You mean to tell me they ALL died? All of them everywhere?

[CovenantJr]

I would imagine it would be similar to what would happen here if there were some mass devastation that occurred.

All of a sudden, the knowledge of, let's say, computer programming would become less useful that, say, building houses. That skill would be lost.

If you extrapolate this out to the denizens of the Land pre-ROD, let’s say Stonedowners previously held knowledge of all lore; however, their exile was in the mountains, so they only preserved the rhadhamaerl, useful for living in mountains. Similarly, the lillianrill would have been preserved by the Woodhelvinin; perhaps they found shelter in the great forests.

Combine this with many generations of exile, and lots of lore would be lost.

Good theory.

[aTOMiC]

I would imagine it would be similar to what would happen here if there were some mass devastation that occurred.

All of a sudden, the knowledge of, let's say, computer programming would become less useful that, say, building houses. That skill would be lost.

If you extrapolate this out to the denizens of the Land pre-ROD, let’s say Stonedowners previously held knowledge of all lore; however, their exile was in the mountains, so they only preserved the rhadhamaerl, useful for living in mountains. Similarly, the lillianrill would have been preserved by the Woodhelvinin; perhaps they found shelter in the great forests.

Combine this with many generations of exile, and lots of lore would be lost. Also, the language would evolve. For that, look to the word usage of the British as opposed to America. Or, Massachusetts as opposed to Arkansas.

Well that's pretty much what SRD writes as an explanation in the book.

[Unfettered One]

Well that's pretty much what SRD writes as an explanation in the book.

Yes, I agree. But it makes sense.

[SGuilfoyle1966]

What I find strange is that they needed the Giants to translate the 1st Ward!

Spoiler

The people of the Land even changed their language or at least certain pronounciations.

Did the language of the land change?
The text suggests this, but also hints at another possibility.
One of the Lords, I think Mhoram in his conversation about the wards, says, "we translate the words" but a word that means one thing here seems to mean something else in other parts of the text.
Perhaps, Mhoram says, it is a fundamental flaw in them. They thought it a lacking. But it was the Oath of Peace blinding them to full perception. they can't conceive of using power to do the things described, I think. A text that teaches the Lords how to make a fire to cook their dinner can also be used to start a fire that can burn flesh. Or the earth. But they wouldn't use it that way, so the "text" becomes unclear.

[Bran Pendragon]

I see the problem as even simpler than that. It's like trying to use a computer program without the monitor turned on. You can read the instruction manual all you like, and keep on trying everything you can think of just going by the sounds the computer makes, but unless it the instruction manual tells you specifically to turn on the monitor, instead of just assuming that you'd already know to do so, you'll probably be very very frustrated very soon. In the case of the New Lords, they were able through years and years of effort, work out some of the more basic tricks, but could never really get at the heart of the law.

[iQuestor]

I see the problem as even simpler than that. It's like trying to use a computer program without the monitor turned on. You can read the instruction manual all you like, and keep on trying everything you can think of just going by the sounds the computer makes, but unless it the instruction manual tells you specifically to turn on the monitor, instead of just assuming that you'd already know to do so, you'll probably be very very frustrated very soon. In the case of the New Lords, they were able through years and years of effort, work out some of the more basic tricks, but could never really get at the heart of the law.

... another piece of compelling evidence that the Wards were stored on Windows PCs ... and the instructions were in Windows Help.

[aTOMiC]

Okay so there were scattered groups. I suppose hardships had forced those people to remain in relatively small numbers and living outside the blast radius probably meant living in the Lower Land or in the Mountains or heaven knows where else.
But if there were lore wise people (above "user" level let's say) that had been training to become lords, who knew the protocol for such things, wouldn't they have attempted to preserve the old order of things even though Revelstone was off limits?
Imagine groups of dozens or hundreds following their training and establishing their own hierarchy. Even their own Lord's Council for their group. Or perhaps a group was lucky enough to have an unfettered one living among them that hadn't been killed in the war. That's the way they had being doing business. Perhaps they had people who were trained enough to become apprentices that, given they were the only ones available, were nominated for Lord status in their group. Imagine after the people began returning to the Land and having dozens of Lords from the south, north, east and west coming together instead of having to rely on Kevin's Wards. Sure the best of what was left probably wouldn't have been as mighty as Kevin and his ilk but certainly more powerful than the New Lords.

Imagine all those groups coming together with their own High Lords.

North: I'm High Lord.
South: No. I called it!
West: Nu uh!
East: Knock it off you losers. I'm High Lord. If you don't like it you can bite me.
North: He's a Witch!
East: What? No I'm not!
West: Burn him!
South: Yeah. Burn him!
East: Are you nuts? Take your hand off me I......aieeeeeee!
North: Okay. Now where were we? Oh yeah. I'm High Lord!
West: Nu uh!
South: I have the biggest staff!
North: Never the less.
East: I'm not dead.
West: No. I'm High Lord. My mom said so!
East: Could someone help me?
North: I can settle this with....EARTHPOWER!!!!
East: I'm burned rather badly.
West: Well I have to admit that was pretty impressive. South, you see that?
South: Yep. You do make a persuasive argument.
North:

[matrixman]

you have to agree the extinction of the Land's defenders was as complete as Emperor Palpatine's attack on the Jedi order.
WOW.

I'd say "more" complete than the destruction of the Jedi order, because while Palpatine killed off the Jedi, he left the infrastructures of the Republic intact for his use. Whereas, the RoD wiped out "all the works" of the Old Lords. It would be like Palpatine going berserk and destroying Coruscant.

Since it is also vague on the length of time it took the Ritual to complete, it is possible that people were able to flee the land or find haven in a great forest. Was the Ritual instantaneous or did it take days to complete it it's entirety?

It's an interesting question. I've often wondered what exactly the Ritual looked like from, say, the perspective of the people of the Land - those who chose to stay and stand witness (if any).

Would they have seen discrete fireballs - a la Fire-Lions - rushing out from the east, incinerating all they touched? Or was it more like a tsunami wave of force? Kevin and LF started the Ritual in Kiril Threndor (the heart of Mount Thunder), so in what manner did all that power emanate from the mountain? I don't imagine Kevin just blasting a hole through the walls of the mountain.

Andelain would've been hit first and hardest, being right next door to Mt. Thunder, unless Caerroil Wildwood or some other Forestal reached out to protect the Hills. The Forestals may have been the only beings in the Land to have borne witness to the Ritual and remained unscathed.

All the rivers would've been poisoned or vaporized. But what about Glimmermere? We know from the Second Chrons that the lake had enough concentrated Earthpower to defy the Sunbane. Could it have also resisted the Ritual?

Revelstone - I assume it must have been deserted. Anyone who stayed behind inside would have been effectively entombed.

The only "great forest" that I could imagine people fleeing to as a safe haven would be Giant Woods in the Lower Land. That's assuming the Ritual only affected the Upper Land (which wouldn't make sense if the Ritual was some kind of blast wave radiating outwards in all directions). People certainly could not have fled into Garrotting Deep, because Wildwood would've fed them to the trees. If the other great forests of the Land still had Forestals, same deal. If they didn't, then they would've been vulnerable to the Ritual, and people fleeing into them would still have been screwed.

[wayfriend]

I have always imagined that Kevin's Ritual was more or less similar to Trells. So it would come on as first fires igniting all around, then the ground itself begins to burn, and then everyone begins to roast. It would spread out from Mt Thunder as an ever enlarging circle of death.

Now, I admit that Trell's Ritual is probably based on his gravelingas lore, and that's why it's more or less the same as turning the world into a giant pot of gravelling.

If Kevin were to do it, it would probably be more like Lord's fire. But still I don't see bolts firing from the mountain. He is after all Desecrating the earth itself. So it would be like a Lords fire that spread across the earth in a wave, shrouding it in power, and scorching whomever was standing upon it.

And Foul shared in the ritual. So there may have been eyes in the wave, carious and yellow.

Edit: I don't think the Lower Land was spared.

[aTOMiC]

Considering Trell's mini ritual in the Close in Revelstone, I'd have to assume the genuine article was a blast wave of intense heat. Heat strong enough to melt stone. I can't imagine what it must have taken for the Forestal's to resist such all consuming power.

[Menolly]

Hmm...

Desecration never meant fire or intense heat to me. Trell notwithstanding, considering his power was as a Gravelingas. Warping of all that was good, twisting it into unrecognizable forms of it's former being, that is desecration to me. And, unlike the Sunbane, being unable to find means of avoiding it, other than flight.

But, it's been years since I've read the chronicles. I'm probably forgetting something very important regarding this...

[Bran Pendragon]

Well the Spoiled Plains were all broken up, like something had physically smashed into it. I thought there was a comment in LFB about that being where Kev had "brought down the ritual" or similar. I've sort of always pictured it as a huge burning fireball that had an impact like the smaller comet part (that did hit Earth) in Deep Impact. Good luck running from that.

[aTOMiC]

Frankly considering the time period that SRD wrote LFB I assumed that the ROD was a reference to 1960s fears over a possible nuclear holocaust. Considering that I've always thought of the ROD to be a lot like an atomic blast, complete with fallout and contamination that would keep living things away for a thousand years.

[Menolly]

And that's a pretty reasonable interpretation, TOM. I don't remember being overly concerned with nuclear holocaust in the late 70s. I was pretty naive for a college student back then though.

But I still think the Spoiled Plains could have been physically altered via a twisting, warping, malificent curse type of effect, rather than something physical. It is High Fantasy...

[amanibhavam]

I see it has not been quoted in this thread yet.

Raymond Luxury Yacht: This may fall under RAFO, but I was curious about the Ritual of Desecration. We know this did an amazing amount of destruction, enough to severely set back the civilization and culture of the land, but physically how did the Ritual manifest itself? Flaming balls of fire? Earthquakes? Plague? I'm just wondering what it would have looked like to be there for it.




This isn't a RAFO. It's an IOIWIN (I only invent what I need). I've never needed to know what a Ritual of Desecration looks like (in any sense), so I've never turned my imagination to the subject.

But just on a whim--since I'm obviously in that kind of mood--I might suggest the type of withering you would get if a skurj 900 miles wide burrowed quickly from one end of the Land to the other.

(01/22/2008)

[Menolly]

Yes...but what physically caused the effect of the Ritual of Desecration? Obviously the withering happened, but by what?

I still see it as a general malific curse/force of some sort. But other interpretations are just as valid, if not more so.

[matrixman]

Interesting that SRD says he never needed to know what Kevin's Ritual looked like, but yes, I can see how that fits with his methodology. In his place, I would've spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out the details of the Ritual -- and never getting the story done. Which is why he's the author of the Chronicles and I'm just a slacker with dreamy-eyed visions!

Isn't he glad he's got people like us turning our imagination to the subject?

[Menolly]

Interesting that SRD says he never needed to know what Kevin's Ritual looked like, but yes, I can see how that fits with his methodology. In his place, I would've spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out the details of the Ritual -- and never getting the story done. Which is why he's the author of the Chronicles and I'm just a slacker with dreamy-eyed visions!

Isn't he glad he's got people like us turning our imagination to the subject?

And aren't we glad we can debate and state what our own visions of what happened were, because he felt no need to specify it? For me, getting to use my imagination on these issues is one of the things that makes the chronicles so compelling!

Doesn't SRD say that although he is the author, that he encourages his readers to make their own interpretations?

[Pumaman]

Frankly considering the time period that SRD wrote LFB I assumed that the ROD was a reference to 1960s fears over a possible nuclear holocaust

As the first chronicles were written in the 70's, I picture it something like Disco. But not as bad.

[Cameraman Jenn]

I always pictured it as a big wave of power that sucked the life force out of everything like a big shockwave and turned it all to dust.