Religion of the Scarlet Brotherhood

[Scott]

I've been in a Greyhawk mood letely, and I've been considering the Scarlet Brotherhood again. What Scarlet Brotherhood do people prefer?
The pre-Gord SB, where there really was a racial agenda?
Or the Gord version, where that is just a cover, and Tharizdun is the true driving force?

[Merkholz]

After having read the excellent multi-part essay on WG4 at the Lord of the Green Dragon site I really think that Gary dropped the ball on Tharizdun in the Gord books. The eerie, alien feel of the temple has been replaced with a "hulk smash" kind of evil that isn't at all scary. So, with that in mind I don't approve of the Gord SB version.

But it could work if tied more closely to the feel of WG4, the wicked priests of Tharizdun promising might and power to the leaders of the SB to fuel their racist, empire-building dreams. The worship of Tharizdun being a rather recent development and not so wide-spread throughout the ranks.

As an aside, it seems that the reason a Theorpart was hidden in the Suel Empire was to protect it from those who would free Tharizdun rather than as a part of worship. Since the first part probably came from the SB and the second part was hidden in that ancient Suel city why would the Suel not have combined the parts to free Tharizdun. They might have been evil as hell but they didn't seem to worship Tharizdun or strive to release him.

M

[Scott]

Hey Merkholz, good to see you.
After thinking about it for a bit, it starts to make more sense.
The Scarlet Brotherhood was founded on the Suel ideology.
But…
Nerull is a popular patron for evil thieves and assassins.
I can see the Nerull element being introduced by less devoted thief and assassin recruits and their henchmen (including clerics), and then spreading within.
Nerull supports the return of Tharizdun, and so the SB becomes a tool to facilitate that goal.

[Merkholz]

I've been thinking a bit more about the Suel and Tharizdun and then I remembered an anomaly I discovered years ago in the Gord books. The first Theorpart turns up in the hands of the SB, the second part rests in the ancient Suel city in the Suss and the third part is still on display in the old city/capital of the Suel Empire. Thus, the Suel people had all three parts in their possession at some time before the Twin Cataclysms - and they didn't use them to release Tharizdun!

Perhaps they were the old sacred keepers of these dread objects or perhaps they had retrieved them in order to use them against the Baklunish. In any event, it seems clear that they had no intention of releasing Tharizdun. This could be part of Gary's intentions of the Suel religion or just a screw-up.

M

[Scott]

I've noticed that myself, but have't put any real thought into a possible reason yet. Since all three pieces have a Suel connection, I think it's unlikely it was a screw-up.

[Merkholz]

I don't think it's a mistake either but if it's not it must mean that Gary did not see the Suel as old Tharizdun worshippers at the start with the AoE novel. This enforces the notion of the SB being Suel supremicists delving into the occult in order to harness power similar to Nazis in real-life/fiction.

The Theorparts were then likely originally guarded by far more ancient Suel who weren't as evil and arrogant as the Suel that fled the death throes of the Empire.

M

[Scott]

The Suel tie-in may have grown out of the Nerull is the SB patron idea, since Nerull is very pro Tharizdun. It's much tougher to explain an ancient Suel Tharizdun connection than a SB Tharizdun connection. More info on the history and nature of the artifact might help.

[Scott]

The Suel are the oldest listed civilization. Maybe it was some ancient Suel who assisted in the conflict that resulted in Big T’s imprisonment, and then they were given the tasks of being the guardians of the artifacts.
Later, Nerull or his clerics discovered this fact, and so they made infiltrating the Brotherhood a part of the plan to obtain the artifacts and release Tharizdun.

[Merkholz]

I had almost the exact same idea myself! Only that no humans should have been part of the original chaining eons ago, unless it was one of the periodic rechainings that Gygax retconned into the myth. Rather, perhaps, it was a Tolkienism, i.e. the time of Man begins so the responsibility falls on their shoulders?
I've also wondered why the olven calender isn't as old as the Suel. Presumably, the olven race existed long before humans so why a younger date? Of course, the Olven calander could just begin at a significant date (the expulsion of the evil elves into the Dark Lands Below?) like the CY calander.

M

[Scott]

With Gary’s very human-centric point of view, it’s not too much of a surprise that the elves aren’t hinted at as being the oldest civilization. According to Gary, the Flan were the first race to populate the Flanaess, or maybe the first known race, but they were there before the elves.

I don’t use the calendars as indicators of the age of the civilizations. They may be, I haven’t considered them all, but for now it’s just the current era, or age. Both the elves and the Flan have been around much longer than their colanders indicate. I do use the time of the defeat of the drow as the start of the current elf calendar.

I don’t know to what extent they may have been involved, but my opinion is that humans were involved in the conflict is some fashion, even if it was just the standard clerics and followers going at it as proxies. And there was some sort of ward on the artifacts that required them to be retrieved by mortals.
What’s the deal with the Suel city in the Suss? Was it built by the earliest refugees from the wars, or does it pre-date them? The temple itself, where the artifact was hidden, seems to pre-date the Suel. So maybe the Suel didn’t have any real part in the initial binding, and weren’t guardians. Maybe they found one piece, the cone, learned of its history, and started looking for the others.

[GRWelsh]

I think in ARTIFACT OF EVIL it is stated that the Lost City in the Suss is not Suel, but was built by some ancient pre-Flan people.

[Scott]

Thanks. I couldn't remember about the city itself, but I knew the temple was not Suel.

[GRWelsh]

So, the Tripartite Artifact was made up of three parts, the Theorparts, called the Initiator, which was found in the ziggurat-ruins under a mound in what is presumably the Lost City of the Suss (pre-Flan, not Suel, according to the Gord book ARTIFACT OF EVIL), the Awakener, which was in the hands of the Scarlet Brotherhood before being requisitioned by the Dukes of Hell, and the Unbinder, which was found in the Forgotten City (Suloise according to the Gord book SEA OF DEATH).

If that is correct, then the three parts were NOT all found in possession of the Suloise.

This makes me wonder again about what connection the Scarlet Brotherhood religion or the Suloise culture had to the Theorparts.

The names of the individual Theorparts -- the Initiator, the Awakener and the Unbinder -- imply that their primary function is to free Tharizdun from imprisonment. So who made these artifacts, and why were they where they were?

[Scott]

My thoughts are that the items were created at the same time Tharizdun was imprisoned, items that were used to create the prison, but can also be used to release Big T.
I'm still going with a thought I had up-thread, or a variation of it.

After thinking about it for a bit, it starts to make more sense.
The Scarlet Brotherhood was founded on the Suel ideology.
But…
Nerull is a popular patron for evil thieves and assassins.
I can see the Nerull element being introduced by less devoted thief and assassin recruits and their henchmen (including clerics), and then spreading within.
Nerull supports the return of Tharizdun, and so the SB becomes a tool to facilitate that goal.

Something along these lines. Priests of Nerull have convinced some of the SB leaders that achieving Nerull's goal will also help them achieve their goal.
In my campaign this has caused a split within the SB. There are purists that are strongly opposed to the idea of working with Nerull's cult.

[geneweigel]

This all goes towards the idea that TSR's LEGEND & LORE redo for 2nd Edition AD&D had some elements of a Gygax plan because of the avatar concept being present all over the Gord books.

When Gary used the word "avatar" to me in regards to Gord books. I kept asking about how they used the concept in 2E and that line of questioning just agitated him.

Anyway, I think the avatar concept applies to the whole Tharizdun thing. Same being different approach.

The whole "leaving the key by the gods" is explained with this "gods are indifferent" approach because they have other worlds with their avatars. Would this series have ended with a nuked universe if Gygax had continued with D&D? Hell NO! But it isn't so easy to write off the means of which he arrived at the plausible dynamics and machinations of these celestial/underworld beings destroying everything either.