Ali the Helering

Actually, this indicates roughly 70% suffix, 20% prefix, 10% intermediary. I don't think there is a need for a prescriptive 'rule', in the same way that RW cultures have had variable theophoric patterns.

In terms of the clearly theophoric names in the FS listing since time:

Divine Prefix: 38, 40?, 47, 49, 76

Divine Suffix: 26, 27b, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45b, 54, 64, 65, 71, 'Outlaw' 3 & 4

Divine Intermediate: 59, 60, 62

Greek theatre derived from religious festival mythic enactment, and I think we would agree that we would see that everywhere, with the possible exception of atheists. 
I think Tindalos' point concerned conscious fiction rather than history or religion.  Again, atheists may be an exception.

I think the name YELM-gatha does suggest that the divine portion may also be the prefix!

I would be inclined to view Firespeech etc as in the same sort of category as Proto-Indo European, and track the off-shoots from that start point.  It allows for marked commonality and distinct difference.

My point concerning Ecclesiastes was that it was NOT a mistranslation in the days of the KJV. The language has changed.

I am a great fan of Shakespeare, and happily accept a lack of ready translation due to a willingness to research at leisure. It seems to me that enactment of the play makes it easier to understand by virtue of body language aiding the interpretation.

Loan-words and 'captive'- words due to imperial endeavour are by no means a modern problem. If you wish a Mycenaean example then look to 'sesame', and a derivation which can be traced back to Akkad. Trade changes language, and always has.

English is by no means so readily understood over the years. Consider Ecclesiastes in the KJV  'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'  

The modern and commonly accepted meaning of vanity makes a nonsense of that rendering. (curiously retained by the NRSV)  'Everything is futile', as the REB states it, makes sense of the Semitic original.

The problem is not simply the vocabulary, but also the usage. "And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear, save in aspect, have all offence seal'd up" (King John) may be understood with a little effort, whereas "Though you and all the rest, so grossly led, that juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish" tasks us a little more.  Shakespeare is NOT easily understood.

2 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

All true, except that in highly conservative cultures, especially if they have a written script, language drift can be minimal.

Even for non-conservative cultures, some languages undergo minimal change; an example would be Greek, where Linear B was deciphered, in part, by Michael Ventris, by attempting to assign Greek words to groups of the syllables. Mycenaean Greek isn't exactly the same as Classical Greek, but sufficiently close that many thousands of tablets have been successfully translated (though most, sadly, are administrative records). 

I'm also not certain how subject to drift Gloranthan cultures and languages are, given that their deities are mostly 'timeless'. There's some evidence that god names do vary over distance even in the same cultural group, but as the non-literate Hsunchen languages don't vary between widely distributed but related groups, there are non-Earth-like factors at play.

I have to disagree.  Linear B scripted Mycenaean and Classical Greek are significantly different, and it took the joint genius of Ventris and Chadwick to spot the commonalities.  In the present their translations are still subject to debate and, occasionally, revision.  English is an excellent example of flux in written language.  Shakespeare, the King James Bible, the Putney Debates, the letters of John Churchill, the sermons of John Wesley, the speeches of Gladstone, the Times in WW1, the Daily Mail in WW2, the poetry of Dylan Thomas and the drivel of Piers Morgan.  One language? Perhaps.  Continuity of meaning? Hardly. All within 525 years.

On ‎12‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 11:42 AM, Tcneseleis said:

For Dara Happan names, names can be used with a -us, -a or other Latin termination, etc. Other forms can be derived from Greek in the same way but it is not found in the Gloranthan sources.

For Lunar names the forms are whatever. Everyone in the Empire can become a Lunar.

 

A significant number of Dara Happan names are theophoric in nature, and if the 'divine portion' is the final element of the name then that will define the ending.

e.g. khor-DAVU, mahzan-ELM, anirest-YU

With respect to the meaning of the word element Yu-, I think it depends on where & when you are.  The meaning in Dawn Age Dara Happa cannot be expected to be the same in 'present day' Grazelands.  Or, indeed, in 'present day' Dara Happa.  Over 1600 years or so, words evolve.  As to the root meaning in the pre-Darkness Solar Tongue or Firespeech, I would suggest a meaning of 'Majestic' which could easily become either 'Divine' or 'Imperial' as the language partitions & develops.

17 minutes ago, g33k said:

What was the Mythical Account of the Darkness(es) in other, disconnected pantheons?  Orlanth-kills-Yelm is all well and good, but ... what sayeth the folk of Pamaltela... the islands of Vithela... even distant reaches of Genertela?  Do they all tell the same basic tale, all hold it in similar regard (sacred or profane, according to the views of the cult viewing the tale)?

And if all the Little Sun mythologies throughout Glorantha tell variations on the "son of The Sun loses his power of Fire/Heat during the Darkness (but nevertheless survives and/or Returns from Death)," that surely speaks either to the (as noted by JonL, GodLearner-ish) idea of "they are the same being"... or to some deeper cosmological principle linking the fates of all "similar" Gods to the same conjoint destinies (and at that point, I become somewhat unclear how different this is from the account wherein "they are all the same being").

Illuminate me, O thou Masters of the Deeper Mysteries!

 

Indeed, since Kralorela doesn't acknowledge the Darkness, presumably none of the deities of the East are Cold Suns.  This is highly significant in understanding the Chen Duel sequence of suns.

Whenever is most useful for your campaign!

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

And yet I hear a deafening NOTHING coming from you to refute my position, simply more abuse.  Well done.  Aren't you glad that I am too big a person to report you?  Seriously, put up a coherent and logical argument against my position.  I dare you.  Everything else just rolls off like water on a duck.

I am with Jeff and Iskallor.  There is nothing to be gained from conversing with someone who will not listen or credit an opposing argument with reason.

You may have been in the presence of Jesuits.  A shame you learnt nothing from them.

Bye to this thread.

50 minutes ago, Darius West said:

So, you hold me arrogant.  Yet that is solely because you have failed to make any point that disproves my position.  So you resort to:

ad hominem

ad ˈhɒmɪnɛm/

adverb & adjective

 

1. 1.

   (of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

   "an ad hominem response" 

    

Ah well, that is at the heart of this then.  A man who believes all he writes is a thread of gold amidst the foolish dross.  We stand enlightened by your great genius.

Oh, sorry.  No we don't.  It is your argument that is weak and specious, and my opinion of your approach is simply a result of that. 

24 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Just because you are in a majority, doesn't make you correct.  Just because I am in a minority, doesn't mean I am wrong.

How come you aren't more ashamed of the wishy washy excuses your side are putting up to not deal with their misinterpretation of the system?  Has it never occurred to you that I am sticking to my guns because I care about this point because it makes Glorantha better and more consistent? Has it seriously never occurred to you that I might just be correct?  I have not seen any argument put that I think seriously damages the logic of my position, and if ALL of you can't come up with anything better than "Despite Humakt not allowing you to come back from the dead, you can because heroes are special people and they don't have to abide by cult rules that they have sworn oaths to abide by to an implacable death god."  

The point is, if I read a genuine death blow argument that explains and properly reconciles the contradictions I have identified, I will withdraw my objections.  The fact  of the matter is that I have seen nothing of the sort.

As I said, defending the right is a brave and noble thing to do.  One can defend the wrong just as determinedly and be neither right nor noble.

That you cannot understand or appreciate the points being made in no way recommends your powers of reasoning to me.  Arrogance is not a thing of beauty, nor of virtue.

18 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Chaosium always say that *Current Game* is better than *Old Game* as a simulation of Glorantha. So, RQ3 was a better simulation than RQ2, Hero Wars was better than RuneQuest and HeroQuest is better than Hero Wars. When RuneQuest comes out, that will be a better simulation than RQ2 or RQ3. I would expect that RuneQuest, HeroQuest and 13th Age Glorantha would be considered equally as good, especially as they have a lot of shared concepts.

Actually, I don't think that is entirely fair, due to the different approach undertaken with HW and HQ.  They simulate alternative visions to those of RQ.

I would always favour RQ for a gamist or simulationist campaign, whereas the narrativist form of HQ is quite distinctive.

Sometimes the creature under the bridge doesn't deserve to be enobled as an Uz, but only merits the 'T' word....

When addressing Games Day in London shortly after the release of Gods of Glorantha for RQ3, Greg gave some outline ideas/rules for Heroquesting.  They worked, but were very 'broad-stroke' in their approach.  

He also said that RQ3 was far superior to RQ2 as a simulation of Glorantha. Therefore I would hesitate before using an RQ2 product as a 'proof' for an argument.

Darius, consider that while it can be brave and noble to defend a position against unnumbered hordes, sometimes the horde may have reason on their side.  If you are failing to convince people, it may be your argument that is flawed, rather than their reasoning.

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

The purpose of the restriction is to prevent anyone other than Humakt from being the master of Death. Chalana Arroy cannot yank Humakt out of the Underworld, even with all the powers of Life at her disposal (ie the Resurrection spell). But Humakt can enter and leave his domain as he wishes. Granted Humakt does not have a Resurrection spell, which means the Humakti in question needs to know and walk the Paths of the Dead - definitely involving a heroquest. Since heroquesting was simply not part of RQ2 and RQ3, it meant in practice that if a Humakti dies, there's no way other than Divine Intervention to Humakt for him to return.  

Thanks for the clarification.

5 hours ago, Darius West said:

I totally disagree.  The point of the restriction is to stop people coming back from the dead.  The resurrection spell is a Chalana Arroy ritual that is in effect a minor hero quest into the underworld to retrieve a soul, and that is the same as coming back from being dead in the underworld.  I think you are going against the spirit of the intent of how Humakt is written up really heinously if you think they somehow get to come back from the dead just because they have been hero questing.  For a Humakti, dead is dead, and even if it is symbolic, they are obliged to honor the oath they took as initiates or lose their connection to their death god and have every sword they ever pick up break in their hand.   What applies to poor little initiates is doubly important to the higher-ups. Humakt is a deity of uncompromising oaths and codes, stop gaming the system to fit with your flawed perspective.

Oddly enough, disagreeing does not dictate the other person's opinion to be flawed.  Going with or against the intent of the write-up in CoP is something only Stafford or Perrin can define, not somebody pontificating some 35 years later. Humakt is a deity known across Genertela in a variety of ways, and I am inclined to believe a Carmanian Hum'akti could walk out of the main gate of Alkoth.  They are religious fanatics, which does NOT imply that they are moronic.

On ‎26‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 1:38 PM, Darius West said:

And the resurrection spell is merely a condensed pre-packaged hero quest.  The point is that coming back from the dead is wrong for Humakti.  

I rather think you miss Tindalos' point.  The Resurrection spell is a highly specific miracle related to a highly specific deity.  If the Stafford/Perrin capitalisation IS significant, then the point may simply have been that the cannot receive that blessing from Chalana Arroy due to a runic conflict.  If that runic conflict does not come into play due to other circumstances, then there may be another way.  For example, there is no implicit conflict between Death and Movement.

Cue Sean Bean the Larnsting - "One may simply walk out of the Underworld". 

2 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Is this thread not dead yet?

Just sleeping.... fhtagn

If I recall the Entekosiad correctly, Gorgorma is implied to be Pelandan in origin.  We have Jaga Natha from Naveria.  With these cults producing a sweep of anti-rapist culture to the south and west of the Oslir River Valley, does this imply something about Dara Happan propensities?

Thanks, oh Great Sage.  As the map says, that is the extent around 700, with the complications you have noted.  I had always assumed that it was distinctly larger when first established, and that this was it in a late, shrunken form.  That assumption may be wrong, however.

Can anyone enlighten me (or enshroud me....) as to the greatest extent of Arkat's Dark Empire?

On ‎19‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 2:33 PM, Tindalos said:

Maybe "bolo" is a way of describing the lizard's strange ululations when hunting. A sort of "bololololo."

Or it could be an onomatopoeic description of the noise made by those springy saurian legs as they dance across the chapparal - Bo-Lo, Bo-Lo, Bo-Lo

Maybe we should understand it as the singular term derived from the Lunar peltasts' reaction to the plural in battle formation - "Oh BOLOx"!