Re: Death of Orlanth

From: Jeff <jakyer_at_...>
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:32:26 -0000

• In HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com, "L.Castellucci" <lightcastle_at_...> wrote:
  >
  > We've repeatedly seen the "Greater Darkness" parallel. If that's
  the case,
  > then what did the Lunars expect? Did they expect Orlanth, then
  Ernalda
  > sleeps and then the rest of the Orlanthi Pantheon dies out/weakens
  too?
  > (Seriously, if it's the Great Darkness, shouldn't LM magic stop,
  too? And
  > Issaries? Both of them go into the underworld with Orlanth, no?)
  >
  > Were they going with some other defeat/death of Orlanth myth and
  didn't
  > anticipate the Ernalda tag on?
  

I suspect that Tacitus and his operation were very Yelm-centric in their outlook. The Dara Happan experience with Storm Age and Greater Darkness was considerably different from that of the Orlanthi.

Of course, it may be that he intended for Orlanth to make apeasement in the Halls of the Dead and offer Yelm fealty.

As to Ernalda and Orlanth being different in Tarsh, you have to remember that the myths there have been thoroughly corrupted/altered by the Lunars over the past few centuries and that the Tarshite experience and mythology is different from that of the ultraconservative  Heortlings of Sartar. I believe that Orlanth in Tarsh is suppressed and supplanted, but not destroyed. Tatius wanted a fast and dirty solution to the Orlanth Question rather than spending a few centuries (and when would another Hon-Eel appear to do _his_ bidding) and doing it right. He was a brilliant man but shortsighted and blinkered by his own cultural limitations.  

Jeff