Re: Digest Number 1575

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_...>
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 09:35:04 +0100 (CET)


Peter:
>>> I daresay it's impossible (or very difficult) for women to >>> worship Esrolia.
>>I'm sorry, but I don't understand your comment. I don't see
>>anything in the Esrolia homeland pages about worshipping Esrolia
>>either. Could you amplify for the sake of a newbie?

> The Esrolians do worship Esrola under the incarnations of
> Esra (farmer deity) and related goddesses listed in Thunder
> Rebels p179. Why I am suggesting that the Praxian Sartarites
> don't worship Esrola is that in Prax, the bountiful aspect of
> the earth (Esrola) is dead and that only Eiritha survives.

I'd rather give Esrola ceremonies a "hostile" modifier.

The aspect that has died (or at least not reawakened) was some part of the Great Earth Spirit worshipped at the Paps. The Fourty-Eight Old Ones - the agricultural spirits of the Oasis People - still reside at the Paps. They are unwell, but not quite dead. They work fine at the Oases.

For the Sartarite farmers, this means they worship a goddess outside of her domain, which could result in weakened or more difficult magic. To them, the 48 Old Ones are not an alternative - too weak to compensate for their alienness.

It also remains open to debate how much of Prax was devastated by Chaos, and how much of the chaparral conditions were created by the Golden Age survivors when they unleashed Oakfed on the Redwood savannah. (Note that the Orgorvaltes from Roundstone may have had a hand in this, too...)

The Dead Place is a special case - indirectly devastated by Wakboth, when Eiritha transferred Storm Bull's death to the land he lay on, and the single hex of Dead Place in the western Good Place probably was a direct victim to Chaos. Places ravaged by the Chaos Herd act as temporary Dead Place in the (inappropriately named ;-)) boardgame Nomad Gods.

Most of Prax is actually quite fertile as long as the seasonal rains fall reliably. Only the Storm Bull desert winds upset the fertility and make the land ideal for the beast riders.

Powered by hypermail