From: Nick Brooke (100270.337@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Tue 02 Nov 1993 - 21:14:05 EET
> Ekron:
> Maybe the Brithini could be kind of like the Melniboneans... The
> ancient precursors of civilization who once crushed the world in
> their iron grip and then lost interest.
That's how I see Vormain: hybridize feudal Japan with Moorcock's Melnibone. Oh, and have a look at their ruling God's complexion and fashion sense some time: was this interpretation the designers' intention, I wonder. Of course, the Kralori have both Battle Barges and Dragons, which may explain the low profile of the Valzain Gods these days...
In the days when the Brithini could have "crushed the world with their iron grip", they didn't need to, 'cos the whole world was populated by Brithini (this is way back when in the Golden Age). Maybe even the Vadeli were nice back then (I said "maybe"). When the Age of Doubt (Great Darkness) assailed the Kingdom of Logic, I'd say, the Brithini were pretty much knocked back to where they are today in terms of spread and influence: near neighbours and colonies of the Brithini were converted to the new religion of the Prophet Malkion (spreading after his followers' exile/exodus/hajr from Brithos across the Raging Sea -- did they walk on water, or did it part??), while the more distant peoples (they would say) became pagan slaves of the False Gods they empowered with their own ignorance and fear.
[All of the paragraph above is highly speculative stuff with little backing from any published or other Malkioni sources: believe it at your own peril]
> Gray:
> More British - Sir Ethelrist is supposed to be a Brithini. And he comes
> across as very British. The opposite extreme was the Empire of the Sun
> to the East, which seemed Assyrian/Babylonian at first.
I always see Ethilrist as an Italian Renaissance Prince -- especially when you look at Muse Roost, that vast monument to his own ego. I am not sure he is a Brithini -- he appears to be from Ralios (cf. History of My Black Horse Troop), and to have a personality. But yeah, if you Colonial types think British = Civilized, run him as British. In the great Hollywood tradition of Evil Empires, I've always assumed those Lunar officers were played by British character actors. Ethilrist looks (and acts?) like Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham, IMHO. And the Black Horse Troop riding out looks like those aluminium knights in Boorman's "Excalibur", all night and fog with Carmina Burana playing in the background.
Empire of the Sun being Assyrian/Babylonian??? Are you talking about Dara Happa (hardly the opposite extreme to Brithos, but admittedly Babylonian) or about the Kralori / Vormain / Vithelan Empires (reverse applies)? I don't really see what you're getting at, here.
> Gray:
> I think [Delecti] is more a researcher than a worshipper. He develops
> experimental undead. Grafts one dead thing to another and reanimates it.
... and, later ...
> The EWF was much into grafting... remember the centaurs <g>.
Is this perhaps the untold Secret Origin of Beast Valley -- were all the species there created by Delecti himself, in his "early period"? ;-)
Interesting one here. Remember, the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. I'm going to traipse across Genertela in the same direction, looking for solar cultures.
We start in Vithela, still ruled by the Sun God. Next, the Eastern Isles, parts of his Empire. Then, Kralorela, ruled by the Sun God back at the very start of Creation. (Down south, Teshnos is a purely Solar state). Across the Pentan Steppe, where every powerful Khagan or Sultan can trace his ancestry back to Yelm. We get to Dara Happa, where the Sun Empire is at its height...
Then what? Let's say, Yelm is killed by Orlanth at "mid-day" above Dara Happa. Go West from there, and you'll find nary a native solar deity. Only "Ehilm", the so-called False God of the Sun Disc, who has no worshippers and is named only for Jrusteli or Zzaburi purposes. (That Yelmic city-state on the beautiful blue Janube is of course a Pelorian import).
Is this, perhaps, significant?
Add to that the reported fact that birds are linked to Storm gods in Ralian Orlanthi cultures (Humakti ravens, Uroxi condors, Orlanthi eagles), and that the horses of Galinin are somehow a different species to those of Hippoi... it seems we have a general Solar disinvestment from the mundane world and its species anywhere West of Peloria/Dragon Pass.
I might be building something here, though it could all be coincidence.
[Two papers down, three to go, no great worries so far]
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