[Xaspian]

Who exactly is Crokus? From Gardens of the Moon, his only known relative is 'Uncle' Mammot. But then Seguleh Second, the Soldier of Hood, dismisses this:

" 'Now the sense of it comes to me. They are being held in readiness. Darujhistan's counil - 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, Derudanith, Travalegrah, Mammoltenan? These names strike your soul, yes? I see it.'
'Mammot was my uncle-'
'Uncle! Hah! Absurd!' He spun around."

So it seems unlikely that Mammot was an Uncle. So where does that leave Crokus? Who might he parents have been, and why would Mammot have taken him in?

And The Second called them 'deathless'. Did that just mean they prolonged their lives, or are they ascendant? Seeing as Vorcan appears to take out most of them, it would seem the former, extending lifespans using alchemy, perhaps?
Any ideas/comments?

[Aptorian]

Iarwain Ben-Adar;138867 said:

And The Second called them 'deathless'. Did that just mean they prolonged their lives, or are they ascendant? Seeing as Vorcan appears to take out most of them, it would seem the former, extending lifespans using alchemy, perhaps?
Any ideas/comments?

You got the point with the last sentence.

We don't know anything more about Cutter/Crokus than what we've seen so far, but it seems he's just an orfan, who lived with Mammoth(an)

It's implied that the council has either been the same for perhaps thousands or years or that they at least come from the same line of decendants.

Also this whole little meeting was SE's way to tell us that Crokus/Cutter is some day returning to Darujistan and some kind of Tyrant, Seguleh, Mage Cadre event will likely happen some day.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Massive thread analysing this here (BH forum):

http://www.malazanem...read.php?t=4369

Crokus's parent were referred to at one point in GotM, just that they were killed by disease (I think). It's unknown who they were or if they were at all important.

They could've just been friends of Mammot, and so he adopted the orphaned Crokus as a family friend. Or they could've been part of a royal line and so Mammot looked after Crokus to keep the royal line alive (I don't like this idea, Cutter better not turn out to be a king).

We don't know whether the Cabal really were extremely long-lived, and so the same people that the Soldier of Death knew in his lifetime, or whether the names of the Cabal are perhaps hereditary and so new people take the place of each. I'm leaning towards the first option, and I certainly think the Cabalists that we saw in GotM (Baruk, Mammot, Derudan) were humans, kept alive so long through magery-related longevity. Not ascendants.

[Dark Mac]

Dolorous Menhir;138887 said:

They could've just been friends of Mammot, and so he adopted the orphaned Crokus as a family friend. Or they could've been part of a royal line and so Mammot looked after Crokus to keep the royal line alive (I don't like this idea, Cutter better not turn out to be a king).

Why not? I think it would be pretty interesting for Crokus to return to Darujhistan as the Tyrant reborn.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Why not? Because I can't really imagine Crokus doing anything interesting.

Plus I think SE is better than that, I don't expect him to stoop to a revelation like that. Or if he did, he would put a new spin on it by having Crokus refuse to take the Crown, or getting killed immediately.

[tiam]

Yeh his parents died of the winged plague when he was young and Mammot took him in for unknown reasons. he also been apprenticed by Kruppe as a thief so was raised by both men really

[Rat Mentor]

In regard to the life span of magic users, I'm sure that in the very first pages of Gardens of the Moon, dosn't it infer in a conversation between Tattersal and her lover (another magician) that he was over a 100 years old? I haven't got GotM to hand to check....

[Dolorous Menhir]

Yes, Calot was 100+, and Tattersail was over 200, and Kellanved was Emperor for almost 100 years and so must be a similar age. This is why it's reasonable to consider the possibility that the T'orrud Cabal are extremely long-lived mages.

[Rat Mentor]

It would seem that the more powerful a magic user you are the older you become. To become more powerful you would I suppose need longer to study the warrens. It's almost as if age = power, power = age.

Also the older and more powerful you would become the more likely you are to ascend.

[Rat Mentor]

Yes thank you Potsherds, you are quite correct. If you read the Tread all the way through we are talking about Mammot and co and the posibility that they could indeed be the original Cabal as speculated by the Soldier of Death to Cutter. The reason I posted was to point out the age of mages is extended and the only reference is in GotM, one that has been missed by everyone else, I should point out. This would support the claim that Mammot and company could indeed be longlived.

It would also suggest that age and magic power are linked and so this could be ONE way of gaining Ascendancy. The only possible non-correlation, that can be proved, against age='magic' power is Silverfox, QuickBen seems to be a one off as most of his 'magic' power has been gained through soul snatching.

This idea of mine only relates to Human magic users and there relavant power levels, experience and knowledge....

I'm not wishing to change the 'mantra' only expanded upon it.

[Morgoth]

Who knows what really killed Crokus' parents. One can also question why mammoth feels so obligated to teach him the ways of the royalty, or at least the upper class. Mammoth himself seems more interested in learning than anything else, and so it would surely be more natural for him to wish Crokus to become a scholar?

[Dolorous Menhir]

I think one motivation was to get him out of a career path (thieving) which would likely mean an early death.

[Xaspian]

But would a potentially millenia-old mage really care about some kid on the street?

Or perhaps (this is verging on Crazy Theories), Throughout the ages, Mammot had taken in many such children, and raised them? Perhaps (for example) Kruppe was a former "Mammot's Nephew"?

That really has no evidence does it? Am I going crazy?

[Dark Mac]

I don't have the book with me right now, but at one point in GotM, Rake mentions that he's read Mammot's works. Does anything in this scene imply anything about Mammot's true nature? At the very least, I would think that it confirms that Mammot is relatively long-lived.

[Dolorous Menhir]

All it confirms is that Rake has read his books, it doesn't tell us anything about how old Mammot is.

It's not like Rake did all his book-reading 10,000 years ago and then stopped. He could've read it the week before he spoke to Baruk about it.

[Rahvinn]

The mages could not have been all that old; the nobility in Dar. have spies and info on every major player and power influence in the city, there is no way they would take a cabal of thousand year old mages so lightly.

An idea of mine is that the mages simply took the names as their decendents did, like Toc the Younger or Baudin Younger etc except since the generations would've been so long the younger bit was just not used or to avoid suspicion.

As for Mammots writing, he was an old man anyway despite being a mage. How many historians half his age(with a normal life span) have written dozens of works and distributed them.
Im sure Rake likes to read before bed and the newest historical babble would interest him

[Dolorous Menhir]

Rahvinn;140034 said:

The mages could not have been all that old; the nobility in Dar. have spies and info on every major player and power influence in the city, there is no way they would take a cabal of thousand year old mages so lightly.

Well, that doesn't really fly. The nobles didn't even know the T'orrud Cabal existed, they thought the Council of their peers ruled Darujhistan. So arguing that the T'orrud Cabal can't be something because the nobles would've noticed isn't really going to work.

Quote

An idea of mine is that the mages simply took the names as their decendents did, like Toc the Younger or Baudin Younger etc except since the generations would've been so long the younger bit was just not used or to avoid suspicion.

Sure, that's possible. I just find it easier to believe that the same seven (was it seven?) Cabal members have been around since the Soldier of Death's time, rather than the idea that they've been constantly replaced over time by people who recycled the names.