: It started with the 16th level of the first Myth. Someone
: pointed out that only Dwarves can pick up the crystals
: in "Smiths of Muirthemne" - hence, the
: Smiths must have been Dwarves! This wasn't very
: compelling evidence, but people says "Yeah OK,
: whatever", and accepted it as there was nothing
: against it.
: Myth II enhanced that idea, though, with the fact that
: the ghosts of the masons who built the Mausoleum of
: Clovis in Muirthemne were Dwarves. It also introduced
: the evidence that the Smiths were spider-cultists,
: which makes sense considering they build the Tain.
: Then, you will note, that the Dwarves around the Great
: Devoid know much of spiders, having legends of them
: running about in their tunnels and such. Also, on the
: walls of Muirthemne (in "Walls of
: Muirthemne"), there are spider engraving, so if
: the masons, who were Dwarves, worshiped spiders, as
: did the Smiths, and all of them worked in Muirthemne,
: AND the Dwarves have close ties to the spiders, then
: it makes sense that the Smiths, Masons,
: Spider-cults... all were the same group of Dwarves.
GURPS tells us, however, that the Spider-Cult was human. And given that the Smiths inhabited the catacombs for a few centuries, it makes sense to suppose that the spider engravings were created by them rather than the original Dwarven masons.
: So, the Tain does a lot of stuff with interdimensional
: magic. What other interdimensional magic do we know
: of? The Fetch. Now I know it's jumping to conclusions
: to say that the two instances of interdimensional
: magic we know of are the same dimension, but look at
: the supporting evidence. One - where did the Fetch
: come from? Balor summoned them. What prior instance of
: interdimensional magic do we know of Balor/Connacht
: using? The Tain. Then there's the physical appearance.
: Fetch we see as human because of their skins; but what
: we've seen of them outside their skins - the spines
: down their backs, their horns - seems to suggest to me
: a very different kind of physiology, perhaps partially
: insectoid. Now go look at the gate on Smiths of
: Muirthemne. There's a female horned thing giving birth
: - what other female horned things do we know of?
: Fetch. And what are they doing carved on the Tain
: gates, then? Perhaps the Smiths knew them from the
: other realm, the Spider-realm.
I agree with most of this, as you know, but--as you also know--I think the Fetch are represented by a different Tain carving. Take the human skin off a Fetch's head and, judging from the shape, you're left with a skeletally gaunt head with stubby horns. This shape also appears in the Tain--a howling skull-like face with two short horns--and it's most prominently featured on the lightning towers.
The female creatures look to me like spider-women; they don't have skull-faces but do have horns or antennae, swollen abdomens, and long, insectile (or arachnid) arms. Makes sense that they'd be not the Fetch but the Spider-gods--or rather goddesses--themselves. It also makes sense that they're shown giving birth to Fetch, who, as their priestesses, are their metaphorical children. (Or mb their literal children; I dunno.)
: Now things start to get really interesting, when we take
: into account the Great Devoid. GURPS mentions that
: some speculate it may end in another dimension, though
: the Dwarves, whose many tunnels sometimes connect to
: it, dismiss this as nonsense. Spiders are earliest
: known in Dwarven legends, and the Dwarves live around
: the Devoid. What if the Spider came up from their
: realm through the Devoid, the Dwarves began to worship
: them and their gods, and now they don't want humanity
: to know what's at the bottom of the Devoid. See also
: that giant Fetch spirit that shoots out of the Devoid
: at the end of the last level of TFL.
I really don't see where you get that this is a Fetch spirit. The Devoid effect simply looks like a lot of energy being radiated from some point within the Devoid (presumably Balor's head). It's going up because that central point is downwards. :-P
Also, if the Devoid is a portal to the Spider world, all the Fetch (talented sorceresses all) would be living around there, researching and experimenting, until they figure out a way they can travel through it and get home. Assuming, of course, that they couldn't simply buy a few Dwarven parachutes and jump.
And why would Balor's head release a massive Fetch spirit, anyway? Did it land on a really big Fetch? :-)
: Now then, where did the Devoid come from? The Callieach
: blew up and created it. Why would Callieach blowing up
: create a portal to another realm? Well, what if the
: Callieach were FROM that other realm, and didn't
: actually kill themselves but instead bored a passage
: through reality back home to their world? This ties in
: to the Trow - if the Callieach were sent by the
: Spider-gods, then could the other races the Trow
: fought also have been sent by them? What if the whole
: cycle is set up by them?
: What's this about the Old Gods though? We know the Ghols
: worship the Old/Dark Gods. The Ghols also live around
: the Devoid. Could the Old/Dark gods be the SAME GODS
: as the Spider Gods? In that case, it would make sense
: that they would be behind the cycle, because Wyrd
: supposedly tricked the Dark Gods when he created the
: world, so they would want to destroy it.
If the Dark Gods and the Spider Gods were the same, and behind the cycle, wouldn't the Fetch and the spiders *want* to work with the Dark for the foreseeable future? (GURPS points out that they must be obeying their gods' commands; otherwise they'd lose their magic.) And wouldn't they be permanent buds with the Ghôls?
--SiliconDream
