mfbrandi

Ah, but this is part of the “blame chaos for everything” strand of myth, not the “wasn’t it confusing before we learned what x meant?” tales. Disappointingly, I am part of the myths don’t have to be consistent or coherent taken in totality faction. They don’t because in Glorantha they are fiction, not history (Your Mythology May Vary) — even if the gods are real. Call us the Ægyptians (or the Viriconians). Still, the game of trying to make it all hang together is most definitely fun — well, fun up to the point where people start inventing “different kinds of truth” and variant logics to make it work. That is not how the game is played. “Did I miss? Let’s make the goal bigger.” No! I missed. But Daka Fal isn’t Hades (divine ruler). S/he is just Minos (mortal judge), so DF is not “due” one. And anyway, we are not super-keen on the marry your rapist trope, are we? (Not that it hasn’t cropped up in Glorantha, before!)

It is funny, I always read this as DF wandering around Prax saying, “You’re dead, you have to go downstairs — it is the new rule — don’t worry, just stick with me. No, not you — you are still alive, you have to stay here. You’re ‘not sure about that one’ — but didn’t you just put your hand right through it, and isn’t it trailing ectoplasm? Amateurs!” “Daka Fal appeared” meaning Daka Fal was previously unknown, but then there he was among us bossing us about, and things started to make sense. Rather than Daka Fal appeared to me in a vision and told me how it was to be. If it is the myth of the origin of the separation of the living from the dead (and of why Grandma shouldn’t be turning up for dinner, every Friday — not since “the incident”), why would he already be in the other place? (Yelm complicates matters by setting a new trend if …) If consistency in myth is important to anyone reading this(!), then GM continued his wandering after being killed (he disappeared from the tales of the Gods, not from the “world of the living” of which there was not yet any concept); later DF turns up and sends the dead — including himself — underground; later still, the philosophers say, “Aha, GM = DF, why didn’t we think of that before?” (Doesn’t explain Yelm underground, but maybe you could use dead Yelm’s location to explain the appropriateness of dead people being sent to the underworld. It is the sun getting karked that means DF has to go underground — one more reason for him to resent the gods.)

Although sometimes one gets sheep in salt marshes or on the beach (eating seaweed — there is a wall to keep them off the main body of the island): https://www.slowfood.org.uk/ark-product/romney-salt-marsh-lamb/ https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/food-and-drink/north-ronaldsay-sheep-orkney-island-seaweed-dyke-warden-303941

Nobody? Did anyone ask Rabbi Loew?

I certainly hope I didn’t anywhere suggest that the Darjiinians’ cult could not be an ancestor-worship cult along the lines of the DF practice or that this has any implication for the nature of the nominal ancestor-in-chief (“mother of us all”). Same with Pamalt and any other “mythical ancestor.” (The origin of this thread was my asking in another thread whether someone was talking about cult or deity. But clearly, I didn’t express myself well. 😉)

Yes, I am probably imagining it wrongly: Axe Hall as in or under (what remains of) the palace (a big chunk of glass) with variously sized fragments of glass piled on top of it. I still don’t see Babs a magical guarantor of fertility, however.

Yeah, I always said those healers had it coming to them. Swanning around thinking they were better than the rest of us.

Sure, why not, but is not one of her powers. Quite the opposite. I may respect mathematicians and help them out in a fight (although a slide rule would be more useful in a fight than I would), but if “hard sums” need doing, ask them, not me. Everything in its right place, and Babs’ is a place of death. She may fight to defend the green fields, but they are not her green fields, they belong to Mother. I mean, her necklace is of dead body parts, not living ones — that would be creepy! 😉

One way: highlight and “quote selection,” starting a new comment in the wrong thread; “select all” in your new, unposted comment (in the wrong thread); cut; paste into your comment in the right thread in another tab; “submit reply” in the right thread only (the other comment is empty, anyway). Make sense? There is probably a more elegant way, but I am too stupid to have found it.

Well, maybe there is — I wouldn’t want to tell you to rule it out (there are/could be other earth presences) — but would bring fertility to a pile of ground glass? Maybe — only maybe — BG likes it because it is dead and black. (IIRC, flipping the Egyptian colour-coding: black = fertile soil (Nile flood plane); red = nasty burning chaos (desert, foreigners).)

This picture is hilarious. It is as if someone thought “let’s draw a picture of a dinosaur — with wings!” but forgot that we all know what winged dinosaurs look like — we see them every day — and it is not like that. 😉

SurEnslib raised the deep earth above the waters and sent the four snakes out to make the rivers and raise the sky. From her eggs hatched the plants and creatures of the world, and finally her people.° It’s all good — I was just trying to get at whether you meant that the gods were variants of DF or the cults. Sounds like you mean the cults — I hope I am not putting words in your mouth. It was a grand god like SurEnslib her fine feathery self (a Bennu figure, there before the earth was dry and the sun shone) I thought unlike grumpy old dead bloke Daka Fal (but Emily loved him). You made me wonder about ancestor worship. I used to think it was about raising the spirits of one’s literal ancestors, that one had to keep careful genealogical records, no raising uncles/aunts (save in cases of inbreeding), and illegitimacy throwing things off pretty quickly. And I thought of Daka Fal as literally “our” ancestor. But the nominal head of the family tree is often not going to be literally an ancestor — for example, plants and animals are supposed to be the children of Ernalda and hatched from the eggs of SurEnslib; we could probably tell a story in which both were literally true (or one was right and the other wrong), but I take it we don’t have to and are not supposed to: the claim of descent from the god (or DF, come to that) is a bit of poetic fancy — so now I am wondering whether we are to contact heron-appropriate spirits or those of our literal ancestors. In the latter case, we can stick anyone at the (mythical) head of the family tree and it won’t make a lot of difference, right? We are tracing up, not down, and we will never get anywhere near our true first ancestor. If Daka Fal is — symbolically, at least — the ur-human, the original mortal, the “first man,” and the Uz the first humanoids ( creatures) — mythically, if not historically — then I can see the appeal of KL = DF (if there are no , who would surely get first dibs), but then do we promote DF to godhood, demote KL to mortality (whatever that means — everything dies), or just let the tension stand? (Or of course, it could just mean that KL worship can function like ancestor worship — like a DF cult.) Isn’t the appeal of Daka Fal that s/he is not a god but just a regular Jo/anna? When we die and are judged, it is not by some snooty deity but by one of us — like being judged by the Unknown Soldier: just another one of the countless fallen cut down by those bastard gods. I like to think that no mortal-come-to-judgement looking into the mirror–face of Daka Fal sees anything beyond a gleam (of hope?) — not even the worst narcissist sees their own face reflected. I like to think that every god looking into the face of Daka Fal sees their own death and fears it. I like to think these things … but that doesn’t make them so. So maybe: Daka Fal stands for the first mortal or the first humanoid mortal — is imagined to be our literal ancestor (but probably isn’t) SurEnslib is the divine ancestor we would have liked to have had — we imagine her nature says something about us as a people (but we likely kid ourselves) Other putative divine ancestors are available, of course. DF or divine, the “face” of the ancestor-worship cult is a symbolic ancestor, not a real one, whether or not the spirits we normally deal with are our literal ancestors or not. I don’t mean that DF and SurEnslib are not real in Glorantha, just that they are not really — or are only incidentally — the ancestors of their cultists. Whatever the ontological status of the gods, religion is a game of make-believe. (Gloranthan religion — no letters of complaint, please.) Well, those are my idle, addled — doubtless soon to be junked — thoughts. Now you lot … ——————————————————————————— ° CoR Prosopaedia, p. 116

The Caprati are a broo sleeper cell — and only one broo is that organised. (But this seems so natural that maybe it is canon and I just didn’t get the memo.)

Sure. If AA put Lodril to work, then some hydraulic engineering from the inventor of canals is not out of the question. Also, the Only Old One worked with dwarves — look at his specs. How well-maintained are the mechanisms, though? Definitely this. A beer and arts festival: grisly theatre pieces (but Babs does not like Electra); sound-and-light shows (i.e. horror movies and Tom & Jerry/Itchy & Scratchy/Squeak the Mouse-type cartoons projected by illusion cultists); the Ana Gor Dance Troupe and Euthanasia Booth; drone metal bands; the Maran Gor Sub-Bass Gong Orchestra! A good time is had by anyone with the bottle to attend.

Gloranthan Karaoke Spit and sawdust? More blood and ground glass — black, of course. The band lurches into Bowie’s first great tune (one that echoes through the back alleys of Viriconium): [ZZ] Sighing, we swirl through the streets like the crust of the sun The Bloodbeer Brothers [BG] In our wings that bark Flashing teeth of brass Standing tall in the dark [Both] Oh, and we were gone Hanging out with your dwarf men We were so turned on By your lack of conclusions [BG] Well, I was stone, he was wax So he could scream and still relax — unbelievable! And we frightened the small children away … [ZZ] And now the dress is hung, the ticket pawned The Factor Max that proved the fact is melted down Woven on the edging of my pillow [BG] And my brother lays upon the rocks He could be dead, he could be not, he could be you He’s chameleon, comedian, Corinthian, and caricature [Both] Shooting up pie-in-the-sky Bloodbeer Brothers In the feeble and the bad Bloodbeer Brothers In the blessed and cold In the Gretsch-hungry dark Was where we flayed our mark Oh, and we were gone Kings of oblivion We were so turned-on In the mindwarp pavilion

I can’t keep up with all the wrinkles in Malkionism, but if you think of the breadth of religious practice that falls under “Hinduism” or “Christianity” … mono- poly- heno- and atheistic. There is this from Jeff a couple of years ago: In the Third Age, the main Malkioni schools no longer interact with the gods as equals, but also do not worship gods other than Malkion and his family, and a few important heroes (although it is argued by some Rokari philosophers that in many cases this has been a back-door to submission to lesser entities). Despite a strong current of ancestor worship in Malkionism (which also sometimes includes worship of gods), the Malkioni distrust the gods in general. I suspect allowing Malkioni with rune magic is a munchkin thing: sorcery is too slow and boring — give me something that goes bang now! Personally, I think it would be more fun if all the Malkioni said, “There is no god but God — and I am not even convinced that this ‘Malkion’ bloke is his prophet.” But we need a diversity of Gloranthas.

Uncle ZZ knows that story — feels it in his molten bones — slaps her on the back and says, “Girl’s alright with me. Anyone got a problem? Thought not. Actor–model–waiter: more blood beer over here!”

This is a very Praxian dodge: owlbears are taboo, so we’ll get out the black and white paint and camouflage it. 😉

Probably terrible for round-by-round combat, but might be one way to do collect-the-plot-token heroquests: the opposing sides get a stone for each station won; make the draw at the end to get the quality of result.

If you draw one token, you get who wins that round. If you draw multiple tokens, you can get quality of result. (See, for example, Ben Robbins’ Follow.) That kind of thing? I suspect you mean something more sophisticated, but let’s run with it … One way to do an 8 vs. 12 “resistance” would be to put 8 white stones and 12 black stones (or 2 white and 3 black — doesn’t matter) into a bag and draw one out to see who wins. Note that unlike the resistance table — if my brain is working, at least — this works off ratios, not absolute level of advantage: draw one stone = 40%/60% (2:3); resistance table = 30%/70% (4×5%). For some purposes, that might be better, but it is different. If you have a big enough bag, you can have your one in a million shot against the dragon! I wouldn’t want to load the bag for large prime numbers. If you draw multiple stones from the same bag load and use ratio (of drawn stones by colour) to determine result quality, the more you draw, the less randomness (of course).

I think it's because the roots of RQG system date back from the second half of the 70s, where people had different views on system design Yes, but the idea of using the resistance table for combat — and even the idea of using how much you beat your target number by to determine damage (eliminating another roll) — goes back at least to 1982 and Harry White (see this comment). But the basic idea of compare attack and defence values, roll, and look up the result on a table must be older than RPGs.

Yeah, how did that happen? Did we accidentally post to the wrong thread — in which case: sorry — or did some comments get ported across from somewhere else?

Surely, he was a wide boy (think ‘platypus’), rather than a piece of stone.

It is slightly complicated (GtG, p. 203), but I guess the short answer is that the Men-of-All decide. It is an organisation — a monastic order — after all. Who gets to decide who works for IBM? IBM. (I make no comment on whether it is right, but it is not terribly surprising.) In contrast, when it comes to silly caste occupation labels, self-identification will do: [E]very Loskalmi can identify himself as worker, soldier, wizard, or ruler; many strive to pass through the four caste occupations during their lifetime. — GtG, p. 48 (but repeated in at least two other places in almost the same words) With guardians and philosopher-kings, I guess Loskalm is supposed to resemble somewhat Greece as Plato — long known to have been a big fan of the Shaolin Monastery — wished it to be.

Interesting. Do you mean that game-mechanically they are Daka Fal variants? In concept, the named entities seem quite different: SurEnslib is quite a grand deity — she “raised the deep earth above the waters and sent the four snakes out to make the rivers and raise the sky” — but poor old Daka Fal is just some dead bloke (not a god, more of a Minos figure).