A Three-legged Animal

Iskander: Who is that?

Loki Thorulfsson: The old man? He is the most infamous madman of Gancaloon. The Beggar, or The Seer he is called most often because he prophesies death and destruction on a regular basis. Nonsense of course, but often they come strangely true. Don't ask me how or why.

Is.: I bumped into him back at the harbour and he called me strange names...

L.T.: Well, keep away from him is my advice. He has strange powers and even stranger and powerful friends... I won't say more.

Is.: What's he doing here?

L.T.: He lives here. That old sanctuary is his home. The Guild tolerates him here, and at the same time has a guard for free. He has keen eyes and a mighty voice when roused. Do you know what they call him sometimes? The Three-legged Animal! Ha! Ha Ha!

Is.: ...?

L.T.: You don't you understand? And you are Hellas born, like you told me?

The scene is situated at the heart of a model of the immense Temple of Apollo as it never appeared at Didyma in Turkey, because the original temple was never finished. It took me about six months back in 2004 to build this model, first with Moray elements combined with Wings3D ones, and finally all transposed to Silo2. The separate elements are combined using a POV-Ray macro. As the original building, the model is permanently under construction. The stone floor is another macro available at the POV-Ray Object Collection and also under frequent transformation.

The Sphinx is related to Babylonian/Assyrian and Hittite examples rather than Egyptian or Greek ones. It is a combination of a Poser lion and a (Kelvin) head, done in Silo 2. All human and animal figures are posed with Poser 8, while the clothes were modelled in Silo2. The textures of the stone surfaces are strongly indebted to Old Royal Scot by Sean Day (IRTC July/August 2006).

This is #10 in the Series The Tale of Iskander, formally introducing Loki Thorulfsson and The Beggar.