: Second Era tradition tells of a hero rising in the East.
: The Second Era was the Age of Reason, so that was
: Tireces, and thus the Alric/Chaos spirit is not always
: from the west. So we know Tireces came from the East,
: Connacht came from the east, Balor - who should've won
: this era - came from the east. It seems likely that
: Moagim would have come from the east as well, given
: this pattern. Don't you remember the cycles of
: geography I came up with a while back?
If I remembered *all* your theories, Forrest, I'd need to hook my brain up to a Zip drive and start archiving some of my own memories. :-) IIRC you had more than one geographical theory--wasn't there one where the victors came from a different side each time? Based on that Myrkridian tomb, and such.
Forgot about that "second era quote." I suppose I could take the cheap way out and say that the "hero rising in the East" must have lived somewhat *before* the period in which his story was a part of tradition, so he couldn't have been Tireces. But that would be silly. :-)
: We know the comet rose in the East when Balor did. We
: know it rose in the West when Connacht came from the
: East. Those are the only times we're given directions,
: and it's not much to base a pattern on, but from that
: pattern it looks like the comet always comes from the
: same direction as the Leveller. And given the above
: pattern, with the victor always arising in the east,
: that means you'd get a two-era cycle like this:
: Leveller from East and Hero from West with Comet from
: East - Leveller wins
: Hero from East and Leveller from West with Comet from
: West - Hero wins.
: Which, when intersected with your four-era cycle and our
: geographic axis, gets you: Orderly Leveller from
: Extremeist East and Chaotic Hero from Balanced West
: with Comet from East - Orderly Leveller wins.
: Chaotic Hero from Extremeist East and Orderly Leveller
: from Balanced West with Comet from West - Chaotic Hero
: wins.
: Chaotic Leveller from Extremeist East and Orderly Hero
: from Balanced West with Comet from East - Chaotic
: Leveller wins.
: Orderly Hero from Extremeist East and Chaotic Leveller
: from Balanced West with Comet from West - Orderly Hero
: wins.
: You know, I think I may have just answered my own
: question, looking at this, though it does create a new
: question. The victor, whether Light or Dark, orderly
: or chaotic, always comes from the extremeist east.
: This could have something to do with those further to
: the extremes being inherantly more powerfull, but then
: shouldn't the Dark always win?
Well, here's what I see in the data.
a) The Comet alternates east-west. If we can assume it's the same comet, this suggests that it orbits the Mythworld (which isn't something real-world comets do, but who knows what the Comet actually is?) once every two thousand years, becoming briefly visible at two points during its orbit.
b) The Leveller is always born (or made) below the Comet; the Great Hero is presumably always born on the opposite side of the continent. This suggests that the Comet produces, or heralds, a mobile (since the Comet is mobile) region of extremism. People closer to the Comet are pulled more strongly toward their innate chaos/order alignment than people far away. Basically, the Comet casts a "shadow" on the Mythworld; a region of Dark influence.
c) The champion born or made on the East side of the continent always wins. To me, this implies, quite simply, that the Comet orbits East-to-West. When a Leveller is born in the East, under the Comet, he finds that its Dark shadow is moving Westward with him, making it that much easier to recruit allies. When a Great Hero is born in the East, and the Comet's in the West, he finds that the shadow is moving off the map, leaving the whole continent leaning toward the Light side.
In summary--build a really really big mortar to blow the damn Comet up, and everyone will probably be a lot happier. :-)
: And do chaotic heroes/levellers come from the
: southeast/southwest and orderly ones from the
: northeast/northwest? Connacht and Alric, the only
: Heroes/Levellers whose home towns we know, both seem
: to have come from right around the center, with Gower
: and Covenant being more or less Mediterranean.
Upon consideration, I would probably expect most champions to be born around the southwest-to-northeast midline (which is what I think defines the order-chaos border--basically, a line stretching from the Province through Muirthemne to Gower), since 2/3 of all champions are born into the Light. Only the ill-fated Levellers who were born bad, like Moagim Reborn, would come from regions far to the northwest or southeast.
--SiliconDream
