mfbrandi

minus = zero, the Void, — how could it be otherwise? If we then take @Joerg’s ideas about Kargan Tor’s desertion and being his own guard, perhaps the Spike/Void switcheroo was KT conspiring at his own full manifestation — no one wants to be the bomb that doesn’t explode. KT then becomes “the second and final death” — not separation, but annihilation. Is there enough truestone to rebuild the Spike, or did most of it just go poof, leaving Nothing in its place? On the tired principle that things get less impressive with each generation, Humakt might then be “the second-rate, not-so-final death” — mere separation of body and spirit, which each carry on and may even rejoin in odd ways or gain new partners. Humakt as the opener of the way for Vivamort and the sordid practices of afterlife, resurrection, and reincarnation. But … we should take seriously both the idea that Humakt = (that H is no mere office holder, as Reagan was the president) and the Sword broos’ proclamation of Humakt as the primo Lord of Terror. Humakt = KT = Terminus = the boundary = the end. K–T boundary? K–T extinction event? So why “Humakt” at all? Well, you can imagine how popular KT was after vaporising the Spike. He was in need of a new career in a new town, so he cooked up the dead-but-not-really schtick and appointed Vivamort as his official nemesis. They meet in Soho’s French House monthly to discuss PR strategy and photo opportunities. One of the new wave boys Same old thing in brand new drag Comes sweeping into view As ugly as a teenage millionaire Everything new is old, again. As for the names, who knows which came first: did they dream up “Humakt” for New Improved Death, or was “Kargan Tor” retrofitted to allow Death to disown some past deeds when convenient? So if @scott-martin has problems finding the followers of KT … [This extravagant mess leans shamelessly on the supposed non-sequential nature of Godtime: never let time get in the way of a “good” story.]

The quest to revive Ernalda = the quest for spring/sea season = the quest to bring back the sun/Yelm. Orlanth is happiest when his wife is dead (he didn’t even notice she was missing) and his cold winds are blowing in the dark of winter/storm season, no? The lads’ handshake version of the myth has Yelm saying something like, “OK, you can have your precious gods’ war back every year, but it ends at sacred time. Why couldn’t I have been dealing with Brian Wilson? He would have settled for endless summer fire season.” I have never bought into the negotiated peace version of the story. I have a more cosmos-emerges-from-chaos-but-cannot-truly-escape-from-it take on time. 😉

Death was given a “guard” only to get Trickster to steal it — wouldn’t even have found it without the person in the hi-vis breastplate holding the glow stick spear posted there. Who posted that guard? Trickster’s future self playing a long and looping game?

Conspiracy or chemistry? Interestingly — perhaps! — the “Lunar” crops of maize, potatoes, and rice (they are also fond of onions and berries, remember) have coloured forms which contain anthocyanins which “change from red in acids to blue in bases through a process called halochromism” (Wikipedia). More acid → more Sedenyic; even her enemies agree. Red cabbages, blood oranges, blue tomatoes … The White Moonies know that anthocyanins are “colourless in very alkaline solutions, where the pigment is completely reduced” (ibid). I sometimes wonder whether the white or 4th Age “invisible” moon is simply the sun — so-called “father” ousted, and the Goddess embodied in something which should be safe from those meddling Orlanthi. Although, the mad bastards just might do it again.

Or the None Ø and Chaos if we follow the Old Testament: Others claim this to be the first of the Runes, citing the separation of the world from Chaos as the first action in creation. — RQ2 Classic, p. 58 Or we might see as Terminus — boundary, limit, end — which might include dividing lines but leave actual fission to . The point is not to decide but to call into question — nothing more — the opposition of and thought of as coming together and splitting apart, respectively. I should probably crawl back into my barrel, now. 🎼 Love, love will tear us apart … again 🎶

What is without division: meiosis (reductional division), mitosis (Xerox), and the separation of mother from child? There is more to it than the combination of fertilisation. We could keep as separation: Mallia’s “death” rune is not a late acquisition but essential to her being a fertile goddess. Celibate and contrarian sects say that Uleria is the herald of the World Gorp: one cell which will incorporate all of creation; one cell with but one thought … or more likely none. On this view, is the separation of truth from falsity, and is the collapse of the ability to make the distinction, the rune being built from and its inversion (i.e. contradiction). They are never invited to weddings. They seldom wash.

Given that they use it to make gunpowder, are you sure you want to encourage them?

Is it not rather something people love to argue about? Adam Roberts (here) would seem to fall into the camp that finds against Tolkien, and some defences of Tolkien have it that his dwarfs were not always and were never in all ways to be read as Jews, for example Renée Vink (here — needs access to Muse). I am neither a fan nor a scholar — for me, LotR was unreadable — so I couldn’t comment, but some things are simple: No more Jewish dwarfs — enough already! “Positive” stereotypes are cringeworthy, too. The Jewish–Scottish switch fools no one. In the words of Arnold Brown, “I am Scottish and Jewish — two stereotypes for the price of one.” “Less anti-Semitic than Wagner” is not something to put on one’s CV.

The HQ Pavis: Gateway to Adventure (ISS2004) mentions sewers a few times: the original sewers were made from the faceless statue’s “bowelstones” (p. 30) The great drain (New Pavis) is rumoured to be used by thieves and the Black Fang (p. 154) Geo’s New Pavis Inn may have secret tunnels to the sewers (p. 201) Smugglers have a krarshtkid tunnel to the New Pavis sewers (p. 358) I think that quick summary is about right. So all your thoughts seem to be correct, but that doesn’t really get you any further. 😉

Well, the goldeneye is not just a bird but a duck, Bucephala clangula. What could be more Gloranthan than that? Alexander’s thoughts on the matter are not, I think, recorded.

Jar-eel the Razoress can be difficult to get a handle on. Rather than think of her as a heroine, it might be easier to think of her as the Moon Goddess incarnated in the world … But … Jar-eel is a mortal woman. — Jeff Richard That is, she is the Goddess when she comes down — crosses over — an avatar. Jar-eel is the saguna (with qualities) expression of the nirguna (without qualities). But — pace Musil? — nothing is without qualities. Nothing stands behind Jar-eel to authenticate her. Nothing. The light and dark of the Moon: being and nothingness. And that is fine, you think, for the this-world expression of a Chaos deity. But isn’t that how it is for every manifestation of the divine? The White Moonies are having none of this cant. The saguna obscures the nirguna. The Invisible Moon is coming. Everything must go. You know this might get messy — Godwhacker’s on the case.

[See the discussion of the stranger at the hearth here and following.] Long ago but only a few streets from here, a holy woman in rags — with half a skull for a begging bowl — buttonholed me: No! No! No! It is not that guests are sometimes divine. Guests are always divine. And it is transitive: the host hosts the guest and the guest hosts the deity, so the host hosts the deity, too. This is true for every guest–host relationship: it is sacred. We all know this. But tell me, young one, how are we to understand it? In Time — they invented capital letters just for that, you know — it is impossible for guests to be immortal pseudopods pushed through from some otherworld. [She wiggled her fingers … obscenely?] “The Compromise forbids it,” we are told. [She sneered.] A guest’s body is a mortal body, and the timeless may not act upon it — for that which is outside of time cannot act, at all. There was no time before time. There is no realm beside time — what nonsense! That which cannot touch us may as well not be there. Do we begin to have a glimmer of something, eh? Does it slip through our fingers, little one? [That wiggle again.] And that is the mystery — of Malkion? Daka Fal? Our Lady? »Hah!« — a liminal figure standing between what is (the mortal world, time) and what is not (the divine, the void) and partaking fully of each. As do we all, my child, as do we all … Where does the sun go when it sets, stripling? I tell you that time passes for the sun while we are in the dark. The land of the dead is not separate from this world, and youngster … I fear that it is empty. As my hairs grey and come in thinner each year, I think of this meeting more often. I wonder what is lost and what spurious matter added in each rehearsal of it. I cannot shake the feeling that it was a meeting with myself, that I shall some day turn a corner to find a young boy whose eyes say that he has been expecting me.

Do people do that? (People to the left of Frank Miller, I mean.)

Imagine a fake-tanned Orlanth with Yinkin perched on his head whining, “I brought back the sun and they indicted me.” On the other hand, it has been argued that Danfive Xaron stands for Orlanth — so maybe the Lunars think the Orlanthi can be redeemed.

Specifically — Asrelia’s dice monkeys tell me — the middle result (median) of three dice. As you add more dice, you get bell-like kinks. This underlines the long-known connection between and (which has the same components as ). Sorcerers who insist that the Invisible God doesn’t play dice are trying to have the casinos shut down. Somewhere, nuns are rolling (un)holy knucklebones. Enough tosses, they say — nine billion, perhaps — and the universe will ring at its resonant frequency … and shatter.

What if — per the panel — they have all gone to the Moon, stored inside like Kinder Surprise toys? They might be “coming home” a lot sooner than planned, but in what condition? Two scenarios for the raptured at Argrathmageddon: They come tumbling out of the middle air with the Moon fragments, and at ground zero they alone are unharmed — but are they delighted to see the corpses of unbelievers or puzzled to see a hell at the end of its useful life rather than a paradise? The ultra-secret and super-sensitive function of the dragons is to dispose of the saved, for they are too smug to be allowed their escape, which had been clogging up the life–death cycles of the world, anyway … and so Argrath finally gets a motivation we can understand. [Soundtrack by WSB/Material, of course.]

This elf — played by Guy Pearce — burned down their own forest?

Welcome to the hive mind, @Ynneadwraith. Once you have learned to float above the pointless arguments — and I am sure you’ll pick it up much quicker than I did: I am a construct of very little RAM — it can be a fun place. Because it is good to have gaps left for us to make forays into ourselves, rather than turning the already dense palimpsest into a black page? Not that I think that is the reason, of course: I suspect that somewhere along the line, some of the creators drank too deeply of the Orlanth–Ernalda Kool-Aid. There is probably some tension between passionately filling in the detail of an “invented world” and providing just enough detail to prompt us to exercise our own imaginations, no? So relish the bits Chaosium cannot be bothered with — they are yours. Sure, you can vary your Glorantha, anyway, but it is probably easier to recompose and improvise on I Got Rhythm than to attempt that with some bit of late Webern, no?

… I don't think that Illumination has such an effect. The sang froid of the illuminate, perhaps: “If you can meet with and / And treat those two impostors just the same.” Mostly, I just shrug at any “because illumination” explanations, excuses, or whatever. I am sure I will never grasp exactly what the designers mean.

Or more generally *nucleic acid, and Krarsht’s “twin sister” gives us the other metaphor. The Devouring Mother has an interest in viruses, too. Plausibly, both are interested in dematerialisation — do more with less! Perhaps, as the Buserian–Lhankor Mhy thread suggests, counting gods is a fool’s game. No entity without identity?

Don’t these two go naturally together? No innovation without novelty, and if you keep experimenting, sooner or later something will blow up in your face. Leaning into this gives them some of the charm of the Godlearners and the Lunars. Beats the hell out of yet another cattle raid and the conviction that 15% = none. Does this mean that the Orlanthi are “code” for the people of the good old US of A? Combine conservatism and innovation, chin up, and push on to the far shore. The Lunars play to an Old World pessimism: we are not to be trusted, our leaders are not to be trusted, our gods deal with the Devil, and even if we are on the up now, it will all come crashing down again — inconstant ! If we cannot argue with ourselves, we are lost. Of course, things are never simple, and as the enemies engage, it becomes harder and harder to separate them. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps … for it may be that when we try to look at the enemy, we just see ourselves in the mirror. 😉

Normal science ends, and a paradigm shift is required — is this what happened to the Godlearners?

No pardon required. Why does Godtime contain ‘contradictions’? Because it is a version control system. Rune magic is software as a service, and heroquesters are all about getting their chosen (or newly written) magic-cum-code hosted on as many servers as possible. All those sacrificed POW points are being used to run data centres. We are used to thinking of (or , because we used to be rune poor) opposing , but really the balance is between the bit bucket — Kajabor as the black hole — and this somewhat esoteric entity: Under normal circumstances, ‘code’ (myth-as-magic) is not overwritten, but it may be all-but-forgotten in the branches and never compiled and run. But Chaos is not shy about sending stuff to /dev/null. This makes some Gloranthan admins antsy — they don’t like their cheese to , and they suffer from anxiety. They need to get over it — resources are finite. The Devouring Mother grasps the whole picture — although her cultists are as clueless (wittering on about the A Series and the B Series) as they are vicious as they are expendable, she assures me — and doesn’t our mystery rune look just like her work?

Ten planets (GtG, p. 672): Zaytenara(s)° Buserian Reladivus Shargash (Tolat) Derdurnus Deumalos Falsoretus Verithurus(a) Ghevengus Ghelotralas° This being Glorantha, there is likely a conflicting story, too. —————————————————— ° These two are the odd ones out, I think — the ones you don’t want? — not being “celestial sons of Yelm”.

“Gloranthans are not ideological,” but … Glorantha is created through processes of mastication, regurgitation, and refection. Likely all traces of the original meal have long since escaped the messy process of transmission — as if they were never there. If the meal sometimes tastes a bit funny, those who have chewed before you may have been conservative, authoritarian, and against logic. Yeats could write, “Democracy is dead and force claims its ancient right.”° With that health warning about peddlers of “philosophies” out of the way, enjoy this: The poet tended to explain these grim facts with his politico-historical system which traced a cyclical pattern of zenith and nadir and according to which an indeterminate period of violence and anarchy occurred when civilization trembled at the end of one era and on the brink of another … Yeats’s letters to Olivia Shakespeare of 24 July 1934 and 7 August 1934 concerning the phases of civilization are interesting: • The Earth — Every early nature dominated civilization. • The Water — An armed sexual age, Chivalry, Froissart’s Chronicle. • The Air — From the Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century. • The Fire — The Purging away of our civilization by our hatred … • First age, earth, vegetative functions. • Second age, water, blood, sex. • Third age, air, breath, intellect. • Fourth age, fire, soul, etc … He retired from politics and proceeded to wait for the end of the ‘period of plasticity’, and the dawn of an age of strength and force which his philosophy of history promised as imminent. The poetry of these years is full of ‘hatred’ and ‘blood’. — Mary Carden, — The Few and the Many: An Examination of W. B. Yeats’s Politics — (Studies, Spring 1969) If you have access to JSTOR, the paper is a fun read, bringing in Swift, Vico, and (blink and you will miss him) Spengler — and even tackles the “F” word, which I won’t. Storm is about to blow itself out, and the Fourth Age’s harsh axe will be — from some points of view — a necessary purgative? ———————————————————— ° The Letters of W. B. Yeats. Alan Wade. p. 682.