In your minds eye

[lorin]

how do you picture the Ritual of Desecration?........
fire?
earthquakes?
blight?
something supernatural?
all of the above?

I know it in part consisted of fire, as Trell began to enact the ritual in TPTP but how do you envison it? It was limited in some sense because the Haruchai and the Giants survived.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

how do you picture the Ritual of Desecration?........
fire?
earthquakes?
blight?
something supernatural?
all of the above?

I know it in part consisted of fire, as Trell began to enact the ritual in TPTP but how do you envison it? It was limited in some sense because the Haruchai and the Giants survived.

A good question. As many times as I've read the Chronicles, I've never put a lot of thought into just what the results of RofD were.

There must have been earthquakes, just for the fact that the Staff of Law was lost beneath Mt. Thunder. I don't think Drool Rockworm just found it in an abandoned cavern after thousands of years of being "misplaced." I believe it was dug up out of internment.

The Chronicles mention widespread desertification as a result, and Trothgard, which had been a "garden" before the Ritual was harmed substantially, though I can't recall exactly how. I think that was a hodgepodge of catastrophe. Blight may have played a role.

The Giants were warned, and the Haruchai sent away. They came through it by simply not being around. And weren't many the people of the Land also spared by evacuation?

The forests, what was left of them at that time, seem to have come through the Ritual unscathed with the help of the Forestals.

-----

Mainly though, I think the RofD had little to do with specific effects, and everything to do with the enactor, and what that enactor was normally capable of doing.

That's why Trell, a graveler, manifested the beginnings of the RofD as fire. The Desecration, if enacted by Mhoram, would have been of a completely different kind, IMO.

Kevin's RofD (abetted by Foul) was the RofD specific and personal to them, as would mine be to me and yours to you. An amplification by orders of magnitude of our natural power by the depth of our despair.

[hearthrall antonicus]

Kevin ascends a mountain and begins an invocation weaving signs with his staff. The earthpower starts at the farthest reaches of the Land rumbling the ground beneath the feet of all creatures that live in the Land, including people,and the ground heats ,starting to shimmer and sway, buckling as it does so.Certain denizens of the Land, perhaps the Giants and Haruchai among them, sense whats happening and they flee to the coastlines and the hills, running madly or riding like the wind. Stonedowns collapse,the swelling heat that emanates from the ground suffocates and chokes humans and animals alike. Thunderheads gather in the skies above, the winds howl as the atmosphere tears at itself, the essential battle between hot and cold air taking place. As the vegetation and trees catch fire, massive smokes are blown everywhere. Flying things vaporize as they go.Lightning reaves the heavens, as Kevin sees the destruction approach him.As the Land screams out in pain, he can feel its death throes, taking it all into himself.At the farthest reaches of his mind he hears Lord Foul the Despiser laughing with mad glee at him, at Kevins presumed wisdom in hoping to rid the Land of Despite. FOOL! At the end intense fire and desecration finally catch up to him, his hair burning, lungs searing and he throws his head back holding his now flaming staff in both of his charring hands, screaming in agony at his own ignorance, and at what he has done to the Land and his peoples . Painfully he perishes,the last of the old Lords.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

Damn it antonicus!

I write a dry, unreadable (and unbearably dull were it to be read) dissertation and you write a Ripping Yarn!

*goes to get his big brother*

[StevieG]

Great description H-A!

I'd never thought about it much, but I like the descructiveness of your description.

[hearthrall antonicus]

Its okay! I just got on a roll is all!!!

(hears D S big brother coming...)
Oh, SH#T!!!!!!

[Menolly]

antonicus, you really do belong somewhere with us role players in Gravin Threndor...

[Auleliel]

Lately (and with no evidence, textual or otherwise) I've been thinking the RoD was much more gradual than what has been described here. I think what Kevin did was like knocking down the first domino in a large pattern--a small act that has the impetus to cause more (and bigger) acts to follow, even if the instigator is no longer present. When Kevin died, much of the devastation had not yet occurred, but Kevin could see where his action(s) were leading.
I also think that it was not fireballs or bomb-like, but rather (in agreement with Demondim-spawn's post) was a form--or forms--of destruction based on the sorts of power Kevin already used. I don't know what sort of power he used, so I can't really elaborate further.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

Spoiler

At the end of TPTP, Foul haunts Covenant with visions of Joan, Roger, and the Land all in the throes of virulent leprosy.

Was Foul simply taunting Covenant and trying to break his spirit, or was there more to it? Were those visions of a Covenant specific RofD Foul was trying to provoke?

Kevin's RofD diminished Foul too, but Foul didn't care. How would Foul fare in the aftermath of a Covenant RofD at the end of TPTP? He would certainly have been less diminished than he was in the actual final denoument.

[wayfriend]

Mainly though, I think the RofD had little to do with specific effects, and everything to do with the enactor, and what that enactor was normally capable of doing.

That's why Trell, a graveler, manifested the beginnings of the RofD as fire. The Desecration, if enacted by Mhoram, would have been of a completely different kind, IMO.

Those are precisely my thoughts as well. To not be trapped into thinking that Kevin's Ritual looked anything like Trell's.

Trell's ritual began with a huge pot of gravelling which he brought into the Close.

Kevin stood upon Mount Thunder. He had the Staff of Law. And he was a Lord whose lore was all about manipulating Law in service of the Earth.

And buried under Mt. Thunder is all manner of unwholesomeness.

I cannot help, given these clues, that Kevin's Ritual was not so much of a heat based attack, but an attack which ripped the Land apart by changing the very Laws that held it together in tact. He literally unglued the substance of the Land.

But not in a way that simply caused everything to distintigrate into dust.

Something more like the Sunbane, except a thousand times worse because it all happened in a moment. The forces of nature became unhinged and unchecked. Storms raged. Floods ravaged. The very Earth rose up and attacked. The utter chaos of the natural world ceasing to function and turning on itself.

Such a thing would surely require a thousand years to recover from.

Such a thing would surely give Kevin reason to believe Foul would be destroyed by it.

[hearthrall antonicus]

Ah,well...I tried.

[lorin]

Ah,well...I tried.

you did wonderfully and and I saw it so clearly and frighteningly. you have a gift.

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

As different in kind as Trell's RofD was from Kevin's, I don't think it would have been any less devastating than Kevin's had it been allowed to proceed.

I think the RofD, once enacted and imbued with its enactor's "personal qualities," was probably self-sustaining and fueled directly by Earthpower. Trell's initial "inferiority" to Kevin in Lore would not limit the Desecration, IMO.

It's too bad SRD doesn't answer this sort of question in the GI, it's a damn good one.

[danlo]

This is a 1 & 2 Chrons subject, it needs to be moved there.

[Seareach]

aren't you an admin, danlo? Can't you do it?

[hearthrall antonicus]

As different in kind as Trell's RofD was from Kevin's, I don't think it would have been any less devastating than Kevin's had it been allowed to proceed.

I think the RofD, once enacted and imbued with its enactor's "personal qualities," was probably self-sustaining and fueled directly by Earthpower. Trell's initial "inferiority" to Kevin in Lore would not limit the Desecration, IMO.

It's too bad SRD doesn't answer this sort of question in the GI, it's a damn good one.

EDIT: Come to think of it, the RofD is Kevin's Seventh Ward, so Trell's imperfect knowledge of the two Wards he had access to, and total ignorance about the content of the balance of the first six Wards probably wouldn't have mattered at all.

Demondim Spawn...the 7th ward was portrayed as Amok showing up to guide Covenant and Elena to the earth blood so she could use the power of command. I wish SRD would give explanation to the other Wards...I hope he touches upon them during the next two books. I feel incoomplete without having "my ducks in a row" when it comes to knowledge of the missing wards that we dont know about

And you make a compelling point when it comes to Trell and his ritual also
I mean he trashed Revelstone in places, a place synonymous with strength and and earthpower and IMO if left unchecked, it concieveably could have brought the house down

[Demondime-a-dozen-spawn]

Demondim Spawn...the 7th ward was portrayed as Amok showing up to guide Covenant and Elena to the earth blood so she could use the power of command.

Of course Amok was Kevin's Seventh Ward.

What the hell was I thinking?

As many times as I've read the story, you'd think I might know a thing or two about it...

Thanks antonicus! I edited out my edit, but I am still a moron.

[danlo]

aren't you an admin, danlo? Can't you do it?

But of course I bow to your modliness and sheer beauty!

[Seareach]

aren't you an admin, danlo? Can't you do it?

But of course I bow to your modliness and sheer beauty!

Oh well, that's ok then!

...and since you hinted so subtly I did it!

[Earthfriend]

Mainly though, I think the RofD had little to do with specific effects, and everything to do with the enactor, and what that enactor was normally capable of doing.

That's why Trell, a graveler, manifested the beginnings of the RofD as fire. The Desecration, if enacted by Mhoram, would have been of a completely different kind, IMO.

And yet, Mhoram quickly recognized what Trell was crafting, upon entering the Close. There was an understanding there, a commonality, that left no doubt in Mhoram's mind as to what was occurring. Perhaps that shows the greatness of Mhoram. Or perhaps the similarity of the knowledge both he and Trell share of the Ritual. As to my image of the Desecration...

Not intended to destroy - never intended for that. Desecration is not obliteration. It is a twisting, an expression of wrong, of pain. It is a coercion, a manipulation designed to reap Despair.

First Kevin stripped the Land of it's defenders; the Ranyhyn, the Bloodguard, the Giants; those with strength enough to resist the Ritual. In 'saving' them, he leaves the Land wide open for Foul's machinations, and so the Land comes to abhor itself.

I believe each individual's Desecration would have been different, self-designed, discovered and exploited with meticulous hate.

So, it seems I'm agreeing with you, Iorin. And geez, I really hope it was the Close Trell enacted the Ritual in. I really should go and check...