Ynneadwraith

I interpreted that a little differently. 'Form Chaos Army' as an equivalent to the Orlanth Rex rights. Less about magicking an army out of nowhere, and more about legitimising a random assortment of chaos bods into a unified force (largely as an attempt to get them to stop murdering each other for long enough to achieve the objective). Whether that fits better with Kajabor or someone like Wakboth I'm not sure.

Interesting points! I'd maybe suggest it's something to do with the building of legitimacy. I don't get the impression that the micro-states of Peloria were republics, so the regular citizenry don't seem to get much of a say in who's leading them. There's revolts I suppose, but they're extreme measures for extreme circumstances. Meanwhile, the elites do have something to gain through conversion to the Lunar Way and the legitimacy that brings (what with the sodding great orb-goddess floating above them). That conversion then percolates down through the rest of the population, because it's less risky to take the slightly less useful magic than it is to get on the wrong side of the Lunar authorities (and the Lunar's don't seem to be all that keen on religious pluralism). Might this suggest, then, that the Lunar religion is one that is primarily beneficial to the elite (and thus the benefit to the non-elite to conversion is in not getting persecuted by that more powerful elite). I don't know, just my interpretation. Another one could be that the general disarming of the population is actually a net benefit to everyone involved. See the gun crime statistics between the US and Europe as an example. The lunar population see their disarming as a positive thing, because they're less likely to get thunderbolted during a random bar brawl than their windy cousins. Deadly violence is for those whose role is designated as the dealers of deadly violence (e.g. soldiers).

I'm with you, but I do think they are slightly separate processes stemming from the same root. In my understanding, the Judaeo-Christian reform* primarily sought to supplant existing clan and tribal concepts of community with a religious one. I very much see it as an extension of the tradition born in the fertile crescent of building a community around serving a deity as opposed to familial relationships. The fact that this (eventually) broadly backfired and ended up stripping people of their sense of community (deracinating them) without necessarily planting religion as a substitute community was far from a given. Its causes were mutlifaceted (including such other factors as the impact of the Industrial Revolution, among others). So, no, I don't think it's wholly separable. But I do think they're separable enough to warrant calling attention to both as factors to be wary of when interpreting the actions of ancient peoples that shared neither. The way I interpreted the terms was: Judaeo-Christian tradition = theological conceptualisation of the world based on Judaeo-Christian cosmology. For example, things like a dualistic division of deities into wholly good and evil, conceptualising the underworld as a place where sinners are punished etc. I suppose you could lump in structural things here if you wanted too, like having a canon of accepted beliefs (others being deemed as wrong or heretical), or having a defined 'church' as a parallel society/political structure. Modernity = the breakdown of the conceptualisation of 'the community' as the base unit of society, and the rise of individualism. Game of Thrones is a good example of this being projected backwards in time. I suppose another connected term to be wary of is empiricism. The concept that true knowledge comes only from observation. The idea that the default state of a person is to be sceptical of something unless they have personally observed the thing in question. That belief is not a valid source of truth. All of these things have their roots (or are a root of) Reformation Protestantism, as you say, but are different enough phenomena to warrant individual examination. *here I'm mainly talking about the one I know best, the largely Catholic reform in Western Europe The only word I tweaked was 'goddess' to 'God', and the pronouns from 'she' to 'he'. The rest of the meaning of the text (that someone has fallen out of the graces of a deity for reasons they cannot fathom) remains wholly intact. Unless I have misinterpreted the meaning of the word 'goddess' in this context, and it's intended meaning is something closer to 'community' rather than 'deity that holds sway over me'. That's certainly possible, but not something I picked up on!

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Sink the moon, raise the block... Ralzakark is Argrath.

Well whatever it is you've stepped in you should brush it off before you come inside. You'll ruin the carpets... Certainly fits with my personal view on Gloranthan theistic cosmology: that all gods go through a 'chaotic' phase as part of their creation, before they are rehabilitated and incorporated into the world. This happened to the gods of Storm during the Lesser Darkness, and the Chaos gods were going through this process during the Greater Darkness before it was cut short. Or perhaps Storm were the first to go through this process, and the others were less traumatic. To return a little closer to the original question, I'd posit that Kajabor cultists should have some form of memory altering magic. Something to make someone forget something ever existed, as the first stage of total and utter annihilation. Lots of interesting narrative potential with that one...

That's an interesting thought. If he was dead and is now resurrected, how might that change the myths (and thus magic) you could gain from him? The Ragnaglar you bring back isn't quite the Ragnaglar you killed before.

I don't know, as a direct son/fragment of Umath I'd expect at least a little Storm in him. It might be a little less canon-friendly, but I'd like to see a little speculation in the cult spells of the Chaos Gods. Something that hints at something that we don't already know about them. For instance, you could play into the whole 'Orlanth the Usurper' narrative by giving Ragnaglar a smidgeon of twisted Rex magic. Just the slightest of hints that the rightful heir was Ragnaglar after all, before everything went to pot...

I do as well (by and large), just couldn't resist the cheap shot 😉

What sort of spells does Sedenya give? #HailArgrath

Interesting observation, considering that the advances in modern technology essentially allow 80% of us to live like elites used to. Though I do think there is still a trap there. Our degrees of individualism (especially in the West) is still far, far higher than I suspect the vast majority of pre-historic God-Kings were. Even at that level, there was still a conceptualisation that they were 'first servant of the gods' or 'living representative of the god, and thus bound by the responsibilities that god had to the community'. Hark me arguing for heavy community-mindedness just after arguing for individualism! I suppose my stance is that these cultures conceptualised themselves as far more communal than we do (especially ones like Bronze Age god-kings, or neolithic EEF cultures with those communal barrow-tombs), though not so communal that there weren't individual interests at play. Stalinism is the parallel I draw most often. Now that is a trap if ever I saw one...

While I agree to a reasonable degree, it's worth considering that Sumerian and Akkadian societies of the time (and it seems most other fully formed early civilisations in the Fertile Crescent, and perhaps other Early European Farmer cultures) seem to have been unusually community focussed. Conceptualising one's entire society as the servants of one or more gods (or god-kings) differs somewhat to the relationship other peoples had with their gods, which seems to be nudged a little more on the 'animist' side of the spectrum. On the far end of that spectrum, 'magical' failure absolutely can be due to the interference of another spiritual being (in fact, that's usually the main proscribed cause). For instance, by the time we get to our written Greek mythologies we do get individual actors petitioning individual gods for personal boons. I'm not sure I'd prescribe Odysseus a single shred of community spirit over his own self-interest. I suppose that's what you meant by 'depending on local culture'. I'd ascribe it less to the influence of Judaeo-Christianity and more to Modernity (though I would admit that one had a hand in bringing about the other). Modernity being the 'de-communitising' of society, and the rise of a really strong sense that the individual is the base unit of society rather than a group (i.e. a family/household/clan etc.). It's this influence that people have trouble shaking. That everything is focussed around the individual. Part of the reason I think it's this and not Judaeo-Christianity that's distorting things in this instance is that Judaeo-Christianity very much developed from the Sumerian and Akkadian religious traditions. There are many, many parallel concepts and conceptualisations between them that don't exist in quite the same way in other religious traditions. Such that I could tweak a word or two in the passage you quoted and it would fit perfectly into present day Judaeo-Christian discourse: "The transgression I have committed, indeed I do not know, the sin which I have done, indeed I do not know, the forbidden food that I have eaten, indeed I do not know, the prohibited place upon which I have set foot, indeed I do not know. The Lord in the anger of his heart looked on me, when God was angry, he made me become ill." (Ted Williams - TV Televangelist, October 2023) Unless of course that was rather your point, that we view all sorts of things through a Judaeo-Christian lens (translation of ancient texts included).

Building on the transition to time thread, all of this happened before time was a thing. So there was no real 'before' or 'after'. Perhaps it was all happening at once. Like different engine rooms within the world machine, some filled with nothing but darkness and water. Though of course, it could be that after time became a Thing then it was always a Thing, and everything was forced to sort itself into 'before' and 'after'. I wonder if this is what the dwarves mean by 'broken'.

My own little conspiracy is believing that this goddess swap didn't work...but others did and people haven't noticed/forgotten. The famous one is just the experiment that they pushed too far. The God Learners have messed with so much that we have no real way of knowing what or who is 'original' anymore.

I'd always conceptualised it as the ability to, from our perspective, step backwards or forwards in time/causality (which was a lot looser back then). A little like living in a permanent heroquest. If you wanted to step into the event of Flamal and Ernalda's courtship you could, much in the same way that we would walk in from one village to the next. Without time, every single event ever was happening all at once and you could travel to any of them at any point you pleased. Where this gets really scary is when you consider that Chaos folks like Ragnaglar, or Kajabor, or even lowly broo could do this too. Because they were not bound within time either. So if you were a regular human at this point in time and you fought a broo, that broo could just keep coming back again and again to that event over and over and over. It's a lovely system while everyone is all happy and good, but the moment someone uses it to terrorise someone it becomes a horrific weapon to wield. The thing that broke the World Machine was malice. How this interacts with Death is a tricky one, as you could see that as the first tendrils of time creeping into the world. A change that isn't easily walked back from. This sort of ups the stakes of I Fought We Won, as it's not just about beating chaos, it's about beating chaos all at once in exactly the moment that the web of time fell upon the world. Only at that point did everything become fixed, and you couldn't just go and replay things over and over to change the event. That's why so much of the world and the gods are dead or ruined, because this was the best they could get to in the moment when the trap was sprung.

I very much like the idea of differentiating the Trade Gods by how they approach trade. Argan Argar is more 'diplomacy through trade' and expects an honest and equitable appraisal for all parties. To try and swindle, or generate excess profit is offensive. I give you something you want, you give me something I want. Everyone's happy. Think of it more as reciprocal gift giving, rather than what we'd understand as trade. Trade is a means to enact diplomacy, and build bridges. Issaries is more of a market trader. You will be expected to haggle*, but not excessively. This is more of a formality than a method to get one over on the person you're trading with. You want things they have, they have things you want. Let's come to some sort of arrangement. This is the meat and bones of Issaries trade. Trade is a means to exchange things around the community. Etyries is more of a startup entrepreneur, and it's about making it into the big leagues (playing on the improved social mobility of Lunar culture compared to others). The onus of determining if goods are of high quality lies with the buyer (unlike Argan Argar, where it's offensive to misrepresent your goods), and if you get swindled then that's just part of the game (unlike Issaries, where that's generally frowned upon). Trade is a means to better your social position. Loads of opportunities for tense or comedic moments here. For instance, here's an example of an Argan Argari merchant attempting to trade in an Issaries market for the first time.

New dumbest theory. What if the 'man' rune was simply made in imitation of the dragonewt rune (which presumably came first, dragons being as ancient as they are)? We're not made in God's image, we're made in the image of his tadpoles.

@mfbrandi Build a god out of dead hyenas, you say? Proper heroquest material, if you fancy a read.

Actually this I'm less keen on. I think I prefer the idea that they both used to be bird-headed humanoids with now-lost animal bird-brothers. At some point, some magic went wonky and their bird-features got transferred from one lot to the other, creating Dara Happans and Keets.

Now this I am here for... Also, new dumbest theory stemming from this. Dara Happans are more closely related to keets than Orlanthi, the two sharing a common ancestor sometime before the Dara Happens convergently evolved(/created) the man-rune bodyplan like their distantly related storm-barbarian cousins.

How do we know that the earliest Dara Happans lacked these features? I've heard tell of some very old rock art deep in the desert listing the peoples of the world, with the inscription 'dr hp' beneath the falcon-headed figure:

All the same spiritual sickness...

Oh god, no wonder I hate the idea of living in Glamour. It's bloody Bond Street isn't it. Horrendous place...

I had this as a core aspect of my 'mayfly elves' idea. The idea being to inject a little bit more interest into Glorantha's elves by having them literally follow the cycle of the seasons. Being born in spring, growing strong during summer and then all dying off in winter (or the Gloranthan equivalents). People just don't notice because they can't tell one tree from the next, and think elves are just forgetful and need to be reminded who their friends are each year. Dryads survive through the generational cycle, and are tasked with imparting the knowledge of how to survive the world to the next generation. This sets up a sort of 'naive younger brother' relationship between elves and humans that's a novel way of playing them, and adds a bit more motive to elves than just 'forests good, must protect forests'. Anyway, the idea being that elves lost the ability to write when the Spike exploded. Mythically, as in they are just as incapable of writing as Ducks/Keets are at flying. This hampers their ability to pass on generational knowledge between years, down to whatever is easily teachable within a few months. It's possible for an individual elf to embark on a risky Heroquest to recover the secret of writing from the Spike (while it's exploding) and secret it away back to the present day, allowing them to pass on the information they possess. I'm going to say that these golden nuggets of information are inscribed on the trees that surround their seed-dryad, adding a little more weight to their violent reaction to the destruction of forests. Trees might grow back, but the hard-fought and priceless knowledge of generations can't. It's like the burning of the Library of Alexandria for them. This I love. Consider it encorporated into my Glorantha. Gives just enough of a hint about what happens when you follow the path of Draconic Illumination to spring off from (perhaps the birth of a dragonewt is what's lying at the end of a human draconic mystic's journey). Sprinkle in a little of the excellent 'failed dragon' idea from Elden Ring and you've got the beginnings of an awesome character path. Ok, this I have to hear the argument for...

Is that so? Depends how tightly magic is tied to chaos in Gloranthan metaphysics. It certainly wells up from the Chaosium, and rains down from the pinholes in the firmament. I'd say we don't know enough about chaos' function in the world machine to know for certain whether it has a role in it or not. Again, I wouldn't be so certain. The dwarves are patently clear that the world machine is thoroughly broken, and one of the missing pieces are likely to be the lunar goddesses. Just because we're familiar with the world we've grown up in, doesn't mean that's the way it's supposed to be. A fly born without wings doesn't know that it's meant to take to the sky. Fine for whom? For humans and Uz and elves I'm sure, but not so much for broo or scorpionmen or tusk riders (or anyone else who isn't on 'our' team). Whether this is a good or bad thing overall is largely dependent on how skewed the perspective on Gloranthan early history is...

Two things. Love the idea of Orlanth being a better model for Illumination than the Red Moon (but everyone being too tribalist to realise it). Also, the idea of Brightface never having seen a shadow in his life (because he's always the brightest light anywhere he goes) is a fascinating idea. I wonder what that would be symbolic of? Does he live in a world dominated by the MUM effect (that thing where people deliberately downplay bad news when relaying it at each step of a hierarchy)? What might that say of the Golden Age? Was it that golden at all, or did it only appear golden wherever Yelm looked...