mfbrandi

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I mean, Yiddish is a western variety of High German

Yeah, sorry if I came off a bit jaded. It is a London thing (or that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). And I always wonder where and why one draws lines between languages: Scots vs. English (perhaps we should just call them both “broken German”); one seldom says “Serbo-Croat” these days, which seems a shame. Draw the lines differently for different occasions and purposes is the sensible answer, I guess — but we don’t seem to be living in a time of sensible answers.

Now we must frantically claim that communication is a very Argan Argar topic and not radically OT, at all! 😉

24 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

if you are curious, a many-colored garment is "a filfarbige kleyd"

Always. In this case — as often? — pretty straight German (according to my dimly remembered high school Deutsch) with variant spelling. Another job had me above a Hasidic study group … because the immanence of the Lord follows me around, I guess.

13 minutes ago, Eff said:

The creation of the Orlanth Rex cult

@scott-martin’s image set me up to read that as “the creation of the Orlanth Rex cat” — something as plausible as it is sickening.

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I have a vague memory of a UK fan or three spotting the polari and spilling over into the letters column to educate the rest of us.

I used to work with a guy whose hobby was writing scripts — Python? PERL? I can’t remember — to translate the bible into Polari.

2 hours ago, davecake said:

no one would associate Lodril with Intellect

Well, the self-satisfied — Solar and Orlanthi? — upper and middle classes with nary a calloused finger might not. The working classes might disagree — and not just working class intellectuals (who might, it is true, be a bit thin on the ground in Glorantha).

On 2/11/2023 at 4:10 AM, Darius West said:

We know that after the duel in the Tower of Wonders, Arkat departs for Ralios as a normal looking man

It is funny, I never read:

Quote

When he finally fought hand to hand against Gbaji, he was no longer even human but a troll, a Dark Man. After the battle, Arkat was no longer a troll, or so said his friends and many trolls. — WoD

… as being about Arkat’s physical shape. I certainly took it that two trolls might look at Arkat after the battle and have three opinions about whether he was still a troll — “you know, really still a troll”. (See also: “yes, but where are you really from?”)

Eric had two questions:

On 2/10/2023 at 10:18 AM, EricW said:

[1] Were there any limits on his willingness to use whatever tools were available to advance towards his goal?
[2] Did Arkat Ever Use Chaotic Magic?

Surely, the answer to [1] is “no, there were no limits”, but it hardly follows that the tool he needed to put his hand to at any time was “chaotic magic”.

But what is chaotic magic, anyway? Is the insight that there really is no difference between Chaos and non-Chaos itself chaotic magic? His illumination pre-dated his anti-Nysalor fanaticism rather than being a tool sought to aid the fight, right? Perhaps the illumination even caused the fanaticism. I imagine his illumination was incomplete (or at any rate unsatisfactory) and that the fight against Nysalor was his inner struggle to eliminate the bright side of his illumination — leaving only the Stygian purity of black light — splurged bloodily across everyone else’s reality. The turn to ZZ wasn’t a pragmatic resort, it was just who he was — with Nysalor as his Yelmalio.

Where are all the quiet Gloranthan illuminates? Carrying out a secret Bene Gesseritesque breeding program to produce the enlo Kwisatz Haderach, one suspects. (You have to watch the quiet ones, too: for every “there really is no difference between Uz and human”, there is a “there really is no difference between Galton and sanity.”)

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

honestly the Three Bean Circus is somehow the queerest part of Glorantha, even though I have no idea why

Larry Marder knows something he’s not telling us.

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Oh my god it's Danny the Street (first appearing in Doom Patrol #35, August 1990)

At the time, I wondered whether Americans — the presumed primary readership — even knew who Danny La Rue was? Do any of you know whether they did?

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

I've just assumed that the site's whereabouts became a state secret in the Holy Country after the general suppression of OOO heroform paths and so is carefully expunged from all available texts.

Well, they would like you to think that they knew but aren’t telling (and maybe no longer can, having expunged so diligently), but perhaps the truth is slightly stranger: Braznofstel was sufficiently chaotic that localising it was a fool’s game; despite its spatiotemporal slipperiness, Argan Argar destroyed it.

Morbode may manifest any time at any place. Spotting Morbode is an AA cult secret; the Holy Country Religious Police haven’t been able to stamp it out — they haven’t even been able to understand it.

AA deep cultists argue over whether Spotting Morbode is detection of a manifestation of the holy place, or whether successful use of the ritual makes it manifest.

On 2/11/2023 at 10:31 PM, Joerg said:

Broo sodomy was already mentioned in Nomad Gods, the first appearance of these nasties, well before the movie.

But in rehabilitate the cuddly goat people mode — remember the thread we are in — we can take this from Nomad Gods:

Quote

It is known that they … engage in sodomistic practices with Emissaries who fail to impress them.

… as indicating that if the diplomatic mission didn’t work out, they would consider themselves remiss in their duties as hosts not to at least offer sex so that the visit wasn’t a complete washout. Imagine them as characters out of Chip Delany’s The Mad Man. Arguably, any sexual contact between broo and human would count as sodomy.

Even taking an as intended look at the broos, this:

Quote

The contact [with the Three-bean Circus] … leads to a particular revelation for the Broos which leaves them in a pool of helpless self-loathing

… suggests that they may be a degree more morally sophisticated than Orlanth. 😉

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I like this but not the part about not using magic

Putting aside the question of game mechanics, is Gloranthan alchemy not itself magic?

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

MINDFUEL:  A salt made from Quicksilver and ingested as a powder.  User becomes prone to dazzling attacks of inspiration.

Or after Tom Disch, the syphilis is the source of inspiration. The ‘quicksilver’ is just the dwarves’ attempt to keep the unwanted effects at bay.

3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

broo are … corrupted entirely.

I say, that’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Are they any worse than parasitoid wasps or fungi? Than humans who eat their herd beasts?

(I have always assumed that they gained their life cycle via retcon after the RQ authors (Sandy?) had seen Alien, but that is just an assumption — was it there in the really early, pre-Alien material?)

On 2/9/2023 at 1:25 AM, John Biles said:

When you gaze into the Abyss...

A lightbulb goes on above your head and you’re three feet high and rising.

Storm Bullys may fight with monsters — becoming monsters if they weren’t already — but I wonder how much time they spend staring into the abyss and letting the abyss stare into them. That’s a hobby for the more reflective of the Humakti, no?

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

bore-worms … are really snails … which leaves me at a loss which … descendent of Sokazub would be responsible.

What is wrong with Molluca?

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

 is to  as  is to 

Hmm, OK … but does this mean that the dragonewts will eat Godunya, or that the broos will give up all their malarkey and get brollies, bowlers, and jobs in the City?

He has some reason, else he could not beg.
In the last night's storm I such a fellow saw;
Which made me think a man a worm: my son
Came then into my mind; and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him: I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
— Gloucester

Join the cult of Gorakiki. She is the only one on our side.

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Greg pointed out that Genertela lacks the kind of highlands like the Andes from which potato farming conquered south and central America in pre-Columbian times.

Interesting as an observation, but how does it work as an argument? If you find something in Glorantha that lacks its earthly origin or explanation, retcon it away? I have a horrible feeling that would thin the setting quicker than Argrath crashing the moon. 😉

(No, I don’t say this to argue for spuds in Peloria.)

10 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Somewhat OT, but a few months ago Jeff posted a list of Major and Minor gods. Every single member of our long timer RQ gaming group was shocked that Arachne Solara made neither list.

Quote

The Greater and Major are what concerns us here. These are the universally acknowledged Gloranthan deities. Greater Gods are of great cosmological importance; major gods are perhaps less cosmically important but enjoy recognition throughout the world and are among those that shaped the cosmos …

Arachne Solara? Arachne Solara is a rank above all of these. — Jeff Richard, Well of Daliath

I am sure it all means something to Jeff, but if I were to play the game of “rank the following gods in order of cosmological importance”, I think: (a) I would fail — loops, gods left over, who knows what other mess; (b) I wouldn’t have any clear idea of what I was even trying to do. Don’t be fooled by the fact that you are sure you can rank Yelm above the patron deity of of unreturned library books. Gods of Glorantha Top Trumps will clear it all up, I am sure.

And if a god were of “great cosmological importance” but not “universally acknowledged” (by Gloranthans, presumably, not players or game designers), then I guess they wouldn’t make the cut.

If I were the Invisible God, I would feel offended that I had to slum it with all the other bozos while “Korgatsu (aka Hykim and Mikyh) was too abstract to add.”

On 1/12/2023 at 9:48 PM, scott-martin said:

Now as a human-presenting Ernalda takes over as holder of the skein from the atavistic + at best ambivalent spider woman, what happens?

More misdirection, another POV trick: are you truly holding the thing to which your hand is glued? Still, she looks like a fairly substantial spider snack. The move from Ernalda the Naked Lunch to Ernalda the Weaver is a reversal of perspective characteristic of mortals’ refusal of “the frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork.” Given that we are all spider food, one can have a little sympathy for the Ernaldans — but only a little — and it is not as if the Krarsht cultists are any less self-deceptive.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

But there is a mystery there... Why does the Fate Rune have six legs not eight?

Because none of us met and lived to tell the tale, so we assumed she looked like her daughters.

The Great Compromise is not “Cosmos eats Chaos” but “Chaos eats Cosmos … but she promises to do so slowly.”

: for every arm an equal and opposite arm — cancel to zero. is unbalanced and represents the spontaneous generation of something from nothing/the void/primal chaos. Once Cosmos has been consumed, Luck may restart the cycle.

Quote

This creature’s true name is still unknown. She is also known as the Waiting Mouth, the Hungry One, and the Devouring Mother. She invaded Glorantha with the Devil and fed on the refuse of the universe. — Well of Daliath

Quote

[S]he does not respond to prayers and appeals. She appears when and where she desires. The results of her presence are sometimes benevolent and generous, at other times cruel and terrifying, but usually neutral and natural. She eats anything she catches in her web. — Well of Daliath

The Devil: speak his name and he will appear. That just shows what a low-grade, illusory fellow he is — all smoke and mirrors. He is our fear and our willful misunderstanding of what is really going on. He is not there; he never was; poof! And we come to, caught in the web of fate.

Arachne puppeteers the gods onto her web, trusses them up — they are not holding the web, the web is holding them: that is how it is with fate — but generously agrees not to eat them all right now. That is Time, the Great Compromise. And if that is not the story the Lightbringer priests tell, well, what kind of a god would say “worship me, o mortals, for I am … cosmic snack food”? Not the big blue blowhard.

Arachne Solara’s web holds us all. The gods have but a short time left. Then it is our hour in the sun. But sooner or later, our threads will be reeled in and we will feed our Mother.

So we could see Arachne as Cosmos and Krarsht as Chaos, but Billy Ockham says that is one Devouring Mother too many.

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Guided teleport brings you to an Orlanth temple where you sacrificed, which I doubt you will find on the back of the Bat.

Yeah, but if it works, instant insight into the true nature of the Big O. — and an illumination check. 😉

12 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

what happens to the Baby Bat's Allied Spirits' Bats when the Bat is banished from Glorantha for any period of time do the babies go with it?

When I am in my Happy Place™, if the Big Bat is banished, each of the Little Bats grows to the size of the banished Bat.

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

There are ecstatic — apocalyptic? — western sects who claim that the truth is more like this:

()=
()=

And I believe they generalize this to the origin and destruction of every individual of every form and to every element. The Invisible God, they say, is slowly transforming/absorbing the substance of the world back into Herself.

I am not sure that I prefer this to feeding Cosmos into the maw of Chaos. Some days, Krarsht whispers to me that there is no difference. My false beard itches all the time, now.

I have been hanging out and shooting the breeze (that phrase makes them chuckle a little too much) with the scholars at the Malkioni medical colleges. It soon became clear that their doctors and biologists turn green at the very thought of Ulerian rites. Perhaps it is only coincidence, but they are skeptical of the traditional opposition of Death–Separation and well, what exactly, Life–Union? , they say, is just separation caught in the act, and their textbooks concur:

They are prepared to entertain rival “barbarian” (their word, not mine) theories about the origin of humans “and other beasts” (don’t shoot the messenger), but are firm in their view that returns us to our origins, that it results in a renewed union:

So there you have it. Odd coves. And like all those concerned with the eternal verities, they will probably change their minds tomorrow. I must go stroke my false beard and think this through.