Ynneadwraith

I tend to prefer a rather more animist view of things, achieved by deciding that these two things are arbitrary distinctions conjured by fallible mortal minds (God-Learners) grasping at the truth but failing to truly comprehend. The Gods are the world and the world is the gods. There is no direction, they are all here. We are all Us. Of course, this all devolves into mystic bloviating designed primarily to instil a lovecraftian sense of mystery into the world and isn't actually all that relevant to the day-to-day functioning of Glorantha (*cough Nysalorian Riddles *cough). I'm also a little dissatisfied with the prayer-powered gods thing. I do quite like the idea of tying a god's stature within a world to its worshippers though, but I think 'prayer' is a bit of a boring mechanism to do it by. It feels too 'direct cause and effect'. I much prefer the idea of action being the driving force. Take the example of Assyria and Babylon, each with their own City Deity. When Assyria conquered Babylon and carried off the idol of Marduk it was because her armies were strong, and also because Assur was strong. Assur was strong because Assyria's armies were strong, and Assyria's armies were strong because Assur was strong. One did not cause the other, they were both each other's cause and effect. Ancient people seemed far happier with this sort of tautology than we are today, and it fuddles the directness of cause and effect nicely so people can't game the system so easily.

As an aside, evidence of the 'herbal' variety stretched back at least to the Bronze Age Eurasian steppe. Generally little communal hot-box wigwam things if memory serves me right. Interesting how our current conceptualisation of ability/disability defaults to a binary one. Having worked in the care of neurodiverse people (and been captured by the buzz around the UK paralympics in 2012) I'm certain the reality is far more complex. I'm definitely with you that a Storm Bull's sense is somewhere in the middle of that complex ability-disability spectrum, with clear benefits but also clear disbenefits. I also love the idea of roleplaying it that way. Make it so Sense Chaos makes a Storm Bull not be able to think straight. That would play beautifully into the whole 'detective story' plot of a Storm Bull who's dead certain he's sensed chaos but struggles to convince others around him of the truth. You could even gamify it if you like, and make the Storm Bull roll each time they want to communicate something when in the presence of Chaos, and if they fail it comes out all jumbled. No wonder they get frustrated and just start hacking things. Not sure what to roll against though. Truth rune? A skill of some variety? ...that most sinister of hidden forces, the White Moon...

Is Lodril mooning upwards or downwards? Knowing his reputation, he's definitely mooning in one direction or other...

Have herdmen lost the Man rune entirely? Or just had it proportionally diminished? We know people can have more or less of a given rune, considering blue people are blue because of a greater amount of Water rune within them...

Double post

That's an awfully evolutionary argument for a world that has no evidence of evolution taking place (at least, not in any way we understand it). Some morokanth have opposable thumbs, but that implies nothing about an arboreal natural history to Glorantha's tapirs. I'd argue it's more likely that the Man rune has 'eyes' as part of its form, meaning anything with the Man rune has eyes of some sort. Glorantha operates under fundamental laws very different from our own.

As herdmen are mythically animals, does that mean you could summon ancestors into other animals as well? Anyone read Pratchett's Small Gods? I sense a fun little plotline of the spirit of Waha accidentally getting reincarnated into the body of a tortoise 😄

Yeah in order to ford a river you want it to be at a shallow and slow point, which necessarily means that it'll be wide as well (same volume of water needs to flow through it, so shallow and slow necessarily means wide). Choosing narrow points to cross means that the water will either be deep or very fast flowing and turbulent (or both!) which makes it dangerous. This is likely different to where you want to site bridges (if they're single span), where you need the banks to be closer together. If you're building bridges with pillars then it's back to slow-flowing and wide again.

I like the idea of there being still-glowing spatterings of the sun's blood scattered around the underworld. Perhaps it provides a refuge for surface-world heroes questing into the darkness. Unless you're a troll, of course. In which case it'd be viewed in the same way we'd see the scorched-bare impact crater of a meteorite. A scar on the fabric of Wonderhome.

Again a little off-topic, but every now and again I have moments where I remember that 99.999% of the ancient historic writings we have were written by filthy stinking rich people. 'What difference does it make if one man is chained by short rusty links, and another by a mile-long gossomer strand of gold?'. As if you would know, Seneca, one of the very richest men in the very richest polity Europe had ever known. By all means, enlighten us with your stoic wisdom in the face of hardship, man who has never wanted for anything in his life. 'Woe is me, my wealth and nobility are oppressing me. This is clearly as heavy a burden as the threat of starvation that the poors are complaining about. I don't complain about how wealthy I am, so why should they complain about how destitute they are?' - says phenomenally rich land-owning aristocrat.

Haha no, don't apologise! I see it as part of my continued edification 😄 A pond is plenty deep enough if you're a frog or a newt 😉

"Chaotic? Moi? Now we're trading violence for even graver insult! I've never met such a rude people in all my life! But I am not an unreasonable man, and the senses of a Storm Bull are to be trusted. May I ask how it is you have decided I am the source of our friend's ill-feeling? Because you do not know me? What does that say of the hospitality of your people, that you would accuse honourable visitors of being chaotic with nary a whiff of proof to the claim?!" Oh dear...I think I'm being convinced how fun it would be to run an ogre character trying to hide in plain sight 😄

I can see a fair bit of game fun being in the persuading of the ogre to let you 'just open them up', and the ogre arguing that constitutes an indignity that guest-rights wouldn't permit: "I mean, how insulting. This drunkard's head wobbles and you all jump to cutting me up to look inside like a bunch of vultures! As if our host's honour and judgement has no value. Vingvald Guest-cutter of the Guest-cutter Clan they shall call him! Shame on you for even thinking it! And besides, how am I to trust that you will heal me up again? I've seen more than one of you eyeing up my golden torqs... Tell you what, you let me stay my time in peace as is my Right, and I shall be so magnanimous as to forget the whole idea. I think that's more than fair, don't you?"

Not to get too Heler-specific (this threat was intended to be a more general one for people to share alternative mythic arcs), but I've been thinking about some potential subcults for the Helerings (in various states of disrepair since their orlanthisation). Heler Precipitous: Rain magic (creation and control thereof), Flash Flood, some sort of stealing of fertility magic (playing into the arc of Heler's rains stealing the fertility of the Earth and delivering it to the Sea, though this would be a little forgotten since orlanthisation). Maybe a splash of healing magic through the application of rain (it would be neat if Heler could do a little bit of healing over a wide area, as a point of difference to other healing gods). Heler Transcendent: Follows the mythic arc of Heler's transfer from Water to Air. Here goes magic like Leap and other borrowed Motion magic from Air. Also sex change magic, because it fits well and whyever the hell not? Perhaps some form of peace magic as well, as Heler (and the Helerings) moved from adversary to companion. Heler Worchaling: Near-extinct subcult of Heler as a Water war-deity (playing on the Helerings' conflation of Worcha and their role in the Trembling Shore). There seems to be a dearth of cool watery war magics, but I'm thinking of things like allowing blades to pass through you like water or something like that. I've also got an idea in my head of Helerings having magic that allows their bowstrings to function in the rain. Flood and Drown would go well here too. This is sort of noodling around the idea of the 'subcult-as-epithet' thing being an Orlanthi creation, and the Helerings having picked it up during their orlanthisation as a way to refine their relationship with Heler. I do appreciate Jeff's approach of only major gods having multiple subcults (he's got a hell of a job baking in some degree of approachability to the game), but for me Heler is a Major God to the Helerings. Perhaps those subcults are unrecognised elsewhere, but it stands to reason that the people of Heler would have a more nuanced relationship to their patron than others. This all fits into the alternative mythic arc of Water Strives Upwards (with a mash-up of orlanthism). Perhaps Heler's breakthrough was in the movement from violence (Heler Worchaling) to collaboration with Air (Heler Transcendent), partially explaining the loss of his/her warlike aspect (the rest being social pressure and competition from Orlanthi war-cults).

I have not, but I really should! In many ways I'm a bit of a newbie to Glorantha, and I expect there's a lot that I'm missing. Time enough to scribble down a few outline points? I'd be interested to hear them! Interesting take! See, I like these differing opinions on the same event (Heler moving from Sea to Storm). I can see them easily being held as true by different (or even being true in different places, Truth in Glorantha being a proximate phenomenon). It also hints to another interpretation of Heler's relationship with Storm that I like: that of war captive. Heler being a hostage taken from Water and adopted into Storm as a lever against further hostilities. Man I so need to brush up on my runes 😄 I think I follow, but there's definitely a fair bit of nuance I'm missing! Still, love the idea of Water folk appreciating Maran Gor's work because it finally makes the staid Earth get up and dance for a change. From a distance, of course... Also love the continuation of the Water syncretism. It's not just Air and Moon that can lay claim to deities lying elsewhere, and forge yet more false monomyths. That's a little of what I was trying to get at. We have a dominant Theyalan-influenced monomyth, and a Lunar one too (possibly the remains of a Solar one as well). I'd like to see more! I suppose it dips a little into my Gloranthan worldview. That the mythic structure we see today, and the trend towards monomythism, is a God-Learner (and Theyalan, who are very nearly as bad) fabrication. The stitching together of a million different myths and spirits into a patchwork whole, that's no more or less true than its individual pieces in isolation (and is missing key bits of fabric trimmed away to make everything fit). Perhaps these monomyths are so dominant that these previous mythic structures have no echo, but I prefer my Glorantha to be chock-full of these differing worldviews. Both existing in of themselves, or as tints and skews layered on other people's monomyths. Interesting! Perhaps this concept may have been part of the mythic reasoning Orlanthi peoples used to tempt the Helerings away from Water (they are an Orlanthi people after all).

Near enough to the detective analogy. Most people know that Luther, Sherlock and Rust are dedicated to catching crims (with some notable exceptions, some innocent some guilty), but generally disbelieve their gut instincts until sufficient (difficult to procure) proof is presented.

We all know well the worldviews and cosmology of the Orlanthi of Dragon Pass, the Old Solars and the New Lunars, but in the interest of making Glorantha a more Varied place I was wondering what ideas people had for potentially different cosmologies and mythic arcs of different peoples across the lozenge. It was inspired a little by @Sir_Godspeed's excellent ideas about Yggite beliefs, positing a parallel worldview where the followers of Ygg see him as the true heir of Umath and Orlanth as a trickster who's stolen his rightful place in the world, and subsequent conversations with @mfbrandi about how we'd like to see cultures who have their own slants on the central monomyth (or even mythic structures that don't follow the known monomyth at all, and have their own stories to tell). My own thoughts are nowhere near as well formed as Godspeed's Yggling myths, but I was thinking about the Helerings (or at least a water/air/sky-based alternative mythic structure). Here's what I've got so far in terms of overarching cosmology, mythic arcs, and what those mean for tangible politics: Water was born of Darkness, and began as a formless all-encompassing ocean (or perhaps an ocean ring running continually from the Underworld to the Sky). When Umath created the Middle Air, he split the Lower Ocean from the Upper Ocean (the sky). The inhabited world is sandwiched between these two oceans, which is why the sky is blue. Those Water deities trapped in the Upper Ocean have forgotten they were ever Water deities (or potentially the Solar deities invaded the Upper Ocean and drove the native Water deities out, I'm undecided). The oldest of the Water deities live in the deepest depths of the Lower Ocean (e.g. Styx), as that is where Water was born. Each successive generation of water deities have strived to reunite the Upper and Lower oceans, and thus have risen up the water column (Magasta, Daliath, then progressing upwards). There have been many pioneers in this effort, including River Spirits who have flung themselves out of the ocean and onto land, coming one step closer to the sky. The latest and greatest pioneer is Heler, who leapt into the air as rain and has built a bridge into the Middle Air. Although the Helerings have been Orlanthised in recent years, this mythic arc lies as a substrate beneath more recognisably Orlanthi worship. Orlanth is viewed less as the head of the pantheon, but more as a friend of Heler who bargained on her behalf for safe passage into the Air. Their attitude towards the Lunar Empire is complicated. On the one hand, they're anti-Solar (in more recent years at least, as the mythic narrative has changed from them being lost Water deities to being usurpers). On the other hand, they're fascinated by the Red Goddess' feat of raising herself from the Earth into the Air., and what they could learn to take the next step into the Upper Ocean. The fact that these two pantheons are mixed up in the Lunar Empire's cosmic structure causes all sorts of tensions with Lunar missionaries, who haven't quite got their head around the cultural conflict yet. I expect this differs significantly from the canon depiction of the Helerings, but I like it at least! Has anyone else got any ideas about different mythic structures for different cultures around Glorantha? If so I'd love to hear them 🙂

Do they though? How would they know? Because a Storm Bull tells them? Those notoriously trustworthy and morally upstanding people... Are we sure that Storm Bull would punish them for lying about Chaos? In my mind he just cares that chaos is destroyed, and really doesn't care much for collateral damage. You could argue that lying about chaos is detrimental to destroying chaos, but so is being violent anti-social drunks and Storm Bull seems perfectly happy with that. I'm not suggesting that they're universally disbelieved, especially where their cult is valued. More that there is a significant requirement of a Storm Bull to convince other people around them that their hunch is correct (which, being anti-social nutcases, they are almost singularly ill-equipped to do). They're largely trading on the social standing of their cult, and people's fear of Chaos, which works ok at a general level but when you start getting down to specific cases can get quite ropey indeed. One of the best aspects of this approach is it Makes Glorantha Fun, by opening up all the sort of detective storylines I mentioned earlier 🙂

For reference, this trope you see in westerns is a guest-right in action. The guest (to the town, and thus of the sheriff as the town's representative) is not allowed to be killed until a customary period has elapsed. If the sheriff breaks this, his word as an upstanding member of the law will be tarnished (which is seen as more important than the execution of the law, otherwise he'd just kill them).

Potentially, depending on circumstance. However, guest-rights are usually very personal (and again, specific) in their obligations. The oath is to you (and usually by extension your household, as it is your household doing the hosting). If an ogre came with the intention of murdering and eating a member of the host's family, absolutely. Fair game. Provided that intention is made absolutely clear (e.g. the ogre is caught in the act of trying to murder a member of the host's family). If it's just an accusation of intent, that's nowhere near as clear cut, and doesn't forfeit hospitality. Usually the guest-rights are pretty specific about the people the guest is expected to be non-violent towards. If an ogre came with the intention of murdering and eating someone else, then that would have little bearing on whether the host's obligation of hospitality applies. It all gets a bit complicated when you get into the realms of chiefs offering hospitality on the behalf of their clan, but mostly it seems to have been a very personal household-based thing. This plays very well into Maximum Game Fun too. E.g. an ogre is discovered, but has played a blinder and is under the chief's hospitality. You know they've got 3 days' grace, and that they'll disappear before that time is up. However, as a guest of your chief no member of the chief's clan can lay a finger on them (so long as they uphold the same). How does the party make sure they get their man without besmirching the honour of their entire clan? Are there people in the clan who would benefit from the chief's honour being besmirched, and you have to protect the ogre from them! Are you someone who cares about the chief's honour, or would you prefer to kill the ogre there and then and just wade through the consequences? Another detective analogy, but treat it like those '24 hours in police custody' type things where the main characters are dead certain the perp did it, but there's important social customs standing in the way of nailing them.

Again, it doesn't seem so awful from an outside perspective. But these things were Serious Business for these people. Breaking hospitality was Breaking Hospitality, and you will be punished by the gods for doing so. Obviously murdering a guest is worse than letting them go early, but both are pretty much as close as you can get to a Human Rights violation in these cultures. The reason these things existed were to provide a safety net for travelling in a dangerous environment, and to set expectations about non-violence between unrelated (and possibly conflicting) parties. In the absence of law enforcement, the only thing holding these practices together is the social expectation that everyone does exactly what they're expected to do. It's literal life and death stuff. You're right in the assumption that people would give no more than you were expected if your guest is unwanted though. You will follow the expectations to the letter (so they would have no way to excuse themselves of their obligations as guest and murder you first), but beyond that there's nothing. Even your suggestion of 'give them a head start after hospitality runs out' is generous. The expectation is that you would be long gone before your period of protection ends. If you're still stupid enough to be sitting down eating your breakfast as dawn rises then more fool you. I suppose that's a little of what you were explaining. Tell them they need to be gone before hospitality ends or there will be repercussions. But you cannot force them to leave your protection early (i.e. it cannot be rescinded).

That raises an interesting question... Can Argan Argar Sense Chaos? Is Sense Chaos an ability of Storm Bulls, or an ability of Storm Bull himself? Yes Argan Argar hates Chaos, but like all rules it butts headfirst into the issue of enforcability.

I suppose my point is that the entirety of Glorantha is tainted as Chaotic, and has been since at least the Greater Darkness (if not before, depending on your views of Gloranthan cosmology). Time itself is likely a chaotic entity (that which nourishes itself with Chaos becomes chaotic -> Arachne Solara ate Wakboth and birthed Time). You might think that, but I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that you don't live in a culture with strong guest-rights. Guest rights are an all-caps RULE. The very Devil himself could trick you into giving him guest-rights and you would have to uphold them. It doesn't matter if he's the embodiment of all evil. It doesn't matter that he tricked you. You extended guest-rights, and unless he breaks them you are bound to uphold them. (In fact, there are numerous myths from numerous cultures that use this as a fundamental conflict in their narratives). There are very specific rules for when guest-rights come into force, and very specific rules for when they are lifted. Unless one of those very specific rules is met, there is no weaselling out of your obligations (no matter how justifiable your weaselling might be).

Rescinding guest rights?! Whatever next! Might as well invite Wakboth into your house right now, seeing as nothing is sacred anymore. People took guest rights very, very seriously. To the point pretty much all cultures had some variation of a myth of gods/spirits/angels coming to check up on people to make sure they were doing the right thing. Pretty much the only way for guest-rights to be rescinded was for the guest to renege on their obligations as a guest, rendering the arrangement moot.

Another thought. Does a Storm Bull sense where chaos is, or do they also sense where chaos was? If it's the latter as well as the former, does the Storm Bull have the skill and experience to be able to tell between the two? Considering what happened during the Greater Darkness, it could well be that a Storm Bull's sense is pinging 24/7 (if it's a passive ability), or they're simply swamped by signals from all sorts of directions and need to learn to sift through all that mess to get any usable information (if it's an active ability). Perhaps that's why they're so insufferable all the time... Even if they're an experienced Storm Bull, could they tell the difference between something like a canny Ogre 15m away and an adulterer standing right next to them? Could they tell the difference between a Krarsht cultist in a crowd, and the spot Krarsht herself once stood in the Greater Darkness?