Re: Heroquests for the Unholy Trio

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_j_k6bye5zUrJv0mjMS-XzJTBxgyr-pGuN0SD032RQ2tMZv7vnMxJJKDUiNQVY03ec4V>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:08:21 +1300


At 09:47 a.m. 21/12/2008, you wrote:

>Malia at some point would HAVE to have some way to lead to heroism.

Why? There's nothing in the cult that requires Heroes and the strongest Malian that we know of (Muriah) is little more than a nuisance. Malia isn't interested in humans embodying her attributes - all she cares about is disease.

>Wakboth DOES come back and a Malian DOES have to preside over this.

Not necessarily. The Devil can return any number of ways (Wakboth can return if somebody knocks the Block frex) and the Lunar Empire freefrom interpreted the Unholy Trio in the strange fragment of KoS as being Lunar Heroes (the Red Moon Child, the Black Moon child etc).

In my opinion, the Unholy Trio is little more than a label and the names of the Trio vary from myth to myth. The conventional description of the Trio being Ragnaglar, Malia and Thed is to me little more than a God Learnerism forged from Orlanthi and Praxian mythology and a conspiracy that makes very little sense as written (Malia leaves the conspiracy and becomes part of the natural order? What the hey??).

>If it weren't a Hero-Level task, anyone could have done it by now.
>Bringing back the Devil is EPIC. It would require a suitably epic
>Malian to bring it off.

I count the following devils

Mythic

Kajabor - origins unknown. Perhaps created when the Spike exploded? Kazkurtum - created from Yelm.
Sekever - sprang from Bliss in Ignorance Vadel - a Viymorni citizen
Vovisibor - created by Fonritans.
Wakboth - born of the Unholy Trio.

Historical

Arkat - born in Brithos during the Sunstop Gbaji - born in Dorastor during the Sunstop Red Goddess - born in Peloria
Sheng Seleris - born in Pent.

Only one of those devils is said to have had Malia as a midwife and to me that the origin of that is probably some prehistoric Orlanthi skald describing Wakboth as having "madness for a father, rape for a mother and disease as a midwife"; he was making poetry about the presumed awfulness of his origins and the God Learners mistook his poetic licence for fact.

So to me, insisting that Malia must have a path to herodom is placing too great a weight on an obscure triviality and risks distorting everything else known about her.

--Peter Metcalfe            

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