par baron samedi » 02 Août 2006, 12:27
Le présent message, en anglais, résume un angle précis sous lequel je pourrais aborder les Chroniques d'Erdor en anglais, sans doute vers 2007-2008. Aucun terme n'est définitif.
The Chronicles of Erdor
The Judges
Judges are the rare, select mortals from all over Erdor who have received the Dream of Revelation, at various times in their life. They know the three-tailed comet announces the End times. When the comet reaches the Heavens’ zenith, all things beautiful and beloved will die and the world will be nothing but cinders.
The Judges lead the Messianic Movement, a divided lot made of believers of all nations and peoples divided by traditions, beliefs and customs. They all follow the Judges' words, for they realise The UNKNOWN has chosen them to save this dying world. The Messianic masses are not without sin or strife, behave often ungratefully and often blame the Judges for their sufferings. But they are also the Judges' wards, their devoted followers and true friends.
A Judge's conscience is his own
Each Judge chooses his own path. No Judge will be judged himself until the End times. No supernatural force, no divine angel will tell him whether his actions are just or wicked. Until the very end of this world, he will answer only to his conscience.
The Judges vary in species and culture, beliefs and even morals, but all have been chosen by The UNKNOWN to rescue this dying world. It does not matter whether a Judge chooses to ignore the Dream of Revelation, whether he leads or opposes the Messianics or what part he decides to play during the last days of Erdor. He always retains the Gifts of Truth and the Certitudes, and might one day answer anew the beckoning of the Dream of Revelation, even after he has fallen.
The Messianics are not a religion, but a faith: each Judge writes the tenets of his Chronicle as he travels, that becomes scripture for his followers.
The Judges' followers write this on scrolls, keeping the articles of faith, responsibility and wisdom revealed through his deeds and words.
When all has been said and done and the world's end is imminent, the gathered scrolls of these Chronicles will become the Chronicles of Erdor, the tragic tale of a world of horrifying beauty.
The Seven Certitudes
The only thing that the Judges have in common is that they have been Chosen by The UNKNOWN to receive the Dream of Revelation. This intimate experience has given them the knowledge of the Seven Certitudes. This, and only this, the Judges know and feel as incontrovertible truths. All the rest is conjuncture.
1. The UNKNOWN is. Its essence, origins and design cannot be fathomed. All religions and faiths, be they monotheism or henotheism, panentheism or dualism, are but attempts by mortals to apprehend It. All that the Judges know is that The UNKNOWN exists, and that It does not want Erdor to be destroyed.
3. The Ten Spheres of Essence that make up Reality are Broken. The existing world is made of ten Spheres, divine vessels that hold the mysterious, perfect Essence that emanated from The UNKNOWN when reality was created. All things, physical or psychic, tangible or allegorical, are encompassed within these Spheres: each represents a virtue, an aspect of the divine manifested in reality. Harmony between of the Spheres gives life to the Tree of Creation, a world of manifested perfection. The world of Erdor is but a part of this Tree: the souls and ideals, dreams and possibilities, gods and demons, all belong to the Tree of Life.
When The UNKNOWN bestowed free will upon creation, the Spheres shattered. By their own choices and acts, mortals corrupted the harmony of the Tree of Life. They embrittled the divine vessels, which could no longer hold the purity of the Essence. The Tree did not die from this Fracture, but its purity was lost among countless Shards. As the Shards break into more Shards, the universe shatters. The Fracture of the Shards is what is destroying reality. The world dies because we, mortals, killed it.
3. Erdor will be destroyed. It cannot be prevented. The Judges have seen the future in the Dream of Revelation, and know the certainty of this fate. The Spheres are broken irreversibly, but hope remains nevertheless.
4. Two Messiahs will come. The first will be a Messenger, the second a Destroyer. Their nature, purpose and form are unknown. Will they be champions, gods, nations, metaphors? All that is known is that the Messiahs will not save Erdor. The Messiahs will bring the Last Omens of The UNKNOWN, at the very last days before the end of all. What these Last Omens will be is unknown.
5. Only the Judges can save Erdor. They cannot prevent their world from dying, but they have the power to preserve something from annihilation. The souls of the just? The innocent ? A virtue? A memory? No one knows. Even the Judges do know what can be saved, perhaps not even themselves, only that something can be saved, and that only they can save it.
6. Erdor has a purpose. This purpose is unknown. The Judges know their actions have a transcendent sense, that the death of Erdor is not meaningless, but they can only guess at it through faith or conjecture.
7. All the rest is conjuncture. Nothing but the six precedent Certitudes can be claimed as irrefutable truth. Not even the war against She-Who-Devours, not even the existence of Erdor, of the gods and demons or that of the Judges, of their souls or consciousnesses. Perhaps none of this is real. But it does have a purpose, and it will be destroyed, and perhaps the Judges will preserve something of it.
The Dream of Revelation tells this, and nothing more.
The Gifts of Truth
Through the Dream of Revelation, The UNKNOWN has given the Judges the Three Gifts of Truth. How they use these Gifts, for good or evil, rests only to their own conscience. The Three Gifts of Truth are:
- Omens of Truth: The Judges can sense the presence of the Shards through symbolic omens. These omens are always ambiguous metaphors: they tell only, in obscure terms, where signs of the Fracture can be found and a general sense of what is wrong, but nothing specific. Two lizards slaughtering their own nest can mean a family is corrupted from betrayal within, or that a civil war is threatening a nation. The Judges' interpretation of an omen is their own. Omens never attribute guilt or innocence. This is the Judges' task. Omens simply guide the way
- Words of Truth: Judges speak and hear the language of all peoples, creatures and entities, sentient or not (i.e. glossolalia). Animals speak in very simple terms, however, and many spiritual entities think in alien ways.
- Heart of Truth: Judges can discern spoken truth from falsehoods, but they can never read what lies within one's heart. Lies have to be spoken in the Judge's presence to be revealed, but lies by omission are sensed.
Erick N. Bouchard © 2006. All rights reserved.