scott-martin

"The eternal, on the contrary, is the present. For thought, the eternal is the present in terms of an annulled succession (time is the succession that passes by). For representation, it is a going forth that nevertheless does not get off the spot, because the eternal is for representation the infinitely contentful present. So also in the eternal there is no division into the past and the future, because the present is posited as the annulled succession." There are interpretations of Talor where he laughs ceaselessly and deliberately, others as an alternative to weeping at the woe of the world and still others where it's a transvaluation of values. To be honest I suspect all these sidestep the point of him. Climacus / Anti-Climacus: All Gloranthas Vary. Another: "The laughter that destroys the seriousness of all authority and the gift that sweeps away the fundamental value of exchange: both participate in an alchemy of the self whose crowning glory is love, the philosopher's stone in which existence comes back to life and genuinely creates itself."

A hard Kristevan run on Socrates may be coming in the fullness of Time. I am not the hardcore Platonist in my gaming group and even my neoplats are rusty. I've read Bataille a lot more recently. IMG this sense of "rightness" or fulfillment feels almost like a hygge experience of comfort when the potentials have been matched with manifestation and the plenum is satisfied. I don't ponder Solace much but that sounds like Solace. You did it. It's done. Your incarnation can rest. Call it "fati" also. JOY for me something just beyond. Instead of pleasure at the end when life achieves its meaning, it's a precarious and transient encounter with something that isn't pleasure, pain, happy or sad. It's unmediated, ineffable, below and before language, beyond the pleasure principle and the law of the name of the father. It's outside Time so it can look a little like a reversion to that other condition that gets built into "God Learner Maps." Sometimes it just hits you. You're drifting through the Internet like always and something catches and you remember who you are, where you are, how you got here, how it's all connected. Then, fast or slow, you get back to the hard work of life. Sometimes it's spontaneous. Other times people work at it. It's connected with a deliberate and conscious embrace of all those things you remember. You can choose not to construct that world around the self that does the choosing. You choose it anyway, because you have amor fati, a love for what it is. Yes to all that. What is will be no matter what (que sera) but we have the power to embrace it or struggle against it. That's the "something more" we bring the plenum through conscious apprehension of everything that is. The Nietzschean embraces it as though it might recur eternally, as though this is the fulfillment at the end of the day, "all there is." All there is . . . is enough and more. It's actually intimately connected to Kierkegaard but I have literally forgotten more Kierkegaard than I retained. Also probably Camus but that's even more deeply buried, we must imagine Hrestol "happy" despite all evidence to the contrary.

Mom is super weird even by brithos bride standards. She is a bona fide Tamala on at least one genealogy, by which we mean darkness demon of archaic Pasos and elsewhere . . . the "Xem" particle is not as arbitrary as it might initially appear. This raises new questions about how much of Froalar's later heresies were present in utero from the beginning but this is not the place for that. We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chamber, Pushed to the limit, we dragged ourselves in, Watched from the wings as the scenes were replaying, We saw ourselves now as we never had seen. Portrayal of the trauma and degeneration, The sorrows we suffered and never were free. Where have they been? In general though I've usually resolved JOY to the french philosophical framework around "jouissance," I think others would say "Die fröhliche Wissenschaft." Like many good mystical concepts, it's too big and too small to fit comfortably into most game mechanics, but maybe now that we have passions and the heroquest paths are open the road is finally clear. Could blither on at tedious length about Ram Dass, being here now, etc., but life's too short.

One easy MGF solution is always to bring in a foreign savant and receive tutelage outside the formal caste monopoly. This can range from a broken dwarf or dissolute LM to something more exotic. Now that there are relatively easy routes from the Lunar Empire to the West, you can also bring back technique + lore that evolved outside the Law, and those lunar mistresses are especially fun as a destabilizing philosophical influence. The challenge is that the blue caste may pragmatically interpret its privilege as owners of sorcery as a mandate to exterminate "wild wizards" whenever they start getting any real traction. Maybe some secrets are perpetuated in guilds and secret societies. I'm curious to know more about what's going on in Pasos, for example. Either way, an effective rival system is not only competition in the rokarite sphere. It's blasphemy. MLKN in his wisdom gave sorcery to the blue caste. If you have sorcery and you aren't blue, you're outside the Law. Odds are good they suspect you of "vadelite" contacts and at times the doctrine is interpreted so that all independent sorcery legally originates from vadel and all vadelite sorcery is by definition any operation non-zzaburists perform. This raises fun deep background questions about divergent / rival sorceries in the War of the Wizards period as well. Of course in the north it's a moot point. Everyone in charge has already gone through wizard school and any jock who tests well can aspire to getting training. The blue and gold castes are in perfect alignment, Siglat Says. MGF practically ensures that you'll also get some cincinnatus-style retirees who feel the pull of the farm or workshop and you'll get a geezer who retains full knowledge of sorcery. Does this person teach a little in secret? Maybe. It's the Hero Wars and a "retired" full MOA is going to be an extraordinary person a little outside the rules. Do they hate these people in Sog? They kind of hate everybody in Sog, when they think about us at all. But they almost never leave, so who cares. What native northern magical traditions survive below the crystalline Siglatian surface? Fronela seems to have supported a weird henotheistic sorcery (Jonatsaga) that might actually end up as part of the Carmano-Lunar system. It's worth finding out. The Janube is a big river drenched in sorcery. Somewhere on its banks is, was or will emerge the independent teacher someone is looking for. OF COURSE This is my interpretation, I could be wrong. Currently rethinking the ascended masters as well. Unlikely to be productive but Fronela on the brain.

I am not aware of any formal ban on sorcery (spirit magic is officially permitted in some revisions of the covenant) but the question is who in the blue caste will teach and what they're willing to get out there, so it boils back down to pragmatism. Talars may think they're getting a functional course in miracles from a hypothetical indigent teacher but caste-compliant sorcerers probably emphasize how hard it is, how smart you need to be and how much more delightful life would be if you just had a well-compensated sorcerer on staff to do the heavy lifting for you. The idea of a Tanisorian noble who fancied himself a wizard is an interesting plot device, but I suspect they wouldn't be encouraged. LePlain finds strict caste rules extraordinarily useful. Let the rich kids party while the rest of us get on with our work. The castle coast is of course a place where pragmatic choices can feed unusual scenarios. And in Safelster it all depends on who you talk to. Get a defrocked sorcerer with the right heretical bent what he (she?) wants and maybe you get deputized into that version of the caste. MGF.

(I owe a message on Hrestolsaga to a fellow who slammed Wall Street. Travel got in the way.) It is one of Greg's early contacts with Glorantha, he dates it to '67 but close textual analysis would reward closer scrutiny. The world is very different a decade before Prax, Dragon Pass or anything like a Lunar Empire. It is very archaic and officially not even fit for public consumption, much less anything like essential or useful to conventional work in our hobby. It's not a hidden gold mine of deep lore. It's fairly short. The core narrative is barely 70 pages typed and a lot of those pages are mostly blank. But it does give us one of the purest looks at Dawn Age Seshnela in utero . . . while the view of that time and place has changed, the maturing plant retains the smell of the seeds. It's the story of Hrestol at the beginning of history when everything was new. His friend Faralz plays a key role in a 50-page extension that often travels with it, a kind of sequel where they run amok on a "Brithos" that no longer resembles the island we know. Nobody is any worse off for not having it. When you need to have it, it tends to find you. When you need to have it, it's a generative experience.

It's how the light gets in.

It can get zany. Remember how "key days are 20% longer than earth days" because "key years were 20% shorter," therefore everyone ages at the same rate after all?

This flights wifi is glitchy as hell (thanks gremlins) but it suddenly strikes me that moa might have developed a kind of serial transmigration model for each caste you live out and ultimately outgrow. If so A might have become several personas and symbolically died in however many of these incarnations he passed before jumping to the call of the pagan sword god. Then these past selves would cloud his trajectory until palangio smashes the system. this might also be a bridge to the HMKT work of ritual ego death, severing the personality from entanglements, etc. of course all of this may simply be Stygian innovation now lost. i don’t think the boys of malkonwal did a lot of explicit underworld questing on their own but this might be prime serpent king praxis, go into the pit and come out a king.

Oh hey. But before my flight boards I have never scratched a culture hero and not found the previous generation's trickster close to the origin. To bring a new order you first have to destroy the old . . . Alexander the Great as last of the Persian kings and first of the new. What this means when the old order has broken down on its own (possibly due to surfeit of tricksterism) is interesting. What is trickster rebelling against then? "Chaos," maybe. Disorder emerges from the void. Nihilism.

His surface cult orientation at that moment is a little controversial but I wonder if they forced him into a paradox where the humakt portions would have overridden his central desire and refused any resurrection effort. Might be worth some meditation on how LBQ interacts with that.

Cephalopods may be so prominent in That Other Chaosium Game that they never found a home in Glorantha. Someone should ask Sandy. As Tanith Lee observes, "to laugh under the sea was a painful and stupid exercise only rarely indulged." Of course the extinct kindreds may well have been the frolicsome ones but in general the survivors' emotional economy isn't really all that forgiving of excess. Heler in his bright and leaping phases may be as close as some of them get to a god of subversion or even irony. Golod's relations with Trickster are complicated. I wonder if these are the kind of people who dourly acknowledge Fate Rune.

Now that particular lady is available in PDF.

Great phrase. Looking at it makes me think back to a puzzling assertion the princess of the Altinelans makes to Snodal: At that time the oceans rose to the land, and the sun died to make the night. The winter started when Flamal, the vegetation god died, and also was made the race of the Brithini, the second race of men. The first having been these descended from Hykim, the animal-god, for many other gods had been born at by that time. It's easy to accept the droning of maseren and paseren and who came first when we don't have anything else to contextualize or contradict it. But while a demigoddess might lie about these things for her own undoubtedly sinister and interesting purposes, the notion of the Hykimites coming first and Brithini following actually confirms obscure details buried in the White Wizard creed. The "human ancestors" in question do not really come from a separate stock but are crafted elsewhere by others. Only later, amid the chaos upheavals, does a Malkion "bear logic to humankind." For most, the teaching fails to take hold and they remain what they were. Some, on the other hand, are converted and become Malkioni humans. A second race. The people of the "colonies." The colonists themselves may not come here in the flesh in boats but as a kind of armada of invasive ideas, a new teaching. They adopt the hykimites who are receptive and leave pure beast rune and forest in their wake: "Green Woods, inhabited by Beast Men, where no foes can walk.” Now in this scenario all the kachasti and other western precursor peoples may be pure spirit tribes or have bodies that work differently from ours. Some stay home. Others interact with other creations and become entangled there. Think of watchers, egregores, nephilim. They experiment with various relationships between bodies and spirits. One or two might come early to the islands off the west coast and transform the consciousness of native humans there, creating new covenants and new hybrid lineages out of hapless "warerans" and the people Vadela mated with. The really ancient people of the uttermost west may not even notice. Dissent in "heaven." One ideology argues for progressive alienation and separation. It dominates. The other "was determined to teach the truth once again, and bring together his peoples." It exiles itself and once again goes east like bodhidharma. Foreign spirits return to the mainland, this time to both teach and stay. Soon they're wrapped in bodies taken from whatever stock was available. A second race crystallizes within the hykimite world, sets up a new kind of religion on the mainland, builds a new kind of city. "Colonists." They segment according to their spirits, find themselves clerics and fighters and sorcerers and peons within the convert communities. They remember the horse gods and other gods of their ancestors but it doesn't matter so much any more. It's technical interest only, pushed down into a psychic underworld. We live different now. The hardcore zzaburites, as though tipped off to something, stay home. The western continent sinks, leaving its remnants interwoven into the north like roots from another tree. Separatists keep sinking land that looks too close for comfort. This much, at least, is true. EPILOGUE: In 1499 ST, the prince of Loskalm is troubled, remembering maps from the future and Fronela no longer exists. Somebody showed him those maps. It worked. Finally some time alone.

Zz-b-r Says is theoretically a direct communication with only passing concessions to define terms unfamiliar to the malestini audience . . . some of the entities mentioned alongside Ehilm are known in other contexts or are completely obscure today. For what it's worth, while the Serpent Kings culture is an interaction of colonist and continental patterns, my suspicion is that whatever the White Wizards were pushing was direct from the island so would only use continental vocabulary to demonize or otherwise belittle. Sometimes the words stuck and sometimes they didn't. I don't know the name the original solar people of Ralios called the sun but if it was Ehilm (and not for example something horsier) there's probably a good story behind it. Ehilm worship (so called) is extremely well entrenched in this part of the world, which is interesting. Reading more deeply into the names the Altinelans called the ancient gods reminds me of the cosmic grudge between the people of the northern and western corners. They fight like seelie and unseelie. Esoteric musing about Rausa's allegiance aside I wonder where we can find traces of a primeval "pole shift" far back in the never never. We know the fall of Umath tilted the Dome. Maybe the Blasts or some other cataclysm also bent the surface as much as 90 degrees off true north.

It is truly funny that the soi-disant Sorcerer Supreme only knows these entities by their Ralian local names . . . almost as though he was ignorant of them before the first mainland contacts. Someone more sympathetic might say that these were degenerating erasanchula who eventually introduced themselves to the proto-Ralians and were worshipped as gods. In parallel it is interesting though that the princess of the Altinelans also refers to Ehilm in the famous fragment. Her close family relationship with the gods probably gives her account authority and subtly contradicts the blue man. (Surprise.) Looking back at it, I've overlooked a lot of the details myself, like the way Ehilm is created to challenge the western air god and is Eurmal's true father, or how Snodal acknowledges Lim as the sun, Umt as the wind and so on. Fronelan names that reveal what the princess explains as linguistic drift from her own fundamental source.

Nice. Day to day the bolongo (as opposed to the historical Bolongo who went north across the mountains and sent the results down to bother people) is also just a mask anyone theoretically has access to. Want something and don't have any legitimate routes? The bolongo will get it for you and then the bolongo will get blamed. Punish the bolongo and enjoy your thing. Consequently, he fulfilled his role as empty Bolongo Just to be especially obnoxious in the trickster thread I might say that illusion is a necessary part of consciousness and the fact that we will disagree (Our Gloranthas Will Vary) about how that relates to the cosmos is why disorder is immortal.

Your heresies are our best case scenarios. Lolon will rise again! As for the City, I don't think they'd let me in to ask around at this point and besides, once you check in you can never leave. Maybe we send some grogs.

Can we find traces of a pre-Ehilmic solar order in the far west when we squint? Yeah! (This too is a test or challenge for the supplicant: that far out, Vith and Luath wrap back around and Greg himself sometimes gets confused. And what is the archaic MALKYONR but the absence of both?) EDIT: another enigma revolves around the way archaic sources place the Gates of Dusk on something like the Southpath, "west of Pamaltela." This aligns with the way Therophis in his Monomyth asserts that the "land of the Brithini" is in the "north" (relative to Jrustela of course) while the far west is somewhere else. But for Rausa to be west of Pamaltela bends the equator. Was the sun forced northward? Should the real westfaring really be the southwestfaring, toward the end of the "original" sunpath?

Yeah, it's a sign all right! Going out of business!

There's probably a reading popular among apologists and quislings where he engineered the entire program in order to (a) finally get what he's always wanted, some time alone in a discipline he can't easily escape and (b) get us all addicted to Permanent Full in the meantime. I suspect the deep dualities are a tad more complicated but the IO is probably significant enough to chase. Along with that, it's interesting that this feels like the foundation of anti-seleran resistance for Vonlath and Naveria, i.e., this is how the Way survives in Silver Shadow whereas Dara Happa seems relatively happy to keep entertaining puppets and pretenders. The version of the Way that radiates back out from Glamour is set on Permanent Full. But wait, I thought this was a trickster thread. OK. Parallel with that impulse to consolidate independent lunar influences, it strikes me that the early empire would have been extremely diligent in making independent magicians throughout the Pelorian bowl an offer they couldn't refuse. Some would convert willingly. Others, ultimately culminating in the Jannisorian revolt, were harder to convince. Either way, by hook or by crook the once diverse lore of the forerunner traditions got welded into what modern hipsters scoff at as the institutional College of Magic . . . or if they wouldn't play nice, the smart ones fled (go west it's nice) and the dumb ones departed from history. The upside is that the converts' techniques and tutelary entities remain intact within what I until today considered the monolithic body of lunar magic. (You already knew that. I am slow.) And in theory we can unravel the body of lunar magic into its component strands to better understand its weaknesses as well as its strengths. Of course Argrath is doing something similar now, but four hundred years ago they knew the power of diverse and exotic weirdos. They had the example of the mothers describing their particular elephant (or "bat") if you will. But until you understand who the weirdos are and where they fit into the big scheme of things, it's just another rune you don't know, weird one-off tricks, wild talents, tricksters.

I wonder when and how Yara Aranis metastasizes into the science of Glow manipulation and the doctrine of Permanent Full. If only someone were brave enough to turn it off . . . but arguably the empire we have now would not survive the disruption, too much is built on Permanent Full. EDIT: The Glowline was developed by Yara Aranis during and after the long war against Sheng to mark and hold the borders. The effect of the Glowline was to maintain the Lunar Constancy within its effect as if the Glowline was a container. It also increased the magnitude of this constancy to the level known today. (Some Lunars find this constancy within the empire to be a betrayal of the Goddess’ own nature. Secret organizations such as the Cyclical Conservators plot to end the betrayal. Thus far, however, they have had no success.)

This finally motivates me to start looking for the ways lunar influences were consolidated not only through the Seven Mothers project but as the expanding empire recognized its reflection elsewhere. A lot of this would have happened in that heady early wane era when the shape of the world was changing and heroes were busy building what until recently was the third age status quo. Work today is being done in a few directions with the sables, the Twins and other phenomena of "Lunar" Prax . . . it strikes me that it will be even more fruitful to look in Maniria, Fronela and other areas where the imperial tide has yet to flow. The native lunar influences in these places have probably languished forgotten or misunderstood until the magnetic tug of the Hero Wars focuses their force. In the center is the Mountain of the Moon, a mysterious and shrouded land that took over the region where the Cosmic Mountain once stood. If nothing else, there's that cryptic MOLAD chart where the eight one-point "moon demons" [sic] are "planets." Whoever understands that the yelmic sky is broken will probably work with that knowledge in what we consider a "lunar" way. And the moon in that chart is the daughter of dark and water so the invasion of the sky by blue and underworld entities would be part of that story. Two enemies for the old sun, one direct and one more subtle. Ironically enough looking back at "Red Moon in Prax" I suspect one of the things Jannisor Did that is now suppressed or ignored was to help codify the limits of Moon from outside, the points from which someone would consider the red light in the sky and say "that thing is not me, check your children for these signs." Maybe in Imther they have people really looking at the traces his martyrdom left behind. But then despite the Guide I'm not convinced Jannisor died in Glamour. "Red Moon in Prax" leaves it open.

Sorrowful Rausa. IMG the references naturally get paradoxical that far from the inner world anyway and depending on timing even the sunset colors we usually associate with them might have drained back to her eyes. The monochrome is iconographically very interesting depending on whose depiction this is or which account they were drawing from . . . absence of modern caste coloration is metaphysically significant + appropriate, but would be lost on a theyalan observer. This may also be a test or challenge for the supplicant. Always know who you are really talking to out there. They don't lie exactly but can "misunderstand the question."

Love it. "When we were teenagers, there was an RPG we all wanted to play. It was called Pendragon."