Ghyll:Loremasters

It is not difficult to become a loremaster, and yet the occupation remains one of the least practiced in modern-day Ghyll. Such was not always the case -- in ancient times, loremasters were among the most respected members of society, second only to the Hive-Lords in prestige. Alas, with the development of the wide variety of scholarly techniques and institutions the tradional loremaster is fast becoming an extinct Specious genies.

The Occupation

Legends. Myths. Wive's tales (and recently, divorcee's tales). For all these the loremasters are responsible. Traditionally, a tribe or town's loremaster maintains the group's collective memory. While important events and folklore were originally passed down orally from loremaster to loremaster in the form of epic poems. In -573 EC, however, the loremasters of Iganefta began to supplement the oral tradition with written records. Although this break with the past initially met with resistence, villages soon found it was impossible to fill vacant positions without accepting the new practice. Today, even among the most backwords villages of Jorvyll, the practice is widespread.

In addition to their record-keeping, the loremasters also have minor ceremonial roles in Calends Gala celebrations and serve as official advisors to the hive-lord. The loremasters of a village also meet bimensually in order to share information and add it to the collective memory.

The process of becoming a loremaster is extremely simple: the candidate merely approaches the current loremasters at one of the offical meetings and announces his candidacy. No special qualifications are necessary. It is merely required that the candidate show an interest in the village and its lore. Nevertheless, the position has a high turn-over rate. The work is mentally rather strenuous, and many candidates find that constantly taking note of everything that happens is more arduous than manual labor. What's more, the presitige of the position has recently declined, as many view the institution to be outdated and unreliable as compared to the nascent academia.

Loremasters through the Ages

The first record of what seem to be proto-loremasters dates from the Nitenmangrey era. Several ancient scrolls unearthed near the the Dagger Sea Primus indicate that a crucial part of every official ceremony was the recitation and recording of the event by a group of three people known as the imen. One such reference is in a fragment of an epic poem thought to be in honor of #47:

...and lo! the rain came down

and lo! the imen looked up
and lo! the imen sung their praises up
and down the rain
and it was at-least-moderately-tolerable-and-perhaps-better-than-most-days

The first explicit mention of loremasters by that name is in Travelling the Dagger Seas by Kebonston Lefkrane, in which he translates the Nitenmangrey term imen to the Ancient Extremely Unorthodox Ghyllian "lörmaestro." After this reference, the term shows up, with various spellings, in the works of Algothequinas, Arariax and other prominent poets.

Although it appears that with the arrival of the Budgerigar Master in limited the need for loremasters in the later decades of the Nitenmangrey era, at least in the high court, most towns did not have ready access to a Traveling Budgerigar. While the competition eroded some of the prestige of the profession, loremasters continued to be the key source of collective memory for Ghyllians the Orthagonality over.

In the last several centuries, however, the number of practicing loremasters in Ghyll has sharply declined. Scholars attribute this drop off too the rise of their own craft. The rising literacy rate and the concurrent establishment of organizations designed to preserve the knowledge in the written form -- witness the Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge, the Odlucian Library, and even the Cranee Historical Society. Ironically enough, the vanishing of this ancient craft has lately been subject of a heated polemic in Quester and Phorrus, during the course of which at least one scholar (who shall remain nameless) even attributed the phenomenon to "the feckless factmongering of the sacreligious so-called "scholars" behind the Ghyllian Encyclopedia." Needless to say, the planned entry on the work of said scholar was immediately stricken from the book.

Citations: Algothequinas, Hive-Lord, Wive's Tale

--Lady Aleksandra 22:01, 12 Aug 2005 (EDT)