The Seven Wards and Lore

Morda Greybeard · Post by **Morda Greybeard** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 4:43 pm

Hi Guys, I posted here awhile back about the White Gold and its possible uses. Well, now I am curious about the Seven Wards and the Lore that goes with them. Would any of you be kind of enough to maybe post a description of each Ward and involved Lore?(Of the ones you know) and your personal take on them?

Anyways, thank you. I've enjoyed reading over this site.

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 4:49 pm

well, we only know of a few things they could do with their power...
With the first ward, they could create Lord's-fire, and do things like bending the Word of Warding in Mt. Thunder...
The second ward I think gave them some knowledge on how to summon Covenant, and we see them setting up defences such as Words in Dooms Retreat...
We know the sixth Ward would have told them how to use the Krill of Loric...
And the seventh Ward was the location of the Power of Command, contained within Amok.

That's all I can think of right now.

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Sun Jun 01, 2003 5:40 pm

I can't figure out how the Lords summoned Covenant in TIW. Regarding white gold, Amok said, "In his last days, High Lord Kevin yearned for it in vain." One would assume that he would have summoned white gold if he knew how. It's possible that he knew how, but feared it the way he feared the Power of Command, and so didn't summon it. In which case, he wouldn't have put knowledge of how to summon it in the first two Wards, just as he didn't have Amok show up until the krill was brought to life.

Maybe Foul always knew how to summon white gold, but couldn't without the Staff of Law. And after he had Drool do it, the Lords figured it out. Possibly with some cryptic clues from their seer and oracle?

Post by **amanibhavam** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 7:11 am

surely the Wards contained much more than a few cryptic words for things like the Word of Warning etc. I think they also contained depp knowledge on the uses of the staff and Earthpower, that's how the Lords were able to restore life to Trothgard etc.

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 10:57 am

I don't think there was anything cryptic about the Wards. I imagine things were made pretty clear, and the new Lords were frustrated as hell trying to figure out why they couldn't make it work. Of course, we know the answer now.

Post by **Earthfriend** » Mon Jun 02, 2003 1:01 pm

I agree, Fist and Faith

Isn't that part of Lord Mhoram's Victory, that he finds the strength to face his 'inner despiser', and gain access to the power of the Wards, and yet hold true to his Oath

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 1:39 am

Indeed!

And I'd like to point out how extraordinarily powerful Mhoram was. When they only had an imperfect understanding of the first two Wards, Mhoram had his revelation. At which point he jumped to the end of the 6th Ward, and brought the krill to life!! Kevin intended them to know a LOT more stuff - the entire contents of Wards 3-6 - before learning how to do that, which would bring on Amok. (And yes, I do remember that Covenant's act of anger is what first brought the krill to life, thus summoning Amok. I'm talking about TPTP, where Mhoram pulls the krill from the table and uses it against samadhi.)

It's even conceivable that Kevin thought their understanding of the Lore would have to go step by step, or they wouldn't be able to use the krill. Sort of like not being able to start using calculus without ever learning addition & subtraction, then moving to multiplication & division, then up and up, through algebra, geometry, etc. So maybe Mhoram's mathematical education went from not quite getting the hang of multiplication and division right to calculus!

Post by **Ageless Stranger** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:04 am

any speculation as to what the 3rd, 4th, and 5th wards pertained to? perhaps something relating to the fire lions or to the ritual of desecration?

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 3:19 am

Well, not the Ritual of Desecration, at any rate. When asked if the Seventh Ward contained such knowledge, Amok said, ""Lord, Desecration requires no knowledge. It comes freely to any willing hand."

Post by **Ageless Stranger** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:02 am

ah, true..i should have remembered Trells ritual of desecration, and his lack of knowledge of these wards..things sometimes tend to slip my mind...any other ideas of what the other wards might say/be?

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 4:11 am

Oh wow, we can barely guess at the incredible things Kevin was capable of!!! But I suppose it's possible that, after a point, the Wards didn't teach specific acts/abilities. Maybe they just told about new sources of power, or new ways of looking at old sources of power, and left it up to the Lords to figure out what to do with it. Maybe the later Wards were, not cryptic, but just not instruction manuals. Maybe the 5th was basically a discussion of some philosophical principle, and the 6th was another principle.

Post by **Earthfriend** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 2:25 pm

I like to think that the Wards made perfect sense to those that were ready for them, (or already had tapped that level of power within themselves), but were as thick as London fog to those 'unready'!

However, Elena is the perfect counter argument to my theory. Witness the damage done by one who was unready, and yet had access to a Ward...

Post by **Ageless Stranger** » Tue Jun 03, 2003 7:10 pm

i wouldnt say that Elena counters your theory..she was unready, and she had access to it, but this was only because of the awakening of the Krill by TC, who was basically greater than the wards. it could be viewed that the white gold, which is higher than the wards, overrode the safeguards built into them by skipping ahead and awakening the Krill with its greater power and thus bringing Amok to provide access to the Earthblood.

Post by **Unny** » Wed Jun 04, 2003 2:18 pm

It makes it pretty clear in TPTP that Morham's big discovery was that it was the Oath of Peace that had prevented the Lords from understanding fully both the first and 2nd Wards.

This is highlighted by the vision given to Covenant at the end of the first series (by the Creator) of Morham annoucing that they would give up the study of Kevins Lore and follow their own path, a path which did not preclude the Oath of Peace.

Unny

Post by **variol son** » Thu Jun 05, 2003 12:07 am

i understood y mhoram did that, but i always thought that the lords that came after him would have been less powerful coz they would have lost the paradox.

bear with me coz im not sure if i really understand wot im tryin 2 say, but in the 1st chrons, it seems that paradox is very powerful. obviously TC & the white gold & the wild magic r described in terms of paradox, in LFB...

[quote]And he who wields white wild magic gold
is a paradox -
for he is everything and nothing,
hero and fool,
potent, helpless -
and with one word of truth or treachery
he will save or damn the Earth
because he is mad and sane,
cold and passionate,
lost and found.[/quote]

...& also in TIT...

[quote]It is the girding paradox of the arch of Time, the undisciplined restraint of the Earth's creation, the absent bone of the Earthpower, the rigidness of water and the flux of rock.[/quote]

however there r also other times in which paradox is described as being powerful. in LFB lord tamarantha speaks about berek & kevin & the creator & the need 4 opposites.

[/quote]According to Kevin's Lore, only Heartthew the Lord-Fatherer was both seer and prophet. Lesser souls lose the paradox. Why, I do not know.[quote]

this suggests that the lords knew that there was some sort of power in paradox, altho they didnt no y. it also reveals that the 1st ward @ least contained @ least something in the way of the history of the land, perhaps being the history text of the 7 wards. the new lords would after all need 2 no the accumulated history of the land b4 they started messing around with actual power. learning from the victories & defeats of others i guess. also, in TPTP, the power of kevin's lore is revealed 2 b in opposition 2 the oath of peace.

[/quote]You offer us things which contradict each other, and tell us that we must presevre both, achieve both together. Such counsel is easily spoken.[quote]

fist & faith has mentioned how powerful mhoram was. could it b that he was so powerful, possibly more powerful than some of the old lords, bcoz he mastered or comprehended or intuitively grasped the paradox between kevin's lore & the oath of peace?

ive been stewin on this theory 4 a while. tell me wot u think.[/quote]

Post by **Treble** » Sat Jun 07, 2003 10:57 pm

Although it was hastily spoken of and forgotten in the second trilogy (as the information was thousands of years old and almost pointless - remember when they discovered the empty caskets which contained the other wards, and they were dismissed as worthless?), I assume Mhoram utterly surpassed the information contained in wards.

Essentially, Mhoram recognised that the were mere ciphers; touchstones for the people who read them. Once the information in them was assimilated by the individual, the individual could them expand their conception and appreciation of power. All law, in any world or time or society, is merely a set of rules and strictures laid down by others that are adhered to by the collective.

Mhoram gained so much knowledge from his own inner strength and puissance, he surpassed Kevin entirely. This is alluded to in the second chronicles. Sadly, the only answer to Foul was sacrifice by the 'other': as Foul was outsider, TC was outside. No matter Mhoram's power or vision, he never stood a chance against Foul's machinations.

For me, this is the hardest thing to accept in the chronicles, as Mhoram is one of the truest heroes ever created in fiction.

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 1:08 am

Ummm, I don't think you're remembering that right. I think only the 3rd Ward was found between the 1st and 2nd Chronicles. And it doesn't say when the 3rd was found. Could have been found by Mhoram, could have been found a hundred years before the 2nd Chronicles. How much it was studied, if at all, is not revealed.

My opinion is that Mhoram did NOT find it. Like I said somewhere, with only an incomplete understanding of the first two Wards, he managed to bring the krill to life. I can't imagine he would have had trouble figuring them out, and thus finding the next Ward, and so on. But he had decided not to use Kevin's Lore, so I can't see why he would have bothered. And if he had, why not go get them all? If he thought the Lore was too prone to violence, he could have used it to get them all, then destroyed the info so nobody else would get it.

I'd guess that someone stumbled upon it somewhere down the line. And by then, nobody much knew what to do with it.

Post by **I'm Murrin** » Sun Jun 08, 2003 1:35 pm

I'd just like to go back to the contents of the Wards - from further reading of LFB, it would seem that not only did the Wards contain power, but the First Ward contained the history, songs and stories, and the 'old maps' - the only maps we are told of are those of Mt. Thunder, but I'd assume they'd include maps of all places used by the Lords - including where all the hidden doors were in Revelstone, I guess.

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 1:21 am

Yeah, I never really considered the many different types of knowledge that the 1st Ward contained. I guess that after they fully understood the knowledge of all the different disciplines, the location of the 2nd Ward would be obvious. But, of course, they weren't capable of fully understanding the knowledge in the discipline(s) that dealt with power.

Post by **Treble** » Mon Jun 09, 2003 8:36 am

Ummm, I don't think you're remembering that right. I think only the 3rd Ward was found between the 1st and 2nd Chronicles. And it doesn't say when the 3rd was found. Could have been found by Mhoram, could have been found a hundred years before the 2nd Chronicles. How much it was studied, if at all, is not revealed.

I think you misread my post a bit there, mate

I didn't say Mhoram found the wards. I know they were found by the latter Lords, but were inconsequential by this time.

My point was that Mhoram superseded the wards and, by extention of that, Kevin's law. He realised that power came from Earthservice, and that Kevin's way was not the only way. That's all I was saying. I probably have been a little more clear ^_^

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

The Seven Wards and Lore

The Seven Wards and Lore