Re: The Importance of Caste (or Why Wizards Don't Rule)

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_vZ4GzWi-mKKFgrhUa0Jv1KRt5Mluf7fQnvSVg0Feig87VZCqIUHdCYJHselSF4BTFi5>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:41:03 +1300

On 2/17/2011 4:30 AM, Richard Hayes wrote:
> Finally how come the four castes are so uncannily closely aligned the to the regular four stages of Dragonewt existence? I don't remember there being many Dragonewts in the Far West (though Ryzel and Ormsland are on the eastern frontiers of Malkionism), but maybe the party of Dragonewts leaving Dragon Pass on an epic journey/pilgrimage to Sog City (in Elder Secrets of Glorantha) were onto something?
1) The Dragonewts learned of Caste through Arkat and adopted it to free themselves from servitude to Nysalor. Their old castes had six stages, one for every arm of Orxili but this was vulnerable to chaotic control spells by the Bright Empire. The Wyrms that hang around Dragonewt society are actually relics of the older caste or Dragonewts who were unable to adapt to the New Ways. No human knows about this big change because they didn't understand dragonewts when the change was taking place and when they did understand dragonewts, the change had been completed and the dragonewts not having a sense of history had forgotten it. Only in Kralorela and perhaps Teleos can dragonewts devoted to the old ways be found.

2) The Fourfold Expansion of the Monad is a cosmic truth, finding expression in the Four Castes, the Four Magics and the Four Meanings of the Abiding Book. The Malkioni have one expression of it, the Dragonewts another. The observant will have noticed the major discrepancy between the power of the Talar and the Ruler Dragonewts. That is because Zzabur was a jealous sod who could not bear the thought of anybody with more magical power than himself. So when he researched Caste Law, he deliberately bungled the power of the Talars so they would be heavily dependent on him. As it was, it took until the Dawn for the True Fourth Caste to be discovered by Hrestol.

3) In the Good Old Days when the Waertagi and the Old Republic of Zerendel were allies, they fought a war against the Sea Dragons whose spawn were known as Deep Ones, the worshippers of Magasta at the Cyclopean and Many-Columned City of Y'ha-nthlei. The Deep Ones conceived of the Ocean as the Primal Unknowable and taught that it had three emanations: Mind, Body and Spirit. The offspring of Body and Spirit gave rise to the physical world and also the vast schools of ordinary Deep Ones. The offspring of Mind and Body gave rise to the masters of the known world whose ranks included the fighting Deep Ones. The offspring of Mind and Spirit gave rise to the masters of the magical world and the fearsome casters of Deep Magic. Finally mastery of Mind, Body and Spirit gave rise to Abysmal Horrors that were known as Sea Dragons, Tritons and the Elder Trilobites. The Dragonewts when their ancestors evolved to walk on dry land had to modify this scheme to take into account their changed circumstances.

The war against the Deep Ones created a huge impression on the Waertagi and their allies. The Waertagi mutated themselves into green-skinned abomination to draw closer to the Ocean and master the Sea Dragons. The OId Republic was entranced by the philosophical foundations of their castes and before long a popular reform movement agitated for imposition of the castes. Zzabur and his brothers were also for it when they realized that Caste Law could be used to checkmate popular challenges to their authorities. And so the Old Republic adopted castes.

--Peter Metcalfe