Alpha-3 small things

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  • #6842
    Mikey
    Member

    A stupid idea: the Knights Magi of the El Ohîm would be a great crossover collaboration opportunity with John Van Stry’s Portals of Infinity series, since his hero is leveling up enough to become the first avatar of El Ohîm, having killed a negative plane god.

    #6846
    EyeDeKay
    Member

    [quote] He, or more specifically, bellyachus who was in charge of the DoomSpa’s laundry was hoping a shopping expedition to the plains of [b]meat[/b]. . . [/quote]

    Page 157 Doom Spa

    Not sure how they can get towels on the planes of meat. . .

    #6845

    Exactly! Amazing you remembered that so quickly. But that is exactly what I was thinking about even though I couldn’t narrow it down to that one incident.

    yeah, the overhead cost can be high.

    But….that is also is one reason I have this website, as I’ve said elsewhere with the library, I am very open to having other people doing short stories or novels as sort of fan fiction. Like MZB, Mercedes Lackey etc have done. Posted to this site or other free net fiction sites (with proper references to the original work)

    As per the Amazon discussions via copyright, I just don’t want them making money off it without cutting me in. :d/

    #6839

    [SPOILER]
    * The Concord of Conciliation is an agreement and associated signatories of pantheons agreeing to a set of rules that govern interpantheon interaction.
    * The Tribunal of Conciliation is a tribunal/council made up by a rotating membership of the most senior members of each pantheon (1 god/pantheon)
    * The Knights of the El Ohim are the “boots on the ground” for the tribunal; they are responsible for investigating transgressions, correcting problems, enforcing the Concord.
    * The Balance is an agreement between the Courts of Chaos (actually the Court of Princes) and the Concord signatories.

    [/SPOILER]

    #6833

    Bingo on the paganism. The Greeks and Romans were polytheistic. You recognize all the gods of your pantheon, and you may even pray to them/venerate them. However, typically, you chose one as your patron deity.

    Now, the great secret to the Catholic Church’s (which literally means Universal Church) success at eliminating paganism:

    The reason the Catholic/Orthodox churches have saints was to replicate polytheism when absorbing/converting pagan cultures. You see this very easily in the conquest of the Americas because it’s documented; however, they did it all over the world going back to the conquest of Rome by the Church.

    Typically, the local god/goddess gets a very similar/analogous saint who the local people then choose as their patron saint. It was an extremely ingenious method of coopting other religions.

    Now of course, all these saints had statues and were venerated by people praying to the saints. The Orthodox church, upon splitting with Rome decried this as idolotry, which they feel is forbidden by anti-idolatry doctrines right back to the ten commandments.

    So, they banned statues of saints; instead they used icons, paintings/frescos/mosaics. These are paintings of the saints and serve the exact same function, but they are not idols; so all is good.

    Now of course, while there is much argument in church text they all go back to the ten commandments.

    However, the two that are of interest are

    Thou shalt have no other gods before me
    Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image

    Interestingly enough, I like to note “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” it does not say you cannot have other gods “after me” I.e. sub gods, or other secondary/lesser deities. He just has to be first and supreme.

    Now, graven image gets immediately tied to the golden calf story and that’s the origin of much of the idolatry stuff; however, icons would also fail in this sense, but there are crap loads of theological arguments one way and the other.

    BUT, the big point that the “pagan” vs Christian movement forgets is that, at the time of the ten commandments, it was widely accepted that there were other gods; however, the Israelites were not allowed to worship or venerate them above/before the burning bush.

    And as you probably have all figured out, the burning bush is the Demi-Urge, and Sammael is The Adversary of the Demi-Urge; and he’s the guy that kicked the Nyjyr Ennead off of Earth.

    #1460
    EyeDeKay
    Member

    Just small stuff

    #6828
    EyeDeKay
    Member

    So in the beginning of alpha 3 Talarius gets the “drinking with, 2 gods” shock and a kinda memory dump.

    He called them heathens and “he was fighting along side a pagan deity.”

    So my thing is, Talarius is a follower of Tiernon who is “a god of the five siblings.” Isn’t that technically a pagan god?

    #6834

    [quote=EyeDeKay;5026]Did ruiden recognize what EM was? I mean he can recognize various saints and other extra planner beings. [/quote]

    Ruiden and Talarius discuss this in Beta 1

    #6835

    [quote=EyeDeKay;5025]So in bk1 when the sky fleet shows up at freehold they have warrants for all our cast meaning jenn, maelen, Gastope, Edwyrd, and Rupert.

    But they also had questions they had wanted to ask lenamare. Did that happen off page or not happen at all?[/quote]

    That rather went nowhere. Actually, I need to go back and check if the entire fleet left, or just half of it, like the Rod.

    They may still be around Freehold, which could get interesting, because while they are fine to let the Rod in as the big scary Exador prepares his army to destroy the city, but letting Oorstemoth in? Particularly if they want to serve a warrant on Lenamare, who is critical to the defense of the city…

    #6836

    [quote=EyeDeKay;5024]Different question is The Sun on nysegard referred to as atun or fierd.

    Page 39 Exador thinks about liches being nocturnal but not being bothered by the “fierd” so is it fierd on nysegard or some other reason?

    Do the liches know that Ramses and Exador are arch demons? It says that when the lich says [b]”we summoned you. It was a slight against an archdemon[/b] pg 40.

    Also “an arch demon” sounds wrong. If Exador is referring to himself “the archdemon” would probably be better.[/quote]

    It is Fierd is the name of Astlan’s star, Atun is the name of Nysegards.

    However, Exador has been living almost exclusively in Astlan for around two thousand years, so much like Tom thinks of the local star as the Sun and sunlight, Exador thinks of it is Fierd, even if it isn’t.

    The trick is to be clear and consistent, to make this understood. I try to do that in context, but doesn’t always work.

    Changed slight sentence to:

    “Exador suppressed a grimace of annoyance at the lich’s use of the word ‘summoned’ both knew that the lich meant it as an intentional slight against him.”

    #6837
    Mikey
    Member

    [quote=The Author Guy;5034]And as you probably have all figured out, the burning bush is the Demi-Urge, and Sammael is The Adversary of the Demi-Urge; and he’s the guy that kicked the Nyjyr Ennead off of Earth.[/quote]
    But Stainsberry introduces himself as a “Knight Magus of the El Ohîm”, and later when discussing Avalon, as a “Knight of the Elohim”.
    I assume that in the Astlan universe, Demi-Urge and El Ohîm/Elohim aren’t related?

    #6838

    That is actuallly a great catch! Many won’t get it.

    First, do I spell it different in the two places?

    The Knights of the El Ohim actually mean it in the older, plural sense Eloh-im ( the -im was originally the plural form) So they are the “Knights of the Gods.” Which is why in the tavern in Agnothnon he says to Talarius: . “Our Order is faithful to and respects all the Gods of Light.”

    This will/may someday (if I get there in some book) tie out to The Concord of Conciliation and the Balance that Beragamos discusses with the other avatars in Chapter 126

    #6832
    Iume
    Member

    [quote=EyeDeKay;5022]So in the beginning of alpha 3 Talarius gets the “drinking with, 2 gods” shock and a kinda memory dump.

    He called them heathens and “he was fighting along side a pagan deity.”

    So my thing is, Talarius is a follower of Tiernon who is “a god of the five siblings.” Isn’t that technically a pagan god?
    [/quote]

    Nah, that’s not paganism. Paganism isn’t multiple gods (that’s polytheism). Paganism is worshiping gods that are not yours or are considered false gods by your religion.

    #6831
    EyeDeKay
    Member

    Did ruiden recognize what EM was? I mean he can recognize various saints and other extra planner beings.

    #6830
    EyeDeKay
    Member

    So in bk1 when the sky fleet shows up at freehold they have warrants for all our cast meaning jenn, maelen, Gastope, Edwyrd, and Rupert.

    But they also had questions they had wanted to ask lenamare. Did that happen off page or not happen at all?

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