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[cellio]

Wednesday, September 4

Dear Brion, servant of Pelor, may his blessings be ever upon you.

I was delighted to receive your letter today and hear such good news about the rat-kin! You are truly a miracle-worker, to be able to get everyone to cooperate with them. I felt sure that Old Man Finnegan would lead a mob to run them out of town by now. I hope that this hospitality on the part of our friends and neighbors will extend to providing better shelter come winter. I would imagine that caves are not the best place to be at that time. And they would more than pay for their keep with the assistance they're providing, especially come harvest time if they help out there.

I am also happy to hear of your friendship with Tobin, and I know that you will provide him with much guidance. Do the rat-kin worship other gods, or have they been devoid of religion until now? I am sure that Pelor will guide them as they learn more about him.

You wrote of your concern that the rat-kin are dazzled by sunlight, but was not the prophet Pavel also dazzled upon his first exposure to the glory of Pelor? We grow up with this and are therefore gradually exposed, but cave-dwellers such as rat-kin, and blind men with new sight like Pavel, do not have that luxury. We adapt, though sometimes slowly, and I pray that the rat-kin will also adapt. In the meantime, you might think about ways to shade their eyes without completely blocking the light. The hat I gave to the matriarch of the rat-kin seemed to help her. It is not a negative reflection on Pelor that not all are developed enough to be able to fully bask in his glory, after all.

You said that the rat-kin fear something in the tunnels underground? We got some sense of that, too, though we could not tell what it was they feared. Have you learned anything more? Coincidentally, in Duvik's Pass we found a group of kobolds who also feared something underground -- rightly so, as it turned out. These, too, were tunnels not previously known to the townsfolk. How odd that this should happen in three different towns, all of a sudden. Your letter is the first I have heard of the situation in Stross.

Duvik's Pass has recovered from the plague. With thanks to Pelor, I was not sickened and those of our party who were have recovered. The cause of the plague, as it turned out, was not natural. We followed a trail of evidence that eventually led to a crazed orcish cleric (living in the previously-unknown tunnels I mentioned) who was poisoning the water and bringing down this sickness upon the town. (He called it "purification".) I do not know what evil spawn of the netherworlds this cleric worshipped, or whether he was already crazy when he started bringing down plagues upon innocent people. We were unable to reason with him, and after he sent swarms of zombies to attack us and reined down various spells upon us, we had no choice but to attack him. He will not trouble this world again; the folks of Duvik's Pass burned his body and those of the zombies. (I am of very mixed feelings after participating in that fight, however. We tried to reason with him and failed, and he was bent on killing the people of the town, but we still killed a sentient creature. And not long after killing what turned out to be sentient rat-kin.)

As I said, the town has recovered from the plague, but not before many of its people were affected. Many in the town succombed, including their healer and priest. I am sure that they have already begun a search, but if you know of any priests or healers who might be able to go to Duvik's Pass, either temporarily or permanently, the town would surely benefit. The people here are kind and generous, and I think it would be a pleasant job now.

Thank you for relaying my mother's concerns. I am sorry, but not surprised, to hear of this. Please continue to do what you can to ease her feelings of guilt and turmoil. I am sending a letter to my parents at the same time that I am sending this to you.

We are going to be leaving Duvik's Pass tomorrow morning; Colm has purchased goods that he plans to sell in Covanion, and we have agreed to accompany him as guards. We will be taking the northern route, as it is shorter, and so will not be passing through Shepford this time. I hope to get back for a visit at some time. I will write you again from Covanion, or sooner if we come to a place from which I can send a missive.

Please pass on my best wishes to Jehan. I'm looking forward to seeing the newly-remodelled tavern on my next visit.

May the peace and warmth of Pelor be upon you. I look forward to our next meeting.

Larissa

---

Wednesday, September 4

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am writing from Duvik's Pass, though I will not still be here by the time you receive this. (We are continuing to accompany Colm the merchant.) All is well; the plague that was affecting this town is now cured, and the people here are very friendly.

I have heard that Mom was upset about my leaving. Please don't be. I can take care of myself, and I have friends with me. I'm not alone. And my magical skills have continued to develop; I'll have to show you the next time we come to Shepford. You'll be impressed.

Please give my best to the family and neighbors, except for Martin the bully, Finnegan's son. That kid is no good. I don't know why you think he's respectable, but keep your eye on him. Now that I'm gone he'll probably move on to harrassing Maria and Sal.

Take care. I'll write when I can.

Love,
Larissa

Comments

[cellio]

I am, of course, playing fast and loose with details of Pelorism, but I assume that's ok with Ralph. If not, just say so.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

It is totally fine with me for you to make up details of Pelorism. In fact, "encouraged" might be a better word. If there are any details that I need to reject, I'll do so.

I hadn't expected to see Larissa being so familiar with the theology. I was putting it in for Brion because that's the way he thinks all the time (and for secret reasons), but the response in kind was a neat expression of Larissa's personality.

[cellio]

I'm not actually sure just how much of Brion's theology Larissa believes herself. I suspect she believes more of Brion's theology than she thinks she does, and that she sort of passively accepts it as a baseline anyway. Where has she had the opportunity to hear about other religions, so far? And she has already seen benefit that ultimately came from Pelor, in the form of Brion's gifts and blessing. I figure she's rolling it all around in the back of her head now, especially after her first brush with the minon of an evil god, but she hasn't quite articulated it yet.

Given the home-town situation -- small community, one priest and one dominant god, education either just from parents or the "one-room schoolhouse" model, etc -- I figure that Larissa, and all the other kids, did the equivalent of going to Sunday school (well, Brion's lectures) every week for the last 15 years. You tend to absorb stuff just by osmosis. And we already know that Larissa is kind of a geek. :-) In this particular case, I'm thinking that Larissa was taught the story of Pavel (along with bunches of other stories) but was not taught that particular conclusion explicity -- just that Pelor healed this blind man who was overwhelmed by the experience, and he went on to become a prophet. So she might be utterly and completely wrong on her interpretation of what that meant, but it seems obvious to her.

And besides, she kind of likes Brion, and doesn't want to see him fret. If she can show him a benign explanation or at least distract him with a theological argument, he's probably better for it. Or so she thinks, anyway.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

I really don't have a model for people's religious beliefs in the face of a) polytheism and b) evident divine power. I'm pretty sure that the competing-monotheisms model D&D presents is just bogus.

I suspect that Brion's position is that he is the community's representative for all the gods, but he is particularly favored by Pelor, and thus has a particular duty to stand up for Pelor and promote him. (I'm kind of thinking of a Pelor-centric approach like the USA-centric approach of our education; there's no denying that there are other countries, even important other countries, but the US gets most of the focus.)

So that's what he teaches. Which means that you're right, she probably did learn it by osmosis, particularly if she spent much time with Brion.

It was certainly a kind thing for her to say to him.

[cellio]

By the way, things like the greeting and closing and "with thanks to Pelor" and so on are mostly politeness on Larissa's part. She has enough manners to behave well with her teachers/elders/etc -- she knows Brion would be pleased by such things, and she doesn't see an inherent problem with it (though she wouldn't talk that way unprompted), so she goes with the flow. It's the 17 charisma in action.

[cellio]

So Pelor is sort of like Brion's representative in the divine congress? This makes some amount of sense -- any friendly god will at least not utterly reject your prayer out of hand, but the one you've developed a closer relationship with will pay more attention to you.

I think your Pelor-centric model makes sense.