A Rose by any other name...

Ledaal Kajiri

Two Thousand Club
One thing that's always had me curious is a rather simple question...admittedly one I doubt we'll get an answer to anytime soon. Why isn't the Scarlet Empress' name stated anywhere? Surely something that important would be well known at the least in scholarly circles...and yet, as far as I can tell, it's never been stated. We know the names of most of her consorts, the names of many of her offspring, the names of many of her rivals during the early days of the current Realm...but we don't know the name of the woman that ruled it.
 
It's probable that she (and the Sidereals) erased it from history. There are likely to be several things you can do if you know someone's name; and in any case, after the rigours of the Imperial Manse and the death of her companions, she would have felt she didn't need it anymore.


Or perhaps... it was the sacrifice she made for Celestial Circle Sorcery?
 
Besides.....she's the Empress. Or the Scarlet Empress. No other name is needed. Sort of like Madonna. Or Cher.......


:wink:
 
In COTD, scavenger lads, lokshy, it included a letter from the head of the seventh legion to the scarlet empress from the very beginning of her reign. It was mentioned that because the head of the 7th legion had never herd of here she was at best a nobody that was in the right place at the right time. So she was still using her name for a time after taking the thrown, although it was not given in the letter.


Edward
 
Jukashi said:
Or perhaps... it was the sacrifice she made for Celestial Circle Sorcery?
I like this a lot. Her name as a symbol of her pride would make a good sacrifice for saphire circle sorcery.
 
I imagine that she either game it up, or keep's it secret, in order to avoid the potential dangers of somebody learning her true name.  True names are powerful, at least in various real world mythologies, and though I don't know of any true name magic outside of the Death Knights, I imagine the same would hold true in Exalted.
 
Safim said:
Jukashi said:
Or perhaps... it was the sacrifice she made for Celestial Circle Sorcery?
I like this a lot. Her name as a symbol of her pride would make a good sacrifice for saphire circle sorcery.
That I can certainly agree with...and could make for a potentially interesting plot point...if I ever get around to running my 'Rescue the Empress' game idea.
 
Abyssals have to give up their names to the Neverborn. It's likely that Infernals need to give theirs up to the Yozis.
 
wordman said:
Abyssals have to give up their names to the Neverborn. It's likely that Infernals need to give theirs up to the Yozis.
Ahem no. Dukantha is the one and only canon infernal and has not given up his name. Perhaps different yozis demand different things, but that is not very likely to be the name. abyssals have to give it up as a symbol that they are dead, cease to exist who they were.


For infernals this is not the case. They are essentially third circle demons and those have names.
 
wordman said:
Abyssals have to give up their names to the Neverborn. It's likely that Infernals need to give theirs up to the Yozis.
Safim said:
wordman said:
Abyssals have to give up their names to the Neverborn. It's likely that Infernals need to give theirs up to the Yozis.
Ahem no. Dukantha is the one and only canon infernal and has not given up his name. Perhaps different yozis demand different things, but that is not very likely to be the name. abyssals have to give it up as a symbol that they are dead, cease to exist who they were.


For infernals this is not the case. They are essentially third circle demons and those have names.
It's so nice to see how often you two agree! :D
 
wordman said:
Arthur said:
[it's so nice to see how often you two agree! :D
It's just that we're both wrong so often.
We are both never wrong, its those pesky exalted authors really. ^^


Edit: But on topic, I find it rather disturbing that when I post something right somebody says I am attacking wordman. Which is definitely not the case. He just happens to contradict the compass of heavenly directions: the west, which has an infernal exalt in it, who never had to give up his name.
 
Nobody said you atacked him, we (I, at least) just said you often disagree. It's not even bad, it's just interesting (and a little amusing).
 
Will you just let me have my little rant here? I am old and therefore fully entitled to fits of rage and ranting.
 
The Empress doesn't have Celestial Circle Sorcery, does she? She had the Mantle of Brigid which allowed her to cast such things, if I remember correctly..
 
Sorcery is still sorcery. If I recal, it was the yozis who gave sorcery to the Exalted; so why should you be able to forego the initiation just because you get it from a different source?
 
Because you can? If an artifact grants you a higher level of sorcery when you use it, it's hardly an initiation into the circle of sorcery, if it was, she'd have it for real. Now she can't use the charm, and the charm is what's at the end of the initiation. She uses the artifact and channels essence through it.


But yes,  the main theory is that the yozis gave the Exalted sorcery, we even have the one who did it identified! I just can't remember which one it was..
 
You can't remember because it is nowhere in canon. It is a theory. Brigid herself said, that the Unconquered Sun granted her sorcery in the end. That might be true, or not.
 
There's a description of the person who gave it to her, but not a name. The description matches one of the third circles or something like it.. Let me look it up.
 
Quoted from another forum:


"1) In Book of Three Circles, there's the story of Brigid acquiring sorcery from a mysterious being who happens to exactly resemble the demon Mara, in appearance, tone and modus operandi. People still rant and rave that "It might not be Mara" but the implication was made with a wink and a grin."
 
But it's still a theory until WW comes right out and says it, even more so now that 2E has come out and changed a lot of the background for the setting.  Now I haven't read any of the 2E books about magic in Exalted except for the one with all the artifacts, but even if there is 2E evidence of sorcery coming from the Yozis let's all do Ledaal Kajiri a favor and discuss that topic to another thread since it doesn't have much to do about the Scarlet Empress' name.  I just don't want this thread to evolve into a debate on whether sorcery is from the Yozis or not, but I do think it interesting that she might have given it up in exchange for being able to use Celestial Circle sorcery.


Even if she can't use it anymore thereafter, the Scarlet Empress still had a name before then, and others would have known her by it when she was an officer of the Shogunate.  Unless those in the military bureaucracy who knew of her died or were hushed up somehow.  Even if she didn't have to give it up for Celestial Circle, I wonder how it came that she made nobody use it.  Maybe she made it a law of the Realm that no others are worthy enough to speak her name.


I also think another good reason why she would not anyone else to know her real name is because she doesn't want anyone to use her true name in any magical rituals.
 
@zaramis:


1. not every "lovely hooved spirit" is mara. And lovely hooved spirit is all the book says. Actually mara is no spirit at all and savant and sorceror and the white and black treatise both speak of spirits, not of demons or souls. And actually that lovely hooved spirit only sets brigid on her quest. In ALL stories about brigid sorcery is granted by the uncounquered sun. Nobody else.


2. gods know sorcery. I am pretty sure the unconquered sun didn't learn sorcery at the feed of brigid and learned it of his own. So, primodial initiation was not needed either.


3. mara can't come into creation just because she wants to. Without sorcery around and thaumaturgy still not developed she just can't come around for a visit.


4. So mara sets someone on a quest and the unconquered sun does the debriefing. Right. Exactly what I was thinking. Logical to the extreme. Next week on this channel: Garden parties sponsored by the US and Ligier. Ought to be a shiny and warm experience.


@topic: While she surely did not give up her name for malfean powers I could imagine some powerful mojo to make her immune to fate magic. In the beginning her real enemies were the sidereals who surely wanted to get one of their own into that control room. Perhaps she had agents erasing her name to be a worse target for fate magic of any kind and later completed that with some nifty celestial circle sorcery and/or artifacts, just to be sure.
 
Shouldn't the empress use solar circle sorcery to control the imperial manse? if not why hadn't a sidereal - or even a lunar - been able to take control over it long before?


So the Mantle of Brigid takes care of one circle but that only leaves her one circle short... which could be where giving up her name comes in to play.


But besides from that. Nowhere in Exalted is names seen as a powerword, not like they are in other worlds. Yes the Abyssals give up their name, but as have been written, it's to sumbolise that they are dead, not to give any control over them. Else roni abyssals would not exist. You can use the name of a spirit or demon to summon it, but that only makes it possible to be sure what you get, instead of just descriping it and hope that there isn't any other spirit that match that description.


There was probably people that knew her name, but there is some factors to remember. First 9 out of 10 died of the great contagion plus all the ones that died fighting the fays. That cuts a huge number out of how many that knew her as anyone besides Lieutenant / Lieutenant [inset her last name]. So not many people left that know her full name, and i'm guessing she took a big portion of them with her inside the manse.


Then she becomes empress and takes the title of The Scarlet Empress. Think about it, how many of you can the full name of your own President / Dictator / King / Queen / Preme Minister? Those are persons that also use their title and most of them have only been in office a few years. The Empress gets to power without having to brand her real name, it's war and general despair. Nobody will remember her real name after a few years (specially if as i have implied names hold no real power over you).


To add to it all, during all her time she have been very contant as to kill anybody that opposed her. So other dragon-blooded that had the age to know who she was have had a fairly big chance of loosing their hear because they have been powerfull enough to try to take power.


The Sidereals: They have been soo selfcentered and stressed out to know who some stupid little Lieutenant was before she got to power. And after she got to power they would still be some of the most busy persons in creation trying to clean up all the mess. So not a lot of time finding out who she was and then the clues got cold. Of course they can find her name if they want to, but why should they? and why use it in public? If any of them used her real name in public that person would probably face a smaller legion of black helmets - specially if she heared it - it would be the same as traching a God or your army drill sergeant. Yes that sidereal could get out of the trouble, but would it be worth it? would the elder Sidereals be interested in that kind of trouble? my guess is 'no'.


So in conclusion: Not many people knew her name in the first place. most are dead or have forgotten it. Some know it, but don't want the trouble of telling it to others - besides it's mostly worthless.
 

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