Juron's Ramblings 6_17_2009
So long did I read the annals of history. So long has it been since I took the time to write the annals of my own history. So long did I desire more than the simple life of study and reading, while I’d melt the candles away on tome after tome. Now, it takes everything I have not to go running and screaming right back into the arms of that quiet life in a temple’s library. I have one of the largest collections right here, in my very own temple. I could sit comfortably in a cushy chair while I dispense healing to the sick or wounded, and spout wisdom and knowledge to my acolytes.
The priests! By Labelas! How long has it been since I took the time to impart wisdom to the other priests of Myth Drannor Temple? The first thing I must do when I return is organize a seminar, the priests present what they’ve been studying, and the contents of their sermons. In turn, I will share the adventures that I and my comrades have had, and the progress that we’ve made with international politics. Additionally, I need to find someone to head the temple in my absence … someone wise, and someone that shares my progressive beliefs, and rejects some of the more … rigid … dogma of Labelas’ church. However, therein lies the problem.
I haven’t defined my new philosophy, and so I mean to, here and now. I cannot be the high priest in Labelas’ temple, quite possibly his highest temple, in the newly formed capital of elvendom, and not have a clearly defined foundation of philosophy. For that is a truly great sin.
The teachings of our holy father as interpreted by clergy from countless generations in our church has convinced us that our church must be cloistered; as chroniclers of the timeline, we could not be involved with anything of note, for that would be polluting the time line. But I say to all this, though we are instruments of our father, Lord of the Continuum, are we not mortals of this earth. Do we not bleed as our peoples do? Are we not joyed by triumph and terrified by failure? As we are mortals of this land, my conjecture is this: we should affect the flow of history as it flows before us. We cannot claim to be the purveyors of a good, generous, and righteous faith if we are not enacting good in the world. We do not hold knowledge of the future, so who are we to say that our “meddling” is not only foreseen by our holy father, but sometimes expected? I will not go so far as to say I know his will, but I find it telling that when I do something so shatteringly effectual as kill an evil god, and both Labelas and Corellon come to our party in gratitude of our efforts to stop the end of the world; I can’t be on the wrong path…
Our church must hold services for the masses. We must open a school for the young so they might get a round and full education. We must use these tools in such a way as to inspire our people to greater heights. As I have said, our order has too long cloistered itself away, but so too have our people. We shrink in the face of the humans and in the face of the Drow. We are Elves, and we can persevere any storm, not by our sheer toughness, but by our wits; if we work to better ourselves, then we will win the day, but if we continue to sit on our rears sipping Ilverquist, the storm will come for us. This storm will be not as any we’ve known, but a quiet and terrible thing. The storm of time will consume the last of us forever. I’m not sure that even our holy father could stop that. It will not come to this; I will preach, and my acolytes will preach the new holy word of Labelas Enoreth: the Elves are back!
I must be careful, however, with both my old and my new ideas. I must be ever mindful of new visions and signs sent by the holy father. I cannot allow this crusade to turn into one of my own ego, as I have so many times before. That is another of great sins. This of course brings me to the hard part of my confession. I’ve been … prideful … and … inflexible. My inflexibility has caused me to pass judgment on those I do not even know. This has derailed my relations with the outside world, and made me a diplomatic liability, but even worse, it has alienated me from those who might have been friends.
Erik is polite, but distant. Zak is … well, Zak’s only friends with Zak. I would have tried, but he never really gave me an opening. Besides, how do you make friends with a guy whose seemingly sole ambition is to become a god? I think my greatest failure has been with the Moonflower sisters – Aran especially. The first days of our travels only revealed my lack of social refinement. I implied her to be lascivious and insulted her honor based on a brushed comment that had little if anything to do with me. Who was I – who am I to make such a judgment? The second instance was a little more grey. She very insolently questioned my faith, and also proceeded to impose her interpretation of my relationship with Labelas on me. At the time, I was furious. I raised my voice, and in not so many words I told her to sit down, shut up, and speak when spoken to. While her comments were hurtful, and insulting, my response was unacceptable. I am only responsible for my own actions. I am undeserving to teach others wisdom if I myself do not benefit from it. I must be above the insults of others; I otherwise become the monster that I sometimes see in those who attack me. You know, now that I’ve realized this, I feel a little pathetic for not having understood this before.
With Kirilar, I never know what’s going on. In the beginning we were terse and we were always competing for whose magic was better: her arcane or my divine. I think that very early I realized how unimportant the very premise of the argument is. As long as either magic is useful, and you work to ends that better the world, the argument is moot and dumb. Eventually, even the quips stopped. I’m not sure where our friendship lies, as we have both plunged ourselves into the work of world saving. Since I’ve taken to the teachings of the arcane from Myrjala, perhaps there might be a few things that Kirilar can teach me. Ultimately, what I need to take away from both Aran and Kirilar is that Labelas is all knowing and powerful, but mortals have free will, and through that free will, the world is (on some level) bigger than Labelas – or any god for that matter. I have to be open to other ways of being while balancing that with my own ethics and beliefs.
If anyone is ever to read this, then I must apologize. I can only imagine how jumbled all this must read. I just haven’t recorded much in a long time, so there is so much in a web of interconnected subjects. I attempted to stream it out in a logical order, but everything seems to be spilling out all at once.
As far as what happens now, there’s too much. There’s always too much. We got Erik back, but only in trade for Alisha, from Revalen. Rawlinswood may become a threat or an ally. Cyric is ever closer to murdering Mystra. Sshamath is on the verge of surfacing and possibly becoming a true threat to the surface, all the while Elwrynn Galanodiel is conspiring to reunite me with Alissinara.
…Alissinara. Another sore spot. Part of me wants her back. Part of me is happy to let her go. That’s the part that had such a repulsed reaction. She wounded me in ways that I didn’t know anyone could be wounded. Heh, shows how sheltered I was, really, or even am now. What a tool I was, as she used me for her pleasures! On top of that, she was using nearly everyone else, and I was nothing more but one more screw. Then there is the icing on the cake: she announces it in front of everyone while lecturing me. I was terribly humiliated. But who am I kidding? I fell for the whole thing. I’m just as much to blame. She’s from a whole different culture; a culture where the matron mother of a house is revered and given all that they desire, lovers included. So in the end, I was foolish, and I expected things of Alissinara that she did not want to give, perhaps could not give. I really wish things could have gone differently; I have to get past this.
On a better note, I think I may be on to something with this Cyric / Mystra / Shar problem. I’ll have to speak more to Kirilar, she may have more insight.
This was … Therapeutic, and there’s more to discuss, but that’s it for now.