... and because I thought you might enjoy this re-write.

Horth believed Erien was a zer-rel. Bryllit believed Amel was a zer-pol.

Having grown up in the same half-Nesak household as his liege-brother, Eler knew a zer-rel was worth following, even into space that was unexplored. A zer-rel was a Great Soul. A messiah, wise enough to see a "third way" through thorny problems without violating what was sacred in Okal Rel, even when the problems weren't amenable to sword law.

Personally, Eler was of the opinion that Erien was more likely to be a meddling, Reetion-raised Lorel with delusions of grandeur, but for Horth's sake he hoped he was, at least, a competent one.

However, the majority of Gelacks would much prefer an incompetent Lorel ... :-)
Just a thought - 'messiah' strikes me as non-ORU. I'd be inclined to go for "A zer-rel was a Great Soul, wise enough to see a 'third way' ... etc." - A

Good point. Agreed. I wasn't sure about it either but was trying not to be too purist and go with the word everyone would get. But messiah does presume a more montheistic theology, whereas a Great Soul, rather than being sent by a greater power, is pretty much as big a cheese as you get, and either decides to reincarnate to help out the 'kids' now and then, or gets talked into it by the Waiting Dead, in committee, or maybe just by his/her own clan of Waiting Dead depending on the circumstances. The gods, in some people's opinion, are just Great Souls who lost their grip, rejected life in favor of eternal-something-else, and are now vengenfully regretting it, and/or punishing those healthier minded souls with too much grip to get sucked into their cults, and/or bored to tears while they wait to become one with the universe instead of waiting to get back into a body like they ought to want to. Sort of spiritually dangerous weirdos. I am sure there are plenty of people (particularly Vrellish) who think the Golden Demish deal over Family of Light souls is right up there in the 'making gods to torment us' category. :-)

posted by Lynda at 19:44   comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments