From: Nick Brooke (100270.337@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Tue 06 Aug 1996 - 10:31:42 EEST
(Hi, Sherri & Boris!)
_________
Dave Cake confuses himself:
> And according to certain theories, the original Red Goddess Quest had
> as a major aim the overthrow/subversion of the Emperor, by bringing
> forth his Other...
That was the Ritual of the Seven Mothers (1220 ST) which brought the Red Goddess
back into the world, not her own GodQuest, which commenced some years later and
was an entirely different kettle of fish. Bringing it in now just muddies the
waters.
I know from Greg's recent work that the events of the Seven Mothers' rebirth of
the Goddess are indeed reenacted at Torang each year, with some quite amazing
ceremonies (a willing sacrifice of noble Carmanian volunteers when the troops
are slain by the Young Elementals, frex). I would assume they are also reenacted
on a smaller scale throughout the Empire, as the thought of dressing little
kiddies up in animal costumes for a singalong has a great appeal to me (the
Lunar Nativity Play). But I seriously doubt they have a new and different
godling manifest at every site, every year.
Sure, redoing *any* religious ritual with a perverted intent is Blasphemy, while
reading the curses against the Evil Emperor using a picture of Moonson as a prop
would be High Treason. And this is what the White Moonies are up to, if they
dare to make such an attempt. Lucky the Black Army has its vigilant agents and
informers everywhere...
I follow and agree with most of what David is saying, but I think these
clarifications are needed. We're not just talking about farting around in an
airy-fairy manner on the Hero Plane trying to pretend the Lunar Empire doesn't
exist: we're talking about a subversive conspiracy against the State.
> The Red Goddess Quest pattern can be reenacted in slightly different
> ways, as can a Light Bringers Quest.
Not so many ways: it's a quarter as old and *far* better documented. There
aren't likely to be "local variants" of the Red Goddess' Quest or Seven Mothers'
Ritual, as there are with the Lightbringers. Certainly, you can hold a perverse
parody of Lunar Worship using inappropriate persons in key ritual positions, or
you can strike off on your own (a la Experimental HeroQuesting) once you've
started off down the correct path... but none of this is going to make the Lunar
Empire change overnight (or, indeed, retrospectively!). People who say "Moonson
is the Evil Emperor" on the Hero Plane have already got sufficient evidence to
prove he is in the mundane world, so they are not, in fact, changing a single
thing, or intending to: they are swearing at a man they dislike, and putting
some magical "oomph" behind it. Maybe this is what gives the Red Emperor his
bowel problems ("There appears to be some resistance within the Body of State,
your Serenity: I believe Grand Master Orsorkhon the Cenobite may be more help
than Doctor Ko-Lon and his latest apparatus").
====
Nick
====
------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 13 Jun 2003 - 16:51:59 EEST