I recently noticed the following description of Moralin (a figure in early Agrikan legend/history) in KP's Venarive module and have been puzzling over it:



Now, the first part of this (about Moralin being the successor to Ilpylen (the first Agrikan prophet) and author of the Balefire Chronicle is no surprise. This comports pretty closely with what was written about the Agrikan Church in Gods of Harn and in HMR. (Yeah, there are some subtle differences, but I'm not really concerned with those right now.) And, while this is the first time that Moralin has, to my knowledge, been called "The Wanderer," that characterization also fits in with what has been written about him previously:



This is also the same basic account of Moralin's role that appeared in HMR (Agrik-2), albeit with some additional changes in details: he wrote the Balefire Chronicle, he was the greatest of the eight disciples, he and the other disciples split up and took up a life of wandering cairn-building with their followers, etc.

What is wholly new (to my knowledge) about the Venarive description of Moralin is the statement that he "[e]stablished Lysâra as a key centre of Àgríkan worship and power."

Now, while I'm not opposed to KP introducing new ideas into established Harn canon, the idea of Moralin even being connected to Lysara- let alone having establishing it as a “key centre of Agrikan worship and power”-- seems rather incongruous with everything else we've previously been told about him-- or Lysara (either in GOH, HMR, the Lythia module, or even in Venarive itself). And I think that's worth reflecting upon.

Two key points: (1) Since Ilpylen's mission occurred around 1500 BT, we can assume that Moralin was active maybe around 1450 BT or so ± 50 years. That's a long, long time (1600+ years) before we have city-founding or Agrikan power-center building in Azeryan-- either per the Lythia module or the Venarive module. (2) Moreover, the idea that Moralin helped establish Lysara as a center of Agrikan worship/power, seems at odds with the characterization of him as “Moralin the Wanderer” per the Venarive module or per descriptions of the early church in prior publications. (Those who wander are not generally associated with cities, or the establishment of those cities as powers.)

I'm not saying that one can't come up with some explanation to reconcile these two ideas (I already have a few). But this idea was just so new and so shocking to me, that I thought I'd solicit others' feedback on it first.

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

That's simply the way myths evolve. Whether it's the Old Testament David, the Greek Heracles, or Robin Hood - over time myths attach themselves to the most popular character in the pantheon. Moralin is simply "that character" for the Agrikans. Whether the real Moralin was the conqueror of Lysara or the wandering disciple who wrote the Balefire Chronicle is hard to tell.

Personally, I believe it was probably the former. Most likely, as Lysara spread its influence it embellished the story of their founder. I can almost imagine the high priest (and eventually the pontiff) opening each octennial Games with a recitation of the achievements of his predecessor, and every eight years the list gets a little longer.

No, not really. At least not if you're talking about about legendary histories of the sort that mix myth, fable, folktale, and fact in recounting the early history of peoples/nations/cities/religions. Those kinds of historical mythologies (and I would consider the 'early church histories' from Gods of Harn to fall into that category) tend to assign different roles/acts to different figures throughout time-- and then organize them into a coherent chronology. Thus, in the Hebrew Bible, it was Abraham with whom the divine covenant was made, Joseph who went to the land of Egypt (the great 'enemy nation'), Moses who later liberated the Hebrews from Egypt, Joshua who then conquered the promised land, a whole bunch of various "judges" who fought wars against later national enemies, Saul who established the monarchy, David who established the lasting royal line, Solomon who was the greatest/wisest king, etc. Or, in Roman history, it was Aeneas who led the future Romans from Troy to Italy, Romulus who actually built the city of Rome, Numa who gave the romans their laws and civil institutions, etc.



Certainly, the exact nature of Moralin's activities-- or whether there even was a historical 'Moralin' in the first place-- is unknowable. But, my point is that the idea that he "established Lysara as a key center of Agrikan worship and power" seems radically at odds with everything else we're told about him (he was one of Ilpylen's original disciples and spent his life as a wanderer). It also seems at odds with the what we're told-- even elsewhere in the Venarive module-- about the cities of Azeryan region not really being founded until 1-2 centuries after TR, and Agrikanism becoming prominent after that.

Now, it's true that legendary histories are flexible with time, lifespans, historical distance, roles etc. But they do show some awareness of chronology (in fact, they exist, in part, to organize legends into a coherent chronology). And the idea Moralin was both a disciple of Ilpylen and a leader of one of the wandering bands who comprised the earliest form of the 'church'-- and the one who made Lysara an Agrikan enclave-- seems anomalous, even in the realm of mythicized history, given how far these are apart. This would be like having Moses conflated with David-- or Aeneas conflated with Lucius Junius Brutus-- or Leif Erickson conflated with George Washington.



That last item that *is* a distinctive character of these kinds of legendary histories-- a desire to trace a line connecting oneself to the (semi-)mythical founders. However, establishing this kind of historical 'genealogy' does not require (or even usually entail) a conflation of all former heroes into one. In fact, it usually works in the opposite manner, by carving out different and distinct roles for all the great national/civic/religious heroes, but then carefully constructing connections between them, so that an unbroken line of continuity can be traced from the great founders to the present. This may be done by tracing connections of blood (thus all the 'begat' chapters in the bible), or by tracing out a succession of rulership, or tutelage, or some other kind of connection.

So, to address your point, I certainly can see the Lysaran pontiffs wanting to trace their authority/origins back to Moralin (and thus also to Ilpylen, and Agrik himself). And I can see legendary histories establishing such a connection. But... I don't see these as presenting Moralin as a founder/conqueror of Lysara per se, since that seems to be so contrary to everything else that's told about the early church-- and pre-TR Azeryan.

Might such histories tell that Moralin, in his wanderings, passed through Lysara? Sure. In fact, almost certainly.

That he built a cairn there? Absolutely.

That the sacred octagonal chamber in the pontifical temple is built on the site of this cairn? Of course! (In fact, it probably contains a pile of stone that are said to be Moralin's original cairn.)

That this cairn was especially important-- and that a group of priests (descended from Moralin's initial band) devoted particular attention to its maintenance, and that the present-day 'church' is descended from this band? Duh!

That Moralin the Wanderer retired from wandering and came to rule the city that would be Lysara, establishing it as a base of Agrikan power-- 1600 years before there were even cities in this part of the world? Um... no. That seems just too much. Besides, there are going to be local Lysaran/Azeri heroes who need to have their roles celebrated into this mythic history.... Moralin's got more than enough here with being one of Ilpylen's disciples, the author of the Balefire Chronicle, and being the leader of one of the wandering bands of cairn-builders. Those Azeri natives need their own mythic credentials established in the church history as well.

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

Either mode is possible (Moralin the Wanderer, later co-opted into Lysara myth, vs. Moralin of Lysara, later co-opted into foundations myth), and there is way too little evidence to be decisive either way. It would be nice to know whether any other disciples are named, what kinds of stories are told about them, and so on so we could trace the evolution of the Moralin character. For example, the "disciple converts city X by killing the leader" story could be a conventional story told about every city and every disciple. In which case whoever is attached to Lysara by such a myth almost automatically becomes the author of the Balefire Chronicles (or the father of the author, etc..). If the story is unique to Moralin, then it would be a matter for the pontiff to insert Lysara into that story.

Aside from that, I remain less impressed than you by the parallelism arguments. When you get into the details of the mythmaking, the parallels start to become terribly tenuous. For example, in roughly half the stories in the Pentateuch, Moses is seen as incompetent. Aaron is the smart one. In the other half of the stories the roles are reversed. We can tell by linguistic evidence that two different groups of authors wrote the two accounts, which were eventually merged. Of course, the two texts were written by the two priestly groups of the Hebrew world - the priests of the Temple and the Levites - who had every reason to build up their progenitor and tear down the other. The same is true for Saul and David, who are both alternately brilliant and not, according to who is doing the writing. Now, given a set of myths that are self-contradictory, you can find almost any parallel you want in them. Do you need Saul to be a "founder king"? - then just read the right sections of Kings and ignore the others. With a little practice you can create any parallel that you need.

Now, as I said before I'll accept a certain amount of argument from parallelism - there are certain motifs that do show up over and over again. Institutions need Founders and Lawgivers, and it stands to reason that they appear in a certain order. But I think you need to be very careful when using it as an analytical tool - it's easy to start forcing the evidence to match the theory. (Not that I'm suggesting that you are doing that. But as well read as you are, I'm sure you have seen examples of this.)

It's also possible that the description of Moralin in Venarive isn't intended to be legendary/mythic at all, but is being presented as "this is the objective truth" for GM purposes. (For some of the other personages, we're explicitly told they're 'legendary'; that's not said of Moralin.) Who's to know?

I was actually kind of hoping that Jeremy Baker or one of the other KP folks might step in here and indicate what their design thoughts were on this detail. (Maybe I should have posted this on the forum about KP publications...)



There's nothing in any published material about that, either by CGI or KP. Back on the HRT, I did have plans to ultimately develop info on the other 7 disciples, where they traveled etc., but that never actually happened. So it's a completely open field.

My personal take is that Moralin is the disciple who traveled west and founded 'western-- or Venarivian' Agrikanism, which is the Agrikanism we all know and love... but other disciples may have traveled elsewhere and brought quite different versions of the faith to Diramoa, Shoju, Mafan, etc.



Very true, but I think that ignores the fact that the basic historical role assigned to Moses (and Aaron) is the same (e.g. led Hebrews out of Egypt, gave them the law, etc.) in those two accounts. It's not like E posits Moses as being the guy who led the Hebrews out of Egypt, and that J describes him as, say, the first king, or the guy who built the temple in Jerusalem or some such.... and that is the kind of conflation we're talking about here with Moralin. (Unless one is assuming that Lysara was founded and became an Agrikan center much, much earlier than would seem to make sense given other information we're told about Azeryan settlements.)

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

Of course the parallels are easy there - they were in the same exodus. But when you start arguing by parallels you obscure as much as you reveal. Argument by parallel motivates you to ignore the differences and focus on the similarities - but the similarities are usually banal and the real meat is in the differences. (It certainly is with Moses and Aaron!) A careless person can be led terribly astray.

I hate to disparage a particular group here, but the example that comes to mind is the Mormons. The Mormons are extremely fond of pointing out the parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and of course this is part of the proof of their holy text. As an analytical tool, arguing from parallel isn't adequate for understanding that text.

I don't know, pokep. One might just as easily (and possibly more accurately!) say: "When you start arguing by differences, you obscure as much as you reveal. Argument by differences causes you to ignore the similarities and focus on differences-- when those differences are usually superficial, and the real meat is in the similarity."

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

Oooh. I see what you are doing here. You are using parallels to make a point about using parallels. Clever.

You clearly have to be careful no matter how you play the parallelism game. That's all I'm saying - parallels exist, but you have to be careful interpreting them. And not everyone is. (And not just Mormons.)

In my mind it's even greyer than that. The phrase "Established Lysâra as a key centre of Àgríkan worship and power" is more or less meaningless without context. What are the definitions of the terms key, worship, and power in the context of 1600BT? Heck, even the term "established" is fraught with peril. For all we know, Moralin may have passed through, defeated a local strong-man, built a cairn, and converted the local populace to the worship of Agrik - and then kept moving. The fact that Lysara may have already held some pre-eminence over its neighbors would have seen the religion spread. The text makes no mention of how Moralin accomplished this task, and given that it's so far removed in history, I think much of it is probably coincidence and a healthy dose of Lysaran revisionism.

Another possibility is that there were two Moralin(s) of Agrikian fame that have been merged into one historical figure.

The first is the "Wanderer" that was the disciple of Ilpylen while the second is the founder of Lysara, also an Agrikan and named after original disciple. In the histories written since the two men have become totally interchangable, whether intentionally by the Church fathers or unintentionally due to the simple passage of time. This would solve the 1600 year chronological discrepancy and allows the disciple Moralin to of never actually gone to Lysara, the Azeryan Pennisula or even travelled to Venarive itself!

Of course my P-Harn has the nomadic horse tribes of the Ketarh Plataeu sweeping down to destroy the both the infantry of Mafan and indeed the Empire itself. From there a series of displacements has produced political and religious landscape seen on Venarive of 720TR. (Details upon request.)

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...and I'm not dead yet...

That's certainly a plausible explanation. If that were the case, though, I would have expected the Venarive article to say something to the effect of, "Later associated with the establishment of Lysâra as a centre of Àgríkan worship," or "Claimed by the church as the founder of worship in Lysara."

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

I wouldn't go that far. All the religious canon blends dates and events that are clearly 'tradition' without qualification. And its not just religion - there are heraldic blazons that aregiven dates that are too ancient to be true, as well as other 'pious frauds'. And isn't the Cherafir GoAL chantry supposed to be 6000 years old? Some might ascribe this to loose editing, but I think it is just that the writers are too quick to believe every local claim of antiquity.

Pokep, could you cite a few specific examples?

Uh.... I almost hate to ask this, but..... you do realize that the writers of "Gods of Harn," "Venarive" etc. are not figures from an actual world called Kethira who are traveling within it like Herodotus, listening to local stories, and recounting them to us? That they are authors from our world setting out the parameters of an imaginary world in a role-playing product, establishing what is true, what is legendary, and what is unknown in the act of writing it?

You do recognize that, right?

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

That may be your p-Terra interpretation, but I don't see anything in canon that says anything close to that. And this board is filled with evidence to the contrary.

I mean, I almost hate to ask this, but . . . you do realize that the writers of "Gods of Harn", "Venarive" etc.. are not omniscient figures who are describing an actual world called Kethira that they can view with perfect clarity, and are recounting their observations to us? That they are authors from our world who are making stuff up as they go along, establishing what seems reasonable, has a legendary flavor, and leaves some stuff for the reader to fill in?

You do recognize that, right?

Time to re-watch the film Mazes and Monsters....

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Hmmm... I've been on this board for quite a while, and on the old Harnlist for quite a while before that, and I'm not sure I've seen anything that would suggest that folks here believe that Robin or Tom or Jeremy or John or anyone else visited a real place called Kethira and are recording stories they heard from the locals there or "observations" they made while there. Maybe we read different threads...

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

I don't think there is any real disagreement here - it's just how we each have chosen to frame the issue. When faced with an error I choose to say, "That's just what people believe. Reality is often different." Of course, sometimes I am forced to say, "And this particular belief is completely wack!" And sometimes I do what I think most people do and fetch the White-Out.

When I see anything in canon, I weigh it the same way I weigh what I read in the real world. Some things are beyond doubt - they would have been observed and recorded by many sources, and are not subject to interpretation. That the Red Death occurred in the years indicated I accept without hesitation.

But when it says something like, During the epidemic fires in Cherafir consumed only the homes of the infected, I take that with a grain of salt. The documentation is hearsay, the story has the ring of urban legend, no mechanism exists (no spells have been suggested that control fire so precisely from a distance), and the moral ramifications are rather chilling. I do not take such a statement as literal truth, any more than I believe that Jesus was born in 1 AD or Betsy Ross made the first American flag.

I've heard this sentiment on this board many times over. Some like to describe the article on the "evil" churches as "having been written by fanatical Laranians." So I know my viewpoint is not original, though it might not be explicitly expressed very often.

I looked for the heraldry discrepancy that someone noticed on this board ages ago. I couldn't find it, and I don't remember the specifics. But wouldn't you expect that some registrations are given particularly ancient provenance? I know that when my PC knight finally seizes the bloody throne of Kaldor, from the smoking ruins of the Enclave of the Holy Oak the newly appointed master herald will surely find proof that Clan Chandliss was present at the founding of Kephria.