[Severian]

Hi, here is my questions:
Tiste edur are children of shadow and their realm is sundered . Also There is a high house shadow which ruled by cotillion and ammanas so these two usurped Tiste edur warren (kurald emurlahn) or are they is another place ? in this case why not they became the gods of tiste edur? And why not other asendants of edur oppose these two? isnt high house shadow related with tiste edur?

[Aptorian]

The details are a bit blurry but basically the realm of Emurhlan was sundered and one of the chunks of it became the warren of Meanas, the realm that Shadowthrone controls.

But there's also a throne of shadow, seperated from the House of shadow, connected with old Emurhlan, that supposedly gives the user greater control of the shadow fragments... I think... supposedly... maybe.

The Edur have been mostly ignorant of their past, and while they may have known of the birthrealms fate, they didn't really have the means or drive to do much about it. Rhulad how ever working together with the CG was trying to reclaim shadow. That's what the showdown in BH was all about.

Personally I have a hard time understanding whether the old hold realms have any effect upon the new house realms. Are they seperate existances or are they the same?

[MTS]

Alright I'll split your post into sections.

1) Kurald Emurlahn is a sundered warren, yes. Fragments of it are used by a number of people like the Whirlwind Goddess and the CG. However, it is not a cohesive place in and of itself; we don't even know if it's real or just merely a representation of other places (see Cotillion and Edgewalker's musings about Shadow in BH for more explanation). Thus Ammanas and Cotillion don't control Kurald Emurlahn - they control a Shadow warren, but I am unsure as to whether it is Meanas or another fragment of Kurald Emurlahn. Maybe D'rek or someone else would know.

2) Why don't they become gods of the Edur? Simple. To be a god of a people you have to be worshiped by those people. The Tiste Edur don't acknowledge ST and Cotillion as true rulers of Shadow, only mere pretenders. They worship Father Shadow (Scabandari Bloodeye, or Emurlahnis) and his daughters.

3) High House Shadow is related to the Edur (Trull is Knight), but it is mostly dominated by ST and Cotillion.

[D'rek]

MappoTS is the summoner!

Right, so there aren't really any easy answers for these sort of things because, after all, the semantics of these circumstances are not explained very much in the books and there aren't enough parallel situations to compare similarities and such. Plus Erikson loves throwing in new complications to mess with our heads. As such, pretty much everything I say from her on is debatable to an extent.


The big thing to keep in mind in matters like this is that the warrens (KE and Meanas), the realms (the various KE fragments), the pantheon structures (HHS), the gods (ST, Scabby), the thrones and much more are all related in some ways, but in other ways are actually not much related at all. For the fullest comprehension, I'll try to address as much as possible, but unfortunately this is definitely going to be very long-winded...


So. As already mentioned, Kurald Emurlahn was originally one big unified warren and got sundered/shattered/broken into lots of pieces. Among the more stable pieces are the one Dryjhna used (and now Raraku has claimed it), the Nascent, and the one wherein Shadowkeep is. We've seen all sorts of different properties from the different ones, ie the Raraku fragment stayed where it was, the Nascent seems accessible from a wide variety of places, and the Shadowkeep fragment wanders around.

As with a lot of warrens, Shadow is a lot like a 'layer' on the Malaziworld/Wu - while it is its own realm, locations in one are related to locations in other. This is especially interesting with the wandering Shadowkeep fragment, which some character remarks that if they were to switch into the Malaziworld at the current time they'd end up in the ocean (beginning of RG, I think). Of course, Shadow magic/aspectness is still usable outside a fragment of Emurlahn, including even if your current location in the Malaziworld doesn't currently line up with any fragments either. For example, Apsalar uses Shadow magic to traverse across a seabed in BH, again this is like applying a layer of Shadow to the world around her, hence she sees Blackwood trees and the water is gone, but the groundscape is unchanged and she still sees Paran's boat. Using Shadow anywhere is of course very important, since the plot does have Cot and ST showing up in all sorts of places...


So, moving on, the Shadowkeep fragment of Emurlahn has Shadowkeep, of course, wherein is the Shadow-throne, which Ammanas sat on to claim the role of Shadowthrone, ruler of Shadow. Based on all sorts of evidence, such as Tattersail in GotM, Bidithal in HoC and plenty more, it is quite apparent that sitting on this throne immediately gave Ammanas rule of High House Shadow in the pantheon, and the related powers such as command of the Hounds, appointing The Rope and whatever else might come with it. Word quickly spread via the Deck and priestlyness and stuff, and so Ammanas probably quickly assimilated some shadow cults into his own new shadow priesthood (cult = worships a non-god like pre-MoI-Trake or the Empty Throne; priesthood or religion worships an actual god like post-MoI-Trake).

It would seem that with his butt on the Shadow-throne, Ammanas has control over his entire fragment of Emurlahn, as well, but has not shown any control over any other fragments.

Now for Meanas, and this is where it gets tricky. Certainly Meanas existed long before Ammanas took the Shadow-throne, as evinced by the various shadow cults, mages like QB (and one of his souls) and other Meanas uses that existed before Kellanved even ascended. Thus, Meanas does not require any god to still be a fully functioning warren. Furthermore, there is the question of whether Ammanas really has any control over it. He is the only god of Shadow, but if there was another they would probably both still use Meanas (just like the QoD and D'rek both use D'riss, as do their priests).

Personally, I believe that the ability to use Meanas anywhere and with no god occupying the throne infers that claiming the Shadow-throne does not grant Ammanas direct control over the magic of the warren. However, it probably does give him some extra abilities with its shaping and, as with all gods, the Shadow priesthood gets their power through Ammanas' control (it is something of a mis-nomer, perhaps they should be called the Ammanas priesthood). Non-priestly mages are not subject to these limitations, however, and use Meanas itself, instead of Ammanas' personal shaping of it (and there are likely advantages and disadvantages between the priestly and mage usages).

This takes us to the Tiste Edur. The Edur on the Lether continent are backwaters Edur who can sense little of the outside world because of Gothos' preservation ritual. However, Hannan Mosag and later Rhulad both claim to have explored fragments of KE (and Rhulad drains seas from Aral Gamelon into the Nascent), so they are not physically limited in accessing the fragments of KE. However, they have no knowledge of the Azath, the Deck, the Paths or the pantheon beyond Lether, so this is probably why they don't even know about Ammanas and HHS. Furthermore, since they seem to strictly use KE magic and never Meanas-related magics, while humans are generally limited to Meanas and can't access KE magic, there is no overlap for the two to sense each other's use of similar magics.

The Edur god(s) are not like Ammanas. Regardless of whether Scabby and his daughters are alive, around or whether they are being worshipped properly or falsely, the Edur on Lether do not have a priestly religion with rituals involving asking for the power of their god. They worship their gods, but all their magic is done as a mage would. This has quite a few implications, including why they could keep believing Scabby wasn't completely dead, and it also explains why Ammanas has no leverage over them. Even if the Edur were aware of Ammanas, they could continue to worship the memory of Scabby since it has no adverse effect on their magic.

Hmm, okay I think i've pretty much answered all the questions so far (and a lot more, besides).

The big issue that I don't think I or anyone else can answer at this point is whether Meanas is only manifested by the Shadowkeep fragment of KE or if it also encompasses all the fragments of Emurlahn. There may be some evidence for one or the other from the way characters travel into the Nascent - a mortal mage drags Kulp and co. into the Nascent, but Kulp uses Meanas to travel from the Nascent into the Shadowkeep fragment. In HoC, however, the T'lan Imass have difficulty leaving the Nascent. They can't just open a gate, they need a big ritual with Edur blood and whatnot. So it's a tough one to say one way or another.

Hope that wasn't too long and was also helpful!

[Night Hawk]

Severian, on Jun 4 2009, 05:35 AM, said:

Hi, here is my questions:
Tiste edur are children of shadow and their realm is sundered . Also There is a high house shadow which ruled by cotillion and ammanas so these two usurped Tiste edur warren (kurald emurlahn) or are they is another place ? in this case why not they became the gods of tiste edur? And why not other asendants of edur oppose these two? isnt high house shadow related with tiste edur?

Kurald Emurlahn was the original warren; however that warren was sundered, essentially broken into many fragments that are, currently anyway, independent of one another. One of the larger ones is the "realm" that Cotillion and Shadowthrone occupy which happens to be controlled by a certain throne (I believe).

So, the Edur worshipped the whole realm; now it is in independent fragments. That is why all of that which you wonder doesn't happen.

As for your question about High House Shadow, I'm not sure if it is related to the Tiste Edur... I was under the impression that High House Shadow is of the "new" magics, and Kurald Emurlahn was an Elder warren, of Elder magics.

[MTS]

Night Hawk, on Jun 8 2009, 01:14 PM, said:

As for your question about High House Shadow, I'm not sure if it is related to the Tiste Edur... I was under the impression that High House Shadow is of the "new" magics, and Kurald Emurlahn was an Elder warren, of Elder magics.

I believe the Houses are independent of the Warrens, or at least not limited to the younger warrens, and are constructs of the Deck rather than the warrens. Rake and Osserc are both Champions of Dark and Light and Trull is/was Knight of Shadow, and they're all patrons of Elder Warrens (well, Trull isn't, but the Edur are Elder). So I think it's the aspect that determines who the Houses affect, rather then whether it's Elder of Younger.

[D'rek]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jun 7 2009, 11:00 PM, said:

So I think it's the aspect that determines who the Houses affect, rather then whether it's Elder of Younger.

I doubt it. Humans are not Shadow-aspected but HHS is ruled by humans. Jaghut are ice-aspected but rule

Spoiler

Death

, etc etc. The Houses aren't a real structure anyways, just a common, more-or-less mutually agreed upon system of grouping like-aspected ascendants and gods together so they can share worshippers and get fat on their own power together. Or something.

[MTS]

Yeah, I was going back to what someone said before about your actions determining what position you hold in whatever house, not talking about people being aspected as such. Gethol goes from Herald of Death to Herald of Chains based on his actions and Kalam's assassination mission in DG takes him to take the position of the Rope for example. So like you said, if you have a group of like-aspected Ascendants scheming and pawns working in their favour, the pawns probably gain positions in that House.

[D'rek]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jun 8 2009, 08:12 AM, said:

Gethol goes from Herald of Death to Herald of Chains based on his actions and

Mmm, no. The only thing Gethol's actions did was piss off Hood, and then Hood kicked his ass out of the House. Gethol was offered the Herald of Chain position and vocally accepted.

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jun 8 2009, 08:12 AM, said:

Kalam's assassination mission in DG takes him to take the position of the Rope for example.

No it doesn't. Or, as Abyss would probably say:

A card received in a reading is not equivalent to having that position in the House.
A card received in a reading is not equivalent to having that position in the House.
A card received in a reading is not equivalent to having that position in the House.

[MTS]

Lol fine I'll use more pertinent examples then:

Spoiler

Kyle ferries Osserc in his sword, and so becomes Soldier of Light; Gaz kills people and so becomes Soldier of Death, and Thordy becomes Mason by preparing a place for Hood to manifest

. << (ROTCG and TtH spoilers)

[coltainereborn]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jun 8 2009, 09:12 AM, said:

Yeah, I was going back to what someone said before about your actions determining what position you hold in whatever house, not talking about people being aspected as such. Gethol goes from Herald of Death to Herald of Chains based on his actions and Kalam's assassination mission in DG takes him to take the position of the Rope for example. So like you said, if you have a group of like-aspected Ascendants scheming and pawns working in their favour, the pawns probably gain positions in that House.

There is also Clip, who says he is Darkness' mortal sword, and has some pretty impressive powers. But we learn in TTH

Spoiler

that this may not be the case, as he was never sanctioned by either Mother Dark(who turned away) or Anomander, whom Clip has never met. But he did come from a conclave of Isolated Andi who did worship mother dark, so, were they able to give him the position as worshippers? whether or not it was officially sanctioned by whoever is in charge of Darkness.

Also Gruntle is chosen as Mortal Sword of Treach, but it doesn't seem like it was his choice, as he is a reluctant MS.

[MTS]

SE waxed philosophical in MoI about Gruntle being a representative of the common soldier or some such - hates war and fighting, bu does it out of necessity and typifies all the camaraderie that goes with being a soldier with others.

Anyway, I still think the positions are representative of your ambitions and actions and how they align with the Houses.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

I know that Meanas is the warren equivalent of the hold of KE, but where do we learn that it is one of the sundered fragments of it? I assumed it was a different realm, because Rashan is the warren equivalent of KG, but KG was never torn apart.


Also just something random I thought of, if Meanas is just a fragmented part of the realm of KE does Edgewalker just protect that fragment? or does he walk the edges of all the fragments?

[coltainereborn]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jun 8 2009, 11:00 AM, said:

SE waxed philosophical in MoI about Gruntle being a representative of the common soldier or some such - hates war and fighting, bu does it out of necessity and typifies all the camaraderie that goes with being a soldier with others.

Anyway, I still think the positions are representative of your ambitions and actions and how they align with the Houses.

Actually that makes a lot of sense for both Clip,-- and Gruntle, his actions make him a good choice for mortal sword of treach, no matter how much he may chaffe at the idea.

Just as Trull became the MS of shadow, probably through his actions taken defending the throne

[D'rek]

This role talk is extremely off-topic.

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on Jun 8 2009, 11:44 AM, said:

I know that Meanas is the warren equivalent of the hold of KE, but where do we learn that it is one of the sundered fragments of it? I assumed it was a different realm, because Rashan is the warren equivalent of KG, but KG was never torn apart.


Also just something random I thought of, if Meanas is just a fragmented part of the realm of KE does Edgewalker just protect that fragment? or does he walk the edges of all the fragments?

Who's to say that Meanas even has a realm? Why should one Shadow-related realm be Meanas and the others not? Clearly some KE fragments can function independent from any noticeable influence of the Meanas warren, maybe all of them are detached and Meanas is just Shadow magic, not intrinsically related to any particular realm at all...

[Night Hawk]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Jun 8 2009, 12:00 AM, said:

Night Hawk, on Jun 8 2009, 01:14 PM, said:

As for your question about High House Shadow, I'm not sure if it is related to the Tiste Edur... I was under the impression that High House Shadow is of the "new" magics, and Kurald Emurlahn was an Elder warren, of Elder magics.

I believe the Houses are independent of the Warrens, or at least not limited to the younger warrens, and are constructs of the Deck rather than the warrens. Rake and Osserc are both Champions of Dark and Light and Trull is/was Knight of Shadow, and they're all patrons of Elder Warrens (well, Trull isn't, but the Edur are Elder). So I think it's the aspect that determines who the Houses affect, rather then whether it's Elder of Younger.

Ohhhh riiight I got mixed up -- thanks Mappo's Travelling Sack

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

D'rek, on Jun 8 2009, 01:42 PM, said:

This role talk is extremely off-topic.

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on Jun 8 2009, 11:44 AM, said:

I know that Meanas is the warren equivalent of the hold of KE, but where do we learn that it is one of the sundered fragments of it? I assumed it was a different realm, because Rashan is the warren equivalent of KG, but KG was never torn apart.


Also just something random I thought of, if Meanas is just a fragmented part of the realm of KE does Edgewalker just protect that fragment? or does he walk the edges of all the fragments?

Who's to say that Meanas even has a realm? Why should one Shadow-related realm be Meanas and the others not? Clearly some KE fragments can function independent from any noticeable influence of the Meanas warren, maybe all of them are detached and Meanas is just Shadow magic, not intrinsically related to any particular realm at all...

Interesting, I always assumed that all warren magic had a specific realm that it originated from, but I guess it could be the way you explained it.