Peaceful cut and Food song

[jeffjerwin]

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... everyone who doesn't learn it from their god. Wahans and Eirithans learned Peaceful Cut skills in earlier editions, but it was (acceptably) different between them. But an Orlanthi doesn't learn the peaceful cut. Maybe some hunting gods teach a Peaceful Cut skill, but it wouldn't be Waha's.

It's a specific magical way to ensure the game spirit ends up reborn.

The Bloody Cut is a parody: it binds a soul forever to the Ivory Plinth and its weird god. That's why people hate Tuskers! If you get killed by their rite you don't go to the spirit world, you get locked into a demon's cage in the Stinking Forest forever.

As I understand it (word of Jeff Richard), Waha is the Heortling butcher-god, and his followers do learn Peaceful Cut in Sartar and among the Southern Theyalans. However there may be a different tradition among the Alakorings.

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

As I understand it (word of Jeff Richard), Waha is the Heortling butcher-god, and his followers do learn Peaceful Cut in Sartar and among the Southern Theyalans. However there may be a different tradition among the Alakorings.

yes, but does that mean others can't eat food they hunt because they don't know the Peaceful Cut? In Prax almost everyone outside Pavis knows the Peaceful Cut except the Poljoni, the Cannibals, and the Oasis-Dwellers, the last of which mostly just eat traded meats and the vegetables and fruits that fall into their hands, and even they have Wahans and Eirithrans; Kerofinelans and Poljoni are mostly Orlanth or Ernalda-worshippers. These folks don't all learn the Peaceful Cut; only Wahans do. (And Eirithrans, as of last edition, also had a distinct Peaceful Cut so they could, like, butcher their own meat of their own goddess, but I have no idea if that's still true because the God book isn't out yet.)

[jeffjerwin]

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

yes, but does that mean others can't eat food they hunt because they don't know the Peaceful Cut? In Prax almost everyone outside Pavis knows the Peaceful Cut except the Poljoni, the Cannibals, and the Oasis-Dwellers, the last of which mostly just eat traded meats and the vegetables and fruits that fall into their hands, and even they have Wahans and Eirithrans; Kerofinelans and Poljoni are mostly Orlanth or Ernalda-worshippers. These folks don't all learn the Peaceful Cut; only Wahans do. (And Eirithrans, as of last edition, also had a distinct Peaceful Cut so they could, like, butcher their own meat of their own goddess, but I have no idea if that's still true because the God book isn't out yet.)

Waha is a a member of the Storm Tribe and hence a minor Orlanthi deity (and is worshipped by the Poljoni anyway, just not as the primary male divinity). Part of being a Heortling butcher is learning the Peaceful Cut. Otherwise Praxians couldn't eat the meat outside their tribes, and Bob's Bison Burgers would lose a lot of customers. See David Scott's comments here: https://www.glorantha.com/forums/topic/prax-and-all-the-thousands-of-questions-about-it/page/2/

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Wahans and Eirithans learned Peaceful Cut skills in earlier editions, but it was (acceptably) different between them.

Waha and Eiritha have the same Peaceful Cut, as the souls of the slain animals go back to Eiritha for rebirth.

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Maybe some hunting gods teach a Peaceful Cut skill, but it wouldn't be Waha's.

I think that Foundchild used Peaceful cut, to send the souls of slain game animals back to Mother Earth, Grandmother Deer, Grandfather Boar or whomever. They know who is the patron deity of which animal and the peaceful cut ritual sends them back to the right place.

[Brootse]

5 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... everyone who doesn't learn it from their god. Wahans and Eirithans learned Peaceful Cut skills in earlier editions, but it was (acceptably) different between them. But an Orlanthi doesn't learn the peaceful cut. Maybe some hunting gods teach a Peaceful Cut skill, but it wouldn't be Waha's.

It's a specific magical way to ensure the game spirit ends up reborn.

The Bloody Cut is a parody: it binds a soul forever to the Ivory Plinth and its weird god. That's why people hate Tuskers! If you get killed by their rite you don't go to the spirit world, you get locked into a demon's cage in the Stinking Forest forever.

It was just posted in this thread that Orlanthis and most of the other people too learn it.

[Ian Absentia]

9 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

The Bloody Cut is a parody: it binds a soul forever to the Ivory Plinth and its weird god. 

Yeah, the Bloody Cut is not a skill usable for practical butchery.  It's explicitly a means of torture.  While it may help a practitioner know their way around the parts of a living body, it's not a skill for rendering a good cut of meat or a clean hide.

As to the matter of how so many different and unrelated deities seem to have access to the same cult magic and skills, I assume that there's something going on akin to what happens in the consulting or coding trades.  There are your partners, with whom you share data and project templates, so your product is consistent within the project team.  Then there are your competitors, who at some point review your deliverables, admire elements of your formatting and presentation, then reverse-engineer them and add them to their own templates.  Later on, you review one of their products during due diligence and remark in surprise, "Hey, they have a section detailing the Peaceful Cut, too.  And that's almost verbatim our wording!"

Good ideas get around and become standards of practice.

Bloody Cut is like fucking malware.

!i!

[Joerg]

15 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

Yeah, the Bloody Cut is not a skill usable for practical butchery.  It's explicitly a means of torture.  While it may help a practitioner know their way around the parts of a living body, it's not a skill for rendering a good cut of meat or a clean hide.

The Bloody Cut is a sacrificial technique, creating a maximum of magical use out of the death of the sacrifice, and (judging from the name) the maximum amount of blood squirting out of the still living body.

Which isn't that different from many a temple's weekly sacrifices, to be honest. Using the blood of the sacrificed beasts for blessing the attendant crowd of worshipers is a fairly standard move in Theism, and makes sacrificial slaughtering different from economic slaughtering where the butcher is collecting all that red clotty stuff to turn into all kinds of quaint rural foodstuff turning many a modern urban person quite queasy.

Ritual sacrifice of beasts (and in rarer cases, sentients) or (when it comes to worshipers) just letting blood in a spectacular way is at the core of many theist and even animist rites. It is something we don't emphasize in the artwork or the descriptions of the rites in order to avoid shitstorm backlashes - remember the "uproar" the sacrifice scene in RQG with Yanioth and the pig produced here? (Ok, half of that may have come from Yanioth sensibly wearing no top, reducing the cleaning bill.)

 

The pain suffered by the sacrifice can be part of the rites of mainstream cults, too. Gladiatoral games (not necessarily to the death) are such a form of sacrifice, and they are held by many a cult, and not limited to decadent empires.

 

Sure, the Bloody Cut is designed to trap the spirit of the sacrifice into the part of its body, and especially in the creation of a Ball of Tails via the Death Binding spell, which is just a variant on barbarian head-taking - something practiced outside of the cult of Thanatar, too (though usually using a slashing weapon rather than a garotte). The entire concept of trophy hunting is sympathetic magic creating a bond to the spirit of the slain beast/foe through the trophy, and to gain a magical benefit from having this trophy displayed. And usually not to the benefit of the source of the trophy. (Even saints' relics are a form of this.)

The Tusk Riders and their Darkness cult present these normal ritual activities in an externalized and thereby demonized way, but in the end such activities are a normal part of theist sacrifice.

There are some quite old discussions on head hunting on the digest which highlight how the Cults of Terror write-up of Thanatar externalizes and demonizes head-hunting (though not quite in these cultural anthropology terms), and that the practice is just a perversion of ordinary Orlanthi/Praxian/Pentan and even (or especially) civilized cultures' practices.

Exhibiting bits of the mortal remains of foes, criminals etc. has a long history, and a hanged person's relics (if only a piece of the hemp/cross) have been used very much like saints' relics in folk magic since basically forever.

 

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

3 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Yeah, the Bloody Cut is not a skill usable for practical butchery.  It's explicitly a means of torture.  While it may help a practitioner know their way around the parts of a living body, it's not a skill for rendering a good cut of meat or a clean hide.

how do Tuskers eat then if it spoils the meat? they use it for EVERYTHING. chicken? bloody cut.

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

how do Tuskers eat then if it spoils the meat? they use it for EVERYTHING. chicken? bloody cut.

They have lots of minced meat dishes or fricassee?

One "culinary" way to use the skill is to make spirit-enhanced cuts. Possibly giving magic point regeneration or similar?

[Brootse]

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Bloody Cut is a sacrificial technique, creating a maximum of magical use out of the death of the sacrifice, and (judging from the name) the maximum amount of blood squirting out of the still living body.

Which isn't that different from many a temple's weekly sacrifices, to be honest. Using the blood of the sacrificed beasts for blessing the attendant crowd of worshipers is a fairly standard move in Theism, and makes sacrificial slaughtering different from economic slaughtering where the butcher is collecting all that red clotty stuff to turn into all kinds of quaint rural foodstuff turning many a modern urban person quite queasy.

Ritual sacrifice of beasts (and in rarer cases, sentients) or (when it comes to worshipers) just letting blood in a spectacular way is at the core of many theist and even animist rites. It is something we don't emphasize in the artwork or the descriptions of the rites in order to avoid shitstorm backlashes - remember the "uproar" the sacrifice scene in RQG with Yanioth and the pig produced here? (Ok, half of that may have come from Yanioth sensibly wearing no top, reducing the cleaning bill.)

 

The pain suffered by the sacrifice can be part of the rites of mainstream cults, too. Gladiatoral games (not necessarily to the death) are such a form of sacrifice, and they are held by many a cult, and not limited to decadent empires.

 

Sure, the Bloody Cut is designed to trap the spirit of the sacrifice into the part of its body, and especially in the creation of a Ball of Tails via the Death Binding spell, which is just a variant on barbarian head-taking - something practiced outside of the cult of Thanatar, too (though usually using a slashing weapon rather than a garotte). The entire concept of trophy hunting is sympathetic magic creating a bond to the spirit of the slain beast/foe through the trophy, and to gain a magical benefit from having this trophy displayed. And usually not to the benefit of the source of the trophy. (Even saints' relics are a form of this.)

The Tusk Riders and their Darkness cult present these normal ritual activities in an externalized and thereby demonized way, but in the end such activities are a normal part of theist sacrifice.

There are some quite old discussions on head hunting on the digest which highlight how the Cults of Terror write-up of Thanatar externalizes and demonizes head-hunting (though not quite in these cultural anthropology terms), and that the practice is just a perversion of ordinary Orlanthi/Praxian/Pentan and even (or especially) civilized cultures' practices.

Exhibiting bits of the mortal remains of foes, criminals etc. has a long history, and a hanged person's relics (if only a piece of the hemp/cross) have been used very much like saints' relics in folk magic since basically forever.

 

 

In animal sacrifices the priests usually get the meat, so a skillful butcher is needed. But iirc, the Peaceful Cut makes the spirit born again on the lozenge, so it wouldn't make sense to use the rites when sacrificing if you want the gods to have the animal's spirit. And Praxians don't use the skill in their funerary rites when they kill the deceased's mount, so that he gets to ride it again in the afterlife. My guess is that if you used the Bloody Cut when sacrificing to Orlanth, you'd get smited with Thunderbolt.

[Brootse]

8 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

how do Tuskers eat then if it spoils the meat? they use it for EVERYTHING. chicken? bloody cut.

Agreed. Animals get mistreated in the modern meat industry and it affects the taste, but it doesn't affect the amount of meat you get from the animal.

[Ian Absentia]

On 10/5/2019 at 1:37 AM, Brootse said:

 

Animals get mistreated in the modern meat industry and it affects the taste, but it doesn't affect the amount of meat you get from the animal.

But it does!  Crappy slaughter and butchery can spoil meat with bile, acid, feces, etc.  Especially on a small animal.  Use of the Peaceful Cut aside, I still decline to accept the Bloody Cut, although described as "a slaughtering skill" -- not "a butchering skill," I'll note (there is a difference) -- to be anything but torture intended to traumatise and defile an animal, body and spirit.

Q:  Bloody Cut is "used to dispatch both animals and captured prisoners."  Does it work ritually on Aldryami?  Again, is there a Red/Green divide as there apparently is between Peaceful Cut and Food Song?  Or is it applicable to both the Beast Rune ("animals") and the Man Rune ("captured prisoners")?

!i!

[Qizilbashwoman]

6 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Q:  Bloody Cut is "used to dispatch both animals and captured prisoners."  Does it work ritually on Aldryami?  Again, is there a Red/Green divide as there apparently is between Peaceful Cut and Food Song?  Or is it applicable to both the Beast Rune ("animals") and the Man Rune ("captured prisoners")?

Bloody Cut specifically works on people; it's one of the reasons you use it, because it lets you use their POW and magic points to cast spells! Imagine what you can do with someone else's POW...

Also the Cannibals use the Peaceful Cut on people, it's just... repellent. It butchers the food properly, though, so nobody gets ill, and no one seems to die from punishment, so

Edited October 7, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[PhilHibbs]

5 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Also the Cannibals use the Peaceful Cut on people, it's just... repellent.

Repellent to you, repellent to Gloranthans, or both? I can see why it would be, if it sends the spirit of the person to the wrong place but I don't think that would be the case. I think that Peaceful Cut just avoids it being sent to the wrong place or being blocked from going and becoming a ghost.

[Jeff]

On 10/4/2019 at 5:55 PM, jeffjerwin said:

As I understand it (word of Jeff Richard), Waha is the Heortling butcher-god, and his followers do learn Peaceful Cut in Sartar and among the Southern Theyalans. However there may be a different tradition among the Alakorings.

I've been thinking about this about. I am coming to the conclusion that I don't find it useful to divide the Orlanthi between "Heortlings" and "Alakoringites". Instead, there's a big mix of Orlanthi people. The key things that make you Orlanthi is:

1. You speak a Theyalan language; and

2. Orlanth is worshiped by a significant percentage of the population as a leading god (king of the gods, Storm King, Lightbringer, etc.). That's where the name "Orlanthi" comes from after all; and

3. You have a clan unit at the core of social organization.

That is a loose enough system to include Sartar, Tarsh, Esrolia, Brolia, Otkorion, Delela, Jonatela, Huamanz, Kormorkan, etc, who meet all three requirements. Prax meets two, but doesn't speak a Theyalan language. Balazar meets one, but does not speak Theyalan nor has much Orlanth worship.

Within the Orlanthi group are many different variations. Maybe at the start of the resettlement period, people spoke of "Heortlings" (coming from Heortland) and "Alakoringites" (coming from South Peloria, but now they get called "Sartarites" and "Tarshites". And then you have the Theyalan speaking villages in the Grazelands. In a historically ironic twist, "Sartarite" is likely what the dialect of the Volsaxi and Hendrikar gets called by outsiders (and Sartarites) - even though they predate Sartar and don't become subject to Sartar until 1628 or so.

Anyways, Waha is the Butcher God throughout much of Peloria, Kethaela, and even Fronela. He's not a very important god, but imagine the amusement when your Bison Khan finds Waha's Friendly Meatshop in Nochet with a round cheerful "Waha cultist" running it.

 

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Repellent to you, repellent to Gloranthans, or both? I can see why it would be, if it sends the spirit of the person to the wrong place but I don't think that would be the case. I think that Peaceful Cut just avoids it being sent to the wrong place or being blocked from going and becoming a ghost.

Oh! Repellent to other Praxian tribes. Not because it sends the spirit anywhere but because they are cannibals. Can you actually imagine how horrible it is to have some bandit singing the prey-butchery song reverently and sincerely as he comes after you, bound in the food tent?

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

1. You speak a Theyalan language; and

2. Orlanth is worshiped by a significant percentage of the population as a leading god (king of the gods, Storm King, Lightbringer, etc.). That's where the name "Orlanthi" comes from after all; and

3. You have a clan unit at the core of social organization.

Jeff, I think we all agree already about this, but thanks for reinforcing this officially. We're more poking around at who isn't Kerofinelan - Ralians with their Lodril and Yelm worship, and so forth. It's just interesting to examine people who aren't "sourcebook Orlanthi" because of the exact points you lay out: they are Orlanthi, they're just Not the Orlanthi You Know.

The one Unfamiliar Orlanthi we do know are the Esrolians, of course. They've got plenty lore!

Basically it's just interesting.

[Jeff]

24 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Jeff, I think we all agree already about this, but thanks for reinforcing this officially. We're more poking around at who isn't Kerofinelan - Ralians with their Lodril and Yelm worship, and so forth. It's just interesting to examine people who aren't "sourcebook Orlanthi" because of the exact points you lay out: they are Orlanthi, they're just Not the Orlanthi You Know.

The one Unfamiliar Orlanthi we do know are the Esrolians, of course. They've got plenty lore!

Basically it's just interesting.

The Esrolians are Orlanthi - they fit all three requirements!

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

I've been thinking about this about. I am coming to the conclusion that I don't find it useful to divide the Orlanthi between Anyways, Waha is the Butcher God throughout much of Peloria, Kethaela, and even Fronela. He's not a very important god, but imagine the amusement when your Bison Khan finds Waha's Friendly Meatshop in Nochet with a round cheerful "Waha cultist" running it.

Hmm. Is the congregation of that Nochet butcher led by a shaman, or by a khan?

[Brootse]

17 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Hmm. Is the congregation of that Nochet butcher led by a shaman, or by a khan?

The shop is lead by the shaman, and the delivery service by the khan.

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, Brootse said:

The shop is lead by the shaman, and the delivery service by the khan.

Does this mean that the rotund butcher's delivery boy went to the Block and killed a Bullsitch?

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Hmm. Is the congregation of that Nochet butcher led by a shaman, or by a khan?

None of the above, likely. Probably he's just a local cult with nothing more than lay members. No magic received, just Peaceful Cut taught from butcher to apprentice. But Waha gets worshiped nonetheless.

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

The Esrolians are Orlanthi - they fit all three requirements!

yes, like i said: "unfamiliar Orlanthi". I feel like you're still not getting the discussion point. Of course they're Orlanthi - but they're not Kerofinelan by a long shot. The books lay out an Orlanthi worldview, Sartarite or similar, that's kind of the standard view. Maybe we also are used to the Pol-Joni. But Esrolians? They think men are inferior. They have alliances with Darkness and a long tradition of city-states. They have a very distinct system of rule, the Grandmothers.

It's the differences between people who are Orlanthi that are interesting. Intrinsically.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

None of the above, likely. Probably he's just a local cult with nothing more than lay members. No magic received, just Peaceful Cut taught from butcher to apprentice. But Waha gets worshiped nonetheless.

lmao now i have an image of a buddha-shrine in a thai restaurant, only it's waha in his cow hat

@Jeff are we gonna get a ruling on Bisos worship? Is it Pelorian Waha?

Edited October 7, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[PhilHibbs]

11 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Oh! Repellent to other Praxian tribes. Not because it sends the spirit anywhere but because they are cannibals.

Oh, right, I thought it was the use of Peaceful Cut that was repellant! Didn't occur to me that it was the other thing.

[Jeff]

10 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

yes, like i said: "unfamiliar Orlanthi". I feel like you're still not getting the discussion point. Of course they're Orlanthi - but they're not Kerofinelan by a long shot. The books lay out an Orlanthi worldview, Sartarite or similar, that's kind of the standard view. Maybe we also are used to the Pol-Joni. But Esrolians? They think men are inferior. They have alliances with Darkness and a long tradition of city-states. They have a very distinct system of rule, the Grandmothers.

It's the differences between people who are Orlanthi that are interesting. Intrinsically.

lmao now i have an image of a buddha-shrine in a thai restaurant, only it's waha in his cow hat

@Jeff are we gonna get a ruling on Bisos worship? Is it Pelorian Waha?

Bison is the Pelorian Storm Bull.