.

Is it a Gregging, or just an un-Sandying? According to my WB&RM (2nd ed. 1976)

"Cragspider The Firewitch was a lady of definite non-human origin. Even the Dragons were not sure of her ancestry, for she lived in her mountain long before they were hatched" ... "Trolls were counted among her followers ... A Dragon, marked darker than its sibs, is also a permanent ally of Cragspider's, bound by favours she did for it before Time ever began" (P39)

and later in the Miscellanea "The Empire of the Wyrm's Friends" pp51-52

" The second of these foes was the Duchy of the Blue Moon, far to the North. This region had never been planned by the Soul Arranger, who had been seduced away from his work by a masterful witch nymph later called Cragspider. The void left in the region was filled during the Great Night by a race of nether creatures who were the children of the Blue Moon, an unborn deity decaying in it's mothers bowels."

All this suggests that Cragspider was not a Dark Troll Hero, or not "just" a Dark Troll Hero, at any rate. We could postulate that a Dark Troll Heroquestor has re-discovered the lost (pre-)Dawn Age Darkness Nymph, and is manifesting it's power, and allowing it to incarnate in her body, making the Creature you might meet today above Skyfall Lake both a Dark Troll Hero and an ancient Demi-god.

The Blue Moon Empire bit sounds intriguing as well. Who are/were the "nether creatures" who were "governed by shrouded priests ... spreading the Lunar Doctrine as a secret path to wisdom"? I know that there are Troll's living on the Blue Moon Plateau, and presumably they arrived there during the Great Night, when they fled Yelm's presence in Wonderhome - Does this passage refer to them, or do/did they co-exist with another race (one of Glorantha's many blue people that I can never get straight...?). Either way, Cragspider's part in providing them with a home probably means that she has some sort of following there as well as in Dagori Inkarth...

On an unrelated matter, it was only while checking through the WB&RM and Nomad Gods Rulebooks to find where this was mentioned that I discovered the Origin of Tada - he of the High Tumulus and Grisly Portions... Sadly, another part of Glorantha that we would loose if we excised all the parts named after those who helped Greg explore it in the early days....

End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #444

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