On 25 May 2004 at 21:13, bethexton_at_... wrote:
> I'm not sure how familiar you are with the whole Sartar story arc.
> In rough terms, the lunars have been working ritually to "kill"
> orlanth for some time, and the fall of Whitewall fulfills the
> necessary conditions. At the same time, and somehow tied to this,
> they've been working on a new, more potent, Temple of the Reaching
> Moon (and when the empire comes up with a new and improved version of
> their ultimate weapon, you know how that will turn out in the
> end....), which will project the glowline for a 250 (IIRC) mile
> radius.
Sorry, I couldn't stop laughing at the Death Star reference. And yes, even I know what happens to the Temple a few years later. As with everything, I know virtually nothing of Gloranthan details. I understand the Empire wanting to Kill Orlanth (what with him being all rebel-like and all.) My understanding of Whitewall was that as both sides turn to greater magic and ritual and heroquesting (Especially experimental heroquesting) both sides end up making Whitewall mythically linked to Orlanth. This is a source of great power, but as has been mentioned, carries great risks. Once sufficiently cemented as representing Orlanth, then Whitewall's fall becomes Orlanth's fall.
> What ends up happening after teh fall of Whitewall is that within the
> area that teh the new temple is supposed to affect, it essentially
> becomes the Great Darkness. Orlanth is "dead" (i.e. in the
> underworld), and Ernalda is "sleeping" (part of the mythology of
> Ernalda is the whole predictable death/re-awakening type cycle of the
> seasons, expressed in "She isn't dead, just sleeping" expressing the
> confidence that she will wake again).
Mythically fair, although a game breaker for my Orlanthi characters if they aren't involved. :)
> Further, and potentially just as campaign disruptive, for followers
> of the storm tribe it becomes like the Great Darkness. It becomes
> the horrible cold winter, getting worse and worse until animals
> freeze where they stand. There is no wind (and in the rest of the
> world, all of the winds blow towards this region, then disapear).
> Storm tribe worshippers can't breathe well. All of these effects
> end, I think, after the Battle of Iceland.
For everyone? But only those in the battle get their magic back?
> Just to make it worse, this kicks in during harvest, and doesn't end
> until the next "harvest" time, meaning you get a partial crop, lose
> huge numbers of your herd animals, then get no crop the next year.
> Even without the loss of magic and killing cold, this would be a
> massive disaster. The effects on Esrolia have to be severe (they may
> have the food stores to survive it overall, but they aren't so used
> to winter, and in the cities there must be rocketing food prices,
> starvation, and incredible riotting), and my minds shuts down when I
> try to figure out how this would affect MirrorSea bay and the fishers
> and merfolk (do the sea deities keep the water warm? Or does it all
> freeze over?)
Shouldn't this depend on how far the effect goes? We've heard 250 miles in each direction, given that I almost never see a scale on a Gloranthan map, does that freeze the whole bay?
> One way to fudge it without dropping it altogether is to play with
> the duration. I don't think you'd have to make too many adjustments
> to have, in your game, the Battle of Iceland happen in Sea Season, so
> essentially you just have a long and especially severe winter. Given
> the episodic nature of many HQ games, you may be able to then just
> have one or two episodes during this period, if they aren't in
> Heortling territory--or even none at all. You could also rule that
> Ernaldan magic in Esrolia doesn't fail, reducing the impact there.
There's a question to be had there. Sure, Ernalda is linked to Orlanth as husband in Storm Pantheon minds, therefore his fall can be her sleep. But in Esrolia, isn't he but one of many husbands? Wouldn't which husband you stress as the primary link have some kind of effect here? (May be wandering over into digest territory here)
> If there are actual Orlanth worshippers, you could either decide that
> in your game their magic comes back after the battle of Iceland, or
> have them soon meet someone who was there that can help others
> recover their magic (don't know how the official recovery of magic
> works, but all that really matters is that after some time, magic
> works). Or you could just send them on a nice long sailing trip to
> the east or west around then....."You guys won't believe what
> happened while you were gone! It was the end of the world, but then
> it came back again!" "Doh, I guess that tops my story about being
> attacked by merpeople."
Merpeople attacks never top god'sdeath stories.
Like I said, I'll probably be aiming earlier in time anyway, and so won't have to worry about it. IT's just when I first skimmed it, OiD seemed to be saying that all Orlanthi charaters have no magic from 1621 on. Something I needed to know. As it stands now, Orlanthi not in the area of effect are safe, so I can play with that.
I presume, of course, that this leads to everyone uniting against the Empire? After all, if I'm Esrolia or God's Forgot or whoever in Holy Country, and the Lunar's succeed in destroying my environment, my economy, and in some cases my magic just to get at the rebels, any doubts I had that they are evil chaos incarnate goes out the window, no?
LC
> --Bryan
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