Kevin's Watch

IMO, the Elohim did not just tell them what was going on because Findail wouldn't have had to become a stick if he had gotten Covenant to give the ring to him or Linden. Why give them the option of, "Or just help me and Vain become the new Staff of Law."? If they knew about that option, they might have tried to make it happen, rather than do other things, most of which gave Findail another chance to try to talk Covenant out of the ring.

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As for the Earthpower becoming corrupted, that's a very tricky thing. Originally, Earthpower was probably impervious to such corruption.

But then, the Earthpower thought the Land and Earth could benefit from humans having a deeper relationship with itself. So it helped Berek create the original Staff of Law.

This seemed like a good thing. Of course, giving humans the understanding of such power means they also had the ability to abuse it. But even the Ritual of Desecration was not a corruption of Earthpower. It didn't break the Law, it was merely a hideous exploitation of the Law.

And after so many millennia,

the Staff became the thing it served. It was the Law; the Law was incarnate in the Staff. The tool and its purpose were one.

But then the Staff was destroyed. And while Foul couldn't corrupt the Law in the beginning, he was able to now. And that's why a new Staff was needed. The Earthpower had lost its stability. Think of the Staff as a rulebook. The Earthpower got so used to reading the rules whenever it needed to know anything that it forgot that it knew the rules before the book was written! And when the book was burned, it couldn't remember any of the rules. So a new rulebook was needed.

excellent analogy! couldn't have put it better myself...

Its like using a stick to beat someone up and the stick being labelled as 'corrupted' ... it was just misused.

another good one...

Hey, its me again. I started this topic a while ago and it was really helpful to me. I've been reading up the books like a storm since then and am now in the middle of "The One Tree". It was sad to see Mhoram, Revelstone, and the Lords change in the second chronicles, but the new land all good things have its end.

However, for me it doesn't .

I play a game online that encompasses some of the Covenant lore. Its mostly focused on the people borne of the land. Lords, Giants, Ravers, Rahynyn(I spell their name wrong all the time) and so on. Its pretty interesting getting to make up your own chronicles as your own character. It was how I got into reading these books hehe.

Well anyways, I am kinda doing a little project right now. I'm trying to script in a "Loresraat" into the game I am playing. I'm trying to include alot of things from the books, but nothing is ever stated in black & white. So its a rather long process to do it as true to the lore, and to the lore of the game.(Theres some changes in game made to balance it in better)

So far its coming along nicely. I want to include the Seven Wards(Or information about them in the case of Seventh Ward), Words of Power, The Staff, The Sword, Land History, and studies that could be done in the Loresraat. Its been a long process and alot of the discussions you guys have had on here that I've read have made it easier on me or given me great ideas to develope on.

So far my goals with it is to make learning about the Lore used in the Covenant books acessible to those that play the game. I want to let them learn about things as the study through the loresraat to become Lords, Lorewardens, Unfettered, Warriors, Gravelingas, etc.

I was wondering if some of you guys would like to help me outline this out. I've been doing a basic outline of all the main things I want to include and will probally need to start breaking that up into smaller parts that I can outline, write up history for and expand further.

Wow, this was a great discussion, I'm sorry that I'm posting so late to it. I've read all 3 pages and just want to say one thing: I like Mhoram just as much as the next guy, but I totally disagree with the contention that he was, or could ever be, more powerful than Kevin. Furthermore, I disagree with the belief that Mhoram ever used the Krill in any way associated with his power, other than when he drew the Krill from the stone table after Trell's attempt at an RoD.

dlbpharmd wrote:Furthermore, I disagree with the belief that Mhoram ever used the Krill in any way associated with his power, other than when he drew the Krill from the stone table after Trell's attempt at an RoD.

I don't understand. Do you not think he used his power to defeat Satansfist? Do you think anybody could have used the krill that way?

Fist and Faith wrote:

dlbpharmd wrote:Furthermore, I disagree with the belief that Mhoram ever used the Krill in any way associated with his power, other than when he drew the Krill from the stone table after Trell's attempt at an RoD.

I don't understand. Do you not think he used his power to defeat Satansfist? Do you think anybody could have used the krill that way?

When TC first drove the krill into the stone table in TIW, his passion and anger, along with the white gold, was manifested in such a way that the heat of the Krill did not burn him. Likewise, in TPTP Mhoram, after using the secret of the RoD to defeat Trell, drew the Krill from the table without being burned - again, his power protected him.

On the other hand, when Mhoram killed Satansfist, his hands were badly burned - because his power was NOT manifested. Furthermore, when TC stood up against the Lurker of the Sarangrave in TWL, SRD describes the heat of the Krill burning TC's hands - because he was not exalted in power.

So my point is this: the power of the secret of the RoD, when expressed, is sufficient to protect the bearer of the Krill from its might. Use of the krill without sufficient power will subject the handler to painful consequences.

Oh! Talk of Power! Can I play?
Have a seat, Fist. You Haruchai don't know nuthin' about power anyway.

dlbpharmd,
What of the actual killing of Satansfist? Was that accomplished by merely sticking a blade into his chest? Surely nobody believes that would be enough to kill a Giant-Raver with a fragment of the Illearth Stone.

Mhoram planted his feet on the ground and braced himself to retain his grip on the krill. Through the focus of that blade, he drove all his might deeper and deeper toward the Giant-Raver's heart.

Yet samadhi did not die. Faced with death, he found a way to resist. Both his fists clenched the Stone only a foot above the back of Mhoram's neck. With all the rocky, Giantish strength of his frame, he began to squeeze.

Savage power steamed and pulsed like the beating of a heart of ice - a heart laboring convulsively, pounding and quivering to carry itself through a crisis. Mhoram felt the beats crash against the back of his spine. They kept Satansfist alive while they strove to quench the power which drove the krill.

But Mhoram endured the pain, did not let go; he leaned his weight on the blazing blade, ground it deeper and still deeper toward the essential cords of samadhi's life. Slowly, his flesh seemed to disappear, fade as if he were being translated by passion into a being of pure force, of unfettered spirit and indomitable will. The Stone hammered at his back like a mounting cataclysm, and Staansfist's chest heaved against his hands in great, ragged, bloody gasps.

The parts I've put in bold say that power was at work, and that it was Mhoram's power.

And we know how much power Mhoram was throwing around, because of his battle with Satansfist's minions minutes earlier:

Now the only thing which limited his might was his staff itself. That wood had been shaped by people who had not understood Kevin's Lore; it was not formed to bear the force he now sent blazing through it. But he had no margin for caution. He made the staff surpass itself, sent it bucking and crackling with power to rage against his assailants. His flame grew incandescent, furnace-hot; in brilliance and coruscation it sliced through his foes like a scythe of sun-fire.

If anything, Mhoram would have poured even more power into Satansfist, if he was able to.

Mhoram's damaged hands is an interesting point. I have a couple theories. Maybe those more well-versed in the Lore, like Loric himself, knew how to use the power without being hurt by it; they knew how to use the power to protect themselves from the power, just as Mhoram used the power to force his staff to endure the power. Circular, but possible.

It's also possible that they became acclimated to the power, and, by the time they could awaken the krill, were immune to the burns it could cause.

And, although it took more power to pull the krill from the table than the New Lords' Oath-inhibited understanding of Kevin's Lore could produce, it didn't take nearly as much power as, say, slaying Satansfist, and therefore the danger of burning was minimal. Whether one of my theories or something else, Mhoram was protected. But what he threw at Satansfist was quite another matter.


As for Covenant, um... No, he was not burned in the Sarangrave.

...But Covenant went on staring at his hands.

They were unharmed; free even of heat-damage. He had been protected by his own power; even his flesh had become so accustomed to wild magic that he guarded himself instinctively, without expense to any part of hiimself except his soul.

But since he used wild magic, it's extremely difficult to compare his uses of power with Mhoram's anyway.

You make a very clear and persuasive argument, and I stand corrected re: TC's use of the krill. I recalled the passage about him ignoring the heat of the krill and totally forgot that he was unharmed by that heat. I'm going to have to start consulting my books more often before I shoot off my mouth like a cannon.

But I'm still not convinced re: Mhoram's use of the krill, although in no lesser words than SRD's himself, it does appear to be as you say. I just don't understand the burnt hands issue. In every instance I can recall, the use of power, whether by staff, krill or ring, that involved some manifestation of heat or fire did not harm the wielder.

No easy answers here!

White gold, Kevin's Lore, rhadhamaerl, lillianrill... Four different systems of power, each with its own rules for defining, limiting, and using power. How easily can we compare them?

Trell was a master of stone-lore. Though no rhadhamaerl had ever used it to such an extreme until Trell began his Ritual of Desecration, they probably understood it more fully than the New Lords understood Kevin's Lore. After all, the stone-lore was not Kevin's Lore, and the Oath of Peace might not have blinded them to its nature. Perhaps this is why Trell was safe from even its most powerful destructive manifestation.

On the other hand, Mhoram had virtually no experience with the full, unhindered might of Kevin's Lore. The New Lords had tried for lifetimes to understand it, but they could not. Mhoram almost never felt it flow through him in it's purest form. Maybe it's no surprise that he was either unaware of the danger to himself, or unable to protect himself from the unleashing of more power than he had ever considered using before.

And then there's Covenant. He didn't study the wild magic at all. Even by the end, he had little experience or knowledge of it. And yet, when he got it going, it surpassed all else.

Now that it was awake, it was a part of him, an expression of himself. He did not need to focus it, aim it; bone and blood, it arose from his passion.

He never thought of personal injury, but he was protected from it. Whether it was awesome blasts of power from the Illearth Stone, the aforementioned use of the krill, or blows from a sandgorgon that "would have pulverized monoliths," Covenant was safe without thinking about it. And though he had difficulty calling it up, once he did, he could use the wild magic for any purpose he conceived.

Who can predict how any of these powers will behave?