From: David Scott (DScott@snail.demon.co.uk)
Date: Wed 08 Sep 1993 - 18:13:51 EEST
A Grey Sage Report.
Having read Dorastor cover to cover I started (as you do!) flicking back through other RQ products for snippets of information concerning the Unbreakable Sword which Arkat was said to have wielded against Gbaji in the final battle atop the Tower of Wonders.
It says in Elder Secrets (Book1 p41) that the Unbreakable Sword - possibly the one true sword of mythology (death?) was an Adamant Item. And that most adamant is part of the Dwarf Machine and hence unattainable.
Adamant can only be worked by Mostali . To quote from Different worlds 24 - Mostal-Dwarfs p15 by Greg Stafford; Mostal and his crew worked hard, and refined - the living Truestone to become immutable Adamant, the mythical metal. They took the essence of Acos, living Law, and made it the primary tool which held the world together. Mostal seized the immortal nail, and pounded it through the layers of the world, unifying them into a single entity. There is a shortened version of this in White Wolf 15 - Mostal.
Where he got the Sword from seems to be a bit of a mystery;
To quote from Dorastor p9; Sometimes Arkat was halted. Then he would stop to HeroQuest, then return with something new and devastating wonder. On one of these quests he won Humakts Unbreakable Sword.
It would seem that at some point in his life he had to HeroQuest and get a Death Sword made of Adamant. Surely being made of adamant and therefore part of the world machine, the Mostali would have it!
The most obvious time that he would have done this was when he became a Humakti. Okay I know that some of the myths say he had it before he joined the cult of Humakt (Glorantha, book1 p19), but it was only upon joining this cult that he got HeroQuest insights, so getting it before on a non-Humakti HeroQuest seems unlikely (unless Gerlaint Flameswords sword is a manifestation of the death sword and he helped him quest for it).
The link to all of this can be found in the Dwarf heresy of Invidualism in Different Worlds 24 p17, to quote; It [Individualism] was born sometime during the Second Age, probably about the year 700, by a dwarf later called Chark the liberator. Chark had been active before the Dawn. and he had always done his part. The shock of Openhandism. and its effects, disturbed him so he sought solace in religion. His piety was so firm that, they say, his bones turned into iron. He probed deeper and deeper into the secrets of Mostal, and he also met young Arkat one day while seeking his god, Mostal, on the Heroplane. The combination of Arkat's knowledge, plus Chark's own seeking brought him to the secret of his heresy. Slightly different versions of this can be found in White Wolf 15 - Mostal & Elder Secrets Book2 p14.
Perhaps this is who he got the sword from; Chark was around from before the Dawn and so could be a Mostali - the two of them met in Hell (does this imply that some Humakti quests have Dwarf links or do Humakti have to go to Mostals forge for a real death sword? There must be easier quests for non-adamant weapons) perhaps Arkat traded knowledge for the sword, did Arkat illuminate Chark?
So Arkat helped create a major dwarf heresy - who would have thought that?
Any Comments?
David Scott
Sandwiches on the edge of time
DScott@Snail.demon.co.uk 158.152.16.30
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