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The Enlo Curse


Ali the Helering

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A shrieking pain piercing all of her Darkness's worshippers a short while after the Sunstop after a moment of blissful unity with her. The Battle had a few timeless moments, but was a historical event nevertheless. The unity with the Black Eater would have affected all true trolldom - if snow and jungle trolls remain unaffected, it shows how broken their tie to Kyger Litor is. Cave Trolls did experience this, however.

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I always looked at it backward. Dark People who participated in Black Eater received the Curse and are what we now call "trolls." The line is much blurrier as you move away from Dagori Inkarth and Halikiv culturally as well as geographically.

People who weren't at Black Eater in this scenario don't get enlo so don't tell a story.

For me it raises the question of whether Chen Durel participated in Black Eater or if not, where all those true-breeding SIZ 9-10 "enlo" come from . . . which might or might not be your question since this could be a separate phenomenon.

Also I hear rumors of an uzko presence in Umathela supporting a large "enlo" population there but haven't seen the specific reference lately. If so, are these uzko original invaders from wonderhome or surface migrants from elsewhere? (Black Ships again.) In the latter scenario they would've brought the curse and its theodicy with them.

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43 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I always looked at it backward. Dark People who participated in Black Eater received the Curse and are what we now call "trolls." The line is much blurrier as you move away from Dagori Inkarth and Halikiv culturally as well as geographically.

No, trolls aren't defined by participating in the D'Wargon or Womb-Biter moment, but by the much older self-perception through or with the Hellmother and the Man Rune.

Do trolls far away from the event learn the name Nysalor or Gbaji? Other than through contact with oversea travellers, I doubt it. D'Wargon or Womb-Biter (IMO the translation from Darktongue) on the other hand does describe the experience and the interaction with the foe.

Do they characterize it as Chaos or Fire? IMO neither. It is just evil for being what it is.

 

43 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

People who weren't at Black Eater in this scenario don't get enlo so don't tell a story.

Rather than people, I would speak of ancestral lines. Moorgarki's jungle trolls were cut off from participation through the theft of their Cold powers, breaking the direct link to KL and only affording it through Moorgarki.

 

43 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

For me it raises the question of whether Chen Durel participated in Black Eater or if not, where all those true-breeding SIZ 9-10 "enlo" come from . . . which might or might not be your question since this could be a separate phenomenon.

These true-breeding SIZ 9-10 enlo basically are a success of heroquesting, possibly by unknown enlo mothers, possibly an offshoot of the quest that erroneously caused the multiple enlo effect. True-breeding enlo mothers were not hit by the womb-biter curse, while still-birthing or freak-birthing enlo mothers suffered from it.

 

43 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Also I hear rumors of an uzko presence in Umathela supporting a large "enlo" population there but haven't seen the specific reference lately. If so, are these uzko original invaders from wonderhome or surface migrants from elsewhere? (Black Ships again.) In the latter scenario they would've brought the curse and its theodicy with them.

The Tarmo trolls are the result of the original exodus from burnt Wonderhome, AFAIK.  Moorgarki led a portion of them against the south and was badly hurt, then found refuge with other foes of the fire-folk in the south.

Not sure about the source, but I seem to recall a project of the Tarmo trolls to use the enlo-free jungle troll strain as fathers to breed an enlo-free population, and succeeding in returning an ancestral, IIRC horned form that has been reproduced a few dozen times or so and appears to breed true. That's independent from the All Genertelan (and presumably also Jrustelan) Feed The Great Mother project laying the foundations for a new race of dark men to supersede the Uzko and their Enlo descendants.

Which bears the question how all the blood lines of mothers feel about the perspective of no longer having descendants to promote their spirits closer to the Great Ancestress. From what Greg and Jeff hinted at, this won't be a secret like the Great Troll creation quest. Uzko will no longer receive special magical support to prevent enlo births, and enlo true births will suffer too, so all of uzkodom is doomed to degenerate to unviable enlo within very few generations, then disappear. Cave trolls might persist somewhat longer.

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21 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Since I am about to begin blogging re Chern Durel that was, indeed, the spur to my question.  I don't think that the uz would simply accept it as a curse without someone being to blame!

Since the Kralori identify the Sunstop with a mystical revelation to the Emperor, would he be a possible scapegoat?

Except that the Trollkin Curse was not caused by the Sunstop but by the Battle of Night and Day a few years later.  It's possible that trolls and kralori could compress the two events butanyone examing it mythically would see the difference.  The actual event might be remembered in the same way as:

 

Quote

One Sacred Day, the sons of Vuranostum were
summoned by Kargzant. The god needed his faithful
followers to fight with him against monster gods which had
escaped the Underworld. The sons of Vuranostum knew
their duty, and so they went into the sky realm to help their
god against the enemy. They fought against a great giant
which destroyed armies with its shout, pierced a hundred
with the tip of his spear, and slew ranks of heroes with his
iron sword.
Kargzant did not hesitate before a fight, and charged
into the melee. But the giant cheated, and it tripped the
horse god, and tied it with steel ropes, then licked a cruel bit
into its mouth, and a bridle upon its head. That way
Kargzant was bound, and the horses of the world were
trained, and the sons of Vuranostum and all the people of
Kargzant were doomed to fall before the people of
Oralanatus.

Glorious ReAscent p34

That's the Sons of the Sun remembering a mythic battle which their god lost but they have no knowledge of a worldly battle at the same time.  I've been told that it was some major stuff going down in Saird at the time.  Ingolf has a similar event in his Saga

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Do trolls far away from the event learn the name Nysalor or Gbaji? Other than through contact with oversea travellers, I doubt it. D'Wargon or Womb-Biter (IMO the translation from Darktongue) on the other hand does describe the experience and the interaction with the foe.

I hear you here. "Somebody bit us / uz bad and now us / uz busted (buzted)" works for everyone whose babies don't thrive in this awful place.

For me right now the uzko are the people of the curse. Like the Bestiary says, "enlo are found wherever dark trolls are found." Maybe other Dark/Man lineages that were extant at the time received another affliction and tell their own blasted womb stories.

As you point out, the muri situation is unusual. I've always thought her first wound was the curse and the second was embracing Heat in order to become something other than uzko. The Tarmo trolls rejected this solution and remained uzko, complete with enlo. For all I know cave, sea and mountain trolls discovered their own solutions and became what they are now.

There might be a fossil record of mixed enlo/uzko burials dating back to the Storm Age, in which case Nysalor isn't really the problem but a kind of catalyst activating a latent propensity for weak babies. When my fantasy OOO missionaries came, they reminded a lot of Dark/Man and Shadow/Man entities about the KL gospel, "how to be a troll" and why Nysalor is a name to hate. 

But beyond Tarmo, I can't think of an enlo-producing community that wouldn't have already been engaged in the Broken Council schism and so wouldn't have known the Curse first hand. Maybe Borklak or Chen Durel, although I sometimes wonder if the Chen Durel trolls in particular weren't the digijelm who made Dara Happans fear the night. But then, I don't really know if Borklak survives long enough to even be eligible for the curse. Halikiv was involved. Dagori Inkarth and the Shadow Plateau and their satellites were involved. The Elder Wilds were probably represented. I guess Xarkarsh and the Blue Moon were involved? Who else gets enlo?

We do know that there were trolls once in Chen Durel and now the place is a mass of enlo. My heretical dream hypothesis is that these "enlo" are what we would call people, homo sapiens, cousins of the "dark men" who conveniently emerged in Peloria when the local trolls were expunged. Oppressed, stunted, horribly abused and equally badly educated, but cut one open and you won't find a rock gizzard or any other extra organs. After all, the smallest enlo are small, just SIZ 7. The biggest enlo are bigger than human, SIZ 12. Most average 9-10, slightly malnourished and weak by Genertelan standards.  About as cunning as a human if you factor for the lack of intellectual training. The POW is terrible but what else can you expect? I blame their society.

The Kralorelans have their own theories about dark hsun chen, etc. 

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11 hours ago, metcalph said:

Except that the Trollkin Curse was not caused by the Sunstop but by the Battle of Night and Day a few years later.  It's possible that trolls and kralori could compress the two events butanyone examing it mythically would see the difference.  

Actually I doubt that they would, necessarily.  How many British people could differentiate the dates surrounding the invasions of England culminating in that of William of Normandy?  They are either forgotten or conflated into 1066, an event a mere 953 years ago, with uninterrupted records and a distinct lack of draconic disruption!

Lacking the understanding of what was happening to the west of them, they might easily understand this to be a curse four years in the making.

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14 hours ago, scott-martin said:

We do know that there were trolls once in Chen Durel and now the place is a mass of enlo. My heretical dream hypothesis is that these "enlo" are what we would call people, homo sapiens, cousins of the "dark men" who conveniently emerged in Peloria when the local trolls were expunged. Oppressed, stunted, horribly abused and equally badly educated, but cut one open and you won't find a rock gizzard or any other extra organs.

Actually, I doubt that, strongly. Possession of the Rock Gizzard is the only good point about enlo as slaves, as feeding them doesn't cut deeply into your normal budget of food.

 

On a related topic, I would bet that when you cut open a tusk rider, you won't find even vestigial rock digestion that a mixed ancestry certainly would have produced. And neither in the Ergeshi slave population of Sun Dome County - the human shape of the Kitori should never have had this feature.

 

One possible way for the enlo population of Chen Durel persisting without immediate degeneration could be an unusually high proportion of "superior trollkin", aka multiple birth uzko deprived of the usual nurture for dark trolls and condemned to remain developmentally stunted from that lack. I have similar suspicions about Neep Trollsbane. And if failure to nurture slightly defective or multiple birth Dark Trolls results in superior trollkin, second (or further) generation trollkin litters experiencing nurture from a trollkin mother might fare significantly better than their inheritance would allow than first generation trollkin litters with neglect by a dark troll mother.

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1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

Since the enlo of Chern Durel are noted as being slaves, I would think that they are constantly being renewed by the uz of Dozakiland, Eristland and Koromandol trading their value kin to the humans, while eating the others!😈

What do they receive in trade?

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

What do they receive in trade?

The enlo might be used in mining, raising ham beetles and the like.

Chern Durel has an oversupply of ancient statuary, some of which is stated to pertain to Darkness entities.

Lunar goods from the caravan, Pentan from the trading posts, and Kralori by regular land trading and raiding.  Human slaves from each of these and competing communities.  Crops from the places blessed by the Blood Sun.

Und so weiter....

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23 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Thanks, although I was not questioning the shared effect, but rather how it might have been locally interpreted.

Do the Kralori purchase Enlo slaves? If so, Chen Durel might be the middle-man in a wider trading network where the Kralori export manufactured goods and a small amount of luxury wares, and in return buy labor force. Hell, they might buy them for their corpses for reanimation.

That being said, Kralorela doesn't strike me as being in a massive deficit of labor power, so it's probably unlikely.

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27 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Does that mean that Cave-Trolls are affected by the Curse of Kin and bear Cavetrollkin litters? I would not have imagined this!

At least the male dark troll (Whiteye?) in the original rainbow mounds scenario had a cave troll female partner and litters of trollkin, if my memory doesn't lead me astray.

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The Dark Eater consumed Gbaji, who tore himself out of Korasting's belly, damaging her Womb. This is the event that causes the Enlo Curse.

Even trolls who do not know about Gbaji, and they will be very few and far between, understand that someone damaged Korasting so much that it affected her fertility.

My personal opinion is that Arkat Kingtroll is a Hero to trolls everywhere, certainly all trolls in Genertela and probably those in Jrustela as well, so if they know about Arkat they know about Gbjaji and the Curse of Kin.

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1 hour ago, soltakss said:

The Dark Eater consumed Gbaji, who tore himself out of Korasting's belly, damaging her Womb. This is the event that causes the Enlo Curse.

Even trolls who do not know about Gbaji, and they will be very few and far between, understand that someone damaged Korasting so much that it affected her fertility.

My personal opinion is that Arkat Kingtroll is a Hero to trolls everywhere, certainly all trolls in Genertela and probably those in Jrustela as well, so if they know about Arkat they know about Gbjaji and the Curse of Kin.

I don't see why an Uz in Dozakiland would know of Gbaji. Seperated by several cultures and half a continent, why would he figure?  This was the point of my question - for.lack of D'Wargon, what is the mythological justification for the Curse of Kin?

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10 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I don't see why an Uz in Dozakiland would know of Gbaji. Seperated by several cultures and half a continent, why would he figure?  This was the point of my question - for.lack of D'Wargon, what is the mythological justification for the Curse of Kin?

Korasting is the mother and fertility power of the trolls.  Black Eater is obviously connected to her.  Black Eater eats Gbaji, and as Gbaji is used to being killed, and uses his light to rip out of  Korasting, who is supposed to be a pure pre-natal underworld darkness that allows for troll reincarnation.  All the trolls who rely on Korasting worship for their fertility are thus affected i.e. the Jungle Hot Trolls of Pamaltela are not affected.  If you look at Uz Lore, the trolls had been shrinking since coming to the surface, and obviously Gbaji discovered a way to make that worse.

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23 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Korasting is the mother and fertility power of the trolls.  Black Eater is obviously connected to her.  Black Eater eats Gbaji, and as Gbaji is used to being killed, and uses his light to rip out of  Korasting, who is supposed to be a pure pre-natal underworld darkness that allows for troll reincarnation.  All the trolls who rely on Korasting worship for their fertility are thus affected i.e. the Jungle Hot Trolls of Pamaltela are not affected.  If you look at Uz Lore, the trolls had been shrinking since coming to the surface, and obviously Gbaji discovered a way to make that worse.

I know that, you know that, because we have all read about it since Greg wrote about it.  My point is that if you are not in touch with the Nysalorian story, how do you attribute the curse?

 

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Even if neither you nor any of your ancestors was at the Battle of Night and Day, the womb-biting was shared by the Dozaki trolls, as was the coalescence into the Black Eater.

So - there was a battle, against nasty men of fire. There was a way too bright entity that got swallowed, and that then tore out of the womb damaging Korasting's fertility. That entity is D'Wargon, the Womb Biter.

Reason for the battle? None needed, nasty fire humans. Name of the foe? Irrelevant. The Black Eater's Darksense image (potentially with a blind spot at Nysalor) of the battle events is available in the Time-less moment, and can be re-lived by the curious and masochistic.

Edited by Joerg
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