Temple, The: Formation of the Temple
Meridian on the formation of the Temple - April 23rd, 2001
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Where was Malorn for those 66 years? Well, you will recall that for the overwhelming majority of those years (more than fifty of them) Malorn was trapped on Kierhaven's fragment, because Runegate travel had yet to be discovered.
He spent about ten of those years having the Book of Swords dictated to him by an Archon. The rest of the time he spent getting the word out.
The Articles were written after the first Reunited Synod, when Archbishops of all fragments were finally able to convene with the Patriarch for the first time since the Turning. A Bishop who had "seen the Fire" brought Malorn with him, and the Just One "pitched" his new slant on religion to the assembled clergy.
They found it lacking.
Malorn was declared a heretic, so he promptly went back to the city he'd founded, and there he drafted the Articles as the foundation of his new religion - think of them as a "Declaration of Schism."
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Meridian on the formation of the Temple - August 13th, 2001
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About Caeric... The Paladin never left the High King's service - he wore the title of Champion with pride from the day Cambruin anointed him to the day he died. He had a lot of friends and supporters at court and among the Champions... but he also had more than a few enemies.
The resentment many Knights and Champions felt at not being able (or even willing) to follow this wonder boy's divine example resonate well with the decline and fall of King Arthur's court. That's the tragedy: if you look at Le Morte D'Arthur, who do you find guilty for the demise of all the great heroes? Arthur was mortally wounded by Mordred, a knight of the Round Table. Sir Lamorak and King Pellenore were done in by the Orkney Brothers (Gawaine, Gareth, Gaheris, Agravaine, and the half brother Mordred), and Sir Lancelot killed ALL of them save Mordred. When deprived of enemies to fight and when the only deeds worth doing were simply impossible (the Grail Quest, or the healing of Sir Urry), the Round Table turned on itself.
The same sort of thing happened with Cambruin. I don't think the High King and the First Paladin ever had a falling out, and I'm sure they never came to blows, but I can say with a pretty reasonable degree of certainty that by the end of things there were probably a few issues they didn't see eye to eye on anymore. Add genocide, the conflict between holy virtue and worldly reality, the exhaustion of nearly 20 years of campaigning and Malorn's zeal (if that's the right word for it) to the mix, and you have a recipe for catastrophe.
And that's exactly what they got. Caeric was at Kierhaven, because it was his duty. A better question: why wasn't he fighting at Cambruin's side? If he had been, he surely wouldn't have died (Shadowbane and the King's presence would have borne him through any conflict, or prevented the betrayal that some say did him in). If he hadn't died, odds are he would have been at his King's side, and could have prevented the Turning altogether...
Too bad, really.
