>Me>Yet Pelorians see all humans as having seven different parts
> >(Mind, Body, Life, Fire, Shadow, Beast and Great Self), so
> >is it too much to suggest that the Red Emperor changes a few
> >of these parts around between incarnations or that he borrows
> >some of those parts from someone else? We are even told
> >that Magnificus differed from TakenEgi in five of those
> >parts.
>Yes, and the Lunars see all humans having seven soul parts or six
>and one potential. However, you summed up my concerns with the
>phrase "all humans", Greg has explicitly stated that the Emperor
>is a demigod and he has defined demigods as being no-human deities
>within the mortal sphere who can act outside the compromise.
Yet Yelm has six parts, the Goddess has seven parts, Dendara has parts and even the Emperor _as_ _I_ _just_ _pointed_ _out_ is recognized as having parts! If you're going to deny that demigods have parts, then you need a much stronger reed than a bland generic comment about Demigods and the compromise.
>Yes, I liked [Nephilim] and the concept. I don't know how to apply
>iy to the RE though, or even if it is an apt comparison.
Not even to the extent of equating [Great Self] with the Nephilim and the body etc. as the simularca. Yes, the fit is not perfect (nor even fruitful beyond a rough parallel) but it does show that Greg's statement of the Emperors' Singularity isn't a procrustean framework that you think it is.
> >But the Emperor does not have Dozkalos's Body now.
>No, but that body was destroyed by Sheng
There's a gardener in Kralorela who disagrees.
>Perhaps his body was given to him by a willing noble and this
>started a tradition of this kind of thing, but I mentioned
>this before on the digest and the response was that it was
>similar to the Pharoah and was a big yawn. So that's out.
That's not the many bodies hypothesis that Nick et al. were suggesting. You suggested a watered down version of this as a compromise and that was rightly dismissed as being too similar to the pharaoh.
> >Really? I thought it was Moonson assuming the form of a noble
> >who completed the rituals.
>Looked like the same noble to me, before and after - Julan.
A mere surface perception.
> >You should realize that the FS presents a Dara Happan spin on
> >things and is not the whole truth. I believe the Lunars would
> >view things differently.
>The parts on the various masks were written in the lunar period
>and have many places that show DHs in a bad light. I think the
>spin is Lunar.
If it's written as a continuation of a Dara Happan list that also puts Dara Happans in a bad light from time to time. Further indications of the Dara Happan spin are:
>However, this is the only source I have for working on the RE
>that goes into any depth and I am trying to use only what it
>says literally as fact, before I start putting spins on it.
Comparing it with the Lunar Wane Chronicle shows serious amounts of spin.
> >Since the Emperor has Seven Parts, the two parts that are
> >the same could easily be his Seventh (Rashoranic) Self and
> >his Antirius self.
>Possibly. But it doesn't say which, so that would be speculation.
No, Martin, it is interpolation. The Antirius self is the part that confers Emperorship and so the Emperor would be bound to have that. The Rashoranic part is the TakenEgi portion and he wouldn't be the Red Emperor if he didn't have that.
> >>For someone who appeared at a ritual in a small city (and had
> >>witnesses to the fact) [Artifex] seems pretty darn tough to be
> >>just a local lord making good.
> >Since Constantine appeared in York, Vesapian in Judea,
> >Elagabalus in Syria, I don't see why he should have to
> >be a "local lord".
>Constantine didn't "appear" in York, he was _in_ York and decided
>to seize the purple.
Constantine's example is however an excellent rebuttal to your claim that Artifex by appearing in a two-bit Darjiinian town would be a "local lord" if the many bodies hypothesis was true.
>There is a big difference in my mind between "appearing"
>somewhere and being there to begin with.
And for a Dara Happan writing how the Masks are really all the same, he would be obliged to point out that the Red Emperor "appears" there, wouldn't he?
>The literal interpretation is that he wasn't there before,
>then he was.
That's nice, but I do recall that I happen to be pointing out that the document is really the Dara Happan interpretation.
> >And Lyndon Johnson took his oath on office aboard an airplane
> >flying from Dallas to Washington. The exact place in the
> >sky where he took his oath is otherwise insignificant even
> >to this day.
>I don't see your point here. The Emperor appeared in Ebon city,
>which is out of the way.
And Celestinus could have been travelling from point A to point B when he heard the news in the vicinity of Ebon City.
>Unlike the LARP, the Emp did not gain the throne via a ritual in
>Glamour or any other major center of noble or military support.
Neither did LBJ gain the presidency in Washington or any other historically or politically significant place, which is normal procedure for American presidents.
>This in itself is odd for an Emperor supposedly created by using
>the body of a noble, supported by a noble faction.
Yes, it is odd. But it is only one example in nine, it could have been due to unusual circumstances and does not refute that the Emperor can be created through the LARP method.
> >>There is no mention of past history,
> >Of course there wouldn't be. These are the Dara Happans
> >writing who deny the Darjiinian theory that there are
> >different Emperors.
>I asked Greg - "Have you any ideas for a mechanic for players
>becoming the Mask of the Emperor" and Greg said - :"Read FS and
>see if you can find any direct references to the Emperor having
>a life before he appeared." I did, and have found none that are
>direct.
Which merely means that Greg intends it to be ambiguous or veiled in secrecy, which the ToTRM#16 writeup also did do. It's not as if everybody in the Empire knows the exact rituals of how a new Mask is determined.
> >Would the Darjiinians believe that
> >the Masks have a previous history, considering they deny
> >that they are all the same?
>I don't know, there are really no sources on this other than that
>paragraph you quoted.
Well, you are the Expert, so why don't you ask Greg and find out? And try and avoid the bilocation neologism as it is plainly not what the Darjiinians are talking about.
> >So you can in fact recognize the Red Emperor easily?
>It would seem he is relatively easy to recognise, yes.
The examples I quoted show that this is not so.
> >It's strange that the Dara Happans could not do so for both
> >Magnificus and Artifex.
>Magnificus came back leading Carmanians, he was also claiming to
>be Emperor to a bunch of DHs who had been under Sheng and seen
>no signs of the RE for years.
Nevertheless they _checked_ and found that "five of his parts were not the same", i.e. they had a pretty good idea of who the Red Emperor should be.
>They were competing for power in
>their own right. It says they acknowledged him as Son of the Moon
>but not Red Emperor. He was claiming to be Emperor before he was
>tested and this they refuted.
I like it when Martin insists on literal interpretations to rule out interpretations that he doesn't like yet freely indulges in spin interpretation to shore up his
> >Artifex could only be accepted after he began rescuing souls from the
> >Nights of Horrors.
>I think that give that almost all the highest members of the Empire
>died at NoH, there was bound to be confusion and a loss of knowledge.
And how do you reconcile this with "It would seem [the Red Emperor] is relatively easy to recognise, yes."?
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