On Tue, 14 Mar 2006, Ken Koester wrote: > Philip Hart wrote: > > > > >Holding on to it would likely be taken as evidence of being the rightful > >Heir - and having it would go a long way toward holding it, assuming it > >doesn't have a Heir detector, since it's a powerful artifact that makes > >the wielder invulnerable, or nearly. [...] > > No, it simply protects the current Emperor. What it does to/for anyone > else who tries to wield it is anyone's guess. It certainly didn't > protect Adron. I think you're positing a third sort of emperor - Cycle-e, Orb-e (i.e., who the Orb thinks is e), and controls-the-Orb-e (i.e., someone who has hacked the Orb and taken control of all its functions except, presumably, its Heir-detector). This strikes me as unnecessarily complex and fine-splitting. For all we know it may have been trying to protect Adron - e.g. from the spell trying to wrest the Orb away from him.