John Biles

The secret origin of Belintar is that he was Popeye the Sailor Man. Cut off from spinach, he had to develop the Masters of Luck Tournament in order to periodically renew his strength.

I think what we have to think here is an onion theory of enlightenment. The outmost layer of the onion is what society has covered you with. What is normally called Illumination gets rid of this layer of the onion and frees you from some things, but you still have layers of onion. A true mystic gradually peels away the layers of onion and avoids layering more onion on himself., But a lot of people don't realize there is more onion to remove and even impose new onion layers on themselves, like deciding it's time for Genertla to turn into a dragon. Or the kind of entanglements Draconic mystics have to remove to grow. Those who actually pursue the mystical path instead of just using their new freedom to rampage gradually strip away more layers of illusion of self and grow closer to dissolving back into the cosmic all. When the last layer of onion comes off, they cease to exist / fuse with the cosmic all. Most illuminates, in Glorantha, though, fail to fully pursue the path and at some point, go out and tangle themselves up in reality again. IE - any illuminate who doesn't pursue more illumination over pursuing other goals will, to some greater or lesser extent, stall out spiritually and possibly corrupt themselves into something worse (occlusion) So anyone who is illuminated and runs around stabbing people, etc, has basically stalled out at least for now.

Getting them to create a new child is probably appropriate and might be part of putting the Holy Kingdom back together.

Joining with the All and going away is probably peak illumination, requiring several stages to reach.

Esrola was the wife of Argan Argar and their son was the Great and Only Old One. So trying to raise the GOOO in order to get an army of trolls seems likely to me.

Clearly time for Troll Arkat in Ralios to decide the Elves are clearly backed by Gbaji and EAT THAT FOREST.

If the Elves try to invade Caladraland, they will find their forests being baked by volcanoes.

According to the Guide, the Summerland Heaven is where souls rest between lives before reincarnation and it's where the Kralorelan Emperors go since the reign of Thalarni; Daruda, the first Dragon Emperor, turned back from entering the Summerland Heaven to bless the people for a time. This is pretty clearly intended as a parallel to Pure Land Buddhism.

Given that it's done to defeat the Monster Empire, which is causing reality to unravel, you could argue several ways: 1. Argath thought it would banish the Red Goddess out of time. The Red Moon is her physical link and once it dies, she's out of the physical world. 2. This segment starts with saying that the Monster Empire was one of the inevitable facets of the ever-changing moon. So the Red Moon had to die to purify her of the taint of Chaos. 3. Hacking her body into pieces may well be a way of returning her to her state before unification, busted back into pieces; as below, so above. 4. So long as the Red Goddess is trying to claim the Middle Air, struggle with Orlanth is inevitable, so to end that, the Red Moon has to go. To be fair to Argath, he doesn't kill Orlanth in a direct way; he just screws up the rite and Orlanth gets eaten. Maybe deliberately. Maybe not. Argath basically doesn't care if anyone else lives or dies as long as he gets what he wants. So I see it as callousness, rather than dedicating his life to getting to where he can kill Orlanth. A fair point.

Page 35 lists five possibilities, but is explicitly speculation about what maybe happened. And the first possibility is that the Red Moon was, in fact, destroyed. Whereas the Guide and King of Sartar include an explicit passage (the exact same one) which states that Argarth called up the Dragons and they smashed the Red Moon into bits and bits. See page 28 of King of Sartar. This whole section is repeated in the Guide, minus claims at the end this somehow made the Red Moon invisible. So basically, King of Sartar is ambiguous, as it often is. It also features Argath killing Wakboth and proclaiming gods and goddesses will no longer shape the world, which doesn't fit in with the Red Goddess' methodology very well.. (Because Wakboth apparently ate them all).

King of Sartar pretty clearly shows Argath getting the dragons to smash the Red Moon into flaming bits that rain down on Peloria and asserts this created fundamental metaphysical changes to Glorantha. It also includes various speculation which undercuts this, like the Red Moon having been an illusion. But the Guide to Glorantha tells us that the Red Moon is the Red Goddess, who created it/became it as she ascended. So shredding it into bits would, at the very least, not be fun, and I think reasonably counts as killing the Red Goddess. Perhaps she's reborn as something else, like the White Moon but this is pretty apocalyptic. I mean, technically, the Dragons killed her, at Argath's request, but that's nitpicking.

Mysticism has never been developed much as a system. So there's not a lot to work with here. Illumination is about breaking out of the straitjacket of your worldview. So his illumination should come from things that contradict his worldview. Where doing the 'right' thing in his worldview isn't the right thing. If he finds his way out of his straitjacket, he will reach enlightenment. If he is a Darkness Shaman, he will have to confront the limits and flaws of the Darkness and Shamanic viewpoints. What those are will depend on your campaign. To give a standard Orlanthi example, if I had an Orlanthi warrior who sought enlightenment, I'd confront them with situations where 'Violence is always an Option' and 'No one can make you do anything' are making things worse. They would need to learn the limits of their current POV to break out of it into illumination, like being presented with two clans feuding to the point of slaughter because people disobeyed the clan authorities and took private revenge.

Argath and Arkat may not technically be total war, but they both annhilate entire societies and render entire countries a destroyed wasteland. The falling of something the size of the Red Moon to the ground is going to basically wipe out central Peloria. The only good thing is that terminal velocity is a lot slower than the speed of the Dinosaur-obliterating meteor, but that thing is going to wipe out a pretty huge area, along with destroying the magic that undergirds the whole Lunar Empire. Argath turned Dorastor into a burnt-out wasteland. Killing the Red Goddess is about on par with if you somehow killed Quantum Mechanics today; goodbye our society. The kind of devastation Heroes can inflict makes Total War look small; we still don't have bombs that can wipe out religions/technology.

To hit at this topic from another angle - We've mainly considered this from the angle of Theism. But what about the Sorcerous and Spiritual cultures? What's the difference between being a man-of-all and being illuminated? Could someone actually tell the difference? (Is there a difference?) What does it mean to a Shaman if he is illuminated?

Prayer and mini-heroforming is basically how I would see subtle magics working. Whereas, bigger, flashier magic is keyed to sacrifices. The clan offers up a collective sacrifice for the fields, then you imitate Barntar as you plow your field. The clan needs a storm to destroy their foes in battle and they sacrifice; you perform Orlanth's Battle Dance from before he fought the Evil Emperor to prep yourself.

It has always struck me as strange that Jar-Eel, who has the *Harmony* rune runs around assassinating people. She certainly seems a prime target for Chalanna to do for her what she did for Elmal.

In a world of reincarnation, for a species that reincarnates, it *is* neighborly. He believes he is helping you to progress to a higher state of being! And he knows reincarnation is real. If you want to grok Dragonnewts, I think it's essential to grasp that things people believe in the real world but can't prove are experienced by Dragonnewts. They know reincarnation is real, they know that progressing to higher forms is real. They've seen it, done it, experienced it.

Dragonnewts who are trying to advance spiritually are trying to clear out their karma. These requests may be related to that, and it's just that these things offend the cultures around them, rather than being *intended* to embarrass anyone. This is the reason a Dragonnewt may suddenly break into your house and kill you; he is trying to release you to a better existence, the way you did in the first age when your earlier self stabbed him in the face.

Different from my previous one. So the Dwarves hijack the Boat Planet with their fleet and steer it directly over the Red Moon. Then they fire up harpoons, turn the Boat Planet into a pulley, and sink the harpoons into the Red Moon and attach the other end of the line to their giant winch near Magasta's hole; they then hoist the Red Moon up with the other planets, thus binding it to the heavenly system. This ends her conflict with Orlanth for the Middle Air. Argath metaphysically deflates and is revealed to be Garrath Sharpsword in a Scooby Doo style mask; he and Harrek flee the narrative to hide in Pamaltela, where the Doraddi are forced to admit they've never killed these people before and kill them, then decide that was probably a mistake and they won't do it again. The gods, knowing what would have otherwise happened, form a giant circle and basically use Harrek and Argath's souls to play hackey-sack forever. The Dwarves raise Kallyr from the dead as a Cyborg and she lights the flame of Sartar... because they hid a bunsen burner under it. She is actually their puppet to keep Sartar from causing trouble again. Pavis emerges from his hiding, ready for his kunitori - the Herdmen are turned back to normal humans, who slaughter the Morokanth. They are aided by the Elves and now Prax is reforested and the Praxians must flee into the wastelands or be killed by the Elves. The valley of Pavis becomes farmland to support the City of the Man Rune. Prax is taken over by Elves and former Herd Men. Trolls attempt to flood Dragon Pass with gold but priests of Issaries and Etryes use it for a grand rite which boosts the economy to a higher level. The cities of Dragon Pass boom and flourish. Argenteus uses the same trick that destroyed Elven forests to basically burn the Chaos regions of Dorastor to the ground. He then eats a thin mint and explodes. With the Red Moon gone, no new Moonson emerges and the Lunar Empire breaks into successor states that squabble among themselves on who loves the Red Goddess more. Some of them are controlled by White Moon cultists. One is ruled by the Chosen of Glamour herself. Red Sister runs another one. Five Arkats battle each other in Ralios until the Rokari take a shot at one of them and they agree that they've found a mutual murder obsession - time to destroy the Rokari movement; they unite Ralios, invade Seshnela and destroy it, laiughing like maniacs. This eventually requires them to fuse together and fight Rokar himself. Who troll-Arkat eats.

Dragonnewts would probably hunt for Zistorite artifacts to destroy them.

Canon is what Dwarves make, though they call it other things like 'Iron Tube Weapons'. Rule one of Glorantha is that every bit of canon, the more you rely on it, the more likely it will be retconned.

Priests can run a protection racket but the Gods can't, because they can't act freely and can only punish their worshippers with spirits of reprisal. So a Dara Happan could have a picture of Yelmalio beating Orlanth to death while Ernalda cheats on Orlanth with Eurmal on the side of a mountain and be fine. Until the worshippers find out.

This is why the less murdery Illuminates tend to come up with some crazy plan that they think advances the Greater Good, like turning half of Genertla into a dragon. That is totally going to be what everyone *really* needs.

Am I correct in thinking the planets of Glorantha roam through the Sky, above the Middle Air where the Red Moon hangs out? (Including the Boat Planet, once Kallyr raises it?)

To be fair, Sheng Seleris was *already a monster* before the Kraloreland stupidly decided illumination was the solution to his bad behavior. It just sent him from 'warlord monster' to 'grandiose horrible visions monster'.