From: Nils Weinander (niwe@ppvku.ericsson.se)
Date: Fri 08 Jul 1994 - 16:43:44 EEST
Nils Weinander writing
Martin's Orlanthi national character:
>Hope you like it.
I do. Is there more coming, e.g. the various tribes of Sartar?
Mark Foster's Megaera saga:
Great story.
A new Teshnos thought came sneaking into my mind yesterday. With the famous lethargy, Teshnos should be a sitting duck for raiders and invaders, so why doesn't its history speak of waves of foreign invasions (apart from god learner rule in the second age)? My thought was that the lethargy is contagious, somewhat like with the Lotophagoi of the Odyssey: once you're there you're stuck. Thus all would be invaders of have seen the fate of their predecessors and wisely turn elsewhere for plunder. Plausible?
I re-read some old dailies yesterday and found a posting by Sandy
on the mythical history of the East Isles. I noticed a name I
missed the first time I read it:
>The fragment that
>Theya inhabited was, of course, the biggest
...
> At this point, a god of communication came from the sea, and
>Theya wove him into a net, in semblance of Arachne Solara's web and
>Magasta's tool
Who is Theya?
Runes, their use, mis-use and non-use. A couple of days ago I posted to the daily and to the RQ4 mailing list a posting on runes and their validity in the east, quoting a mail from Joerg on combined power runes. I have given the matter some more thought, so here is what Red Tiger says on the subject:
'...
As was explained in the last chapter, the parts of the world is
creatde from the parts of Ea Long, the Cosmic Dragon. The world thus
_is_ the Cosmic Dragon. The parts are important, because they
define the world so that we may know it. Ultimately all of
existence springs from the Void, but in order to reach spiritual
enlightenment we must strive to understand the world around us. We
can never understand the Void if we cannot interpret what we see as
knowledge is a prerequisite for insight. {Perhaps not the most
orthodox Kralorelan view. More radical mystics would probably say
that knowledge hinders insight, but Red Tiger was a pragmatic man
if nothing else.} All the parts have a name and a sign {rune}. These
you can learn, but all parts also have hidden meanings which you
find through insight.
The most easily explained parts are called the Fundaments {more known as the elements}. The sky was formed from the Cosmic Dragon's mind. The peoples of the west {west of Shan Shan} say that fire is the essence of this fundament. That is part of the truth. The earth was formed from the bones of the Cosmic Dragon. The ocean formed from the Cosmic Dragon's blood. The air formed from the Cosmic Dragon's breath. The underworld was formed from the Cosmic Dragon's innards. The westerners say that darkness is the essence of the underworld. The Fundaments are easy to grasp because they correspond to places like the sky dome and the ocean, and to things you see every day, like fires and shadows.
More difficult are the Moving Forces {This word is diffcult to
translate. It could also be interpreted as agents of tension. These
are the combined powers.} The Moving Forces were formed from the
emotions of the Cosmic Dragon. The first Force is Passion {fertility
and death}. The second Force is Conscience {truth and illusion}.
The third Force is Ambition {movement and stasis}. The fourth
force is Temperance {harmony and disorder}. The fifth force is Hope
{luck and fate}.
...'
I have thoughts about the condition runes too, but they are yet to muddy to be put in writing.
Bottomline, is this Good, Bad or just Ugly?
I'm off for vacation, so you won't have to read my drivel for the next week.
/Nils W
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:35:46 EEST