Eff

So let's think mythologically. What does it mean that the Devil is under the Block for Praxians? After all, we could say that the Devil was only ever in one place, but looking back over Revealed Mythologies makes it very clear that Vovisibor is also the Devil as understood by Pamaltelans, and the Nargan Desert is where Vovisibor's (c)remains would be. So there is clearly some kind of mythological meaning to these places where the "Devil was defeated", and perhaps it might just be that that's where the weird Chaos critters come from. But let's put that possibility aside for a moment. 

Wakboth is crushed by the Block of Law, Storm Bull dies, and Waha emerges and begins building things and determining the order of Praxian society. Waha digs a canal to wash the Devil away, as one of his first acts. The Devil is held down by the laws of Waha and by maintaining the things which Waha built. The Eternal Battle still rages across the plain(e)s, so Storm Bull is perpetually fighting the Devil to a draw, but the Survival Covenant is what puts the Devil down. 

Let's go one step further. If the Devil is under the Block, how can you encounter him on a Heroquest? 

Trivially, the body does not move through the material world for the precise distances someone would have to move in order to carry out the actions of mythology when on a Heroquest. As such, the Devil, who clearly has to still be a potential threat if he's at all meaningful, and thus must have some kind of mind, can be present in the Gods War when you are. 

But stepping back a little, the Devil's imprisonment or ineffectiveness is conditional. If the laws of Waha are violated too deeply, if people forget the Right Footpath of Pamalt, if people reject the justice of Antirius, then the Devil might be freed, in part or in full. And if the Heroquesters believe this is the case, then they will encounter or at least see the Devil in their Hero Plane, partially or fully freed, where someone else might simply see a vicious demon. 

What would a multicultural group see? Quite possibly different things, or quite possibly an overlap of them all. A more interesting question- would an Illuminate see "The Devil", or would they see an entity with personhood- the avenging son of Thed, the abandoned son of Malkion, whatever lies behind Vovisibor? Under what circumstances would an Illuminate encounter the Devil? Arkat didn't call Nysalor the Devil, after all.

23 minutes ago, Darius West said:

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

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

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.

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

Ah. So Chan Buddhism but rejecting the Great Vehicle's sutras as fraudulent? I am satisfied. You're propounding a false dharma by Buddhist standards, one without any affiliation to any school, and holding it up as received truth. That's bad manners at the very least. 

23 minutes ago, Darius West said:

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?

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.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

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.

Fascinating. So you accept the Lotus Sutra as authentic but reject the notion of the bodhisattva entirely? Where did you receive your education in Buddhism? From whom did you learn the dharma/dhamma? Because what you are expounding is not a part of any school of Buddhism with which I am familiar- 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. Perhaps some of the esoteric schools of the "thunderbolt vehicle" might, just might, say what you say here, but frankly, I doubt it. I suspect strongly that this is your original or personal interpretation that you are presenting as the "truth of Buddhism", which would frankly make you a teacher of false dhamma from a Buddhist perspective. But this is only a suspicion. So before we go any further, where did you receive the dharma?

18 hours ago, theconfusingeel said:

So as far as I during history gods have no free will and are limited to doing whatever they did during the godtime, but there's various points in history whe the gods do something different:Nysalor fights Kyger Litor, Yelm has children with Hon-eel,Moonson has children with Gorgorma, Yanafal Tarnils fights Humakt(who was apperantly summoned, but how?)

The text contradicts itself. The question becomes whether you prefer a world with mechanical clockwork deterministic gods that move in complicated epicycles or one where the world is built on a fuzzy agreement with boundaries that are negotiable and difficult to avoid crossing, but where the gods behaving as if they have free will under the right circumstances makes sense.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

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

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:

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

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.

This is an utterly ridiculous way to characterize Kierkegaard, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, or Dostoyevsky. In fact, taking existentialism, which first and foremost takes human freedom amd capacity to make choices as a good, as an essential part of being fully human, and characterizing it like this is frankly to align yourself with truly poisonous ideas of social control. This venue is of course not one that would allow such a wide-ranging discussion even in the specific context of Glorantha and Gloranthan fantasy and whether the world becomes meaningless if it needs thinking minds to see it and give it value, whether existence depends on garroting human beings to the point where moving more than an inch out of line chokes them, and the like. So all I can do is point at that potential discussion and note that there is something to talk about here, beneath all the- frankly nihilistic interpretation of Gloranthan texts you bring to the table.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

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).

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

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

And the Lunars would have you believe these are the same things...

I'm not necessarily saying they are or aren't of course, I'm just positing the idea that there could be shades of godhood between 'heroes' like Harrek and Jar-Eel and 'True Gods' like Orlanth and Shargash. Perhaps, with her refusal to truly depart from the world of Time into the mythic, Sedenya is one of these shades. A shade like Nysalor, perhaps. Slightly different upper-tier steps on the path to enlightenment, that look indistinguishable to us puny mortals grubbing about on the ground.

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, but within Buddhism, the knowledge of the Shakyamuni Buddha transcends that of Brahma the ruler of the devas. The applicability to Sedenya and Nysalor seems fairly relevant. Of course, some gods are also buddhas, and some buddhas wear the masks of gods in order to spread the dharma more expeditiously. The categories are not a pyramid, nor a ziggurat.

42 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

What about something somewhere between the gods and Harrek? What about something like Sedenya?

Is Sedenya even a god like the others? She certainly differs markedly by being a physical presence in the world, rather than an intangible force accessible solely through Godtime.

Are the Lunars schmucks for believing their great ball of floating dirt is a god? I'm sure many Sartarites think so...

Well, many gods also have physical presences in the world, being present in the water of a river or the stone of a mountain or in every lamb frolicking in a field. 

54 minutes ago, John Biles said:

He could be something on the level of say the Emperor, Harrek, etc, but if you're shooting for god and you don't get one, but you act like you got one, you have a schmuck.

I am not so sure that this makes sense, logically. I don't believe that Glorantha has a meaningful hierarchy where all gods are above all non-gods.

38 minutes ago, John Biles said:

It was the whole point of the project to make him.

So there was an awfully pointless mess if he was just a random schmuck.

 

Are those the only two options that exist? God or "random schmuck"?

Was Nysalor a god?

8 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Malaskan Philippe is an Officer, not a Warrior.  Even where he's commanding troops, he's always described as a Talar.

Referring to him being described as a pupil of Zzabur in the Guide. Hypothetically possible in the right Gloranthas, but suggestive.

An alternative way of looking at it:

1. zaburs: Energy workers. 

2. dronars: Matter workers.

3. gwymirs: Obsoleted.

3a. horals: Matter-to-Energy workers

4. talars: Mediators.

5. vadelas: [REDACTED] workers. 

5a. hykims: [REDACTED] workers.

5b. seshnas: [REDACTED] [REDACTED] workers. 

5c. Pending.

6. menenas: Talent Recruitment and Development.

There is definitely a space 7, and maybe an 8.

42 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

[I am increasingly convinced that the way of "brithos" is a similar overlay and not a fundamental category in itself. But this is weirder and more controversial, hence the square brackets.])
 

This does seem to scan with God Forgot and Malaskan Philippe's apparent caste-hopping.

4 hours ago, John Biles said:

Death and disease are not high minded philosophy, base vendetta, or abstract conflict.

They are concrete realities that humans wish to throw down the stairs for entirely good reasons.

 

I would love to see disease as a concept fall down some stairs. Does she have a sister? Is that sister into that kind of stuff too? What's her sister's number? 

12 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I wasted precious minutes flipping through my "cursed" copy of WBRM (someone laminated it 50 years ago so the thick plastic pages stick together like old corduroy) so missed my chance to beat @jajagappa to the punch. Wind Children ("Children of the Wind" are indeed in there. As @Eff notes, Newtling "Renegades" are in Nomad Gods, which is I think pre-Perrin.

The children of Waertag and the children of Triolina are about as old as it gets. In terms of where they all come from, we should ask Sandy if he remembers hearing anything. There are textual simularities between the Wind Children writeup and some of Greg's musings about relationships between earthy mortals and airy spirits but the early art feels more like someone saw a Led Zeppelin logo. They're cool looking!

I want to know more about Yena Wambla now.

29 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

Does anybody know who created the Wind Children (Stafford or Perrin) and what was the main inspiration for them? 🤔

The same goes for the other three species. Wind Children and Newtlings first appeared in RQ1 and RQ2, but where did the Waertagi and Triolini first appear?

The Newtling Renegades first appeared in Nomad Gods (1977), and Wyrms Footnotes #4 (1978), if I recall correctly, describes them in more detail.

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Well, we can (I guess) introject Wakboth and carry him around with us, but you cannot swallow Kajabor, you can only let Kajabor swallow you.

I can swallow Kajabor. Feel free to ask me how.

4 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

forced to invent NFTs.

I had underestimated the degree of work I'd already been doing with the unicorn king. Though in another guise. Tricky how many of those Ralzakark has!

31 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I am not his dungeon master and do not have his strict analytic records. However, looking at the fragmented NPC notes discarded in the wreckage of modern Dorastor I think that whatever he thought he wanted wasn't actually it. He tried that already. It didn't take. If he's looking for company, they are not it. Whoever interests him now is whoever is up there in the castle. Maybe they're it, maybe not. It's a work in progress.

Poor creature! Someone should invent stamps for him to collect.

What else do I know that was made by an Unholy Trio in a sort of Doom Conjunction, which unleashed all manner of possibilities and changes upon the previous static and perfect eternal world, which existed isolated from any external influence? Which encouraged the young and the old alike to take the raw power of Creation into their hands, heedless of what they might make? 

Which is of uncertain numbering, of internal contradictions and incoherence? Which is blocked off by masks of its more tractable successors? I have seen the face of the Devil, and it is a woman with red hair and a rock lizard dueling. Crushed beneath a block of Law by a bull.

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Sure, the world is worthy, but it remains worthy when it has been demystified — the gods fed to the Devil and the Devil diced — the mundane world does not need otherworlds and the promise of eternity to redeem it. It is fine as it is. You come down from the trip and find yourself in Leicester. The only dragons are small and feathery, and that is OK.

A mystic sought the Red Moon, and climbed to the top from the bottom, seeking audience with the Great Sedenya. When he got there, he asked the Transcendent One, "Why didn't you take the Young Elementals and make your own world? Why remain in this one?"

The Goddess looked at him with four of her faces. The first said, "All of my records are here," and winked. The second said "Puppet shows are no good without someone watching." The third said, "I'm not clever enough to invent another Etyries, or Valare, or Eserela, or- well, anyways, if I want to ride that train, I have to pay for a ticket." The fourth said "Didn't I?" and laughed. When the mystic woke, he was afflicted with the most horrible delusion, insisting that the world was called "Glorontha" and this one had been edited.

53 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

However, because the return of the repressed is a foundational law of glorantha, there will always be symbolic leakages and other "grisly portions." The primal crime can be abstracted, talked about, even instrumentalized.

The taste of the apple, or was it a pomegranate? But of course, there's the big block in the way. Storm Bull put it there. "Couldn't be me!" Acknowledging knowledge means at some point acknowledging capacity, potentiality, culpability. It takes four arms or more to realize that the mask you're facing may be your own. Much simpler to attribute matters to the headache. 

(And what does Ralzakark want? More Oddis?)

The hummingbird is a symbol of ferocity and rebirth in Mexican contexts, which Stafford had recently had a transformative experience with. The faithful seeing a hummingbird is a symbol for them seeing the rebirth of Teelo Estara as Teelo Imara, the fierce protector goddess rising into the sky and swooping down on their oppressors. But the unfaithful see only death, Maha Quata. 

What would it say that people see a bat today? That requires thinking symbolically.

5 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

In the version where Wakboth comes at stations 2 (empty victory of the RG) and 6 (full victory of the RG), he may stand for nothing more than entering the otherworld (easy — any fool can ‘die’) and coming back (with the goodies = hard).

EDIT: Although coming back with the Bat may make the “full victory” over chaos-as-evil ironic and make the “I am the Devil, now” reading tempting. Maybe.

I mean, the line in Heroquest: Glorantha is very plainly and unsubtly about calling the Red Goddess the devil. Any reading which offers any degree of redemptive potential is directly contrary to the intent and thus is resistive in some fashion.