[Sinisdar Toste]

The first law of the malazan universe is this:

The Timeline is not Important.

[L'oric]

Sinisdar Toste, on Feb 20 2009, 01:16 PM, said:

The first law of the malazan universe is this:

The Timeline is not Important.

I actually did not have a timeline distortion problem in the RotCG to TTH or from Reapers Gale to RotCG. I am still wondering what happened to Paran though.

BTW I do not think the timeline is important but I also do not think they simply discard it at a whim. There were a lot less dates in RotCG though.

Sincerely

[HoosierDaddy]

Well, of course the continuity and sequence of events are important, but specific dates ARE NOT TO BE BELIEVED. As long as you can tell if something occurred before or after something else, that's all that matters.

[Durvasha]

Hello! my first Post.

I am a constant lurker here, and donot say anything becasue i donot have much to say.

But I think, in DG, It was Mappo, who mentions Divers Jackal when talking with Ryllandaras. Donot have the exact quote but something like, "But i think your brother Trake is pretty sure that he left you dead outside Li Heng, divers Jackal it was then, wasnt it?"

And I also think that Ryllandaras was a lot less mad when we met him two times in 7C.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

That Mappo quote definitely sounds familiar...you're probably right.

[Sinisdar Toste]

yes that mappo quote certainly sheds some light, and welcome Durvasha, to the posting public.

could have been that Trake wiped out most of the jackals that constituted Ryllandaras at the time, and while a part of him moved onto wolves, the dying part stayed a jackal and somehow healed and mutated into what it is today.

[Durvasha]

Sinisdar Toste, on Mar 4 2009, 05:29 AM, said:

could have been that Trake wiped out most of the jackals that constituted Ryllandaras at the time, and while a part of him moved onto wolves, the dying part stayed a jackal and somehow healed and mutated into what it is today.

You seem to imply that the form of a Divers is fixed. I mean, to become wolves, the jackal forms has to die.
It was my impression that the forms could be changed, any time one wished, but that most of the time, the insane beings were just in love with their current form and didnot want to leave it.
For instance, the Dhenrabi Divers. Do you think he started as a Dhenrabi? that is a extremely powerful form even if it was single. Or, it may have evolved from ants or some other weaker forms?
Or maybe there is a rule, that says, ,"Currently, a wolves divers is already there, so you cant be one. Choose any other non-overlapping form?"
Though same doesnot appear to be true for Soletakens. We have seen more than one bear, and wasnt there a whole culture of white wolves, north of Edurs, in MOI?

[Sinisdar Toste]

if i seemed to imply this it was unintended, i do not think they have to be dying to change forms, just that mappo thinks that he fought treach as jackals and i wondered when he decided jackals weren't good enough

[Excellence]

Ryllie appears in Deadhouse Gates, 12 beasts in number.

Then he's 20 in House of Chains, months later, which had Mappo concerned as to his growing powers.

Return of the Crimson Guard primarily takes place just after Bonehunters.

[Abyss]

cutpasting myself from elsethread...

Quote

...Ry found a way to spin all his madness into one jackal body, which became its own self-contained soletaken unlike any we've seen elsewhere (no soletaken we've ever seen had a half-man, half beast shape, except Korbal in MoI and then only because QB zapped him mid-sembling) and then the rest of Ry's d'ivers bodies went off as a unit. It was the soletaken body that ended up bound under the city while the jackal d'ivers went off to hang on 7C and eventually become wolves.

That last bit is interesting because a few times in RCG wolves and jackals are mentioned as rival scavengers.

Other elements come into play: Ry in soletaken manjackal form was worshipped by the Seti, and we know worship can be a form of power-up.

Also, the point is raised in RCG that Trake ascending to godhood could have some effect on other surviving First Heroes (first empire soletaken). we don't know whether Ry was a shapeshifter before the failed shapeshifter ritual that nuked the human FE, but whatever the case, he is of the same pedigree as Trake and has clearly had his own worshippers for a while. Arguably, he was on the path to godhood before he ate most of his worshippers and was then taken down by the Old Guard and co.

- Abyss, medium rare.

Quote

Couple of points:

1. Soletaken and d'ivers, at least those originating from the First Empire, are INSANE. They can maintain peiods of cogency, as did Messerb when he encountered Iccy and Mapo - tho even then Mappo internal monologues that there's crazy in Messy's eyes. That said, in MoI, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, while clearly nuts, didn't seem full blown insane, and Buke went all 'withdrawal from humanity' as opposed to 'kill kill eat kill'.

...
4. Draconean soletaken is a different thing from the animal-based soletaken and d'ivers. No insanity, more/different power base.

5. Gryllen was an example of a d'ivers that gained in power. It seemed that they do so by longevity and/or eating other shapeshifters (or just powerful beings generally). Note in DG the bloodfly d'ivers that scared even the Hounds of Shadow - basically, a d'ivers that stings its victim, which both poisons them AND lays a new d'ivers body inside them.... THAT'S. FUCKED.
...
- Abyss, thinkymeatz hurtz now...

All of whgich is to say, there isn't a hard and fast rule, but all you really need to accept is that Ry is unique even amongst shapeshifters, havinbg stuck his crazy inside one body, then separated that body from the rest of him and gone off to find other whacky things he could do with it.

- Abyss, ...would have thought being able to lick himself was enuf....

[Excellence]

Trake's sole pov in Memories of Ice just before he meets Panther Girl said something about clashing with his old friend Ryllandaras, and mastering both soletaken AND d'ivers.

But wouldn't that be normal? Well, there's no "normal" when talking animalising yourself, I mean isn't that normal to forst soletake yorself, and if you can increase your power, then d'iver yourself?

[HoosierDaddy]

Excellence, on Mar 29 2009, 04:30 AM, said:

Trake's sole pov in Memories of Ice just before he meets Panther Girl said something about clashing with his old friend Ryllandaras, and mastering both soletaken AND d'ivers.

But wouldn't that be normal? Well, there's no "normal" when talking animalising yourself, I mean isn't that normal to forst soletake yorself, and if you can increase your power, then d'iver yourself?

The difference is that Ryllandaras is both Soletaken "RotCG" and "D'ivers", and has done this by separating the crazy part from the sane parts. The Soletaken Ritual drove the "First Heroes" (Treach, Ryllandaras, & others) insane. Treach lost himself inside his soletaken Tiger, while Ryllandaras "went the furthest" by separating the part of himself that went crazy into Quon Ryllandaras, while keeping the rest of his D'ivers self sane in 7 Cities.

[tiam]

Hvnt read any malaz in a while but here goes.

Ho claimed he moulded his divers form round ryllandaras who it seems is the master of the soletaken divers ritual. Now Trake (apparently at the siege of li heng although this makes no sense as Ry is meant to have been imprisoned for ages) floored Ry and tossed him down a cavern. We also see in HOC that Ry power is growing on 7c.

Ok Ryl is a mutation, like ho. He has seperated himself into 2 people and this explains why Ho mimicked him otherwise the quote makes little sense other than copying a master soletaken. Ho's parts are all seperate identities who all ganged up on him in a very human way. However my theory is that Ryllandaras has split him self into 2 (possibly more) people and one of these is a soletaken, the one beaten by Trake, and the other is the Divers on 7c. This makes Trakes defeating of Ry a bit easier to understand as Trake admits in MOI Ry was a master, the only one to master both forms of transformation. This means he possibly only beat him because of the split power and there fore trakes form of soletaken was suerior to Ry's.

[Excellence]

I'll know more when I get my slinky fingers on Crimson Guard . . . and Toll the hounds.

[dawnkiller]

Apologies for the stream of consciousness thing, I had to write this while reading through the thread to keep things straight.

D'ivers I remember, for the record:

Gryllen (rat dude)
Mogora (thousands of spiders -- IIRC she was also sworn to a spider goddess)
Dessemblackis (hounds)
The Pack (lizard...things -- anyone else wonder if this was a type of K'Chain Che'malle creature?)

We've also seen a reverse D'ivers -- Gruntle's company, who came together to form a giant tiger and would bleed men and bodyparts whenever it was wounded.

Regarding the wolf/jackal continuity issue, I kind of like the idea of geographic evolution, although I suppose there's also no reason Ryllanderas couldn't have taken Soletaken to such an art he could split himself into different canids aside from "we've never seen it before" -- and since we and the POV chars get a "We've never seen that before" moment in just about every book I don't think we can write it off just because of that. *G*

Re: the mental status of the Li Heng Ryllanderas: in the Malazan world worship shapes the Ascendant to a certain extent; Dassem certainly seems to be suffering for it, and Trake became the freaking god of war without doing anything but running around mindlessly mauling people for centuries. If Ryllanderas was venerated by the Seti for generations, who have a pretty steep hatred of the Henganese for pushing them out of their lands, it's maybe no surprise Ryllanderas has developed an urge towards genocide in that direction. (Not that he didn't already like the taste of sweet manflesh, but confinement and the Seti's influence gave it a target, I think.)

The fact that Ho, who was in the magic-numbing environs of the Otataral mines for so long, was apparently exempt from the standard D'ivers/Soletaken madness and the deformity of his other forms was also interesting. I mean, did his three D'ivers become crippled because their fourth was separated, or on their own, or was this some kind of side-effect of being in split, yet still in close proximity, like L'oric said? If the latter, then it would make sense why Ryllanderas has apparently spread himself across several continents -- originally it may have been to postpone madness while still allowing him to derive the maximum amount of use from his animal form. It also seems to imply that resisting the urge to make use of this power keeps you saner longer, at least if Ho is any indication -- his three D'ivers seemed kind of, um, off. Hence why some Ryllanderasi may appear weaker or saner than others -- different experiences. And not having been locked under a freaking city for generations.


PS: I'm with people who say Blues has the potential to do something with the Jade Giants because of the following exchange from p.631:

Quote

"I have identified the disturbance," Su announced, her gaze unwavering upon Yath.
"Yes?" Ho asked.
"It is a general contagion that infects almost all of us to greater and lesser degrees. But which is concentrated mainly in two carriers..."
Yath slowly straightened from his cross-legged position. He levelled his staff across his front. A wide, hungry smile crept up his lips.
"Yes?" Ho asked again, vexed. "Who?"
"Its two main foci are our Seven Cities friend and..." she turned her head aside, pointed, "...him."
Across the stern Blues' brows rose. He pointed to himself. "What? Me?"
"Oh yes..."

Everyone in the mines had probably touched the giants at least once during the course of study, which is how Heboric got whammied, but since Yath channeled the energy of the JGs and Blues was nailed with the same, I'm going to assume they got a pretty high dose.

This post has been edited by dawnkiller: 04 April 2009 - 05:37 PM

[Monoch Ochem]

I'm not sure if I understand clearly what has been the consensus here but Ryllandaras being both soletaken AND d'ivers, means that his soletaken form itself multiplied? This was my understanding.

He certainly grew in strength of numbers. But did he grow in strength of FORM from jackals to wolves, or was it that he could only choose wolves and jackals due to him having those 2 options. In other words, let's say he'd be soletaken wolf and d'ivers jackal. Due to him being such a great mage, he combined the 2 in such a way that he can be both d'ivers wolf (due to his soletaken...'aspect') and d'ivers jackal..... Apologies if this was already said or dismissed.

[Ectemnius]

The Soletaken and D'ivers issue:

We know the following Soletaken:
Korboral Broach and Bauchelin are Rooks; Buke is a Sparrowhawk; Messeremb is a Bear;The bonecasters from the T'lann Imass (for example: Pran Chole is a Arctic fox); Kilava is a Black panther; Trake or Treach is a Tiger
There are the Soletaken Eleint: Rake and Silchas for the Andii; Scabandari for the Edur; Osserc for the Liosan; Olar Ethil for the T'lann Imass (she is ever referred to as the First soletaken); etc.

What is the same for them all is that they have only one 'form.'
As soletaken refers to one or single. In this case having one form (I had this idea since first reading about the shapeshifers in GoTM)

The D'ivers we know of:
Dejim Nebrahl a T'rolbarahl of the first Empire is seven Lizardcats (was it in BH where they mentioned these were Dessembelackis' attempt at creating his own version of an Eder God?); Dessembelackis is the Hounds of Darkness, The Deragoth of whom there are seven; Gryllen is many, many rats; Mogora is many spiders; etc.

D'ivers refers to divers: various; and diverge: to tend from a point in lines which recede farther and farther from each other.
They have many 'forms.' They are many and they are one in terms of their experience/soul.
Most of them have severe disorders in personality. They think themselves almighty and care for no-one except themselves.
The new thing we now know from RoCG is that a sinlge form can become seperate from the rest.

Now Ryllandaras has mastered both we're told, but if that means that he can be a Soletaken wolf and a Jackal D'ivers at the same time isn't told anywhere. Is there even a significant difference between calling Ryllandaras a wolf or jackal?
All we know he is walking around with many forms on Seven Cities in Deadhouse Gates and House of Chains and in Return of the Crimson Guard he shows up as a single form on Quon Tali.

[Monoch Ochem]

I completely understand the D'iver and Soletaken etymology and general structure but my point was how to tie together the references to Ryllandaras, specifically.

A jackal and a wolf are two entirely different animals- I dare say that if you were faced with both, you'd have 2 VERY different concerns. So did Ryllandaras grow from the weaker jackal to the stronger wolf, not just in numbers but also in FORM? Could he, for example, become one or many plains bears? OR would he, should he be allowed to reign unchecked, just grow bigger and bigger in number and SIZE, rather than evolve to a higher animal?

[dawnkiller]

Monoch Ochem, on Apr 8 2009, 09:46 AM, said:

A jackal and a wolf are two entirely different animals- I dare say that if you were faced with both, you'd have 2 VERY different concerns. So did Ryllandaras grow from the weaker jackal to the stronger wolf, not just in numbers but also in FORM? Could he, for example, become one or many plains bears? OR would he, should he be allowed to reign unchecked, just grow bigger and bigger in number and SIZE, rather than evolve to a higher animal?

Actually, there's a question. If D'ivers can multiply their forms, why wouldn't Ryllandaras or a similarly bloodthirsty D'ivers have done so and overrun an entire continent? I also wonder what limits a D'ivers form. Dessembelackis had 7, Ho is 4, but Mogora (spiders), Gryllen (rats) and bloodfly-dude were some appalling number. That implies that smaller forms are easier to go multiples on -- or maybe "simpler" minds are easier to hive than large ones.

I suspect Ryllandaras' jackal form in Heng was at least part expedience. Jackals and wolves are both pack hunters, which suits a D'ivers, but I believe jackals, like coyotes, are more suited to plains environments, go for smaller/medium prey as opposed to enormous (so, for Ryllandaras, I guess that'd be humans rather than livestock), and somewhat more adaptable than wolves, especially to the presence of civilization. And while they are different species, they're technically all members of the Canis genus. So, maybe it's that he can vary form along the same evolutionary lines, which is still more than we've seen anyone else do. (And since dogs are also Canis, that'd mean he might not be able to put himself on a possible Hound of Shadow level.)

Regardless, I still want to know what happens when a D'ivers merges after losing one or more of its forms . . .

[Dolorous Menhir]

dawnkiller, on Apr 8 2009, 04:41 PM, said:

Actually, there's a question. If D'ivers can multiply their forms, why wouldn't Ryllandaras or a similarly bloodthirsty D'ivers have done so and overrun an entire continent? I also wonder what limits a D'ivers form. Dessembelackis had 7, Ho is 4, but Mogora (spiders), Gryllen (rats) and bloodfly-dude were some appalling number. That implies that smaller forms are easier to go multiples on -- or maybe "simpler" minds are easier to hive than large ones.

The number of "copies" a D'ivers has is clearly related to how strong they are. A D'ivers capable of overrunning a continent would be extremely strong. I imagine any D'ivers that approached that level would get killed by something, or at least cut down to size. They tend to be unsavoury characters who try to maintain a low profile. I doubt that, even without provocation, the ascendants and gods would sit back while, say, Gryllen, amassed that much power.

This post has been edited by Dolorous Menhir: 08 April 2009 - 05:40 PM