Building a Mystery

Who was the head?

This was the first, most obvious question in Myth's story, and strangely is also the only one to still elude us. Lets begin our examination of him by taking a close look at everything he did throughout Myth TFL.

In the opening cutscene, we see a Berserk - presumably Truan of the Hundred Battles, whose flavor says he was sent into Muirthemne to retrieve the Light's only hope for victory - recovering the Head from an old city in the desert, presumably Muirthemne.

In the prologue text for "Homecoming", we hear that Rabican defeated Shiver with the advice of The Head, who claims (in various places) to be one of Connacht's lieutenants or avatara, and an old enemy of Balor. Hearing this after already beating the game, you would wonder at the oddity of this, as Connacht IS Balor; or at least, Balor WAS Connacht.

In Tales From Myth The Fallen Lords, Bungie's own authorized Myth comic book, we see this epic battle surrounding the defense of Madrigal and Shiver's fall in action. GURPS Myth explains what we are seeing in the strange imagery here: Shiver warps Rabican's thoughts into a surreal dream world using his Nightmare or Whisper Dream, and taunts him with an image of Moagim, hinting some connection to current events. Rabican then remember's The Head's advice, and somehow stuns Shiver with her own vanity long enough to defeat her.

The Head then sends us to find the Total Codex, as he knows that The Watcher is also going to find it. How does he know this? Some players grow suspicious at this point, and consider: is the Head sending both sides to get it? The ramifications of either side having the Codex are unclear, as the book doesn't seem to be immensely usefull to anyone.

Our next mission comes when The Nine learn that the Dark have learned to use the World Knots. How do the Nine know this? And more importantly, how did the Dark suddenly learn how to use them? (Aside from the fact that Connacht, Damas, Myrdred and all these ancient archmages should have already known). Again, The Head comes into suspicion. The result of this is that The Deceiver can't cross the Cloudspine through the World Knots, and instead has to go through Seven Gates.

Now we are sent to Silvermines, near Seven Gates, where the Deceiver is digging up the Watcher's arm. There are plenty of good reasons why the Deceiver could know where The Watcher's arm is, but how is it that both us and the Watcher find out he's digging it up at exactly the same time? Curiouser and curiouser... Because of this odd coincidence, the Watcher and the Deceiver nearly wipe eachother out in the passes of Seven Gates. Does The Head have something against these two?

Now things start to get really suspicious, when we learn that The Head had sent Alric over the mountains to retrieve a magic suit of armor, which he never found (though it may be the armor Balor wears). But he WAS captured by The Deceiver and interrogated by Balor. (There's the Deceiver again). However, Alric's release was surprisingly easy. Is there any significance there? When he was freed, Alric believed he was betrayed by The Head, and ridiculed its claim of being one of the Avatara of Connacht.

Finally, as Alric and his men made the final push to kill Balor, a civil war erupts in the West as The Nine turn against the Head, but an army of men unexpectedly rise to defend it. Did The Head magically force these men to his aide, or were they acting of their own free will? Either way, the forces of the Light were utterly unprepared when the Deceiver returned to sack Madrigal, though apparently they later beat him back through the Stair of Grief and defeated him there. Yes, The Deceiver again...

So who was that Head, and what was his ultimate goal?

An Alliance With Soulblighter?

It seems just about nobody really came out the better for The Head actions; Shiver was slain, The Watcher was killed by his own bone, the Deceiver was nearly killed at Seven Gates, The Light almost lost their leader (or did they? too easy...). Balor got his head lopped off, through not through any direct Head manipulation that we know of. Soulblighter though...

Consider that Soulblighter was watching you escape with the Codex on Flight From Covenant, but did nothing to hinder your escape. Also consider that the Fallen Lords were supposedly bound to Balor and would lose much of their power when he died; but Soulblighter became immortal by his own means, and was not technically an archmage at the time of TFL (so says GURPS Myth). So he had little to lose by Balor's death.

So what if Soulblighter was in league with The Head? Plotting to have all of his supposed allies, and the Light of course, defeated in the end. First they off Shiver. Then they lead The Watcher to crush the Deceiver, while planting the seeds of the Watcher's own down fall. Then they send Alric off into the desert, where he learns how to kill Balor; which would leave only Soulblighter and a severely weakened Light.

Soulblighter himself seems to have been left without an army though; was he planning for Myth II's war all along, assuming the Light would be unable to rebuild enough to defeat him 60 years later? And this may relate to the Codex mission as well... how did Soulblighter know where to find the Summoner? Perhaps he had aleady read of him in the Codex, and so had the Light keep it from the Watcher.

Or Was He Balor Himself?

Nicholas Jost suggests another theory:

It was always my opinion that the head was Balor's. You'll notice that:

1. Balor isn't shown until the very end.
2. You have to take Balor's head to kill him permanently.
3. The head talks to you while you're on the way to dump it (ala the advice to the nine.
4. Your warned not to listen to it (the head might be *very* convincing hence sparking the war).
5. Only Balor wears armor of the pictured Fallen....so maybe while in the desert the head was looking for his *own* armor.
6. After the desert Alric knows *a lot* about the Head and Balor.

But WightMeat argues:

Ah, but you DO see balor before the Last Battle! Who do you think that fellow standing on the wall in the cutscene before Pools of Iron or River of Blood is? Take a close look at that helmet..Well, it's our good friend BALOR! At the same time, there is an uprising in the east, as told in the intro text to this level. So, how could they be defending something that is firmly attached to someone's shoulders?

Nicholas fires back:

The whole assault happens right around the 19th of July, right? Doesn't it strike anyone as strange that the last date we hear of anything from the head is the revolt which happens in mid May?

This gives Balor's head plenty of time to find it's way back to his fortress. Maybe at the hands of some of the rebels. We have to remember that Alric rejoins the legion after the civil war.

During that period from May till July no one sees or hears of Balor. In fact while the heads around the various fallen have started in fighting. We know that it's happened before but at a time when the light seems to be doing moderately well Balor is blatantly absent. What good general wouldn't keep his troops in line when the enemy is doing well.

Nicholas then further expands on his theory:

It's my opinion that Soulblighter figured out how to get free of Balor's control (which is how he survives Balor's death) and then takes his head and buries it in the desert, hoping his crows finish of the pieces since he doesn't know how to finish him off yet.

Then, oops, the legion finds it. A now pissed off Balor helps the Legion fight his own troops. Again my guess is that Balor still thinks of himself as good (look how he talks about the 'accursed' standard). Alric in his conversations with the head learns both how to kill Balor and in the process gets to wondering if Balor can survive without his head what is this thing?

The head gets nervous that Alric is getting too close and needs some nifty armor that he as Connacht had found earlier (remember he went after all the artifacts in the world) so that he can stomp a now independent Soulblighter later. Alric wises up after the desert and ends up sparking the war as the head makes a last desperate play for power (he may of wanted the legion with him in the lead to stop Soulblighter).

El Light Borus adds even more fuel to the fire:

The head is Balor. I can derail the contradictions first. About seeing Balor in the [River of Blood cutscene], sure that was Balor. Perhaps the suit of armor acted as a body, or maybe Balor's REAL body was in it (explained later). Also, about it being in two places at once, if Alric can teleport himself and many others over long distances, why couldn't Balor take himself around when he knew the suit of armor was found and he felt he had done sufficient damage to the light, he ferried himself over to his fortress.

And also an explanation for the Balor-head's origins:

...I believe that Connacht/Balor was always in search of power, and the Myrkridia simply got in his way. That would also explain his searching the land for ancient relics(perhaps that is how he created the fallen). As for the "if the head was Balor, then why would it be buried in a mountainside?" notion, Balor, in the magical ! suit of armor, probably got his head sliced off in an earlier battle with the light. The man or men's hands into which the head fell didn't know what to do with it, so they buried him in a mountainside. Balor, shaken at his near death, decided to remain in the mountainside and communicate telepathically with the Fallen Lords. The men that got his head were killed soon after the stashing of Balor. That is why you don't see anything referring to that. When he was dug up by the Light, he figured that he could make the best out of it by manipulating the light and telling the Fallen Lords about what was going on. Hence the references to Soulblighter and the head being in league.

WightMeat back up his own position, however:

Okay, here is a very simple piece of evidence that tells that Balor is NOT the head. Look at Balor in the river of blood cutscene. He has LONG HAIR. Look at the Head in one of the missing pregames that was extracted by Myth's Story site or in the opening cutscene. The head has SHORT HAIR. Also, Balor looks different from the head in that Cutscene. I think that the head is the head. I think he might be a dead lieutenant of Connacht. (Perhaps they had a disagreement and he got killed, leaving his head behind. It's buried in the desert for years as punishment, and somehow, Connacht keeps it alive so the head can sit there and think about how it's screwed up. The legion digs it out, and since Balor is Connacht, so to speak, one could see why it would be gung-ho about helping the legion.) Now, why does the head backstay the Legion? Well, if you were a dismembered head, wouldn't you want a body? I bet you would. Soulblighter seems to be the Fallen Lord that is least under Balor's power. I think he and the head cut a deal. The Head makes it so Soulblighter is the only one left standing, and the Head gets a body from Soulblighter. And since Alric apparently used to be at the Devoid, he would have died, leaving no more fallen lords, no more avatara, just Soulblighter.

Good points made for both sides. But one thing punches a big hole in the whole theory:

Alric was interrogated by Balor during his captivity... [The Road North Journal Entry]

Alric was rescued on the nineteenth of November, well before the Head and his civil war. The Nine had no problems with the head until then. But if Balor is The Head, then he would have had to somehow magically get out into the desert and assume some Balor-form that Alric wouldn't recognise him in, hold the interrogation, and get back before anybody noticed he was gone.

But still Nicholas Jost vehemently defends his theory:

I'll submit two possibilities. The first is that we know the head's telepathic. So it wouldn't be necessary for the head to be physically present for the interrogation of Alric. This might have given Alric more clues as to the true nature of the head. The second in a lot of "real" ancient texts if you where speaking to the "king" it may very well have been an official messenger of the king. Tolkien uses this same idea with the Mouth of Sauron in The Return of the King.

The head being Balor solves a lot of problems. Just how on Earth did Alric learn so much after his imprisonment? Why did he have such a beef against the head when other people obviously sided with it? I mean the head could have offered a very rational explanation that he hadn't known about the forces that took Alric captive.

Or Connacht?

DarkSword takes the opposite approaches, proposing The Head is Connacht.

The head is probably that of connacht, the former embodiment of our friend balor... and like any person who is minus one head, the head would like to be reattached to its new body and live a happy life. of course for this to happen it would have to find its way to balor, which as the story is played out never happens. But, through the guises and deception it plants within the plot, I believe its final goal was to live again, as Connacht (albeit a deranged version of the former hero)

Forrest Cameranesi builds upon this concept:

As seen at The Asylum, I think The Head is Connacht. I don't think Balor is really a "bad guy", he's not out to destroy the forces of the Light, he's out to reunite them. When he was killed as Connacht, his body was left in his suit of magical armor in the middle of the Empire of Cath Bruig, and his head in Muirthemne. When Balor comes by and sacks Muirthemne, and then has Soulblighter destroy Cath Bruig and turn it into the Barrier, Connacht's head gets buried under tons of rock and his body is left somewhere out in the Barrier. This leaves us with The Head, and a magical suit of armor. Balor, in his new body, still can talk through his old head, and uses it to set up even-handed battles between the forces of the Light and his undead armies. Why would he do this? Because as Connacht, he rescued the world from impending doom and destruction at the hands of the Myrkridia. But long after he left (died), the good guys started fighting amongst each other (fir'Bolg vs Humans, and so on), so when he returned he had to reunite them again against a common enemy, the undead. So he used his former head to do so. And then, when everyone was weakened, he let himself be killed. Unfortunately, another war broke out over his former head, and now his lieutenant Damas (aka Soulblighter) is attacking them. So, in the middle of the war, I think he'll bring back the Myrkridia to reunite them all once more, and use his former head (The Head) to lead them against this ancient evil. Then kill Soulblighter and live happily ever after. Until the next thousand years...

An interesting thing is long-term consequences of The Head's actions. Connacht imprisoned The Watcher, and The Head apparently orchestrated the retrieval of The Watcher's arm by The Deceiver, and then it's use against The Watcher by The Legion. Connacht wanted to destroy all sorts of powerful artifacts, and The Head had The Light capture The Total Codex, with The Watcher right on their tail, forcing the Narrator to destroy it before it could fall into the hands of the Dark. Perhaps The Head also sent Soulblighter after The Tain, knowing that the Legion would find their way out and destroy it. He started a civil war back in the West, forcing the Legion to go with Alric to kill Balor instead of heading back to Madrigal. Perhaps, as has already been postulated, he also arranged for Alric to have that Eblis Stone, and to defeat Balor. I think this Head guy know more than he lets on. And I don't think he's double-crossing everyone for something as simple as hunger for power; he's a talking head, who has been buried under stone, in the middle of what was once the greatest city in the world, for over a thousand years. There's more going on in this scheme of wars and treacheries and alliances spanning the millenia than petty human emotions.

Or even Moagim?

Browsing through my old archives of The Asylum from Nontoxic, and I found this from Waffle:

The Head is Teirces, hero of the 2nd Age. He is also the leveler, and every thousand years the hero past becomes the leveler. For example, Alric will become the leveler (probably) when the next comet comes if he survives that long. Connacht became Balor because of that, and Teirces became another evil guy because of that. Every age has a leveler, and all of them are supposedly killed, but only they are killed, and the creators of the Leveler make sure he is ressurrected.

And in part of a rather large rant, Pimpy wrote:

Yet another possibility is that the Head was Moagim, but when he was destroyed, the spirit fo the Leveler left him weakened and powerless, so now he is just a talking head, how trite. So with the spirit of the Leveler gone now, he is once again Tireces and fights for the Light, so to speak. But then again this theory has no proven facts and would be almost impossible to prove with the given information so keep in mind this is only speculation.

Any other thoughts on this?

GURPS Myth mentions that the son of Wyrd is named Segoth, and was beheaded by the Dark Gods, his head preserved such that it would live forever and could still speak. This is suspiciously like The Head from TFL. However, when talking about The Head, it mentions that this type of preservation has been done numerous times in the past. Nevertheles, it seems like a very strong chance that The Head is Segoth, Wyrd's son. But still, what was he doing?

Ares says in a recent Asylum post:

This was "Why Moagim = The Head and GURPS is wrong!"

It is a rebuttal to the Head = Segoth theory.

Heh, I get it. So, The Head was a guy with an arbitrarily made up name that was beheaded by entities we've never even heard of in the game. Nice one, gurps. It seems much more logical that it is Moagim... there's a lot more evidence than that one comic. Many levellers have been beheaded before. Indeed we know of none that for sure HAVENT been beheaded...

Moagim was beheaded, DarkSkies, Forrest and myself had an argument about it a while back and we found that the majority consensus was that the practice of drawing and quartering involved cutting off the head...

Seeing as the four body parts were dragged to the four corners of the world, does it not make perfect sense that the head would be in the center, i.e., Muirthemne? That is, if you want to get the body as seperated as possible.

Still-living heads of levellers are gotten rid of in a myriad of ways - and that this particular head just HAPPENS to be buried under Connacht's capital city, Connacht being Moagim's mortal enemy - its a perfectly coherent, logical explanation. The GURPS version most certainly is not.

Son of Wyrd beheaded by "The Dark Gods?" PLEASE. So, Wyrd has less power than Truan, who got him out? Why doesnt Wyrd do anything about his son being beheaded? ("Wyrd killed them, thats why they weren't mentioned in the game!" :P)

I'll tell you what happened. Gurps tried to provide an easy answer to a problem that they didnt want to deal with, so, instead of searching the game for clues like we do, they deliberately made something up that had no references within the game. The only problem is it opens up more questions than answers. I refuse to believe that Bungie did not leave the clues to the identity of the Head in the Myth series and made the player depend on buying a book for an RPG instead - The clues that they left point directly to Moagim.

Or Perhaps a Fallen Lord?

El Light Borus writes:

I realized that only four of the fallen lords are known by name, and maybe a fifth(Bahl'al). I give you the missing Fallen Lord: The Head. It all fits together. The Fallen let it fall into the hands of the light, then instructed the head via telepathy what to do. The head played with the light by sending them after the codex, then had Alric captured. The rescuing of Alric wasn't in the head's plans at all. Through an unfortunate turn of events, the head realized that the light might have a shot at destroying the fallen. So it created a civil war to keep the light from killing Balor.

As for the head and Soulblighter being in cahoots, that may have been the plan all along, that after the dust settled, they would be in charge.

Mark Basset agrees with El Light Borus:

It seems that everyone agrees that the Head was continually trying to bring the armies of the Light and Dark into conflict but what's the point of that? They were going to fight anyway!

The answer is partly that the Head didn't expect the Light to win, and where they did win it wasn't necessarily a bad thing anyway! Yes, the Light did succeed in taking the Total Codex away from Covenant. But if you look at the victory screen you see that they brought it to... the Head! Not only does the Codex end up in the hands of the enemy, but now the Light will trust the Head even more - such as when he suggests Alric go alone into the desert for example... This is why Soulblighter doesn't interfere with the troop fleeing Covenant, he's just there to observe that everything's going according to plan.

I think we can take it that the Light weren't meant to survive at Silvermines though. Overall the Head's plan would be to keep offering the Light good reasons to get themselves killed - "Oh you got slaughtered at Silvermines, never mind here's something else you can try..". Its a very sneaky tactic, perhaps the Deceiver thought of it? That sounds in character, and also explains why the Watcher was fighting the Deceiver at Seven Gates - "Your stupid plan lost me my arm!"

This barely qualifies as a theory, but you could sum it up by saying that the Codex was brought to the Head, so the Light didn't really win at Covenant, and therefore Soulblighter's presence there doesn't have to mean he was in league with the Head, it could all be part of a (the Deceiver's?) master plan.

I personally find it suspicious that the Head wasn't just setting up fights between the two sides, but ensuring they were on equal footing.

On a similar note, I found the following post by Forrest in the archives of the old Nontoxic versions of the Asylum:

I just thought of this while reading the post about Bonesplitter.

What if Bonesplitter is the Head? Okay, first, Bonesplitter was turned from the light. This means that he probably doesn't like Shiver (who we shall assume to the The Voiceless One) and The Watcher because they are both ancient evils. Bonesplitter is also an enemy of Balor because he was good before he got turned.

So Bonesplitter is in a battle and gets his head chopped off. Balor hears that he is dead, and can't communicate with him because Bonesplitter is very weak and buried under a lot of stuff. So Balor thinks that he is dead and doesn't pay any attention to him. This gives Bonesplitter quite a bit of freedom because Balor is no longer looking at his every move.

So the legion finds Bonesplitter's head. Bonesplitter, since he doesn't like Shiver, tells Rabbican how to kill her and tells the legion where the Watcher's arm is. He also sends Alric to get a powerful suit of armor in the desert that will allow him to kill S.B. or Balor. But Alric gets captured by Balor, and Alric is interrogated. Alric tells Balor about the head, and Balor realizes that the Head is Bonesplitter. So Balor quickly regains control over Bonesplitter and makes him sabotage the legion. Alric, who maybe overheard Balor talking about the head, realizes that the head is really Bonesplitter and thinks that he was betrayed. And so the civil war begins. Balor controls Bonesplitter and forces him to fight the legion.

Of course, the above is pure conjecture....

To which Mesklin responded:

As much as I like the idea of The Head being an otherwise unmentioned Fallen Lord, there is a flaw in your theory. You say Balor cut off Bonesplitter's head, and had enough time to bury it under tons of sand and rock, and then forgot about it until the Light found it. This is a span of maybe ten years (the Light don't often go into the Barrier, it may have been longer). By this time everyone would know that there were only FIVE Fallen Lords, not six.

The Anti-Leveler?

Now here's a theory Forrest posted to the Asylum a while back, though he says he can't honestly claim credit to the theory that the the Head wrote the Codex. Unfortunately, he can't seem to find the post of whoever did originate that theory in the archives. But without further ado, here is a repost from the Asylum...

Personally, I think The Head is the one who set the the whole Light/Dark cycle in motion, that he wrote the Total Codex, and that he is a sort of anti-Leveler. That is, he works behind the scenes, manipulating all sides, to make a hero arise from the forces of the Light and defeat the reigning Leveler. I say this because it's the only way I can make sense of The Head's claim of being both a former lieutenant of Connacht and an old enemy of Balor, when Connacht and Balor are one and the same. He manipulated events 1000+ years ago, to eventually bring Connacht to power and have him defeat Moagim. But in the process, taking any means neccesary to bring about the required events, he was seen as double-crossing the Light, just like during Myth TFL. This may be where he lost his body, or perhaps he was already a head then and was simply buried when he turned on Connacht.

In Myth TFL, the Head's actions, while sometimes short-term detremental to the Light, play a vital role in forcing Alric to kill Balor. First thing he does is help Rabican defeat Shiver. This wins their trust, and keeps the Light from being crushed at Madrigal. Then he has us retrive the Total Codex, and coincidentally The Watcher is also there looking for it. This gets the Watcher chasing after us. The Head briefly diverts us to destroy a World Knot, keeping Soulblighter's forces east of the Cloudspine. Now somehow, The Deceiver got wind last summer that The Watcher's arm has been lying around Silvermines. Now that he's finally found it, The Head sends us to grab it. They do. Tharsis erupts, the forces of the Light are washed out of the pass, The Watcher catches up with us and clashes with The Deceiver, and we cross through Seven Gates to clean up their scraps. Meanwhile, The Head has sent Alric to retrive a magical suit of armor in the Barrier, but for some reason Balor is also there looking for it. Alric is trapped, and forces are sent to rescue him. Now we're all on the east of the Cloudspine. We head south to enlist the aid of the Forest Giants, where we have our brief stay in the Tain courtesy of Soulblighter, where we retrive the Myrkridian standard. Then The Head instigates a civil war in the West, forcing Alric and the rest of our forces to head out to kill Balor. On the way we use the Watcher's arm to kill the Watcher, as well as free the Dwarven lands.

Now everything comes together. The Head's civil war has forced us to persue Balor directly; The Head's tip about The Watcher's arm, as well as his tip about the Codex (leading The Watcher and The Deciever together), and his tip about the World Knot (keeping Soulblighter out of it), all allows us to escape east with The Watcher's arm, allowing us to kill him and get to Balor; and finally, Soulblighter's sending us in the Tain (who do you think told him about it?) allows us to have the Myrkridian standard, which Alric uses to finally defeat Balor. All because of The Head.

Mjarin

With the release of Myth 3, the community expected an answer to all the questions left unanswered by Bungie. The hype had built up the idea that Mumbo Jumbo were writing the story with the aid of magical design documents, given to them by Bungie so that anything in The Wolf Age would be the Tru7h.

The fact is, this turned out not to be so true and the infamous design docs were revealed to be nothing more than a pizza box with phrases such as "Small children who save the world are lame" sketched all over it. In other words, there was no bible of Myth lore to speak of and the story resided entirely within the game creators' imaginations.

This was a somewhat major setback to the credibility of Myth 3 and has led the majority of Asylumers to disregard it as canonical evidence for story-related theories.

It is clear, however, that MJ tried to write their game's story so as to reveal all the secrets that had sparked the community's curiosity ever since the release of TFL. I can't help feeling that this was the wrong approach. As Tolkien said about publishing The Silmarillion:

I am doubtful myself about the undertaking. Part of the the attraction of The L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed. (Letters, p.333)

In my view, Myth III revealed all and left nothing but a bitter aftertaste. Nothing to discuss, nothing to hope for, nothing to develop on. "So what does this have to do with the Head?", you ask. Well, in their attempt to tie up all the loose ends, MJ felt compelled to answer the conundrum that has attracted the most attention since people started debating Myth's rich story. Their somewhat plausible answer to this mystery came in the form of Mjarin.

Mjarin was Myth 3's classic evil megalomaniac manipulative bad guy. As chief adviser to the Emperor of the Cath Bruig and High-Master of the Warlocks of Scholomance, he had at his disposal immense power while his hatred for Connacht is instantly apparent in the cutscene following Journey to Llancarfan.

Mumbo Jumbo managed to explain his identity by giving more details to the accounts of the Head in Myth I and II.

"Connacht was the great hero of the Wind Age, who drove the evil Moagim from the earth, and The Head claims to have been one of Connacht's closest advisors during this time."

This was solved by making Mjarin the Imperial adviser who could therefore have been seen as an ally to Connacht in his campaigns to rid the Empire of evil.

"Once Alric even spoke of The Head's defeat by Balor, where it lost its body."

Since Balor and Connacht are one and the same, Mumbo Jumbo's conclusion to Myth 3 explains this, thus confirming the Head's description as "one of Balor's enemies from the old days":

"During the final battle, Connacht's axe had severed the head of Mjarin. Yet, through some dark sorcery, the head refused to die, continuing to spit vulgar curses at Connacht. Mjarin's dream powers had ended, but not his life."

In an attempt to create a sense of uncertainty, the following line is tacked on but we all know what really happens.

"No one can recall the fate of Mjarin's living head"

So, in their attempt to force the cycle, er... I mean, to masquerade as prophets of the Tru7h, Mumbo Jumbo managed to devise a workable solution to a false problem which has about as much value as any 3rd party mod. All the evidence is on the site so if you disagree, feel free to point it out in The Asylum.