Human sacrifice and other dark rituals in Orlanthi culture

[Bill the barbarian]

6 hours ago, Darius West said:

🙂 Tell that to the thrall.  Feed them the line about Ana Gor and a better afterlife.  They might be gullible enough to believe you.  There is every likelihood that the earthquake will subside on its own, but the priests will use a ritual murder to take the credit for stopping it.  A very important ritual indeed, as it maintains the illusion of control by the priest class. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

I don't have to - they know the reality as well as the priesthoods.                                                                                                                                                                                 Every time the Earth is offended we feed her blood.  Every time we feed her blood, the earthquakes stop.  The causality is obvious.  To suggest otherwise flies in the face of logic and rationality.

 

Sorry Darius, have to agree with Ali and the others who are saying that myth trumps reality. In my game in any case. Of course, if the myth disturbs by all means, change it to suit. Don’t let canon ruin a perfectly good game!

Cheers

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

11 hours ago, Darius West said:

I bet Hon-Eel's ritual doesn't even invoke Ana Gor, given that she is part of a Chaos Pantheon.

Hon-Eel's ritual does not invoke Hon-Eel

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Hon-Eel's ritual does not invoke Hon-Eel

It would take a bit more of an apocalyptic stage to invoke the magic of dancing with yourself. 

 

[Darius West]

On 5/10/2021 at 10:38 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Okay, but in the context of Glorantha, this is not an unreasonable claim, given that visiting the afterlife/underworld is totally a thing that people can do.
I do agree that the Orlanthi seems to mostly have moved away from human sacrifices most of the time, though.

I think thralls are a bit more cynical about their masters' motives than you portray them then. For example, customarily in Germanic culture the idea of "assent to sacrifice" was typically a rope around the head and neck that was tugged down to produce a nod that was then taken as agreement. Does that sound like actual consent? On rare occasions people volunteered to be sacrificed in Norse society according to records.  We dare not hazard to guess what their true motives were however.  For the people less religiously inclined, no doubt the whole thing looked utterly horrifying, and merely an expression of the repressive power of the religious institutions, and if you think there were no atheists in pantheist communities, think again.  To the less religious, the whole business looked utterly insane, and any halfway rational person could see the waste of precious resources in such acts, spent for dubious if any gains.  I write this with my tongue firmly in my cheek however, as human sacrifice and its ridiculous apologetics and justifications definitely have a necessary place in RQ.

[Sir_Godspeed]

39 minutes ago, Darius West said:

I think thralls are a bit more cynical about their masters' motives than you portray them then. For example, customarily in Germanic culture the idea of "assent to sacrifice" was typically a rope around the head and neck that was tugged down to produce a nod that was then taken as agreement. Does that sound like actual consent? On rare occasions people volunteered to be sacrificed in Norse society according to records.  We dare not hazard to guess what their true motives were however.  For the people less religiously inclined, no doubt the whole thing looked utterly horrifying, and merely an expression of the repressive power of the religious institutions, and if you think there were no atheists in pantheist communities, think again.  To the less religious, the whole business looked utterly insane, and any halfway rational person could see the waste of precious resources in such acts, spent for dubious if any gains.  I write this with my tongue firmly in my cheek however, as human sacrifice and its ridiculous apologetics and justifications definitely have a necessary place in RQ.

I'm not trying to argue the institution of human sacrifice, I'm just saying Orlanthi can literally pop on over to the afterlife, have a chat with great-great-grandpa, scope out the place, and come back, and vice versa on holy days. It's not a theoretical thing, it literally happens. That creates a very different context for human sacrifice. 

Are they going to be using people who would rather live? Probably. War captives and the like are easy to lose, no one relevant will miss them. 

[Ali the Helering]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

I think thralls are a bit more cynical about their masters' motives than you portray them then. For example, customarily in Germanic culture the idea of "assent to sacrifice" was typically a rope around the head and neck that was tugged down to produce a nod that was then taken as agreement. Does that sound like actual consent? On rare occasions people volunteered to be sacrificed in Norse society according to records.  We dare not hazard to guess what their true motives were however.  For the people less religiously inclined, no doubt the whole thing looked utterly horrifying, and merely an expression of the repressive power of the religious institutions, and if you think there were no atheists in pantheist communities, think again.  To the less religious, the whole business looked utterly insane, and any halfway rational person could see the waste of precious resources in such acts, spent for dubious if any gains.  I write this with my tongue firmly in my cheek however, as human sacrifice and its ridiculous apologetics and justifications definitely have a necessary place in RQ.

In Heortling societies, of course, no one is born into thralldom, so every member of a thrall-keeping clan know what it is to have been in the role of the 'master', even if only as community owners.  Of course there were, and are, atheists who will argue themselves blue in the face of any evidence for the divine.  In the societies of which you speak they were normally exiled as traitors to the patron/matron deity, or given to them in a more instant and messy way.  Now we give them a PhD.  Go figure....

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

Now we give them a PhD.  Go figure....

lolwat

[Baron Wulfraed]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

On rare occasions people volunteered to be sacrificed in Norse society according to records.  We dare not hazard to guess what their true motives were however. 

Possible emulation of Odin/Wotan -- who is reputed to have hanged himself (as a sacrifice to himself!)... Spent a week dangling as I recall.

So being sacrificed by hanging could be looked on as highly favorable condition -- bringing one closer to Odin (rapidly).

Starting to sound like something from a HeroQuest...

 

[Darius West]

22 hours ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Starting to sound like something from a HeroQuest...

Without question that was like a HeroQuest.  But we cannot generalize that everyone who consented to being a human sacrifice in Norse society had the same motives. Suicidal depression, for example, may have been a factor in the choice for some. Consider that most of them would simply have their throats cut on a stone altar, or were cast into wells or bogs, and were not hanged like Odin.  Thralls were the ones hanged for Odin, not Jarls as far as I am aware in the literature.  This is odd however as Thralls belong to Thor, not Odin, but then, worshippers of Odin, as jarls, were owners of thralls.

[Darius West]

On 5/14/2021 at 11:12 PM, Ali the Helering said:

Now we give them a PhD.  Go figure....

Gloranthan atheists will gravitate towards sorcery, I'm sure, and that has ever been an academic pursuit.

[Darius West]

On 5/14/2021 at 10:44 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm not trying to argue the institution of human sacrifice, I'm just saying Orlanthi can literally pop on over to the afterlife, have a chat with great-great-grandpa, scope out the place, and come back, and vice versa on holy days. It's not a theoretical thing, it literally happens. That creates a very different context for human sacrifice. 

Are they going to be using people who would rather live? Probably. War captives and the like are easy to lose, no one relevant will miss them. 

I must disagree. Not everyone in an Orlanthi setting worships Daka Fal or Grandfather mortal.  Not everyone is a shaman.  Your average Orlanthi farmer worships Orlanth or Barntar and cannot do as you suggest.  Few if any Gloranthans hero quest, save perhaps the comparatively minor quest of their initiation into adulthood.  When it comes to the afterlife, they cannot do as you suggest, and they must take the words of their priest or shaman as to the veracity of such things.  Few if any people are rich enough to pay for a ritual that would allow them such a journey, and it would likely take a good portion of the tribe's resources to allow such activities so it would require some sort of official permission from the clan ring.  Yes, there are cult spirits, but the number of people with access to Second Sight is quite low, as it is not a common cult magic at all within the Lightbringer Pantheon.  Unfortunately I think your perspective might be biased to a HQ perspective of how Orlanthi society operates, and that is fine and good for heroic individuals, but your rank and file Orlanthi are not anywhere near that level of ability until perhaps halfway through Argrath's reign, when even teenagers from Sartar are hardened warriors due to the constant pressures of the Hero Wars to find warm bodies to plough into the next round of battles.

[Sir_Godspeed]

46 minutes ago, Darius West said:

I must disagree. Not everyone in an Orlanthi setting worships Daka Fal or Grandfather mortal.  Not everyone is a shaman.  Your average Orlanthi farmer worships Orlanth or Barntar and cannot do as you suggest.  Few if any Gloranthans hero quest, save perhaps the comparatively minor quest of their initiation into adulthood.  When it comes to the afterlife, they cannot do as you suggest, and they must take the words of their priest or shaman as to the veracity of such things.  Few if any people are rich enough to pay for a ritual that would allow them such a journey, and it would likely take a good portion of the tribe's resources to allow such activities so it would require some sort of official permission from the clan ring.  Yes, there are cult spirits, but the number of people with access to Second Sight is quite low, as it is not a common cult magic at all within the Lightbringer Pantheon.  Unfortunately I think your perspective might be biased to a HQ perspective of how Orlanthi society operates, and that is fine and good for heroic individuals, but your rank and file Orlanthi are not anywhere near that level of ability until perhaps halfway through Argrath's reign, when even teenagers from Sartar are hardened warriors due to the constant pressures of the Hero Wars to find warm bodies to plough into the next round of battles.

I was referring to it in the "general". Obviously not everyone does it, but the point is that it is objectively verifiable. Sacred Time rites are very strongly supernatural to basically everyone, for example.

[Ali the Helering]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I was referring to it in the "general". Obviously not everyone does it, but the point is that it is objectively verifiable. Sacred Time rites are very strongly supernatural to basically everyone, for example.

I am afraid that I have to disagree.  'Objectively verifiable' relies on everybody being able to witness it, or implicit trust in those who do.  Atheists will not trust such data, viewing it (necessarily) as systematically corrupted. 

[g33k]

But you don't HAVE to be a worshipper of Daka Fal to revere & venerate your ancestors... and maybe even to hire a DF shaman/priest if you just really need advice from great-great-grandpa ...

Also, recall that Storm Tribe is married to Earth!  And take a look at how they do things down Nochet-way, and their relationship with the departed...  There's a fair bit of back-and-forth'ing between Esrolia, Hendrikiland, & Sartar.

In addition to personal experience -- which admittedly not everyone will, y'know, personally experience -- there's also witnessing the effects on those who have the experience.  The guy who gets G'G'Grandpa to manifest, or teach lost knowledge; etc.

It's commonly accepted by most.

I think it's a pretty stubborn fool who denies the Gloranthan reality of an Afterlife, just as it's foolish to deny the existence of (entities who are worshiped as) the Gods...  
  

[Joerg]

18 hours ago, Darius West said:

I must disagree. Not everyone in an Orlanthi setting worships Daka Fal or Grandfather mortal. 

Don't confuse "worships" with "is initiated to". The Orlanthi are avid lay worshipers of their pantheon, and avid propitiators of their enemy gods that they need to overcome in their rites again and again in order to have the magic their deities embodied in those acts. It is hard to be a fierce chaos-killer when there is no Chaos around, so Orlanthi worship makes sure that there is some Chaos to be slain.

If a Lunar or a Malkioni points that out, that may cause an unthinking outrage for challenging the cultural identity.

 

18 hours ago, Darius West said:

Not everyone is a shaman.  Your average Orlanthi farmer worships Orlanth or Barntar and cannot do as you suggest. 

Your average Orlanthi farmer may initiate to Orlanth, Ernalda, Barntar,  Eiritha/Uralda, the Grain Goddess, or even Maran Gor, and still worship the other gods in that list, plus Daka Fal, Elmal, Heler, Asrelia, Waha etc.

While Gloranthan theist initiation is a limited form of monotheism (except for multiple initiations), participation in the worship of other deities as a lay member is pretty mandatory if you want to be a member of the community. Providing prayer muscle is as much a duty as providing militia muscle. This even goes for the Malkioni worship of the Invisible God.

There are plenty theists who are not initiated to any of the deities they worship or sacrifice to. Mass worship and sacrifice will endow magical leaders with the ability to grant magical blessings or curses. The Wyter mechanics in RQG are one such way that allows non-initiates to get access to such magics.

 

18 hours ago, Darius West said:

Few if any Gloranthans hero quest, save perhaps the comparatively minor quest of their initiation into adulthood. 

Or the annual Sacred TIme activities. Or being dragged into someone else's heroics in a supporting or opposing role. Biturian Varosh participated in two separate Yelmalio heroquests during his time near the Zola Fel River, and narrowly avoided a Desert Tracker's quest and a Lightbringers' Summons. His role in the Paps rites went beyond mere lay/associate worship, too.

 

18 hours ago, Darius West said:

When it comes to the afterlife, they cannot do as you suggest, and they must take the words of their priest or shaman as to the veracity of such things.  Few if any people are rich enough to pay for a ritual that would allow them such a journey, and it would likely take a good portion of the tribe's resources to allow such activities so it would require some sort of official permission from the clan ring.  Yes, there are cult spirits, but the number of people with access to Second Sight is quite low, as it is not a common cult magic at all within the Lightbringer Pantheon. 

A Daka Fal shaman may send an ancestor spirit to a non-initiate. Happened to Biturian, too, although those circumstances appear to have been rather unusual.

 

 

 

[Bren]

On 5/15/2021 at 10:08 AM, Darius West said:

Yes, there are cult spirits, but the number of people with access to Second Sight is quite low, as it is not a common cult magic at all within the Lightbringer Pantheon.

Second Sight doesn't allow the caster to see the Spirit World. From page 264 of RQG.

Quote

Second Sight
...This spell allows a person to view the POW aura of a living
being and to gauge its relative strength. This spell does not
allow the user to view the Spirit World. Shamans naturally
have this ability and do not need to expend magic points to
use it (see page 358).

That said, it seems reasonable to me that there would be a small, non-zero portion of a Heortling (or any other culture) population who would be skeptical of (or even quietly disbelieve) claims of divinity. As just one example, if apotheosis is possible (and various myths say it is) than an alternative conclusion to mortal ascension to godhood is that the gods aren't any different in quality from mortals like you, me, or some some heroic ancestor. Those entities that we call gods are just more powerful.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Bren said:

Second Sight doesn't allow the caster to see the Spirit World. From page 264 of RQG.

That said, it seems reasonable to me that there would be a small, non-zero portion of a Heortling (or any other culture) population who would be skeptical of (or even quietly disbelieve) claims of divinity. As just one example, if apotheosis is possible (and various myths say it is) than an alternative conclusion to mortal ascension to godhood is that the gods aren't any different in quality from mortals like you, me, or some some heroic ancestor. Those entities that we call gods are just more powerful.

Ascension involves a physical change of the individual. What you describe is the core of the humanist (humano-centric) world view of the Malkioni, the culture of the West. There are representatives of that culture in the Dragon Pass area, and there may be Orlanthi willing to adopt such a point of view, but the natives of Dragon Pass are usually not socialized as such, or even exposed to such ideas. Humans becoming gods is also the mainstay for the Lunar religion, with the Seven Mothers the main example.

Disbelieving claims of divinity would be rare, a rejection of observable facts - something that happens in our world, so why not in Glorantha.

Disbelieving the righteousness of deities is common - there are plenty enemy deities, or deities that require propitiation rather than initiation. The Orlanthi myths describe the slaying of Yelm as a regrettable necessity with major repair efforts to follow, the Imperial myths describe it as an act of destructive rebellion that required atonement.

[Darius West]

22 hours ago, Bren said:

Second Sight doesn't allow the caster to see the Spirit World. From page 264 of RQG.

That said, it seems reasonable to me that there would be a small, non-zero portion of a Heortling (or any other culture) population who would be skeptical of (or even quietly disbelieve) claims of divinity. As just one example, if apotheosis is possible (and various myths say it is) than an alternative conclusion to mortal ascension to godhood is that the gods aren't any different in quality from mortals like you, me, or some some heroic ancestor. Those entities that we call gods are just more powerful.

Good point, I had not read the Second Sight description closely enough or recently enough to remember that.  On the other hand, harkening back to my original point, it does reinforce the lack of availability of means for ordinary Gloranthans to interact with spirits even more.  Now they are limited to Visibility spells and perhaps Detect Spirit (barely, but as a cheap option of "where spirits are" as opposed to actually seeing them), and Pierce Veil if they are using sorcery.

As to your apotheosis point, I agree.  I am sure that apotheosis does nothing to lessen anyone's atheism, it just becomes the next rung over herodom.  You'd be like "oh, now I can grant a specific Rune Spell to deluded sycophants who hero worship me; hilarious!"

Edited May 17, 2021 by Darius West

[Bren]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Good point, I had not read the Second Sight description closely enough or recently enough to remember that. 

I was surprised when I read the description. I had erroneously assumed that Second Sight would be useful for interacting with the spirit world rather than just a source of more information about the POW of corporeal entities.

[davecake]

The most common example must surely be the Create Ghost/Bind Ghost spells? 
We know this is voluntary, and even fairly common, for the Humakti version. 

[Darius West]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

The most common example must surely be the Create Ghost/Bind Ghost spells? 
We know this is voluntary, and even fairly common, for the Humakti version. 

It isn't as if you can see the ghost however.

[Joerg]

18 hours ago, Darius West said:

It isn't as if you can see the ghost however.

For the ghost to initiate spirit combat, it has to cast (or otherwise acquire) Visibility (which really is about claiming space in the Surface World as self).

Edited May 20, 2021 by Joerg
Emphasis due to reaction

[davecake]

I wish people would read the rules before making statements about them. 

Ghosts write up in the Glorantha Bestiary says:

Ghosts can become visible at will and engage intruders in spirit combat. 
 

So they don’t need the Visibility spell, it’s intrinsic to being a ghost. There is more there about the forms they may take. 

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 5/10/2021 at 3:56 AM, Joerg said:

Shargash is an underworld (Darkness) deity as much as he is a sky deity.

But then there is Yelmalio with his Three Strikes of Anger, there are sacred gladiatorial games in Dara Happa, etc.

With Yelm and Lodril, we have two more underworld deities, of course.

Personally I always thought that while gladiatorial games were unsavory, it wasn't actually human sacrifice. In that, in a sacrifice, a person was chosen and that person died no matter what. One had at least a chance of surviving in a gladiatorial fight. 

[Orlanthatemyhamster]

On 5/10/2021 at 11:55 PM, Eff said:

It would take a bit more of an apocalyptic stage to invoke the magic of dancing with yourself. 

 

Great vid Great song Great Idol!