Sir_Godspeed

I don't know if this counts as advertising a competing product (which I don't intend it as), but has anyone here heard about a worldbuilding project called Fragments of the Past by Massimilliano Nigro? It recently released as a ttrpg. I'm mainly mentioning this, because it's an alternate mediterranean-esque bronze age fantasy world, not unlike big parts of Glorantha, and the artist behind it has produced fantastically evocative art and writing. 

When I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago I didn't quite make the connection, but now that it was brought to my attention again, I couldn't help think that this could be really good as inspiration for people in imagining places like the Holy Country and southern Genertela, at least. 

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fqj0rogonwns51.png 

On 10/29/2023 at 6:42 AM, EricW said:

Of course the legitimacy of such magic is highly questionable - infecting an enslaving others is a morally dubious act which would be looked upon as chaotic by most people who worked out what was happening. 

Now I'm imagining Dark Elves using subtle spore magic to make people more inclined to help them out, vouch for them, give them gifts, protect them, etc. Very subtle.

Now, granted, the regular elves might already be doing this, tbh.

Most Gloranthan societies, being modeled on pre-modern societies, probably don't have much in the way of FORMALIZED ideologies, but they do of course have religious and secular worldviews that shape what they want and how they think they should act to achieve that. 

One thing I like about RQ though, is that it also emphasises that what drives people most of the time is not abstract beliefs ("we must end the curse of kin"), but more immediately personal relations and goals ("I must ensure that my sister has lots of healthy babies so that our social standing rises."). Hence the passions thing, as opposed to the more loosey-goosey idea of DnD alignments. 

This also means that you can find lots of individuals and groups who are totally willing to act against what should ON PAPER be their group's worldview, because it benefits them locally. Ie. Orlanthi clans cooperating with the Lunars, Trolls cooperating with Elves or whatever have you. 

It's this in-group allegiance mechanic that drives a lot of wacky alliances, frustratingly petty conflicts, and knock-on-effects that defy simple ideological explanations. 

Which is fun, because we see that kinda stuff pop up IRL history all the time.

On 8/30/2023 at 2:52 PM, ZedAlpha said:

As far as the Maran Gor/Asrelia connection, I love that Lodril seems to be one of the Gods Of Himbos in this setting, competing with Orlanth for the title of Dumbest Broadly Well-Meaning Deity In Glorantha. The thought that he could not keep it in his skirt around Maran Gor, and might have been the only person to melt Maran Gor's stony heart for long enough to cause some real trouble with Asrelia and the Earthshaker Herself. Now that I know all that, I'm imagining the myth that goes around being an explanation for why Earthshakers are so dangerous and aggressive--their mom is pissed off at Vestkarthan. A few small clans deep in the jungle knowing how to appease them or (maybe) tame them works, with the majority of Caladralander traditions around dinosaurs probably seem like they'd start and end with "don't antagonize them and stay clear."

I really like it when minds think parallel. 

Back when I was doing a bit of work for a North-Pentan muskox people (entirely non-canon), I made their version of Lodril and Maran Gor a blustering couple that veer between intense mutual attraction and intense quarreling, and with both of them being very fond of drink and food. Very little shame or reservation in them, and also prone to infidelity, but you know, as a sort of "again?! I'll whoop you good!" kind of deal as opposed to anything truly hurtful. Just, overall kinda funny characters in the Muskox people's myths, sometimes hostile, sometimes helpful, but very relatable.

I associated them with hot springs, geysers, mudslides and the like, which I just kinda made up for North Pent. People would sacrifice goods to the geysers to try and keep them calm, but also have seasonal festivities around said hot springs were they celebrate abundance and bodily-well-being (which both of them can bring if they're so inclined.) 

- double post -

On 7/18/2023 at 7:40 PM, Qizilbashwoman said:

I mean, what we call "religion" is not at all the same thing as "when we do even mundane things it can have divine resonance because power is woven into every corner of Glorantha". It's not what we'd call religion, but I reckon very little doesn't have some kind of intent to it, and intent > power.

My old anthropology professor talked about this with us, and I always like thinking about it whenever my thinking gets too rigidly classificatory:
"So, when a farmer decides to follow the omens put forth by an elder,  and put the date of planting yams to such-and-such a date, we, as researchers, tend to call it a religious practice, but from his point of view it's just farming."

I'd imagine many trolls would think of trollball like this. Sure, the gods are there 'n' junk, because OBVIOUSLY they are - but did you see that play Krorug pulled off? He was WAY better than earlier this season, what the Sky is up with that? Do you think he got someone to do a sacrifice for him before the game? Go Hellions!

SICK lunars 😡 The Empire is so bad it's impossible to tell if this is satire or not.  #orlanthbless #nomoremoons

This is true, and to clarify, when I say "relativization" I don't mean just pointing out relations or similarities. The Lightbringers themselves clearly went around connecting local survivor-cults to the larger corpus of myths that would become the Lightbringer pantheon and modern "Orlanthism". The World Council of Friends clearly were creative and inquisitive in melding the Pelorian and Lightbringers mythologies together. Monrogh is a more modern and more specific example. (The draconic Orlanthi also did this, but they were later rejected, obvs.) 

By "relativization" I am more trying to convey the idea of viewing gods as tools and objects, cult and ritual as a social technology, narratives as products. etc. etc. It's real bad stuff if you're someone who actually believes that these gods ARE persons, that these narratives DID shape who you and your people are, and that these rituals DO hold the universe together. They're IMPORTANT in and of themselves. 

It's not that theists DON'T change, alter, innovate their myths into achieving what they want according to contemporary and local needs and desires, it's rather that they (speaking in a generalized they here, not universal) do not think of it as manipulating or "using", but interacting with, exploring, "doing".  Or in short, theists probably aren't social constructivists.

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

But, you know, why not? Our ancient world had its share of intellectuals discussing the nature and status of myth — including its rationalisers of myths. Sometimes, perhaps, as a way of attacking or debunking myth; sometimes as a mode of myth-making. Let us not lobotomise the Gloranthans.

Generalizations like mine are to be taken with a grain of salt. I don't think that NO Gloranthan has ever had these thoughts, I just think they're likely very rare and confined either to the madman, illuminate or certain highly specific communities. 

Not only is it harder to relativize deities in societies where these kinds of abstractions aren't very common, it's probably also harder to do it since they might be viewed as signs of blasphemy or what some might call Godlearnerism, Chaos or just plain old disrespect. It's also, arguably, not the *point* of Gloranthan myths, which are participatory, experiental and educational more than they are categorizing and formalized. 

And of course... well, in Glorantha this stuff *works*, explicitly and pretty reliably. Who cares if Orlanth stole the myth of dragonslaying from Vadrus if the benefit it provides is practically applicable. You know? 

So I think there's a number of factors that would filter against high-concept, source-critical relativization of history and myth.

I could see some particularly clever/disillusioned Arkati or Illuminates thinking like I just did (as you said, they are certainly not lobotomized), tracing metanarratives and the like, but for one, I think they will struggle getting their points across to others, and more to the point of me using the generalization of "Gloranthans": I don't think there's any kind of wider society or culture that thinks like above. Maybe some demigods in the Outer World, who knows. As you said, even in our own world we have the critical voices looking askew at the big truths. They are, however, decidedly minorities.

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I like that one!

Reflecting Pamalt's power vs. the fall of Genert and the rise of the Hykimi in alliance with different groups.

Possibly also reflecting the prevalence of dragons in the North? Ie., dragons as predecessors of the beast rune/complex.

On 10/21/2023 at 12:45 AM, bronze said:

It is said the Void and Chaos refer to distinct concepts, but it is difficult to specify how they differ from each other. 

This is my personal take/understanding: Chaos is Void that leaks into the Cosmos. It's not where it should be, and it's basically inimical to the underlying laws of nature, so it dissolves and warps everything it touches. Unbridled creative potential just doesn't do well with things that usually need to stay in one shape and have one mental configuration and the like.

It's a bit like how sunlight is absolutely necessary for life on Earth, but if we remove the ozone layer, it will burn your skin and fry your cells into a cancerous mess. 

Dragons and mystics USUALLY have little to no desire to further push void into creation (ie. chaos) because it doesn't further their goals of personal or collective liberation/illumination/transcendence, but ALSO illumination does involve the realization that Chaos is mostly just something that's where it's not supposed to be, as it were. 

So mystics usually seek to freely join the Void, while Chaotics seek to topple the Cosmos by violently breaking down the barrier between cosmos and chaos. It's like if someone lived on a raft, and some people sought to hop into the water and learn to swim, while some others sought to sink the entire raft because f*** you.

On 10/21/2023 at 12:52 AM, bronze said:

Thank you so much for elucidation. I wonder how Westerners rationalize and explain precedence of mystery over law and reason. Why the God of Law and Reason would have allowed such blasphemy? Wouldn't it present a dilemma? The Westerners have been compared with the ancient Greek and Indian logicians. They are rational philosophers thrown into a world of myth and magic. The ideal world for the Humanists will be our Earth, and Glorantha is their worst nightmare manifested.

I would think about where the statement about mystery preceding logic comes from. I'm not personally aware exactly where it's from, but I suspect it's not neutral. 

As for contacting the Invisible God and its realness. This is a bit of personal conjecture, but maybe it might fill in some blanks:
The Malkioni and the Dwarves have a very similar worldview in various areas. Especially the Brithini. IMG the ancient westerners adopted Mostali beliefs/worldviews of the Cosmos as the World Machine/Mostal and anthropomorphized it to become a semi-personal "god". 

Then we have Malkion, who in Revealed Mythologies is described through various stages of subgradients or emanations that go from the fully abstract and transcendent (Ferbrith, aka Malkion the Creator) to the fully personal and anthropomorphic (Elmalkion, Malkion the Sacrifice), with various stages inbetween paralleling the different layers of primeval and secondary gods or generations of gods we see in polytheism. 

IMHO the Invisible God isn't a "dude" in the same way as arguably Orlanth is. Orlanth is a locus or pattern that relates to certain narrative events and certain aspects of the cosmos' matter and energy. The Invisible God is a scale above that, like moving up a logarithmic level. Potentially, this might just make the IG a different take on Mostal/The World Engine, Cosmic Dragon and the Goddess Glorantha, (ie. a sort of pantheism) or it might be an attempt to comprehend the level above THAT (arguably parralleling the Ouroboros from a draconic perspective). OR it is, through Malkion, also an attempt to trace the scales and levels all the way from the super-cosmic down to the personally particular, which we also see a parallel of in the Draconic worldview (from Ouroboros down to the individual dragons and dragonnewts) or even in theism (ie. from whatever origin they postulate down through generations of gods procreating down to mortals). 

Maybe this is a bad analogy, but it is a bit like asking of New York City is real. Well, it's not real in the same sense that an individual brownstone building in Queens is. It doesn't have a roof or walls, but in its own sense, it is real.

Iirc, Revealed Mythologies basically lays out that it's Malkion, but going off memory it uses one of his other names.

On 10/21/2023 at 2:12 AM, bronze said:

But brozne age China is far more interesting than the current krarolena... 

Kralorela lacking some of the syncretic weirdness of some of the other parts of Glorantha is something forum users bring up every once in a while. I do agree with you, but not sure much will happen. I hope they can flesh it out with more quirks and that said quirks will weave both into general Gloranthan themes as well as play with ancient Chinese/Sinosphere concepts.

22 hours ago, bronze said:

How Orlanth and Yelm have taken credit from others? 

It's a fairly common thing in Gloranthan myths and history for great events to actually have multiple explanations. The Sunstop is generally associated with Nysalor in Central Genertela, for example, but in other regions it's associated with other momentous events. These causes may all be true. This is true also for great events during the Godtime. So it's probably less of a "taking credit for the deeds of others" and more "claiming to be the sole perpetrator of great events" or the like.

This is going to get a bit speculative, but there's a few layers to this as well. For example, Orlanth's dragonslaying feat MAY have been co-opted from a dragonslaying event involving Vadrus. But then again, maybe the both did it, Orlanth's just stayed more famous. Or maybe at a certain point during the Godtime Vadrus and Orlanth were indistinguishable for a bit. It's myth. These things happen. 

Orlanth-as-we-know-him-in-time is quite possibly also sort of a syncretic deity from multiple different merged local deities and myths and mythlets that were unified into a single corpus and cult identity during the Dawn Age and the expansion of the Lightbringer Missionaries. This makes things a bit complicated, because on the one hand it might be a case of people simply rediscovering the full range of actions taken by a singular deity, or it might be a case of people merging together multiple godtime entities and their actions into one because there isn't really anything preventing them from doing so, and maybe even mythical events kinda changing "hands" from one deity to the other. Deities like Voriof and Varnaval and even the demigod Vingkot blur into Orlanth, for example. Compare this to what is happening in Dragon Pass with the local Elmal cult as it merges with a wider, more cosmopolitan Yelmalio cult that appears to incorporate a wider range of myths and powers, which may or may not be objectively accurate, but is at least fully functional.

This also appears to have occured for Ernalda (iirc. someone said the deity-we-know-as Ernalda originated in Saird, and merged with other regions "earth mother goddess" cults as it spread, or perhaps simply brought isolated, fragmented orphan cult communities back into the fold, depending on how you look at it.), and Yelm. Yelm's revival in the Dawn Age is a whole deal, subject to an epic work of religious propaganda which you can read, it's called the Glorious Reascent of Yelm. Yelm is arguably even more complicated than the others, in that he is not only possibly a syncretic or "revived" cult and deity himself, but also has a whole supporting cast of celestial sons and fragmentary "little suns" which is... just too much to go into here. Yelm may also have LITERALLY stole the credit for the deeds of other deities in that he may have usurped a previous regime to turn the Green Age into the Golden Age during the godtime. 

Then you get into the incredibly influential, scene-setting syncretism that occurs during the later First Age, during the World Council of Friends, when southern Orlanthi and northern Pelorians look at their respective mythologies and basically combine them. Murharzarm being killed by Rebellus Terminus and causing Yelm to disintegrate is interpreted as analogous to Orlanth killing the Evil Emperor. The important thing to take away here, is that this may or may not be accurate, but regardless of whether it is or not, *it seems to functionally work*.

But all of this is very out-of-universe thinking. Gloranthans don't think like this, abstracting and objectifying their gods. Arguably not even the God Learners did that. They believed in a single truth. They were very modernist in this sense. I think the closest we get to in-universe people thinking in a "postmodern" "reality-as-invented" are Iluminates and dragonnewts. 

Not sure if this helps your question directly, these layers of "constructivism" open for credit-stealing as a kind of creative act of mythmaking that establishes "truth" mostly through an after-the-fact "if it works, it works" logic.
These layers of constructivism can also be safely ignored.

I love this topic, because it's so many things in one: a question of literal geography, a question of historical naratives, of mythological narratives, of worldbuilding as an exercise, of size versus scope and scale and so many other things. 

Glorantha, as well as Tolkien's works, clearly draws hugely on Greek ideas of the long-lost Golden Age. This is also present in the Old Testament in the sense that people used to live longer, wonders used to happen more regularly, great feats used to be done more easily, and so on. In a way, it's nostalgia as a worldview, perhaps a somewhat universal "the grass is greener elsewhere/elsewhen", or maybe a feature of those societies of antiquity that were moving from oral tradition into a more rigid written tradition (this last part is completely speculative and more vibes-y.). We see similar trends in various other polytheistic traditions where the gods USED to interbreed more commonly with mortals, but usually not so often at the time when those traditions have been put to letter.

But overall, it's clear that the modern day Lunar Empire doesn't quite have the lustre of the Decapolis of Murharzarm, for example, or Sartar doesn't quite capture the vibrancy of Vingkot's Kingdom/Ernaldela, and so on and so forth. Nature isn't as spontaneous as Genert's heyday, or Flamal's youth in the Green Age. The world is... dimmer now. Less vibrant. 

Again, this is thematically intentional, and I think this "lessening" is more significant than literal SIZE. 

For example, we're informed that the Dawn Age and the following Gbaji Wars had significantly smaller populations that modern Glorantha, but it was SILLY with heroes. Just absolutely LOUSY with them. This makes the First Age seem "more than" compared to the modern day, arguably, because it had more larger-than-life actors performing feats compared to nowadays. Places were farther apart and more distant and mysterious, but also, arguably, individual heroes and hero bands were able to have more extraordinary journeys more often despite that. (compare the Oddyssee to something like Vasco da Gama as a not-quite-accurate analogy.)

The Imperial Age shows an overall trend from the impressive local feats of heroes to the large-scale societies and empires where the great feats were organized by great rulers and massive armies which CONTAINED heroes. A shift from Bronze Age duel-based warfare to classical mass maneuver warfare, as it were. 

The modern age is probably a continuation of this trend, although obviously things are gearing up for something truly extraordinary during the Hero Wars. 

So yeah, less a case of things shrinking, and more the sheer, inbridled POTENTIAL and DYNAMISM of the world kinda dimming as the ages pass on, imho.

On 10/11/2023 at 8:55 PM, Moragion said:

But again, not gonna play any time soon, so will settle for just reading the books and have a good time. Sounds like readying history and legend and I love that.

For all newcomers (or returners, I guess) I heartily suggest the Prince of Sartar webcomic. It is on an indefinite hiatus since 2018, but what's there really does an amazing job of setting the tone and feel of the setting.  
http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/introduction-chapter-1/ 

The second must-read, imho, is the Glorantha Sourcebook. It lays out pretty much all the basics and-then-some of the immediate surroundings of Dragon Pass and its people, which is the focal point of the setting. Lots of mythology in there as well. You might have already read this though, I don't know. 
https://www.chaosium.com/the-glorantha-sourcebook-pdf/

I've loved his style ever since I first laid my sight on Artesia way back, so happy to see these two words intersect like this. Congrats to the man!

1 hour ago, Richard S. said:

Lolarnos has Coin Wheel, maybe you're thinking of that?

That might be it.

I am completely blanking, but doesn't Dara Happa have some gods that are associated with working gold or tin? I mean, they obviously are associated with those metals just in general, but I thought that some of them were involved in shaping it as well. I might VERY WELL be fabulating.

This might be a tad silly but... Shargash/Tolat/Jagrekriand in addition to being gods of warfare are also mythically associated specifically with slash-and-burn agriculture. This gets a bit muddled* because Shargash kinda purges the agricultural aspects of himself into his "son" Alkor (iirc), but the version of Tolat preserves the more holistic death-and-life/war-and-love vibes, iirc. Jagrekriand in Theyalan mythology is generally just "the sky general of the Bad Emperor" so just an enemy figure. 

Anyway, long story short: is there room for a Shamanistic interpretation of Shargash/Tolat in Caladralander culture, or - and this is a bit outside the thread topic - would Caladralanders have some sort of Shargash/Tolat-adjacent minor deity that revolves specifically around slash and burn as a social practice, a minor son of Veskarthan or something, perhaps?

(*It gets even more muddled because Shargash/Alkor also is associated with wetland rice agriculture through his wife, but let's not dwell on this atm. Iirc, it's more of a mythical allegory for how the Alkothi subjugated the surrounding rural peasantry of Henjarl.)

On 4/1/2023 at 10:19 AM, DrGoth said:

So my reading of that is that decay is a product of Time

It's a really tempting conclusion that's elegant and simple, but I'm not... entirely sure if this bears out.

I'm trying to think of stories from the Entekosiad that takes place during the Green Age, which is a lot less static that the subsequent Golden Age. Lots of things get killed and transformed, but I'm uncertain if they qualify as decay.

Then there is the Heortling Mythology, which also features stories from a very early time, probably Green Age or thereabouts, of people being eaten and consumed into other things, etc, iirc. Still not quite decay, I suppose, though my memories are vague. 

A third source that comes to mind is the story related by Belintar about the Aldryami, about Grower and Maker and Taker. What is taker? Is it just violence, or is it a more generalized concept of decay? This is pre-Time, and possible pre-Death as well. As someone mentioned above, SOMETHING made the Gloranthan topsoil. Perhaps this is our first sign of true decay in the God Time? The transmutation of living matter into the basis of future living matter. But if it's pre-Death, then things are not really dying, they are merely altered. (Oh man, I am SO tempted to delve into the potential for early, primitive plants in Glorantha chemically/runically breaking down the stones and minerals of the Cube into early proto-soil as the earliest slight between Flamal and Mostal, then the alteration of plant life into topsoil for greater plant life... hmmm, a lot to chew on here.) 

Not sure about how the invasion of the Seas during the Flood eras work. Seas eat, consume, digest. Is this decay of sorts? 

And then of course we have Darkness. I think, contrary to popular impression, Darkness was around to a much larger degree prior to the Storm Age. The Green Age appears to not have had a static sun in the sky, so night darkness was a thing. What other little creeping things scuttled about? In the deep seas? 

And can something like Lodril be seen as decaying when he enters the earth and becomes a cthonic deity? Ehh, maybe that's pushing it, but it's fun to think out loud. 

I do think it's useful to think of decay as a form of change though, ultimately, and I don't think it's completely alien to pre-Time, but not sure if there is conclusive evidence either way. YGWV.

So, there'ssome things to unpack here. Most societies have some kind of mechanism by which children taken care of in the case of their parents' death or disability. This, however, is generally the role of relatives in general in a clan-based society. Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents. Or in a village setting it might be a neighbor. This doesn't really need to be formalised because the social pressures are so strong that it's a bit of a given, or ideally it is, in reality you obviously end up with great disparities. 

This also ties into societies where one addresses every older member of the community as "uncle" or "auntie". Sometimes it's just an honorific, but in some cases it's an acknowledgement of the expected relations people have in a close-knit clan or band society. "It takes a village to raise a child" in a somewhat literal sense.

However, different societies have particular rituals that involve designating one or more particular relatives, family friends, or local notables as being particularly important to the child, and contributing certain things towards their upbringing or taking certain interests or responsibilities. This can for example be helping out with naming ceremony gifts, or babysitting, or providing ritual guidance during a later coming of age ceremony, or tutoring them in certain skills, or helping out with dowries or bride price upon marriage. It varies A LOT. In return this person receives prestige, respect and enters into bonds of reciprocity where the chances of their own children getting this treatment increases, etc. Some practical help from the child might also be involved.

"Sponsor" can be a fairly generic term to describe this type of relation: it might involve helping arming a young warrior or putting in a good word for them with an educational instruction, religious cult or whatever. 

But as you see, the Christian concept of godparent isn't really just one thing, but multiple roles, and the parental aspect isn't necessarily that important in a clan-based society, whereas the construction of wider networks of trust, mutuality, prestige and material gain beyond subsistence might be more important.

I can imagine that this role is frequently taken by clan thanes and ring members in relation to their carl/cottar (free/semi-free) compatriots. It's a good way to build up a support base in intraclan politics, for example.

Presumably similar dynamics exist in similar-scale societies in Glorantha, and you might also see cases where a "sponsor" hosts their "godchild", similar to medieval European hostage traditions, or apprenticeship, or servant service (ie. a young person from a client family serving in the household of a patron family in return for eventual support for marriage costs or setting up a new household, this isn't a mere transactional relationship like wage-labor, it involves lifelong obligations or familiarity.). I can imagine this occurring in Pelorian or Malkioni urban or manorial contexts.

6 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

The Foundation TV series brought this to my attention: base-27 makes sense, and is in use in our world.

“The Oksapmin people of New Guinea have a base-27 counting system. The words for numbers are the words for the 27 body parts they use for counting, starting at the thumb of one hand, going up to the nose, then down the other side of the body to the pinky of the other hand, as shown in the drawing. 'One' is tip^na (thumb), 6 is dopa (wrist), 12 is nata (ear), 16 is tan-nata (ear on the other side), all the way to 27, or tan-h^th^ta (pinky on the other side).”

I think this would have delighted Greg; I can see no indication (despite the later prominence of Pelandan Finger-goddesses) that he used it when coming up with the Lunar calendar, with its 27-year waxing and waning epicycles.

Body parts are also the root of base-10 (ten fingers, obvs.), base-20 (ten fingers and ten toes, iirc.,) and base-12 (number of joints on the fingers of one hand except the thumb - this was a common way to count in ancient Sumeria, apparently, which is why we have 12 hours in one day and 60-minutes in one hours - 12 joints times the five fingers on the opposite hand.)

So you're bringing up a good point, number systems can come in a wide variety even without bringing in esoteric reasons.
 

On 1/7/2023 at 9:58 PM, Joerg said:

Pamaltelans like to use base 17

I'm sorry hhhWHAT?! O.o

I wanna hear about this!