Berra’s Meditations on Truth

Context

After failing to inspire herself with her Truth rune at the rededication of a temple of Humakt, Berra began to meditate on it more. The questions she posed for herself kept her occupied on the long road she later walked.

Failure

Truth. Truth is two things coming into one thing. The false is elimina—- damnit, the Duck is snoring!

Drawn the other way, truth is a stable support for all other things. How in hell does he get his head under his wing, but still sleep with his hand on his sword.

Sometimes I don’t tell the truth, but hiding a thing can be good. I don’t tell cult secrets. But the secrets are always there, and always true, and I don’t tell lies.

sigh Right. Clear the mind.
duck snore
Clear the mind more…

No…. Two questions – what is truth, and why did I fail. Those two pass into one.

Maybe… maybe I thought of them both as the two things, but they are both Humakti. Both not false. DAMNIT.

Pause

I could kill Orlanth and send him to hell!

Meditation

I called on the Rune in the same way. It was the same thing, but it seemed wrong. False. Maybe we learn in understanding and as more is revealed we know more, but is the truth not unchanging? How can my certainty be uncertain? It must be me who has changed. Berra, made of water.

Maybe it was an omen. The Home of Death and the Sword of Death. Each should be a protector of the other. Of course the truth rune was important. It was showing me that.

Journey to Y

I do not know Truth, but I know a thing that truth is not. The torch is not fire or heat. It represents knowing the way. The top can hold any holy thing high to be seen, but it itself can also be seen and show the way. Drawn upwards, the rune can be both a perfect support for what is above, and a representation of the journey, the crossroads, and a moment of death. A thing, once killed, can never be the same. At the moment of twining this split happens between what could have been, and what is. The thing that is, remains the truth.

Drawn downwards, this is the two-become-one secret, where two things that are thought to be are shown, and one is found to be. A dead thing can never be alive, but a living thing is not dead, and the Truth reveals it.

Drawn as a V with a support added later, Truth represents a form of support related to stasis, but around which movement is possible. It is then a roof-tooth in a cave, and living beings can move among them. It is the pillars of the universe.

Light without light, it tells us where we are in the darkness, and how to move. It lets us know, but it does not warn our enemies. Praise Humakt, for it they used it also, it would break.

Drawn as a support first, the top takes a pause to consider that it is not completed with fire or heat but with various permutations of division and unity. One line, bent or broken. Two lines. Each with their own meaning.

Drawn as a short line and then a long, broken one it may be considered the deflection of a shield. Truth is a shield against calumny, slander, loss of reputation.

A long, bent line and then a dart coming out of it is how Truth is used in a question. It flies out from its home to wound the liar.

Three lines drawn together to a point, one coming further, is the sign of justice looking at all parts, while if they radiate out it is truth going to all people.

Three lines coming inward. It is justice if people are using the truth for that. More generally, it is a guard against the world. Truth does not care which direction you are looking. It knows where all things are.

Truth is the same regardless of who is looking, or which way they face.

Truth is a tool for looking. Humakt looks into the void to know when the coming darkness will rise. If he had kin, he might falter in that eternal task.

Truth is Eternal.