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moonwolf8

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  1. Hail Harshax! The end of the current age is not the end of the world and especially not the end of magic. It's merely the end of the current empires. A relatively minor adjustment in politics. Much like the end of globalization in the RW. People will continue to commune with their gods, or discover new ones, or rediscover old ones they've forgotten but the same patterns of spirit magic, rune magic and sorcery will persist. Here I'll throw in a RW example by Steven Posch from over on witchesandpagans.com dated April 13, 2023: “You have to understand, my daughter is profoundly autistic. For her, other people simply don't exist.” The man thanking me for the ritual that I had brought to a festival earlier that summer has tears in his eyes. By the time that he's finished with his story, so do I. The Bride of the Forest Together, we process to the Circle. The Maidens of the tribe dance for the Elders. The Elders select one of the maidens. We veil and garland her as a bride. We take her in procession to the ford, where it crosses Turtle Creek. There we wait. Across the creek, the god emerges from the forest. His body is a man's body, tall, naked, shining, but his head is the head of a nine-point stag. (“Wow,” breathed a little boy standing near me. “Is that really him?” His father took his hand. “Yes, son,” he answered, as much to himself as to the boy. “Yes, it is.”) He stretches out his hand to the Chosen Maiden. She runs to him, tearing off the veil and garland in her eagerness, splashing through the water. Hand-in-hand, they enter the forest together. We turn back to the Circle. In return for the gifts of the Forest, we have given of our own; but the sorrow of that giving lies deep upon us nonetheless: so young, so fair. Suddenly, she is back among us: she, the Bride of the Forest. And look at the belly she's got on her now. She's pregnant! The drums come up. Joyously, we dance. “...People like you and me, she doesn't even see,” he continues. His voice lowers, trembling. “But she could see the god.” We are the new Pagans of the West. Basically, we're amateurs, feeling our way in the dark. A lot of the time, quite frankly, we get it wrong. Yet even so, wonders walk among us. My friends, what are we unloosing upon the world?" Another one by the same author titled One for the Big Guy, dated May 6, 2023: "The yard-work can't wait, but the weather-oracles say rain, and when I go out, the sky doesn't look promising. So I face West and pray. “Thunder, hold off long enough for me to get this done, and I promise you a pouring tonight.” (A gift for a gift, the ancestors always said.) Tradition holds that the Big Guy likes his libations, especially the strong stuff. Now, do I actually believe that Thunder is a big, cute bearded guy up in the sky who hears what I say? Do I honestly think that the forces that drive this planet's weather give a flying f*ck about what I want? Do I truly believe that the Universe makes deals? No, no, and no. Nonetheless, I make my prayer and, eventually, my offering, as promised. Why? Because I'm human, and humans are social animals that have always treated with the non-human world as if it were human, too. Because it keeps me connected with the Great Out There, which, in these days of screen-induced h. sapiens narcissism, is a state devoutly to be wished. Because, in my experience, it actually works. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about operative mechanism here. Soon after, I feel the first drops. Then it begins to rain hard. Oh well, I think, it never hurts to ask. A friend of mine who grew up Baptist always tells me: Prayer is always answered. It's just that sometimes, the answer is “No.” I get in the car and head to the store. By the time that I come out again, the Sun is shining. Really, one couldn't ask for better yard-work weather. I drive home, roll up my sleeves, and, in time, get done everything that needed to be done. So: was my prayer answered, or not? I leave you to make your own call on that one. Am I planning to pour out my libation tonight as promised? You bet your sweet ass I am, speaking of things that Thunder is said to like. When you make a deal with a god, you'd be a fool not to keep up your end of the bargain. As I'm bagging up the last of last year's leaves, a pedestrian comes past. “Picked a good day for that,” he says. “That little rain this morning really did a nice job of settling the dust, didn't it?” What he says is true. Usually at this point in the task, I'd be sneezing like crazy, with itching eyes, and snot running down my face. Thunder, you f*cker. No wonder I love you so much. Well, thanks, Stud, I owe you one. Tonight the drink's on me." Now, how would you Gloranthify these two examples?
  2. A useful book for this topic is "How God Becomes Real" by T. M. Luhrmann. I'm currently in chapter 4 How the Mind Matters in which the author compares charismatic Christians from San Francisco with charismatic Christians in Chennai, India and Accra, Ghana. In San Francisco God manifests in a very personnel manner. In game mechanics I would represent this as the PC's CHA vs INT. In Chennai God manifests through relationships. In game mechanics I would represent this as the PC's WIZ vs Passions. In Accra it seems that God's presence is felt in the body as power. In game mechanics I would represent this as the PC's CON vs Runes. In case that doesn't seem clear I do mean the PC own CHA vs their own INT etcetera. Luhrmann writes about Wicca; Santeria; and Charismatic Christianity. All of them are story based and follow the same pattern for making those stories real. She calls this process Making Paracosms and devotes chapter 2 to describing the process. So I may be completely misunderstanding the purpose of this thread but I'm guessing the goal is to understand/experience a Glorantha paracosm. Elsewhere in this thread mention is made of the occult scene in the late 60's early 70's. Ms. Luhrmann mentions reading Paul Huson's "Mastering Witchcraft" as part of her prep work in studying English witches. So let's see if any of the bits and pieces of occult lore I've picked up over the decades is useful. From "Power Within the Land" by R. J. Stewart we have guidelines for empowered visualization. You will need a book of folklore or fairy tales such as "Great American Folklore" by Kemp P. Battle; "Favorite Folktales from Around the World" by Jane Yolen; or "The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales" by the Brothers Grimm. If you were shopping in Books a Million and found a copy of "Persian Myths & Tales" from Flame Tree Publishing on the Bargain table and just had to buy a copy, here is a good place to put it to use. Your group takes turns reading stories from your chosen book of tales. The rest of the group listens with their eyes closed imagining themselves as the protagonist in the story. After each story listeners take a moment to take notes or make sketches of what they've seen in their imaginations. Applying this to a game session I would suggest limiting yourselves to just three stories per night and holding off until after the game session before talking about your experiences while listening to the stories. Say for example that you have a gamemaster and five players using the quickstart rules and adventure for Runequest and it's five pre-generated characters. The GM welcomes Greg Stafford to a night of stories and gaming. The players welcome the respective deities of their player characters: Orlanth Adventurous; Ernalda; the Seven Mothers; Lhankor Mhy; and Issaries. Greg Stafford serves as the founding shaman of the Glorantha tradition. The GM and players then take turns reading stories from your chosen collection while the other members of the group listen with their eyes closed. They takes notes and make sketches after each story. Afterwards they play "The Broken Tower". After the session ends if anyone remembers they can share their experiences listening to the stories told at the beginning of the game session. The GM thanks Greg Stafford and the deities for their presence and hopes they enjoyed an evening of stories and gaming and asks that their dreams and coincidences be blessed, merry met, and merry part, and merry meet again. The table is cleared and the players say good night. In "Psionic Power" by Charles W. Cosimano the author describes an experiment in which a group of people sat around in a circle and tried to visualize a blue sphere over a piece of paper in the middle of the circle. Adapting this for your use, take a 3 x 5 index card and draw a red circle with a white S and three white dots like the one that appears on the cover of the Runequest quickstart book. Imagine a ball of energy forming over the card. Offer the energy ball to Greg Stafford and the deities to snack on while the rest of you play. Munchies are important during most; if not all, game sessions.
  3. That pretty much describes politics in a nutshell. Which is precisely why politicians try so very hard to restrict voting access.
  4. Looking forward to these. After they are complete I hope attention will be paid to the Invisible god and the Saints of the west and the Mysticism of the East. We still don't have a system of Mysticism magic unless you pull out a copy of Mythras and use that.
  5. Just read a blog by Laura Perry over on witchesandpagans.com about godparents in Modern Minoan Paganism. The blog reads in part: " I was in the middle of writing a child blessing ritual for the upcoming second edition of Ariadne's Thread (release date: May 15) and realized I needed a term for Modern Minoan Paganism folx to use, a word for the kind of person Christians call godparents: the close family friend who will have a special place in the life of a child as they grow up. A number of traditions and cultures have their own term for this special person in a child's life. Some Pagans have "polytheisized" the Christian term to godsparents. Humanists use the word guideparents. Native Americans and some Asian cultures have aunties. But I didn't want to appropriate a marginalized culture's term. And the variants on "godparent" felt a little awkward, like they didn't really fit the "extended family" vibe we want for this kind of relationship in MMP. After some poking around online and in dictionaries and some helpful discussion with the folx of Ariadne's Tribe, we now have a term that we'll be using. The word? Amia. It's the Latin-alphabet spelling of the Greek word άμια, pronounced AH-mee-ah. In Greek tradition, the word is used for grannies, aunts, and any beloved elderly woman, relative or not. The word has an interesting history. It was borrowed into Greek from Venetian (an Italian dialect), where it was used the same way. Ultimately, it derives from the Latin word amicus, meaning "friend." In the same way that we consider our pantheon to be a family of deities, we also consider our extended families - blood relatives and chosen family - to be important parts of our spiritual lives. So we'll be using the term amia to refer to our dear friends (of any gender) who will play an important role in a child's life as they grow up. And we'll acknowledge them at our child blessing ceremonies so everyone knows how much we value their presence." So, which cultures do have a godparent tradition and what do they call them?
  6. I just finished reading "Queen's Heir" this week. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'll hold off on "Raven's Blood" until it's revised to fit more into the bronze age.
  7. Getting back to the Good Shepard topic I found this blog by Steven Posch over on witchesandpagans.com from Dec. 18, 2022 The Ram-Bearing god. "As Pausanias tells it, the god Hermes once saved the city of Tanagra, in Boeotia, from a pandemic. At the time, the plague raged all around the city, and the Tanagrans feared it was only a matter of time until it came to their doorsteps as well. Then Hermes, that ever-young god, was seen walking the circuit of the city's walls, bearing a ram on his shoulders. Not one Tanagran died of plague. Ever after, Hermes Kriophóros (“the ram-bearer”) was accounted the city's patron, and on his festivals the handsomest youth in town would ceremonially walk the circuit of the city's walls, bearing a lamb on his shoulders. (Although Pausanias does not say so, presumably the lamb would have been borne ultimately to the god's temple, and there given to him in sacrifice.) In Classical art, Ram-Bearing Hermes became a common icon of divine protection. The motif continued into the Christian centuries and, indeed, to this very day." So in Gloranthan terms we have a syncretization/subcult of Voriof-Issaries versus Maila.
  8. I read in one of the UFO books by Jacques Vallee that UFO contactees have several shared characteristics. Among these are psychic abilities, and a compulsive need to write. So I figure Saranko encounters the Lightning Chariot (his UFO), hears the voice of Invisible Orlanth, writes about it and suddenly he is the Carmanian Joseph Smith (Book of Mormon), or John Ballou Newbrough (Oahspe), and his as yet unnamed book is a hit with the local population.
  9. I remember picking up a library copy of Mythic Image by Joseph Campbell. Inside were three images side by side: Jesus, Hermes, and Mithras, all of them depicted as the Good Shepard. Agreed, I'm am looking forward to it's release.
  10. I recently saw a post on Reddit about "Anglo-Saxon Myths : The Struggle for the Seven Kingdoms" by Brice Stratford and Jesús Sotés. I've put it on my wish list of books to get.
  11. Earlier today I read an email from Biblical Archaeology Review about board games and knucklebones in Hellenistic Israel. Apparently board games have been around for a very long time and in addition to entertainment were also used in divination. "Secret Games of the Gods" by Nigel Pennick goes into more depth on the subject. I suspect there are board games pulled out specifically for sacred time, or at least game tokens that are only used during sacred time. I haven't attended any Pagan Fest events so I don't know where the children all go. I have seen a Washington Post article about {Christian} attacks on Pagan festivals being on the uptake. Which brings to mind Lunar attacks during Orlanthi festivals.
  12. Interestingly enough this is the hypothesis of Zecharia Sitchin in his Earth Chronicles series. That the "gods" (Ancient Astronauts) created human beings as slave laborers because they didn't want to do all that work themselves.
  13. Thank you David Scott. As I mentioned over in the Your Dumbest Theory thread I view Glorantha as a Post-Singularity world with lots of environmental contamination. I'm estimating 6% of the population being intersex Neither, with another 14% being Baedell Both. While I agree that those who lean toward the None gender will generally move toward Shamanism there is also the possibility of Mysticism. Back in Hero Wars: Roleplaying in Glorantha under non-Eastern Mystics page 218 it mentions Tarumathic Orlanthi. For some reason I have always viewed Tarumath as a storm dragon. Being a fan of That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime I think I will have the Neither sexed encounter Tarumath the storm dragon sealed away in a cave.
  14. In Runequest Roleplaying in Glorantha it says that the Orlanthi recognize 4 sexes and 6 genders. I'm reading my copy of Six Seasons in Sartar and it suddenly occurred to me what are the puberty rites for the Both and Neither sexes? Has anyone come up with Puberty rites for these other two sexes? If so, what were your sources of inspiration? I have a tentative story for the Both sex. Umath, frustrated that he could not have Asrella ejaculated onto Stone the brother of Mostal and got her pregnant. Their offspring is Androgeus and we who are Both male and female are their descendants. My source of inspiration. From Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit is the story of Agdistis. Zeus tried to seduce Cybele, but she turned him down. Zeus masturbated and ejaculated onto a rock. From the rock sprang forth a hermaphrodite child called Agdistis. I suddenly remembered the story of Lady Setenaya and the Shepard: the Birth of Sawseruquo from the Nart Sagas. The Shepard Tezhidada; who's name means Eldest Ram, sees Lady Setenaya when she is out bathing in a river and ejaculates at the sight of her. His jism lands on a rock which then grows to become Sawseruquo. Sawseruquo is not a hermaphrodite however. Ideas I've come up with so far: Androgeus encounters and seduces Flamel the father of seeds and gives birth to {Wine God} the god of wine. Androgeus is traveling on Kero Fin mountain and hears a woman in labor. S/he serves as midwife to the birth of either Yinkin or Orlanth. Androgeus is wet-nurse to the two brothers Yinkin and Orlanth. I like the idea of Androgeus being the elder half-sibling of Orlanth. From the Another Mother Tongue I learned that the word bad comes from the word baedell an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning hermaphrodite. So I'm thinking of adding the affirmation "We are the Baedell, those who are Both male and female." For the Neither I am thinking of their being the children of Orlanth and Mee Vorala the mushroom goddess. Like mushrooms popping up after a summer rain I imagine them coming along in batches with multiple women going into labor at the same time.
  15. The Sartar clans are divided into five factions: The Old Wind Faction: Does not accept Lunar missionaries or Lunar gods. Maintains covert shrines to Sartar even though most of them had little regard for the Founder before the Lunar invasion. The New Wind Faction: Grudgingly accepts Lunar missionaries assesses the Lunar gods to see if they offer anything useful not already available through the Storm pantheon. The Trade Wind Faction: Made of clans that maintain a shrine or temple to either Issaries or Argan Argar. Views the Lunar Empire as a big cash cow and they intend to milk it for all the coin and goods they can get. The Moon Wind Faction: Made up of clans that have completely abandoned the Storm gods to embrace the Lunar Pantheon. The Solar Wind Faction: Made up of exiles and opportunists from throughout the Lunar Empire. Mostly traditionalists among their old homelands not many of them embrace the Lunar gods. The Heortlings are sheep people and view Ragnaglar and Thed as goats. The Kostaddi are descended from goat people and view Ragnaglar and Thed as antelopes. Being subject to the whims of Sable riders is like being dominated by Ragnaglar and Thed too the Kostaddi. The lost antelope people viewed Ragnaglar and Thed as sheep.
  16. I looked up Harry Middleton on the Barnes & Noble website. Sounds like good material for a family of Poverri Fishermen.
  17. Two of the books I'm reading now are "Southern Cunning: Folkloric Witchcraft in the American South" by Aaron Oberon and "Folk Witchcraft: A guide to Lore, Land, & the Familiar Spirit for the Solitary Practitioner" by Roger F. Horne. Oberon says that: "Although there are no "Traditional Land Spirits" in the US there are a multitude of spirits that are tied to places and landscapes. Many of these pop up in urban legends as ghosts, devils or even cryptids." After reading that it popped into my mind that Virginia's legendary Bunny Man; about an escaped lunatic in a bunny costume wielding an axe, would make a fine localized male aspect of Barbester Gor. Since I know in RL that rabbits are associated with the moon and gay sex I also have an alternate story that when the Red Emperor set out to seduce Gorgorma he met Barbester Gor on the way and accidently seduced her by mistake. The Bunny Man is the unintended consequence of that meeting.
  18. When Greg Stafford had his revelation about Glorantha back in the 60's he was connecting with a vision of a post singularity world. I first read about the Singularity in an article in The Futurist by Ray Kurzweil. In it he wrote: "The Singularity is a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so fast and far-reaching that human existence on this planet will be irreversibly altered. This merger of man and machine, coupled with the sudden explosion in machine intelligence and rapid innovation in gene research and nanotechnology, will result in a world where there is no distinction between the biological and the mechanical, or between physical and virtual reality." Kurzweil completely ignores the mean rate of failure which I estimate to be 8 months give or take 5 weeks. At the time I read about it it seemed like a video game turned inside out. Now it sounds more and more like an environmental disaster. More recently in a YouTube video with Neil deGrasse Tyson he suggests the singularity will begin in 2029 with the development of a neural net interface for home entertainment. Deteriorating environmental conditions are rising authoritarianism will make refuge in online video games more and more enticing. Every laboratory in the world using Computer Assisted Design will have access to multiple online videogames to harness the processing power of thousands of linked human brains. When the number of people online exceeds 2% of the global population the system will overload flooding the airwaves with scores of online videogames at 40 Megahertz. The frequency at which the human brain can pick up radio waves. This cacophony of sensory impressions will be known as God Time. After 13 months give or take 3 weeks the Singularity will reboot. This 2nd Singularity will be known as the Golden Age. During this event video games will shift from Class based level systems to Skill based simulations. There will be three more reboots known later as the Storm Age, Dark Age and Silver Age. After the 5th reboot ends the world's population will be too low to sustain further reboots. There were no video games in the 1960's when Stafford had his vision. With no frame of reference for open world video games where your character starts to move in a curve around the edge of the map Stafford imagined a flat world. He received no expansion packs which is why we've spent most of the last 40 years revisiting Sartar and Pavis over and over again. The Rockwood mountains correspond to the Urals after they've been overlain with several scores of videogames and after the oceans have risen 25 feet. Ritual reenactment of stories stabilizes the cacophony of scores of videogames playing simultaneously in our heads which is were the emphasis on Heroquesting comes from. This reduces the death rate of the population from 33% to a mere 16%. Hence the more you participate in passion plays, folk plays and community theater the better your chances that you and your family will survive the Singularity. This is also why Heroquesting is uncertain. You and your community may be used to a Sims version of World of Warcraft but every now and then your going to get Shadow of Mordor, Final Fantasy 14 or Neverwinter Nights. The Arkat/Gbaji wars; the Dragonkill/Closing; and the Hero wars all happen roughly 541 years apart. The time it takes the global population to approach 2.5 billion people. The myths we know are the myths known in the time of Harshax, not the actual myths of people in the 3rd age. Your Glorantha Will Vary is a warning to adapt your game story to reflect the environment outside your door. This includes your social environment as well as your physical one. For example if you live in Alabama adapting "Chilling Tales Beneath the Chinaberry Tree: A Collection of Alabama Folklore and Ghost Stories" by Johny Odam into a collection of Heroquests for different Gloranthan cults you will be connecting more fully with your local environment.
  19. I'm surprised no one has mentioned Raya and the Last Dragon. The whole film is a hero quest to bring water back to a parched land.
  20. Interestingly enough there are some Heathens who worship the Jotuns. They call themselves Rokkatru, those who follow the Rokkr. If your interested there is a book; "The Jotunbok" by Raven Kaldera, a Peer-Corroborated Personnel Gnosis work.
  21. I ordered a print version of Mythic Iceland from Books a Million December 11th. It arrived yesterday December 21st. Looks interesting.
  22. My dead tree edition of Mythic Britain arrived today. I ordered it Saturday Dec. 11th. from Barnes & Noble. I haven't started reading it yet.
  23. I typed in Mythic Britain on the booksamillion.com website and some second hand print copies did come up. So did a book called "Gods, Heroes & Kings: the Battle for Mythic Britain" by Christopher R. Fee. Is the later book a good source for story ideas?
  24. Does your local library have anything on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that you can use? Do they perhaps have a copy of "The Way of Wyrd" by Brian Bates?
  25. I haven't read the WEeir of Hali so wouldn't be able to answer but you could be interested by this: Weird of Hali: Roleplaying The Other Side Of The Cthulhu Mythos by John Michael Greer (aeongamespublishing.co.uk) Written by JMG himself, it uses a modified version of Mythras. Thank you! I will look into that.
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