Tighmaevril

[Cryingwolf86]

Discussion thread for Tighmaevril (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Tighmaevril). If you would like to add a comment, click the Post Reply button.

[ryancaveney]

Ghoigwnnwd created over a dozen weapons from an experimental metal he named tighmaevril.

I'm pretty sure he didn't call it that. Rulebook p. 31 seems to me to imply that tighmaevril means "blood silver", which it would not have been called until after Deismaar, because until then nobody knew what bloodtheft was, much less that this stuff could help. This isn't certain, however, because the boxed text says "or" rather than "which means".

Another thing I've just realized is that the way it's spelled implies to me that the word "tighmaevril" is actually Anuirean rather than Sidhelien. We know from mebhaighl that Sidhelien uses the Irish Celtic "bh = v" rule, but Anuirean is littered with V-words like Vanilen in Avanil. If it were actually a Sidhelien word, I think it would be spelled tighmaebhril.


Scholars believe that most, if not all, tighmaevril weapons are currently held by the Gorgon.

Adventure idea: can he do anything special if he collects the whole set? I'm reminded of the satanic nuns in the "Seven Swords of Wayland" episode of the 1980's BBC Robin Hood series with Michael Praed, who wanted to collect the whole set of magic swords to summon Lucifer -- the druid tells Robin, "those who seek to shatter the bolts that hold back the evil one must first take Albion [your magic sword] from you." Maybe the Gorgon thinks that if he gets them all in one place and performs the right ritual, he can finally become a god. Maybe the chief priest of the Hand of Azrai thinks that if he gets them all in one place and performs the right ritual, he can bring Azrai back to life. Maybe the Magian or the Raven is also trying to collect them, in order to do something fishy with the Evanescence.

The players' job in any of these cases becomes not to kill the awnsheghlien, but rather to sneak into their heavily-guarded fortresses, steal one or more of the weapons from them, and then hide them away in their own secret and well-protected location. They get to do a dungeon crawl, and then design their own dungeon.

[Hrandal]

Sounds more like a rumour that the Gorgon would put about in order to lure regents in.

The kind of PCs that could succesfully do a "dungeon crawl" in the Battlewaite aren't too common in BR :)

Besides, surely the original creator (no going to try and spell his stupidly complicated name) would have realised if there was something that special about them? It seems like he just made them as an expirement and they became important later on. Its a bit odd that they'd be all-powerful under those circumstances.

If I was the Gorgon I'd be interested in finding me a smith that could re-forge a few of those medium sized tighmaevril weapons into one big enough for me to wield comfortably. They were made for elves, so presumably they tend towards the daintier side of melee.

[ryancaveney]

Sounds more like a rumour that the Gorgon would put about in order to lure regents in.

This is also very appropriate. =)


Besides, surely the original creator (no going to try and spell his stupidly complicated name) would have realised if there was something that special about them? It seems like he just made them as an expirement and they became important later on. Its a bit odd that they'd be all-powerful under those circumstances.

Yes, it is very odd, but that's precisely what all the published materials say. They were all created hundreds of years before Deismaar, when there were no such things as bloodlines to steal. Therefore, whatever their original purpose was, it can't have been bloodtheft. See thread 4066 for some ideas.


If I was the Gorgon I'd be interested in finding me a smith that could re-forge a few of those medium sized tighmaevril weapons into one big enough for me to wield comfortably. They were made for elves, so presumably they tend towards the daintier side of melee.

I think the Gorgon himself is one of the very few beings in all Cerilia who has even a remote chance of being able to reforge one of them. I think it would require, among other things, a wizard realm spell with very high caster level and source level requirements, and a huge pile of RP to pull off. He is one of the only people who has all of those things. I also seriously doubt he'd ever let anyone else handle tighmaevril anywhere near him, since they have got to be some of the only weapons on the planet which can seriously hurt him.

[kgauck]

They were all created hundreds of years before Deismaar, when there were no such things as bloodlines to steal. Therefore, whatever their original purpose was, it can't have been bloodtheft. See thread 4066 for some ideas.

To elaborate, in this thread we were discussing Undead, and Rowan in post #4 he wrote:

I think the divine energy is an essence that permeates the mortal soul. [...] If the soul departs the body (in death), the divine essence is released as the spirit is ripped from the body. That's how bloodtheft and loss of the bloodline occurs. However, sentient undead creatures keep their souls bound to their bodies, animating them.

A long debate about whether death does actually separate a person from his bloodline takes us to page five of the thread, where Ryan replies Rowen's idea:


Well, you've definitely made up my mind. The above is now true IMC. =) [...] I think there ought to be a ritual that can bind any scion's bloodline to an undead body. In fact, I think the Magian should have used it at least once already, and make reference to it in negotiations: "So you see, Your Grace, you can either become my willing vassal, or you'll be killed, reanimated and commanded into service like poor Count Reginald over there. Wave, Reginald! Good chap. Now, sir, which option do you and your charming wife prefer?"

So at least a few of us established that bloodline is attached to the spirit (not actually the blood) as a divine essence. And that this bloodline could be bound to an undead body like poor Reginald.

Another line of discussion in this Undead thread mentioned an elf lich in the FR, I believe. Ryan replied:

*shudder* *twitch* The concept of elves who voluntarily become undead is deranged! IMO, the mere existence of such a one would be plenty of reason for the most tree-hugging elf to decide a meteor swarm in the forest was an excellent idea, so long as it annihilated the abomination!

This gave me the idea that elves might have been so horrified not just by undead, but even more so by a spirit bound to an undead body:

Is it possible that tighmaevril was originally conceived as a way to kill undead in such a way that frees the spirit of its bondage, rather than simply destroying the body and leaving the soul in bondage. [...] The fact that tighmaevril also separates bloodlines from the body so completely is an unforeseen side effect?

So a weapon designed to utterly sever a spirit from a body would have the effect of also separating a bloodline from a body as well.

It has to virtue of explaining why the stuff was invented or created in the first place.


If you want to apply an existing game effect to explain it, tighmaevril could act as a disrupting weapon.

We then return to the question of what happens at death. Does the spirit go with its bloodline, as I suggested was implied by a spectral scion? Does a bloodline linger in the body allowing resurection? Or does the bloodline return to the land?

To hypothesize a little more, the divinity involved in a bloodline is inherent to Aebrynis rather than the Spirit World (it gets tied to the land). This might imply that when the soul or spirit separates from the physical in Aebrynis and is cast into the Spirit world, the bloodline does not readily go with it. Tighmaevril, then, acts to strengthen the Evanescence, forcing a complete separation between soul and bloodline upon death as it acts as the Sundering barrier between the two worlds.


Maybe then the original motivation was to create the perfect reusable material focus for a spell to help close portals from the Shadow World! That makes a lot of sense.

The thread has a brief consideration of the Sideath wizard, then dies.

[Hrandal]

Why would a mage care about closing portals to the Shadow World before it was the Shadow World? It was the Faerie realm at the time the blades were made, wasn't it?

Making a blade out of expiremental materials and then having those materials later be discovered to be useful in a very specific fashion isn't that big a coincidence. Perhaps they were just made out of Tighmevril because it held a nice sheen, or made for a well-balanced weapon, or allowed you to channel touch-attack spells or somesuch.

We have no idea the weapons were even made as a set - they could have been forged hundreds of years apart, for a variety of different reasons. Discovering that collectively they have some powerful ritual effect seems to me to be several orders of magnitude more unlikely.

There are sets of items out there (like the rings of ley) that the elves do care about gathering back up, but they are never mentioned as being particularly bothered about the bloodsilver weapons. To me this implies that they didn't have any particular importance to the elves prior to the advent of bloodlines.

[kgauck]

That would imply that undead is a post-Deismaar innovation.

[Hrandal]

Assuming that is the only possible source of undead.

There were still clerics, and I'm sure Azrai's priesthood raised the undead now and again.

There was mention made of the fact that a lot of souls had lost their way because there wasn't a guardian of the dead, and that Nesirie was taking over this duty. Perhaps pre-Diesmar there was less undead because the passage between life and death was better tended to.

[geeman]

I think "Blood Silver" is the original name of the alloy used to make
these weapons because at some (or every) point in the refinement,
processing, forging or finishing of the weapons actual blood was
used. It`s not at all unheard of for warriors to be bled so their
blood can be used to quench weapons as they are being forged, or that
materials (blood, poison) will be actually forged into the weapon as
it is shaped. It also explains why tighmaevril works the way it does
when committing bloodtheft since it could create sort of standard,
sympathetic magic kind of relationship.

Gary

[kgauck]

Assuming that is the only possible source of undead.
Do we mean source as in home or the font of energy which sustains undead?


There were still clerics, and I'm sure Azrai's priesthood raised the undead now and again.
But what source of negative energy kept the undead animated?


There was mention made of the fact that a lot of souls had lost their way because there wasn't a guardian of the dead, and that Nesirie was taking over this duty. Perhaps pre-Diesmar there was less undead because the passage between life and death was better tended to.
Absolutely. But the Spirit World functions in many of the same ways as it does after its tainted by Shadow, and continues to be a World of Spirit, Fey, and Dreams. As such, note that in Rowan's final quote, he's talking about the barrier between this world and the Spirit World. Even before Deismaar, it would be the Spirit World that is the source to spirits that animate undead. So we don't need the later corruption of the Spirit World to make it desirable to kill undead in such a way that the spirit is no longer bound to a corpse.

[irdeggman]

I think "Blood Silver" is the original name of the alloy used to make
these weapons because at some (or every) point in the refinement,
processing, forging or finishing of the weapons actual blood was
used. It`s not at all unheard of for warriors to be bled so their
blood can be used to quench weapons as they are being forged, or that
materials (blood, poison) will be actually forged into the weapon as
it is shaped. It also explains why tighmaevril works the way it does
when committing bloodtheft since it could create sort of standard,
sympathetic magic kind of relationship.

Gary


I like this explanation quite a lot.

[ryancaveney]

Ah! Here's the other thread I was looking for: 4020. My own contribution is 43011, in which I said


I have always believed that tighmaevril is capable of enhancing bloodtheft because it is inherently part of the magic of the land: I think it is *solid* mebhaighl. I do not think it is possible to alter their original enchantment, nor even to reforge them, because they are not metal (it looks like silver, but never tarnishes and cannot be damaged by any normal physical object) and cannot melt or be reworked in any way except by now-unknown magic of immense (realm-spell-style) power. I think Ghoigwnnwd was able to accomplish this artifact-creation feat only because he was one of the *original* elves, who was still around from before there were dragons.

I think it became called "bloodsilver" long after it was created, because it looks like silver but both draws blood very easily (because it is extremely sharp) and enhances bloodtheft. I haven't decided what it used to be called, in part because I have yet to buy a Welsh-English dictionary. =)

[Rowan]

Top-class discussion yet again! Thanks for porting quotes over, Kgauck!

I do still like the idea of tighmaevril being created against the undead, originally. Ryan, I like your idea quite a bit. If mebhaigl is opposed to the corrupted version of the Seeming known as awnmebhaigl (I believe they are separate, and prefer to have the Seeming not be opposed to elves or mebhaigl), then forging tighmaevril out of condensed mebhaigl would thematically be very appropriate as a direct weapon against undead.

If awnmebhaigl is corrupted mebhaigl or corrupted Seeming ("awn" is the prefix meaning "Shadow," and was not presumably used to describe the Seeming before the taint of the Cold Rider or other influences of evil, including possibly the undead and Unseelie), then we can easily see how the Lost can be undead and still control sources. They actually corrupt the sources, Tainting them and making them awnmebhaigl. Also, the elves' greatest defense against undead (which seem thematically to be very much their antithesis and thus should warrant some potent opposing effect) is their control of mebhaigl.

The gods essentially are incredibly powerful masters of the Seeming, the force of Creation, and can give their clerics the ability to channel positive energy to Turn Undead. This would fit with the Seeming and mebhaigl being different but not opposing things. However, Azrai was a master of the Spirit World and tainted it in death; his clerics and those of his successor gods can rebuke undead. This fits with Azrai essentially being the corrupting influence that was the source of awnmebhaigl.

So the elven manipulation of mebhaigl into tighmaevril does strengthen the Evanescence, accounts for these weapons being tremendously magically powerful (at least +5), and served a very worthy purpose before the existence of bloodlines.

I agree that tighmaevril seems not to be an elven term. "Blood" seems to be translated "shegh" in elven (awnsheghlien, ehrsheghlien, sielshegh). So the elven term for "blood silver" would probably be something more along the lines of "sheghril" or "mithshegh" (I have no basis for the term "silver" except perhaps the word "mithril").

However, to further infuse their weapons against the undead, the use of blood--specifically immortal elven blood--in their forging could imbue the weapon with vitality, unite them more with the concrete world of Aebrynis, and imbue them with a sympathy to life, thus further enhancing their powers against undeath, as well as enhancing their ability to commit bloodtheft.

At this point, IMC, I would make all tighmaevril weapons forged with a base metal of mithril, summoned from the earth and purified, forged, and imbued intensely with mebhaigl, and quenched with the blood and tears of the Sidhe. Because of the intense magic and all of this, each weapon (even edged weapons) would be Disrupting, +5 or greater, count as Silver weapons and mebhaigl stones, be intelligent items, and have all the normal properties of tighmaevril.

Perhaps having them all in one place strengthens the Evanescence (the Gorgon doesn't want any Shadow World Lost popping in on him as some of the only beings truly capable of challenging him--or Belinik or Kriesha, either), operate similarly to mebhaigl stones, and could give the bearer immortality (bearing so much mebhaigl and living elven blood). The Lost (inc Magian) would want them to twist them to awnmebhaigl and commit bloodtheft to strengthen them; the Gorgon would want them as protection, for their usefulness as weapons of bloodtheft, and perhaps as the only weapons that will let him harm or destroy divine beings should they challenge him.

The elves have other, more efficient means of carrying out that for which tighmaevril weapons were created, and so don't find it worth their energy to recover them (they're not interested in bloodtheft, warring with gods, don't need the mebhaigl, and can cast Shadow Block; sure, they'd love to have them back, but they know if even they can retrieve them, there are many who will always be hunting them to get them back).