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Tarumath

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Posts posted by Tarumath

  1. Damn...

    Like some people I've never met him and don't know him as a person but I love his work and he seemed to be a great dude too.

    RIP and condolence to his family and friends.

    I really hope that his legacy will last but that seems to have started well with RQ:G and some younger people have started to know Glorantha since the popularization of the KoDP game. (The small fandom on 4chan /tg/ is really a great example)

    May he have found the Horned Man beyond the Spirit World to become a Great Spirit of Storytelling.

    • Like 1
  2. 8 hours ago, Brootse said:

    What about potatoes? Weren't they a Blue moon affiliated tuber?

    Yes, that's even the reason why the Seven Mother cult give potato bread to their lay members.

    They are a blue moon plant and symbolically "undead", connected to the Underworld when they are under the earth.

    Blue Moon initiates have an heroquest where they are buried under the earth, sprout from it and are destroyed by lightning and they can use it as an escape route whenever at this location.

    And another one where they get magical potatoes that can raise the dead.

  3. I'm curious about something though, how many Zolathi choose Liberation instead of the World unlike Sheng Seleris?

    Has SS somehow altered the training to "force" Zolathi to become like him or is there a kind of preselection creating more Zolathi of the "right" type?

    Given the original use of that mystical training method by the Kralori, I doubt that evil demigods were a very common result before Sheng.

    • Like 1
  4. 11 minutes ago, Leingod said:

    Funny, Eurmal always strikes me as more like Daffy Duck than Bugs Bunny.

    He's probably both really.

    Daffy in the the stories where he end up tricking himself and Bugs when he trick everyone else.

    Most people in Glorantha simply like to pretend he is most often the former rather than the later.

    • Like 1
  5. 10 hours ago, Darius West said:

    30cm shorter and 20kg lighter?  Clearly Malkion is actually a linguistic drift misspelling of "malnutrition".  IRL Feudal Europe, the nobles were always the tall ones, because they had a decent and regular diet, unlike everyone else.  Clearly Talar are not Taller.

    Genetics are also important, Brithini are probably just naturally short.

    Even IRL there is a lot of variation, and 5 feets tall on average is just above the tallest pygmy peoples on Earth, not that bizzare for protomen.

  6. I don't think Arachne Solara is a Goddess you can really get magic from.

    Not that their religious rituals revolving around her are completely ineffective but her involvement is probably more symbolic than anything except maybe for a few beastmen mystics (who are not going to have magic relevant to the game).

    IMO, they are probably mainly animists who worship nature itself and the local spirits of the Dragon Pass.

  7. 5 hours ago, Martin said:

    Anyone care to speculate what happened to  the infant gaint inside the cradle...after it goes down magasta's pool and through the Underworld does the cradle survive and reach the dawn gate?  what happens to the infant gaint? whose child is it...does it becomne an important gaint? 

    I would guess that the True Giants got them back in some way, maybe they just magically reappeared in their home in the next Sacred Season? The whole thing looks like a Heroquest from their perspective.

    It's possible that they were still a child even in the later parts of the Hero Wars.

  8. Quote

    Jakaleel is an Underworld magician. Regular sorcery has problems functioning in Underworld context, although there appears to be one specialist school of sorcery which can use the energy difference between the mundane world and the abyss below the world to power their magic where their colleages channeling the power from the Ultimate and its energy difference to the Mundane World find themselves cut off from that source. 

    What about the Black Horse Troop?

    • Like 1
  9. 36 minutes ago, soltakss said:

    For me, Ancestor Worship means the worship of the deceased members of your clan.

    Worshipping Yinkin as a Founder of the clan might be something else entirely.

    I'd give the Clan a Yinkin Wyter that represents the link to the clan, also give the clan a cult of Yinkin the Founder, perhaps giving one or two Runespells from Yinkin, or even different Runespells indicating the powers the clan gets from having Yinkin as a founder. So, your clan might have the spell of Catseye, for example. 

    However, if you want a Spirit Cult, then Yinkin the Founder would make sense as well.

    Yeah, lot of orlanthi wyters are like that and a child of yinkin would certainly take the form of a shadowcat.

    IMO, the cult of Yinkin would probably be just a lot more common in such a clan, with maybe a subcult specific to the clan?

    Yinkin is a God though so he wouldn't be a spirit cult himself. (A child of his worshipped separately would be though, if maybe only for the sake of almost certainly not having a big enough cult to be worshipped like a God)

    • Thanks 1
  10. I am not sure if the Orlanthi canonically practice this kind of ancestor worship (they do interact with their ancestors as a collective and part of their theistic pantheon and sacrifice to them but I don't know any evidence of orlanthi "Daka Fal" shamans)

    But they do acknowledge him under the name of Darhudan so using the Daka Fal RQ:G cult would probably be completely fine.

    30 minutes ago, boztakang said:

    Daka Fal is the default path for this. I'd definitely re-skin it as specific to the ancestor worshipped, but the cult details should be similar.
    IE: When the character says "I worship [ancestor]!" a god learner would nod knowingly and write down Daka Fal.

    (and welcome!)

    That Yinkini ancestor sounds more like a specific ancestor than a source of ancestor worship shamanism (again if practiced among Orlanthi probably Daka Fal too), so probably the focus of the player tradition but without a need to repurpose the cult to a specific ancestor.

    If limited to only one ancestor then I think the ancestor spirit would be a more standard spirit cult providing magic related to what the ancestor was famous for rather than a cult about summoning any of your ancestors like the Daka Fal cult.

    Lot of very minor cults are like that and tend to have shamans instead of priests.

    So a question to ask to your player is if he wants a cult to be like his ancestor or a cult to summon ancestors.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
  11. 1 hour ago, Mechashef said:

    Over the past few days, I have discussed this issue with friends who work in various government departments, friends who work in private industry (typically large multinationals) my adult sons who graduated college (last year of high school) a couple of years ago, their friends, and my teenage daughter.

    Every one of them has without hesitation stated that at least a couple of the images are Not Safe for Work.

    As some people guessed, I'm a contractor for a Government Department (I'm actually a permanent employee for an American Software Company).  There are images in the book that are not appropriate for work for either of those organisations (yes that does include the US company for those who insist that this is just an Australian thing). 

    That is not my opinion.

    That is not me trolling.

    That is a fact.

     

    Perhaps it would be interesting for people to bring the book into their workplace and ask their manager or HR department to give an opinion (this especially applies to the poster whose son has just moved to Canberra.  I wonder what his employer's opinion would be).  I have no doubts some organisations would have no issues with the images.  But some others will.

     

    No-one I showed the images to would be comfortable reading them (either in electronic or paper form) at their desk or while having lunch at the local mall.  The thoughts on acceptability at schools did vary, from not acceptable at public high school to probably Ok at public college, to definitely not allowable at private schools.

    People can argue all day about how that is wrong and if it was them in this position they would stand up for their rights but as a contractor you don't get fired, they just don't renew your contract (the Department doesn't have to give a reason for that), but as it is not your house and family that are at risk, your opinions mean nothing to me.

     

    I repeat that I myself do not have a problem with the images.  I was actually surprised at how overwhelming the response was (it was particularly strong from the women I consulted).

    My paycheck doesn't depend on how well the books sell, but if it did, at the very least I would be doing some research into this issue.

     

    And as a heads up for those who are not from this country, be very wary about listening to other's opinions on Canberra.  Many Australians have an uninformed (or deliberately inaccurate) view of the city.

    Sure, as it is only about 400,000 people it doesn't have the nightlife to compare with a city of 4 million or more, but it is actually the least conservative Australian city.  For example until recently it was the porn capital of the country, the first to legalise brothels and the first to legalise Same Sex Marriage (though that was overturned by the Federal Government because we are a Territory not a State) and iirc the first to decriminalise marijuana.

    Besides both the Government Department and the Multinational I work for exist in other states (including offices in Sydney and Melbourne) so it is not just a Canberra thing.

     

    Without offence, if it's such an issue in these places, wouldn't it be better to not bring copies of the book there and only read it at home?

    I don't really understand your point, do you want Chaosium to censor itself to avoid the risks of customers bringing their products where they are not welcome...? Is that not just a personal problem?

  12. Am I the only one who disagree with this interpretation?

    Orlanth here sure is not treating Ernalda very well but he is just angry because he couldn't recognize the value of her gift, he's hardly raping (a pitfall that for all their faults him and Urox always avoided unlike Ragnalar and the Vadrudi) or even hurting her (a couple of insults in prose after genuinely believing she tricked him hardly qualify) and the point of the story is to show that he is young, naive (especially back then) and that she is wiser than him.

    If you squint your eyes just as much then seeing Ernalda as a manipulative woman who seduce men so they can protect her, knowing that they will eventually die for her like good bulls and Orlanth just happened to be strong and lucky enough to survive until the Dawn would be less far-stretched.

    I don't think Glorantha has any problems in its lore, if anything is it strongly decrying sexual abuse : Rape is a specific form of cosmos destroying evil (and delaying justice for Thed one of Orlanth's greatest errors), all noteworthy rapist gods die,etc...

    • Like 3
  13. How pervasive is the lunar influence in Dara Happa?

    Are most people there normal Dara Happans, worshippers of Lodril, Yelm and Buserian,etc...with only a few Lunars existing in parallel? 

    How socially acceptable is it to join the Lunar religion and trying the climb up the social ladder of the empire? (Isn't Dara Happa just the local government? so you need to become a Irripi Ontor initiate instead of a Buserian to be part of the greater lunar administration, same with Yanafal Tarnils for being an officer,etc...?)

    Is that different depending on your social class? How accepting the average family of a Noble would be of him or her joining a lunar cult and trying their chance in the Empire?

    What kinds of jobs and also lunar gods would attract noble types? 

    • Like 1
  14. Frankly adding the Law Rune for Sorcery and Spirit Rune for Shamans or whatever would be a bit on the nose and awkward.

    There are probably good reasons why sorcery and animism were made that way in RQG and shoehorning these two runes wouldn't have been a good idea, a bit like the Mastery Rune and Orlanth. (Because a whole Rune for only a few rarely used spells is a bit too much and make players less likely to use them)

    Issaries and Argan Argar being Movement/Darkness and Harmony is just as good.

    • Like 1
  15. 4 hours ago, styopa said:

    Which is why I personally have a hard time conceptualizing sorcery available to Theists at all; I see the magic you use as an embodiment of your worldview.

    It's more a trait of most gloranthan religions than of theism, animism and sorcery IMO.

    But people who use both sorcery and theism have a worldview (even if sometimes only has a subset of a larger cultural one, like Lhankor Mhy sorcerers) combining them.

    Henotheists probably don't have much of a problem conceptualizing the existence of both Gods and the impersonal laws of the Invisible God. (Or equivalent)

    The fluff about Lhankor Mhy tends to frame his sorcery in theistic terms : he knows the cosmic laws, wrote a great book that was stolen by Zzabur who corrupted it and created godless sorcery,etc...his cultists don't have a problem with both emulating a mythic being and studying impersonal laws and I don't think that they see much of a duality between the two.

    • Like 1
  16. It's mentioned that Malkioni generally don't get Rune Magic (Maybe the exeptions are henotheists?) so I guess Malkioni Schools are structured like Cults and have skills and spirit magic associated with them but not Rune Magic and instead have sorcery spells for those of the Zzaburi caste (sometimes also those of the others depending on the School)

  17. At an individual level it's certainly possible but other elves and dwarves would really be angry at them, probably much more that if you are from a human communauty that hates for example trolls and you befriend one.

    Pavic elves and dwarves would probably be ok with it but they don't interact much with each other and they don't seem to be really friendly.

  18. To be honest I'm not sure to understand what you mean by personal identity and existence and how dead Illuminates are gone.

    If it's only identity then yes it's not a big deal and essentially what happens to everyone in Glorantha when they die, if Illumination means that you stop to exist after a normal death then that's really bad unless you are sure to transcend in this life because otherwise you lose all forms of existence and thus all hope of transcendance. 

    It's possible that a lot of Mystics and Illuminates develop a mentality where they don't care anymore about annihilation but that's suicidal even from a mystical perspective : someone who is destroyed by Chaos ceases to exist and will never ever transcend.

    If Illumination is a prerequisite for transcendance then yes is it worth it even if failure means destruction but then someone who can Illuminate others ought to be extremely careful about who they choose otherwise they are just dooming them to oblivion and ruining all their chances.

  19. 1 hour ago, simonh said:

    Illumination is not transcendence, but it is a kind of awareness of the relationship between the personal self, the cosmos and of the possibility of transcendence. It's one step on that path. For those still attached to their personal existence this is kind of potentially disastrous though, because if they die before transcending, they're gone. Caring about that too much or trying to forestall it can lead Illuminates down dark paths though.

    Well, that does sounds like actual annihilation, the kind that is just as bad as non-retroactive destruction by Chaos so it's hard to blame them IMO.

    Mystics probably eventually stop caring about these kinds of things but what they seek is probably not the equivalent of being devoured by the Crimson Bat, transcended people probably still exist and experience things even if they are above personal identity; it's a desirable form of salvation from the wordly and definitively not eternal Glorantha. (And I do think that things look grim in the far future for those who will not transcend in some way)

    Illuminating someone would be an awful thing to do unless you are really sure that they will transcend, I wonder what that says about the Lunars and Nysalor. (and probably a lot of other mystical beings and deities who endow people with similar states of consciousness, even Arkat teached Illumination and Orlanth has his Liberating Bolt,etc...)

  20. Sorry for that, all I know is from the books and the old digest so most of what was said in conventions is unknown to me if they are not also in the runequest compendiums and things like that. (I could have missed some transcripts though)

    I'm curious about something though, is personal existence after death an illusion for everyone in Glorantha or is that somehow a consequence of Illumination? 

    By personal existence, do you mean identity or even the consciousness of the dead person? (None of the components can be considered them but their consciouness still exists somewhere vs they simply cease to exist and the survival of at least some of their spiritual components is not more signifiant than the continued existence of the atoms of our bodies in a materialistic universe, they don't experience anything anymore : true death as people generally think of IRL)

    • Like 1
  21. Looks like we are in Saird (the map, solar people, the mention of Elmal)

    Eurogamer said that the game is set 2000 years before King of Dragon Pass, so my theory is that we are playing Berenethtelli in the Dawn age.

    Quote

    The tribe of the Red-Haired Winter Daughter Redaylde and her horse-loving husband Bereneth the Rider. We lived in the north, in the land now called Saird.


    The Rams are probably southern orlanthi who worship the resurrected Orlanth and are called like that because they could be seen as a ram people by horse people, game will probably involve or even be centered on the intermarying and syncretism of the two peoples.

    • Like 1
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