Ormi Phengaria

With Babeester, I say that you have to have an earthy gender. With Maran, you need not have an earthy gender, but if you have a form of fertility outside of being able to become pregnant, you must give that up to become a god-talker. If you have given that up, but can still bear children, you can become a celibate priestess. This is slightly contradictory, yes, and that is also the point.

After spending the last two weeks in emergency medical responder Chalana Arroy training, I'm pretty sure my entire brain is functioning by acronym now.

The dismemberment-and-scattering approach seems to be done with the knowledge that some deities can't be stopped just by killing them. This was done with the Devil himself, trapped under the Block, to be eroded away for all Time. Arkat replicates it with Nysalor, but, tricky not-god that he is, that seems to have just made Illumination more deeply integrated into the world...

The Goddess called Valare blind or blinded when she made the case that since Innocence was both within the Goddess and the Dara Happan view of Dendara, that the Red Goddess could be worshiped with Dendara rites. Now, just on this surface information, that's a pretty understandable reaction from a deity who, among many other things, represents liberation from patriarchal domination. But it also calls into question the identification of Entekos with Dendara, the theory which Valare sought out on her journey to exonerate and prove.

And the funny thing is that, though Valare tells us that Entekos is Innocence but not the Red Goddess, she never states a firm answer either way on the question of Entekos and Dendara. In fact, throughout almost all of the text, you could easily think that she's actually entirely successful in establishing that Entekos is Innocence, Dendara is Virtue, and that both of them together have inexorable links to the origin of the moon. But the truth she found in Hagu, the truth she believed that the Goddess was imploring her to discover, was almost entirely orthogonal to this moon-theogony.

A more elucidating form of asking this question is why and how the gods who died came back, and what their cycle of life, death, and rebirth means. Ernalda sleeps in death every winter, and Voria is born as spring. The sun sets and rises. These have mundane explanations we can pull from our own experience, but they also mean something more, and that something more isn't just "they were participants in the Great Compromise."

I'm not really interested in in deaths for the sake of simulationism. But risk is fun and warranted. For the most part, if the dice say my any of my player characters should die, they'll get a choice in terms of what kind of consequences to pursue, and what sort of risks will be involved in them however they choose. If I think death is a truly unavoidable risk in a scenario, they'll be getting an advance warning of some kind-- not so much "if you enter that room you are likely to get killed and eaten in your current state" as "this area has man-eating monstrosities in it and even resurrection will be difficult if you perish here."

7 hours ago, Ludovic aka Lordabdul said:

Your reasoning is sound, and that's why I was also confused about what gets turned into Rune spells and what doesn't. Based on other answers I got from Jeff on the same topic, my understanding is that this all must be mitigated by thinking about the archetype of a God and its position in the cosmos. Having an "Orlanth Repentant" (love the name!) sub-cult that offers mediation and reconciliation magic would possibly require Orlanth to become a runner-up in the shortlist of "avatars of the Harmony Rune". This list is already occupied by other gods such as Issaries or Chalana Arroy. That might put Orlanth at odds with those gods (who are his buddies, by the way) or somehow move his role around within the monomyth, and possibly creating an opening for some other god to become the new main Air or Movement (unless Orlanth is "big enough" to add one more Rune to his roster). And I frankly can't really describe Orlanth's and Yelm's agreement to be super efficient and agreeable anyway.

Disclaimer: this is my own interpretation as of, like, two weeks ago. I'm still processing all this stuff and trying to reconcile rules and setting. And yeah despite this I still think Yelmalio should have some sort of resilience/tough-it-out spell -- it would not only fix common player complaints, but (and I'm spitballing here) it might also be linked to the Stasis Rune (which Yelmalio would have to gain), making a lesser-used Rune more useful (please ignore for 5min that Yelmalio is also a star that moves… like I said I’m spitballing)

Regarding the latter point, here is the big issue: Yelmalio is . His "stick-it-outness" does exist; it is . Looking at it another way, you could say that Yelmalio is the undying truth of light. The truth which doesn't succumb to falsehood. The truth which doesn't succumb to darkness. That truth cannot be put out no matter what is done to it, but it's still a truth about light-- it is not a truth about corporeal humans surviving an absolute ass-kicking, even though his worshipers see the events of the Hill of Gold through that lens. Light has many meanings, but that is not one of them.

Orlanth is . The Lightbringers Quest is a deed (several, actually) involving both of these runes. But it cannot be expressed as a rune spell at all, because it is not an expression of Orlanth alone, or even as the Lightbringers alone. Instead, Orlanth is the motive impulse of the Quest, the one who brings about its necessity and the one who resolves to set off upon it to fix the world, and that power does substantially find itself reflected in his rune spells.

As mentioned, the Void is less than nothing. By corollary, it is also more than everything. It is the state of unity between these two ideas.

Chaos emerges from it. You may call it chaotic, from a certain point of view, and this wouldn't be incorrect. But it cannot be reduced to Chaos.

Draconic consciousness seeks ouroboros, often identified as the Void. But it is the identification of the Void with the Primal Chaos which is misleading, if not outright wrong.

It is true. The perspective that creation is ultimately tied to chaos in some manner is also true. Contradictions between Gloranthan perspectives are not usually resolved by ignoring them, but by discovering the means by which they can coexist. That is traditionally the proclivity of the mad and the mystical.

Chaos is oblivion-- it is not merely raw, unfiltered creation tohu wa-bohu, but truly is non-existence. The great transcendent Nothing is like Everything, and is connected to it, but that connection is not itself chaos. This is the first division; these are the cosmic twins, and though like any other pair of opposites they can be reunified, this does not abrogate the fact that chaos is oblivion.

This is the most common and immediate danger of Illumination. It is revealed to the Illuminate that chaos is not inimical to existence, which is true. Oblivion is not inimical to existence, in that absolute beyond the absolute, but this insight is drawn down into the world of time, and engenders the gravely mistaken assumption that oblivion and creation are mutually generative phenomena. They are not. The only thing it can do is make the world less than it is.

And worth noting here: the Void is "less than nothingness."

5 hours ago, g33k said:

The other element to realize, of course -- if we're gonna get all "meta" and Godlearner-y about things -- is that Chaos is actually essential to the world.

And (and here's the kicker) it always has been.  Long before the Unholy Trio enacted their foul rites, before the Gods picked up their strands of Arachne Solara's chaos-binding Net; before even Godtime began:  the world of Glorantha emerged... from Chaos (many say the Darkness was the "First Rune," although some debate that; virtually everyone admits that the First Rune emerged from Chaos however!).

Moreover, Chaos is the raw stuff of creation (as well as destruction, and change/mutation).  Down somewhere in the depths of the underworld is the Chaosium itself, and (as best is known) always has been.  The eternal umbilicus which connects Glorantha to infinite creation and renewal and vitality (and, undoubtedly, less-good stuff as well).

Quote

Before the universe was created, all was Chaos. Do not think from this that Chaos is a necessary part of creation. Lack of Chaos was the necessary part of creation! Chaos had to be peeled away to expose the World Egg. The world existed in its best and most pleasant forms before any Chaos intruded – the Green Age, the Golden Age, even the raw power of the Storm Age, all were spoiled and their works undone when Chaos entered the world. Now, bits of Chaos still remain in our universe in dark corners, like a blood infection that has never truly gone away, like a wound that still bleeds. Chaos is not the antithesis of creation, it is the antithesis of existence. Chaos is oblivion.

As I've been interpreting it, they never really did. The Great God Orlanth is too big for something like that to have any meaningful impact, at least without the culmination of many years of intense magical effort, such as with the Temple of the Moon Victorious. But Orlanth Rex, a very specific subcult with a very small membership? That could be done. After all, it's just a means for the barbarians to elevate themselves into the ranks of civilization, and the Empire can provide them something much better. What could the mythic consequences possibly be? Heheh.

1 hour ago, Storm Khan said:

Because in their parent's lifetime, the occupants of Dragon Pass have been subject to a campaign of Genocide - The Great Winter - by the Lunar Empire.

The Great Winter wasn't a genocide. They didn't even intend on its occurrence, and they suffered by it just as much as everyone else. There would be heated debate over the causes. By 1626, Lunar culture and belief have a foothold in both Sartar and Esrolia— these people are quite often your neighbors and extended family. Consequently, the only people really looking to spark open conflicts are the fanatics, the opportunists, the people with deeply personal grievances. Movers and shakers. And even then, they'll be targeting the actual pertinent enemy: the Imperial apparatus itself. Sometimes this spills over into targeting the Cult of the Seven Mothers, but the idea that lynch mobs are prowling about looking for the Wrong Kind of Theyalan doesn't seem very tenable to me.

On 7/27/2019 at 6:26 AM, Nevermet said:

Another idea: just as Gerra's Pyramid descends, so does the Black Mountain of GanEstaro and Vogestes.  The Black Mountain, therefore, is not a mountain at all.  It is, in fact, Natha's Well, the great bog of sacrifice.

Those Empty Mountains really know how to sneak up on you, huh? Watch the last step— it's a doozy!

Illumination allows the Illuminate to overcome their own nature. That includes natures traditionally considered to be disposed to corruption and evil, e.g. that of Broos. The Lunar Way offers this to many creatures ruled by such instincts. But redemption comes with a lot of extraneous moral baggage. Illumination cannot, at its base, provide for the absolute condemnation of moral evils. And in many ways Illumination, at least in the Rashorana-Osentalka tradition, encourages you to readily utilize what others call evil in order to accomplish your goals. Illumination is surprisingly negativist in that way; it doesn't provide you with good reasons to do anything, it just removes the constraints you were artificially imposing upon yourself. Your goals could be quite noble ones; maybe the ends justify the means. But are these necessary manipulations, sacrifices, abuses, and atrocities? Or just an unspeakably hubristic way of making the world unnecessarily shitty? Maybe a bit of both.

Umatum was an utuma.

On 6/26/2021 at 9:13 AM, Eff said:

I think my assumption is that it gets more difficult to breathe when you climb a high mountain and only devoted members of Air cults can really counter this, for themselves and possibly for other people. The explanation for this (perhaps the air becomes too pure for ordinary humans to safely breathe, or perhaps each "band" of air, Lower, Middle, and Upper gets thinner at its edges (and thus it becomes difficult to breathe if you go deep underground, too) before thickening as you pass into the next layer. But the mythical explanation is almost ancillary.

If the Lower Air is the air of the surface world, which everyone breathes, and the Middle Air 'proper' is the air of storms and gale-force and heavy clouds, then it seems possible that in climbing the peaks of the highest mountains in the world (and ascending beyond the clouds) one actually begins to leave the Middle Air and become closer to the Sky, if never reaching it fully. That would account for the loss of one's breath... and I imagine it could seem as though the stars and planets were getting closer.

The irresistible storm pulling the air from your lungs to join it is also pretty compelling imagery, though, but I think that would have to be overtly rather than suggestively supernatural-- clear airs of mundane high mountaintops aren't really "stormy" enough for that.