mfbrandi

He is Charlton Heston, either way.

I know Argrath has his little rant about “humankind”, but I quite often wonder which people it is really that survive the Wakbothpocalypse. Are they feathered? Are they furry? Are they scaly? Does the returned Argrath match them, or is he a Robert Neville in their brave new world? “Apotheosis” is just another word for being moved off the board, right?

My last word on this: I am awed by the majesty of the storm — I am a romantic; I achieve oneness with the storm — I am a mystic; I draw power from the storm — I am a magician (or a miller); I pray to the storm not to demolish my house — I am a propitiatory worshipper; I fetch some dynamite to “help” the storm demolish my neighbour’s house — because it told me to — I am a nutter. If opposing forces are held in balance for the good of the world, when does a wise person pick one of those opposing forces and attempt to help it to victory? A better harvest tomorrow. Apocalypse a week next Tuesday.

Spun off from the Religion and Satire thread — which idiot started that? If it had been between Klee and Millett, I’d have backed Sexual Politics all the way, but as it is, it is an easy win for the Swiss, right? And I think PK has Aldrya on his side. Any suggestion that I was swayed by my teenaged self’s Penguin editions of Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game is entirely … Although I may think we are all about taking a line for a walk here in Trollgameland, the aesthetics of RPG art often suggest something more backward-looking … and Klee died in 1940.

No, real life is very even-handed in this: everybody’s gods are equally real.

Interesting. I guess we are all familiar with the idea that we may betray our (moral) viewpoint on the world by the pictures we choose to show — at least if we show enough of them. Is it true? I don’t know. It is an empirical matter, I guess. But wouldn’t it sound just as plausible said of words: say enough and you will betray your morality? So I guess that is not what you have in mind. And if you had no morality to express, would your picture story be incoherent? Why? (Or the pictures have their own morality to barf forth, independently of the teller?) Is there something special about pictures? Certainly, a sequence of pictures needn’t reveal whether an encounter — I assume you mean a sexual encounter — is consensual. But even supposing we could see that — we see Orlanth stab Yelm, and let’s suppose we can see that Yelm (in this version) did not consent to be stabbed — what then? Is stabbing Yelm good, bad, right, or wrong? Seeing it happen doesn’t tell me, does it? And whose morality is being expressed: mine; Orlanth’s; Yelm’s; that of the person who said “sit here, watch from this angle”? Even if we thought pictures (or visual experiences) were a magic route to the truth of things, that pictures always showed all the salient facts — and we don’t: surely, you can “lie” with pictures — then what? How do we get from the facts to the moral evaluation of the facts? (To an ought from an is.) Rashomon/In a Bamboo Grove I guess we could say fails the coherency test — if we take out the frame of giving testimony to the magistrate. But now reshoot the film as a courtroom drama: you just see the witnesses giving their testimony. Now it is coherent, so does it express a morality now? If so, why is that imagined version different from the one we know? If not, then some movies express a morality and some don’t even when coherent. (Even then, there are likely to be background assumptions: these are the visual storytelling conventions; this is the assumed moral background of storyteller and spectators. Probably …) And what if the various myths of Orlanth are like Kurosawa’s fragments and won’t cohere into a consistent morality (even for those with the secret decoder ring)? But maybe I have misunderstood you completely.

Even now, I have a sweatshop staffed with trollkin painting spots on goatskins so we can pass them off as hyenaskins. Skins of illuminated broos are particularly valuable. (Breeding spotty goats in appropriate shades, too, of course. But the other is more fun.)

Raises questions of rune ownership and locality, perhaps? But consider Pamalt, who is not dead. The Prosopædia that is almost upon us — blessed be the Prosopædia — purportedly has: Pamalt (p. 97) Ernalda (p. 35) So maybe rune ownership — for whatever reason — is not so absolute. Non-canon idle thoughts: you can own a bit of a rune (geographically, perhaps) gods don’t really own runes: it is a worshipper perspective (and Pamalt worshippers don’t overlap Ernaldans) Pamalt = Ernalda (as Vinga = Orlanth) “It is all relative, man!” there is a typo on the Well of Daliath (I swear I saw Arachne with a water rune once, but …)

Although, with the benefit of hindsight, a bunch of hippies banging on about “eroto-comatose lucidity” back in the mid-eighties should have tipped us off — I imagine my eyes glazed over at that point (I don’t remember). So maybe the key Gloranthan conflict isn’t that between Orlanth and Yelm, Winter and Summer, or … whatever, but between Aleister Crowley and … who? Alan Watts? The cosmic battle of the dodgy DWEMs.

I am referring to IRL Pre-Hellenistic Greek religion (according to Burkert). The reviewer (Jonathan Barnes) was highlighting the contrasts with Christianity, but as you say one might contrast it with Orlanthi religion. At first, I thought I was being beaten up for suggesting Orlanthism was dogmatic (etc.), but now people seem to be saying that it is, but they like it that way. 🤷‍♀️ I am obviously misremembering something: what happens to an Orlanthi whose Moon or Chaos rune is awakened in adulthood initiation? I thought that was Hamlet had his chips. If so, surely they don’t hire in strangers to do the deed and witness the clan’s shame. As for the equation of Chaos and evil: “An Illuminate knows as truth that Chaos is, in and of itself, neither evil nor inimical.” (HQG, p. 204 but doubtless in various places all the way back to Cults of Terror.) And if it is known, it must be true. But equally, we have Greg saying, “Act chaotically (rape, cannibalism, etc.)” — and I am sure he didn’t mean to suggest that rape was neither evil nor inimical. This is the doubleness in presentation that I see (and which is not necessarily a problem, if acknowledged) but which — if I have him right (apologies if not) — @soltakss does not. Is the problem Chaos? Is the problem the self-torment chaotic creatures can experience? Is the real problem self-deception, failure to co-operate, and absence of creativity? I am not a member of the anti-woke brigade, and I have nothing against political correctness. If the default player character religion must come with a religious morality (which is what I was questioning), better a correct one than an incorrect one, no? It may sometimes be fun to play a knuckle-dragger, but there are other routes to it: buck your own religion’s morality; join ZZ or Urox. If — purely as an example: I am not having a dig at anyone in Glorantha or on Earth, nor am I making claims about history — we decided it would be “bronze age authentic” for all cultures to have “honour killings”, nonetheless we would choose to be inauthentic in that matter, no? As you say, you are not the only one to make this point, but I confess to not understanding it. I don’t think I suggested anywhere in this thread that the Gloranthan gods weren’t real, nor that the Greeks thought their gods weren’t real (which is not to say there were not “atheists” in the ancient world, see for example Tim Whitmarsh’s Battling the Gods for a discussion). How do we get from the gods are real and I have met them to religions must come with moralities? Jeff suggests something transactional: if you don’t knuckle under to the god’s will, it won’t lend you its power. So that is something of an in-world explanation, but it is not an answer to the game design/worldbuilding question: why design gods with that bargaining power? After all, we sometimes think of Gloranthan gods — especially the powerful ones — as stuck in a loop and lacking free will. And isn’t it also part of the setting that cunning or innovative magicians can tap/harness the power of the gods without a by-your-leave? It seems there were options. On the other hand, Aunty Ludwig once said that there are two conceptions of religious morality: God commands it because it is right; it is right because God commands it. LW was not a believer but called the second conception the deeper one.

I was just reading a book review and as a result wondered why Gloranthan religions seemed to be such that Gloranthans would: fret about life after death; take the lead from their gods about who to hit with a big stick and how generally to carry on; model themselves after their gods. It seemed to me that these were not givens in IRL religion — though certainly common — so it seemed like a design decision. Possibly a good one, I don’t know, though I can see reasons why one wouldn’t want to do it (and possibly the force of Jeff’s answer is that it wasn’t done, anyway). I was foolish enough to quote from an old source — because I had been looking at it and it was a particularly bold statement — but as of HQG (2015), the picture was much the same: Orlanth is still “the model for all men” (p. 154, emphasis mine). Never mind the “all” or the “men” or the content of what O is modelling, it was the idea of gods as models I was fretting over. Foolishly, as it may be.

An interesting aside, but as a piece of Hellenistic Stoic philosophy, even harder to fathom? And never mind what idiot things I said, probably falling outside the scope of Burkert’s claims about Greek religion. If people want to read it, there is a translation here. (There are others, of course.)

So @Jeff, the short answer is: You’re imagining it Brandi, there is no religious morality or divine moral example, there is just: awe at divine power; a chance to tap that power. Is that about right?

Thanks. Get well soon!

That is OK. My fault for not being clear. But there’s a reason why it — and not say Thanatar — is the default PC religion, right? So “does it fit the setting?” is not the only consideration. Sure, there are plenty of real-world religions that want to tell you what to do and what to think in every part of your life, but don’t the Greeks provide a good example of a religion with a mythology we still enjoy but seemingly carrying no moral freight, and certainly not with top god as moral exemplar? Myths aren’t all moral fables and/or self-help manuals — or maybe I have been cursed to be blind to secret decoder rings. So I was wondering: why not a metric ton of myth but not even a milligram of religious morality (at least for the default PC religion)? From the point of view of avoiding player alienation (and avoiding having to back-pedal or take the chisels to the stelae), it seems like the path of least resistance, no? That doesn’t mean no PC ethics: the players can bring or manufacture their own. So then: probably not a matter of chance, probably motivated — but what is the motivation? It would be rude of me to just guess or to blindly assert with zero evidence — though, of course, the temptation is always there, and sometimes … — but someone out there probably knows.

Grandmother Hyena, surely. Don’t let that clitoris fool you.

Spun off from this in the Real-world Inspirations thread, as to take it further there would dilute that thread. Sorry, it is my fault for being sarcastic. (What, again?) I meant: where did it all go wrong in the minds of the Earthly creators of Gloranthan religion? We had before us an example of a culture whose religion was not dogmatic, not priest-ridden, not obsessed with the life to come, not in charge of morality, and didn’t see gods as figures to emulate (so we could have them behaving very badly indeed) — but did we make the PCs’ religion like that? Nosirree, Bob! We had a bunch of jihadis/crusaders who’d cheerfully murder their own family members if they were square pegs — “Sorry, buddy, wrong rune. Say goodnight.” Still, that needn’t be fatal to MGF: no one plays a Zorak Zorani (or in that other game, a Cthulhu cultist) under the impression that their character or their character’s religion is pleasant, admirable, or sane. We all like a bit of satire of religion, and in Psycho, Norman Bates was clearly the best part. But there seems to be a tension in the presentation of Glorantha: on the one hand, the Nysalorean illuminates are right: the warring sides in Glorantha don’t really have a casus belli — “These people and their gods are all crazy. Why can’t we all just get along? Stop choking me!” — still, it looks like fun, I’m gonna hit something; on the other hand, there is an intolerable hole-which-is-not-a-hole in the world — Earth or Glorantha? In this person’s mind, probably both — and we must fill it with blood; Orlanth is a stand-up chap, and anyone who doesn’t think so can duke it out with Robert Bly. I get the feeling — maybe wrongly — that some people want Orlanthism/the Lightbringer religion to be acceptable as an IRL religion of the religion-must-tell-you-how-to-lead-your-life stripe. But some presentations of Orlanth make one think that one of these must be true: it was written by a crazy person; it is satire and we are supposed to be in on the joke; it is a joke at our expense. If you don’t believe me, take a peek at this — it must be stressed — no-longer-canon description of the big O: Charity would lead us to go for option [2]: it is a joke, and we are in on it. But (a) there has been so much effort over the years to try to get us to play this kind of awful person (i.e. an Orlanthi) and — I think — (b) some effort lately to make PC religion more PC, and that throws us back to our dilemma, right? Are Orlanthi virtues and religion a put-on or wishful thinking? But the Greeks offer us a way out: offer the right sacrifices, don’t knock the penises off the herms, but whatever you do, don’t imitate Zeus — he is a thoroughly bad lot. If the player characters’ religion doesn’t come with any morality, then it doesn’t have to come with a morality acceptable to moderns. The characters — and the players — can be moral (if that’s their bag) without having Orlanth tell them what that looks like or modelling it for them. ———————————————————————— PS: I don’t know whether anyone this side of the Atlantic read Edith Hamilton. I must confess, I had never heard of her, but if there is one thing that I know, it is that I know nothing.

An old thing by Jonathan Barnes (LRB, 4 July 1985) on Walter Burkert on Greek religion and its contrasts with Christianity: ———————————————————————————— First, as Burkert stresses, Greek religion had no creed, no sacred texts, no revelation; there was no profession or caste of priests; there was no orthodoxy, and in consequence no heresy. It was a religion without articles and without dogma … Secondly, Greek religion had no particular attachment to an eschatology. After death nothing much was threatened or promised, and post-mortem hopes and fears played little part in normal Greek religion … Lastly, Greek religion had little to do with morality … The Olympians are not, and were not thought to be, moral exemplars or moral instructors … If there was such a thing as Greek popular morality – a set of shared ethical values and beliefs – it was only loosely connected to Greek popular religion. ———————————————————————————— This is not to say impiety could not be a capital offence, nor that breaking oaths sworn by the gods was not savagely punished. That is, by some measures, the classical Athenians took religion seriously. (Clearly, not all religion in the ancient world was like the Greeks’, but they weren’t unique in having deadbeat gods — the gods of Sumer were too lazy to provide their own food, so created us to do it, then one of them tried to wipe us out for making too much noise. But the Sumerians weren’t in believing this irreligious.) So where did it all go wrong for Gloranthan religion? Pick a side that is supposed to be a phase in a cycle, then munchkin toward apocalypse.

Eugène Marais peers into the soul of Glorantha’s great goddess:

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form Come in, she said I'll give ya shelter from the storm And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm Come in, she said I'll give ya shelter from the storm & Idiot wind Blowing through the flowers on your tomb Blowing through the curtains in your room Idiot wind Blowing every time you move your teeth You're an idiot, babe It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe It was gravity which pulled us down And destiny which broke us apart You tamed the lion in my cage But it just wasn't enough to change my heart Now everything's a little upside down As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped What's good is bad, what's bad is good You'll find out when you reach the top You're on the bottom

Be careful: Maybe you can bring Genert back, but do you really want to? What do you know for certain about him? What if he is not what you expect? (You find a blueprint for a superweapon; you don’t really understand how it works, but you think you see how the pieces fit together. What could possibly go wrong?) If you wave your magic wand over a big pile of old hyena skins, maybe you don’t get Genert but a Frankenstein’s hyena zombie god — “And he asked her, What is thy name? And she answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.” Tasty!

SurEnslib escapes from the Lunar succession debate. Herons, like all archosaurs, are intrinsically cool, and my Darjiini informant has sent me this creation myth-cum-war story: —————————————————————— Nakala, the infinite dark, was the firstborn of Chaos. Then SurEnslib created herself, and by her flight drew forth from the infinite dark both the Mother of Space and the liquid darkness of Styx. As SurEnslib flew lower, she caused Styx to birth Zaramaka, the infinite sea. By landing she ensured the presence of Ga, the first solid thing. Finally, SurEnslib sang into existence all the stars and planets — the many manifestations of Aether, the cosmic fire. As her children began to burn, Nakala sought a weapon against watery SurEnslib and her fiery toys, so she punched a hole into the void, admitting the first of the monsters from beyond, Umath, the raging storm. Soon the stars were at a safe distance and the sun had been torn apart, but peace was not restored. No, the world’s troubles were just beginning. But what of Sedenya? Some say she was the last sung of SurEnslib’s heavenly baubles, and they point to her bootstrapping abilities as evidence of this. Some say that she must have crept into the cosmos in the wake of Umath, hiding among his children and plotting with them against the sun, and they cite her chaotic nature as proof. I … cannot say, but Mother Heron — She Who Rises in Brilliance — knows all things. —————————————————————— (This is in part a gender-flip of Egyptian Bennu.)

So if we buy all this line-into-point revisionist iconography, maybe we can see where the toy Sun came from. Where do you hide an “invisible” Moon? In the Sun, of course — albeit a shabby, second-rate Sun — because Orlanth wouldn’t kill another Sun after all the trouble with the last one, would he? Well, you never know, so best put up a decoy. You didn’t think that chunk of levitated Earth was the Moon, did you? That dead rock! What are you, a hill barbarian with phobias about perfectly ordinary livestock? Sedenya and Orlanth were true rebels against the OG Sun — as Satan against God. But which of them has repented and has the plan to crack open the “Sky” and return the pocket-universe hell of Glorantha to the wider universe and proper planetary shape (or as some insist, leave us defenceless before the immensity of the Void)? We each of us know who we would like it to be, but it is so hard to tell those two rebels apart, sometimes. What was that you were saying about two Devils and all the confusion that caused? But for now we wait. And we march. Beneath a dreadful banner we march. Beneath strange devices of the Sun and Moon.

One for the OP. The living, dragon-scaled Beast … also written like this … now dead, cold, eviscerated, tits-up on the slab — leaving scientific Law — but that’s how you create a universe via utuma, ask any dragon. So now we have this — who he? … also written like this — so Genert … now dead Earth. Here the OG Sun (oracle bone script) … later written like this (bronze script), so Fire–Sky … and dead, cold, eviscerated Fire is Light — as any Elmali fool will tell you. So which — if any — of the following appeal? Sun decays into immaterial Light and the too-solid bones of the Earth — planets are the ash of stars. 7 != 8, [•] != (•), and Yelm is not the OG Sun — but altogether less substantial, less real, lacking gravitas. Fire is revivified Light — but the Earth is still dead. Bubble Glorantha under its dome was a hasty improvisation after the untimely death of the Sun — it wants to be a real planet, but needs must when the Devil Orlanth drives. Do we want to square the circle? Was the early universe strange, or is Pocket Glorantha the outlier?

I am tempted to agree with you both: they will feel more connected to their supposed ancestors; what is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched of their “ancestors” on the heroquest may be no more real than the events of a play, of fiction, of a trip. I come back from my heroquest and now I can blow shit up, but that doesn’t mean the tale I have to tell is true, is history (remade) — nor that I have travelled back in time some way past the beginning of time. But where would that leave the “reality” of the gods?