In the Lightbringers Quest, the Bad Rain is summoned by all the participants in order to transform the ceremony into a heroquest.
The Bad Rain is the Shadow of Orlanth – the brooding, repressed darkness within Orlanth such as kinstrife, murder, and wanton destruction – and terrible consequences of Orlanth’s deeds. Orlanth conquered the world, but in doing so he let Darkness and Chaos into the world. As the Greater Darkness approaches, Orlanth broods and the Bad Rain comes.In many stories this is linked with the emergence of trolls in the Middle World. When Harmast summoned the Bad Rains in 424, it was easy because “every rain we made was a Bad Rain then.” Angorsk Ig, a son of the Only Old One, was summoned, along with the “red trolls, the ones that came with heat” (Zorak Zoran cultists).The Bad Rain and its monsters attack the ceremony, and it is not uncommon for participants to be killed. Harmast himself killed Angorsk Ig with the Manthi Flints by accident, out of desperation.
When Kallyr began her Lightbringers Quest, she also summoned the Bad Rain, which made manifest all of her subconscious fears and guilt. Many were killed, but the Bad Rain was driven off, and the ritual became a heroquest.
This recognition of the Shadow is key to the Orlanth cults heroquesting and a source of power. This approach was rejected by the Fire/Sky cults until the Red Goddess herself embraced her Shadow as part of her Goddess Quest.
Which ironically means that in many ways the Lunar religion is closer to the Orlanthi than they are to the Fire/Sky cults they grew out of and still dominate.
They’re both “Middle Air” religions aren’t they? You are missing the point. It is not Middle Air but about voluntarily confronting your Shadow.
Is the Bad Rain like a non-chaotic Ragnaglar? Ragnaglar is another. The Bad Rain is Orlanth’s Shadow. And differs depending on who is summoning it. It is perhaps more correct that Ragnaglar is Storm Bull’s Shadow. Storm Bull and Ragnaglar are locked in conflict far more than Orlanth is.
Is Urain is a Chaos personification of the Bad Rain? Urain is not a chaos deity. it was made a Chaos deity as a result of something slipped in a text by someone. Greg’s notes and explanation of what Urain was and served as makes it pretty clear he is not Chaotic.
Is the Shadow is different than the Invisible? as in Xentha is the Invisible of Yelm? The Shadow is a Jungian concept. It represents the repressed unconscious of the person. All the things feared, resented, etc.As the Sun, Yelm cannot see his Shadow until he is extinguished and sent to the Underworld.
Kallyr’s guilts, failures, and fears were great as well and she found it easy to summon the Bad Rain. Her fears of what she was bringing into the world – Darkness, Disorder, and Chaos – were made manifest and needed to be beat off at great price.Two decades later Argrath barely had to twitch to summon the Bad Rain and his heroquest took him deeper than the Underworld.The Orlanthi often say that a hero is made out of their failures, guilt, and fears. Without those, there is nothing to overcome and thus no hero.
This is a key to Greg’s storytelling. His protagonists – Harmast, Argrath, Arkat, the Red Goddess, Sartar, Tarkalor, etc., – all had failures, fears, and regrets that they needed to confront in order to be a hero. And that unconscious Shadow did not cease to exist as a result of the experience, but the hero could coexist with it and was no longer in danger of being destroyed by their own Shadow.In some cases, like Arkat, the confrontation with the Shadow was quite literal – Arkat embraced his own Shadow and became a troll in order to defeat Nysalor.
And we can also see this same thing with Greg’s take on Arthur.
So the question that should be on the mind is what was Kallyr’s Shadow – the embodiment of the Darkness that she has brought, her fears, her failures, and her regrets.
Argrath was able to embrace contradictions – his draconic consciousness is proof of that. Kallyr was literal and unwavering – perhaps that explains her Pole Star connection – which might not be the best approach to take when following in the footsteps of a creative destroyer like Orlanth.