Darius West

4 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

My PCs tried to set up a complicated plan using Darkwalk, until I told them they wouldn’t be able to see or hear each other.

That's fine.  Invisible people can't see each other.

11 hours ago, Jens said:

Unless you can see in the dark, or are peering out from the shadows into better lit areas, IMHO you'd need some additional magical assistance (Catseye, Darksee, Soul Sight, Second Sight) to see.

I play that when darkwalk is up, you can see yourself, but if you are in the dark, you need another spell to see in the dark.  You obviously can't see other darkwalking characters.  If torches or lamps etc. are present you can see by them.  You can potentially also use the Red Moonlight for illumination 😄, get it?

It should also be noted that darkwalk renders the caster silent, and so trollish darksee cannot detect them.

24 minutes ago, Eff said:

Permit me to clear away as much of the gory remnants of my post you so mercilessly vivisected and aim for clarity in response. 

Sure.

24 minutes ago, Eff said:

Ah. So Chan Buddhism but rejecting the Great Vehicle's sutras as fraudulent?

Point to this Great Vehicle please.

24 minutes ago, Eff said:

You're propounding a false dharma by Buddhist standards, one without any affiliation to any school, and holding it up as received truth.

So, Theravada is a false dharma according to you?

24 minutes ago, Eff said:

This is a truly fascinating claim. Have you any evidence for it, beyond superficial resemblances? It certainly isn't part of the generally accepted historiography of the Stoics.

Start at the very beginning and follow the footnotes: Greco-Buddhism

20 hours ago, Eff said:

 Where did you receive your education in Buddhism? 

Partly from extensive personal reading.  Partly from a gentleman with a verified lineage.  Partly from a meditation group.  Partly from arguing with Buddhists.

20 hours ago, Eff said:

So you accept the Lotus Sutra as authentic 

The Lotus Sutra is a tool.  I am dubious about all things Mahayana, as there is so much obvious fraud in their sutras.

20 hours ago, Eff said:

 but reject the notion of the bodhisattva entirely? 

Not entirely, but I am extremely skeptical of the idea of bodhisattvas as part of Buddhist doctrine.   There are too many contradictions regarding what a bodhisattva is.

20 hours ago, Eff said:

 From whom did you learn the dharma/dhamma? 

A living lineage operating out of Indonesia's Hakka Chinese community that can trace its origins back to Huineng.  I am not giving out names without permission.

20 hours ago, Eff said:

 Because what you are expounding is not a part of any school of Buddhism with which I am familiar

Living lineages' primary duty is the transmission of enlightenment.  Dogma and ritual are only useful if they promote that transmission for the specific individual.

20 hours ago, Eff said:

the schools of the "great vehicle" and those of the "way of the elders" both agree that there is a kind of person called a bodhisattva, that this is a positive phenomenon, and disagree about what specific positive meaning to assign to it and the extensibility of the phenomenon. 

I am a skeptic first and a Buddhist second.  My teacher liked the fact I asked difficult questions.  About Bodhisattvas, consider this...  Probably the clearest transmission of Buddhism into the West was via the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom into Alexandria and the Roman Empire, and became known as the Philosophy of Stoicism. 

Are bodhisattvas recognized within the philosophy of Stoicism?

The main way Deities can interact with the world is obviously via their worshippers.

The Divination spell is extremely important for this.  The worshipper is literally communicating with their deity, which is tantamount to getting the Deity's opinion on a given situation.

On 4/20/2024 at 8:43 PM, Runeblogger said:

But how can you accidentally leave the Dragon Path? 🤔

Very easily.  It is about as easy as a medieval peasant falling into heresy because they didn't understand a sermon properly. 

For example: "Oh, you wanted me to form a charity to feed starving widows and orphans... I thought you said you wanted me to start a charity FOR STARVING widows and orphans...  Should I unchain them and let them out of the shed then?  Give them some bread?"

On 4/20/2024 at 8:51 PM, Eff said:

Well, you've got your crusade and that's that. I think there's quite a lot to unpick in how even the idea that fantasy might take the ideas of Buddhism and place them in a different context, such as having bodhisattvas who fuck or having a morally ambiguous transcendent entity, is apparently beyond the pale for you, but it seems quite clear that the offense lies in suggesting Gloranthan Illumination might have any connections to anything other than what you consider to be pure evil. Case in point:

I find the whole issue of Bodhisattvas about the most problematic part of Buddhist doctrine.  The idea just doesn't scow on any level of examination.  Why would you avoid enlightenment to be reborn?  Clearly a bodhisattva is far too attached to being a living person to be enlightened for many lifetimes, despite understanding the suffering.  

If you know the Lotus Sutra, then a bodhisattva is someone who has left the burning building, seen the pretty carts out the front, had a ride in the carts, then gone back inside the burning building telling you that they will bring more children out to ride in the carts.  Are they really saved?  Are they really going to bring more children out?  Or are they just far too fond of the games in the burning building?

As to the notion of Bodhisattvas who fuck, not a problem; bodhisattvas are counterfeit enlightened people.  A truly enlightened person wouldn't be interested in sex.  Sex is just another pointless addiction/desire  that will just drag you back into suffering, karma, and rebirth, when you could be transcending all that nonsense.  A certain sort of person cannot conceive of anything better than sex, and they are not enlightened, any more than a glutton or a drunkard are enlightened.

As to moral ambiguity, that is unavoidable.  Every person will make morally incorrect or ambiguous decisions, even Buddhist teachers.  Much of this is the process of working off past bad karma.  The important thing is to measure one's actions against wisdom and compassion, and act according to the best and most selfless intentions.

23 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

As for the supposed nihilism of the riddlers, the slide into the dark side — the baleful influence of Star Wars? — was presented as an error, not an entailment of Chaos = Law, wasn’t it?

 There is no Law and Chaos in Buddhism.  They understand good and evil in terms of compassion and the lack thereof.  There is no "Dark Side", there are just arseholes who are justifying their lousy behavior with some sort of warped personal philosophy.   There is no "anti-Buddhism", the way Christianity has Satanism.

In Buddhism, the most bitter arguments are about curriculum i.e. which teaching method works the best. 

Occasionally there were doctrinal arguments over the meaning of certain teachings, but these were generally settled by a more knowledgeable third party.

There are also the usual institutional problems such as (a) Abbot X is far more interested in donations and luxury than in getting people enlightened, to which the Abbot counters (b)  I am trying to get money together to build a new dormitory wing and meditation hall so I can get more people training.  But it turns out that Abbot X is in fact entertaining a secret bevvy of pretty nuns for "tantric rituals", and he loses his position.

23 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Once a being has realized that there is no final difference between Chaos and Law, he may later make a similar but false parallel between his personal ethics and his personal desires, reasoning that since there is no ultimate division to the former, neither is there any final difference between the latter.
— Cults of Terror (Classic PDF, p. 87) [emphasis mine]

 

That's Nietzsche, not Buddhism.  This is the mindset of Dostoyevsky's Nietzsche reading character Raskolnikov in "Crime and Punishment", before he goes and commits a double homicide, because he is "Beyond good and evil".  Any person who thinks they are beyond good and evil in this sense is really only in the process of getting ready to do something bad deliberately, and using philosophy as a justification for behaving like an arsehole.

23 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

It seems pretty clear that Greg’s Gloranthan gods viewed the void as evil — presumably because in it they would not exist, though why their extinguishment should be evil I couldn’t say — but I am not qualified to say what Greg thought on his own account; there is this, but what is one to make of it? It certainly seems that for someone (possibly fictional), nirvana is evil (or an evil).

• Other interpretations of evil will be revealed and explored where appropriate. Some will be mentioned here. There is an Empty Void, which is a pre-everything conception and bears some resemblance to a Buddhist Nivanna
  — Greg Stafford, Cults of Prax: Designer Notes (Classic PDF, p. 106)

This is a classic translation problem to do with the doctrine of Annata, and the idea of Nirvana in Buddhism.  In a western mindset the Void is a dark thing like a bottomless pit or the inky depths of frigid outer space.  The void seems synonymous with a form of hell, where we go to be annihilated.  While referring to a void is poetic, it is misleading, but speaking of "absence" isn't half so intriguing as a sales point, even though it would be closer to the truth.

A classic teaching of Buddhism is to see enlightenment as the snuffing out of "the self" much as one snuffs out a candle.  Wow, can that be misinterpreted.  Think about it in these terms.  What does the flame do to the candle?  It burns up and melts the wax.  If it is left to burn, the candle will be destroyed.  So we snuff out the flame.  We can see the flame as the self and its worries and desires prematurely consuming us.  But wait?  Isn't the purpose of a candle to burn and provide light thereby?  Yes, it is.  So don't waste the candle by burning it without a proper purpose.  Snuffing the candle is an analogy.  It is not a metaphor for suicide, as some German students believed.

While the point I will raise is also fraught with the potential for error, I would suggest that it is better to view Buddhist enlightenment, no-self, and Nirvana through an alternative philosophical perspective.  Imagine if you will, that it is possible for a human to be Objective.  That it is possible, through close monitoring of personal bias and mental process, to remove all mental clutter and to ditch one's Subjectivity.  The result is a somewhat alien clarity of mind where you can "sense clearly" what others cannot.  "The Void" that the loss of self involves in Buddhism is often described as being "indescribable", which is something of a Lovecraftian problem. 

Those enlightened people who have tried to describe it say it is nothing dark, but an experience of the most excruciatingly perfect and crystalline clarity where the beauty of the world is expressed in ravishing splendor, and one's mind, memory, and senses are perfect and you never miss any detail, like stepping into the antechamber of omniscience.  You find yourself in love with the world and all living things (an expression of compassion), and can clearly see that with a few words you can potentially make a wicked person choose to be good, and a good person become even more excellent.  Many people find the experience so overwhelming that they lose the power of speech and reason and behave like they have gone insane for weeks.  Even the best minds struggle not to be saturated by the richness and overwhelming joy of the experience.  This is the howling void we are referring to.

This is why Nysalor isn't teaching Buddhism, he's teaching Nietzschean Ethics and Cultural relativity.

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

So what is the approved manner of calling out a racist caricature for its inaccuracy if comparing picture and pictured is forbidden?

Clearly, the Nysalor cult was supposed to be seen as some kind of commentary on Zen Buddhism (Alan Watts flavour?) — with the riddlers offering their koans — and that may well have been culturally insensitive, but I don’t see how making the Nysalor cult essentially and exaggeratedly monstrous is going to help, even if you tag on a “thou shalt not compare this to Buddhism”.

It is a goddamned awful commentary on Zen Buddhism, that utterly misrepresents the core morality of Buddhism in favor of a hyping up of the weirdness.  Zen Koans don't work like Nysalor Riddles.  There is nothing "beyond good and evil" about Buddhism.  The core principle of Compassion rules that out.  Nysalorism is a form of nihilism, and Buddhism isn't.  Buddhists would not be easy going about chaos monsters, and within Buddhism, "Mapo", the end of the world/death of the dharma is something to be forestalled, not embraced.  Suffice to say I'm not a fan of Alan Watts either.

Mozart, Haydn, Bach.  Beethoven is a bit too young.

If you like harpsichord rock look at: Pop music with harpsichord

Mozart's Golden Flute is supposed to hold a Freemasonic/Illuminati <-(jk) riddle within it.

The Omen soundtrack is multi-purpose.

Tangerine Dream's movie soundtrack for "The Keep" is okay.

Hellraiser soundtrack is great.

The "Alien" soundtrack works in parts.

In Xmas you said The Lunar Way would be released in March, so in April  I'm optimistically hoping for a September release date. 😄

I get it.  Proofreading is a B!TCH. 

While I don't know of anything canon on the topic, I have generally played that Newtlings are what happens to Crested Dragonewts when they accidentally leave the Dragon Path, in the same way that Magisaurs are dragonewts who left the Dragon Path due to an obsession with magic, and allosauruses had an obsession with food and aggression, while Triceratopses were doctrinally obstinate and wrong etc.  This is why Newtlings are prepared to apparently be voluntarily enslaved by dragonewts; they can rejoin the Dragon Path if they do.

That is my 2 cents.  YGWV. 

So what musical instruments does everyone/anyone think Praxian Animal Nomads play?  And what kind of songs and arrangements?

14 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I keep saying Illumination is Existentialism. There is no objective good or evil, no-one has real authority over you, and you get to create your preferred self without limits. God might not be dead, but if you're Argrath, that can be arranged.

This, I am far more in tune with.  Existentialism is a species of nihilism at its core, and so is Nysalori illumination.  It is a philosophy that refutes any intrinsic values in the world, and thus it devalues the world.  It sees no goof or evil, and hence it does what is most selfish, which is what is most evil, while insisting that it is beyond such classification, despite the fact that is for other people to judge as well, not just oneself.  Oh, and Argrath only killed the Gods to set them free, after they had ossified under the Compromise.  It was another sacred utuma ritual, conducted because the Great Compromise had died long before.

13 hours ago, Eff said:

Fascinating to see an apparently genuine post from you. Shame it's over whether the word "applicability" means "exactly equivalent to" or not. 

On the contrary, comparing any of the schools of Buddhism to Nysalorism is frankly an insulting mischaracterization of Buddhism, verging on racism.

4 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Isn’t there always a third term in Arkat–Nysalor?

Will the real Gbaji please stand up then?  Oh, wait, they're both illuminated so they're both Gbaji.

22 hours ago, Eff said:

I would go in a different direction. A buddha is not automatically a god (neither a deva or an asura) and is most likely to be a human, 

Humans are closest to the Middle Way, they are neither too enmired in suffering nor too blissed out to achieve Moksha.  Also  of the 6 realms, human mainly interact with animals, and not with hungry ghosts, demons, asuras, and devas, so the Buddhas you may meet will almost certainly be human most of the time.

23 hours ago, Eff said:

the knowledge of the Shakyamuni Buddha transcends that of Brahma the ruler of the devas. 

Effectively, Buddha knows a hack for the wheel of karma.  That is all (but that is huge).

23 hours ago, Eff said:

 The applicability to Sedenya and Nysalor seems fairly relevant.

The illumination of Sedenya and Nysalor have nothing whatsoever to do with Buddhism and enlightenment.  Glorantha itself is implicitly and joyfully spiritually materialist in a way that Sakyamuni would 🙄 at.

In terms of Illumination there is a HUGE disconnect between Buddhism and illumination.  Buddhism recognizes morality as an essential part of its teaching, while illumination is "beyond good and evil" (shorthand for being evil AND arrogant).

On 4/18/2024 at 6:38 AM, mfbrandi said:

Simpler still: they are one and it would be foolish to try to cut them into distinct beings. 😉

I see three colors here.

On 4/16/2024 at 8:06 PM, mfbrandi said:

(Main qualification for being a rune lord is to be the same size as the last guy.)

🤣🤣🤣👍

SIZ 13 is about average isn't it?

6 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I would have gone further to say that for both Humakt and Stormbull, the life expectancy for the average Rune Lord (or even initiate) isn't all that long...

Ahem... Yes...  Please return the iron armor on your way out guys.

11 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Now I am imagining an a party of PCs who are wandering stonemasons who always end up neck deep in and resolving the problems of their geographically scattered client cults. We will start a new trope of hobos on the square. Tattoo of third eye over dividers optional.

Have you ever read "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet?  The scenario you are describing sounds a great deal like that book.  It is about a desperate stonemason whose kid secretly burns down a church so his dad gets the nod from the local clergy to build an cathedral.  Then they get involved in all the local politics whether they want to or not.  It's a pretty good historical fiction novel that is set during the Anarchy.

4 hours ago, svensson said:

The idea is to keep the service to community theme of RQG while still allowing some resemblance of the 'Dat Freebootin' Lyfe' that players love. 

That's a D&D idea of what an adventuring life is imo.  It mainly doesn't fit with RQG.  

4 hours ago, svensson said:

What I find funny about all this is how hard players work in some genres and milieux to get their own freehold or base. They'll bust their ass if you offer them land in Dorastor [or local equivalent], but give them a steading at the beginning of the game? Nah, they'll avoid that like a trip to the dentist. 😆

So you let them start with land, then you take it away from them.  Now they have no resources and plenty of reasons to adventure.  Problem solved.

10 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I'd say the direct link to a patron would be even more critical if the character is self supporting, any patron would reward their deserving followers. No independant wilderness dwelling rune level wants to "report" to some far away temple that doesn't really involve them? Again YGWV as traveling 70-80 miles to worship and pay homage is bad enough but to give funding to a temple that isn't there to support them seems somewhat meaningless.

Please, understand my attempt at humor here, but murder hobo-ing around when you're a scruffy refugee on the run from occupying forces is fine for an initiate, but once you hit Rune level, you have a full time job.  Adventuring isn't a side hustle you get involved in perhaps once a season, you're in the Army now.  You will potentially be leading your tribal fyrd, or be involved in the Sartar Magical Union. Unless your king has sent you off on a job, you are expected to muster with the Clan whenever the Lunars next cross the Bush Range.

You may only play a "wandering party" style of game, but I don't.  When you become an important person like a Rune Lord, your life becomes a lot more settled, whether the character or player likes it or not.  Yes, you can become a victim of your own success, even in Glorantha.  This is not to suggest that you will never travel again, merely that it will be less frequent. Remember also that it is 1625 now, and there's a Hero War on.  You are part of a clan and a tribe again, and an important member of those organizations; you matter.  What you do matters.  You likely get  only 1 adventure for personal profit per year now.  The rest are on clan or tribal business.  That doesn't mean you don't get paid or can't plunder as you go, but you represent something bigger than yourself when you do.

There are lots of opportunities for roleplay and adventure, as a Rune level, but they are stories about consolidation, building, land development, politics, intrigue, military campaigning, oh, and Hero Questing.  Yes, really only Rune levels with at least Clan level support can Hero Quest with any reliability.

Of course if a character would prefer to bumble about after treasure in ruins and travel the world, perhaps Rune level isn't for them?

Of course if they found a relic of their deity that could serve as a mobile connection of sufficient power that it would allow them to regain RP, perhaps they could become a self-funded and independent Rune level, owing allegiance only to themselves?  That too is a possibility.

A pity I got the older edition.

I love the idea that Lanbril initiates and rune levels can use any temple, because they steal RP from other gods.  It makes up for the fact that they have so much trouble getting the necessary numbers for a shrine or temple.

On 4/11/2024 at 2:22 AM, svensson said:

I kept them out of armor for two reasons:

a] I thought of them as leading a worship ceremony and not under threat. While Orlanth has no objection to war or conflict, he is really more of a cultural god... he provides the virtues, laws, and codes of behavior; more of an Odin than a Thor figure.

b] I was still learning the Heroforge system and I was trying to get the tattoo decals to look right. More skin means more tattoos.

Completely fair, I just wondered.

On 4/7/2024 at 9:46 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

I can't agree 😛 because it means you get more runelords than you need.

It is like any community (clan ring in glorantha, mayor irl and glorantha, CEO of irl company, etc...). You need one boss not twenty, even if you have twenty good proven candidates. I agree that sometimes, you may decide to have two runelords and not one, but that means you can "offer" them (standard of living, gear, supports, etc...)

Agreed for the most part.  I think economics should be what delimits the number of Rune Lords a cult or clan can support.  If you want the position, you need to earn it by making your support cult or clan rich or powerful etc.  I mean, some kings might be able to offer 2 hides of land and 20K worth of Iron to anyone who qualifies as a RL, but it is a "big ask" for smaller outfits.