It's not a euphemism. Predark is what the Orlanthi call Chaos. The usage of the word Chaos came later in the wake of Malkioni armies in the Gbaji Wars.
> Praising Chaos needs a bit more explanation though.
The praise is said to be an Ancient Earth Song and could have been spoken long before the Great Darkness. All it does is hint at alternative myth for creation other than the Silence which appears in the Book of Heortling Mythology. Why doesn't this other myth survive? Because once the Great Darkness happened, such myths were rejected.
> Does the corruption of Chaos date from the Unholy Trio's ritual to create Wakboth, who was a force for Corruption rather than Entropy? Or is there another point at which Chaos went horribly wrong, or was Chaos always wrong but also somehow always necessary?
Although the Orlanthi say the Unholy Trio created Wakboth, I wouldn't take it seriously. It's a just-so tale masquerading as a myth yet the Orlanthi would have no plausible reason for having since it wasn't their gods that took part in it. Wakboth is mentioned by Orlanth in a myth when he's wooing Ernalda (ie at the start of the Storm Age) while the Unholy Trio appears to refer to the planets that ruled the heavens after the Sun had vanished and are given nonchaotic names in the Entekosiad and Revealed Mythologies. If I had to hazard a guess of Wakboth's origins, I would say that he was a predark demon that took part in the First War was driven away by the Old Gods and came back to destroy the World when the Cosmos faltered. His triple parentage can be explained as a poetic metaphor taken literally (ie something like "Madness was his father, Rape his mother/and Disease the midwife at his birth").
--Peter Metcalfe
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> There is also something about the Earth rune which hints at associations with Life and Balance (and in the Third Age Balance is very closely associated with the Red Moon and its inclusive approach to Chaos), just as there is something about Fire (formerly Fire/Sky, and it is more true of the Sky bit than the Fire bit), which echoes Stasis (and maybe Truth), and something about the Air rune which echoes Mobility and maybe even a bit of Disorder. Is it this possibility of Balance which alowsz some Ernaldans ot praise Chaos for its role in Creation, or was this prayer simply the work of an Illuminated Ernaldan writing something subversive?
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> Finally is there any objective truth in the 'heresy' from Lunar Tarsh that Ernalda is somehow synonymous with the Seven Mother called She Who Waits (even as she is also the loyal husband of Orlanth), even if it is mostly false but with an element of truth in it somewhere? Obviously the Lunars can convince themselves (and some people in Tarsh), but equally the rebels in Eastern Tarsh, Sartar and most of Esrolia thinks otherwise-- for good reasons of their own. Would it be too simple for the Lunars to be just plain wrong?
It's not plain wrong - it works! What it is is an illusion, a reality created by the Lunars to spread the Truth of the Goddess. It is just as real as the Red Moon, another sterling lunar fabrication.
--Peter Metcalfe
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