davecake

Just noting in this thread that, as was pointed out in the Guide read through, that Kygor Litor trolls and Aldryami shamans do not normally visit the spirit world, but instead the underworld. Also, both are described (in Gods of Glorantha) as being very limited in their ability to bind spirits to their fetch - KL shamans can bind only Darkness spirits, and Aldrya shamans only plant spirits (though both have access to a decent range of thesis magic too). It makes sense to, therefore, that their shamanic magic is via the Plant or Darkness Rune, not the Spirit Rune. Which of course is quite an advantage, as they also use that Rune for other magical purposes.

The information about Jomes Wulf given in the Guide is different to that in the Coming Storm. In the Guide, "He is a devotee of Pole Star, the Divine Moon Hunter, and of the Seven Mothers." But in The Coming Storm, he is an initiate only, and of Pole Star and Orogeria, but not Seven Mothers.

I did not know that Cragspider was originally a dark troll. She was already a Demi-goddess at the Dawn. At what point did a dark troll become an immortal goddess? Her sub-cult writeup in Troll Gods has no info either.

There is clearly at least a time and place where the moon blocks the sun. But that place might normally be inside the Crater at noonwhen Yelm is overhead, which is not a place that is normally accessible or hospitable to humans. I don't think there is otherwise a time it happens in other parts of the world. Yelmic mythology acknowledges that Yelm has a shadow, a place he cannot see. The black fire that is Yelm shadow is there, and Kazkurtum nourishes it. When there is an eclipse, this would be the world.

Well, I don't mean to use distort as a pejorative, just a description, and feel free to use another term that fits better. I do think that anyone who has a Rune at a heroic, or even probably devotee, level is noticeably outside the human psychological norm, but that isn't necessarily a negative thing. I think the psychology of Gloranthans differs from ours of course in all the ways that the Bronze Age differs from the modern era of course, but in another way as well - the practice of magic can change the psychological make up of a person significantly, and this is an intrinsic part of what we mean by being very strong in a Rune. And one aspect of this is essentially that anything we might label as a psychological or neuropsychological disorder, some Gloranthan has given to themselves via some form of magic practice (admittedly in some cases not deliberately). And often they just don't think there is anything wrong with it, because it's rewarded both practically with cool magical abilities, and socially with a high status social role. Which means technically, psychological conditions that we might regard as mental illness, even the worst kind of mental illness, are not in many Gloranthans because they are *functional*. The most obvious and extreme example is there are several Gloranthan societies that include essentially sacred serial killers. And I do agree that this aspect of heroes eventually getting to the point where they make decisions that are hard to understand from a normal perspective is part of the tragedy that many heroic stories become. Orlanthi heroes behaving like angry squabbling children. Haughty megalomaniac Yelmic nobles. Blood crazed Zorak Zorani or Shargashi, or Babeester Gor literally drunk on bloodshed.

I think mystic philosophy has the virtue that Illuminated insights are already incorporated, so when the moment of Illumination happens it is perceived as a moment of deeper understanding, rather than a shocking challenge to everything you know. So a follower of Mashunasan who becomes Illuminated just now understands those confusing parables about the Void, and everyone is fine with it. While a follower of Orlanth that suddenly starts babbling about Chaos not being so bad horrifies everyone around them - and shocks themselves, because they *know* chaos has it's place in the world, and nothing in their culture prepares them for that. To a Praxian, Illumination shows that everything he knows is a lie - to a Lunar, while still deeply shocking, after Illumination the Empire and the way of the Goddes makes *more* sense. And the moral issues that confront the Illuminate are already discussed, and understood and planned for. An Orlanthi who becomes Illuminated and is tempted into immoral acts is a shock and challenges his cultures core values deeply - how can a man who performs the sacrifices well, and who Orlanth does not chastise, do these terrible things? How can we know anything about who is virtuous, if all the rules have failed us? But when an orthodox mystic starts sprouting tentacles, they just nod and say 'like Oorsu Sara, he has attained greatly but failed to understand the deeper lessons', and proceed with with the business of Refutation, whether that be by sages debating Stillness vs Unrealization, or more practical and pragmatic methods. And FWIW, not all forms of Illumination are identical in terms of practical consequences, and this has been clear since Cults of Terror, and remains so in HQG - the list of powers possessed by Illuminates are not possessed by all of them, and is not exhaustive. I suspect there is at least one Illuminate power that is not widely known outside the East. Plus some of the details matter. The Lunars definitely are able to combine incompatible Runes as an Illuminate power, and particularly teach the combination of Life and Death, and to a lesser extent Truth and Illusion. But I think very few Lunars would know how to combine Movement and Stasis, or Harmony and Disorder - Stasis and Disorder are both fairly alien to their philosophy. Other mystic cults may understand these more - the Arkati, for example, may have learnt about Stasis from the Brithini and Disorder from Zorak Zoran. And different schools have different methods of teaching Illumination, which are very different in practice. Some only know confronting, sanity threatening, magical methods, others (Nysalor in particular) are able to teach subtly and secretly, orthodox mystic methods seem to take a long time and a lot of effort, but be far less sanity threatening. Plus there are things we don't quite understand about how mysticism relates to other forms of magic. We know many mystic magical practices are concerned with harsh austerities, but is this a path to mystic magic, or a mystic technique to enhance/access other forms of magic?

Jon, I don't think we actually disagree on much. Absolutely the surrounding culture makes a huge difference. Being heavily aligned with a Rune that your culture values usually is socially valued and understood and a functional role - while being heavily aligned with a Rune your culture rejects may be more difficult. Though in both cases it's not as simple as that - it's really more about fitting into an understood social role via cult or similar, and most Gloranthan societies still have some understood social roles for those devoted to a Rune out of the mainstream. But being a devotee, or otherwise strongly devoted to a Rune, whether it is socially accepted or not, is still always psychologically distorting. A fanatic or an obsessive is still weird, even if you also support the thing they are fanatic about. The Elder races are a bit different - and not all in the same way. I do think 95% or so of elves would qualify as devoted to the Plant Rune - but the ones that are not, the Rootless Elves, still have a social role, still are accepted within society. And as for the Man Rune - well, those who are devoted to the Man Rune are going to see it as normal and grounding to be obsessed with your community (which is what Man Rune cults are - eg family (Ancestor Worship) or city. Others are going to see that it as just another thing to be obsessed about. To an Orlanthi, a Man Rune devotee is going to be weird for not caring enough about the weather, which determines the crops, that feeds us all! To a Yelmic noble, a Man Rune devotee is weird for caring more about public opinion and other mundanities than about divine justice, and thus fails to understand the true foundations of community. It's all relative.

FWIW - I think the Moon Rune, when it manifests in someone who is not a Moon worshipper (and sometimes those who are) appears in ways that in the modern era we would characterise as mental illness - cyclical personality changes like manic depression, curious delusions, obsession with things that are of limited relevance to normal life, paranoia in the case of the Blue Moon. For moon cultists, of course, this is very different - partly because the guidance of Lunar immortals and deities (and the Glowline, if relevant) allows them to stabilise and focus on a 'phase', but partly because Gloranthan societies totally normalise acting in accordance with your runes and it becomes normal and functional.

It could. And the Lunars more or less do see time as a series of recurring cycles. But it can also be seen in a variety of other ways. The Easterners (well, Mashunasan, the voice of Orthodox Mysticism) see the ages as metaphors for the evolution of consciousness, for example. The Doraddi the slow rejection of civilised nonsense and a journey back to the Golden Age. I think only the Lunars think the cycles of Time (or anything else, for that matter) proves the intrinsic nature Moon. But maybe they are right, and it's everyone else who is wrong.

The ages as a metaphor for developing consciousness is part of the teachings of Mashunasan.

To the extent that the God Learners are able to reconcile the intellectual and reductive sorcerous worldview with the anthropocentric worldview of theism, it's because they believed that they could fully understand and analyse what it was to be human. Their philosophy was like the philosophy of mind school called functionalism, which believes that once you have fully described the practical, functional, measurable aspects of the mind, you have described it entirely and explained consciousness. The RuneQuest Sight, IMO, was this form of analysis - they believed they could analyse and understand not just the Otherworld and the universe, but humanity and the mortal experience. Analyse in such a way that, say, in theory a human being could be practically described in full by a lot of numbers, numbers that you could, for example, theoretically write down on a piece of paper... I think I've said too much.

I'm not sure that the God Learners were able to personally reconcile theism and sorcery normally. That is, I think the average God Learner generally was bound by cult restrictions in the normal way. But: some God Learners were illuminated. their favourite theist cult was Lhankor Mhy, which integrates sorcery anyway. you don't actually need to give up your sorcery unless you become a devotee - I think they simply didn't do that much. I do think they regarded this as a practical limitation, rather than one with significant moral consequences. I think the God Learners understood Illumination as the direct experience of Makan, the One Mind. The Irensavalists do too - but they think of Makan as the evil Demiurge, so Illumination is a temptation to wickedness.

Faranar is given weather and rain associations in one version of the Naming in Revealed Mythologies. I've gone back and forth on this a bit (because how many earth goddesses does one pantheon need? The Doraddi seem to have even more than the Esrolians), but I think I now see this as incorrect, and the Earth attribution in the Guide as correct.

Chaos clashes with human nature, because Chaos clashes with nature. That is intrinsic to Chaos. Undeath is inimical to human nature, because human nature is to be either alive or dead. But Death and Disorder do not clash with human nature at all. They are part of it. We all die, we can all kill. There are always some who bridle against the status quo a little and want to change things. All of the power runes are intrinsic parts of the mortal experience. All of the Element runes (except maybe Moon) are intrinsic and essential parts of the world. But any Rune, whether it is part of human nature or not, once you start to draw on it for magical power (especially via theist methods, which require direct identification with the power of the rune) will create a feedback effect, where it begins to influence you. Whether from magic or not (and I think it is very unusual, though not impossible, to become that focussed on a single rune for non-magical reasons), if you are extremely strong in one rune you start to become unbalanced, focussed on some parts of the life out of proportion to others. Sometimes this is functional, sometimes it is not, but always it is a departure from psychological normality. I don't think the Man rune is special in this regard. A person who is very focussed on the Man rune is focussed on the doings of humanity a great deal, perhaps more than is normal (or even healthy). They immerse themselves in personal experience, in the details of others - but they lose focus on the natural world around them, and on bigger, more abstract issues. Focussed on their community and family and all its small dramas, at its most dysfunctional a gossip unable to see the broader issues beyond those internal to the local community. Subtler, but still a case of distortion of individual psychology. The classic Man rune cults are ancestor worship (concerned with ones family) or City cults (concerned with that local community), both focussed on the microcosm.

So, a first round attempt at a grand unifying otherworld theory. Without attempting to explain what the otherworld is any more than I have to.. .... to perceive and fully enter the otherworld requires adjustment to your perceptions beyond the normal. This adjustment can be an inner process, or a magically assisted one, but is an essential element of becoming a fully active magician.. This enhancement of perception to include magical senses varies by magical Path. We loosely characterise these into four methods (though in practice, there are some methods that do not perfectly fit into those four characterisations). The enhanced magical senses developed by becoming a full magician also imply a particular world view, a particular way of looking at the world - it is a natural tendency that the full development of one form of magical comprehension of the world interferes with the development of others, as it would require the simultaneous application of differing mindsets, which is not impossible but is extremely difficult and unusual. There are many aspects of the magical world that can be understood and comprehended in multiple ways, and can be understood to be the same Otherworld, though perceived subjectively differently enough that it is common to consider it multiple different worlds. This perception, of there being multiple different otherworlds, exists in part because there are aspects of the magical world that are difficult or impossible to understand when experienced via an inappropriate means of magical perception. The 'Essential' world includes highly abstract concepts, with no direct representation in mundane reality, such as mathematical constructs. The Spirit World includes the perception of world from the perspective of non-sapient beings, and is a worldview in which everything is sentient. The God view is the world in which things are anthropomorphised, and includes experiences that are unique to a sapient, living, conscious, perspective. The mystic worldview strives to find an experience of pure consciousness that unifies, or transcends, all of these other ways of looking at the world. It is no accident that the mystic worldview is often concerned with the mindset of beings that precede normal sapient mortality, because they wish to transcend the limits of sapience. Illumination is this moment of pure consciousness without preconception, and by this experience one can perceive the world in contradictory ways simultaneously, by experiencing the perceived contradictions as just artifacts of consciousness. Or however the mystic in question chooses to articulate that which can't be truly expressed, but only experienced. From a practical sense, the illuminate not only is able to easily understand and discard the difference between ultimately similar but irreconcilable positions (such embodying both Love and Death), but also positions that seem to involve understandings of the world that are so contradictory as to be normally meaningless nonsense (what does it mean for the concept of algebraic permutation to have a fruitful marriage to this mountain?), and so can navigate between those parts of the otherworld that are normally incompatible.

The parts about City sizes are taken losely from the RQ3 Gamemasters Book, but tweaked to remove the category of Medium city. There are just Small, Large, and Metropolises, and categories smaller than that are removed because they aren't on the maps. The sentence referring to Metropolises as large as 1,000,000 people from the Gamesmasters Book has been removed - probably because the biggest cities in Glorantha (Nochet, Glamour, are there any bigger?) are only 100,000.

It made a lot of sense to me that the Troll Otherworld is always the Underworld. I presume this means Troll shamans normally travel into the Underworld rather than the Spirit Wiorld? It was definitely a surprise to me that this is also the Aldryami method (thought obviously a different part of the Underworld), but it makes an interesting sense - I presume Aldryami see this as travel into the deep Earth, and then continuing below?

I think of the three main other worlds as essentially three different ways of perceiving the other world - which is essentially one single other world, with the caveats that there are parts of it that are essentially only intelligible, or only perceivable, in certain ways. All three means of perception might be able to understand the idea of light driving back dark, or storm fighting the sea. But animists can't make sense of the emotional content of a mathematical concept, the essential worldview can't comprehend being a different kind of intellect, like becoming experiencingbthe workd as animals do - so there are aspects/parts of the world cut off from each other.

Interesting the Hero Plane Ages table. Of course every culture has myths of every era, but they may not articulate it as a separate era. I think most of the Green Age myths of Pamaltelan are Fiwan myths. Though the mythic maps would suggest many of them are eleven (or red eleven). The Pamalt pantheon was present, just not doing much.

I think the no hero questing in the godtime means it wasn't a distinct thing, activity, not that most of the things that we think of as HeroQuest activities weren't possible. Basically, heroquesting is contacting the other world from the mundane world, so it doesn't even make sense when both worlds were united. In the God Time, a HeroQuest was 'just' a quest, because every thing was magical and portentous.

Just a deep dive compare and contrast into changing Runic associations of deities, so we can not what has changed: Kygor Litor gains the Spirit Rune. Argan Argar in RQ3 was described as having Communications and Darkness runes, with Mastery and Harmony as secondary. Here the Mastery association is promoted to primary status, the Harmony association lost. The Guide doesn't use the Malign Earth rune, so Babeestor Gor and Maran Gor are given the normal Earth Rune. Old Man and Old Woman has the same Runes as Daka Fal, I think we can assume that we have multiple names for animist ancestor worship that is pretty much the same. The same runes, Man and Spirit, since RQ2 era, the only change being the clarification in the RQ3 era that this is the source of the Man Rune. Sedenya was referred to as the Red Goddess in Gods of Glorantha (wow, we didn't even know her real name then), same Runes though. Etyries is no longer given the Movement Rune. Mostal gains the Law Rune. Pamalt gains the Earth rune. Quite surprising to me now that he didn't have it in GoG. Waha has changed quite a bit - Beast Man Death in RQ2 and GoG, Mastery Death in the Guide. David, any comments? Storm Bull/Urox - another that has change a bit, but even more notable because they created a Rune to do so, Eternal Battle. Its interesting how the 'special rune for everybody' trend came and went with HW, but Storm Bull is one of the few that kept his (apart from the variant animal runes). He has Beast Storm Death in RQ2 and RQ3 GoG, and Eternal Battle and Storm in the Guide. Yelm another notable change - in Gods of Glorantha, Yelm had Life and Death and Fire. Now he has Stasis and Mastery and Fire. I think this is interesting - both that the contradictory nature of life and death was given to Yelm as well as the Sedenya back then, and contradictory runes is something we now associate with mysticism/Illumination. And that we might now associate the Life and Death powers of Yelm with other, minor, deities that might be regarded as sub-cults of associated cults. The vastly greater knowledge of Yelm we have now (post GRoY) has significantly changed the understanding of the God. Yelmalio - note the Light Rune hadn't been invented yet for Cults of Prax. But his runes have remained unchanged since it was. Dendara has changed from Earth and Light to Harmony and Light. Again, our understanding has changed significantly since GoG, and Dendara is now much more explicitiy a celestial deity. The various spells dealing with not just gnomes, but also domestic animals, now seem quite inappropriate (probably moved to Oria). Lodril had Disorder and Heat in GoG, and has Disorder, Fire and Life in the Guide. The runic attributions in the Guide seem to have thoroughly embraced Light, but use no other sub-elemental runes. I'm not quite sure of the implications of this, and to be honest don't see much sense in using one but not the others. The addition of Life makes Lodrils fertility role vital. I'll add that, as I've just been rereading the Entekosiad, that the Disorder rune makes it very clear how Lodril and Turos differ, as Turos, despite the many similarities with Lodril, is quite clearly a god of civic order. Odayla - interesting that he is given slightly different runes here than in the writeup in the Sartar Companion - Air and Beast, rather than Air and Bear. I tend to take this as tacit admission that the runic attributions in the Guide may conceal important detail, rather than a change in the cult. Ty Kora Tek - again, not the Malign Earth but the plain Earth in the Guide, a change from GoG. Zorak Zoran - he gained his Disorder Rune back in the RQ3 era, but had only Death and Darkness in RQ2 Black Sun - Shadow and Illusion becomes Darkness and Illusion, another case of removing a sub-elemental rune. Bagog loses the Man rune, retaining Beast and Chaos. Back in the RQ2 era, had the Darkness rune as well. Krarsht changes significantly, going from the Chaos plus Hunger/Unlife to Chaos plus Stasis. This may in part be a change in association of the Unlife Rune to no longer be associated with Hunger generally? Stasis is an interesting choice, presumably because Krarsht is a parasite on, but a preserver of, social order? Her association with a range of Runes, including Movement, Stasis, Death and Disorder was mentioned in Lords of Terror. Mallia - in RQ2, the association of Mallia with Chaos wasn't 100% - it associated her with Chaos only 'when worshipped by broos'. She seems stuck with it now. Vivamort - in RQ2, had an association with Darkness, which he has lost retaining only Chaos and Undeath. So, are there any non-Chaotic uses of the Undeath rune now (yes, I know ZZ has zombies, but not usually associated with the Rune Lhankor Mhy - interesting that LM has the same runes (Law and Truth) way back in RQ3 era, before the association of Law with Sorcery was explicit and before LM used sorcery. Prior to that it was Truth and Stasis, one of the very few Stasis rune cults in RQ2. Interesting this reflects a mythic change as well - in Cults of Prax, LM was a son of Mostal. Other interesting runic assocaitions: Vith - like Peter, I find the confirmation that Vith is still considered Aether useful (enlightening, even). That Yara Aranis is given Earth is interesting. I had no idea. The Glowline seems very much a celestial and middle air phenomenon. Dendara and Halisayan both have the same runes, and are both Imperial Wives. Metsyla is Nysalor minus the Chaos.

Yes, I noticed the snakes for hair thing, equating TKT with Annara Gor. I agree it seems to imply Pelorian infliuence.

It's also quite likely that it is more fundamental. Likely Snodal knew that killing the God of the Silver Feet would create the Ban, or something like that. And knew that only such a powerful system of barriers and blocks would stop a spell as powerful as Zzaburs in its tracks.

I love Zzaburs Sigil. The placement of runes, everything about the syymbolism, all seems carefully thought out and spot on. And it translates one of the core symbols of terrestrial occultism perfectly to a Gloranthan equivalent. I find the condition Rune page, by contrast, quite annoying. It is clearly visually based on another core diagram of terrestrial occultism, the cabbalistic tree of life, but it seems very arbitrary in design, which runes are included, where they are placed, etc. And yes, artwork clearly based on the Voynich manuscript. The weird ladies standing in plumbing is a giveaway.

The God Learners are said to have generally rejected mysticism as devoid of use. But we know some of them were Illuminated (and the story about the Impossible Landscapes book suggests some of their magic ultimately has origins in the Arkati/Nysaloran era, as do some of their actions). I suspect there is slightly more here than simple rejection - an undercurrent that was never officially acknowledged or similar.