EricW

I can't help thinking following a troll river down to hell isn't exactly a leisure outing - a significant chance of meeting heroic and demigod level darkness entities which attempt to show you their version of a shortcut to the underworld.

How does that invalidate my point? Perhaps temporary gifts are the price of avoiding the risk of transforming into a Broo - being strengthened by chaos, but keeping it temporary. Temporary transformation seems very much in tune with the ethos of the Goddess, use chaos but keep some distance. At least, that seems to be the ethos before the rise of the monster empire. A Lunar veteran with access to multiple chaos gift spells would be more formidable than most chaotics - and the veteran would have the advantage of being able to pass as human most of the time. Perhaps one day some Lunar will discover a hero quest which grants access to heroic casting of chaos gift - as many castings as you want, as you can power. There is a hint such things might be possible in "Dorastor, Land of Doom" - one of the Slime Broos has the power to grant a random temporary chaos feature by touch.

Chaos Gift doesn't turn you into a Broo, so there must be a workaround. Follow the path of the Goddess and you will learn how to strengthen yourself with chaos, without developing unfortunate manifestations and transformations which mark you as an unskilled, inferior seeker of the deeper mysteries.

What a terrific if grim idea. If the cultist just uses "Consume Mind". The bat still gets their sacrifice, or the rebel is still crucified. Who would know? If they don't talk much when they are being crucified or fed to the bat, maybe the experience has driven them insane. That way the Thanatari gets to feast on the magic of the victims, and no chest of heads to give the game away.

How much of a problem is Thanatar and Krarsht in the Lunar Empire? I’ve seen references Lunars find it difficult to contain hidden chaos, because of their tolerance and lack of cults with sense chaos ability. How do any difficulties manifest? Does it pay to wear an iron collar if walking the streets of Glamour? Do the basement levels of fashionably decadent entertainment venues all have basements and doors which lead to lower levels? Or does the empire keep a strict rein on such manifestation? Thoughts?

Perhaps a totem or fetish? If anyone can do a portable shrine it would be a shaman - they're known for carrying odd things of spiritual significance. And a powerful fetch is a potent warding.

Do Shamen have temples? If a Shaman wants to contact Oakfed to obtain fire magic for themselves and their followers, do they build a temple, or do they find a place which is spiritually significant to Oakfed, light a big bonfire, get the worshippers praying, and enter the spirit plane to try to make contact? Obviously a Shaman on home turf might have a few wards and props set up, but if the Shaman is wandering around on a spiritual journey, or helping a group because it is part of their personal journey, they still have the power to contact powerful spirits and gods. Though obviously if they are in a place which is significant to a particular god, they have more chance of contacting the god they want to contact.

Shaman can summon spirits for a worship ceremony so in principle a Shaman Orlanth tradition priest could probably consecrate a service without any props.

I think Gloranthans knowledge of the past would be far better than our world, at least in cultures which summon their ancestors during high holy day ceremonies. I mean, we all have a vague idea of what Egyptian Pharaohs were, but what if you could talk to Ramesses every year for a few hours, to ask questions which help your understanding? There's an example of ancestors being summoned in "Orlanth is Dead", to find out what has happened, and the ancestors give some very useful hints based on their experiences.

Use the Lord of the Rings make them enter Moria solution - chase them in. Suspicious people with unblinking eyes, groups of people following them, escape routes slowly being closed off, uniformed officers gathering in the area around the party. Someone staring at them speaking into a handheld radio or tapping on a morse key. When they try to escape, one of the officers looks up and starts walking towards them. If they move back towards the building, the officer is suddenly distracted by street hooligans. Completely justifiable in terms of game mechanics - the building wants them to enter.

Of course there is always the sliver of a possibility of enhancing divine power, like that trickster who brings back the secret of the stink spot, a surprisingly soft and squishy holy relic whose secret, concealed in the bag which must remain tied, redoubles the power of trickster’s magic within it’s smelly aura.

But in Subere’s realm in the underworld anything can be found, including impossible paths to Lunar hell. Or someone could visit one of the infinity of other worlds, and bring something back. My point is probably something has to be found rather than created, but there is an infinite range of myths and items to be found, which is functionally equivalent to being able to invent something entirely new. Of course if you wanted to say bring proof Orlanth is part of the Lunar pantheon back to the mundane plane, expect a rough ride on your return journey.

Was Orlanth ever a dragon? I would suggest the line between “discovered” myths and new myths is a little blurred.

It certainly is possible - the red moon was created by people. And the Lunars also tampered with myths in “Orlanth is Dead”, along with the God Learners before them. Or take the Empire of the Wyrms Friends - Orlanth is a dragon! Arkat notably conducted experimental heroquests to obtain the power to defeat - aha - a god created my mortals. And Sartar created Orlanth Rex cult from memory. Most of the time this kind of tinkering ends badly. I’m sure people try this a lot, most of the time they end up lost forever on the hero plane, or meet a huge monster with lots of tentacles. Or if they “succeed”, the world spends the next few centuries cleaning up the mess.

The Man who could Work Miracles. It was made in 1936, so it has a very early 20th century feel, provides plenty of glimpses of life in that era, and as an extra bonus it is a movie about immensely powerful alien beings messing with the Earth, the end of the world, and the corruption of a magician's sanity. The special effects are decades ahead of their time. The author of the original story was H.G.Wells, who also wrote The Time Machine.

Summoning gods is difficult and time consuming and normally requires lots of help from screaming cultists. Maybe not completely impossible for one person to do it, if they are extraordinarily powerful, like Wizard Whateley, but people of that calibre are also very rare. As for Azathoth, Azathoth summonings result in cataclysms which usually destroy the summoner. A suggested example of a possible Azathoth summoning I read once was the Tunguska Event of 1908, which struck with the force of a 12Mt nuclear explosion. So summon Azathoth is kindof difficult to get hold of, because most of the people who try this interesting new spell are obliterated, along with the rare manuscript which provided the spell. If someone does start tampering with Azathoth magic, I once read a delightful but probably non-canon explanation of what Azathoth does to a place which has been afflicted by his influence, that suggestion was insanity made manifest. Delusions become reality. So if someone develops a split personality, when assuming their alternate personality their appearance changes to match their personality. If they think they are a cat, they grow fur and a tail and walk on all fours. If they are a pyromaniac, they find it really easy to start fires. If they think they are a monster - I think you get the idea. Azathoth makes your worst nightmares a physical reality, and the very physical laws of a region under his influence bend and warp to enhance the manifestation of whatever insanities people are experiencing. I'm sorry to whoever thought of this but I have forgotten who wrote this idea originally. Kind of like the movie...

One theme which re-occurs in H. P. Lovecraft's books is the bouts of insanity are often functional. One of my favourite examples is "Under the Pyramids" by H.P.Lovecraft and Harry Houdini, in which the insane flight through an impossible labyrinth leads the protagonist to safety. So in a sense that moment of insanity is also a moment of clarity, a brief period during which the human mind can function at a level which offers a slim possibility of surviving whatever horror they have encountered. In game terms, maybe they all rolled a special or something, but each "bout of madness" which helps the victim survive, teaches the victim that madness works better than sanity in some circumstances. And every time it happens, it gets a little easier to go mad the next time.

People might be mortal but they strive to live despite their mortality, if they are healthy and happy. I remember a radio discussion once about assisted suicide, the guest described a conversation with a Nordic doctor “this old lady, all her kids had abandoned her, every day was miserable, so we helped her die”. ”Why didn’t you buy her a cat?” ”Wow, I wish we thought of that”. My vision of the Lunar void is it is always there, an option. And nobody is going to buy you a cat on the moon.

A lot of gods illuminated by Rashoran “succumbed without struggle”. Maybe the final step in lunar enlightenment is Rashoranic illumination, the realisation that life has no meaning, that shunning the oblivion of the void is simply delaying the inevitable. So kindof a mockery of “I fought we won”, I succumbed we lost. Nobody forces them to step into the void, they walk in of their own free will, when they lose interest in continuing.

I wonder if the old dignitaries kindof fade away? If the moon is a chaos wound in the world, in the body of Orlanth, then hidden behind the glamour is a void. But not the traditional unsubtle void, all terror and screaming, something more hidden. Perhaps people who ascend to the moon eventually go missing, and if anyone asks they are told their old friend or guide or whatever has ascended to a higher plane. Lunar Mysticism meets Soylent Green.

All the gods are gone? So rune magic is gone? It is possible some magic would still work.

In our world cast iron becomes steel by using oxygen to draw out some of the carbon, by melting the iron, then working the hot iron to squash out all the impurities. The pure wrought iron can then be gently recarbonised back to steel by melting the iron mixed with charcoal, though there are many variations on this process. Some superior steels were created when molybdenum chromium or whatever we’re added - the ingredients of modern stainless or high strength steels. Ancient chromium steel must have seemed like magic, bright and shiny after all else rusts away. Of course no way of knowing if post moon fall Glorantha follows any of these rules

It could simply be politics. The Lunars see Orlanth as a threat, so by dragging his feet on squashing an Orlanth manifestation the Hierophant gets to demonstrate independence, proves he is not a Lunar pawn, and maybe squeezes some concessions. The fact Invisible Orlanth leaders haven't suffered an unfortunate accident during a full moon IMO suggests they have access to some impressive magic.

Possibly, but that collapse was caused by a new kind of weapon, or rather sudden widespread availability. The Egyptians knew about iron before the Iron Age, but their only source was meteoric iron, so it was incredibly rare. Possibly some hyper aggressive groups discovered all the shocked and confused survivors were easy pickings, and didn’t need new weapons other than their aggression, so maybe it was similar.

I think if you meet Gloomshark your goose is cooked, Gloomshark is the chaos god of hunger. But maybe a child of Gloomshark?