The Ages of Jaldon

[David Scott]

Carrying this over from 

 

[David Scott]

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

I would have expected his acquisition of Home way earlier, as an early signature move to Greatness. Do you have any unpublished sources for this late acquisition, or does this simply fit your conception of his timeline better?

The later.

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

I am also quite disappointed to learn that for a while Jaldon was a regular khan of the Bison riders. I always thought of him as an oddball, not quite a power in the Praxian intertribal squabbles as presented in Nomad Gods, even if some of the contests may have been set up by him.

Jaldon was not a regular Bison Khan. He proved himself Waha incarnated after his initiation, he had powers no other nomad has demonstrated since. It was these that allowed his rise to power. His problem was that he didn't want the power, he wanted to raid and that was eventually his downfall.

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

In the old hex-based boardgames, Jaldon is the leader of the oddballs, and not of the standard Praxians.

Exactly. He is over 600 years adrift from Praxian society, he's not dead and he's not exactly alive. He never gets to the afterlife in the Great Herd, as he's tormented by his curse. He can't go back to the Wastes. He's held up as one of the greatest Khans, but is not interested leading except as a means to an end.

21 hours ago, Joerg said:

It is quite ironic that the Barbarian Horde in the Dragon Pass boardgame pairs Jaldon with the Pol Joni, anyway.

it's not ironic at all if you consider what his lineage might be and why his power place is where it is. It's clear that Derik knows some secret of Jaldon's. How could that be? Derik was a powerful Heroquester too, but it goes beyond that.

[David Scott]

Here's are the Ages of Jaldon:

890-900 Childhood
900-917 The Way of Waha
917-925 Rise of the Raider Khan
925-950 Warrior Bison Khan
950-955 Reluctant Paps Khan
955- 960 Dragon Pass Raider

I believe Jaldon is dead and cursed by the EWF by around 960 (aged around 70).
960-1624 Ghost Khan.

For 660 years, ten time longer than his active life in the tribe, Jaldon is Ghost Khan. He sets off with passing raiders into Dragon Pass, dies uncounted times and restarts at his burial cairn. He’s cut off from the tribes and remains an anachronism from an earlier time.

1624-1629 Reluctant Paps Khan. On his return the Goddess declares Jaldon Paps Khan once again. He marries Egajia in a great ceremony witnessed by many thousands of nomads at the Paps. By 1627 he is back in Dragon Pass with Argrath fighting the Lunars. Egajia dies in 1629 and Jaldon is no longer the absent Paps Khan, he's just absent. The new Most Respected Elder is an Impala Priestess and she doesn't take Jaldon as her husband.

Jaldon dies in Dragon Pass and after a 700 year wait finally appears in the Great Herd at Waha's side..

[Joerg]

So basically this is author's privilege for setting some facts.

And I should be the last Gloranthan scholar to get passionate about Prax and the Wastes... However, Jaldon is suspiciously absent from King of Sartar, which otherwise makes some use of the sequence of battles in the Dragon Pass boardgame. Instead, we get confronted with White Bull as an agent besides the new Prince of Sartar and King of Dragon Pass, so this is a subject that I have spent some effort on.

 

2 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Jaldon was not a regular Bison Khan. He proved himself Waha incarnated after his initiation, he had powers no other nomad has demonstrated since. It was these that allowed his rise to power. His problem was that he didn't want the power, he wanted to raid and that was eventually his downfall.

This sounds a lot like the Champion of Waha in Stephen Martin's reworking of French Nomad Gods to the Corbett rules of Dragon Pass.

The raider khan may very well have raided eastwards, into the former Zaranistangi kingdom beyond the Fever Trees.

On the other hand, Waha never really raided - who was there to be raided? Unless you count his recovery of the Protectresses. All the other founders most likely did raid in their youths - they were Storm Tribe, then, yet unburdened by Orlanth's attempts at civilizing them. But Waha is the late-born son of the Bull, the champion of survival rather than the glorious raider.

If Jaldon was Waha reborn, he would have been the best fit for the Paps Khan. This sounds more like he was born to the powers of Waha, but not to the spirit of Waha. He may have been the perfect vessel for the god. But he didn't quite let him in, and instead pursued weird other magics, magics that he already had at the breach of the Pavis Wall.

I don't think that this magic was linked to Waha in any way.

It might be connected to that Godtime child of Androgeus named Goldtooth.

Once upon a time there was a discussion about spirit integration. This sounds like something similar, but on a much grander scale.

2 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Exactly. He is over 600 years adrift from Praxian society, he's not dead and he's not exactly alive. He never gets to the afterlife in the Great Herd, as he's tormented by his curse. He can't go back to the Wastes. He's held up as one of the greatest Khans, but is not interested leading except as a means to an end.

So his curse kept him away from Alavan Argay, even though that battle happened almost on his doorstep?

2 minutes ago, David Scott said:

it's not ironic at all if you consider what his lineage might be and why his power place is where it is.

The phrasing was quite peculiar: "Born in a Bison tent." And, since he was eligible as khan, born to a khan of Waha. So this leaves the matter of the lineage of his mother.

Where is his power place, really? The Plateau of Statues (which is unreachable for the Ghost Khan), or his cairn at Jaldon's Rest? I am not sure who built that cairn. While its depiction in the Dragon Pass boardgame bears a slight resemblance to my image of Tada's Tumulus (which is based on the tumulus of Seleucos, and possibly Queen Maeve's cairn above Sligo), it may as well have been built as a vessel of his curse, by the EWF.

I wonder who he ran afoul of. Varnakol the Mangler should still have been up and around during Jaldon's raid, and those two facing off would have been an epic battle. Varnakol is the kind of guy who would pronounce such a curse, too.

 

2 minutes ago, David Scott said:

It's clear that Derik knows some secret of Jaldon's. How could that be? Derik was a powerful Heroquester too, but it goes beyond that.

I am fairly convinced that Derik sort of merged with Jaldon during that struggle. Maybe not to the extent that Arkat emerged from the ruins of the City of Miracles, but in some way Derik conquered some of the magics of Jaldon, and while he lived, Jaldon did not rise again.

 

Do you have any thoughts about Jaldon during the Seleric Empire?

[metcalph]

54 minutes ago, Joerg said:

However, Jaldon is suspiciously absent from King of Sartar, which otherwise makes some use of the sequence of battles in the Dragon Pass boardgame.

Umm.  He appears in page 16 of King of Sartar.

Quote

As Argrath promised, the ancient hero Jaldon Goldtooth appeared.

Jaldon Goldtooth was a hero who had lived in times so old that no one remembered when
it was. He wore tattoos which no one could look at. His only armor was a helm, greaves, and
gauntlets. No one ever saw anything like his three‑bladed sword, his oddly‑shaped throwing
discs, or his lance which leapt out to reach its foe. His steed was not like any of the six great
steeds of Prax, nor like any of the 21 lesser steeds. He said words that no one knew. All Praxian
prophecies agreed that when Jaldon appeared, all of them would benefit to follow him. They did.

Argrath and Jaldon led them to Pavis.

The revised edition of Argrath of Pavis calls the army "Jaldon's army"

 

 

[David Scott]

36 minutes ago, Joerg said:

So basically this is author's privilege for setting some facts.

As long as it gets published otherwise  YGMV.

37 minutes ago, Joerg said:

However, Jaldon is suspiciously absent from King of Sartar, which otherwise makes some use of the sequence of battles in the Dragon Pass boardgame. Instead, we get confronted with White Bull as an agent besides the new Prince of Sartar and King of Dragon Pass, so this is a subject that I have spent some effort on.

I don't think it's suspicious. Argrath uses him for what he needs, I suspect he dies early on. He's not a major player, he's of no use to the Praxians as he always heads off to raid.

39 minutes ago, Joerg said:

On the other hand, Waha never really raided

Raiding is a fundamental practice to Praxians. Raiding also includes foreigners, but mostly other tribes. One of Waha's Tasks is Waha the Raider.

50 minutes ago, Joerg said:

So his curse kept him away from Alavan Argay, even though that battle happened almost on his doorstep?

"His curse is that he can never again enter his beloved Prax" and the Battle was in Prax and he's not mentioned in as being there, so yes.

I also suspect that Jaldon's brother, Tyras the Blind wizard is connected to the Pol-Joni mystery.

[David Scott]

35 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Umm.  He appears in page 16 of King of Sartar.

I took @Joerg to mean that Jaldon is suspiciously absent from King of Sartar after page 16 :-)

[Joerg]

Jaldon is part of the Sartarite order of battle in all of the Dragon Pass boardgame scenarios after the initial ones which fall into the time of the conquest of Pavis. (And so are the Wolf Runners who use the Lunar cycle for their combat strength, and who were generally assumed to be the Telmori rather than the Wolf Slayers.) But rather than seeing any mention of Jaldon leading Praxians, we get Argrath White Bull mentioned in a couple of cases, often acting differently from what a heir of Sartar would be expected to do.

I recently revisited Wesley Quadros' and Martin Laurie's Gwandor Saga, which had four or five different Argraths vying for power. I take it from Prince of Sartar that the number has dwindled closer to one than half a dozen, although Bad Dream Enostar still seems to be canonical.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

I took @Joerg to mean that Jaldon is suspiciously absent from King of Sartar after page 16 :-)

After page 23, in the original violet paperback... ;-)

[Byll]

Of course the only reason that I compiled this (apologies to Kirby Sattler and David Yorke whose american indian portraits are worth a look) is that I felt that the thread would be incomplete without this ...

[KeithN]

My beliefwas that Varajia Nopor crippled Waha! and stopped him from incarnating. Jaldon is a way of getting around this curse. He is a renamed, reincarnated avatar of Waha!  The description of him always makes me think there must be some cheesy SF paperback cover somewhere with a guy with a three bladed sword, tattoos, a helmet, gauntlets and greaves that inspired Greg. In a recent game of Dragon Pass, Jaldon and Delecti the Necromancer were both crushed by a giant just outside Dragons Eye. I wondered if they were reminising about the old days.  

[Yelm's Light]

My image was of the Kurgan's sword with small blades extending diagonally from the tang.  Of course, that was a substantially more modern weapon and assembled in sections.  He had a fearsome-looking skull helm, too...

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, KeithN said:

My beliefwas that Varajia Nopor crippled Waha! and stopped him from incarnating. Jaldon is a way of getting around this curse. He is a renamed, reincarnated avatar of Waha! 

I wonder what was so crippling. Might Waha's draconic self have been awakened?

 

7 hours ago, KeithN said:

The description of him always makes me think there must be some cheesy SF paperback cover somewhere with a guy with a three bladed sword, tattoos, a helmet, gauntlets and greaves that inspired Greg.

From what I was told, there was an uncle Jaldon who was a dental technician somewhere in the environment of the early Chaosium.

7 hours ago, KeithN said:

In a recent game of Dragon Pass, Jaldon and Delecti the Necromancer were both crushed by a giant just outside Dragons Eye. I wondered if they were reminising about the old days.  

 A bit like Hannibal in Seleucid exile?