[cyclopean]

Does anyone know what happened to Liam O'Connor/why he disappeared in 2042? (he was the first president of Tir na nOg, as well as a founder of the Tir republican corps, and a spike baby). I have a new player making a Tir elf/TRC vet, he's joining a group about to head into the Boston QZ, and wants to have a backstory/quest that he's investigating O'Connor's long-unsolved disappearance, and seeing if the Knights of the Red Branch were involved. If there's an official answer as to what happened, it would be cool to know, otherwise i'll just make something up!

[Mirikon]

Nothing that hard to figure out. Liam may have been a spike baby and the first leader, but he wasn't an IE. Look at who benefits, and you'll see who the likely suspects are when a political leader is 'disappeared'.

[MijRai]

There's nothing saying he wasn't an Immortal Elf, however.  Look at how many Tir Tairngire founders/princes turned out to be of that stripe. 

That said, I've always leaned on him backing out of the limelight and moving into the shadows, working clandestinely to cover the Tir. 

[cyclopean]

Cool, thanks!

[Tarislar]

There's nothing saying he wasn't an Immortal Elf, however.   

Was he the child of one of the Immortals?   
Because otherwise its pretty unlikely that he was Immortal.

I mean, maybe some long dormant blood lines of offspring from millennia ago could exist, but that doesn't make him one.

The other founders were IE, but, they had been around all that time & had slipped back into society & were moving & shaking the formation of the Tir from inside & used him as a figurehead since he had a nice public, traceable background.  No one looks too closely at the rest of them & just assumes they are normal young elves.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Not ... necessarily.  Remember that the other Tir had at least three IEs spearheading its formation, with at least two of them being out front and everything; that doesn't mean O'Connor couldn't have both been the tip of the spear AND an IE who went underground afterwards.  It's somewhat understood that Brane Deigh is an IE, so ...

It is possible that O'Connor was Brightlight, though.  (Hiss, hiss, spit, hiss.)

[Rosa]

Brightlight doesn't strike me as someone WHO would buy into the Whole idea behind the Tir, not if you look at the information ( what Little of it there is ) we have on him, i mean with his project about creating a Kaer for all the artists and scientists and all that, an not only the elven ones. He always struck me as more of a loner, not unlike Harlequin, but with a quite different set of ways of doing Things.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

On the contrary - he's a geek who is desperate to gain approval from everyone who he thinks of as being important, which is why he runs to bloody frickin' everyone to show them the neat shiny thing he just made.  The main issue is that he's also a geek - i.e. he can work wonders, even in the sociopolitical realm, but once the wonder is worked, he has no bloody idea what to do with it.   If O'Connor was Brightlight, then Tir na nOg got hijacked out from under him - which seems to fit the track record we've seen.

[Rosa]

Well it's a big blank WHO O'Connor really was, so if the individual GM thinks that Brightlight fits the bill, then by all Means. I However do not see him in that role for the reasons i stated above. I do agree though, that IF he had been involved in the creation of the Tir, some of the more politically savy elves would have "stolen" it from him.

[Osentalka]

I've always believed that Liam O'Connor was a physical illusion of some kind created and controlled by Lady Brane Deigh.

It was just a way for her to work towards her goal of setting up Tir na Nog by coopting the Irish Nationalist political process.

Once she had gained enough power the illusion was simply dropped.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

That's ... an intriguing idea.  I kind of like it.

[Osentalka]

It's the way he appears as a bridging character between the emerging elven aristocracy and the Irish political scene, and then when that's no longer important he just disappears.

It's way too convenient, if he hadn't existed someone would have invented him...

[Rosa]

Intriguing indeed. However i think it's more likely that someone pulled the same stunt that Ehran did back around the formation of Tir Tairngire, when he used magic to assume a different identity, became influential in the NAN, supported the formation of Tir Tairngire, disappeared, reappeared under his own identity and became one of the Princes.

The Whole thing seems somewhat similar now that i think about it.

About Lady Brane Deigh, i've always thought that she was considerably younger than the others ( maybe even comparable to Frosty ) and that the reason she was chosen as the Queen of the Seelie Court was because she was the one choice that the others older and more powerfull could actually agree on. Especially the way she is portrayed in "Worlds without end" maes me think this, because both Harlequin, Aina and Alachia seems to treat her somewhat as the youngster WHO doesn't know all the Things they do.

In conclusion i find it quite likely that Liam O'Connor was a made up character, but not made up by Brane Deigh, but rather the more shadowy true powers that be in Tir na Nog.

[Osentalka]

Brane Deigh's an IE isn't she? Lady of the Court. For some reason I've got her pegged in my mind as a 4th Worlder but born after the Scourge, so younger than the likes of Harlequin and Alachia. How she acts and what she wants make me think she must have experienced the original Elven Court.

It's kind of why I assume she's the ultimate power behind TnN and Liam is at most her agent.

[Rosa]

I don't think she's ever been confirmed as a 4th worlder, and as i said the way the she acts in "Worlds without end", she seems to have most of her information about anything really from the likes of Alachia. Thus i've always seen her as a 6th worlder IE, WHO has been tutored in the old ways, or at least in the old ways that people like Alachia and the other old IE's in Tir na Nog felt that she needed. It is very clear though that there are huge holes in her knowledge.

In my mind i've always thought that she was as i said a compromise because she isn't dangerous to any of the really old ones, so essentially they reestablish the old ways ( Elven Court, path of the Wheel..etc. ) but without loosing much of their own power because of a strong queen like back when Alachia held the Throne before the scourge. Alachia's history though also explains why there would be strong forces in the Tir, WHO would rather see anybody else on the throne than her. However it is clear that she has wormed her way into the circle of power by acting as Lady Brane Deighs personal tutor and advisor, which Again shows Brane Deighs inexperience i think, as anyone with direct 4th World knowledge would be extremely wary of Alachia ( Blood Queen and all that ).

But Brane Deigh as a considerably younger 4th worlder than the others could be a possibility as well, i am still leaning towards the version of her a 6th worlder personally though.

The problem is of course, that while we know quite a bit about the IE's behind Tir Tairngire ( some of them at least ), we don't know all that much about the ones behind Tir na Nog. Though i seem to recall from the old Tir na Nog sourcebook, that even amongst the Danaan families, there are some families, that are considered more important, the Danaan Mor if i recall correctly. My bet is that at least the Danaan Mor families are founded by an IE. Which would mean that there's maybe a bit more but at least the same number of IE's in Tir na Nog as in Tir Tairngire