Your Dumbest Theory

[Akhôrahil]

 

4 minutes ago, JonL said:

ARISTOTLE
PLATO

Edited November 12, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[Alex]

On 11/9/2021 at 3:05 AM, Eff said:

the whole lozenge travels through a greater space that interacts only weakly with it, causing confusion as it passes. 

I can confirm this part as very true, at least.

Shown:  normie RPGer meeting Glorantha for the first time.

 

[Alex]

On 11/11/2021 at 5:54 PM, AlHazred said:

Also, I just noticed that the link seems to refer to "were-greeks" which are lycanthropic Hellenes, I suppose? And they're scared of numbers? Man, history is such a fascinating subject!

This surely explains why the Orlanthi are "Mediterranean"-looking in some art, and pasty Celts/Germanics in other pieces! 😄

[Baron Wulfraed]

The proper form of address to a chief of the High Llama peoples is "your highness". This can cause problems if using Tradetalk at lower levels of proficiency -- as an accidental substitution of "your mountainess" would be a grave insult.

[Alex]

15 minutes ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

The proper form of address to a chief of the High Llama peoples is "your highness". This can cause problems if using Tradetalk at lower levels of proficiency -- as an accidental substitution of "your mountainess" would be a grave insult.

As a self-confessed High Person, trust me, I've heard far graver and insultinger!

[French Desperate WindChild]

Eurmal is the Best god, the Good One, and the Just One.

In fact Eurmal is the Only One

Once, Eurmal made one bad thing, only one

 

but everyone, so called gods and mortals, have forgotten it.

 

Eurmal gaves them the choice to do the right thing or not

Eurmal gives his worshippers great powers, and let them decide what to do with

Eurmal gives the others the choice, to welcome his followers or to despise them, or even worst.

 

Unfortunately, no one remember it, and all do the bad things.

his worshippers use his powers to do bad jokes or worst

the others hate or fear his worshippers and ban them, or worst.

 

Once Eurmal made one bad thing, only one.

He gave free will to the world, and the world became crazy

Eurmal is the god of crazy people, but that was not his will

 

 

 

[scott-martin]

3 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Once, Eurmal made one bad thing, only one

I don't know if this is a "dumb idea" so much as the Gloranthan emerald tablet, an alchemical recipe lost in the imperial wreckage.

[Godweyn]

Here again I bring my next dumbest theory from a brain-storm.

The Predarks, antagonists of the primeval gods, were actually true dragons.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Godweyn

[scott-martin]

In the beginning there were no uz, no aldryami, no mostalites. Those broader categories came later, after missionaries spread the gospels of kyger litor, aldrya and the machine to what were once isolated and divergent enclaves of eaters, growers and makers. 

This process of consolidation culminates in the incompletely documented elder race wars of the imperial age, probably heralded by those infamous "black ships" and the better known elf seed exchange, as well as subterranean doings among the dwarves. By the time it ends, divergent forms are largely eliminated from the middle world, leaving only something like poorly remembered dreams behind: white and red elves, tamali, bearded and hot trolls.

But nothing really dies.

[Alex]

On 11/19/2021 at 11:10 PM, Godweyn said:

The Predarks, antagonists of the primeval gods, were actually true dragons.

I think that works pretty well.  The Orlanthi have been described as thinking of anything off-piste on their mythmaps to be "Chaos", or at least, presumed to be Chaos unless you can prove otherwise...  and it could be Illuminated, so you never can be sure.

So the main plot twist here is that this simple-minded, naive, most "Rioting Conservative Tribesmen" of regional event table notoriety take...  is actually correct!

[Alex]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

In the beginning there were no uz, no aldryami, no mostalites. Those broader categories came later, after missionaries spread the gospels of kyger litor, aldrya and the machine to what were once isolated and divergent enclaves of eaters, growers and makers. 

Still arriving, really.  Ask Jeff at a Lore Auction if ferns and mosses are associated with Yellow Elves or Red ones, and consequently are they "true" aldryami or not, and he might well throw your euro/dollar/pound back at you.  The management accepts no responsibility for any injury sustained doing such a thing. 🙂

[scott-martin]

Just now, Alex said:

throw your euro/dollar/pound back

Yeah. My rubric right now is about as simple as it gets. If a plant acknowledges "Aldrya" or works for a plant who does, it's aldryami because the distinction is more about religious communion than botanical taxonomy. Any fungus, kelp, orchid or fern can join at any time, but right now the compensations around their current situation are compelling enough that they resist conversion.

Likewise now that you bring it up there are going to be recalcitrant trees and even whole grains who reject the aldrya . . .  either maintaining older ways or developing radical alternatives of their own. We know about krjalk. Others will emerge.

Ditto the other races in their ways.

[Alex]

5 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Yeah. My rubric right now is about as simple as it gets. If a plant acknowledges "Aldrya" or works for a plant who does, it's aldryami because the distinction is more about religious communion than botanical taxonomy. Any fungus, kelp, orchid or fern can join at any time, but right now the compensations around their current situation are compelling enough that they resist conversion.

Fungi are probably more clear-cut distinct, partly due to their "troll" associations, as well as any consideration of RQ's longstanding use and abuse of "phyla".  Though I'm uncertain about this, having read about obvious Vivamort cultist Tom Brady avoiding eating mushrooms and "other" members of the deadly nightshade family.  Maybe because I lost several points of IQ (maybe an entire point of INT) just seeing that...

But that'd make sense, their initiation may be not so much "automatic" as "collective"...  so collectives (however defined) can also opt out...

5 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Likewise now that you bring it up there are going to be recalcitrant trees and even whole grains who reject the aldrya . . .  either maintaining older ways or developing radical alternatives of their own. We know about krjalk. Others will emerge.

Yeah, makes sense, we have the sweeping categories of "rootless" and "renegade" at present, but there could be emergent categories of religion and culture within those.  At any rate, it's a less mind-bending exercise than trying to work out how "barbarian" dragonewts work.  (Much less any other sort!)

[scott-martin]

40 minutes ago, Alex said:

But that'd make sense, their initiation may be not so much "automatic" as "collective"...  so collectives (however defined) can also opt out...

Love it. Yeah, any heretical work on the green world I end up distributing will heavily reconstruct the kind of thinking Neil Gaiman wanted to get up to on Swamp Thing . . . identity and its limits become controversial within the old vegetable religion where John Barley welcomes a little ritual murder in order to prepare the way for the resurrection to come.

Meanwhile established intelligences send out "runners" to recapitulate their own ontogenies knowing that maybe only one in a thousand little spores will grow back to "adult" status long after the parent is gone. Still others resist the notion of death altogether, either because environmental conditions ensure a perpetual growing season (yellow aldrya, "mrel") or out of more selfish motives (conifer aldrya, "green") . . . others will cultivate fruiting bodies (kresh etc.) and so on.

(We just took possession of a stretch of fairly virgin pine, oak and ash overrun by fern and fungus here at groundling level so the diversity of strategies is on my mind.) 

Some fungus may operate like a kind of "ogre" within the larger vegetative system, superficially working in cooperation with the more normative plant members of the community while secretly draining their hosts of nutrients. But I think most are sympathetic enough.

Tom Brady on the other hand is clearly an unholy creature, especially now that he's gone rootless in pursuit of a land without winter. Sooner or later his refusal of a clean new england death will catch up with him! And before that he will probably be forced to pursue increasingly eccentric, wasteful and bizarre methods to stay young and robust.

To stay on topic I'm not convinced that many of the aldryami adventurers will encounter are actually made of wood. Most are probably flesh and blood bodies animated by aldrya consciousness . . . basically people who fell in with the forest generations ago and never quite got out again. Only at high levels of initiation do they actually bleed balsam when you cut them, leave amber bones behind and so forth. And then once in awhile, if you're extremely embedded in the forest ecology, you might meet the bona fide tree who walks like a man. But this is going to be more controversial.

EDIT while I'm here, what do people think is a "grig?" The grigdom seems incredibly important in this context.

Edited November 22, 2021 by scott-martin
clarifying the controversial

[scott-martin]

Really old Brithos texts describe a society of three castes while others a little more recent classify people into as many as six, including the "sailor" (waertag) and "man-of-all" (engrion). 

Say for the sake of fantasy I'm bidding on a scrap of inscribed leather that memorializes the exact moment when the fifth and sixth castes were forcibly combined and the island entered into its penultimate civil war. Don't jinx me, it might come true if we wish hard enough. The sailors will have their revenge.

[Alex]

Just now, scott-martin said:

Really old Brithos texts describe a society of three castes while others a little more recent classify people into as many as six, including the "sailor" (waertag) and "man-of-all" (engrion). 

Say for the sake of fantasy I'm bidding on a scrap of inscribed leather that memorializes the exact moment when the fifth and sixth castes were forcibly combined and the island entered into its penultimate civil war. Don't jinx me, it might come true if we wish hard enough. The sailors will have their revenge.

Jeepers.  Now I'm imagining -- I think this is very much thread-qualified! -- that there were originally eight-to-twelve castes, and the whole Vadeli...  unpleasantness is just the world's worst trade-union demarcation dispute...

"You asked who to do what job?!  Right lads, everybody out!!"

[scott-martin]

3 minutes ago, Alex said:

Jeepers.  Now I'm imagining -- I think this is very much thread-qualified! -- that there were originally eight-to-twelve castes, and the whole Vadeli...  unpleasantness is just the world's worst trade-union demarcation dispute...

 

Could be the horrific real reason the Empire had Six Legs! We have krarsht now, of course.

[Alex]

2 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Could be the horrific real reason the Empire had Six Legs! We have krarsht now, of course.

Twelve castes...  six legs...  Ma heid's fair nippin'!

You can see why they only had room for one caste for the ladies, with all that going on.  Maybe overdid it, at that!  </Fosters beer ad>

[Baron Wulfraed]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Yeah. My rubric right now is about as simple as it gets. If a plant acknowledges "Aldrya" or works for a plant who does, it's aldryami because the distinction is more about religious communion than botanical taxonomy. Any fungus, kelp, orchid or fern can join at any time, but right now the compensations around their current situation are compelling enough that they resist conversion.

Where do slime molds fall? (I seem to recall reading that some slime molds may cover acres, if not multiple sq. miles.)

 

[Alex]

Just now, Baron Wulfraed said:

Where do slime molds fall? (I seem to recall reading that some slime molds may cover acres, if not multiple sq. miles.)

They're a Mee Vorala thing, surely.  No doubt to the dismay of biologists everywhere.  ("Definitely.  Not.  Fungi.  Argh!")

[scott-martin]

3 minutes ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Where do slime molds fall? (I seem to recall reading that some slime molds may cover acres, if not multiple sq. miles.)

I think what we need before or after Shannon's book comes out is an aldrya census. Go to all the wild spaces you can find on the lozenge and ask the spirits of the grove if they've heard about aldrya and what their relationship to her is. Some answers may be surprising!

As a bonus we will then know where the truly weird ecologies are.

[Sir_Godspeed]

I really wish they'd just make fungus "Darkness plants" and end it there. Not Aldryami, but certainly Flamali. No need to bring bloody cellular biology into this.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Sir_Godspeed

[Alex]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I really wish they'd just make fungus "Darkness plants" and end it there. Not Aldryami, but certainly Flamali. No need to bring bloody cellular biology into this.

Occupational hazard of letting someone with a biology degree loose on a fantasy bestiary. 🙂

[Baron Wulfraed]

12 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I really wish they'd just make fungus "Darkness plants" and end it there. Not Aldryami, but certainly Flamali. No need to bring bloody cellular biology into this.

Let's confuse matters... Mushgnomes (the rim of the little one's cap hasn't broken free from the stalk yet)

[Alex]

10 minutes ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Mushgnomes

Galadriel is gonna really sue your arse.  In the very best case outcome. 🙂