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Korbrin Terribluth

Page history last edited by Tim 15 years, 11 months ago

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Korbrin Terribluth

Dark Elemenstor and one of the notorious Twelve Scourges of Battal--and one of the most controversial figures in the history of Battal, due primarily to his heroic deeds as a member of The Forgotten Faction and as the prophesied Taintless Paladin.

Why yes, the appropriate response is "Huh?"

A Tale of Two (or Three) Korbrins

Bad Korbrin

Korbrin Terribluth is not one of the Second Students of Harbinger Portent, but he is responsible for the death of Lady Sporath. At the time of her death she was the consort of Jeremuth Swiftkill, who wielded the Anguished Scimitar of Wrist-Cutting, which was forged around 16,567. Jeremuth, too, met his end due to Korbrin's plotting in the Black Forest of Much Blackness.

Apparently Korbrin was a disciple of Char Reyarteb sometime between 17,904 and 17,910. He disappointed Char in some unknown way (he mentions it only briefly in The Forgotten Faction), causing Char to reject the idea of collecting disciples as Harbinger Portent had done. Korbrin was not heard from again for many years.

Good Korbrin

When he turned up again, it was almost 200 years later--when he joined the Falchion Faction, a loose coalition of powerful interests jointly opposing the Item Law Makers Guild. While no one trusted him completely, the Faction disbanded before he ever displayed any signs of true evil (aside, of course, from his powers of Dark Elemenstation, which everyone assumes is per se evidence of evil deeds).

Multiple (?) Korbrins

Unfortunately, the best reference to Korbrin's character is How to Preserve, for a Number of Years, All Substances Animal and Vegetable, which details his rise to power in the days leading up to the Great Elemenstation War. Although the book is barely legible, it does suggest that Korbrin was granted immortality by Char Reyarteb, but not eternal youth. This backhanded bestowal led Korbrin to perfect the art of preservation, but some of the ingredients used to preserve his flesh apparently caused rifts in his mind. These rifts were compounded by something akin to Brainmanglement Elemenstation, presumably the aftereffects of The Forgotten Falchion.

What complicates How to Preserve, for a Number of Years, All Substances Animal and Vegetable significantly is that it is told from two parts of Korbrin's brain--and the second part tells a different story. It suggests that Korbrin was cut loose from causality by a botched timesorc'ley attempt, and that some other guy named Korbrin is the Taintless Paladin and the hero of The Forgotten Faction. It occurs to Korbrin that this might be some future version of himself, but he can't be sure, because he's not entirely convinced that his mind is or is not damaged in some way. But he's pretty sure that between eating live puppies and making scarves out of crushed kittens, he wouldn't have time for such heroic nonsense. He plays a pretty savage role in the final three books of the Scourges Pentadecaphron.

Korbrin, Yes; Terribluth, Maybe

Finally, we see Korbrin--never referred to as Terribluth--in the epilogue of A New Brother (the main body of which relates the founding of The Cleansers of the Taint in -28,900 TAW). He is portrayed scrubbing toilets, listening to someone in the next stall mutter about the "coming of the new year"--apparently, it is almost 36,000 TE and The Brotherhood War is about to begin again--or, as some of the Cleansers say, after 67,000 years, the war is finally coming to an end. Presumably, this is that same Korbrin prophecied by Phillyan Monger the Taintless to become the Taintless Paladin for The Ending Times.

The Uncertain Future

But is it Korbrin Terribluth? The Korbrin Terribluth Controversy centers around this very question. Some believe that this would be Terribluth's final incarnation--that his "good" side finally conquers his "bad" side. Others argue that this Korbrin is the Korbrin from The Forgotten Faction, that after he becomes the Taintless Paladin he goes back in time and is merely mistaken for Terribluth. It was already suggested by Tycho Brahe that the Brotherhood Octology would be "full of timesorc'ley and crazy people," so the only question is which controls Korbrin's destiny. Further, the controversy suggests that perhaps two Korbrins will battle it out in the end times, each with one of the swords that so influenced their past(s)--the Anguished Scimitar of Wrist-Cutting in "evil Korbrin's" hands and The Forgotten Falchion with "Good Korbrin." This would fit neatly with the vagaries of Hygrad the Mighty's Second Prophecy, but of course the prophecy is vague enough to indicate any number of swords or wielders.

Of course the easy answer would be to wait for the rest of the Brotherhood Octology, but with the recent death of Dan Potter, the future publication status of Brother of Another Druther remains unclear.

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