From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Tue 05 Jul 1994 - 03:03:49 EEST
Graeme Lindsell in X-RQ-ID: 5003
> >The Stygians who managed to keep theist elements
> You're assuming the original (Kingdom of Logic) religion was theist. While
> later first age Seshnelan religion certainly was, nothing implies that it was
> always that way.
I don't. There was something like a church of the five elements there (hence the importance of the Pentacle for the Brithini), but I think that apart from the false sorerers (in the Prosopaedia there are mentioned Worlath and Ehilm, of the same name as the Ralian deities, although we don't know whether these were identical before the Jrusteli made them so) who emulated single elements to the excess, the majority of the inhabitants of Brithos/KoL just followed the Logic. When Malkion arrived in their land (I use the theory that he was an outsider, as described in my Aeolian write-up), he learned their ways, and from the goddess of the land begat his sons who became the embodiment of certain aspects of the law he formed from the knowledge the KoL inhabitants had taught him. The sons of Malkion and the KoL inhabitants procreated, so that the Brithini and Malkioni deservedly claim descent of Malkion.
The original religion of the KoL was different from e.g. the Vingkotlings' or Dara Happan religion in Godtime. The inhabitants knew other deities than the Creator, but they didn't worship them. IMO they claimed the Creator made them directly, that after their model all other men were made or conceived by other deities, or maybe false gods. The KoL has something in common with Tir Nan Og in that the humans living there had eternal youth, and were as powerful as were the deities. Maybe their deities of the land and elements and powers there _were_ very powerful individuals of their own kind who had become so enmeshed in their ways that they stopped being logical.
What about this idea: The False Gods listed in Prosopaedia are remnants of the off-mainstream original Malkioni church, or even predating these. The Serpent Kings preserved some memory of one or more of these heresies, and set them monuments in Hrelar Amali.
Humct indicates that the Powers were important to the Brithini/KoL as well, and possibly had their own sects.
> The reason I find this
> Malkion as Storm God stuff doubtful is that there seems to have been a
> considerable change in attitude towards the West in between RQ2 and RQ3.
> Specifically, the RQ2 stuff, scant though it is, never mentions the
> Invisible God. Instead, Malkion is always referred to as a god: something
> the Theyalans would be inclined to do. Like trying to claim he's a storm god
> as well.
The RQ2 stuff never treats 3rd Age Malkionism. The only knight to appear in early RQ publishings is Sir Ethilrist, and his being a hero makes his worship quite unclear.
CoT has a somewhat formed picture, and its humanist Prime Mover would be the Creator. I agree with Nick Brooke that the title "Invisible God" might have been coined by the Jrusteli, but the Prime Mover is present already in RQ2 stuff.
Unless I get a better explanation, I will hang on to the scarce early info
on Malkionism, and use it as a basis for my asumptions.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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