Why is learning god learner magic bad?

[EricW]

If god learner magic no longer works, because all the things they changed suddenly snapped back during the cataclysm which ended their rule, why does reading a few books attract doom guardians?

If the magic no longer works surely the books of “forbidden knowledge” are now just words?

[Charles]

In my opinion, it's like using Nazi anatomy books as a guide to surgery. In many experts' view, those books are the best available. However, because of how those diagrams were made, it gives moral qualms and/or reputational fear.

I think that most God Learner magic still works for those brave or stupid enough to research and learn it. Some parts of that magic taint users with Chaos / Illumination / both. An even smaller part does not work.

Several of our scholars argue that the Doom Guardians are not a Glorantha wide thing, but the fear of the Doom Guardians is...

Edited October 10, 2019 by Charles

[Ian Absentia]

Or like studying Satanism.  Sure, you may be approaching it from an academic standpoint, but that doesn't necessarily inspire confidence among the population at large that you're not actually practicing it.  Don't you know enough to leave a bad thing alone?

!i!

[Edit: Or as I've sometimes told my kids growing up -- If you have to ask, then you've already answered your own question.]

Edited October 10, 2019 by Ian Absentia

[g33k]

7 hours ago, EricW said:

If god learner magic no longer works, because all the things they changed suddenly snapped back during the cataclysm which ended their rule, why does reading a few books attract doom guardians?

If the magic no longer works surely the books of “forbidden knowledge” are now just words?

Much of the GL magic does still work; I think in fact the majority of it works.  Mostly it's sorcery, after all...

The key thing that I think doesn't work is the "Runequest Sight" or "Runesight" -- the ability to Neo-in-the-Matrix see the Rune-structure underlying the reality of Glorantha.  Maybe it WOULD work, if anyone alive knew the method to teach it, if any books on the topic survived.  As best we know, there are no such resources -- and MANY forces on the look-out for efforts to recover this secret!

There's some other specifics, mainly AFAIK to do with how the GL's mucked about in various mythologies and Cults (the most infamous being the Goddess Switch).  So those mythologies and Cults reverted to pre-GL shape (mostly), but the sorceries of the GL's themselves still (mostly) work.

I expect we'll get more on this from Chaosium... eventually.

 

[M Helsdon]

4 minutes ago, g33k said:

The key thing that I think doesn't work is the "Runequest Sight" or "Runesight" -- the ability to Neo-in-the-Matrix see the Rune-structure underlying the reality of Glorantha. 

Mularik Ironeye's iron eye is able to see into the Other World and view the world with RuneQuest Sight. 

[g33k]

43 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Mularik Ironeye's iron eye is able to see into the Other World and view the world with RuneQuest Sight. 

Is it?

And... in which source(s) is this so?

[M Helsdon]

24 minutes ago, g33k said:

Is it?

And... in which source(s) is this so?

I'm afraid I can't recall. Will have to look through some books.

Ah ha - found it: The Coming Storm Volume 2: Mularik Ironeye - Arkati Illuminate. From Rindland, originally of the zzaburi caste and descended from Arkat with some Darkness blood. He is Illuminated and is a fierce warrior despite being a sorcerer. He has dark blue skin and ascetic features; one eye is made of iron, able to see into the Other World and view the world with RuneQuest Sight. 

Edited October 10, 2019 by M Helsdon

[g33k]

15 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

I'm afraid I can't recall. Will have to look through some books.

Ah ha - found it: The Coming Storm Volume 2: Mularik Ironeye - Arkati Illuminate. From Rindland, originally of the zzaburi caste and descended from Arkat with some Darkness blood. He is Illuminated and is a fierce warrior despite being a sorcerer. He has dark blue skin and ascetic features; one eye is made of iron, able to see into the Other World and view the world with RuneQuest Sight. 

TYVM!

[Sir_Godspeed]

2 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I'm afraid I can't recall. Will have to look through some books.

Ah ha - found it: The Coming Storm Volume 2: Mularik Ironeye - Arkati Illuminate. From Rindland, originally of the zzaburi caste and descended from Arkat with some Darkness blood. He is Illuminated and is a fierce warrior despite being a sorcerer. He has dark blue skin and ascetic features; one eye is made of iron, able to see into the Other World and view the world with RuneQuest Sight. 

I like that he sounds like some kind of Gary Stu payer character someone made up to be as awesome as possible :

"Uh, and yeah he's a warrior AND a sorcerer and he's like, um, descended from Arkat... Oh, and he has the Runequest Sight because he replaced one of his eyes with this secret artifact!"
"God damn it, Gary."

(Obviously, he's just highlighting some of the cool special things you can do with a character as you progress very far, so take my comment as the tongue-in-cheek jab it is

).

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

16 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I like that he sounds like some kind of Gary Stu payer character someone made up to be as awesome as possible :

what's "Darkness blood"

[JonL]

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

what's "Darkness blood"

Uz or Kitori, I expect.

[Ian Absentia]

12 minutes ago, JonL said:

Uz or Kitori, I expect.

We can only hope.  But, yeah, that character is a bigger Mary Sue than Argrath.

!i!

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, JonL said:

Uz or Kitori, I expect.

it'd have to be Kitori, you can't... breed with uz, that's not a thing

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

it'd have to be Kitori, you can't... breed with uz, that's not a thing

It's a heroquesting thing.

You wouldn't understand.

 

 

(n.b. just following the formula for that phrase because it's so perfect.)

(Also, given Pavis' experiment with interbreeding Man Rune races, and Kyger Litor's notable fecundity, I am quite sure it can be a "hq thing!")

[Qizilbashwoman]

4 minutes ago, g33k said:

given Pavis' experiment with interbreeding Man Rune races, and Kyger Litor's notable fecundity, I am quite sure it can be a "hq thing!"

that was Godlearner/EWF stuff, though. Same time got us Tuskers out of Aramites as Dwarf-Elf-Human crossbreeds. Not sure that's really en vogue right now, and even then the trolls didn't participate. i mean sure, I think it could happen, but Kyger Litor doing something with fertility that isn't about restoring the uzuz fertility? gonna hafta say no.

I guess you could be Kitori-blooded, but that's not really how you get your runes.

[Richard S.]

5 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

that was Godlearner/EWF stuff, though. Same time got us Tuskers out of Aramites as Dwarf-Elf-Human crossbreeds. Not sure that's really en vogue right now, and even then the trolls didn't participate. i mean sure, I think it could happen, but Kyger Litor doing something with fertility that isn't about restoring the uzuz fertility? gonna hafta say no.

I guess you could be Kitori-blooded, but that's not really how you get your runes.

There are always exceptions, unusually circumstances, and just plain hand waves all throughout the lore. Nothing is completely off the table.

Also, your ancestors do play a large part in what runes you get, especially in terms of elements, which is why Heortlings are generally attuned to Storm, Esrolians to Earth, Pelorians to Fire, etc. A kitori being the source of someone's darkness wouldn't be that strange.

[Qizilbashwoman]

7 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Also, your ancestors do play a large part in what runes you get, especially in terms of elements, which is why Heortlings are generally attuned to Storm, Esrolians to Earth, Pelorians to Fire, etc. A kitori being the source of someone's darkness wouldn't be that strange.

nnnngh this is... not exactly accurate. It seems like people attune to culturally-appropriate things as they grow. Esrolians are known as Earth people because... they are Orlanthi and ruled by women. Human women are associated with the Earth rune in central Genertela, from Pelor to Prax, although some societies - like Orlanthi and Dara Happan, are real firm about it, while others are more flexible. Dara Happan and Lodrili men love the Fire Rune because of the Solar Pantheon. Orlanthi men love the Storm rune because of the Storm pantheon.

Prax tends to be more diverse, but still, more women are Earth than men and the men are likely to have the rune of their tribe, which might not be a question of ancestry at all.

And arrival of the Lunar Way suddenly created a massive surge of people initiating with the Moon rune - both male and female -, moving from the Lunar Heartlands outwards with Lunar influence. That's not ancestors, that's cultural! Ethnicity plus personality. I rebel at the idea that it's somehow Genertelan "genes".

A big part of initiation is affirming individual choices. You are shaped by your environment and culture but you still get to decide. That's why some Storm women end up with Storm runes, or some men end up with Earth runes everywhere, or why there are people with Water or Darkness runes in Kerofinela.

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

that was Godlearner/EWF stuff, though.

God Learners as observers, at best. They were sticklers for human purity (applying the term to inclusion of beast borne humans in the Dawn Age) and certainly wouldn't have started interbreeding with Krjalki.

EWF era stuff, not EWF stuff. The EWF itself was focussed on accumulating draconic wisdom and power. That other stuff basically was a re-hash of Second Council activities (another period when the Orlanthi had become urbane and civilized, and in an exploratory phase of their cycle).

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Same time got us Tuskers out of Aramites as Dwarf-Elf-Human crossbreeds. Not sure that's really en vogue right now, and even then the trolls didn't participate. i mean sure, I think it could happen, but Kyger Litor doing something with fertility that isn't about restoring the uzuz fertility? gonna hafta say no.

I don't see post-Night and Day efforts of troll and human crossbreeding. (Including the creation of the Tusk Riders which I don't see as troll descendants.)

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I guess you could be Kitori-blooded, but that's not really how you get your runes.

Kitori ancestry doesn't give you "Darkness blood". IMO this is a reference to the autarchy in Ralios and Tanisor, and in the end direct descent from (one of the seven) Arkat(s) who underwent the troll adoption rite before his victory at the City of Miracles, and then turned back into the human shape.

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

God Learners as observers

I meant Delicti, admittedly a heretic but who was just using GL magic, who gave us ... a lot of questionable things, including the Tuskers, as well as in the same era the spontaneous crossbreeding of Dwarf, Elf and Human in Pavis (which was EWF) and earlier, the Council Era interbreedings.

But yes, I simply meant "of that Era". A lot of that time has things we don't have anymore, like Zistorite bodily enhancements (GL tech) and other weirdnesses.

[Akhôrahil]

17 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

"Uh, and yeah he's a warrior AND a sorcerer and he's like, um, descended from Arkat... Oh, and he has the Runequest Sight because he replaced one of his eyes with this secret artifact!"

He's not the only one of Argrath's companions that goes that way, either. Although to be fair, if any of us were making companions for that munchkin Argrath, surely we would be pulling out all the stops as well, making Arkati RuneQuestSight Sorceror-Warriors, Dragonfriends, and so on?

(In the Swedish RQ Facebook group, someone said of Sir Ethilrist that he seemed like a player character...) 

Edited October 11, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[soltakss]

On 10/10/2019 at 1:11 PM, EricW said:

If god learner magic no longer works, because all the things they changed suddenly snapped back during the cataclysm which ended their rule, why does reading a few books attract doom guardians?

If the magic no longer works surely the books of “forbidden knowledge” are now just words?

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with learning God Learner magic. In fact, a lot of modern Malkioni magic is the same as God Learner Magic. After all, Magic is just a tool, in the hands of sane, sensible people, it does no harm. That is why new Malkioni have Magic Schools that train people in the proper use of magic. You can learn God Leaner Magic without a problem.

Doom Guardians are fairy stories, designed to stop people experimenting with magic, told by those too scared to learn real magic. They have no real power and are just ways of controlling you, by limiting your choices.

Learn some God Learner magic, it won't be a problem. look, here's a grimoire, it's just magic.

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

He's not the only one of Argrath's companions that goes that way, either. Although to be fair, if any of us were making companions for that munchkin Argrath, surely we would be pulling out all the stops as well, making Arkati RuneQuestSight Sorceror-Warriors, Dragonfriends, and so on?

(In the Swedish RQ Facebook group, someone said of Sir Ethilrist that he seemed like a player character...) 

From my understanding of how a good deal of Gloranthan lore has been developed through cooperative play sessions, I wouldn't be too surprised if Mularik and Ethilrist and lots of other powerful, eccentric individuals were essentially player characters that later got "canonized" after they were used to "explore" a section of Glorantha, or a period of the Hero Wars or whatever.

[Akhôrahil]

20 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

From my understanding of how a good deal of Gloranthan lore has been developed through cooperative play sessions, I wouldn't be too surprised if Mularik and Ethilrist and lots of other powerful, eccentric individuals were essentially player characters that later got "canonized" after they were used to "explore" a section of Glorantha, or a period of the Hero Wars or whatever.

This probably explains why they seem so out of place compared to the rest of the world. When Argrath et consortes turn up in Red Cow, you can't help but go "these guys are weirdos!" It's like they come from a different Glorantha than everyone else.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Ian Absentia]

10 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

This probably explains why they seem so out of place compared to the rest of the world. 

Like Mordenkainen, Bigby, Otiluke, Tenser, etc?  That's about right.

10 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

This probably explains why they seem so out of place compared to the rest of the world. When Argrath et consortes turn up in Red Cow, you can't help but go "these guys are weirdos!" It's like they come from a different Glorantha than everyone else.

Because they're monsters.  It's okay to shoulder them out of the way.

!i!

[g33k]

15 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... i mean sure, I think it could happen, but ...

<looks at the players>

<looks at it could happen>

...

"Oh, it'll happen."    😇

 

15 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

... but Kyger Litor doing something with fertility that isn't about restoring the uzuz fertility? gonna hafta say no.

With a sufficient application of Mytho-Handwavium, we might surmise that KL is looking to regain what She lost via some reverse application of Arkat's "Troll Adoption" whereby She gains an uninjured ability to reproduce.  This calls for certain crossbreeds, to study the process and work out the problems...  Add more Mytho-Handwavium, as needed, to create the needed background.

 

16 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

tI guess you could be Kitori-blooded, but that's not really how you get your runes.

I'm gonna go with "yes and no" on this one.  Neither breeding nor bearing is 100% responsible for Rune Affinities; at least, not in all cases.  Mostly, I expect, it's both.  But one or the other might be much the larger influence in some cases; and in a few, only "Nature" OR "Nurture" is detectable in the character that formed.   YGMV (mine does!)