> > > Hi folks, hoping to tap people's collective knowledge, though not for
> > magic
> > > points. I've been trying to understand the Syphon River as at different
> > > times its uphill path is described as either chaotic or because it didn't
> > > change direction when Magasta tried to plug the hole left by the spike.
> > I'm
> > > wondering if there is anything canonical on this front.
> >
> > The Orlanthi of Heortland have always held the Syphon to be an evil river.
> > They say it was cursed by Magasta. The Print is known to be a Chaos lair by
> > the Orlanthi.
>
> Thanks for that. I suppose my confusion comes with what impact this has. The
> Orlanthi seem to have settled quite happily along the river and forded it
> yet if they regard it as an evil or cursed river then what impact does that
> have in every day life? E.g. do some poor benighted folk find themselves
> giving propitiatory worship to it? Is it actively evil (stealing young
> babies, howling in the night, spooky mists) or does it feel just like a
> normal river only running uphill? Naturally there's a large element of YGWV
> here but it would be good to know what the collective thinks.
>
> Out of interest, what was the reason for the curse and is the myth of rivers
> changing direction to plug the gap a one that's common among Orlanthi folk?
The river is not AFAIK actively evil in the ways you suggest, but rather it just appears *wrong*, so that mot people are scared of it, and avoid it.
The local Orlanthi see it as a manifestation of wrongness of the Print, but the river itself is not chaotic, or you'd have heard a greater number of stories about it.
>From a River cults point of view however, it has some rather different histories attached to it.
All rivers used to flow uphill, because they belonged to the forces of the Sea Gods when they were invading the Land. The Syphon was then just one of these normal rivers, albeit a child of the central River of Genertela, which flowed up all the way through Dragon Pass and through the current Oslir river valley in Peloria.
Now, when the Cosmic Mountain at the centre of the world was annihilated, leaving a hole in its place, all of the rivers responded by starting to flow downhill again to help the Sea Waters fill that hole.
The Syphon is an exception among these rivers. I'm not sure of the mythic order of events -- either Syphon never reversed its flow, or it reversed its flow twice -- but Syphon continues to flow uphill to fill the smaller hole in the world which is in the Print. So, it is obeying the call of the Sea to muster and fill the gap, but in its own locally peculiar manner, that everyone else thinks is just *wrongful*.
These are the stories of the Dragon Pass River folk about the Syphon. :)
FWIW the Sea Peoples would consider the Syphon to be an evil and rebellious river... so I don't imagine that the Syphon River god is being invited to too many parties over in God World :D
Julian Lord
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