I have enjoyed Nogrod's mod-ship of the game, and I think that it wouldn't be the same if someone other than Nogrod took Athanar's character. So I, too, kind of feel we shouldn't remove him as mod and eorl-player. I think that if there are strong characters and players who are consistent (Elempi, Firefoot, Legate, and I are pretty consistent) it's not a terrible thing if Nogrod isn't ALWAYS about.
I wish we could find a way, though, that would make the new-er players who were integrated with the mod-change feel more comfortable and at home. It is really interesting to me how the occurrences in the story-line are mirrored somewhat here in RL.
Possibly we could take Durelin's suggestion and have someone temporarily take Athanar's character? Just so he can have a presence in the hall, and so forth? I feel confident that in the given scenario, with the formal feast and all, his actions will be straight forward and predictable. (Haha...that's funny..."predictable"...I can never predict Athanar.) I guess so long as no one else does anything out of the ordinary, he'll be predictable.
No other thoughts to offer right now.
-- Foley