> This is a good lead in to an important topic, the powers granted by
> knighthood. As I wrote before, I'm interested in things as they were
> at the Dawn (for some reason my interest in the West wanes after the
> Serpent Kings pass from the scene). My theory is that these early
> knights were quite powerful, more so than we've seen in sources
> detailing the knights of later Ages.
I would distinguish between two types of knights. The first is what everybody thinks of as knights, guys in armour prancing around on horses and lances. They are little more than fighters. They have changed little over the years and were around before Hrestol had his big revelation (back then I suppose they were called equestrians).
The second type of knight is more of a spiritual status perhaps akin to Wind Lords, Death Swords or other Rune Levels. These are the followers of Hrestol, the epic battlers of the age. They are fewer in number than the first type of knight, even in Loskalm.
The apparent decline of the knight is due IMO to the sources talking about the second type of knight in the Good Old days and the first type of knight in modern times.
> Because they were the successful response to the Pendali military
> emergency said to threaten the Seshnegi with annihilation. That the
> lion hsunchen kingdoms were a powerful foe is clear. For example,
> they wipe out a Brithini expeditionary force sent to assist Neleoswal
> (and the Brithini are known to be skilled in combat).
I don't think the Dawn Aged Seshnegi were Brithini before Hrestol's revelation. They were Malkioni who believed in Solace after death and who had ordinary lifespans. The immortality of the Brithini comes from the Revelations of Now which Malkioni ultimately repudiated and the Seshnegi are the true followers of Malkion unlike the Godless Brithini.
Secondly at the time of the wars there were only a few thousand or so people in all of Seshnela. With such a small population, a bad encounter could easily spell military disaster without having to posit superhuman powers to the Pendali.
> "As for Joy, Greg's put out numerous confusing signals in the
> glorantha: intro and elsewhere. As far as I can make out, Hrestol
> called down Joy from God that transformed portions of the Ideal
> Plane into being able to project magic onto the Mundane plane without
> the need to contact it. So instead of the Ideal Plane magics being
> only accessible through following the Ideals, Saints can project
> blessing and curses down to the ordinary Malkioni and their
> enemies."
I'll have to repudiate my thinking above and say that instead that Saints could project blessings and curses onto the Malkioni since the Ice Age. Hrestol's joy is something else.
--Peter Metcalfe
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