How did the Red Court Originate?

[kbrizzle]

@ Yuillegan
Fair enough about Raith Sr.’s age, although if Raith is indeed the progenitor of the entire White Court, why do other Houses like Skavis & Malvora even exist? It’s not like there were Ramps who didn’t drink blood (the ones who were able to refrain were only half-turned).

It would make more sense that the Whamp Elders like Lord Skavis, Lady Cheserina & Lord Raith were the Whamp version of LoONs to the actual progenitor (who is likely dead or ‘contained’).

[Yuillegan]

Kbrizzle - I am not married to the idea of Lord Raith being the progenitor. I like your analogy about the LoON to the Leaders of the Houses. Fits as well as anything else. Although it doesn't explain why the Red and Black Courts.

[Con]

Keep in mind that Lara and Thomas are both venatores which basically makes them enemies of most elder God's like the LoON. Hell they even tried too take out the get despite Winters importance of the Outer Gates.

[Yuillegan]

LoON are not in fact, Elder Gods. They are hinted at being very old Vampires feeding on some other dark gods that they imprisoned. They did probably not knowing Winter's importance...although one wonders if that would even have stopped Winter fulfilling its duties. Hampered certainly, as they would be limited in replacing troops, but they could just continue operations from their side of the Never-never.

[kbrizzle]

@Yuillegan
I’ve already stated my theory on the origin of the vampire courts - I believe that whoever created them had an agenda of subjugating humanity & tried a couple of different techniques in different parts (Whamps in Europe & Ramps in South America) of the world to see which one works better.

We know that the Blamps were created by Dracula in an attempt to impress his father, Drakul - this makes Drakul the likely candidate for creating the other 2 courts. How else would the statement about Dracula make sense?

[Arjan]

LoON are not in fact, Elder Gods. They are hinted at being very old Vampires feeding on some other dark gods that they imprisoned. They did probably not knowing Winter's importance...although one wonders if that would even have stopped Winter fulfilling its duties. Hampered certainly, as they would be limited in replacing troops, but they could just continue operations from their side of the Never-never.

Directly contradicted by vadderung himself in Changes:

"What you must understand is that you face beings such as I in this battle."
I frowned. "You mean . . . gods?"
"Mostly retired gods, at any rate," Vadderung said. "Once, entire civilizations bowed to them. Now they are venerated by only a handful, the power of their blood spread out among thousands of offspring. But in the Lords of Outer Night, even the remnants of that power are more than you can face as you are."

The mayan gods still have a considerable following but as far as I know do not get human sacrifices anymore.

[Yuillegan]

Arjan see the parameters papers for what I am referring to.

They are God's, but not Elder God's. A small but important distinction. They inherited their power from the real thing, and usurped their position.

[morriswalters]

Are the Paranet Papers canon?

[Arjan]

Are the Paranet Papers canon?

Depends who you ask. I see them as valuable but not necessarily true. They are basically stories written down by Harry's friends. The story about the red courts origin might not be true.

[dspringer1]

We know very little about the origin of Red Court.

We know the original group of red court vampires was very small - but not one person.  It was stated that most of the red court was descended from the Red King, but clearly some were "not of the blood".  Although I suppose there could have been an originator red court vamp that died and his first children split into bloodlines.   Hard to tell. 

We know from the statements of Karin when a Knight (aka - an archangel speaking using her voice) that the Red Court in some way usurped the true gods who once operated in this area.   Not clear if they seemly assumed the identity or consumed the old gods or something else.  But whatever they did really pissed off the archangel. 

It is not clear if individuals closer (blood wise) to the Red King are more powerful than vampires with more intermediate vampires in their bloodline (aka - more generations in between).   All we know is that the Red King was the most powerful of the Red Court Vamps.   

We know that older vampires sometimes lose control as it was stated in changes.  Presumably this puts some cap on the max possible age of a vampire before they lose control.  But details were pretty skimpy.

We have the WOJ that speaks to the origin of the red court, but that is more allegory than something filled with specific details. 

[morriswalters]

We know from the statements of Karin when a Knight (aka - an archangel speaking using her voice) that the Red Court in some way usurped the true gods who once operated in this area.   Not clear if they seemly assumed the identity or consumed the old gods or something else.  But whatever they did really pissed off the archangel.

Not quite.

“False gods!” she cried, her blue eyes blazing as she stared at the Red King and the Lords of Outer Night. “Pretenders! Usurpers of truth! Destroyers of faith, of families, of lives, of children! For your crimes against the Mayans, against the peoples of the world, now will you answer! Your time has come! Face judgment Almighty!”

By the text  the Red King was the progenitor, otherwise the bloodline curse wouldn't have exterminated the Reds to a monster.  JB goes all Abrahamic  with that bit.  The White God is a jealous God.  However it may be that the Lords of the Outer Knight themselves would have survived the curse had they survived Lea, et al.

[Arjan]

Not quite.By the text  the Red King was the progenitor, otherwise the bloodline curse wouldn't have exterminated the Reds to a monster.  JB goes all Abrahamic  with that bit.  The White God is a jealous God.  However it may be that the Lords of the Outer Knight themselves would have survived the curse had they survived Lea, et al.

I do not take the words of an archangel necessarily as truth either. They run on stories and human belief as well and this is the truth as they believe. It is what they are expected to say about any other active god they are not ignoring. You can not expect them to say yes X is a valid god as well be happy worshipping him.

[Yuillegan]

Well Jim says its canon. So we actually have WOJ that the Dresden Files RPG is essentially canon, and so the Paranet Papers fall under that umbrella. Like all the associated Dresden Files works, there is some misinformation and half-truths, mostly on account that Jim has more books to sell and doesn't want to ruin the whole thing.

As for words of an Archangel being truth - WOJ is that Uriel whispering seven words to Dresden was truth on a cosmic level at the end of Ghost Story. We also know that they have Intellectus which is defined as having all of reality present to the being with Intellectus, they merely have to ask the question to know the answer. They don't seek knowledge as such. But cause and effect are tricky for them because of that, because Time isn't linear for them either. So yeah Uriel may be somewhat changed by human belief in each universe he appears in, but the being that exists everywhere that is called Uriel in the Dresden Files universe is absolute. The WOJ is that it is NOT the beings themselves that change, but OUR understanding of who and what they are.

Kbrizzle - I agree with your theory mostly. I 100% agree that the Vampires Courts creation were multiple attempts at something, and I would bet that Drakul is behind it all (I even think I posted a theory on this a while back...). I must admit when I wrote my post I was half-asleep so that sentence on the end doesn't make sense, and I cannot remember really what I was meaning to say. I think if each Court of Vampires has a sort of LoON type group (Lord and Ladies of the Houses in White Court, Elders in the Black Court, probably something similar in Jade) then I agree it stands to reason the Lord Raith is likely NOT to be the progenitor. It would be interesting to find out what happened to the original White King (can someone ask Jim at the next con or whatever?)

Dspringer1 - what is the WOJ you are referring to?

[kbrizzle]

Not quite.By the text  the Red King was the progenitor, otherwise the bloodline curse wouldn't have exterminated the Reds to a monster.  JB goes all Abrahamic  with that bit.  The White God is a jealous God.  However it may be that the Lords of the Outer Knight themselves would have survived the curse had they survived Lea, et al.

I think Murphy’s angel-possessed quote is supposed to be taken in the sense that the Red King & LoONs murdered & fed upon the actual deities present in the area (per Paranet Papers) - in this sense, they are not true gods (even though they demand to be worshipped as such) - just parasites who killed their host & took a portion of their power.

After all, I don’t think Uriel would call Odin or Hades a ‘false god’...

@Yuillegan
There is a quote from Ebenezer in BR when he admits to Harry that he was Maggie Sr.’s mentor & about being Blackstaff etc. where he tells Harry that Lord Raith’s ability to shrug off magic is what elevated him to the White throne - this implies that he wasn’t always the White King & may only have become King in the last few centuries.

It also seems like every court has Elders, the LoOns were just the Ramp version.

[g33k]

The mayan gods still have a considerable following but as far as I know do not get human sacrifices anymore.

I'm pretty sure that in the Dresdenverse, the LoON's get both human sacrifice (in ritual, magically-empowering ways) and regular Ramp-bloodsucking.

Or they did, before the end of Changes.