[onehitwunder]

So when tulas shorn is talking about there being hounds of death and shit like that is he being serious? Having a pack of hounds for every singal elemantal force seems kinda lame to me.

[worry]

I'm pretty sure Death has koalas instead of hounds.

This post has been edited by worrywort: 13 May 2010 - 01:28 AM

[maro]

worrywort, on 13 May 2010 - 12:32 AM, said:

I'm pretty share Death has koalas instead of hounds.

Drop Bears

[Illuyankas]

Honey badgers. Honey badgers eat fourteen times their own weight in drop bears a minute.

[worry]

I'd never heard of a drop bear before this week. They sound vicious!

[Sinisdar Toste]

mustard tigers eat drop bears and honey badgers for breakfast! with a nice chianti.

and on topic, i don't think they're are actually hounds of death/life/fire/water/etc. but then, what do i know? but if SE did somehow cram ten more sets of hounds into the last book that would be pretty lame.

This post has been edited by Sinisdar Toste: 13 May 2010 - 04:14 AM

[Abyss]

onehitwunder, on 12 May 2010 - 11:25 PM, said:

So when tulas shorn is talking about there being hounds of death and shit like that is he being serious? Having a pack of hounds for every singal elemantal force seems kinda lame to me.

Sinisdar Toste, on 13 May 2010 - 04:13 AM, said:

mustard tigers eat drop bears and honey badgers for breakfast! with a nice chianti.

and on topic, i don't think they're are actually hounds of death/life/fire/water/etc. but then, what do i know? but if SE did somehow cram ten more sets of hounds into the last book that would be pretty lame.

I suspect that Shorn was being rhetorical, basically stating the dangers of a direct embodiment of an elemental force.

Also, it's unclear whether the Deragoth really are aspected to Darkness, as opposed to just being called that. There are hints in both directions.


- Abyss, could eat one hundred honey mustard bears.

[dawnkiller]

Abyss, on 13 May 2010 - 03:19 PM, said:

I suspect that Shorn was being rhetorical, basically stating the dangers of a direct embodiment of an elemental force.

Also, it's unclear whether the Deragoth really are aspected to Darkness, as opposed to just being called that. There are hints in both directions.

I dunno, the parallels between the HoS dropping into the utter Darkness in Dragnipur and the subsequent release of the Deragoth in the Nascent (it was the Nascent, right?) indicates that if they weren't aspected as Dessimbelackis they have become so now.

Although, am I brain-glitching or has it ever been clear on whether the Deragoth are in fact "true" D'ivers of Dessy, or if Dessy was using a soul-shifting thing to split his consciousness 7 ways among existing creatures? Several times it's been implied the Deragoth were engineered -- some comment about them being different than the HoD because huge plains bears were used in their creation -- and that doesn't seem to jive with what little we know of the D'ivers/Soletaken system. I also seem to recall the Deragoth were stated as predating Dessy, but damned if I can remember where I got the impression.

[Abyss]

dawnkiller, on 13 May 2010 - 03:35 PM, said:

I dunno, the parallels between the HoS dropping into the utter Darkness in Dragnipur and the subsequent release of the Deragoth in the Nascent (it was the Nascent, right?) indicates that if they weren't aspected as Dessimbelackis they have become so now.

Although, am I brain-glitching or has it ever been clear on whether the Deragoth are in fact "true" D'ivers of Dessy, or if Dessy was using a soul-shifting thing to split his consciousness 7 ways among existing creatures? Several times it's been implied the Deragoth were engineered -- some comment about them being different than the HoD because huge plains bears were used in their creation -- and that doesn't seem to jive with what little we know of the D'ivers/Soletaken system. I also seem to recall the Deragoth were stated as predating Dessy, but damned if I can remember where I got the impression.

everything you say is true but unfort' we're still in the dark (heehee, see what i did there?).

We know the race of Deragoth existed back during the times when the KC were dominant (HoC, Osserc's memory warren), and kept the lizards off 7C. But we don't know where they came from and yeah, that 'harvested the plains bear' thing is perplexing. It suggests someone created them, but then let them run free and breed, yet eventually they died out.

We know that by the time Dessimbelackis' human First Empire was around, there were only seven Deragoth left, and we know that they served either Dessi', or another master (TB, Dejim's comment re being hunted by the Deragth and their unidentified master) and per Cotillion's comment in TtH we know Dessi's soul is now split up inside the last Deragoth, AND back in HoC Onrack told Trull that Dessi' was d'ivers with seven bodies. What we don't know is whether the seven deragoth were Dessi's original d'ivers bodies, or if he had a different form and ritualled himself into the deragoth, or he only became d'ivers when he joined with them, or something else entirely.

- Abyss, whose head hurts like seven heads from thinking about it.

[dawnkiller]

Abyss, on 13 May 2010 - 03:47 PM, said:

everything you say is true but unfort' we're still in the dark (heehee, see what i did there?).

You do this to hurt me, don't you.

Quote

We know the race of Deragoth existed back during the times when the KC were dominant (HoC, Osserc's memory warren), and kept the lizards off 7C. But we don't know where they came from and yeah, that 'harvested the plains bear' thing is perplexing. It suggests someone created them, but then let them run free and breed, yet eventually they died out.

We know that by the time Dessimbelackis' human First Empire was around, there were only seven Deragoth left, and we know that they served either Dessi', or another master (TB, Dejim's comment re being hunted by the Deragth and their unidentified master) and per Cotillion's comment in TtH we know Dessi's soul is now split up inside the last Deragoth, AND back in HoC Onrack told Trull that Dessi' was d'ivers with seven bodies. What we don't know is whether the seven deragoth were Dessi's original d'ivers bodies, or if he had a different form and ritualled himself into the deragoth, or he only became d'ivers when he joined with them, or something else entirely.

- Abyss, whose head hurts like seven heads from thinking about it.

Oh right, the Eres were the Deragoth's scavengers.

Actually you may've just answered the question of why the Deragoth would have been created and unleashed at all: to counter the KCCM. And while the Deragoth appear unnatural (and ultimately unsustainable, probably due to their size), they do seem a bit more native to Wu than the invading KCCM. I seem to recall the Eres were referred to as having been semi-domesticated by the Deragoth much like the ay were to the Imass (a working partnership, basically), and since the Eres apparently held the first spark of sentience I can see why someone might deem it important to protect them from the KCCM. As to who would have done it . . . I don't know, genetic engineering is more of a KCCM thing, and I don't see FA going there, or Tiste of any shade. I could see Jahgut, though. (Then again, every race has its aberrations, so all bets are really off.)

Regarding Dessy's shapeshifting antics, I've sort of given up trying to slap existing rules on guys like him. I believe Gruntle is called Soletaken, but it wasn't only him, it was him AND his entire company forming TreachVoltron -- basically a reverse D'ivers. Curdle and Telorast got hobbled to a single Tiste corpse, and what that makes them I have no clue. I do, however, get the sense the Deragoth thing was a method of last resort . . . Dessy was said to be pursued and pretty desperate by the time he met the LizardTwins in Shadow, and it seems unlikely anyone'd hitch their wagon to something to seven ravening beardogs if they had any other options.

[Daeghrefn]

This is an excellent discussion - I had to register so I could join in. I'm afraid I don't have any answers, only more ideas and quotations that will probably further confuse things.

Olar Ethil mentions "Eran'ishal, Mother to the Eres'al" among her list of titles, and the more I thought about this claim, the more questions it seemed to raise. I had always been under the impression that the Eres'al hopping around time giving Trull and Bottle the old rub n' tug was the Eres goddess - or at least the closest thing to a goddess they had. We already know that Olar has been diminished in power through her embrace of the Ritual, and the Eres'al is described by Bottle as "the last innocent creature," or something like this, so perhaps she represents the "mother goddess" figure in its purest form, with Olar being a denigration of sorts.

I say "perhaps," however, because the Eres'al evades such easy conclusions. She possesses T'amber for an unknown period of time, for reasons that are still not entirely clear. What's more, T'amber has an interesting connection to another mysterious goddess who has been mentioned a few times in this thread. I noticed a nice little tidbit of information in HoC on a recent readthrough - when Tene Baralta questions Gamet about T'amber, his response is

Quote

What is she like? She was a concubine, I believe, in the Grand Temple of the Queen of Dreams, in Unta. (HoC 386)

"Hmm," I thought as I read this. "Where else has the Queen of Dreams popped up?" Other posters have already discussed her possible connection to L'oric, but she shows up in a few other unexpected places as well - like Y'ghatan, where the temple of Scalissera now belongs to the Queen. It's no great stretch to convert an olive goddess to the Queen, either, because as Corabb notes, the cult of Scalissera was founded on initiating runaway children into something called the Cold Dream:

Quote

Leoman had been one such foundling child... Desire and necessity, the war within a mortal's spirit, this was at the heart of the Cold Dream (TBh 272)

Leoman is quite obviously in league with the Queen, but for what purpose? The Queen appears to be a fairly benign deity in the grand scheme of things, but L'oric warns Leoman that

Quote

That goddess has no interest in what's right and what's wrong. If she once possessed a heart, she flung it away long ago. (TBh 379)

Interesting. This suggests to me that the Queen, far from being a benevolent entity, has her own agenda in the game of gods, and I don't believe we know what that is at this point. What is abundantly clear is that she, the Eres'al, Olar Ethil and a whole bunch of other "mother figures" are all manipulating mortals to their own ends - and I seriously doubt that those ends will all be beneficial to mortals (do you trust OE? I sure don't). Are they all aspects of one cosmic Mother, as others have suggested? I think there is strong evidence to support this theory - witness Ereko's musings on his goddess, the Enchantress, in RotCG. He refers to her almost as a kind of One God, saying that all things happen within her "vision." Additionally, Ereko says that the Queen of Dreams IS the Enchantress, which seems to me to echo Olar Ethil's claims about having many different names in the past. Then there is this passage from TBh about the Queen:

Quote

The Goddess of Divinations cast a thousand reflections upon a thousand peoples, and no one civilization could claim her exclusively as its own (279).

Whew, that was a lot of quoting (can you tell I've been thinking about this for a while?). I doubt that all of these connections will ultimately prove to be related, but it's a testament to the complexity of these books that we're even able to conjecture about this kind of stuff.

This post has been edited by Daeghrefn: 17 May 2010 - 02:57 AM

[Abyss]

dawnkiller, on 13 May 2010 - 04:04 PM, said:

Abyss, on 13 May 2010 - 03:47 PM, said:

everything you say is true but unfort' we're still in the dark (heehee, see what i did there?).

You do this to hurt me, don't you.

Yes. Yes i do.

Quote

Oh right, the Eres were the Deragoth's scavengers.

Actually you may've just answered the question of why the Deragoth would have been created and unleashed at all: to counter the KCCM.

Now that's an interesting theory

DoD brings us the revelation that KC and Jaghut actually hung out together, at least in some places. It's been suggested elsewhere that they weren't so cuddly together, altho that could have been due to particular Jaghut Tyrants or nutbag Matrons.

Further back in MoI we were told that the KC were sufficiently powerful to keep the Elder Gods away from the world for a time.

So who does that leave to have geneginnered the big bad bear dogs...

Curiously, the Tiste are a possibility - HoC told us the Edur were the ancient masters of the HoS and TtH gave us Shorn, a Tiste Edur who claims he made the HoS... and we know there were Andii already on the world long before Silch and Scabby led their invasion force... still, there have been no other hints to support any Tiste connection, so i'm still stumped.

Quote

Regarding Dessy's shapeshifting antics, I've sort of given up trying to slap existing rules on guys like him. I believe Gruntle is called Soletaken, but it wasn't only him, it was him AND his entire company forming TreachVoltron -- basically a reverse D'ivers. Curdle and Telorast got hobbled to a single Tiste corpse, and what that makes them I have no clue.

Kind of like what SE has done with Ascension, magic and pantheons, he's shaken up the approach to shapeshifting way beyond 'dude turns into wolf'

Gruntle did the uber-Tiger thing in MoI but in DoD he seemed to be closer to classic soletaken.

Curdle and Telorast... okay, twin undead dragons bonded to a single dead Andii body, who can wander around as 'ghosts' and possess dead bodies, briefly semble into their dragon forms but have to veer back to ghost or be drawn back to some dead Andii body sitting around somewhere in a chunk of shadow... and now my head hurts...

Quote

I do, however, get the sense the Deragoth thing was a method of last resort . . . Dessy was said to be pursued and pretty desperate by the time he met the LizardTwins in Shadow...

he was? I got the sense he was doing an experiment to see if the shapeshifting thing could be applied to his Empire? What makes you say he was pursued?

Daeghrefn said:

This is an excellent discussion - I had to register so I could join in. I'm afraid I don't have any answers, only more ideas and quotations that will probably further confuse things.

Even so, excellent first post. Welcome.

Quote

Olar Ethil mentions "Eran'ishal, Mother to the Eres'al" among her list of titles,...however, because the Eres'al evades such easy conclusions. She possesses T'amber for an unknown period of time, for reasons that are still not entirely clear.

Some part of my brain is still holding to the 'gods as d'ivers' theory but even so, Kila created at least one of the founding races if not several, so no reason an Elder Goddess couldn't be the creator of the Eres race. The Eres'al herself, however, i think is the first 'sentient' member of that race, and not an Elder God herself in the sense that Ola, Kila and co are.

Quote

What's more, T'amber has an interesting connection to another mysterious goddess ... ... the Queen:

Quote

The Goddess of Divinations cast a thousand reflections upon a thousand peoples, and no one civilization could claim her exclusively as its own (279).

...

Now here you raise a very interesting point.
I don't think the QoD has been named as an EG so far, but as with D'rek, many gods have histories way beyond the manifestation we first see in the books. In theory, she could be anything. Take the Gods/D'ivers theory a step forward and she could be linked to almost anyone including Olar.

Oh Hell this just gets messier.

- Abyss, was happy back when gods were just shapeshifters who dropped down to shag the odd mortal now and then...

[dawnkiller]

Abyss, on 17 May 2010 - 02:25 PM, said:

Yes. Yes i do.

I knew I hated you for a reason. No, wait, this would only be one of them, wouldn't it . . .

Quote

Quote

Oh right, the Eres were the Deragoth's scavengers.

Actually you may've just answered the question of why the Deragoth would have been created and unleashed at all: to counter the KCCM.

Now that's an interesting theory

DoD brings us the revelation that KC and Jaghut actually hung out together, at least in some places. It's been suggested elsewhere that they weren't so cuddly together, altho that could have been due to particular Jaghut Tyrants or nutbag Matrons.

Further back in MoI we were told that the KC were sufficiently powerful to keep the Elder Gods away from the world for a time.

So who does that leave to have geneginnered the big bad bear dogs...

Curiously, the Tiste are a possibility - HoC told us the Edur were the ancient masters of the HoS and TtH gave us Shorn, a Tiste Edur who claims he made the HoS... and we know there were Andii already on the world long before Silch and Scabby led their invasion force... still, there have been no other hints to support any Tiste connection, so i'm still stumped.

It doesn't seem unusual that there'd be some enclaves of KCCM and Jaghut that would get along. SE's great at demonstrating that while members of certain races hold some things in common, there's always differing individuality.

The HoS I thought were perhaps Kurald Emurlahn's equivalent of Togg and Fanderay -- that is, Shadow's equivalent of the Beast Hold. Do we have a quote on the "making" of the HoS? (I think it's possible, but I only remember Tulas Shorn saying he was their master.)

Quote

Quote

I do, however, get the sense the Deragoth thing was a method of last resort . . . Dessy was said to be pursued and pretty desperate by the time he met the LizardTwins in Shadow...

he was? I got the sense he was doing an experiment to see if the shapeshifting thing could be applied to his Empire? What makes you say he was pursued?

I don't have my book at the moment, but I'm pretty sure it was . . . around p.692-695ish, where Curdle and Telorast are explaining their Soletaken Confusion. He may have been desperate regarding his Empire, since it wasn't specific, but I believe the reason given for freeing the dragons was that he needed allies due to pursuit, which may mean it was around the period where the T'lan Imass were already enacting their slaughter.(Can anyone pull that up?)

Daeghrefn, on 17 May 2010 - 01:18 AM, said:

Quote

What's more, T'amber has an interesting connection to another mysterious goddess ... ... the Queen:

Quote

The Goddess of Divinations cast a thousand reflections upon a thousand peoples, and no one civilization could claim her exclusively as its own (279).

...

Now here you raise a very interesting point.
I don't think the QoD has been named as an EG so far, but as with D'rek, many gods have histories way beyond the manifestation we first see in the books. In theory, she could be anything. Take the Gods/D'ivers theory a step forward and she could be linked to almost anyone including Olar.

The QoD was once a mortal named T'riss who ran with Osserc and Rake at one point (L'oric invokes her by that name in HoC), so she's a goddess by Ascendency rather than ex nihil, as the Elder Gods seem to be. This does not compromise the theory she may be one incarnation of life/fecundity/whatever, because we know that once an Ascendent enters an Azath they have the option of choosing which sphere to claim, as ST and Dancer did. It's possible that T'riss Ascendended and, like ST and Dancer, found an empty throne in High House Life. Since I find it unlikely a House that important would be unseated, it may be that someone had first vacated its ancient/Hold version. (Guess it might have been Olar Ethil, as I imagine self-zombification kind of precludes that position . . .)

It's also notable that multiple unrelated deities can embody the same aspect. War alone is held by Treach, Fener (sort of), and Togg & Fancyfeast. T&F predate the Elder Gods, whereas Treach was a First Hero from the FHE. So yeah -- it would make sense that something as universal as life itself has many, many faces.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Abyss, on 17 May 2010 - 02:25 PM, said:

Further back in MoI we were told that the KC were sufficiently powerful to keep the Elder Gods away from the world for a time.

Off topic here...But that quote has always bothered me, because it seems impossible that things are more powerful than the EG's. My interpretation of the quote has always been that the K'Chain Che Malle were the dominant race of the time, humans were not able to get a foothold. Since the EG's seem to have fed mostly on the prayers and sacrifices of humans, when the K'Chain Che Malle were finally wiped out/forced into hiding the humans were able to step up and create civilizations, bringing the EG's into/back into the world.

[worry]

Abyss, on 17 May 2010 - 02:25 PM, said:

Quote

Olar Ethil mentions "Eran'ishal, Mother to the Eres'al" among her list of titles,...however, because the Eres'al evades such easy conclusions. She possesses T'amber for an unknown period of time, for reasons that are still not entirely clear.

Some part of my brain is still holding to the 'gods as d'ivers' theory but even so, Kila created at least one of the founding races if not several, so no reason an Elder Goddess couldn't be the creator of the Eres race. The Eres'al herself, however, i think is the first 'sentient' member of that race, and not an Elder God herself in the sense that Ola, Kila and co are.

Eres'al is in some ways a neat counter to the traditional misogynistic take on Eve then, and one that also takes into account evolution to boot. I dunno, if OE is the goddess I trust the least, the Eres'al is who I trust the most -- time-jumping and body-inhabiting and Bottle-humping included.

On another note, I wonder if Queen of Dreams has anything to do with, or even is Mockra, since that warren seems to be sentient and female.

And on a note about the god/d'ivers theory...one thing about that, and what strikes me most are the names that OE lists, is that these are all names created by the worshipers. I wonder if worship of the "same" God by many different people in many different ways affects that god somehow, besides power boosts. Fractures them somehow? I dunno, I don't actually believe in the d'ivers theory, but it certainly might hold truth anyway. It could be that in a d'ivers situation, OE is the jackal Ryllandaras and the other aspects are the wolves, if that metaphor makes sense.

[Abyss]

[quote name='dawnkiller' date='17 May 2010 - 11:21 AM' timestamp='1274109703' post='761904']
[quote name='Abyss' date='17 May 2010 - 09:25 AM' timestamp='1274106320' post='761889']
Yes. Yes i do.[/quote]

I knew I hated you for a reason. No, wait, this would only be one of them, wouldn't it . . . [/quote]

The list is long but colourful.


[quote][quote] Oh right, the Eres were the Deragoth's scavengers.

Actually you may've just answered the question of why the Deragoth would have been created and unleashed at all: to counter the KCCM. [/quote]

[quote] The HoS I thought were perhaps Kurald Emurlahn's equivalent of Togg and Fanderay -- that is, Shadow's equivalent of the Beast Hold. Do we have a quote on the "making" of the HoS? (I think it's possible, but I only remember Tulas Shorn saying he was their master.) [/quote]

It's not unthinkable that there is some link.. the Beast Hold may be as Elder as certain Elder Warrens, or close to, and the 'what came first' debate can easily swing any which way. Still, in TtH Shorn absolutely says he created the Hounds, and they are Hounds after all, not wolves...


[quote]He may have been desperate regarding his Empire, since it wasn't specific, but I believe the reason given for freeing the dragons was that he needed allies due to pursuit, which may mean it was around the period where the T'lan Imass were already enacting their slaughter.(Can anyone pull that up?) [/quote]

Nope, but i thought he worked his mojo on Telorast and Cyrdle as an experiment BEFORE he went and animalitied the entire human First Empire ritual.


[quote] The QoD was once a mortal named T'riss who ran with Osserc and Rake at one point (L'oric invokes her by that name in HoC), ...[/quote]

...and Rake spent a bunch of years hanging out as a human, and Keruli was just a clever merchant, and the Letherii Edur creation myths were all perfectly accurate...

- Abyss, won't be fooled again.....

[Illuyankas]

Wait, why do you think Rake never hung out disguised as a human?

[worry]

No humans have a head of hair that nice.

[Daeghrefn]

worrywort, on 17 May 2010 - 07:19 PM, said:

On another note, I wonder if Queen of Dreams has anything to do with, or even is Mockra, since that warren seems to be sentient and female.

And on a note about the god/d'ivers theory...one thing about that, and what strikes me most are the names that OE lists, is that these are all names created by the worshipers. I wonder if worship of the "same" God by many different people in many different ways affects that god somehow, besides power boosts. Fractures them somehow? I dunno, I don't actually believe in the d'ivers theory, but it certainly might hold truth anyway. It could be that in a d'ivers situation, OE is the jackal Ryllandaras and the other aspects are the wolves, if that metaphor makes sense.

Mockra? Not much of a stretch, if you ask me - the Queen is the mistress of "divinations," which seems to me to be an inward-looking, mental discipline.

I also like the idea of OE being the "deviant" body of the D'ivers. It makes sense, since the primary function of the mother goddess is to give life, warmth, food and comfort, and OE can only deliver these gifts in a way that reflects her twisted, undead nature (as when she brings Tool back). I think there might not be a literal D'ivers situation here, but something akin to the "fracturing" you describe. Perhaps many different mother goddesses have arisen independently, and they are aware of each other because they are worshipped in similar ways.

[dawnkiller]

[quote name='Abyss' date='17 May 2010 - 04:00 PM' timestamp='1274130053' post='761963']

The list is long but colourful.[/quote]

Yeah, just last week archaeologists found a partial version inscribed on clay tablets of ancient Sumer.


[quote]
It's not unthinkable that there is some link.. the Beast Hold may be as Elder as certain Elder Warrens, or close to, and the 'what came first' debate can easily swing any which way. Still, in TtH Shorn absolutely says he created the Hounds, and they are Hounds after all, not wolves...[quote]

Togg & Fancyfeast definitely predate the EGs, as per MoI p.42, where Togg watches the three Elder Gods curse Kallor:

[quote]The beast elected to follow none of them. They were young entities as far as he and his mate were concerned, and the warren she might have fled to was, in comparison to those of the Elder Gods, ancient.[/quote]

I'm not sure which warren this is -- it segues into Togg finding Toc in Chaos, which is one of the oldest, but Fener appears to have a warren of his own, so Togg may have been checking that one first. So while the EGs, or at least Olar Ethil, were definitely around in the days of the Imass, this passage leads me to suspect that Beasts came first. Before the ability to grasp abstracts, there would have been the ability to distinguish predator from prey . . . and violence and the fight for survival.

But yeah -- point on the HoS being Hounds, not wolves, so domesticated by definition.


[quote][quote]He may have been desperate regarding his Empire, since it wasn't specific, but I believe the reason given for freeing the dragons was that he needed allies due to pursuit, which may mean it was around the period where the T'lan Imass were already enacting their slaughter.(Can anyone pull that up?) [/quote]

Nope, but i thought he worked his mojo on Telorast and Cyrdle as an experiment BEFORE he went and animalitied the entire human First Empire ritual.[/quote]

Okay, found it. Page 692, conversation between Curdle and Olar Ethil:

[quote]"He brought the ritual to his people-oh, it was an old ritual, much older than Dessimbelackis, much older than this world. He forced it upon his subjects."
"This tale I know well. I was there, when we gave answer to that. The swords of the T'lan Imass dripped for days. But, there were not dragons, not there, not then."
"You'd begun the slaughter. He'd fled even before then, taking his D'ivers form--"
"The Deragoth."
"Yes. He knew you were hunting him. He needed allies. But we were chained, and he could not break those chains. So he offered to take our souls..."[/quote]


[quote] The QoD was once a mortal named T'riss who ran with Osserc and Rake at one point (L'oric invokes her by that name in HoC), ...[/quote]

...and Rake spent a bunch of years hanging out as a human, and Keruli was just a clever merchant, and the Letherii Edur creation myths were all perfectly accurate... [/quote]

Yeah, but I think we had confirmation of that in . . . MoI, I think, around a Brood/Rake scene, where she's refered to as "the woman who would become the Queen of Dreams" or somesuch. (Given how little we've seen of her so far, though, I suspect she's the provence of ICE, so hopefully we'll find out.)

And on that note, I go back to watching Jeff Goldblum turn into a fly in a refreshingly straightforward manner.