[Menes Kol Kronski]

D, on 15 July 2013 - 07:46 PM, said:

Jean-Claude Van tiam, on 12 July 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

nacht, on 11 July 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:

By the start of OST, It does seem Jan was 2nd for a while and it was a year since his last challenge.

Quote

So, a year already, is it? He was surprised. Time seemed to pass ever more quickly as he became older. Not that he intended to get older – it was merely the byproduct of his extended wait for someone to manage to defeat him.

Quote

Over the years he had lost count of the many Thirds who had come and gone beneath him.

And it seems Gall was third was quite a long time before he was recently disposed by Enoc

Quote

'Will Gall reclaim the Third?' Jan asked Palla.
She laughed, and, ducking her head, lifted her mask to take a pinched morsel of rice and meats.
'He will. And with gratitude to be back on his old rung again.' 'Gratitude? I did not act as I did for his benefit.'
She bowed, all formal, but her voice held humour: 'Gratitude for reminding everyone why he has remained Third for so long.'

All of this does imply that Jan has been 2nd for a while but I doubt that is only a short time between the end of MOI and the start of OST. A lot of events happened between the end of MOI and the emergence of the tyrant.

At the end of MOI were told Moons Spawn would crash into the sea in a few months. Almost the first line of the first chapter of OST states that moons Spawn crashed into the sea 2 years before the events of OST. SO weve got say 3 years at most. Yet this doesnt fit. If its a year between challenges then how can Jan have lost count of the countless Thirds especially if you add Gall into the mix as the longstanding Third, which again makes no sense with Mok being Third merely 2 years ago.

The simple fact is it doesnt fit but ICE needed Jan to be a long standing Second. I think the Second we see in TBH was initially meant to be the missing Second but things simply didnt pan out that way from MOI. Its easy to see why things fell the the way they did.

I cant beleieve I had to look that up and you swines wouldnt take me on my half remembered recollection of a book I havnt read in 2 years. For shame />

Theres also a bit in the viewpoint of Silanah/Spinnock Durav in TTH that puts TTH around a year after MOI. Im sure Nacht on his electronic copy of the books can find it easier than old tiam can.

The supposed rule that the Second can only be challenged once a year is entirely made up by us, though. There could be plenty of other reasons for the "has it been a year already" comment that do not require Jan, Gall or Enoc to have been in their positions for any particular amount of time.

For me, the biggest point of interest is that when Enoc was defeated he was seemingly super-demoted while obviously much earlier Gall was defeated and was simply moved down to 4th, and could re-take his spot as 3rd after Enoc was defeated. Perhaps that is a trend, and when you duel for the Second and lose you are cast out of the Agatii or some other major penalty, but in any other position you just move positions up and down. If that were the case, the timeline could be something like this:



month/year

02/131BS - The current Seguleh First, who wears The White First Mask, leads the Seguleh into exile from Darujhistan. Once upon the island, he throws away his mask and begins The Wooden mask tradition.

05/730BS - Rake duels a whole bunch on the Seguleh Island. As he is leaving, he steals The White First Mask.


[...]

01/1162BS - 1st=vacant, 2nd=Bob, 3rd=Jim, 4th=Amy, 5th=Mok, 6th=Allison, 7th=Rake, 8th=Jan

The Seguleh temple or whatever offers Bob The Wooden 1st and he takes it

01/1164BS - 1st=Bob, 2nd=Jim, 3rd=Mok, 4th=Amy, 5th=Jan, 6th=Thomas, 7th=Rake, 8th=Gall

Bob sends Mok, Thurule and Senu to punish the Pannion Domin
Mok and Senu return as broken men, lose their positions

09/1164BS - 1st=Bob, 2nd=Jim, 3rd=Jan, 4th=Allison, 5th=Amy, 6th=Gall, 7th=Rake, 8th=Thomas

Jan challenges and defeats Jim

10/1164BS - 1st=Bob, 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Allison, 4th=Amy, 5th=Gall, 6th=Thomas, 7th=Rake, 8th=Garrett

Jan is challenged by Allison, Jan wins
Jan is challenged by Amy, Jan wins

01/1165BS - 1st=Bob, 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Gall, 4th=Thomas, 5th=Garrett, 6th=Leia, 7th=Rake, 8th=Tony

Thomas defeats Gall, then challenges Jan. Jan wins. Gall reclaims the 3rd.

03/1165BS - 1st=Bob, 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Gall, 4th=Garrett, 5th=Leia, 6th=Tony, 7th=Rake, 8th=Jerome

Garrett defeats Gall, then challenges Jan. Jan wins. Gall reclaims the 3rd.

04/1165BS - 1st=Bob, 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Gall, 4th=Leia, 5th=Tony, 6th=Jerome, 7th=Rake, 8th=Lisa

Leia challenges Jan directly. Jan wins.
Tony defeats Gall, then challenges Jan. Jan wins. Gall reclaims the 3rd.
Jerome defeats Gall, then challenges Jan. Jan wins. Gall reclaims the 3rd.

etc etc...

06/1165BS - 1st=Bob, 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Gall, 4th=Lisa, 5th=Fred, 6th=Broomhilda, 7th=Rake, 8th=Bahamut

Bob The Wooden First dies or something. Jan is not offered the First.

07/1165BS - 1st=[vacant], 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Gall, 4th=Lisa, 5th=Fred, 6th=Broomhilda, 7th=Rake, 8th=Bahamut

[...]

09/1166BS - Enoc, currently the 100th, proclaims he will rise to the top in only a year, a feat no one has attempted since Rell almost accomplished it in 1163BS

09/1167BS - 1st=[vacant], 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Enoc, 4th=Gall, 5th=??, 6th=??, 7th=Rake, 8th=Palla??

Enoc challenges Jan. Jan wins.

10/1167BS - 1st=[vacant], 2nd=Jan, 3rd=Gall, 4th=Gall, 5th=??, 6th=Palla??, 7th=Rake, 8th=??

Jan leads the Seguleh to Darujhistan, Oru finds The White Mask, stuff happens in Darujhistan, Jan dies and Dassem Swordtor becomes the new White-Mask First

Here just to answer the one question that bugs you. Jan made such a cut on Enoc that he was unable to fight afterwards

Quote

The lad was crippled. Oh, it would heal, and in time he would probably regain use of the arm. But with that wound he would be hard pressed even to maintain a position within the Agatii. He would retain the right to carry a blade, of course. But there would be no more challenges for him.

And yes i guess Jan has been rising in the ranks and that Mok was ahead of him during MOI, but i doubt that he was under the rank of 7th, i don't even know how can they overcome that rank, since they haven't sought out Rake for a challenge.

[Kanese S's]

That is a bit of a conundrum. How did they get around the whole thing with Rake being the 7th, since it was, no doubt, rather difficult to locate him to challenge him, especially when he was riding around in Moon's Spwn?

[Menes Kol Kronski]

Yeah that is something that was bugging me as well... So did the 8th challenge the 6th for position since Rake became the 7th or?

[D'rek]

You don't have to always challenge the person above you. I imagine at the highest ranks it is very rare to skip over someone, because everyone is at the very peak of their ability and so close to each other in skill.


And yeah, Enoc was crippled, but Jan also says he's faced uncountable Thirds, and I was trying to address the above issues while keeping a timeline where Jan only became 2nd after Mok's quest in MoI, and the question then would be how did he face so many 3rds in so many years if there wasn't a lot of churning those 3rds downwards after they lost.

Alternatively, you can make things fit with Jan being the 2nd for many years before Mok's quest, the First dying only after Mok's quest, Gall then taking the Third and then recently Enoc taking it.

[nacht]

Menes Kol Kronski, on 19 July 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

Yeah that is something that was bugging me as well... So did the 8th challenge the 6th for position since Rake became the 7th or?

Rake himself is an example how this can happen.
Take a stroll. Keep your head high and dont defer to anybody. Whoever you meet and beat, you take over that position.

There is no rule saying you have challenge one at a time in ascending order

[D'rek]

nacht, on 19 July 2013 - 07:08 PM, said:

Menes Kol Kronski, on 19 July 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

Yeah that is something that was bugging me as well... So did the 8th challenge the 6th for position since Rake became the 7th or?

Rake himself is an example how this can happen.
Take a stroll. Keep your head high and dont defer to anybody. Whoever you meet and beat, you take over that position.

There is no rule saying you have challenge one at a time in ascending order

Yeah, or if when Oru challenged Iron Bars what if Bars had accepted and beat Oru? Bars would then have jumped from being an Agatii to being 12th without any steps in-between.

But really the whole system gets kinda messy there... does Oru (11th) then become the 12th? But they're on a ship 2 continents away from the Seguleh Isle, while the 12th was almost drowned in another boat and has wound up in Letheras and been beaten by Karsa, so we've suddenly gone from

[...] Lo (8) - Jimbob (9) - Marylou (10) - Oru (11) - Nameles (12) - Anders (13) - Flamingo (14) - Iralt (15)

to

[...] Lo (8) - Jimbob (9) - Marylou (10) - Iron Bars (11) - Oru (12) - Karsa (13) - Nameles (14) - Anders (15) - Flamingo (16) - Iralt (17)

but poor Nameless doesn't know she's been demoted from Iron Bars beating Oru, so she tells Karsa he is now the 12th but he isn't, and meanwhile back on Seguleh Isle Anders, Flamingo and Iralt don't know that they've been doubly demoted!!!

Don't you wish now the masks were all magical and adjusted themselves automatically worldwide whenever someone was defeated or added to the roster? That'd be so much easier...

[Abyss]

I figured if an Agatii loses their position, they have to challenge someone at a lower rank to get back in.

So when IB kicks Oru's butt, Oru doesn't move down a peg, he moves out of the Agatii and has to fight someone else to get back in. So a defeat likely triggers a series of duels at lower levels and then the Agatii settles down until the next challenge, assuming the loser survives and wants back in.

[D'rek]

Abyss, on 22 July 2013 - 04:43 PM, said:

I figured if an Agatii loses their position, they have to challenge someone at a lower rank to get back in.

So when IB kicks Oru's butt, Oru doesn't move down a peg, he moves out of the Agatii and has to fight someone else to get back in. So a defeat likely triggers a series of duels at lower levels and then the Agatii settles down until the next challenge, assuming the loser survives and wants back in.

I think that's the most likely, too, and hence it would allow Jan to have easily faced "uncountable" Thirds before (and if it applies to everyone, then similar to my timeline above but add that Gall kept re-fighting his way back into Third after each defeat, but never dueled Jan for Second).

Only thing different though is that I don't think Oru is an Agatii. The way it was said in RotCG as "The Agatii, the Thousand" we all thought that meant it was a term referring to the top 1000 Seguleh, but OST gave us references to the Thirtieth, the Hundredth and the Three Hundredth, so now I think it is more of a grouping system after the other names seen in OST. So rather there actually being a specific 997th position, it is like:

First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Eighth
Ninth
Tenth
Eleventh
Twelfth
Thirteenth
Fourteenth
Fifteenth
Sixteenth
Seventeenth
Eighteenth
Nineteenth
Twentieth
The Thirtieth (ie: Beru) - positions 21 to 30
The Fiftieth - positions 31 to 50
The Hundredth - positions 51 to 100
The Three Hundredth - positions 101 to 300
The Thousandth (Agatii) - positions 301 to 1000

Unranked

and also, the initiate levels (not sure if these'd go above or below unranked... probably a special case):
12th Level Initiate
11th Level Initiate (ie: Senu in MoI)
10th Level Initiate
9th Level Initiate
8th Level Initiate
7th Level Initiate
6th Level Initiate
5th Level Initiate
4th Level Initiate
3rd Level Initiate
2nd Level Initiate (masks become whiter, and with fewer black patterns on them as you go up in initiate levels)
1st Level Initiate (blackmasks)

After all, how do you easily distinguish 991 marks on a mask from 992 marks? When Dev'ad Anan tol fights some Seguleh, he refers to several of them as just "Hundredths" generically, so I think above 20 or so they fall into broader groups with identical masks.

[Abyss]

Makes sense.

Would also make sense if within each grouping there is a heirarchy that's only relevant to that grouping, so someone in the 300th would treat all of the 1000th the same, but 300th is higher than 999th and so on, and when 300th challenges 301st for admission to the 300s, it starts all over.

Come to think about it, the initiates may be the lower rankings within the Thousand. After all, Senu kept up with Thurule and Mok and he was 'only' an 11th level Initiate.

[Luperci]

I'm thoroughly confused by all this math lol. My only conclusion is SE and ICE are making this up as they go, and btw 2 authors and countless diff timelines trying to fit together some things are getting lost in translation. I'm sure all this makes since to them but they've always said they were only writing to and for each other, us being outsiders looking in.

I Would still love to see Rake running the gauntlet with all the seguleh, one thing I've always wondered those was this at a time when he wielded Dranipur or was it Grief/Vengence? I know they call him Blacksword but I can't remember if his first sword that was gifted to Dassem was black? I would assume so since they would have probably gifted him another name is he was using Dragnipur on them not to mention they would have been cartpulling in the sword, unless of course he didn't kill anyone in the challenges just wounded but then how would that play out? We see with Jan facing the 3rd that he goes for a crippling blow instead of a mortal wound but what about other challenges, do people usually end up dying?

[prq]

CapedCrusader, on 18 June 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

I Would still love to see Rake running the gauntlet with all the seguleh, one thing I've always wondered those was this at a time when he wielded Dranipur or was it Grief/Vengence? I know they call him Blacksword but I can't remember if his first sword that was gifted to Dassem was black? I would assume so since they would have probably gifted him another name is he was using Dragnipur on them not to mention they would have been cartpulling in the sword, unless of course he didn't kill anyone in the challenges just wounded but then how would that play out?

Was thinking about this myself. From FoD we know that

Spoiler

Grief/our new tyrannical overlord whom we bow before is a Hust sword, not black,

so the Black Sword must have been Dragnipur. Did those Seguleh get captured inside the sword? Wasn't a wound enough to capture the soul? Not sure.

[Syphonics]

prq, on 02 September 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:

CapedCrusader, on 18 June 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

I Would still love to see Rake running the gauntlet with all the seguleh, one thing I've always wondered those was this at a time when he wielded Dranipur or was it Grief/Vengence? I know they call him Blacksword but I can't remember if his first sword that was gifted to Dassem was black? I would assume so since they would have probably gifted him another name is he was using Dragnipur on them not to mention they would have been cartpulling in the sword, unless of course he didn't kill anyone in the challenges just wounded but then how would that play out?

Was thinking about this myself. From FoD we know that

Spoiler

Grief/our new tyrannical overlord whom we bow before is a Hust sword, not black,

so the Black Sword must have been Dragnipur. Did those Seguleh get captured inside the sword? Wasn't a wound enough to capture the soul? Not sure.

I believe we saw at least one Seguleh in Dragnipur during TtH, so I'd say yes.

[Arathan]

Maester, on 14 July 2013 - 03:56 AM, said:

Was there ever a clear timeline as to when the Undead Second went missing? If not, then I'm going to think of it like this: Undead Second goes missing sometime in the past, Jan becomes Second. Jan defeats many challenging Thirds. The First sends a newly reigning Third (Mok) away, despite Jan's objections. Jan defeats more challenging Thirds. I'm disregarding the Gall as the Third Timeline because he was Fourth for a while, there's no reason he couldn't have been Fourth when Mok was Third.

I agree with most of this except for the part about the Undead Second. The Undead Second was from a time before the Seguleh lived on Cant. I can't remember the exact dialogue, but he is surprised to find out the Seguleh are not still in Darujhistan. He remarks about the Torrud Cabal being smart by keeping the Seguleh ready, but not in the city in case the tyrant returns. Therefore, he pre-dates any of the Seguleh in OST.

I view it like this: At the time of the MOI expedition the First still lives. Jan is a longstanding Second who has defeated many challengers. Mok is the most recent third, having defeated Gall who moved to fourth. The first decides to send Mok on the expedition. Jan argues against this, but is overruled by the First. The first dies after Mok leaves. Mok returns broken. Gall becomes Third again because Mok will no longer fight.

[Arathan]

Arathan, on 15 July 2015 - 03:42 PM, said:

Maester, on 14 July 2013 - 03:56 AM, said:

Was there ever a clear timeline as to when the Undead Second went missing? If not, then I'm going to think of it like this: Undead Second goes missing sometime in the past, Jan becomes Second. Jan defeats many challenging Thirds. The First sends a newly reigning Third (Mok) away, despite Jan's objections. Jan defeats more challenging Thirds. I'm disregarding the Gall as the Third Timeline because he was Fourth for a while, there's no reason he couldn't have been Fourth when Mok was Third.

I agree with most of this except for the part about the Undead Second. The Undead Second was from a time before the Seguleh lived on Cant. I can't remember the exact dialogue, but he is surprised to find out the Seguleh are not still in Darujhistan. He remarks about the Torrud Cabal being smart by keeping the Seguleh ready, but not in the city in case the tyrant returns. Therefore, he pre-dates any of the Seguleh in OST.

I view it like this: At the time of the MOI expedition the First still lives. Jan is a longstanding Second who has defeated many challengers. Mok is the most recent third, having defeated Gall who moved to fourth. The first decides to send Mok on the expedition. Jan argues against this, but is overruled by the First. The first dies after Mok leaves. Mok returns broken. Gall becomes Third again because Mok will no longer fight.

Here is the conversation he has with Crokus:

At that the Soldier turned, then walked closer. 'Daru, you are far from home! Tell me, do the Tyrant's children still rule Darujhistan?'
Cutter shook his head.
'You look crazed, mortal, what ails you?'
'I - I heard, I mean - Seguleh usually say nothing - to anyone. Yet you...'
'The fever zeal still grips my mortal kin, does it? Idiots! The Tyrant's army still holds sway in the city, then?'
'Who? What? Darujhistan is ruled by a council. We have no army-'
'Brilliant insanity! No Seguleh in the city?'
'No! Just...stories. Legends, I mean.'
'So where are my masked stick-pivoting compatriots hiding?'
'An island, it's said, far to the south, off the coast, beyond Morn-'
'Morn! Now the sense of it comes to me. They are being held in readiness. Darujhitan's council - mages one and all, yes? Undying secretive, paranoid mages! Crouching low, lest the Tyrant returns, as one day he must! Returns, looking for his army! Hah, a council!'
'That's not the council, sir.' Cutter said. 'If you are speaking of mages, that would be the T'orrud Cabal-'
'T'orrud! Yes, clever. Outrageous! Barukanal, Drudanith, Travalegrah, Mammoltenan? These names strike your soul, yes? I can see it.'

[Soleturn]

Forgive me for taking a stab at something...there's a lot of information in this series and I have a hard time getting it all to line up.

But...

Is it possible that Rake acquired the rank of First, and that the white mask legitimately belonged to him?

[Andorion]

Soleturn, on 03 September 2015 - 04:49 PM, said:

Forgive me for taking a stab at something...there's a lot of information in this series and I have a hard time getting it all to line up.

But...

Is it possible that Rake acquired the rank of First, and that the white mask legitimately belonged to him?

According to any and all Seguleh testimonies, including Mok who is the Third and should know, he only advanced uptil 7th. The Seguleh take rank and combat very seriously. Its the centrepiece of their society. I don't think they would not know if Rake was first.