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Author Topic: Sealed temple in Katalal
hemulen
Nurtsáhlu (Clan-Brother)
Posts: 40
Post Sealed temple in Katalal
on: April 21, 2016, 17:37

On the map of Katalal, location#98 is a sealed temple to a Pariah Deity "The One Other". Can anyone throw any light on this? I always thought that the Pariah gods were "deities non grata".

"The One Other" is somewhat associated with Pavar's gods, in that he helped defeat Ksarul, but still not really (openly) worshipped. So how has this temple survived? What's inside? Can you still get in via tunnels, tubeway, nexus point?

jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Sealed temple in Katalal
on: April 21, 2016, 18:17

"On the map of Katalal, location #98 is a sealed temple to a Pariah Deity "The One Other". Can anyone throw any light on this? I always thought that the Pariah gods were "deities non grata"."

Indeed they are - officially speaking. Yet one must be cautious about "throwing light" upon certain things, lest that light draw their attention, or the attention of those who would have them remain in darkness.

A tale is told of a major campaign against the Pariah Deities by Emperor Trakonel I. The Emperor's senior high general, Tenchai hiVriddi, was tasked with the destruction of these Pariah temples but refused to enter the innermost shrines himself. He simply ordered them sealed off. Some say he used priests of various faiths to fill the labyrinths within with several types of poisonous gas first. No one ever speaks of these shrines now on pain of death, although it is said that at least one of them is still operating...

(see http://www.echnology.net/blueroom/blueroom.php?action=4&messid=886&srchstr=one%20other&searchtype= as well as other posts regarding the Pariah Deities in the Blue Room Archive)

""The One Other" is somewhat associated with Pavar's gods, in that he helped defeat Ksarul, but still not really (openly) worshipped. So how has this temple survived? What's inside? Can you still get in via tunnels, tubeway, nexus point?"

You ask dangerous questions!

One may speculate that this temple has survived because sealing it was deemed safer than disturbing That Which May Lie Within, or that the order for its destruction was lost in the Imperial bureaucracy, or even that the One Other's insidious agents within the government exerted their influence in one way or another to ensure its survival. But as I said, these are dangerous questions, the asking of which is said to be prohibited and a capital offense - if word of their asking were to reach the wrong ears.

Hope that helps 😉
-Jeff

hemulen
Nurtsáhlu (Clan-Brother)
Posts: 40
Post Re: Sealed temple in Katalal
on: April 22, 2016, 03:06

Wellll, sort of...
I was reading some of the Blue Room discussions, but the difficulty is that nothing concrete is really covered from a GM's point of view, which makes it difficult to come to any conclusion. I did see a passing mention of the One Other's possible agenda being to return Tekumel to Humanspace, which makes me think that his symbol of circle and dot is representative of Tekumel in its pocket universe...

jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Sealed temple in Katalal
on: April 22, 2016, 08:52

Tekumel cannon is written from the perspective of "what is known". This results in a lot of ambiguity and mystery, and that's a *good* thing. If all the answers were written down, your players could read them and there'd be no mysteries or opportunities for stunning revelations. As it stands, you as GM are free to decide what the answer is on YOUR Tekumel. What you decide may be different from what other GMs decide, but we'll still all be fascinated to hear what you come up with 🙂

-Jeff

hemulen
Nurtsáhlu (Clan-Brother)
Posts: 40
Post Re: Sealed temple in Katalal
on: April 23, 2016, 16:28

Sure, that's fine, I'm used to Glorantha where pretty much contradictory things can all be true, partly because of the way the Gods work, and partly because Greg Stafford hadn't got round to writing them down. Somehow with Tekumel it feels like there are things out there that are known but not disseminated. Maybe that's just paranoia! Perhaps it's because Prof Barker seemed so thorough in what he developed, and he also alluded to deeper truths in some of his posts. e.g. the Pariah gods. I don't know Tekumel well enough to even begin guessing what these deeper truths might be.

jeffdee
Administrator
Posts: 427
Post Re: Sealed temple in Katalal
on: April 23, 2016, 19:06

I've had the same feelings about Tekumel. But Barker was always adamant about each Tekumel GM's freedom to answer these questions in their own way. It is a multiverse, after all 😉

In fact, I suspect that his cagey phrasing was only half about preserving the secrets he intended to reveal in his novels, and the other half was about not making *his* Tekumel a straitjacket that'd constrain the freedom of individual GMs.

-Jeff

hemulen
Nurtsáhlu (Clan-Brother)
Posts: 40
Post Re: Sealed temple in Katalal
on: April 24, 2016, 04:19

Yup, that sounds about right to me. Interesting to hear that you have felt the same!

Of course there could be a third reason - in the best tradition of GMing, he hadn't exactly decided either, and would do so when he really needed to know! I could perfectly understand that as a reason, if so.

Thanks for these replies, very interesting.

(I'd still like to know the answers though, wherever they may be!)

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