mfbrandi

There is a notion that the gods are big and we are small, that a humble shaman couldn’t take Orlanth down, but I wonder if that is right. On a bad day and with the wrong approach, surely they will fail, but there is also a Gloranthan strain — not necessarily attractive — of human supremacism: let go of a single thread at the right moment and I can be done with the lot of them. There is a nasty whiff of power tripping, certainly, and yet it may be that casual mass deicide is a metaphor for spiritual liberation. And so the superpowers and the rank odour hang around illumination. I fought, we won. Each of us faces the end of the world alone, but then what? The power tripper faces it down — temporarily? — or so they think. But the trick is to let it come. And that is the difference between grim-faced Sheng and a laughing not-so-failed mystic? (The theist refuses to choose, splits the gods into good and bad, crushes one lot, and makes mock obeisance to the other?) Arachne Solara is the powerless ghost of the tiniest spider you ever saw, and that is wonder enough. [Yes, this is tugging at the thread of the doubleness of illumination — again — but also an expression of discontent about the POW economy: bigger is better and crushes all opposition. Yuck!]

Ah, but whisper it: Daka Fal is no god; Daka Fal is us. The story of Daka Fal/Grandparent Mortal (and possibly Malkion, too) is the finger pointing at the villainous gods/wanton boys and calling them out for their murderous sport, isn’t it? And the gods, too, will have to look into that unrevealing mirror and face judgement, won’t they?

I wonder whether we need the qualifier “greater”. Cannot an “insignificant spider spirit” and “the greatest of the great gods” be the same entity? Power and range of magic available to practitioners may be a function more of the size of cult, its R&D department, and its knack of parting worshippers from their POW than the nature and power of the god/spirit. If a shamanic one-person band cannot access sunspear that may be less about some supposed inability to contact Yelm and more about their status as sole trader (and not grand mucky-muck of the solar religion). Maybe … but this is not meant as a heresy.

LC getting ready to spend time with the Nysaloreans on Mount Baldy?

A middle way is possible, I suppose: viruses/bacteria/parasites and disease spirits are not identical, but it is hard to get rid of something in the first category if you are under attack by its associated disease spirit. Then ditching the disease spirit in the Dead Place would enable “normal medicine” — Arroin? — to take over, improving your chances without being an insta-cure.

Or — to take the sorcerer’s view? — all tools have their limitations. Your problem isn’t much like a nail, but unfortunately the god/magic/tool you have hold of is very much a hammer; watch where you put your thumb. Experimental heroquests as attempts to reforge the tools.

I love this question. Is it asking something like — please, do not mistake me for a theologian — whether Gloranthan reality is “catholic” (for some or all gods, a priestly class is required to interact with them) or “protestant” (with the right techniques, anyone can interact with any god — whether or not that is wise, whether or not the god welcomes the interaction)? Malkioni might be a special case, taking neither the protestant nor the catholic line. According to them: the Invisible God is unreachable no matter who you are; anyone can contact the other so-called gods … but they are not really gods, as there can be only one. Presumably, stroppy shamans — and I like to think they all have attitude — think that self-proclaimed gods are just spirits with pretensions and could be contacted. As for worship, surely there is a lost Godlearner document detailing experiments to track the energy flow in worship — does it ever flow through the priest, and if it does, must it?

But forewarned is forearmed — or in Orlanth’s case … well, you can make the punning adjustment, yourself — and the theist schmuck on the Clapham omnibus meets the gods “blind” (or at least “blinkered”)?

We think we want “psychology” in our games — motivation, character, and all that jive — but … It may be that, when late capitalist civilisation is replaced by this violently mutagenic landscape, we should expect our familiar configuration of ‘human drives’ to warp into a commensurately novel form. But then again, because we’ve seen … that a chronic smallness of mind can persist in even the most extreme circumstances, perhaps we should expect that office politics would pass almost unchanged … Or … perhaps we should expect a radical simplification, so that people would only be vengeful, protective, greedy and so forth, with any subtler shades of feeling blasted away — Ned Beauman, Surrealist Circus Animals Actually from a review of Jeff VanderMeer, but it made something ping.

I ask the court to recall Citizen @Joerg’s previous comment: In the process he founded the cult of the Horned Skull, whom he named Atyar, Devourer of Knowledge. — CoT Classic, p. 54 And perhaps that is the nub of it: the more chilled mystic is happy to have her head devoured, but those following in the footsteps of Arkat–Atyar must always be doing the devouring. In the end — logic says — every wannabe Arkat must swallow her own head. If you have seen it done, it is a very impressive trick. All done with mirrors, apparently.

Or — see @scott-martin’s comments — maybe Urox is Mr. Hyde to Ragnaglar’s Dr. Jekyll. How innocent did Doctor J ever seem to you? Or they are all just aspects of Storm — one entity who must carry all cans — fingers on the same glove. “That was me in a bad mood. Practically another person. So you cannot blame me — I am all smiles, today!”

I don’t say that you are wrong, but why assume this? The wind lord teaches: Thed was wounded by Urox in the Storm Age, but turned to chaos to gain revenge on the entire world instead of just her enemy. — Lords of Terror, p. 7 In that version — there are surely others — it seems that Thed turns to Chaos to get revenge after being wounded by Storm Bull. I am not especially arsed about that point of exegesis, but let’s bin all the “marry your rapist”, “willing submission to rape”, and similar crap (for which I am not blaming you, obviously). I won’t say that we are better than that, but can we not all at least pretend that we are?

Notes Toward a Revisionist Thed What the world probably needs is Susan Brownmiller’s take on Thed. This is not that. As every schoolgirl knows, the broo lifecycle is lifted from the parasitoid wasp (and Sandy included Alien’s xenomorph in the Gateway Bestiary). Orlanthi schoolboys are in denial, of course — that is their function. Thed — rejecting mammalian sexual reproduction for … reasons — studied the secrets of Darkness under Mallia. Two key lessons: • horizontal gene transfer — grab new genes without sex° • bacteria can induce parthenogenesis (in parasitoid wasps)°° Every broo is female, every broo is a virgin, no broo needs a womb (for each has an ovipositor). The broo developing inside its host may acquire genes from it, but this has nothing to do with sexual reproduction — the host is not a parent (for the larva already exists and is munching its way through the host’s body). Broo may look like goats, but functionally they have much more in common with bacteria and bacterially enhanced insects. There was no cabal with Ragnaglar. Ragnaglar was not the parent of any of Thed’s children — he was the first host on which Thed tested her new reproductive equipment: paralysed and eaten from the inside. David Scott’s mixing up of Ragnaglar and Thed miniatures can be seen as a happy parapraxis: it was Mad R whose abdomen was ripped open from the inside by the emerging Wakboth. This does not mean that Thed was not the mother of the Devil, but Thed is not viviparous. No desire for “her husband”, no husband ruling over her, no painful labour: Thed rejects Eve’s rôle — to the patriarchy, this is “letting Chaos into the world”. But rapists turn into broo, right? No. It is a metaphor: those consumed by their own guilt are “eaten from the inside”. To add to the confusion of dim and poorly educated Orlanthi barbarians, broo larvae always finish the food: the husk of a host can seem like a discarded chrysalis case. “Look, Oddi must have been a secret Chaotic, for he has transformed into a broo.” The guilty rapist may suffer the pangs of one who is going to “turn into a broo”. But that is a misunderstanding. It never happens. Thed is not a rapist and neither are her daughters. So what is Kyger Litor’s beef with Thed? KL saw Thed embracing Darkness reproductive strategies and producing robust broo. She resented this because she had done a deal (there was no curse) with the Devil — Nysalor–Gbaji in this case — embracing techniques Thed had dismissed to produce surface-adapted trolls and had been disappointed with the enlo, considering them feeble, disgusting things. Ask any of the three curious spirits: the trollkin strategy is working. After Argrath’s apocalypse, the enlo will be the last humanoids standing — the broo (already in decline) and the dark and mistress “races” will be gone. KL took out on Thed KL’s own perceived mistake — which was no mistake at all but her one wise choice. The broo are fierce and splendid, but the meek enlo shall inherit the lozenge. ——————————————————————— ° https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer °° For example: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.221467498 and https://www.nature.com/articles/6800617

… while whistling the tune of “Florentine Pogen” is my guess.

Siblings are sometimes the same god. Parent and child are sometimes the same god. Perhaps we can think of the various storm “brothers” as paralleling the fragments of Yelm (who at bottom is one god). In Glorantha, the greatest battles are with oneself — and so always lost? We know Storm “let Chaos into the world”. “Thed was wounded by Urox in the Storm Age, but turned to chaos to gain revenge on the entire world instead of just her enemy.” — Lords of Terror, p. 7 Storm-as-murder (Orlanth) sees some kind of resolution at the Compromise, but other matters remain unresolved and so the world of time must incorporate the Devil (“The Wind from Outside”) — Wakboth’s evil and not merely Kajabor’s entropy. Holding Thed accountable for this is cheap victim blaming. We might say that Thed is Eiritha when she says “no”. Tada arranges a literal cover-up by having her buried, never to walk Prax again to bear witness, and Waha enforces the ban and substitutes the Herd Protectresses. Kyger Litor wielded the skinning knife? When there was a butcher on hand? The darkest stories happen inside the family.

I heard that, too. If I am a sociopath and I burn your house down, I may be doing a terrible thing — and it is certainly rough on you — but am I paying a terrible price? That ship has already sailed, may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and other old clichés.

Or daemons: spawned by Krarsht/init; running in the background; definitely not under direct control of the cult/users.

And yet, and yet … An insect’s sting is Fire being put to work by Darkness: Deep within [Lodril–Veskarthan] is the Wildfire, an untameable demon of conflagration that once threatened to destroy all of Creation … Veskarthan fought with Argan Argar in the Darkness and was defeated. The Dark God forced Veskarthan into humiliating chains of shadow — Prosopaedia: Veskarthan (CHA4042 PDF, p. 131) Walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel … waves of burning, throbbing, all-consuming pain that continues unabated for up to 24 hours. — Justin Schmidt, Wikipedia: Bullet Ant Can we not see the insect’s sting as the power of Wildfire secured by Argan Argar from Lodril for Gorakiki? — “A trade, Gorakiki: I give you weapons and energy; you work for me.” — All three of the Curious Spirits have a relationship with Fire, but ZZ’s is permanently problematic (more stung than stinger: a bellyful of bullet ants). The sting is a normalised, naturalised Fire power, fitting better pragmatic AA. The spear is the stinger of the enlo. (How many faces of Gorakiki? Won’t Gorakiki Hymenoptera do for bees, wasps, ants, and sawflies?) One might also wonder whether “priapic” Lodril has been correctly sexed: prick or modified ovipositor? (See also: broo.) But then one cannot help thinking Lodril = Gorakiki. (Are we are supposed to believe that Wildfire ≠ Lodril?) ZZ swallows Fire and burns ever after. XU befriends Fire. Practical AA stores it in an insect Goddess, and perhaps gives us our just-so story explaining solar-powered Darkness six-legs: the power of Aether is decanted into Khepri–Gorakiki Beetle in the early universe (the scarab is the first form of the sun). The sun is primal Fire domesticated — spending half its time in Darkness, making surface life possible — and perhaps that is AA’s major achievement. Perhaps … [Clearly, this post evolved as it was written. So it goes. 😉]

From the Dwarf Ancestors thread some stimulating stuff: If the Holy Mother doesn’t upload a representation, no “soul data” survives bodily death. Dwarf, human, whatever — the whole ghosts, reincarnation, table turning, and ancestor summoning racket is an exercise in wish-fulfilment enabled by the hungry, hungry intertubes and incomprehensibly quick vøid servers of Glorantha’s hardest working tech sis. You put in your ancestor request and Her AIs whip up a facsimile of what you think you want … or what it suits Her to serve you. Why did the Patient One invent the “immortal soul”? As ever, it is hard to say. Is it a small part of Her research into improved ansible tech? There was a market? Is it just that — like Mallia — She is always hard at work doing Her share of the thankless tasks that keep the world functioning as expected, though no one likes to peek behind the curtain? [Cell 79024683 approves this message. The approval of other cells or Her Bad Self should not be inferred. Never read the small print. Hail Krarsht!]

I thought that was Orlanthi orthodoxy. They have the same inside–outside relationship as Arkat and Nysalor (although which is which is never clear). One way or another, Orlanth’s blow illuminates Yelm, but as any draconic mystic will tell you, in severing the dragon’s head you are removing your own. Naturally, Gbaji (any Devil or wicked serpent, really) is the third term in this holy trinity — “One, One, the Perfect Sum” (TH). -> or (hence ), and the central mark marring is where Orlanth’s sword struck/Yelm’s third eye. 😉

Well, the 2nd Age had the practical, empiricist, brutal British Middle Sea Empire, but some bugger blew us it up.

Dead leaves fall — “Les Feuilles mortes” — she is not interested in the green ones. Necrophilia inscribed in Glorantha’s natural laws. Jacques Prévert was really Jacques Pervert. The Earth Mother was just being coy with Nontraya/Vivamort.

Hot … air … balloons! Then some bright spark will say that the flame is still “attached” to the burner, so the flame will lift the basket without that cumbersome bag of air above (and for once I don’t mean Him). There will be a fad for levitating bonfires. Self-immolating fire cultists — human torches — will dogfight with woad-painted blue meanies. (Johnny Storm’s loyalties may be divided.)

Thoughts: Another name for the Waiting Mouth, the Hungry One, the Devouring Mother? If so, those staunch Chaos fighters are fighting to destroy gravity (or its analogue). They shouldn’t say so in their publicity material. Well, those crazy Orlanthi fliers might, but they like sucking their food out of the nozzle of a pouch — I guess — and have made arrangements with the dwarfs.. If not, turf war with Krarsht? Perhaps it is not that the Mother of Gravitons wants to devour us all, perhaps it is just that all of creation wishes the oblivion of the Void and so is stampeding toward the plughole at Glorantha’s base. But the sun and the moon have already known that oblivion — they have been blown out and returned and are now addicted to the cycle.

I want a sign halfway down: YOU ARE NOW OFFICIALLY DEAD — DO NOT ASCEND PAST THIS POINT Minor sub-cult of Krarsht: Larnste the Subverted — who was turned by Her bite. Of course, some non-Chaotic Larnstephiles rock up thinking it is a shrine to “proper” Larnste. Do the Krarshtites attack or otherwise give the game away? MGF says no: Krarsht effigies are hidden and they warmly welcome their siblings in Larnste. The world needs more unwitting Chaos worship. (This echoes the fact that Krarsht worshippers don’t know what their god is or is up to. Dupes all the way down.)