mfbrandi

Hmm … 191 versus 119, or even 12. So which is “more important”, the number before or after the ? 😉

Based on the fact that I’d like Glorantha to be a fun place to visit — and not just some theocratic hell-hole careering toward apocalypse, all jaws firmly set — I would say “yes” to the first two. I don’t pretend to have any insight into canon — I am not Harold Bloom — that’s just how I want it to be. We’d expect the rich to have more physical stuff and [employ|own] more artists with rigorous training and lives dedicated solely to art — probably no getting around that — but that is not to say the poor and those in between have nothing or that what they do have lacks all subtlety and sophistication; whatever the rich say, opera is not the pinnacle of artistic achievement. Allow the poor and middling grace, wit, and sophistication — Gloranthan bebop, if you will. The Void preserve us from “quaint rustic charm” and “the crude vigour and earthy humour” of the working classes. I have climbed down from my tower of soap boxes, now, and I am smashing them to matchwood with my sledgehammer.

I haven’t read it, but I think Jeff recommended this: Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East by Amanda H. Podany Expect more text than literal pictures.

Callisthenics on horses — it is what the world needs, especially a world under a big top. The boy was in the hallway drinking a glass of tea From the other end of the hallway a rhythm was generating … In the sheets, there was a man Dancing around to the simple Rock and roll song

Don’t worry, I am not asking you to equate evil and Chaos, and even if I were, you can safely ignore me. We are just playing with the idea of “Chaotic action” — only one way of getting the Taint — as connected to “breaches of morality.” What that might come to. What it might signify. Whether we like it. I guess we all like the idea of the Chaos-touched as those who have stared too long and too hard into the abyss — well, OK, maybe it is just me — and it seems to me that the abyss can be a moral one, it doesn’t have to be a “cosmological” or “spiritual” abyss. That doesn’t mean they are all Pol Pot, or Hitler, or [insert cheesy example here]. Maybe they are Roy Batty … or even Liz Anscombe or Pete Singer: they don’t need bloody hands or sharp knives. But corruption isn’t all bad: the corruption of a text is morally neutral; the corruption of a carcass is devoutly to be wished for. Detritivores like Mallia and Krarsht get a raw deal, but Mee Vorala and Gorakiki seem to dodge “accusations” of Chaotic natures. I don’t know where hyenas and vultures stand — wonderful beast both! Maybe, but maybe they are Chaos Tainted — such an ugly way of denoting a beautiful thing! — all the same. They may go undetected because their clear conscience masks their Taint, but equally it may be that Storm Bulls cannot really sniff out Chaos, just some things possibly not invariably associated with it — like broo shit and (as you say) a guilty conscience.

Necessity does not avert consequences: exactly so. That is what I liked. A variant (or half-arsed reskinning, to taste) of a surely familiar idea: A powerful demon has two prisoners, one innocent, one morally suspect Morality requires that we do not allow the innocent to come to harm Morality requires that we do not eat people The demon says, “Eat this wretch or I will kill the innocent, who has never harmed a soul” These moral principles may not be yours — or indeed mine — but play along for the sake of argument. The idea then is that one becomes Chaos Tainted merely by being put in this position: whatever you do (or refuse to do, or dither over), you violate an important principle; you are a victim of moral bad luck. There is no getting out of it by saying “this was none of my doing.” You have faced the abyss and it has reached into you — none of this “I can only be Tainted if I have refused to do the right thing” crap. I rather liked that. (Though I don’t mean to equate the Chaos Taint with any of these: feeling guilty; doing the wrong thing; low self-esteem.) People will vary in their responses to this case, and will vary further if we tweak it: Some will say you should eat the dodgy bastard to save the innocent — and remain untainted (because making the right choice leaves you morally spotless) Some will say you should eat the dodgy bastard to save the innocent — but you are tainted anyway (because there are no good choices, even if there is a right choice) Some will say that you should let the innocent be killed — because allowing someone to come to harm (passive) is not as bad as eating someone (active) — again, there can be tainted and untainted variant opinions Some will be swayed by numbers: — “I will eat one guy to save ten innocents” — “I am not eating ten ne’er-do-wells to save one innocent” — some may feel less (or not at all) tainted if they save a big enough group of innocents As for being Chaotic because they refused to knuckle-under to the right-royal stitch-up of the Great Compromise — although I am myself a coward, giving ground at every turn — I rather admire them for that. But then I always rooted for Medea, and was somewhat narked when the production at the National with Helen McCrory gutted the ending.

OK, I missed the point … again. Sorry. So in the context of: MFB: a Chaos Taint is real but not physical DS: It's worth noting that Chaos is a form Rune … what was the point?

It's worth noting that Chaos is a form Rune. I was trying to capture in as few words as possible (whilst still wondering whether a hole was maybe — in some sense — a physical thing, after all; papers have been written on the topic, I am sure): I always think of Chaos-as-form as the chaotic feature rune (but I don’t expect anyone to agree): The chaotic feature is of and in the world, not the Outside. And this is a form rune, too: . I am guessing that it doesn’t designate a physical form.

Thanks everyone for your answers — a nice spread of views there. It doesn’t have to: there are many routes to Chaos and “chaotic action” (breaking moral rules/taboos — never mind whose for the minute) is just one. A Nysalor illuminate might be Chaos Tainted because “dedicated to a Chaos entity”, say — mutation or no mutation — though, of course, no one can tap the Taint with a hammer to see whether it “sounds Chaotic”. 😉 I am not a pusher of moral relativism. The game was simply: if we take moral relativism as the explanation of why cannibalism is only sometimes “Chaotic”, where does that leave us in respect of Chaos Taints — conceived of as intrinsic and non-relative — and what they tell us about someone (restricting ourselves to acquisition by Chaotic action to keep focussed). Think of The Scarlet Letter: Hester has to wear the letter (acquires the Taint) because of what the people around her think (“moral relativism”: it doesn’t matter whether they are right or wrong, their writ runs), but the letter itself (the Chaos Taint) is a tangible thing, with an existence independent of the moral opinions that caused its creation. The parallel — like me — is less than perfect. In play as theories of Chaotic action, we seem to have: breaking your society’s moral rules (possibly no takers for this one — maybe @John Biles “Your society defines what is Chaos”, but maybe not as presumably it doesn’t define what is “nuclear waste” … and let us hope it doesn’t wish its toxicity into being) breaking your own moral rules (@JRE, perhaps, but there may be some backsliding into the position that intrigued me in the first place) breaking moral rules in service of moral necessity (this is my take on one of @Ormi Phengaria’s ideas, but they may think it misrepresents their view) acting in opposition to or outside the Compromise or “cosmic order” (@Ormi Phengaria, again – with the same caveat) betraying Glorantha (@EricW) I don’t think that the last two collapse into each other: a creature of the Outside — Krarsht, say — cannot betray Glorantha, as they owe no loyalty in the first place, but presumably they could disregard the Compromise and seek to undermine the cosmic order.

First, my apologies for misunderstanding what you said. Second, does that mean that the amoral cannot acquire a Chaos Taint through committing abominations or breaking taboos — because they cannot see abominations and recognise no taboos — even though they may be able to acquire one via one of the other routes (e.g. handling chaos tools)? Good news for me if so: I’ll be able to slip past those Storm Bulls, no problem. So — and clearly my track record is not good — aren’t we back to “don’t pick on someone just because they have a Chaos Taint, they may not have met their own standards, but equally they may not have done anything we think is wrong”? Clearly, “if someone is aghast at their own actions, we should kill them” is a non-starter if we want to appear at all compassionate. Perhaps we don’t.

Continuation of the discussion in the Ethilrist thread. Now, according to Greg — and who am I to argue? — a Chaos Taint is real but not physical. It can have effects in the good old efficient causality sense. So: If I said that a Chaos Taint is not a real thing, Gloranthaphiles would crush me beneath their shields. If I said that a Chaos Taint is a purely relational thing — that it amounted to no more than my clanmates having taken a dim view of my past activities — people would scarcely be less happy. (Chaos Taints are hard to shake, so my reforming and my clanmates dying or changing their minds wouldn’t get me off the hook, hence the tenses.) If we integrate @JRE’s idea, we get to the point where you can cause me to have a Chaos Taint — a very real intrinsic property — by persuading my clanmates that what I do is abominable. It doesn’t matter what it is — rescuing puppies from Wakboth; helping old trollkin across the road; running a literacy scheme for hill barbarians — just so long as my fellows are persuaded that it is beyond the pale. If you are born into a society of crazy bigots, you are the one who will end up with a Chaos Taint, not them (so long as they live down adhere to their own low standards, anyway). You may even be able to change me physically through the force of your disapproval or disgust, make me a monster. This is not a reductio of JRE’s idea — don’t think that — it just means that you may get a Chaos Taint by being (in effect) cursed by your fellows for breaking their taboos. It does raise questions, though: Why does my society have this power over me, when the nation next door does not? Should we — looking down from Olympus, as it were — regard someone’s having a Chaos Taint as a sign of their moral failure? (It may go on to have bad effects on them and their morals — perhaps! — but that is not the same thing.) Even if you do not plan to embrace Chaos yourself — because you lack sophistication, taste, and flair? — perhaps you would do well to be born into a laid-back, anything-goes society, so as to avoid acquiring a Chaos Taint via the crazy moral attitudes of your fellows. How magically powerful would I have to be to inflict a Chaos Taint on an innocent foreigner purely from the force of my moral disdain? If a society does not equate Chaos and evil, can it still inflict Chaos Taints on it members through moral disapproval? Do we really think that being evil is the same as being thought evil by one’s fellows? That moral corruption is the same as dissent from one’s society’s (arbitrary) moral standards? If so, perhaps it is time to toss the concepts of “evil” and “morality” in the composter (where Mallia, Mee Vorala, Kajabor, and friends can break them down).

Your ally gets the blue boy to start talking about his favourite subject — himself and how great but underappreciated he is — then you steal Old Windypops’ chariot, because at that point you could steal his legs and he wouldn’t notice. O is not exactly the sharpest tool in the box: “First Ernalda, Orlanth’s wife, was not present. This disturbed the god for the seat beside him was empty, and half of his conversations were with the unanswering empty space.” Violence is always an option for him, but I suspect that tying his own shoelaces … not so much. Eurmal told me that Old Breezy Breeks thinks that his initial “O” is for “awesome”.

Look, thanks for all the comments, but: I do understand how it works — but then I take my eye off the ball for 5 minutes and … pow! (And like Alex von S., I think I am stuck with that. I’ll live.) I am not lobbying for a change I was just asking, because if everybody had hated the status quo, the situation would have been ridiculous I must be said that the OP’s suggestion has the virtues of: not requiring anyone to get the twenties and the units in the right order: a+b = b+a using a widely understood (if not universal) notation: “+” for addition “ab” for the product of a and b (i.e. a×b) you just have to grasp that m = 20 (or = 20) respecting the order of arithmetical operations: 7+3m = 7+(3×m) = 7+60 = 3m+7 = (3×m)+7 = 60+7 = 67 being indifferent as to whether the “m” comes before or after the number of twenties: 3m = 3×m = m×3 = m3 = 60 These seem considerable virtues for the cost of a single character, so full marks to @narsilion.

To avoid drifting too far OT here, just see this old Greg Sez thing.

Maybe, but my poor broken anglophone dragonewt brain, cannot get over the idea that the most significant digits should go on the left and the least significant on the right. Other people are just smarter and more flexible than I am. It is why I am going extinct. I could never get my head around Traveller’s hex-string UPPs, either. I think it was Alex von Schlippenbach who could never get the initialism of the London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra right and always said “LCJO” — this even led to a spin-off small group called “Elsie Jo”. Some things we know are wrong, but we are so broken that they … just … won’t … budge!

Anaander Mianaai?

And if the Uz still see themselves as an Underworld people, they might join in: this is the time of year when Yelm starts to spend more of the day above ground. But — for the sake of an alternative point of view — perhaps “Sacred Time is the best time” is a Lichtbringerlich way of looking at the world — and Kyger Litor isn’t their friend. “Everybody agrees.” But the Orlanthi can’t count — “0.81, 0.82, 0.83, 0.84, 1.” Sacred Time marks the renewal of the world, where that is understood as: life “one must descend into death and be reborn” time dawn spring return of the Sun the integration of entropy (Chaos) into the world the binding of Chaos to the world (inside) — but Chaos wants to be free (outside) compromise balance Members of the awkward squad might object on any of these grounds, but not necessarily all, and not necessarily the same subset for each grumbling diehard. For example: Vampires might object that they were never quite dead and are certainly not now alive again. They reject the cycle of death and rebirth, surely, even if some say that they parody it. Hardcore death cultists might object to cyclical time and new life, too. The road to death is straight — and strait — and there is no permissible return. “It shouldn’t be allowed — they could have spent that money hanging people. It’s an outrage!” Stasis cults might protest that time and entropy admit change into the world. “And besides, the world is not renewed; it is worse every year.” Yes, they are all a bit cracked. And they are not happy about that, either. Hardcore apocalypse hounds don’t want the world renewed. “Stop fixing the world! Can’t you see I am trying to break it once and for all?” Yelmalio: “I will not die and be reborn. I will stay lit if it is all the same to you.” Though maybe he will light a candle for Bartleby at Sacred Time. He is a perverse god … but Emily loved him. “This is not the right point in the cycle to celebrate renewal. The return of the horrible scorchy thing in the sky? Are you mad?” If humans as diurnal creatures are fond of celebrating winter solstice (“it gets better/lighter from here”) and spring equinox (“from here on, the light is dominant”), mightn’t cults of surface darkness celebrate summer solstice (“it gets better/darker from here”) and autumn equinox (“from here on, the dark is dominant”). And maybe many darkness cults think that deepest Dark Season is the best time to heroquest? So Lightbringers, quasi-Lightbringers (7M), and cults of illumination (Yelm, Nysalor) think Sacred Time is … sacred. But expect dissenters.

So is there anyone who wouldn’t rather just have a single number and do the maths as and when needed? Meanwhile, in some brave new world of vigesimal notation …

And they will trade Molotov cocktails (of which they’ve a considerable surplus) for potable liquids.

But the suggestion is not that Lanbril was a Lightbringer but that by “stealing myths” (which should be interpreted freely), Lanbril performed acts usually attributed to other gods (or not usually attributed to anyone, but if you dig deep it will seem that anyone but Lanbril did it). [extremely dubious pseudo-explanation consigned to an oubliette]

He used to be called Hyalor Butterfingers for his clumsiness, but after he blew the first glass horses, he became Hyalor Horsebreaker. This is the true connection for horses. Flesh-and-blood horses came later. Hideous images hidden to protect your eyes: (Oh, and one is always allowed to suspect Voralan involvement — them’s the rules.)

On the term misotheism (which I had to look up, but which fits nicely):

The “machine god” was no more a god than this fake banknote I ran off in my garage is a banknote — but while my still-damp masterwork pretends to be currency, Zistor was no fake or wannabe god. That was its point: not to be a god (nor indeed God). It was a machine built by atheists for deists to mock those who claim that Orlanth and company are gods and that “sacrificing” POW to “deities” is worship. It was a theological argument — a demonstration — with a big budget. God sets the universe in motion, and then She is never heard from again. There is no point in throwing POW in Her direction — and anyway, which direction would that be? By turning up to trash the Clanking City, Orlanth gives the game away: he is of the world and in it. He may be bigger, bluer, more pretentious, and have more arms than the wizard down the road, but he is an item of the same category. Zistor was not an artificial god, just an ersatz Orlanth. “You think you can list the necessary and sufficient conditions for godhood? Well, we took your list and used it to build this thing, and while it is certainly useful, I think you will agree that the clanking abomination is not God — or not, as you barbarians say, ‘a god’ — so I think you had better rethink your rash definition … and demote your ‘gods’.” So who failed to respect the divine, the Jrusteli who gathered their own firewood and knew it for what it was, or the barbarians who called firewood “god” but burned it just the same? “But in Glorantha, the gods are real,” people whine — but not every real thing is a god. (“Everything real = God” is a pantheistic identity for another day.) But sure, Orlanth’s PR consultants have to maintain that Zistor was a god … else they don’t get paid.

Sure — put this tale as early as you like (presumably making AA twice-born). Darkness has always contained Fire and still does. This may suggest that there is something a little off about the Uz complaining about Yelm. (But only a little.)

Gloranthan Karaoke, part whatever … A stooped figure — a Tusken bag lady? — under a tattered cloak and swaddled in bandages that might once have been white, struggles up to the piano. You can’t see their face. Just about stable on the stool, they cough once, start to play, and then sing in a voice a lot like Kate Westbrook’s: There is a stunned silence at the end of the performance. They have slipped unnoticed out the back before the applause starts. “Was that M-M-Mall … ?” “No.” “Ul … ?” “That, my friend, was Arroin. Good, isn’t he?”