Darius West

Warm Beer. Bark teas. Soups. Wassails. Warm fruit alcohols. with herbs and spices. Salep (made from orchid root). Something similar to an Api Morado? Spiced Hot milk. Butter teas (in Prax and Pent). Mint Tea. Barley Tea. Spiced Soy Milk in Kralorela. Sage Tea. Ginger based drinks. Hot drinks make a lot of sense, as boiling water unites the enemies of Fire and Water in a common cause to kill disease spirits according to the Chalana Arroys. Most medicinal potions are likely served hot when that is possible.

Firstly, I like your spin on things. Secondly, given that some ultimate dragon may appear and go all Sacred Utuma on Glorantha, I think the Theists are probably correct. Mystics are a bit of a conundrum, as they are both personally weak and cosmically terrifying. As for mystics having multiple views on Chaos, I don't doubt it, but does Chaos actually care what Mystics think about it? Wouldn't it be nice to actually have some rules for mysticism in RQ?

I won't say it's impossible but that would really suck. It's actually a very creative answer.

Surely the entire purpose of the Closing was Zzabur seeking to actively destroy the power of the Jrusteli? In truth, Zistor was a catastrophically stupid thing for the Jrusteli, as it broke the Compromise and allowed the Gods to act in the world with a free hand. Had the Jrusteli never created Zistor, they might still be around. I am somewhat surprised that the pre-eminent hero-questers didn't figure out this problem, as it was hardly without precedent. I think Zzabur becoming active against the Jrusteli was the Western Tradition disciplining their own wayward followers. Of course the real issue is, what did Zzabur call a ship? How did his closing spell define a ship and how did Dormal sidestep that definition?

They are reasonably fast in a single direction, but as with defeating crocodiles and alligators, you can run in a zig zag, or a spiral, or use a Somali lope to change direction and the walrus needs to start moving its bulk laterally to stay on target and it loses forwards momentum. i.e. Dodge.

You have to wonder what made it "Not a ship" though. I did pick up hints that whatever they did was a bit like a wyter ritual, but that is hardly a sorcery answer. I suppose half of what we need to ask here is "given that Zzabur is the greatest sorcerer ever, and his spell is in effect centuries after casting so he must have an immense INT to pull off a spell of that magnitude, so what sort of loophole would he miss?". The obvious one is that if you could make the ship seem like a living water creature, then the closing would almost certainly ignore the ship. Perhaps the spell looked for objects above a certain size, made of wood or metal? If that were the case, you might be able to bypass the Closing my making a spell that disguised your ship as ceramic or some-such. Another possibility is a detection blank, but who really thinks that the Closing could be averted by a week's worth of detection blank? I wonder if they did any test-bedding using disposable boats with test spells cast on them? Of course the other thing that needs to be discussed is Dormal's relationship to Belintar, given that Belintar apparently just washed up on a beach while the Closing was in effect, then later he apparently fathers Dormal. Coincidence? (When is anything ever a coincidence in Gloranthan mythology ?). I mean, Belintar is basically Ephraim Waite, right down to the deep one ancestry when I am being cynical, but does that get us anywhere? What does a body-jumping cast-away who becomes an Elemental Land uniting Pharaoh have in common with a ship god, or are we playing Nephilim here? Now there is a telling point... Grimoires are written from Belintar's teachings. So Belintar is most likely a sorcerer. You would also not really call him a good sorcerer, given that he has hacked the whole issue of immortality by hijacking bodies. Is Belintar a Vadeli one wonders? Ignoring this, there are a number of suggested links of Belintar as perhaps an adversary of the Jrusteli. Is it then such an odd idea that Belintar might know what Zzabur's Closing spell actually included?

Let us get a clearer understanding of what the Closing entails. Firstly it doesn't affect ships that are in sight of land. Secondly, it could be overcome at great cost, as the Last Ship (The Middle Sea Empire, p27) reveals. Sometimes it manifests as a becalming, while at other times it manifests as dangerously high seas. It should also be known that the God Learners used flying spells and flying craft and they too were under attack, but were they attacked by the Closing? Doubtful. I would suggest that the Closing was more than just Zzabur's spell. I think that the water folk were actively using new methods to attack the Jrusteli, and the Closing spell was helping to identify targets. There seems to have been Air God collusion involved too. Where does it say that Dormal was worshipped prior to his voyages? I have not come across that. My readings only suggest that he was an Esrolian nobleman, and thus worthy of less reverence than his mum. It has occurred to me, and probably others, that the painted eyes may actually be central to the ritual of the opening. Consider, Zzabur didn't want to create a ritual that would destroy all life in the ocean, only to wipe ships from the surface. So how do you identify what is a ship and what is a large sea creature (you don't want to jeopardise a shaky alliance with Magasta and kill his monsters) ? Eyes would be a logical point of identification for a living creature. That smells like a loophole. Yes, absolutely, the God Learners weren't rubes. They had even invented a couple of sea gods of their own by that stage. As the story of the Last Ship shows, it was possible for the God Learners to brute force their way through the closing using their best equipment, but it would be badly damaged. Agreed. But would this have been via a Countermagic effect, or an invisibility effect, or a detection block etc? Clearly the Closing spell was targeting ships, and clearly the Open Seas ritual allows a ship to bypass the effect.

Heh, so if you roll the dice enough times Statistics will produce the impossible. That's in line with sorcerous thinking. I wonder if Zzabur did the calculations and figured out how long it would take? Still, I find it interesting that the God Learners couldn't crack the problem if one lone Esrolian nobleman could do so centuries later with incomplete records and a bit of rule of thumb, a slate, and a mosaic. Open Seas is, after all, a sorcery spell.

The issue of the redevelopment of naval cultures has come up in another question, but it occurred to me that I don't recall ever reading how Dormal sidestepped The Closing. For those who haven't done the background reading, Dormal is the Sailor God. He was am Esrolian Nobleman, and is claimed as a son of Belintar, who became infatuated with the "call of Magasta". He had read about voyages during the second age, found a mosaic regarding how to build a ship on a Nochet boat shop floor, performed subsidiary research, obtained finance, and somehow figured out the sorcerous "Open Seas" ritual. This meant that in the year 1580 that he was the captain of the first ship to set sail beyond the sight of the coast and survive the Closing, which was a sorcerous ritual curse unleashed by Zzabur. The question is, what was the loophole Dormal exploited? Is the Boat Planet related to the Open Seas Ritual or is that just something that cemented Dormal's place as a deity?

I considered it odd as Esrolia is a very Earth Rune place, and for no other reason. IDK about you, but the notion of an Earth Rune society producing the renaissance of seacraft seems a little incongruous. On the other hand, the very incongruity of it may be why Dormal was able to sidestep the Closing; the gods never considered the possibility that anyone from an Earth Rune society would suddenly develop a fascination with the Oceans. As to what the loophole was, that is a question for another forum topic, and I think I will post it.

Based on the illustration, I would say that the tongue attack might not be able to reach everywhere on the Bat's body, but the eye-spits can, as the bat is covered in eyes. IDK about this. The Bat is covered in eyes, so it can target all over itself from multiple angles imo. Classically the best way to get rid of the bat has always been to destroy its wings. I would suspect that Argrath would prompt Gonn Orta to rip them off the way a person would do so to a butterfly.

Or is it? This is something even the gods are on record as saying that they don't actually know. If the gods don't actually know, and if travel to the void beyond the Sky Dome neither annihilates you nor gives you chaos features, but the primal plasma harvested from the Chaosium does, then what is really going on? I see the cosmic void as being very distinct from the Chaosium. Absence is not chaos, in fact it is closer to the Infinity Rune imo. The void is a place of cosmic dragons and mystics who have refuted the world. I suspect that if you have access to Air or some magical proxy thereof that you can walk on the Sky Dome. The Chaosium is a much smaller place, and is likely the origin of all sources of Chaos Slime. It was once the primal plasma, but was polluted by the Unholy Trio, and is now where the Devil is reborn every 600 years and the source of all Chaos Features. Old stories told us that beyond the dome of the world lies chaos, and Glorantha is effectively a bubble floating in that chaos, but the Solar Myth Cycles tell us something different. At ground level it seems to be a different story. Trolls fight chaos incursions at the edge of the world, that come through the cracks in the world. Or do they? How is it that burbling pits of chaos emerge? Based on what has been revealed elsewhere, this seems to be associated with the remains of dead chaos deities, who are still channeling the powers of their emanation of the chaos rune. All immortal beings seem to come back from the dead via their remains to some degree, much like Shamanic self resurrection.

It is worth pointing out that there are plenty of sources of ivory other than walruses. Consider Mammoths, mastodons, Elk (2 ivory teeth), hippopotami (Water horses of Zola Fel), sperm whales, killer whales, narwhals (Magasta, Magasta, Magasta) warthogs (bestiary pig dogs). Walruses are diestrous with a 14-16 month gestation and reach maturity by age 15. This is comparatively slow reproduction. In Glorantha there are likely to me quite a few other somewhat fantastical beasts like Tuskers that produce ivory, but most will be pretty dangerous. And that is really the problem. I also don't think that ivory has ever been harvested sustainably by any human population. Getting Ivory is dangerous using only bronze age technology. I could see the value in cranking up an arbalest against walruses, but if they get into the water and dive, they will be lost even if injured. There are likely beasts in Skyfall lake that the trolls hunt with their harpoons, and I would imagine that ivory is one of the better materials that the water people can use in crafting without recourse to any fire. I suppose that unicorn horns might also be counted as ivory. An ivory industry requires (a) a reliable source of ivory (b) the means to harvest ivory safely and reliably (c) people who want to buy it. I think that the Elk people are likely the best answer for a and b. As to people who want to buy it, well that is a little more moot. I would expect that the water tribes would be quite eager to trade for it if surface dwellers have an easier source than slaying a Magasta monster. I would also suspect that the hsunchen will be a good source of the material as well as major consumers. We can be pretty certain that Kralorela would be a major ivory consumer too. I could also see the trolls being interested in ivory as theirs is a "tooth" culture. During the time of Aram Ya Udram in the First Age, Orlanthi had a pig culture (that went a little feral), and no doubt they would have used a lot of tusks in regalia, but ivory's price and prestige will have changed a lot, if one follows the logic that you need a ritual interest in a material to regard it as more than a curiosity. It is a good material for scrimshaw and other carvings, but that is dependent on the size of the piece. I could imagine that it would add lustre and value to ritual regalia. Historically it was used for tusk helmets, sculptures, game tokens, fish hooks, boxes and bottles, awls, needles, cutlery handles. We can assume that it could be used for decorating weapons, especially the handles of iron swords I would imagine. The good news about hunting walruses is that they are not so fast on land, and would not be immensely hard to outrun or dodge as they telegraph their attacks pretty badly. They also have plenty of meat and blubber, which cold climate people need. I am concerned that the level of hunting before the walrus population becomes troubled might be a bit low given their slow birth rate. They reproduce more slowly than humans. You need to kill 93 walruses on average to produce a ton of ivory btw. Now if you have a population of Walruses in the millions and a hsunchen population doing the harvesting, it is probably sustainable for quite some time, but better hunting weapons introduced by commercial hunters are likely to increase harvest rates and make the walrus population decline reasonably quickly.

The truly odd thing about the situation is that Dormal comes from Nochet City. Allegedly Dormal is a son of Belintar and a noble by birth to his mother Valira. As a male noble he may have belonged to any of the masculine cults, but given that he first has to receive the prompting from Magasta, then become curious about ships, sees the mosaic on the boatshed floor, then research Diros the Sailor, etc, and he needed to know sorcery, I would argue that Dormal was a Lhankor Mhy initiate or better. This seems to be the best fit based on the evidence. It is possible that he also had some Issaries given that he was recorded as a good communicator, and contradiction though it is, Lhankor Mhy is the greedy one, whereas Issaries is the freedom loving curious footloose explorer. As to Orlanthi not being a Ship culture, well that is to be expected imo. In 1580 Sartar and Heortland existed, but it was Esrolia that spawned Dormal. Prior to that, everyone had been getting about in boats, not ships, and only in sheltered bays and rivers, and within sight of land. Orlanth has a long standing fight with the Water Tribe, as we can see, for storms at sea are very obviously an elemental confrontation. Orlanth has also effectively kidnapped both Heler and Mastakos from the Water Tribe. Now in the period between 1580 to 1625, it must be said that the Orlanthi had their attention focused away from the sea. Ultimately, any new links with Orlanth and the sea would likely come via Argrath's voyage. It also becomes apparent that the Wolf Pirates are the ones who will come to dominate the waters round Genertela, and really no other power can properly challenge them. Will Orlanthi join the Wolf Pirates? Very Likely. Will Wolf Pirates in turn come to worship Orlanth? I would think that is a foregone conclusion. This cultural shift will not be quick, but Argrath is a forward thinker, so gaining wealth through trade to further fund the war effort seems an inevitable choice once the Wolf Pirates decide not to prey on the ships of Sartar's Alliance after the incorporation of the Holy Country into Argrath's sphere of influence.

Incorrect. Orlanth holds the true Air rune, not an emanation thereof. Barntar possesses an emanation of the Air rune. Daga possesses an emanation of the Air rune. Orlanth is the Demiurge of his pantheon because he holds the power from which the others derive their power. Orlanth likely obtained his rune after the death of Umath, his father.

Well then that isn't "experiencing the other", that is "experiencing the other as self". A fine definitional clarification, but an important one. More likely everyone in the throes of an illumination experience says they think these things don't matter, but after 36 hours of meditation they throw a fit when the pot of soup they prepared has been eaten without them despite the food potentially going to waste. Such is their un-attachment. It isn't the grand ideas an great challenges that wear people down, it is the grind of daily living that does it. Consider Howard Hughes dying a neglected old man in a multi-million dollar apartment he owned, not that he was illuminated, but as an illustration of how daily life does a number on people. This just further proves that the nature of chaos is inimical to all existence which was my point all along. They say chaos created the cosmic egg, but preface it by saying that even the gods don't know, so at best this is an opinion.

I'm surprised you can't see why this is problematic. Yes, the Primal Plasma was necessary for the growth of the world, but at a certain point, growth becomes cancer. I think there are more than enough threats in Glorantha without chaos, so what is its real purpose? Why is it necessary? I think the allegory that "life is struggle" can be proven without recourse to a constant threat of universal annihilation. the Primal Plasma was the building material of life, but the deities then had control over it and made it into useful things that fitted within a pattern. Since the Unholy Trio polluted the Primal Plasma, it has brought nothing good to the world. I would be more inclined to view Nysalor in a positive light if he had performed some sort of HQ to clean the Primal Plasma, but no, he simply said Chaos was fine as is and we should all learn to accept it. This is a bit like when political parties stop talking about solving problems and start talking about problems being "issues". The implication being that they have no answers.

Wakboth holds the chaos rune, ergo, Wakboth IS chaos. You say Wakboth is not all Chaos, but how certain of that are you? Do you doubt that Wakboth can call the creatures of chaos to leap into his mouth to sustain him, but obliterate themselves in the process? As to Wakboth liberating the creatures of Glorantha from their gross matter, well what about liberating minds from sanity, and for that matter, liberating those who exist into the blissful non-existence they knew before their birth? In this sense the Crimson Bat is also a great liberator, but the teaching methods are a bit extreme, and you have to be a certain kind of mystic to appreciate the message. I think you will find that humans have always been tribal and that tribes have laws, many of which are more strict than our own. It is faster to obliterate yourself by cutting your own throat. Optionally, leaping into the mouth of the Crimson Bat works an awful lot better as it also removes that pesky ghost. The truth is that there was never a self to obliterate, but that isn't the same as being at one with everything. If there are no "personal goals" then what does it matter what other people do? As to Experiencing the other, you do that every time you step outside your door. No. Chaos is about more than just a way of describing conflict. Chaos is more than an arbitrary definitional system that you can re-categorize. Chaos at some level can be described as a transgressive taboo that one should not perform, but that is not without foundation. Chaos is a declaration of war on everything that lives. Chaos is the acceptance of body warping mutations and diseases as your weapons. Chaos is the rejection of all your tribe taught you in favor of betraying and destroying them. To accept Chaos is to choose to become the enemy of everything. Yes, you may form an alliance with other chaos monsters, but it is a temporary alliance that you will betray when it becomes convenient, and your fundamental aim is to become bigger than Wakboth before Wakboth escapes the Block. Chaos is annihilation of everything, not mere evil.

The Broo healer of the Rockwoods mainly heals broos. And yes, a good Uroxi would commit suicide rather than take on a chaos feature, but is an illuminated Uroxi a good Uroxi? Is an illuminated anything a good anything? Not for long. Dragonewts do many odd things, and never rule out wearing garters. "Shame on anyone who thinks evil of it"

And why would I do that when none of the evidence points to any other view being correct? Right, so, we should take a broo's opinion of the truth over the rest of Glorantha's? The only reason Glorantha has a diversity of opinion is because it rejects chaos. Had the bulk of Glorantha simply accepted Chaos, all those views you are saying are so diverse and important would have simply ceased to exist, having been destroyed by Kajabor and Wakboth and the world would be dead. Where's the diversity in that horrible gooey monoculture of dead chaos slime? I am defending the right of Glorantha to look at the inculcation of chaos via illumination and say "this is a wolf in sheep's clothing and it needs to die for everyone's safety", so how about you get off your high horse and respect the diversity of my opinion too? "What is evil? Where the Four Virtues are good, their opposite is evil. Philosophers often call this chaos, which seeks to corrupt and pollute and destroy." - Also found in Esrolia, Land of 10,000 Goddesses. It is quite likely that some illuminated infiltrator left your "Chaos is beautiful" graffiti some time in the first age. It is pretty obvious that the Unholy Trio polluted the Primal Plasma, and Chaos can now never be anything other than a blight on Glorantha. Yes, Wakboth was a part of the outcome, but he wasn't the only chaos deity spawned from the primal plasma. So how does this tie in with chaos being the beautiful source of all? Fundamentally the point is wrong. It is not chaos that was a beautiful source of life, but the primal plasma, before it was tainted. Post tainting it is just chaos, and a danger to all living things, in much the same way that babies growing is fine when they are tiny and until they are full adults, but after the point of full maturity, further growths are almost always cancerous. I would draw a hard distinction between illumination that teaches an acceptance of chaos, which is dangerously incorrect at its core, and other forms of mysticism. Orlanth has at least 2 forms of mysticism that I know of, the draconic stream and the Larnstings. Why would it then need Nysalor? They fought against Lakamayadon after all. Also, the Draconic mysticism stream is more about growing yourself into a dragon, rather than embracing chaos. Similarly the Larnstings are pacifists who believe in change, if Sartar's behavior is anything to go by. Orlanthi are enemies of illumination as it teaches the acceptance of chaos, and in what way should anyone accept chaos if chaos' version of acceptance is being subjected to unspeakable things? There is a simple matter of basic reciprocity that chaos doesn't understand or can't be bothered with. Then there is the whole business of chaos being the death of the world. Now you might be fine with working for the death of the world by accepting illumination, but not everyone is, and a great many people would regard that as a form of treason, and rightly so. Central to the mystical experience is the truth of the mystic's oneness with all that exists. IRL this means a feeling of one-ness and compassion with even one's bitterest enemies, and an equanimity towards things that can harm you as being transitory. Then the vision ends and you are back in the world, and your enemies still hate you and you are not immune to the ailments of the body. A vision is of no value to you if it gets you killed. How many more will you kill when you embrace your one-ness with chaos, now you know it is always an option, sitting there to tempt you without any apparent negative repercussions?

Nope. Chaos is definitely the death of the world, or Glorantha would revere Wakboth as a great liberator and a new god. Kajabor was so powerful that even the spirit of Glorantha herself couldn't actually destroy him, but had to turn Entropy into Time to curtail this immensely destructive force, which even now is destroying everything in Glorantha, just more slowly, and will inevitably completely destroy the world eventually. The fact is, Glorantha existed perfectly happily before chaos, and to remove chaos would be an immense blessing. There is no "spiritual message" involved here. You have bought into illuminate propaganda that "chaos isn't so bad", but go back and read about the Greater Darkness, and compare that to what the world was like prior. Glorantha doesn't need chaos any more than you need a malignant brain tumor Eff. The whole idea that chaos is somehow necessary or "not so bad" is provably false. If you don't like oppressive cult strictures, don't join those cults. It isn't rocket science. As to Glorantha being "nicer" than the real world... Wow. Nope. I have to completely disagree with you. Glorantha is a bloodthirsty nightmare of a place ruled over by petty tyrants and warlords for the most part. I can get in my magical cart and travel to another city hundreds of miles away without the expectation of having numerous bands of @ssh*les try to murder me along the way. In Glorantha, not so much. In terms of my social responsibilities, they are far lower than would be the case in Glorantha as my society is individualist, while Gloranthans are very collectivist for the most part. For all our laws, you are not expected to take up arms whenever your local government decides it wants to attack the neighboring suburb. The notion is absurd, and such territorial rivalries are entirely restricted to the sporting fields. Similarly your local councillors cannot refuse you a marriage license on the grounds that your partner hasn't brought enough livestock to the deal. As to where that becomes a moral duty, well, every decision is invariably a moral decision. Everything we do has moral consequences, even if the acts seem inconsequential. Now yes, dodging your responsibilities is definitely a matter of morality, and failing to meet your obligations is also a moral failing unless they are very unjust duties indeed. As to breaking down spirituality into some sort of objective/subjective dichotomy isn't useful. The fact is, objectivity and subjectivity are not opposites, and it is a failure of philosophical education that so many people think they are. The personal is intrinsically public, and the public is intrinsically personal, as we are part of both systems at the same time. You can't live in a society and not be affected by it, but this is a feedback loop, as you and your choices also affect your society. Our brains produce electrochemical thoughts that are totally physical, however complex, and these exist in the world objectively, despite the fact that other people are not able to experience them the way our consciousness does. If our thoughts and emotions are not subjective, what is? It is all a matter of qualia, and normally one person's qualia is not so different from another person's. As to what is spiritual... Ask a spirit. I completely disagree with your opening sentence. Joining a cult is a Gloranthan's primary point of identity. It grounds them in their relationship to the world on a fundamental mythological level, remembering that in Glorantha that mythology is equivalent to our ideas of atomic and subatomic structure and the scientific disciplines that allow us to understand and manipulate them. It matters a lot As to the rest of it, well, no Orlanthi is going to knowingly initiate a Sedenya worshipper into Orlanth. Now in terms of being fantastically wealthy, often this requirement can be avoided by being a traveller. This wouldn't be lost on an illuminate, as many of them will have to travel extensively to replenish their delicious rune magic until they qualify as priests. It might be possibly to consecrate a small temple space to regain rune magic to some degree. The point is, we don't want a world full of these sort of absurd God Learners, so it is good that they are restricted by the cults. Now let's think about this in terms of chaos features. You can play an illuminated Storm Bull/Uroxi who has chaos features, and nobody could detect the chaos features. Most chaos features are on all the time btw. So why not join Urox and Primal Chaos? A good illuminate would see no contradiction here. After all, it is great to be able to regenerate while I go berserk with my 12 AP skin armor under my iron armor. Now I'm off to see if I can convince the Dragonewts into letting me restart the EWF and teach me lots of dragon magic to offset my sorcery and shamanism. Honi soit qui mal y pense. See above. Arkat would have had access to sorcery from his time in the west, divine magic from his time among the Orlanthi and shamanism from his time among the trolls. Later he took on chaos features. The trick with munchkining is to find ways that these things create loopholes that the rules don't apply to. For example, you can stack spirit magic with sorcery on the same weapon, and then boost it with divine magic too. So Bladesharp + Boon of Kargan Tor + Neutralize Armor + Truesword, on the Unbreakable Sword, because why not, oh and just use Morale to multiply your skill, as your shield + protection + castback + ward against weapons will protect you. This is of course all powered by spirits bound into power crystals, but if they are running a bit low, just start chucking Tap spells. Those chaos features are just the icing on the cake. It's only right and proper. Who cares about the intricacies of your worldview when you can basically slaughter the crimson bat in a combat round with a 1600 point head critical. that will go off unless you roll 00? The real trick is of course to become immortal enough to have time to learn what you need to know. How many hero quests would that take? You can also take the blunt force approach. It works just as well but breaks the game very effectively. A good munchkin will always work their hardest to FUBAR the game, regardless, but illumination just makes it so much easier.

The point is that within the history of Glorantha illumination HAS been exploited by munchkins, over and over again. And yes, that means this was part of the Author's intention, unequivocally. Illumination seems benign on one's first parse of the info, but it isn't. Illumination is actually a hugely insidious and destructive force in Glorantha. Then you are doing it wrong. Orlanth has so many aspects and subcults that it is eminently possible to play any number of variations on the theme, who are all utterly individual and unlike each other... Unless you are playing HQ, as then you are limited to some very standardized keywords and it can get very boring very quickly. Optionally, why not play a different cult? I had a riot playing a highly amoral and materialistic Chalana Arroy recently. The point being, you don't need to play an illuminate to spice up playing any specific cult, and in virtually every way, a character is actually more interesting when they have restrictions, as they provide gravity and direction to a character. Are you kidding? That's utterly realistic. Yes, in life as in RPGs that mirror life, you need to choose between obeying the laws and scruples of your society or being an opportunistic psychopath/narcissistic criminal who needs to be put out of everyone else's misery because you have managed to escape the normal means of social enforcement. Orlanthi and many other cultures passionately hate and fear illumination for a very sound reason. It promotes atrocious behavior, and the long term effects of illuminates in a society are intensely toxic.

Bronze age warfare shouldn't quite be subject to the same moral compass we would ourselves apply. They are a society where the routine slaughter of animals for sustenance is a matter of necessity and religious observance. The death of enemies is a matter for which you rejoice and thank the gods. if you can slaughter them in massive job lots, so much the better; thank the gods even more. To talk about innocent victims is culturally ignorant and inappropriate. Were they innocent victims when they sent their sons to lay waste to Sartar ? Were they innocent victims when they bent their knee to Ralzakark instead of resisting chaos to their last breath, or at least having the wit to flee the territory? What about when civilians of their own empire were fed to the Crimson Bat to keep it in the field? They are part of a society that sowed the seeds of its destruction long before, and in a situation of total war, there are no longer any civilians on either side. The Hero Wars are a total war, and I like the fact that they are modeled on the Bronze Age Collapse. On the other hand, if you think the Assyrian Empire had innocent civilians, I might grudgingly accept that children under 7 could be considered innocent victims, but only because they hadn't yet been processed into replacement resources in the hegemonizing murder swarm of their society yet.

Isn't it ? I would have said that every munchkin and his little brother dog would have been lining up around the block to get the perk that lets you join any cult. There simply isn't anything intrinsically spiritual about dodging your responsibilities, culturally determined or otherwise. Nysalor illumination is a false illumination that amounts to spiritual materialism. It isn't even about actually seeking refuge from suffering, it's all just about unlocking power. Any actual spiritual dimension is largely irrelevant. And what is the spiritual message of Nysalor? It amounts to "Chaos isn't so bad, see, you can have a chaos feature if you want." Yeah, the death of your world isn't so bad, you can help bring it about. Drink the Kool-Aid. Well, in absolute terms, characters in RPGs have not read the rules, but their players often have. Munchkining is about finding loopholes in those rules that you can exploit to an absurd amount. If illumination doesn't fall into that category then literally nothing does. Illumination is, if anything, purpose designed to facilitate that style of rules exploitation. To draw for a moment on how HQ (huck, spit) handles the mysticism rules, it is all about refutation of physical and spiritual principles. For example, if you want to fly, you refute gravity, and if you want to heal, you refute injury, and if you want to be immortal, you refute age. Mysticism is either transcendental (above the worldly) or immanent (actively of the world). In the case of the Dragonewts, arguably their mysticism sits balanced on a knife-edge between the two which I would dub synthetic, as it synthesizes the two views. I would argue that Dragonewts have access to another "dragon dimension", and they are developing their pure spiritual body in that realm, and every time they bring that body into this reality, they lose the part they manifest for that lifetime, unless they regrow it in a timely fashion. Eventually the mystic supposedly refutes the world and leaves it for the "realm of their final destination". There is none of this in the Nysalor tradition,partly the deity is dead, and partly because it was primarily an immanent tradition that was based on the acquisition of power. Better yet, the Nysalor riddles cause the uninitiated to fall for a Big Brother "Slavery is Freedom" narrative that supports the worst sort of imperialism; the sort that colonizes your ability to reason. Have you ever noticed that everyone who says "I am beyond good and evil" is generally really just excusing the fact that they have become evil and don't want to answer for it? Nobody is ever "beyond good and evil", because those terms are not about how you view yourself, but about how other people view you. Jeffrey Epstein when interviewed famously said "I'm very comfortable in my own skin", so does that mean he's beyond good and evil? Not in my book. A truly spiritual person holds themself to a very considered and high level of moral conduct. They may not hold with certain values, and may actively reject quite a few as being socially destructive or hackneyed and an obstacle to spiritual growth. For example, Buddha saw that extreme austerities fell into this definition; that injuring your body was not a productive spiritual approach. It isn't, however, the place of the mystic to say that they, themselves, are beyond good and evil. All that means is that they hold other people's opinions of themselves in contempt, and while "the sage may treat the common people as a straw dog; revering them and then casting them aside", that is because they understand that the decency of ordinary people while very worthwhile is no longer a standard they can hold themselves accountable to; they must do better, not less. Nysalor teaches that you can do less if you want, and in fact you can work towards the Chaotic death of the world and that is okay too. That is not beyond good, it is far beneath good, and very evil indeed. Chaos ceased to be a force for growth in Glorantha when the Unholy Trio defiled the Primal Plasma. Agreed, and agreed. While this isn't wrong, it also might be called a "party line" approach. The fact is that the cultures of Glorantha are not "cobbled together", they have evolved and are part of a living spiritual ecosystem. I think most illuminates behave like chaos creatures in this regard. They act as though they are "in the ecosystem but not of the ecosystem", which makes them enemies of the ecosystem. The benefit of the illuminate is that they might be able to shake the purely moribund and prejudicial parts of their culture so it can grow, (e.g. Argrath creating the Sartar Magical Union so that the Orlanthi ecosystem can break its former "programmed for defeat" mentality against the Lunars), but then you also get the God Learners who stole illumination and hero questing from the Dark Empire, and rebuilt the mythic landscape in their own image and to their own purpose. As any good Shaman knows, you don't need to be illuminated to create new symbols for your society to rally around, you just need to have a better answer than anyone else. Okay, I agree with that. Is it really so hard to resist the expedient unless it is also the worthy? Wisdom is just knowing the right thing to do and then actually doing it.

Yes is definitely is a joke of that sort... But do you seriously think that Illumination isn't also Munchkins gaming the rules? But it leads to another form of munchkins gaming the rules. Consider... You transcend cultural determinism, rejecting the implicit cultural limits you have been taught to accept, and are now spiritually immune to the repercussions of breaking them. This leads to moral relativism, supported by casuistry, that forsakes all limits in the pursuit of power. It is the very definition of munchkinism, dressed up in a New-Age frock sprouting a chaos feature that nobody can detect. Call that enlightenment? I call it Wakboth by proxy. I also don't think that studying Anthropology makes anyone enlightened. If anything it just makes them overqualified to sit in a grass hut in remote PNG.