>> The chest is metal bound so it isn't clothing or linen.
>Is it? Right, nothing mundane, then.
Playing around with the brightness of the image reveals a lot.
>> It has all flowed out of the cup so thin wine seems most likely.
>
>I haven't done much practical experimentation with how blood flows.
>Anyone else?
Once exposed to air blood starts to congeal pretty rapidly.
>> What surprises me is that if the cup was thrown down it hasn't broken.
>
>I'd assumed it was made of horn. Two of them - yet more ritual
>significance? There may be more out of sight, though.
The one by Kallyr definitely looks like earthenware and fairly crude earthenware at that. Of course if it has magical significance it may not break normally. If it's associated with Dark Earth that would explain why the man has discarded it. It may have red wine in it at present but it's been used for blood in the past.
>> Equally the helmet by Kallyr's chair could be hers,
>> she placed it on the floor by the chair and has just kicked it over.
>
>Oh, that thing's a helmet? Yes, that works. Kicking things over? She
>is upset, isn't she? She looks quite relaxed, left arm and hand loose,
>leaning slightly back and sideways, but that screams "I'm not worried
>about sitting in this chair" so loudly that it's got to be a pose.
There's something about her expression which says fear to me, poorly covered with anger. The rest as you say is probably a pose.
>>That chair appears to be the key to what the ritual is about,
>> does anyone recognise the carved heads? They seem to
>> have at least two faces, maybe four.
>
>I'm trying to remember the significance of heads beyond Thanatar, and
>failing. Isn't there sone Dark Earth thing about beheading sacrifices?
Yes, TiF mentions beheading as the standard method of obtaining sacrifices. They could be human heads with grossly distorted features but I'm not sure. They might be some other creature. Of course carved heads on furniture don't have to mean beheadings, historically they rarely did. They could be some sort of guardian like gargoyles on churches.
I'm not entirely sure about the Dark Earth connection. You don't sacrifice grain to Maran Gor or Hon-Eel but to Esrola.
There's an idea - she wants to change the Earth Goddess in Tarsh from Hon-Eel to Esrola by HQing. So she's got a load of ritual stuff from a temple to Hon-Eel and is going to take a sacrifice of grain and red wine onto the HP to prove that Tarsh can be fertile without human sacrifice. I get the impression that the Hon-Eel of Tarsh has adopted a lot of Maran Gor symbols and practices.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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