Jeff's latest FB post on Belintar has a lot of interesting information:
We all know about Belintar's first incarnation - from when he appeared off the shore of Kethaela in 1313 and his titanic struggle with the Only Old One that resulted in his apotheosis as the God-King of the Holy Country. We also all know that Belintar's mortal shell expired many times, and that the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death was a great magical-mythical contest that selected the new incarnation of Belintar and kept the Divine Realm in close proximity to the Holy Country.
Belintar had a cult and many priests in each of the Sixths who offered him magic points, incense, and other accoutrements of worship. This worship aided him in doing many miracles, such as extending the Magical Roads that connected the Sixths to the City of Wonders or indeed in maintaining the City of Wonders itself.
The prime function of each incarnation of Belintar was to maintain the proximity of the divine realm with the Holy Country. In some ways, Belintar can be thought of as a high priest of each of the gods whose job was to communicate between the gods and their worshipers AND between the gods and themselves. He reconciled the needs of the gods and their many different cults.
Now Belintar was rarely powerful enough to impose his will on the gods. Instead, he needed to work with the gods, and often interacted with them in the divine realm for the benefit of the people of the Holy Country. This involved near constant heroquesting. Like the time Belintar brought the Jolly Fat Man to Nochet so he might reside within the city. Or the time Belintar brought Heort to Stormwalk Mountain so they could both view the Holy Country. Or when Belintar got Argan Argar to invite him to share a meal with the Mistress Race Trolls beneath the Tarpit.
Each incarnation, regardless of their mortal identity, always appeared as Belintar in the Hero Plane. The gods recognized him regardless of incarnation and the many pacts and bargains he made were always upheld by the gods. Because of the proximity of the divine realm with the Holy Country, gods often manifested in the Holy Country, visiting their worshipers even outside of the worship ceremonies!
Belintar rarely got directly involved in governing the mundane affairs of the peoples of the Holy Country. Each of the Sixths more or less followed their traditional ways - of course those traditions were changed by the very presence and role of Belintar. When a cult's leaders might refuse to accept Belintar or reject his advice, Belintar was known to bring the cult's own god into the discussion! But Belintar's demands were few and always reasonable, and it was usually quite easy for cults and tribes to accept what he had to say.
As has been said many times before, Belintar and the Tournament of the Masters of Luck of Death served as a heroquesting school for the Sartarites. Heroquesting techniques that were lost or rejected by most cultures were developed and refined in the Holy Country.
What never really developed around Belintar was the sort of court administration as you see in Glamour. Belintar surrounded himself with philosophers, mystics, magical individuals, adventurers, and vacationing gods. When young Tarkalor visited the City of Wonders, he met:
Belintar, who was a woman at the time;
Enamyx, the "False Daughter" of Belintar (she was the daughter of a previous incarnation)
Darkasten, Prince of the Hendriki
Antagorn, the Rich Thief of Nochet
Bardranu, the Teshnite nobleman
Mister Bondaru, the philosopher
The Tanist, Belintar's identical stand-in
As well as such strange beings as the Dwarf Giant, the Spirit of Freedom,
The Constant Guard
The Five Physical SPirits
The Reef Master
and the Tide Lord.
increasingly I view Belintar as the mentor or godfather of the Sartar Dynasty and later the Sartar Magical Union. He is a big reason why the Orlanthi of Sartar really don't resemble the Orlanthi of King of Dragon Pass or Thunder Rebels.... especially since a significant number of Sartars participated in the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death....
And Belintar was there for centuries. Not really a single individual, not really an office, but definitely a single soul that had many incarnations.
That's the hardest thing to get around - that Belintar had many incarnations, each with their own personalities and appearances, but the same powerful soul. And each incarnation knew secrets that only Belintar could know.
But now Belintar is gone. No heroquest is going to bring those tattered webs back into place, or rebuild Humpty Dumpty's broken egg. Jar-eel tore it into parts, shattered the pillars, and broke the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death so that it always fails. That magic is still churning and looking for an outlet, but can't find one. The divine realm is still in proximity with the mundane world and is now easy to grab.
And that goes a long way to understanding the Hero Wars.
Q: so, how does that differ from the Moonson, the Red Emperor?
A: Moonson is certainly similar. But if you dig you find some big differences. Moonson was created by the Red Goddess to manage her worldly affairs after she rose into the sky as the Red Moon. Belintar made himself through contests, pacts, and proofs that he made throughout the Holy Country and now must make anew roughly every generation through the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death.
And remember, every incarnation of Belintar has managed to succeed in the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death, which is a far more "experimental heroquest" than the Ten Tests of a Dara Happan Emperor (and much harder to rig in your favour). Politics plays much smaller role in selecting the new incarnation of Belintar (usually none at all) than it does in selecting a new Mask.
Q: Does that mean that an incarnation has two souls: the soul of Belintar and the soul of the original person? Or the two souls merge somehow? Or is it just the soul of Belintar but the new body change it somehow?
A: we modern Westerners tend to have a very ego-centric sense of the self. Think of Belintar as a hero out of some young adult fantasy series. Belintar is dead, so now we have a big contest and tournament to choose the new Belintar. During this contest, our hero succeeds in making the pacts and winning the contests that are necessary to magical unify the six lands, including displaying the necessary temperament and self-discipline to serve as Belintar, and in the process starts to communicate with all the previous Belintars. Many Who Are One. In the end, our hero triumphs and becomes the new Belintar, aided by all those who came before.
And our new Belintar is capable of calling upon all their prior selfs. But is also their own self. And all share in that mighty soul called Belintar, which is recognized by the gods and spirits of the Holy Country. So a pop culture analogy might be the Avatar
Q: How does this not completely break the Great Compromise?
A: Not in the slightest. This sort of interaction between the worlds is found at every worship ceremony, just on a smaller and more focused scale. One can think of the whole Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death as a huge worship ceremony/mass heroquest that happens roughly once or twice a generation.
Q: Belintar seems to have had much in common with Takenegi.
A: Belintar has nearly nothing "in common" with the Red Emperor other than he has a mortal element and an immortal element, and that the mortal element regularly dies and a new mortal incarnation is chosen. That may seem like a lot in common, but there's probably a dozen or more entities in Glorantha that do that.
