davecake

And Ancestor Worship among the Hsunchen (Old Man and Old Woman), and the Kralori and the East Isles (Ebe, Iste) according to the Guide (all have the same exact runes - double ir ownership of Man, plus Spirit), and in Gods of Glorantha it’s called Ancestor Worship and is explicitly generic. If you are basically going to argue from a close reading of Cults of Prax but not look at later sources, it’s going to make discussion pointless. The evidence is that Grandfather Mortal (and Grandmother too) has many names and guises, is the core of an active magical tradition of Ancestr Worship in many parts of Glorantha, and their core practices are animist and shamanic (as indicated by both the Spirit Rune and the GoG writeup). Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t magically access your ancestors in different ways. It is possible that you can use sorcerous necromancy or some form of divine intercession. And we already know that the trollish version is so closely tied to Kygor Litor as to effectively form a single mixed tradition. But those are going to be side offshoots to the main thing, what in Hero Wars days would have clearly been Misapplied Worship, but these days is just a sub-optimal weird way of doing things . Contacting his ancestors would seem to be the entire point of being an ancestor worshipper? Either you are proposing an extremely odd version of Ancestor worship that doesn’t involve contact with the ancestors, or you are hung up on a pointless terminological distinction. That seems rather the opposite of what you are arguing - rather than exiling heterodoxy, that is Brithos exporting Orthodoxy. Projecting power, in the modern argot, to defend against threats. If I was a court, I’d be shouting ‘objection, speculation’. There is no evidence that Brithos has been pursuing a dedicated policy of exiling the heterodox, and significant evidence they have no significant motivation to do so (the problem usually neatly takes care of itself if they do nothing). Speculating about possible motivations to do so doesn’t change that. We have no evidence at all that pure orthodox of participants is required for Zzabur to cast a big spell, and indeed the last great spell to end the ice age had ouri and Aldryami participants, and Danmalastan was never a pure unity (eg always had the Waertagi etc around), so this would seem to be an idea you have made up with little to support it.

Yes, the Vadeli have books I think. Distinguishing between books that lie, books that contain useful knowledge, and those that are in between in a difficult business that has taken a fair bit of Malkioni history. There are a number of methods, but you are always torn between a too liberal policy meaning some books will be in error, and a conservative policy meaning you will reject something important, and There is always the question of how to interpret a book. Literally, metaphorically, magically, cryptically. I think they do use methods like Geomatria for example, it not consistently. And there is deliberate use of obscure symbolism, steganography, etc to hide knowledge from the profane. It’s possible that sects may interpret books differently. Tomaris may be the Gloranthan Pythagoras, with the Rokari reading him only for his maths texts.

We had a chat at Eternal Con a couple of years ago about Ancestor Worship with @Jeff and others that discussed this. I don’t think ancestors can transfer knowledge of sorcery skills etc magically, but they can use their if they are eg possessing someone, or can give much useful advice. I suspect this is pretty rare and covert among most Malkioni, and heretical for many. But it can be a very effective tactic for a lineage of sorcerers, and I think happens in both Fonrit and Kralorela. Very handy to call up your adept great-grandfather for a chat. There is a really nasty bunch in Fonrit I’m writing up currently. They are both ancestor worshippers and sorcerers, they believe slavery does not end with death, and they have spells like Dominate Ghost and Tap POW. They have a form of ‘immortality’ by Tapping the POW of slaves to almost nothing then having their ancestors possess them to live again.

Absolutely. Just ask any Brithini, and they will tell you that the Vadeli lie all the time.

Well, the tradition also has the Spirit Rune. The idea that there is a strict division between the otherworldly nature of dead people (eg that there is a strict division between souls and spirits etc) isn’t one I really have much truck with, it seems a lingering thing from the Hero Wars era - but if it was a thing, then being an active member of a Spirit tradition would surely tend to put you the Spirit side of that divide. I do think that an ancestor who has been reincarnated will tend to be hard to contact, but also that anyone who has ancestor worship as their primary magical tradition, and is still given worship by their ancestors, will resist reincarnation. . I thought we’d already gone over this, and the Seshnegi left for political, not doctrinal, reasons. FWIW I don’t think Zzabur spends a lot of effort on doctrinal cleansing, the Brithini are unique in their lack of need to do that. If you don’t follow the Law, you start to age and die, so most issues of heterodoxy sort themselves out pretty quickly (from an immortal point of view). Well, mostly. The Vadeli are able to prove they follow the Law, as they don’t age either, this infuriates the Brithini beyond words, Yes, not only do the Brithini believe that the appropriate way to transmit knowledge is by writing it down, they believe that knowledge that can’t be transmitted through languages and thus written down in a book, is not worth transmitting, if it’s not linguistic, it’s not Reason. And if it’s not Reason, it’s therefore Error. I’m pretty sure this is what the Brithini think about both Joy of The Heart, and Illumination and other mystic insights. Not Reason, so therefore Error. Later Malkioni generally feel differently. Though maybe not most Rokari. I think that even the Brithini admit that great magicians may, instead of dissipating, have their Intellect preserved, by means of close magical identification with an Eranschula etc. they just don’t necessarily think it’s desirable. But again - what they can teach us through Reason must therefore be capable of being written down. To the Brithini (and Rokari) needing anything more than that is usually indicative that you are seeking something beyond Reason and Logic. There certainly exists the possibility that it might be useful to contact a dead person to learn something they just didn’t write down, but that is rare and weird, and in general necromancy is considered a bad idea by the Rokari (though there is the occasional case of ‘oh grandfather, where did you leave the map to the treasure vault’ I’m sure). To the Hrestoli, who believe that Joy can only be taught through experience, and is beyond the reach of philosophical enquiries alone, the idea that you might want to contact the dead Ascended Masters directly makes much more sense, as they have wisdom beyond words and can guide you through the ineffable mysteries. (In the guide it’s noted that veneration of the Ascended Masters can help you attain Joy. Perfectly sensible if you are Hrestoli, just asking for trouble if you aren’t ) Yep. And we know how the Rokari and Brithini feel about venerating Ascended Masters. And just another example of the Seshnegi descent into henotheism. While I think this is kind of magically plausible, I’m not sure it really is culturally. Danmalastan ancestors have only the secrets of Reason to teach, which they should have written down in a book if it was important. And if you just want to summon them up because they are powerful, then just summon them, don’t mess around with worship.

Because there is a subtle difference between ideas like theism (an abstract concept) and Rune/Divine magic (a game concept), that may or may not represent important truths of Glorantha. Many of the interesting parts of animism are implemented, in RQ2 and RQ3, using divine magic rules (not just Ancestor Worship, essentially every interesting Animist tradition has Rune spells in those games, eg all the Hsunchen transformation spells). That might indicate that animism and theism are concepts that overlap somewhat and one can develop into the other, or it might indicate that the animism magic rules in RQ2&3 are somewhat underdeveloped and not capable of representing the range of magical effects that Gloranthan animism is capable of, or both (I tend towards both). The Mythras animism rules show that you could have animism rules that are capable of performing a much wider range of magical effects purely from using spirits rather than spells, which would reduce the need for every animist tradition to have Rune spells in RQ. RQG does not seem to have done much of this, and seems to be basically heading down the RQ2/3 route but with more interesting shamans. There are a bunch of reasons why they may have chosen to that route, some of them quite sensible, but it does mean that we shouldn’t take the use of Rune spells as necessarily implying a tradition being more or less animist if that is how the rules have to work. i think all forms of magic are pretty ritually intensive, but usually provide you with really useful magic you can use in the moment as well. Ancestor Worship is no different - you can use its magic to have an ancestor help you out in an emergency, and it’s pretty good for certain emergencies (like being threatened by enem6 spirits). Quite how this is implemented in game may vary, but we shouldn’t expect any game to be a perfect simulationist rendition of Glorantha.

I don’t think all ancestor worship is shamanic in nature, but I was using Ancestor Worship as by definition shamanic in nature. That is, I was using Ancestor Wirship as the collective name for the multiple Man and Spirit Rune based traditions, all of which I think are more or less identical, and the Spirit Rune indicates are shamanic. Variously Daka Fall, Old Man and Old Woman, Ebe, Iste, and probably a bunc( of other names too, including Darhudan and Grandfather Mortal. Most of the time when someone is an ancestor worshipper, I think that it’s that tradition or a close variant. But there are other ways to magically interact with the ancestors that are outside that near universal tradition. The Orlanthi do seem to interact with them as a clan, though it’s unclear quite how it works - the specific question would seem to be do the interact with the ancestors as a clan, or as a group of bloodlines. I certainly think that cultures we do not think of as animist still do ancestor worship, and probably also Ancestor Worship. And interestingly, though it is a shamanic tradition, it may be sustainable without shamans, as long as someone with the Axis Mundi spell is around. I don’t know how to interpret that, because it’s obvious that in RQ2 and RQ3 the cult was written up with a full complement of Rune spells. Quite practically useful ones, too.

I think we are basically quibbling about terminology here. Or at least, we need to settle terminology before we can work out any real disagreements. First, I think the way you are using the word animist there is kind of unhelpful. Everyone in Glorantha believes some variant of animism, I think (even the Brithini, sort of - they think it’s an Error, but they thin’ it’s a pernicious Error because the magic works, but for the wrong reasons). Rather, I’m using animism as a synonym for what the Guide calls Spirit Magic (a term I avoid due to its varying use within various RuneQuest editions), one of the four big magic methods. Which I think is what you are calling shamanism, the generic magic of spirit contact - but I don’t like using the term shamanism if there isn’t a shaman involved, and not all contact with the spirit world, or all Spirit Traditions, require a shaman (ie Storm Bull is animist, but not shamanist, because they have magic involving spirits, but no shamans). So, when I say the Orlanthi aren’t very animist, I’m talking about their magical methods than their beliefs. They believe in spirits all over the place, it’s just not a sensible way of doing magic compared to godly worship rites. And I certainly And when I use the term Ancestor Worship (inconsistently capitalising the w because I didn’t anticipate this terminological confusion) I mean the tradition Formerly Known As Daka Fal, known as Ancestor Worship in GoG, and assumed to be the basis of the many similar traditions (all animist, as they have Spirit Rune). The Orlanthi, by contrast, mostly just practice ancestor worship, that is they worship their ancestors, generally in a plain simple way of offering them worship without expecting much back in return (though on Ancestor Day and other specials occasions it becomes more interactive).

Actually the idea that all trees, or all forests, are either deciduous, coniferous, or tropical jungle is a really weird one. By describing Embyli as tropical evergreens (as the Guide does) or as the elves associated with broadleaf flowing plants (angiosperms) as other sources do doesn’t really help. Either the problem is ‘where are all the evergreen plants that aren’t tropical or coniferous’, or how do we classify deciduous angiosperms, or similar. No system quite fits because conifers are a class of plant (that happen to all be evergreen), but deciduous is a thing plants do that happens across many classes of plant. Either Glorantha is really vastly less ecologically diverse, and missing a lot of common plants, or the situation is a bit different on close examination. The latter seems more likely, as we really only have a human view of elf society in canon sources. My theory is that: our designations of elf forests as green, brown, green/brown or yellow is an oversimplification. Humans focus on elves, and think of it in racial terms, but the Aldryami are organised more by biomes than anything comparable to human societies or nations, each of which includes multiple species of plants and animals. Basically, a large contiguous (or nearly) tree dominated biome gets you an elf forest. I suspect elves really aren’t the important bit (it might be dryads), just other Man Rune creatures tend to see it that way. Elves vary quite a bit within the elf species, depending on their tree type, age, etc. Stats for yellow elves etc are typical, not universal. There are also cases where there are closely related types of tree (and thus, presumably closely related types of elf) that vary as to there defiduousness -eg there are both evergreen and deciduous oaks, sometimes in the same forests. Almost every elf forest will then include a wide range of Aldryami from a range of classes of plant. For example, a green elf forest will be dominated both by coniferous trees and green elves, but may include holly runners (who are angiosperm flowering plants). These typically includes some (though a minority) temperate broadleaf evergreen elves in brown forests - humans don’t really recognise these as yellow elves. And culturally, they don’t present that way. We know there are the mixed green/brown forests where no single type of elf predominates, but we don’t always consider that a mixture of trees in one elf forest is normal. Some of what we regard as true of ‘embyli’, like preferring blowguns to bows, is more of an Erinorru jungle cultural difference. The multiple different forests that make up the Erinorru jungle probably represent different biomes rather than just political divisions, so not all will be tropical jungle, some will be sub-tropical, or evergreen broadleaf forests, rather than jungle. Outside of the Erinorru jungles, an implication for play is that if you want a character who is from a brown elf jungle, but don’t want them be hibernating for a session every year, just find an appropriate tree for that biome. I will continue to be disappointed that I can’t find a good place in Glorantha, both geographically and mythological it, for eucalypts. Suggestions welcome.

I don’t think this is true. You won’t get access to those ancestors through broad community worship ( eg Heorting clan rites), but that isn’t the normal pattern of Ancestor worship in Glorantha. If your ancestor has gone to join some weird other cult and gone on to a different afterlife that may be an issue. But I think you can use Ancestor worship to contact the spirit of your uncle who travelled to a different city etc. They don’t get to see them on Ancestor day as part of Clan rites, but if they became true Ancestor worshippers (which would be unusual because Ancestor worship is still a shamanic tradition and so rare among the Heortlings), they would be able to contact them just fine. The problem isn’t clan membership, it’s about having a shaman who is in your bloodline to lead the rites.

I think it’s the wrong take. Yelmalios myth cycle is weaker - he gets kicked around, loses his Fire powers. But the path the two cults have taken within history is very different. Elmal just seems to mostly be the vehicle for Orlanthi assimilation of the remnants of the Hyalorings. It’s never been powerful or dominant since the Dawn, and seems destined to continue to be nothing but a minority practice among a few clans here and there. Yelmalio, on the other hand, is a far more complex cult historically. It’s the heir to traditions including a powerful fusing of mystic and theist ways, one of the few traditions humans share with elves, being a major imperial war god in the first and second ages, and being the ruling god of its own military tradition. It’s got hybrid vigour and a rich range of knowledge. And it’s now the default cult to bridge between Heortling culture and the Power of Dara Happa. And it’s recently the home of the Many Suns exploratory creative heroquesting tradition. So I think to understand the strength of Yelmalio, you have to look more at history than myth. Myth gave Elmal a stronger mythic base - Fire powers, leadership myths, a magical connection to horses that is very deep. And as a result, they have better base magic. But history gave Yelmalio independence, and an interesting broad range of not just magic, but mundane, abilities, and a lot of powerful and interesting connections both magical (not just Sunspear, but elf friendship, other solar connections, etc) and mundane (multiple different well developed combat traditions used to working together in close cooperation, geography, hawks). The key to comparing the cults isn’t really to compare their magic to each other. The key is that Elmal’s magic will always be judged as not as as good as Orlanth. But Yelmalios magic is the core of the whole Sun Dome society, and so it’s the magic the best soldiers have used for centuries - so what if it’s not the best magic for magicians?

Misapplied Worship was based on the idea that being a divine or spirit or essence being was an intrinsic property of each otherworld power. I think we now think that theism, sorcery and animism are three methods of dealing with the underworld that can approach the same issues (mysticism a bit different, but the differences may lie more with goal than method). Some powers are of such a nature that they are best approached by a particular method, or are particularly hostile to a particular method, probably, but that’s perhaps the less common case. But it’s also much much easier to approach a particular otherworld Power through an established tradition, where many other magicians have already trod the path and done the work. Usually you would want to be a heroquester and/or an advanced magician to even try. And most established traditions are focussed on a single method. By no means all, and some traditions allow practitioners straddle two or more methods eg (Lhankor Mhy, Kygor Litor). There can also be separate traditions that approach the same power by different methods (Sword Brother and Humakt).

Depends what you mean by Hrestolism.

My personal theory on the Menena caste is that, like all the castes, it’s technically defined by functional role, by the work they do. Dronars labour, Horals fight, Zzaburi think, Talars lead the Malkioni, Menenas create more Malkioni. That probably overlaps to homemaking (making the conditions for Malkioni to grow to adulthood), even healing (eg Xemela) To the Original Malkioni, it makes perfect sense that this is biologically determined, so are the other castes. Horali are red and muscled and moustachioed, and built for fighting. Zzaburi are blue and tall for thinking and observation. Talars are yellow, and attractive, suited for leadership. Menena have breasts and uteruses for creating children. Obvious. By the Dawn it’s probably broken down quite a bit, but not too badly. People have gone and produced children with other people’s out of necessity, and it’s sub-optimal, so the clear form-and-function link has broken down a bit, but the Law seems to still work (no one ages) as long as caste rules are maintained. That’s still how it works for the Brithini. But it all starts get a bit weird in the Dawn, what with people no longer being unaging (mostly for other reasons I presume), and Hrestol, and the fall into henotheism ways. The Seshnegi start to behave more like barbarians and do all sorts of wicked things. Like having sovereignty tied to the Earth, and having their Horali adopt weird Hykimi practices, and such. Over in Akem they have their own problems. Gender roles may depart from the Brithini plan, as so many things do. Menena and woman are no longer considered synonyms by many Malkioni, and when they are the idea of what it means to be Menena caste has changed The Vadeli, btw, don’t seem to have gender segregation, but still claim to follow the Law (to the letter, but not in spirit), so they must either have always had a different Law, or they found a loophole (like outsourcing their Menena role and restrictions to slave race nannies or something). Things don’t get any more settled with Arkat etc (with all that trolling matriarchy and worse - to the trolls, the idea that being a woman precludes you from leadership, combat or magic is literally insane). The God Learners do not help at all, with all their radical redefinition of everything. I haven’t worked out details. In the modern era, the Rokari and the Hrestoli, predictably, take opposite approaches to the Menena caste, at least in the modern era, more or less based on their other ideas about caste. The Rokari think that we need to return, as much as possible, to the biological determinism, form and function align, hereditary caste era. So the obvious way to do that is that all women are Menena, and therefore must be for making and raising children, and home making, etc. just the way Malkioni surely intended. Anything else is caste mobility, and they ain’t having none of that. To the Hrestoli (well, the Loskalmi anyway), caste mobility is surely correct. So Menena is a functional role that you can move in or out of, like other castes. When a woman becomes pregnant enough she becomes Menena, and remains so while she raises children. When she is no longer child raising, she returns to her previous caste (usually). And their sense of equality means they probably allow men who are full time child raising to be considered Menena as well.

It was a campaign to Return to Rightness, and so to eliminate as many forms of pernicious error as possible. Henotheism , Ancestor worship, Hykimi influence just some of them, it also being a campaign against the Arkati most especially. Hrestolism in general of course, and probably against Vadeli influence if they could find it.

I think so too. But I think they fail in their magical efforts to prove it. I’m sure there are Rokari treatises on the incompatibility of the Law with women, dronars etc - probably both in authorised versions accepting that Talars may be sufficiently pure, and suppressed versions saying only Zzaburi are. I think it’s very interesting that they have taken the idea of magically significant lineages, and with the idea of the Secret Keepers, turned into a hereditary intellectual duty instead, thus de-emphasising the biological line (and thus turning it into an achievement of the Talars, rather than the Menena). This makes a lot of sense as a Return to Rightness era reaction against Seshnegi (Menena driven or not) Ancestor worship.

I think so too. But I think they fail in their magical efforts to prove it. I’m sure there are Rokari treatises on the incompatibility of the Law with women, dronars etc - probably both in authorised versions accepting that Talars may be sufficiently pure, and suppressed versions saying only Zzaburi are. I think it’s very interesting that they have taken the idea of magically significant lineages, and with the idea of the Secret Keepers, turned into a hereditary intellectual duty instead, thus de-emphasising the biological line (and thus turning it into an achievement of the Talars, rather than the Menena). This makes a lot of sense as a Return to Rightness era reaction against Seshnegi (Menena driven or not) Ancestor worship.

In considering ‘what is the Grandmother Mortal story’, we must first ask ‘what is the Grandfather Mortal story’, and I think the Grandfather Mortal story is a God Learner aggregation of the stories of Old Man, Darhudan, Daka Fal, Iste, Kudja, Ebe, and more. There is no single Grandmother Mortal story, but the stories of Old Woman, Darhudana . There will be some where it is a distinct story intertwined with her male counterpart, some where it is distinct, some where it will be taken as read that the first mortal was hermaphroditic (well, everyone was then, didn’t you know?), for some the first Ancestor and the first to die are the same, for others they are not. But the magic of Ancestor worship works pretty much the same regardless.

A general comment on multiple arguments in this thread, including herd men, Xiola Umbar pregnancy magic, etc - in general, arguing that general observation X or Y is not true because there exists a specific magic effect to change it in a specific way is a terrible, confusing style of argument that leads nowhere. Often the exact inverse is the more reasonable line of argument. If there is a magical principle that X implies Y, and there is a special spell to magically make X true where it normally is not, then it’s probably at least in part because people want to do Y.

No, that’s Ancestor worship which is probably literally at least 80% of active Man Rune magical expression, and the owner of the Rune, and one of the very few near universal magical practices. They are hard to separate, but it’s true not the same. The distinction really only becomes relevant when dis using other forms of Ok, you have to be in a physical mortal body to acquire the Man Rune. Note that an ancestor isn’t just a spirit that was a Man once - you need that physical link, through physical ancestry, for Ancestor worship to work. And yes, there are many sapient magical Beasts. The Man Rune isn’t the sapience Rune, and sapient magical beasts should not surprise you if you hadn’t been hanging on to that idea. And it also shouldn’t confuse you that Brithini and Vadeli are unaging, yet mortal. Uzuz are mortal, yes. Yes, all Ancestor worshippers understand that their ancestors are dead, and no longer possess a body, trivially. They also know that this means ancestors have a limited ability to experience the world. That doesn’t they don’t believe the ancestor they contact is the actual soul. They can’t simultaneously believe their identity dissolves after death, and they can contact their ancestors soul. Nope, it’s different because they aren’t sapient. Animals don’t have the concept of Family or ancestor, just relationships with other individuals. I was literally taking the described magical effects directly from the Man Rune grimoire (Book of the Original Man), so no, you are 100% wrong here. For the Westerners, this is an astonishingly valid question. And family structures on Brithos need looking into. It’s a question, sure, but not really a relevant one. Children of Brithini are still born as a result of a mummy and daddy Brithini using the normal procedure to create new people. That’s true even of the Mostali. Different sauces on the same steak, so to speak. Not really. Axis Mundi is a spell that allows communal interaction, and is the normal form of Daka Fal worship. And just because the Heortlings mostly interact with the ancestors via associate worship as part of the pantheon doesn’t mean that is the only mode they do so. If a heortling wants to establish an individual relationship with an ancestor via ancestor worship at the clan shrine, they can. When you are looking at the records of a culture that has decided historian is a male (Zzaburi) occupation, you would get that impression. Nonetheless, they all have both a father and a mother. I quite like @scott-martins suggestion that the celibate Zzaburi regard biology as an awkward irrelevance, but the Menena are the ones who come back to Ancestor worship etc, Motherhood amongst mortals is more than childbirth. Whether communally or individually, it’s raising a child to adulthood as well. (Admittedly the Mostali are weird in this respect, but then they are also the only major Man Rune race that do not appear to practice Ancestor worship or acknowledge their genealogy) and yes, it’s true that men can’t create children without women, but barring parthenogenesis fish people, the reverse is true as well. Of course. There are multiple versions of the Sword story for different cultures, and for different traditions within the same culture. The roles of Ty Kora Tek and Darhudana are different. and yeah, if you’ve only heard the version of the story told by the men about Gradfather Mortal, you might think Darhudana is an after thought. If you heard the version about Grandmother Mortal, you’d think differently. a better question to ask might be is there any evidence at all that Ancestor worship is gendered in its operation , other than by being embedded in cultures with strong gender roles? Some do. But we got onto the whole issue because you were claiming that Ancestor worship was strongly masculine. I’m arguing it’s not significantly gender specific. You appear to have somehow worked yourself around to arguing against a straw man (or straw woman) that is the converse or your original claim (and thus a variant of it) rather than what I actually said.

Well, that’s an interesting thing to talk about, though I’m glad it’s separate from the Man Rune discussion now, because it seems of very limited relevance to that. That’s a quite interesting way of thinking about. I’m sure the Brithini regard it as Error, but perhaps a supplemtary practice that they regard as foolish (but not forbidden), rather than attempt to change the law itself - they seem more hostile to Hrestolism than henotheism. I suspect the Revelation of Now does not forbid other forms of magic use (having been formulated before the Malkioni knew of them), just Zzabur regards them as self-evidently foolish. The Vadeli, of course, follow the same law, and will cheerily use other forms of magic should it have utility., just sorcery is in general an obviously better choice for them. I don’t have access to Hrestols saga, though I’d sure like to read it. I suspect the canonicity of many of its details are in flux though (like the old Crusade fragment, which was at one stage one of the most well direct sources of Hrestols practice, but 8 think is now explicitly not canon). If anything, I think the Axis Mundi temporarily returns a part of the world to the pre-Compromise status quo - the Compromise doesn’t allow use of the Axis Mundi magic, so much as create a need for it. In the period between the first Death and the Dawn, for the most part you would simply hang out with your dead relatives, and interact with them (as in an Axis Mundi), with a slowly dawning awareness over generations that this was not right, and a rearrangement of the world to correct the problem.

It stands for the Mortal condition. Making it into the Rune for sapience is focussing on the part over the whole. Certainly learning from experience is part of it, but in the sense of it being part of the universal mortal experience, not as a specialist focus - it’s not about being *good* at thinking, it’s about just doing it in the first place. Similarly, you have to be in a physical mortal body to have the Man Rune, but it’s not about being good at physical things at all. And it is important to note that the Man Rune is not about sapience per se, because in Glorantha there are many sapient beings that are not mortal. It’s about being a sapient mortal being, a physical creature that is not a Beast (or, I guess, Dragon).

Honestly, Joerg, this comes across as incredibly complex intellectual gymnastics that is still looking about as plausible as when you started - wanting to entirely re-order Malkioni society to justify one off hand comment based on a single reference in a source of sufficient age to be quite ambiguous. But since you persist. What Runes we have for intellect is largely irrelevant to your argument, except to note that multiples exist, and there is no need to add Man which already has other uses. The semantics games of understanding vs intellect vs knowledge is just games, and your presentation of those ideas is misleading. Law isn’t just another Rune for knowledge. There is a big gulf between unity, and a crisis of religious heterodoxy. Froalar is supposed to have left due to a political struggle of succession. And the trouble started with Hrestol in year 2. Not that I’m claiming the Seshnegi didn’t drift into heresy - I’m simply following the fairly well established claim that they drifted into henotheism in the First Age. You seem to be trying to make the very specific, and odd, claim that they were already heterodox before leaving Brithos, simply so you can then have them separately pursue heterodox caste changes over the Man Rune and Ancestor worship without linking that to their drift into henotheism? Why? Quibbling about when Ancestor worship began mythologically is another argument I’m not sure why you are pursueing. This is essentially disagreeing not about what happened, but when it reaches a form close enough to modern practice to use the same term rather than regard it as an antecedent practice for a different era. We both agree it’s pre-Dawn, which is basically the only relevant issue. There is that small detail of it being a heretical practice for them, which it wasn’t for the Malkioni. Ancestor worship doesn’t work as such if your ancestors are not in the underworld. It becomes a quite different thing if your ancestors are either demigods walking around. It also becomes a different thing if your ancestors are (or are supposed to have) dissolved their individuality after death, and so your attempting to bring them back is either futile or heretical (or both). Ancestor worship is a practice you follow if you want your own spirit to be preserved after death. I don’t think you can use it if your ancestors followed a path after death that precludes it. So the question is really when did the Seshnegi fall into heresy. And as I said before, no good reason to presume it was pre-Dawn IMO. I do not think this is true. Nor is 1 male in 4 a Dronar, and 1in 4 a Talar, which would be a rather top heavy society. Going from a single mythic family to a society of thousands many generations later and assuming all proportions and breeding practices were perfectly preserved is weird reasoningBut not as weird as arguing the ancestral Malkioni are parthogenetic fish. . Finally, back to the Man Rune. I’m not arguing that the Man Rune is about a functional, harmonious community. Many aren’t. I’m also not arguing about Agrarian society, which is the Earth Rune. I’m arguing it has the simple primal role of being about mortal beings living together in groups, usually family groups. I’m not arguing that from an abstract argument, but from the simple observed fact that most of the Man Rune magic we know of is about those things. Even the weirdo EWF sorcery of Pavis about the simplest social interaction, and reproduction, but 90% or more of Man Rune magic is Ancestor worship or community magic. I think this is a Very Weird stance, and a clear indication that you are getting lost in abstractions and overthinking this (if parthenogenesis in fish had not already made this clear). Where do you think families come from? If anything, Ancestor worship is even more about motherhood than it is about fatherhood. Women are part of families, have ancestors, die, every bit as much as men. And cities, of course, are also inhabited by women. Yes, it’s more primal than the gendered role implies by a female Earth, etc. but there is really nothing at all in Man magic that makes it male, if anything slightly the other way. And it is worth noting that often the intercessory gods, like Darhudan and Darhudana, or Old Man and Old Woman, are in identical-apart-from-gender-ed pairs. I think we get a male retelling of a story that the women tell about Grandmother Mortal, but don’t mistake that for it being a male story. It’s a mortal story.

Joerg, while all very interesting, I don’t find any of it that at all makes your argument any stronger. It’s true that the Man Rune is associated with sapience, yes, as well as mortality. So animals that are bipedal but without true language don’t qualify, such as Midget Slashers or herd men. It’s about the experience of being human, or human like to that extent. That’s quite different from associating it specifically with higher abstract reasoning, which we already have multiple runes for, and is clearly something not restricted to mortal beings (iconically so for the Malkioni, for whom Zzabur is the paragon). Seeing as you extensively quibble with my use of terms like Zzaburism - I’m referring to the 4th action (Storm ) Revelation of Now, which predates the Gods War. The important points are that yes, modern Malkionism has changed due to the Gods War, the sacrifice of Malkioni, and so on, but Zzabur, and the Enrovalini/Brithini who follow him, have not. The Malkioni have, but that’s kind of my argument - Ancestor Worship is just one of the many (we’ll documented) ways in which the First age Seshnegi departed from Enrovalini ways. You also raise a lot of pointless confusion about Greek philosophy. No. In describing Brithini philosophy as ‘usually associated with’ Platonism, that was NOT (and frankly, I don’t see how it could in good faith be reasonably interpreted as) an exclusive listing of all philosophy schools ever that I contend we might find inspirational for Malkioni philosophy. Of course it includes the influences of the Pythagorean schools that were influential on the Platonic schools. Of course the Kabbalistic schools, and other philosophies that combined to influence Neoplatonism are included. Because a single sentence is of course not an attempt to enumerate all allowable sources, if such a thing could exist anyway. My point, simply, is that in Malkioni society, broadly, the work of a philosopher is the province of the Zzaburi, largely, and largely focussed on understanding of the world that can be translated into sorceryand practical mastery of the world , not simple contemplation of happiness in the human condition. If a Dronar can’t do it, it’s not really a ‘Man rune’ Thing, which is associated with the universality of the mortal condition - and if a Dronar could do it, it’s not the sort of philosophy the Malkioni value, any more than they value Talars tilling the fields, Zzaburi hitting people, etc. It was presumably around as soon as Death came into the world, at least as soon as the separation of the living and the dead became necessary, so dating from the Darkness. So before the Dawn. But I don’t really see the relevance. All im saying the First Age Seshnegi began as Brithini, and the adoption of Ancestor Worship seems consistent with their general drift into henotheism, rather than something that would be considered an advancement of Malkioni philosophy, and the Man Rune would not generally be associated (magically or intellectually) with the sort of thing the Malkioni philosophy generally values highly.

I think you are seizing on an obscure, and probably outdated, reference and drawing exactly the opposite conclusions that are natural from the more core references. It’s an interesting reference, but probably better considered in its details (about ancestors becoming gods etc) as a very early stage on thinking about how divinity, humanism etc work in Glorantha, and very much to be considered in that vein, as early ideas that evolved - but even then, I don’t find any support for the idea of the Man Rune being about abstract intellectual thought. Rather, I saw it as indicating that the Seshnegi of the First Age slipped from pure Malkionism into a form of theism, treating their ancestors as gods. That reference is explicitly about Man Rune = Ancestor Worship. And this actually accords completely with what we know of the Seshnegi, with Froalar becoming the consort of Seshna Likita, and other examples of departing from pure Brithini Malkioni practices in order to get the magical powers needed to survive in a land dominated by other forms of magical powers. And sure, accessing Danmalastan (or at least Godtime Brithos, depending on how many generations it goes back) is a source of wisdom, but what wisdom? Not at all necessarily the wisdom of the great and the good of Danmalastan. Living life happily as a Dronar or Menena, without magic or involvement in the philosophical enquiries or magical projects of the age, is very much a Man Rune activity. By contrast, Malkioni society is generally pretty clear that the best way to transmit deep magical knowledge is via books. Philosopher is a kind of loaded term for the Malkioni. It usually is associated with the more Platonic/Neo-Platonic exploration of the world associated with the Law Rune, sorcery, etc. and mostly the Zzaburi caste (though moral philosophy is an important skill for Talars especially). Note that this dominant school of philosophy is NOT associated with the Man Rune - it’s source and greatest practitioner is Zzabur, who is not descended from Grandfather Mortal. Note also that Ancestor Worship is explicitly hostile to the tenets of Zzaburism, which teaches that death is dissolution and the end of individual existence. The Man Rune could certainly be associated with philosophy as we use the term irl, but much more ideas centred on living life well, ideas like Epicureanism, and I’m not sure that sort of philosophy is accorded any special status by most Malkioni societies. And Ancestor Worship Man Rune magic is explicit heresy to God Time era Enrovalini.