[Dragaera] Godslayer

Jonathan Carey, CHRL via Dragaera dragaera at lists.dragaera.info
Sun Apr 24 09:08:05 PDT 2016


An attempt was made by the Gods to dismantle Godslayer.  The physical
manifestation of the GW became a rather powerful, if otherwise unremarkable
Morganti blade that we first see in the possession of the Jenoine.  Perhaps
that, among other reasons, was why the weapon was attacked--maybe it was in
the hands of the Jenoine, or maybe one of the Gods saw that it would make
its way into the hands of the Jenoine.  Presumably, none of the Gods are a
big fan of Godslayer, but they would have to recognize that it is a
*powerful* weapon to have if you're fighting Jenoine. So, as long as they
could maintain possession of it, they could keep it intact.  But if they
saw it was going to change hands, as it were, a decision was made to
dismantle it.

I suspect that that means they took the one entity and turned it into 4
parts:

1) The Blade: powerful morganti weapon, but otherwise nothing special about
it. The ability to drink souls without any special means of doing so beyond
the normal Morganti-ness.
2) Spellbreaker: the mechanism by which Godslayer works; ie, disrupting
magical fields/effects.  It still has a kind of consciousness - reacting to
Verra like a coiled snake, slithering back onto Vlad's arm of its own
volition, changing size/number of links etc.
3) Lady Teldra: the consciousness of the weapon itself - the ability to
know exactly how to behave in any given situation, including when to
strike, usually to the target's great surprise, and with devastating
effect, and in such a way that the attack is "done in one" and the weapon
can go back to a normal state almost immediately, just like an Issola. It's
worth mentioning that I believe this meant the Gods removed Teldra's soul
from the weapon and (re-?)introduced her into the reincarnation cycle.
Wouldn't the Gods know which soul is the soul of the Great Weapon? So Lady
Teldra was ALWAYS Godslayer's consciousness, and not just because she got
drank by some nasty morganti blade that one day.
4) Vlad Taltos: the wielder.  Or rather, Dolivar, a Dragon.  He certainly
begins to behave like a Dragon in many of the books.  He's got the ego of
one; and the pride of one, and loves to phrase things in grandiose,
melodramatic ways. And LOATHES being played for a sucker.  In short, he
likes to consider himself a major player, and anything that contradicts
that gets through to him.  But perhaps the means by which the Gods
separated the wielder from the weapon was to turn him into an outcast, and
eventually, to become an Eastener, but in such a way as to make it appear
to Dolivar that it was always his idea, and not the Gods interfering; the
revelation of which could provide additional fuel for the fire that will
end in the death of a Goddess...

As a final thought, maybe Godslayer was only ever destined to kill one God,
the one who keeps breaking the rules because it's convenient to do so.
This breaks down if you consider Jenoine to be Gods.  Maybe it was Verra
who manipulated Dolivar's soul into leaving the nascent empire?  And if so,
then Vlad wouldn't really have any beef against, say, Trout, or Barlen.

Regards,

Jon Carey, B.A.(Hon), CHRL, CHRP



More information about the Dragaera mailing list