- Review: The Bear, Circles, the Dead Silas recounts his experience seeing the bear. Branwen rolls perception and posits that perhaps the moon gave the appearance of having horns.
Storr remembers “the dead losing their grip” in relation to circular landforms/stone circles/henges that we’ve seen in the past. In and around Monsoth, these henges were typically met with a small amount of fright and misgivings.
Branwen’s theory: Sometime ago, (See The God King) Morianoth transitioned from an Artemis, Goddess of the hunt, sort of figure to the Night Queen. Branwen thinks that Morianoth did something to combat an evil, and locked that evil away deep in the earth, where the dead are somehow employed in keeping this evil locked away. In the process, Morianoth had to tap into the power of the dead, and somehow became the Night Queen, queen of death. Lots of somethings and somehows in there, but us mere mortals can’t really fathom this shit, right?
More thinking on this. We know Gorgomog is the Moon King, god of the dead, and we’ve heard that he’s trapped beneath the lake. The Bear isn’t the Moon King. Perhaps the Moon King put a spell on the Bear to subdue the threats of the wild to mankind?
- We Meet the Mysterious Druidic Stranger We wake.
Image:
The druid stranger, Myrthn.png
There’s a figure across from us at the top of the stairs. Mumbling to himself making animal noises. Talking to himself in a complicated fashion. No bird shit, but he’s not clean. He’s noticed us. (screenshot)
Can Koweth help? Not sure
Storr can speak with animals to try and comprehend what he’s saying. She would be hearing him speak not nonsense. Her general idea is that he’s greeting the morning, talking about strangers, and a whole host of other things that she can’t grasp – he’s talking about a lot.
Storr wants to approach and say good morning. He puts out a hand toward her to shush gently, and keeps going. Storr’s 5 perception roll equates to her feeling like he’s being condescending and she’s a little annoyed. She squeezes the hilt of her sword in place in frustration.
K plays a note. He keeps going with what he’s doing, but looks over and says “good job” with his face.
Arthen goes over after chatting with Silas. He gives A big eyes, and does a come here kind of thing. He continues talking while scratching Arthen and Arthen gets the dog foot thing going on. Sometimes it seems like he’s talking to Arthen in a baby voice. A is very quickly at ease. He may have slight of handed something in Arthen’s mouth that he was pleased to devour.
Silas approaches the stranger. The stranger motions for Silas to be quiet. The sun is now fully awake, and the stranger raises his face in rapture to the rays.
Silas asks if the sunrise is surprising.
He says, “The little one speaks!” He mentions “fearful night” and “honey”
He seems completely in tune with nature. We are not very different from the stone. The things he’s talking about are layered. He’s trying to communicate across a gulf of understanding. It seems condescending, but also not because he’s at a different level, like an adult talking to a child.
Krambler traces the figure on the center stone. The man looks and watches K, as he does that, all of the stones start vibrating and singing all eight notes. The man starts humming, eyes closed, directing a little, hand off Arthen, influencing the surroundings. The stones with his aid play a song (to be sent later) up and down the scale in a pattern.
K, Br and Balz sing along.
Balz asks about the Sun King. The distinction is that SK equates himself with the sun, bringing justice, whereas this guy worships and loves the sun.
- Query: Silas’ Great Bear Vision Silas asks him about the great bear and the vision. The images i get in his speech are humans create pestilence part, there’s a night moon kingdom, there’s a “invention separate mind” part (a notion of a mind apart, a thought process that is separate, exiled, that’s it’s creating something dark that he’s not a big fan of.), there’s an “old one supporting the world”, using the phrase “koth onan”, a proper noun, he says something about “Dry night”, and then “dreaming everything everywhere” and then gives Arthen an extra pet, grabs him by the jowels a little, gets in his face and says, “Aren’t you little one?”
There are a series of places where he’s screeching (separate mind portion), marking harsh noises. To Silas’ mind those parts are grating, a sing-song gone wrong, whereas other speech is straight sing-songy.
We recall the “two times” or “events” or man: [[8/29/24 The One Where We Leave the Island, Do Some More Really Great Speculation, and Sneak Past the City|http://osgog.mrobinson.us/index.php/8/29/24_The_One_Where_We_Leave_the_Island,_Do_Some_More_Really_Great_Speculation,_and_Sneak_Past_the_City]]
(Missed a spell about the MK here)
Moon King is often depicted in Mons in shadow with horns.
Connection between the Moon King and the bear?
When Silas was growing up in the druid folkd, the moon king wouldn’t be mentioned as part of their teachings. Mons followers are terrified of being trapped in this world as slaves (like the dead), purgatory, whereas the druid outlook is that you’re just part of nature.
Maybe the bear was trying to communicate to Silas that maybe the MK is keeping him asleep.
Could they be two halves of a whole? Could the MK be keeping the bear asleep? We don’t necessarily believe this.
We roll perception as a follow up to this question.
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Storr’s background has a lot of animal worship. A bear would be a great warrior. The idea of a warrior spirit of the bear coming our as the MK, she wouldn’t see the death and destruction as evil. Could see the evil bear we fought as an MKish figure. What we’re talking about has plausibility in her interpretation.
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Balz likes the idea, would be skeptical. He thinks back and says theres been this notion that this bear has been sleeping int he wilderness and been dangerous, can imagine people tlaking about both entities.
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Silas is hopelessly confused and puts his hat on, until he rolls again with a fellowship point! Silas sees in the images he’s talking about and in this discussion: he suspects that a lot fo this is borrowed, but he is focused specifically on saying, I suspect that its the crescent moon that they’re both borrowing. And that yes, people could assign the crescent moon, this dangerous thing they’ve taken and put on the MK, but I think the crescent moon is stronger than man. They put the moon on the MK themselves. Silas suspects the bear is a powerful entity and more powerful than MK coming from man. The moon isn’t inherently bad, nor is the bear, but someone took both and tried to make this evil creation. When he hears “seaperate mind” and “pestulence” they’re trying to take the bear and turn it into something that it isn’t. The badness here is a persons imaginations. It’s the stories that people tell. Silas remembers somebody saying something about stories are powerful. The bear does not appear in the Mons cosmology. They don’t favor nature doing its thing, that’s “bear country”
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Branwen is just not sure. Thinking more about Mother Night and how she would come into this, and has a little bit of a hard time giving up power to these two male presences.
- The Stranger Engages This fellow is welcoming the day, the sun back, the sun is a comforting feminine presence, Silas is connecting what Balz said how he felt when he was singing. This is a greeting specific to her. Silas understands he’s appreciating nature and loving the sun, says hello in the morning.
He was talking to us about our “fearful night”, not that night itself should be feared.
Silas asks how he (Silas) can wake the bear.
S gets a whole bunch of stuff. He’s a bit dismissive, he’s rolling his eyes in a way. He gets a sense of he’s almost talking about the bear we’re seeing is an image fractured through a prism. This bear we’re talking about has way more sides and aspects and is far bigger than what we’re describing. In the sense that some cultures that anything larger than two is just seven, something like that. He’s sort of saying you get the sense the bear being everywhere already, and also that to this many faceted being, you’re totally insignificant and not noticeable. Then he would come up to S and takes two fingers and tap on his heart, and look sternly at him.
We discuss how a beam of light through a prism is broken up into seven colors (seven faced man?) Could this mean that the bear is one of seven faces of another entity? We also discuss how Sir Isaac Newton totally logjammed indigo into the rainbow just to get seven colors.
Silas bears out. This guy looks at him, smiles, and then he turns into a bear, looks at Silas with his bear face and then starts changing trough a whole bunch of animals in quick successions, turns into a raven, goes over to Br, pecks her, flies back over to he stairs, back to a man, and scritches Arthen again.
His name is Myrthn. He’s finished his sun-morning ceremony, and seems more open to conversation.
Branwen indicates to the stranger everyone’s name, patronizingly, like he’s an idiot. We tow a line of insulting this guy. He looks at Arthen and Arthen literally shrugs. The wind picks up Br and plants her back where she was.