Re: Kalikos and the Icebreaker Quest - Original Greg Document of Kalikos Gender

From: Alison Place <alison_place_at_...>
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 06:28:09 -0800 (PST)

Thank you very much for looking that up, Scott. A bit of haziness in the sources always helps spice things up. So, now we have a Godtime god's son performing the Quest, and a Time-bound mortal (presumably now a Lunar Immortal) woman doing it. A bit of mix-and-match gets pretty easy at that point.    

  Alison

swhitebull swhitebull_at_...

• In HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com, Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...> wrote:
  >
  >
  > --- "Oliver D. Bernuetz" <bernuetz_at_...> wrote:
  > > The last bit of the story now has its own
  > > post which of course is the first one on the page.
  > >
  > > http://www.mythinglinks.blog.ca You can click on
  > > Kalikos in the tags list for both parts.
  >
  > Thanks - that is a *VERY* good story.
  >
  > BTW, next one down has a broken link. The "http" bit
  > on the front got doubled. The page and site at the
  > other end does still exist, honest!
  >
  > Its been a while since Ive posted on the RQ and HQ boards, though I
  get all the emails of what's being posted.

I've been cleaning up my office and going thru all of my old files that Greg had sent me mid '80s and beyond. I came across a photocopy of an evolving document that he had sent me, which you might find of interest.

I recall reading about Kalikos as the deity was first written up - definitely a FEMALE in Greg's early writeups. Pretty conclusive; Greg refers to Kalikos as "her", such as "Kalikos and her cult..." in this writeup, twice, but clearly female. So as was I cleaning up my files, I found the following (I have an eidetic memory for useless stuff, so I knew what to look for, just had to find it).

This is taken from Greg's "The Hero Wars: A Gloranthan Encyclopedia", dated 12/12/80. Master Copy 290 pp. and comes from section 1.A.1.p2. The Land of Peloria. His own writing is "Master Copy, 12/12 80 290 pp"

Attached is the text that I typed up from the photocopy to get it into your hands (following Greg's typos, btw), and I will convert it to a PDF as soon as I can so you can see the original pages, and the writing on the first page is in Greg's handwriting. As far as I'm concerned, its pretty conclusive as to the sex of Kalikos.

Enjoy

Scott

Here it is:

LUNAR EMPIRE IN THE EIGHTH WANE (E8W) pp. 1

I. Geography
A. THE LAND OF PELORIA
1. CLIMATE

[Leaving off the first page, which discussed the general climate of Peloria – the relevant material regarding Kalikos is here, which I am highlighting; I'm also leaving in Greg's typos!!!]

In the Fifth Wane a great effort was made to combat the biting storms of Valind.
An arduous ritual was begun and carried through wherein Valind was forced into alliances with his Stormy family. This was accomplished by raising temples dedicated to the yet unknown Conquerer of Winter which contained shrines to the heroes who had defeated the many relatives of Valind who had already been conquered. The Storm sprits were glad for the opportunity to get together, combinging the strengths they hoped. Valind was glad to have many such allies, gloating over his leadership over a band of beaten and outlawed storm spirits. The Ice-Smasher Temple was eager for the challenge and confident in the execution.

In [blank, I assume it was for a date] the first of the wouldbe  heroes of the cult went forth with a band of companions to invade the Wintery realm and challenge Valind. The leader of the party was Kalikos Highpower who returned that time with a magical ice crystal which, ever since, has been the object of Valind's primary attack. That way the temple became the focus of Valind's wrath and spared many distant regions from the random altercations of the blustry god.

Kalikos Highpower led six other expeditions and then retired as the first of the cult Heroes. The cult is now generally known as the Cult of Kalikos Ice-Smasher the spirit who is also the Smasher of Winter.

Kalikos and her cult were not, nor are always, successful in their combats with Winter. Some were failures, such as the time Kalikos lost all her friends and was saved only by an unexpected frined among foes. Likewise since then the Storm has mustered some surprise to cast at the cult which might cover the land with drifts or ice storms for a few successive winters. But the severity has not been any worse than that in the last hundred years.

This noticeable increase in warmth has been on e of the secrets of

the goddess' ascent to power in the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx land 

qwhich had proved so difficult previously. The increased seasons has allowed for increased crop growth and, hence, a larger population base.

P3.

The Temple to Kalikos Ice-Smasher is located east of the northern edge of the BlueMoon Hills, at the edge of Heretic's Country. The denizens of the hills do not care about the constant snows of winter when Valind attacks the tower, and the area to the north is. As noted by the name, of no concern to the Empire or its spirits.

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