: Hey, some thoughts on this (not arguments for or
: against): 1) Alric wanted the armor because he figured
: it would make him the equal of Balor, who had a
: similar suit (this would suggest it was different
: armor), but gave up on that once the Eblis stone was
: found.
: 2) The armor IS Balor's armor, and the head is making a
: cryptic reference to Connacht's old armor, trying to
: point Alric in the right direction (to suggest that
: Balor is Connacht) but without giving the whole game
: away (why? who knows? The head is weird).
: 3) Nobody grabs the armor because it was specially made
: for Connacht and wouldn't fit anyone else--all plate
: mail in the real middle ages was custom fitted.
: 4) It's a completely different set of armor and it's
: buried in Muirthemne. It belonged to Ceiscoran (or
: whoever the last Emperor was) and it does, in fact,
: turn up. Where? Well, let's just suggest that it's red
: and looks more like scale mail and the Ibis Crown fits
: neatly under the helmet... ok, enough suggestions.
: Maybe it's the armor Alric wears after he becomes
: Emperor. (I know, there's no reference to this and it
: doesn't exactly make Alric invulnerable to ALL
: attacks--in Twice Born he can kill everything on the
: map except the Mahir, though, which is pretty good).
: 5) The armor makes you invulnerable the same way the
: mandrake root makes the Heron Guard
: "deathless" (after killing off a couple of
: hundred of those guys I tend to sneer when I see
: that--a lucky berserk can knock 'em down)--yeah, okay,
: you won't die of influenza, but a bunch of zerks
: hacking at your neck hole will eventually manage to
: take your head off.
: 6) Maybe it's all literally true--maybe this is why
: Balor's head survives being hacked off. Maybe all the
: Levellers (who seemed to require excessive and
: grotesque executions) wore this armor which keeps you
: alive even in pieces and that's why Alric doesn't
: bother picking it up--it turns whoever wears it into
: the Leveller (hah! no, I don't want to turn this into
: a theory!)
: 7) Maybe it only works as long as you keep it all
: together. Maybe the zerks actually just managed to
: knock the helmet loose--at which point the spell is
: broken and Balor is just a very buff training dummy.
: Anyway, those are my thoughts...
The armor is the levelers, but can not automatically turn any wearer into the Dark Lord... Its probably decided by a magical entity, maybe even Nyx, every thousand years. I seriously doubt that the armor is the Royal Cath Bruig mail. And furthermore Alric used an Eblis stone to immobilize Balor (damn Alric :p) and make him vulnerable to attack, plus if the most powerful enchanted item (the crown of Cath Bruig) cant keep one from not being killed, than no armor can.
Sincerely :P
Balor (former Leveler) a.k.a. Connacht (former Emperor of Cath Bruig)
