The Bards' Guild of Erdreja | Importance of Haven: Fey, Love, True Love & Erdreja

Importance of Haven: Fey, Love, True Love & Erdreja

I used to be a Sluagh and became a being bound to Fate, thus I am quite curious about matters of destiny and secrets. I have learnt to reign in my obsessions with secrets, but as people say Fate is unchanging; this of course is totally untrue, the dance of Fortune and Fate’s interplay is a constant shifting one, even if Fate is an unwilling dance partner. I was asked my opinion on Love just after the GEF 1111; however the enquirer wishes to remain anonymous. The timing of the enquiry was impeccable, I will elaborate.

I had been rereading the articles in the Looking Glass. In one issue there is a curious article by none other than the recently deceased Boris of the Faculty (Spring Moot 1111) regarding ‘Sister Elements’. This article is based on talks with the Embodiment of Knowledge, pre Cataclysm, during the Cadre War. I found this article spurious at best, since he is not an Elementalist, but Boris is not without merit, and Boris’s successes in Rituals are well known. According to Boris’s conjecturing the sister Element of Good is Love; Evil is Malice, guesses were made at the other Sister Elements. As the Healers Guild Dean of Elementalism and a Scholar of the subject I found that the work demonstrated someone who utilised word play to fill in the numerous gaps the theory had, and thus raised a concern at theory itself. The mention of Love and trying to understand why Scullion would mention it got me thinking, a lot. Whilst it is generally accepted that there are 16 Elements, even this has debated at length. So the idea of 16 Sister Elements is not necessarily one to discount. Discussions with various people, including a few who had spoken with Scullion directly, confirmed the idea that Boris had probably not made a mistake, but rather that Scullion was not clear in explaining his information.

Before I go in to any depth I should let the reader know my opinion in regards to Ritual Magic and proof. Proving something in a Ritual Circle does not prove it, it proves the Ritualist was good enough to make something true and not be killed by their attempt. Carrying out a Ritual in a Ritual Circle is akin to gaining True Magic in a limited way, thus saying that a being is now combined with a demon, or elemental, etc. can be attempted, but the method used to perform the Ritual can vary greatly. My point is proven by the fact that some Ritualists say things that may make no sense from a cosmology perspective, but their Ritual works; that’s True Magic for you.

I pondered the idea that if Love is a concept that has literal tangible power that can manifest, what happens if the word True is added in front. Part of my initial musings on this subject highlighted the idea that if True Magic, True Song, and people talk about True Love, what could True Love actually do? Clearly this is word play, but the concept is not as crazy or irrelevant as some people voiced when I asked them.

I made enquiries with many people, the Incantors regarding belief and ancestors and the Bards regarding lore and tales. In particular: Nadia of the Jackals, Maya of the Healers Guild, Hamish of the Incantors Guild, Graf of the Harts, and of course the Bards Guild: Magpye, Sylverant, Cosaint. I also mentioned I had a bigger theory that I was keeping quiet. I had received several sizeable letters from a few people, whilst others wished to speak at the Summer Moot 1111. Some other noteworthy conversation from the Summer Moot include Lady Treacle, Lord Gwion, Healers Guild command, Lucas McTaff, Scouts Guild Master Arber, Bard Master Kianan, Crinkle of Bears, Queen Blodwyn, some Gazed and Watchers. Explaining each person’s opinion for each query would take a lot of room, instead I present my own opinion, having taken other peoples’ perspective on board. Key information discovered during the Summer Moot is presented afterwards.

1. Love from an Elemental perspective. Is it truly an Element, or more of a para-Elemental?
To me, trying to define Love as an Element is ridiculous. Love can be used for evil, love is chaotic in some, yet love can be viewed as restricting and thus the opposite of chaos, love is an illusion to most, but real to some, etc. Love is a concept to do with an idea, a belief. So, personally if it was merely one Sister Element it should surely be Spirit, not that I think that. Even as a para-Element Love does not fit neatly. As Cosaint roughly said to me at the Summer Moot: trying to define Love as a mere Element is to misunderstand it; I agree with him.

2. A bard’s usage of storytelling, scholarly works and music all regularly utilising themes of Love. We know it is a concept used a lot, and we know it affects people.
There are countless examples of Love in bardic verse, poems, and stories. I didn’t phrase my query properly, but interestingly I still ended up with the answer I was looking for: usage of True Love is rare, even amongst bardic work. And crucially there were no findings of tales about Ritual Magic using Love or True Love. I was informed by Graf of the Harts that her nation has many love stories central to their culture. Nadia of the Jackals explained that whilst most marriages are arranged in the Southlands, Love is not a rarity.

3. The issue of healing, and dark thoughts about whether Love is a fever in the mind weave.
As a healer and Elementalist the idea that Love can be seen as a fever in the mind weave makes sense, but it obviously depends on how the being is handling their feelings of love. It is agreed that a being infected by Love could be Mind Healed, however it is also agreed that this should only ever be attempted in the direst of circumstances.

4. Taking this a stage further I would assume Rituals have been carried out utilising Love as a focus?
No one knows of any rituals utilising Love as a focus having been performed. I recall seeing a Ritual wedding in 1110, I do not recall which Faction, but that was also about empowering the land via the marriage of two individuals; the ritual was not explicitly about Love.

5. Also Fey are notoriously influenced by emotions particularly Love, is this a fallacy or true?
Just about any Fey will have noticed how their emotions are important, much more so than other races. All of the common races experience Love, for example a Troll’s love is just as valid as a Fey’s. This is where I start to enter dangerous academic territory but I will expand on this point later.

6. Research in to Love, in any form?
There was no evidence in to Love or True Love, being carried out in recent years.

7. What happens when the word ‘True’ is added? True Love is acclaimed with Cosmic Power, are there examples of this?
Adding the word True in theory does make it a more powerful Love, like True Magic or True Song. However, the power of such a declaration does not necessarily go to the owners of the Love. Also, anything can be undermined by it being perceived as rhetoric, so declaring someone as experiencing True Love can also result in people ridiculing or rejecting the idea that it is valid. Sylverant said that his findings showed that Fate and Fortune take an interest when a Love is declared as True Love. Anecdotally as a being of Fate I appreciate the importance of Love and True Love, it was why I was asking.

8. Regarding all the prior questions, do you happen to know of any research or events of note in the last ten years? How about last twenty? And so on...
Like above, no. Of course that only means the beings I had spoken to had not heard about anything.

Since I had not been explicit at the Summer Moot I asked Bards Guilds and the Watchers if there were any Ritual Circles aligned to Love. Early Friday evening none were known about. Shortly after I left Lady Treacle and other watchers, Lady Fama had arrived to speak with Lady Treacle about Haven. For those that don’t know Haven is the Island of Elvas that had a ritual performed at the Gathering in 1110 to make it a haven for Fey, to be Fey touched. Lady Treacle called me back and Lady Fama repeated the information that Haven is not Fey touched but Love touched. Lady Treacle then re-evaluated her connection the ritual circle on Haven and confirmed it was also similarly love touched. Interesting timing considering my enquiry made mere hours earlier.

This news also made the events at Haven involving the Lizardfolk on Elvas make more sense. Sylverant had not mentioned it during out initial conversation, but apparently he has been researching this issue for a while. Given that importance of Haven’s relationship to Love was not known it is easy to ignore the change in the Lizardfolk on Elvas as just ‘one of those many crazy things on Erdreja’ and not an example of the power of Love manifesting itself.

Now that I had proof that Love influenced Ritual Circles the bigger theory I had been keeping back, for fear of sounding like a lunatic, seemed less crazy.

Since Fey were the first race created, my query is why? Fey are affected primarily by the Element of Spirit, although the Elemental make-up of a creature is more complicated than what pointing at one Element would indicate, anyway, Fey have a complicated life cycle since they are able to return in the spring. The Ancients made the Fey the way they are for a reason. In the majority of ways the other races are quite alike, whilst the Fey stand alone, why?

It is understood, confirmed by the Gazed, that when a being dies their memories/experience is passed on to Erdreja. This process helps Erdreja mature. Since the Fey were made first and excel at this process my thought is that this was for the reason of memories and emotion, and since Love is considered the most important emotion then this explains the Fey’s special relationship with Love. Since the younger races were later made to help the process, maybe the realisation by the Ancients is that the complex memories and emotions the Fey gave Erdreja was confusing, since Fey live multiple lives and they can even retain memories between cycles. The diversity of the Fey and their complex life’s could be explained by the idea that the Ancients attempted to make a super race to cover all aspects of Erdreja’s needs. Maybe such diversity from a single race was too confusing for Erdreja and maybe the Fey’s ability to return in the spring was also a very important part of the confusion. Speculating heavily, but maybe Erdreja just couldn’t identify with the Fey.

Whilst the above information may be considered not very insightful, since it is a bit easy to conjecture, maybe my point will make more sense when you consider that Ritual Magic is an important connection with Erdreja. Some people at the Moot thought I was initially talking about making Love Elementals, considering my Healers Guild position that assumption makes sense. Instead I am referring to the idea that Erdreja has lacked the input of Love. I am told by the Gazed that Erdreja has matured in recent years, and given the deaths of many powerful people during the Cataclysm, and then the events that occurred during the Entropy Akari disaster, and in particular Scullion’s death. Erdreja has been filled with many horrible memories of dark and destructive things.

Consider that the vast majority of Rituals that have been carried out are about acquiring power for a few beings, weapons or even a piece of land, or more rarely they are about destruction and hatred. Haven is the only known exception, in essence Erdreja saw the Ritual as the Fey involved carrying out an attempt to make a place of safety due to the participants love of their race. There was no request for power, merely a place for camaraderie. I believe this exception shows the Fey fulfilling the race’s unbeknownst charge of providing an insight in to love for Erdreja.

With this new information I then spoke to various people again and importantly the Watchers and some of the Gazed about carrying out a Ritual to Erdreja to celebrate Love, and specifically Love towards Erdreja. I spoke at length with ittimin regarding this, and she presented the idea of carrying out rites to monitor the void to see if a Love Ritual has any affect on the void to see if there is a plane of Love. Rath of the Healers and Vipers has agreed to perform the Ritual, I can think of no better and more appropriate Ritualist for the task. Given the cost issues involved with buying a Ritual it was helpful to receive offers of financial support from Gazed. I had a very good discussion with the Bears Queen Blodwyn, who has offered her support as well her wishes to contribute.

Initially the plan had been to do the Ritual at the Gathering, which is at Spirit Wellspring, however given the cost and scarcity of such a Ritual, Rath has recommended we do it next year. This will also give more time to carry out further research. If you would like to discuss this matter further then a good place to visit me will be at the Healers Guild.

Stalik O’Mite – Healers Guild Dean of Elementalism, Scouts Guild & Bards Guild
Scholar of Elementalism, Kismet (xSluagh), Vipers – Court of the Serpent

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(OC Author - Richard Brewster)