Stewart Stansfield:
> Thunder Rebels states (p. 54):
>
> "... the Vent ... formed when Vestkarthen struk deep into Esrola's
> flesh. Maran defended her weaker sister. She snapped the spear,
then
> from the wound showered Vestkarthen with molten rock that imrisoned
> him inside the volcano. He now serves her."
Which is interesting as I had always thought that Lodril burst forth further East under what is now the Shadow Plateau and where Lodril built the Castle of Black Glass having had his head cut off by Argan Argar.
I suppose the two myths (that of Lodril bursting forth and that of Caladra bursting forth) could have been combined and misinterpreted by the Heortlings.
After all, Maran defending the earth from molten fire is the primal volcano myth for the Heortlings. They don't really care who the earth is being defended from. Although the Caladra myth is heavily in favour of Caladra being a friend of the earth and is actually a defender of the earth against chaos, in the same way as Lodril defending the earth against chaos when he bursts forth and turns a chaos army to stone in the Petrified Forest.
It does seem that the myth in Thunder Rebels misses a lot of stuff out. Sky Spear comes down into the earth; Maran sees it as an attack on the earth and breaks it, freeing Lodril; Lodril fights a chaos being identified with Krarsht and gets trapped in her magical tunnels; Lodril escapes and bursts forth onto the surface killing a chaos army in the process; Queen Esolra asks Argan Argar for help against Lodril in exchange for sovereignty; Argan Argar chops the top off the volcano, makes a plateau and gets Lodril to build the Castle of Black Glass; Argan Argar and Esrola create the Only Old One to hold the sovreignty of the Earth and he rules the surrounding lands; Caladra and Aurelion sleep in the earth, protected from the problems; Caladra wakes up and makes the Vent, killing a chaos army in the process; Aurelion wakes up a long way away and creates a vast mountain/volcano against chaos.
It seems to me that Lodril is freed from Argan Argar's prison, but I can't find when, and then bursts through the Vent following his daughter. That explains why he is worshipped at the Vent in particular and why people call the Vent the First Volcano. Maran may have been involved in this as well - forcing him to take an established route rather than making another volcano.
In any case, the Heortlings wouldn't want to emphasize Argan Argar's links to Queen Esrola and would want to downplay any conquering of the earth, since Ernalda heads the Earth Pantheon and they wouldn't want to offend her by pointing out how many times Lodril conquered the earth.
See Ya
Simon
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