About those Ravers...

[duchess of malfi]

Yes, his av is very beautiful!

I am hoping we will learn much more about the origins of the Ravers -- and more about that long-forgotten mother -- in the Third Chrons...their origin has always been a very intriguing mystery to me.

[Fist and Faith]

The suspense of just knowing which topics we're going to learn about is driving me NUTS!!!!

[KaosArcana]

Ryzel:

KaosArcana wrote:
I wonder ... what if the Ravers were children of the Elohim that
was imprisoned in the Colossus? What I mean is, what if she
created them or gave birth to them to save her from her fate
as the Colossus?

This seems to directly contradicts the fact that the appointed who became the Colossus were made the Colossus to protect the one forest from the Ravers. It was the forest itself who bound her.

No. The One Forest made the Colossus. It BOUND the Appointed
into the Colossus ... to me that implies that she didn't have any
choice in the matter.

But I will leave the possibility open because it is possible that in an attempt to avoid her fate the appointed did something that caused the ravers to be born in the first place. Only one thing seems to say differently and that is that LF seems to be absent from the land at this time and this kind of would almost certainly be something that he could and would do.

You know, it does make one wonder ... why did Foul stick around in
the Land as opposed to anywhere else on Earth ... especially in those
long periods when he did nothing?

And just exactly were LF when this happened?

We really don't know when the Creator hurled Foul beyond the Arch
of Time, do we? I seem to recall the Ravers being in the Land before
Lord Foul ...

[duchess of malfi]

I think one of the Lords does say something about the Ravers being in
the Land before Lord Foul arrives.
Perhaps Foul stays in the Land because of the Banes? Initially because of the Illearth Stone, later because of other Banes we don't know about yet? It seems that when people speak of the Banes they do always speak of them as being plural in number.

[Forestal]

its the same avatar i've always had... and you said it was cool last time ....

and as for the ravers i'm sure i remember something about them having flesh and blood bodies in the 1st war? does that mean they took form or they originally had form? i cant remember...and i have no idea where to get a point of referance...

quote king if you please... lol...

[Fist and Faith]

The Colossus was fighting the Ravers before Foul came along:

"But it was not Despite which the Colossus resisted," Mhoram resumed when his song was done. "Despite was the bane of men. It came with them into the Land from the cold anguish of the north, and from the hungry kingdom of the south. No, the Colossus of the Fall forbade another foe - three tree- and soil-hating brothers who were old in the Spoiled Plains before Lord Foul first cast his shadow there. They were triplets, the spawn of one birth from the womb of their long-forgotten mother, and their names were samadhi, moksha, and turiya."

And what's more, the Ravers are the reason the Colossus was created in the first place:

In the nigh-unremembered past of the place which you deem the Land, the life was not the life or men and women, but of trees. One wide forest of sentience and passion filled all the region - one mind and heart alive in every leaf and bough of every tree among the many myriad throngs and glory of the woods. And that life the Elohim loved.

"But a hate rose against the forest, seeking its destruction. And this was dire, for a tree may know love and feel pain and cry out, but has few means of defense. The knowledge was lacking. Therefore we met, and from among us Appointed one to give her life to that forest. This she did by merging among the trees until they gained the knowledge they required.

"Their knowledge they employed to bind her in stone, exercising her name and being to form an interdict against that hate. Thus was she lost to herself and to her people - but the interdict remained while the will of the forest remained to hold it."

"The Colossus," Covenant breathed. "The Colossus of the Fall."

"Yes," Findail said.

"And when people started coming to the Land, started cutting down the trees as if they were just so much timber and difficulty, the forest used what it'd learned to create the Forestals in self-defense."

As for the Ravers having physical bodies:

"We knew that they were named Sheol, Jehannum, and Harem, and that they lived without bodies, feeding upon the souls of others. When the Despiser was powerful enough to give them strength, they enslaved creatures or people by entering into their bodies, subduing their wills, and using the captured flesh to enact their master's purposes. Disguised in forms not their own, they were well hidden, and so could gain trust among their foes. By that means, many brave defenders of the Land were lured to their deaths in the age of the Old Lords."

[duchess of malfi]

It sounds as if the Ravers were in the Land before the humans or Foul came there...thanks Fist!

[Fist and Faith]

Just doin' ma job, ma'am. *tips hat*

[Landwaster]

Interesting, sounds like the Appointed only went over there in missionary status ... wasn't expecting the forest to grab hold and keep her.

[Fist and Faith]

In the Findail thread, I just said this:

It could be that she was planning to un-merge herself after the One Forest had what she considered the necessary knowledge. But likely not, since there wouldn't have been much need to Appoint an immortal to the temorary task of helping something that they all loved. I imagine she was planning to be a part of the One Forest forever, but it bound her into the Colossus.

[Landwaster]

Ahh I get ya ... to stay there, but necessarily as a rock.

[Fist and Faith]

Assuming you meant to put a "not" in there, yes. (And my misspelling of temporary is, of course, completely acceptable! )

[danlo]

bump

[fightingmyinstincts]

rereading this thread, I see it looks like we've established that the elohim are children of the Worm....on the first page, anyway....Is there a thread dealing with this? I don't remember ever thinking that, but it now seems plausible...

[Mystikan]

I think one of the Lords does say something about the Ravers being in
the Land before Lord Foul arrives.
Perhaps Foul stays in the Land because of the Banes? Initially because of the Illearth Stone, later because of other Banes we don't know about yet? It seems that when people speak of the Banes they do always speak of them as being plural in number.

Which makes me think that the Ravers themselves were one of those Banes... maybe evil avatars of the Creator, as LF himself may have been - "the brother of his heart" or something to that effect?

[danlo]

I agree-I have hypothesized, in the past, that either the "mother' was aflicted by a Bane as she was giving birth or that the brothers found a Bane while they were playing or exploring-and it was a VERY bad Bane!

[duchess of malfi]

Of course, with SRD messing around with time in the Third Chrons, all sorts of interesting possiblilities come to mind...like what if the Ravers have been moving around in time, and during the First Chrons when Mhoram comes to have his knowledge of them, they dimly remember or somehow sense their birth as triplets to the Giantess?
Time paradoxes can be fun.

[duchess of malfi]

[danlo]

Fist quoted,

It came with them into the Land from the cold anguish of the north

I find this highly intriging, somewhere in the back of my head I've always thought that there has to be some deep connection between croyels and Ravers. Possesion, dark entities, hmmm...Maybe we'll travel back north in the coming books

Spoiler

maybe the fires and stuff happening up near the top of the world will disturb some kind of black nest up there and all hell will break loose!

[wayfriend]

There's new information about the origins of Ravers in Runes. Should we start a new thread in the Runes forum?

Spoiler

"For a time, those who had come to the Land felled trees and charred trunks only because they knew not how else they might achieve space for homes and fields. Thus was their cruelty at first restrained. But their restraint was brutal and brief by the measure of the One Forest's slow sentience. And after those generations, humankind discovered malevolence, or was discovered by it. Then the murder of the trees was transformed from disregard to savagery.

"Hence came Ravers to the Land," the old' man rasped bitterly, "for they were the admixture of men and malevolence, an enduring hunger for evil coalesced and concentrated in transient flesh generation after swift generation until they became beings unto themselves-spirits capable of flesh, yet spared the necessities of death and birth. Thus they gained names and definition, three dark souls who knew themselves as they knew the One Forest, and who aspired above all things to trample underfoot its vast and vulnerable sentience.