Jump to content

God Time and objective truth


Ufnal

Recommended Posts

15 minutes ago, Ufnal said:

is the idea that demi-gods can actively change things in the God Plane and make identifications and relations where there were none (not just discover existing and forgotten ones) something that already exists in Glorantha, or is it a radical change to the world?

I'm not a Glorantha expert but maybe the Broken Council creating Nysalor pretty much from scratch could qualify? I've also often wondered if Arkat completely engineered an enemy all by himself in turning Nysalor into Gbaji.

Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

I'm not a Glorantha expert but maybe the Broken Council creating Nysalor pretty much from scratch could qualify? I've also often wondered if Arkat completely engineered an enemy all by himself in turning Nysalor into Gbaji.

Ehhhhhh Nysalorean enlightenment already minimised Chaos. It's a side-effect of Illumination. Just because the Bright Empire turned to Chaos because Arkat kept coming back from Hell to kill them doesn't mean he forced them to actively pull on it.

Some people have suggested that Arkat's own Illumination, hard-earned through running through multiple religions and dying a lot, meant he too pulled on Chaos in that last battle. I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. Certainly the the Seven Faces of Arkat show him as Chaos-Killer and as Gbaji!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

I'm not a Glorantha expert but maybe the Broken Council creating Nysalor pretty much from scratch could qualify?

The Pseudocosmic Egg found inside Feldichi ruins in Dorastor was the instrumental component to bring a new god into the world - a piece of primal Creation waiting to be made alive.

In the end, the new deity turned out to be a continuation of Rashoran after it lost its moment of perfection.

Quote

I've also often wondered if Arkat completely engineered an enemy all by himself in turning Nysalor into Gbaji.

Arkat's birth was a side effect of Nysalor's birth (and possibly vice versa). Each of them was the necessary Other for their opposition.

I still think that Gbaji was the bi-directional mask which separated the two - whoever looked at the other perceived Gbaji. Gbaji also was the border effect between the Nysalorean new reality and the Arkati old reality, a similar effect as the Glowline. The Seshnelan King List provides a few details about how the Nysalorean reality was about to be carried all the way to the Neliomi Sea in the south, and how it was an evil that had to be fought back by the Westerners, with the aid of Brithos.

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Ehhhhhh Nysalorean enlightenment already minimised Chaos. It's a side-effect of Illumination. Just because the Bright Empire turned to Chaos because Arkat kept coming back from Hell to kill them doesn't mean he forced them to actively pull on it.

The Vampire Kings of Tanisor -  proud ancestors of the current dynasty and religion there - had taken all the wrong lessons out of Illumination already when Arkat's host set out from Brithos and Arolanit. The turn to Chaos happened a lot earlier than Arkat's first demise.

Quote

Some people have suggested that Arkat's own Illumination, hard-earned through running through multiple religions and dying a lot, meant he too pulled on Chaos in that last battle. I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. Certainly the the Seven Faces of Arkat show him as Chaos-Killer and as Gbaji!

I rather think that everybody taking a closer look knows, but hesitates to acknowledge that truth. I see it as likely that parts of Nysalor and parts of Arkat died upon the Tower of the City of Miracles, and that the bi-directional mask Gbaji was ripped aside and torn to pieces in that struggle of two Chaos entities from their own volition. Somehow, an entity recognized as Arkat emerged from that duel, human in appearance again, who went on to curse the homeland of Nysalor into a weirder and more chaotic land than the map in the Guide leads you to believe (the Guide does comment that the map is highly inaccurate much of the time, and at Kraken Sandy told us how so).

 

To get back on topic of this thread, discovering and/or establishing new connections between previously disparate entities or names/titles from different regions is an old use of the hero planes Godtime, and a technique discovered and applied already by the Lightbringer missionaries. The Gods War and the rampaging entropy of the Greater Darkness destroyed a lot of memories all the way into the Godtime, and all of that was pulled together again by the Web of Arachne Solara. Whole chunks of myths or Godtime stories (aka pre-history) had been annihilated, sometimes leaving vague references to minimally defined entities. Other chunks may have been gathered up in the web but never really reconnected (much) to the rest of the world (or Godtime), waiting to be found - usually by some happy accident, occasionally by systematic exploration.

Yamsur, the sun god of Genert's Garden and ancestor of Hyalor, might be a prime example of such an entity. The previous sentence more or less sums up the entire knowledge we have about Yamsur.

  • Like 4

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Ehhhhhh Nysalorean enlightenment already minimised Chaos. It's a side-effect of Illumination. Just because the Bright Empire turned to Chaos because Arkat kept coming back from Hell to kill them doesn't mean he forced them to actively pull on it.

Some people have suggested that Arkat's own Illumination, hard-earned through running through multiple religions and dying a lot, meant he too pulled on Chaos in that last battle. I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. Certainly the the Seven Faces of Arkat show him as Chaos-Killer and as Gbaji!

The Nysalor followers were already dabbling in chaos and corruption, like when they unleashed a plague in Tanisor so they could pretend to be heroes by offering a cure.

Of the hideous slimestone gorp, created when a first age magical experiment went wrong.

Or the Trollkin curse.

Arkat may have accelerated this corruption, as Dorastan illuminates heedlessly reached for the most horrific powers and magics they could to defend themselves from Arkat's armies, but he didn't start the corruption.

Edited by EricW
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Some people have suggested that Arkat's own Illumination, hard-earned through running through multiple religions and dying a lot, meant he too pulled on Chaos in that last battle. I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. Certainly the the Seven Faces of Arkat show him as Chaos-Killer and as Gbaji!

If Arkat wielded chaos he as at least a little bit subtle about it. No great plagues or tentacles sprouting from under his tunic. But Arkat sometimes learned new skills very quickly. We know he hero quested a lot, but maybe sometimes he stole the knowledge. If you're going to kill a captured enemy, be a shame to waste their more valuable skills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Pseudocosmic Egg found inside Feldichi ruins in Dorastor was the instrumental component to bring a new god into the world - a piece of primal Creation waiting to be made alive.

In the end, the new deity turned out to be a continuation of Rashoran after it lost its moment of perfection.

Rashoran but with a dash of chaos? The Pseudocosmic Egg sounds like it must've had a chaotic component/core, but I haven't really heard of much musing about that(?). Perhaps the Red Goddess' dip into chaos was the "pseudocosmic egg" that she needed to perform her resurrection into Time. Hmm, just thinking out loud here..

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Grievous said:

Rashoran but with a dash of chaos?

Rashoran was a teacher of the Unholy Trio. Not sure it needed another dash...

 

3 minutes ago, Grievous said:

The Pseudocosmic Egg sounds like it must've had a chaotic component/core, but I haven't really heard of much musing about that(?).

There hasn't been much musing about it, at least not on the internet. Most discussions I have seen were about the Osentalka project, not its main gadget.

The Pseudocosmic Egg definitely contained Raw Creation, but encapsuled inside its protective shell. The unlimited potential of the Void is not entropic as long as it is kept away from ordered Creation, or only emerges under controlled circumstances (for limited amounts of control, like the tempestuous birth of Umath for instance).

 

3 minutes ago, Grievous said:

Perhaps the Red Goddess' dip into chaos was the "pseudocosmic egg" that she needed to perform her resurrection into Time. Hmm, just thinking out loud here..

Good reasoning, and yes, that dip into the Ultimate may have earned her the raw creative power she needed to bring back to the world to raise her stellar body after cowing the opposition at Castle Blue. At a price, though.

  • Like 1

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/22/2019 at 7:13 PM, EricW said:

One of my favourite heresies is the cult of Yelmalio the Krjalk - a perverted and chaotic version of Yelmalio, accessed by accepting help from chaos during the Hill of Gold hero quest. Don't know if it is canon, but it makes a deeply intriguing hero cult.

You have this all upside down. I swear I have met more Yelmalios who were secret chaos worshippers than ones who weren't.  It is approaching the point of being a cliche.  Why there isn't an outright Stormbull vs Yelmalio war idk.

Edited by Darius West
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Darius West said:

You have this all upside down. I swear I have met more Yelmalios who were secret chaos worshippers than ones who weren't.  It is approaching the point of being a cliche.  Why there isn't an outright Stormbull vs Yelmalio war idk.

I know how you love this concept ;-). But I think its kind of a cool idea, a cult which can be twisted via a hero quest into a mockery. In a sense this has already happened with the seven mothers mockery of their original cult allegiances.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, EricW said:

I know how you love this concept ;-). But I think its kind of a cool idea, a cult which can be twisted via a hero quest into a mockery. In a sense this has already happened with the seven mothers mockery of their original cult allegiances.

Wasn't that what happened to Orlanth in EWF? xD

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, EricW said:

I know how you love this concept ;-). But I think its kind of a cool idea, a cult which can be twisted via a hero quest into a mockery. In a sense this has already happened with the seven mothers mockery of their original cult allegiances.

The Seven Mothers can be seen as a mockery of the Lightbringer Quest, arguably.

But then again, arguably any Lightbringer quest used simply as a ressurection spell is imho a bit of a mockery considering the profound cosmic significance (accepting differences, recognizing guilt and repenting) of the original quest.
 

19 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Some people have suggested that Arkat's own Illumination, hard-earned through running through multiple religions and dying a lot, meant he too pulled on Chaos in that last battle. I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. Certainly the the Seven Faces of Arkat show him as Chaos-Killer and as Gbaji!

When I first started trawling the web for discussions on Glorantha, I came across a thread on another website where people described the duel in the Tower of Dreams as "Arkat and Nysalor entered the tower. Gbaji walked out of it."
Probably not very accurate, since whatever version of Arkat emerged from it seems to have been a pretty decent fellow afterwards (unless you believe the accounts that paint the Autarchy as a despotic hellhole, which I don't think I do), but damn if it didn't sound cool and ominous to me at the time. :P

On another note, I'm not sure how you can curse an entire land to be chaos-ified unless you have some fingers dipped in Chaos, so Arkat was probably more far gone that it's usually let on, imho.

 

 

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Some people have suggested that Arkat's own Illumination, hard-earned through running through multiple religions and dying a lot, meant he too pulled on Chaos in that last battle. I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. Certainly the the Seven Faces of Arkat show him as Chaos-Killer and as Gbaji!

I know that the Lunars associate Nysalor with Rashoran(a) (Laid out in the Sourcebook at least), but are there any other sources for this?
 

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Rashoran was a teacher of the Unholy Trio. Not sure it needed another dash...

 

Really? Well damn, that's news to me. Where is this from?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I know that the Lunars associate Nysalor with Rashoran(a) (Laid out in the Sourcebook at least), but are there any other sources for this?

They also claim Jernotius is Rashoran/a but I have some extreme doubts about that equivalency. Mega-extreme doubts.

I think the basic issue is they call everything associated with Illumination the same deity. I think this is a tremendous error.

Edited by Qizilbashwoman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To come back to the topic for a bit - is there any instance of heroquesting innovation in Gloranthan canon that is explicitly described not as discovering something once known but forgotten, but as forging a completely new path? (beside God Learner shenanigans, as they weren't really innovating, just operating under the impression that all the stories are interchangeable, it's just the runes that matter [or do I have it wrong?]).

Also, I haven't had the opportunity to read the Entekosiad yet, but the blurb on the Chaosium website provides a snippet that intrigues me. "Valare Addi was the seeker, who mistook her goddess Teelo Estara to be the same as Entekos" - this sounds as if there are some identifications in Heroquesting that are actually "mistaken" and thus impossible. Is that true, or is it just the opinion that Valare Addi came to form?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Ufnal said:

Also, I haven't had the opportunity to read the Entekosiad yet, but the blurb on the Chaosium website provides a snippet that intrigues me. "Valare Addi was the seeker, who mistook her goddess Teelo Estara to be the same as Entekos" - this sounds as if there are some identifications in Heroquesting that are actually "mistaken" and thus impossible. Is that true, or is it just the opinion that Valare Addi came to form?

Teelo Estara is the name of the living Red Goddess before She ascended.

Valare was a Natural Illuminate and a Lunar and she preached the identity of Entekos and the Red Goddess, as Teelo was an emanation of the former.

Teelo struck her down for this and told her to find the truth, so Valare heroquested through all of Peloria to learn the history of the Red Goddess and determined she had been wrong. She took the name Addi, a Pelorian name for Entekos, from the intense experience she had in one of her heroquests while interacting with that goddess.

The Entekosiad is my favorite Greg text and I deeply recommend it. It's weird as hell.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, Ufnal said:

Wait, so what she preached was true and the Red Goddess wanted her to find a narrative that suited her better instead? I'm confused.

She at first tried to prove that Entekos and the Red Goddess were the same. The Red Goddess punished her for this by blinding her.

The Entekosiad is the literary work (heavily annotated and commented) where Valare then tries to prove that Entekos and Dendara are the same instead, basically.

But that's not really doing the text justice. It gets weird. Green Age weird.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:
19 hours ago, Joerg said:

Rashoran was a teacher of the Unholy Trio. Not sure it needed another dash...

 

Really? Well damn, that's news to me. Where is this from?

E.g. Sourcebook p.120

  • Like 1

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/23/2019 at 11:06 AM, Ufnal said:

1. One of the reasons I asked about the "objectivity" and whether there is one true state of things is to help judge the limits of invention in heroquesting. We know a hero can heroquest to prove Elmal is Yelmalio (although I am still not sure about their relation). I guess nobody can heroquest to prove Ernalda is Zorak Zoran, or Orlanth is Yelm. But can a hero find/change/prove Godtime facts so far that, say, he comes to see and show Yelm and Yelmalio to be the same being? Or Odayla and Sky Bear? Or Orlanth and Yinkin? Kero Fin and Ernalda? Is it that the world of the gods is infinitely mallable and changable via human intervention? And if there are limits, what (apart from the forces that destroyed God Learners xD) makes them - the runes of the entities, their images and identities, their roles in the archetypal stories Jeff described? Can Elmal be Yelm, because they are both Sky, or can't he be Yelm, because his role and attitude and archetypal connections are vastly different? Or can't he be Yelm because they clearly opposed each other in God Time and are clearly separate beings?

The short answer is yes, but it would be extremely difficult.

The long answer is yes, but you might not get the result you wanted.

What would probably happen is that you found a subcult of Yelmalio, called the Ruler, that is also a subcult of Yelm Imperator. It would be a subcult of those members of Yelm who want to worship Yelmalio, for example.

Similarly, you could get a Sky Bear subcult of Odayla and an Odayla subcult of the Sky Bear; a subcult called Ernalda the Mountain or Kero Fin the Earth Mother, each sharing aspects of the other.

Cult reactions to the subcults may well vary depending on politics and past history.

On 10/23/2019 at 11:06 AM, Ufnal said:

2. While looking at, say, Dara Happan myths and Orlanthi myths and seeing the same entities in different perspective is quite possible, and while you could do such a trick with Esrolia or Teshnos, I have no idea how to reconcile this Genertelan stuff with myths of Pamaltela or the East. Are these different perspectives on the same archetypes and runic interactions? Or are they referring to completely separate parts of Godtime, or even separate logics and ways of seeing the world (as the gods vs anti-gods distinction seems to suggest)?

Sometimes, the myths refer to the same deities seen in a different way, sometimes they refer to different deities.

For example, Pamaltela and Genertela were very far away and were separated by the Spike and the Foothills/Mountains around the Spike. some deities in Pamaltela would never have interacted with those of Genertela and vice versa. A lot of the deities of Genertela never ventured further. Some did, for example Lodril was active in Pamaltela.

 

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/24/2019 at 3:25 AM, EricW said:

If Arkat wielded chaos he as at least a little bit subtle about it. No great plagues or tentacles sprouting from under his tunic. But Arkat sometimes learned new skills very quickly. We know he hero quested a lot, but maybe sometimes he stole the knowledge. If you're going to kill a captured enemy, be a shame to waste their more valuable skills.

Any tool in the fight against Chaos, even Chaos.

  • Like 2

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/24/2019 at 3:18 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

I know that the Lunars associate Nysalor with Rashoran(a) (Laid out in the Sourcebook at least), but are there any other sources for this?

As far as I can remember, this was in Cults of Terror, for RQ2, way back in the day. I.e. It has always been that way.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Ufnal said:

To come back to the topic for a bit - is there any instance of heroquesting innovation in Gloranthan canon that is explicitly described not as discovering something once known but forgotten, but as forging a completely new path? (beside God Learner shenanigans, as they weren't really innovating, just operating under the impression that all the stories are interchangeable, it's just the runes that matter [or do I have it wrong?]).

Of course.

If a HeroQuestor brings back a magical weapon or magical power, then they have done this themselves.

Hon-Eel brought back Maize from the God Plane, by seducing an Elf Godling.

Hon-Eel also did a HeroQuest against a Pentian HeroQuestor, where the Pentian contacted a Pentian sun God and gave birth to a Demigod, but Hon Eel travelled to the Dawning, as one of the Watchers on the Cliff, and was touched by the first rays of sunshine from the Dawning and gave birth to  Demigod twins. My recollection of the exact details is hazy, but she might have been the Reverend Mother of Mares, or something like that. 

The Conquering Daughter made magical crystalline roads, which nobody had ever done before.

These were all new paths.

21 hours ago, Ufnal said:

Also, I haven't had the opportunity to read the Entekosiad yet, but the blurb on the Chaosium website provides a snippet that intrigues me. "Valare Addi was the seeker, who mistook her goddess Teelo Estara to be the same as Entekos" - this sounds as if there are some identifications in Heroquesting that are actually "mistaken" and thus impossible. Is that true, or is it just the opinion that Valare Addi came to form?

The Entekosiad can be quite difficult in places, mainly due to the fact that the entire premise is actually incorrect.

Anyone can HeroQuest to try and prove something. In an old RQ campaign of mine, one of the PCs HeroQuested to prove that (a) He was descended from Balazar, from father to son and (b) Balazar was actually a Yelm cultist, so (c) He could claim membership of Yelm, as he was descended from a Yelm Cultist, from father to son. If the GM had said that he was not descended from Balazar in that way, then no manner of HeroQuesting would allow him to claim that truthfully. He could have claimed it on his return from a HeroQuest and could have tried to trick the Yelm Priests, in fact claiming an incorrect descent has been a good way of gaining favour in cults or as a ruler. What might happen is that someone could HeroQuest against him and uncover the secret or the lie, using that against the ruler.

Quite often, a HeroQuestor can prove something and gain magic from it, but cannot teach that magic to a subcult or Hero Cult, as the central premise is not true.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

The Trio was taught by Rashoran/a and then they killed them. Bye, becky.

They killed him so that he couldn't teach anyone else his special knowledge. Basically, they wanted the power to use and not fear Chaos for themselves.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...