Your Dumbest Theory

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

I kind of feel like people are dancing around the central issue of "return to the prior (ideal) state" that is implicit to Glorantha & Chaos.  Nobody seems to have actually said it.
Chaos is the prior state.

Chaos exists only inside Creation.

There is no Chaos prior to the Creation of Glorantha. There is the Void, a continuum of unlimited potential, inflicting itself on itself, with a total sum that is Nothing.

 

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Glorantha is the blip, the aberration, the disharmony.

Glorantha is separated from the Void, yes, with a small interface.

[Nick Brooke]

12 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Glorantha is separated from the Void, yes, with a small interface.

Small, but perfectly formed.

[John Biles]

Given the Runes don't exist outside the context of Glorantha itself, a return to Chaos can't really fit with the Harmony rune, which is clearly about order and structure, not about ceasing to exist or Chaos.

The law cannot order you to destroy the law.

(Also, the way the Harmony rune is described in the latest Runequest has nothing to do with returning to previous states.)

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by John Biles

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Chaos exists only inside Creation. There is no Chaos prior to the Creation of Glorantha. There is the Void, a continuum of unlimited potential … with a total sum that is Nothing.

I already knew you thought this, but I would like to draw you out a bit more. I will repeat the case for the prosecution; it goes something like this:

Quote

Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: kháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap or the abyss created by the separation of heaven and earth … It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss or infinite darkness . — Wikipedia

Quote

The Void is the mystic origin of the universe. This pre-existence is said to be indescribable. “It is less than Nothing, Formless beyond Emptiness,” says a Kralori poem. — Cults of Terror, p. 11

The Godlearner perspective seems to be that of the putative origins of the universe, the Void takes priority with the Plasma being at the opposite — reality — end of the umbilical cord, whether or not the cord represents a temporal development. (I know: coals to Newcastle.)

Then Greg says:

Quote

A chaos taint is a hole in reality, a hole in existence. Have you had anyone close to you die? If you have, perhaps you know the feeling of their absence. There used to be something, but you have an awareness that now there isn’t. A chaos taint is like that, only more so. It is not the absence of a person, but the absence of an underlying actuality. Something so deep that is inexpressible just simply is not … Sometimes the world, protesting the violation of its reality, bursts forth in a wild effort to fill that non-hole, and this is expressed as a chaos feature.

A natural way to take this — according to me, anyway — is to equate Chaos with the Void. Chaotic features are of the world — they are horror vacui made flesh — but Chaos itself is not. And so Chaos terrifies some, is a solace to others, and leaves others wondering what all the fuss was about: “don’t the concepts of presence and absence come as a job lot?”

This is why Nysalor — love him or loathe him — is ineluctably a Chaos deity, because his gift is ‘nirvana’, being ‘blown out’, the big zero. And it lends irony to the Darkness and Air forces claiming to be opponents of Chaos when they are themselves — according to some, anyway — manifestations of absence, which is Chaos. The ‘chaos monster’ is one who reacts badly to touching or contemplating the Void: they feel the horror, it is written on their bodies, they are the tormented.

So Chaos-as-Void seems to fit the pre-Gloranthan, IRL understanding and (IMO) key bits of exposition of Glorantha. It also allows people to take varying attitudes toward Chaos: we can feel differently about it without having to argue about what it is. So what is wrong with this picture? You surely think something is, so help me see the other viewpoint. Pretty please!

[Eff]

5 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

So Chaos-as-Void seems to fit the pre-Gloranthan, IRL understanding and (IMO) key bits of exposition of Glorantha. It also allows people to take varying attitudes toward Chaos: we can feel differently about it without having to argue about what it is. So what is wrong with this picture? You surely think something is, so help me see the other viewpoint. Pretty please!

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but let me spin out a bit of a hypothetical statement. Let's say that you were faced with, on the one hand, the textual presentation of Chaos as a malevolent force in this fictional cosmos, something corrosive or destroying. And on the other hand, you were faced with the problem that the Chaosium (the fountain and not the corporate entity) is also the one thing that prevents Glorantha from freezing into perpetual stasis, and that Chaos would seem to be essential to the universe. And you had to confront the possibility that all those Chaos-hating cults- Storm Bull, Waha, Orlanth-... were ultimately seeking to destroy Glorantha and freeze it in that perpetual stasis. All those gods, even. Cosmically knowledgeable beings... and yet seemingly aiming for self-destruction. 

Wouldn't it be much easier to draw a distinction between Chaos-as-a-positive and Chaos-as-a-negative and call the former something else? 

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

I already knew you thought this, but I would like to draw you out a bit more.

Sure. The Greek definition is nice, but is it pertinent for the use of the term Chaos in Glorantha (as opposed to say the Moorcockian multiverse definition)?

I don't think so, and you give a good quote why I don't think so: 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Then Greg says:

Quote

A chaos taint is a hole in reality, a hole in existence.

And there you have it. "In existence." There is no such thing as existence in the Void. Glorantha exists outside of the Void, separate from its continuum.

 

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

The Godlearner perspective seems to be that of the putative origins of the universe, the Void takes priority with the Plasma being at the opposite — reality — end of the umbilical cord, whether or not the cord represents a temporal development.

The Plasma, or the Source, the mystical well of energy that percolates Gloranthan reality before being dissipated into the Void. Even beyond Aether.

 

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

A natural way to take this — according to me, anyway — is to equate Chaos with the Void.

The two are the same, except that Gloranthan Chaos has context, and the Void has none.

The Void has no place in Glorantha. Its endless potential is the antithesis to both the stability of Acos and the mutability of Larnste. But with the transformation of raw Void into Creation the Chaosium will be imperfect in its filtering function, allowing in stuff and entities with holes in existence.

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Chaotic features are of the world — they are horror vacui made flesh — but Chaos itself is not.

Even Chaos is of the world, since the Spike imploded and the Chaos Rift established itself in its place. The Chaos Rift is like the Void, but finite, and its contact to Creation (thanks to Magasta's Whirlpool) contained. If it was an open connection to the Void, all of Creation would be consumed in the blink of an eye.

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

And so Chaos terrifies some, is a solace to others, and leaves others wondering what all the fuss was about: “don’t the concepts of presence and absence come as a job lot?”

Chaos terrifies those who are anchored in Creation and Existence. Only those who are liberated from these may find solace in it, or wonder what the fuss was about.

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

This is why Nysalor — love him or loathe him — is ineluctably a Chaos deity, because his gift is ‘nirvana’, being ‘blown out’, the big zero.

Nirvana is not Annihilation, but ascendence into (or through, no idea as I lack the necessary enlightenment) the source. Ascendence may leave a lot of one's previous existence to annihilation, shed in the process of enlightenment.

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

And it lends irony to the Darkness and Air forces claiming to be opponents of Chaos when they are themselves — according to some, anyway — manifestations of absence, which is Chaos.

You will need to expound on why Air is an absence.

Darkness may be misunderstood as the absence of light, but (unlike in our world's physics) Darkness is tangible. (And like in our world, Space and/or Spacetime per se is dark.)

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

The ‘chaos monster’ is one who reacts badly to touching or contemplating the Void: they feel the horror, it is written on their bodies, they are the tormented.

As a monster, they are tormentors, too - infecting Creation with their destruction.

 

3 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

So Chaos-as-Void seems to fit the pre-Gloranthan, IRL understanding and (IMO) key bits of exposition of Glorantha. It also allows people to take varying attitudes toward Chaos: we can feel differently about it without having to argue about what it is. So what is wrong with this picture? You surely think something is, so help me see the other viewpoint. Pretty please!

Yes, Chaos is like the Void continuum in many of its properties, except that it is not a continuum.

You can feel about Chaos as you want. You might be fascinated by it, you might be drawn to the power it may give you over Creation through the threat of or through application of Annihilation. That's the empty promise of the Deceiver.

You may tolerate mild cases of Chaos taint, like the uz tolerate their Cave Troll kin.

Chaos need not be evil to still be an existential threat. The integration of Moral Evil into the Devil (Wakboth) is the achievement of the Unholy Trio. And that makes me wonder whether Wakboth's evil is nurture or nature.

[Erol of Backford]

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Chaos terrifies those who are anchored in Creation and Existence. Only those who are liberated from these may find solace in it, or wonder what the fuss was about.

LOL its like politics, those in power will do whatever they are able to stay there. Maybe Chaosium = Liberalism? is there a rune for Liberalism?

5 minutes ago, Joerg said:

You may tolerate mild cases of Chaos taint, like the uz tolerate their Cave Troll kin.

A Centrist Liberalist will tend to try more varieties of ethnic foods, sort of like trolls. The Thunderbreath Tavern comes to mind.

[radmonger]

21 minutes ago, Eff said:

And on the other hand, you were faced with the problem that the Chaosium (the fountain and not the corporate entity) is also the one thing that prevents Glorantha from freezing into perpetual stasis, and that Chaos would seem to be essential to the universe.

in the guide to glorantha, that line is prefixed with 'what no sane gloranthan understands'. So those who do understand it are, by induction, insane. So just represents the perspective of the more philosophically inclined chaos cultist.

Of course they could be right, and storm bull and friends could be wrong.

Or there is always the mostali perspective, which can be paraphrased as something like  'warp core ' and 'warp core breach' may share a lot of syllables and some underlying mathematics, but they should not be treated as the same.

[Eff]

7 minutes ago, radmonger said:

in the guide to glorantha, that line is prefixed with 'what no sane gloranthan understands'. So those who do understand it are, by induction, insane. So just represents the perspective of the more philosophically inclined chaos cultist.

Of course they could be right, and storm bull and friends could be wrong.

Or there is always the mostali perspective, which can be paraphrased as something like  'warp core ' and 'warp core breach' may share a lot of syllables and some underlying mathematics, but they should not be treated as the same.

It's an extrauniversal statement talking to the reader. What no sane Gloranthan understands, not what no same Gloranthan believes. This is clearly intended to be a true statement about Glorantha's invented metaphysics in its initial context, though who knows what reprints mean by it. This doesn't prevent us from inventing new material to fix this problem. I think it encourages us on some level- certainly, I would prefer to do at least the minimal work not to have to contemplate Orlanth having a death-drive towards universal annihilation, whether that's making it up or pulling out Ron Edwards' fire axe. But the text is the text, I am afraid. 

[SDLeary]

12 hours ago, g33k said:

Chaos is the prior state.
 

Glorantha is the blip, the aberration, the disharmony.

Considering what Chaos represents, I'm not sure aberration is the correct term. Manifestation probably fits more! 🙂

The current holder of Chaos though could argue the point.

SDLeary

[mfbrandi]

11 hours ago, Eff said:

Wouldn't it be much easier to draw a distinction between Chaos-as-a-positive and Chaos-as-a-negative and call the former something else?

Where’s the fun in that? 😉

But I was trying to get at Jörg’s attitude (the theorist, floating above the thing), rather than the attitude of — say — a PC of Jörg’s. But maybe he was in character.

[mfbrandi]

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

And there you have it. "In existence." There is no such thing as existence in the Void.

I think you are getting into the spirit of Chaos wordplay: treating ‘a hole in existence’ as ‘a hole which exists’ or ‘a hole which is located in existence/cosmos’? And I am proposing play with all of these notions of Chaos:

• the void state preceding creation
• the gap or abyss created by the separation of heaven and earth
• space
• the expanse of air
• the nether abyss
• infinite darkness
• /dev/null
• nothing
• not anything

How can one fail to see Umath–Orlanth in there? The rebels against Yelm are legion but they are also one: the separation of heaven and earth.

We can put this in the mouth of a Sky pantheon theologian: “Chaos separates Heaven and Earth, mortals from God.”

An unusually reflective Storm priest might say: “We raise our eyes to the Void but we see only the dome of the Sky, and thus we mistake Heaven for God. But the divine surrounds us, unseen. This is one meaning of ‘Invisible Orlanth’.” (This is helpfully ambiguous between the Void before and the Void beyond the dome of the Sky — but perhaps Orlanth’s blow struck against Yelm renders this a distinction without a difference.)

And we can ‘answer’ the riddle of why some Nysalorean illuminates are enlightened and others are corrupt: “Nothing can make them see the error of their ways.” (Echoing Homer’s Polyphemus: “Nobody has hurt me.”)

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Nirvana is not Annihilation, but ascendence into the source.

Now I have no beef with real-life Buddhists — who have written screed upon screed over thousands of years, so much that it is doubtless inconsistent; how could it not be? — but for the purposes of rehabilitating our fantasy Buddhists, the Nysaloreans, why not take seriously the meaning of ‘nirvana’ as being blown out? If a flame is blown out, it ceases to be. And IRL people love to talk of the death of the ego, the self.

And what is the source of the universe? If it has one, it must be nothing, because as soon as you have something, you have the universe (even if it is nothing like present reality) — and yes, we can play on “it came from nothing”/“it did not come from anything”. The hardcore mystics take the nothingness of Chaos to the limit, beyond merely darkness, a gap, an expanse of air: “What is Chaos? It is not anything. Where is Chaos? Nowhere.”

Surely, I cannot be the only one for whom this reeks of MGF. (Although, that is exactly the sort of thing I would be wrong about.)

[radmonger]

The association of fertility with earth is just a relic of the mostali clay caste, whose reproductive technicians were essential in bringing population numbers up in the earliest years after the dawn.

Some praxians hold that the original emperor that orlanth (or maybe umath) killed was actually Genert, not Yelm. Ernalda being married to Yelm makes no sense; he already has a wife. and if she was juts a servant girl in yelm's palace, how does she get to be queen of the gods? This provides mythic justification for why they periodically stage full scale invasions of dragon pass, rather than merely raiding. Argrath taps into this belief to a degree few Sartarites realize, until it is too late.

When Argrath kills Uleria along with all the other gods, people don't stop having babies. They just don't have access to  Ulerian rune magic. So unwanted pregnancies, death in childbirth and so on come to factor into social structures in more or less the way they historically did in the iron age. As Jeff says, cult precedes culture. The magic provided by the relation between man and deity forms part of the material base on which the cultural superstructure rests.

 

[mfbrandi]

On a flipper tip, Gbaji karaoke!

Spoiler

I'm looking through a hole in the sky
I'm seeing nowhere through the eyes of a lie
I'm getting closer to the end of the line
I'm living easy where the sun doesn't shine

I'm living in a room without any view
I'm living free because the rent's never due
The synonyms of all the things that I've said
Are just the riddles that are built in my head

Spoiler

This and that, they must be the same
What is legal is just what's real
What I'm given to understand
Is exactly what I steal

I wormed my way into the heart of the crowd
I wormed my way into the heart of the crowd
I was shocked to find what was allowed
I didn't lose myself in the crowd

Shot by both sides
On the run to the outside of everything
Shot by both sides
They must have come to a secret understanding

[Eff]

Taking as given that culture is subordinate to cults and that the gods only change under the malevolent influence of Chaos, do artistic styles and techniques diffuse in Glorantha? Or are there unchanging, predefined Orlanth artistic styles, Ernalda artistic styles, etc. which are divinely enforced? What happens to people who experiment with new styles of poetry, singing, instrumental music, painting, sculpture, prose? Is the appreciation of novelty one of the signs of being an ogre? 

Do mystical, sorcerous, and spiritist methods of approaching the world, which do not rely on interactions with unchanging gods, therefore carry the potential for innovation and novelty? One answer: these subcultural phenomena in theism-dominant cultures are what allow for any change to happen at all. 

Another answer: theism is perpetually threatened by the existence of non-theists, who with their experimental poetry and atonal music and non-figurative sculptures are literally destroying the fabric of the universe. They can be tolerated by carefully segregating them from the mainstream, but crossover religions like the Lunars or EWF are cosmic threats with their funky art, and cannot be tolerated. 

[Joerg]

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I think you are getting into the spirit of Chaos wordplay:

I still don't go with your de-contextualized use of the meaning of Chaos in Greek. This is Glorantha, where terms like Bronze, Brass and Iron have different meanings for the Lozenge. And that goes for terms like Void, Primal Plasma, or Chaos.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

treating ‘a hole in existence’ as ‘a hole which exists’ or ‘a hole which is located in existence/cosmos’?

You cannot have a hole in the Void. All you have is infinite potential.

Chaos is more like Gorp.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

And I am proposing play with all of these notions of Chaos:

Why not add Fire and Earth? Earth manifested as a place of no Water in the heart of the Sea. And Fire is intangible and destructive.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

• the void state preceding creation
• the gap or abyss created by the separation of heaven and earth
• space
• the expanse of air
• the nether abyss
• infinite darkness
• /dev/null
• nothing
• not anything

Lower Heaven still is attached to the Surface World - the realm where Light can penetrate. Only now it is occupied and dominated by Lower Air.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

How can one fail to see Umath–Orlanth in there? The rebels against Yelm are legion but they are also one: the separation of heaven and earth.

The celestial dome was lifted off its pivot by the addition of stuff, not by taking stuff away. 

 

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

We can put this in the mouth of a Sky pantheon theologian: “Chaos separates Heaven and Earth, mortals from God.”

Sky mythology has a lot less beef with Chaos than the other mythological pantheons. There is Yelm banishing Jokbazi, and afterwards there is Orlanth successfully defending the conquered sky realm against the Sky Terror (his one decisive success as a Chaos fighter).

Otherwise, Sky has a problem with Disorder, which is different from Chaos.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

An unusually reflective Storm priest might say: “We raise our eyes to the Void but we see only the dome of the Sky, and thus we mistake Heaven for God. But the divine surrounds us, unseen. This is one meaning of ‘Invisible Orlanth’.” (This is helpfully ambiguous between the Void before and the Void beyond the dome of the Sky — but perhaps Orlanth’s blow struck against Yelm renders this a distinction without a difference.)

Raising your eyes takes them away from the Void, except for its reflection on the Red Moon.

And "Invisible Orlanth" is a Carmanian localized concept, rarely heard of in Orlanthi lands.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Now I have no beef with real-life Buddhists — who have written screed upon screed over thousands of years, so much that it is doubtless inconsistent; how could it not be? — but for the purposes of rehabilitating our fantasy Buddhists, the Nysaloreans, why not take seriously the meaning of ‘nirvana’ as being blown out? If a flame is blown out, it ceases to be. And IRL people love to talk of the death of the ego, the self.

I have yet to see "Nirvana" in any Gloranthan text. What we get is Liberation, entering the Ultimate, the Source.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

And what is the source of the universe?

There seem to be two sources - the Source of all the energies permeating the universe, and the Void connected by the Chaosium as the origin of all matter that enters the world.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

If it has one, it must be nothing, because as soon as you have something, you have the universe (even if it is nothing like present reality) — and yes, we can play on “it came from nothing”/“it did not come from anything”.

The elemental progression places Darkness as the foundation of the universe, with The Mother of Space an interesting entity in this context.

The Mostali "blueprint" (Mostal the Maker) has the Spike (Stone) preceding the Darkness (Lead), and if there are any Elder Rock Mostali left in the world, they might have witnessed the Making of Darkness along with the Lead Mostali.

There, at the bottom of the universe, sits the Chaosium, which transforms unlimited potential taken out of the Void into Rune-formed Creation, consuming (Rune-formed) energies from the Source in the process.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

The hardcore mystics take the nothingness of Chaos to the limit, beyond merely darkness, a gap, an expanse of air: “What is Chaos? It is not anything. Where is Chaos? Nowhere.”

None of the hardcore mystics (outside of the Cult of the Red Goddess) meditates on Chaos. Nysalorean meditiation contemplates the Other.

 

21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Surely, I cannot be the only one for whom this reeks of MGF. (Although, that is exactly the sort of thing I would be wrong about.)

One's personal MGF can be found in the weirdest places.

My take on this is that your agenda is falsifiable Chaos propaganda by the Dark Evil Side of Nysalorean Illumination, the part that is Gbaji. 

[Joerg]

17 hours ago, Eff said:

Taking as given that culture is subordinate to cults and that the gods only change under the malevolent influence of Chaos, do artistic styles and techniques diffuse in Glorantha?

Even if the gods are unchanging (since Godtime "ended" in the Greater Darkness when they did no longer add to their Godtime presence, mortal perception of the gods was never set in adamant. Perceptions change, and so do artistic styles, as has been documented by Jeff for Esrolia/the Holy Country.

 

17 hours ago, Eff said:

Or are there unchanging, predefined Orlanth artistic styles, Ernalda artistic styles, etc. which are divinely enforced?

The experience of Godtime is subjective.

17 hours ago, Eff said:

What happens to people who experiment with new styles of poetry, singing, instrumental music, painting, sculpture, prose? Is the appreciation of novelty one of the signs of being an ogre? 

Novelty is a property of a starting Age, when it is embraced by many different groups, and resisted by others. As such, it pre-casts its approach into the preceding Age, too, and contributes to the (usually cataclysmic) end of an Age.

 

17 hours ago, Eff said:

Do mystical, sorcerous, and spiritist methods of approaching the world, which do not rely on interactions with unchanging gods, therefore carry the potential for innovation and novelty? One answer: these subcultural phenomena in theism-dominant cultures are what allow for any change to happen at all. 

Considering the permanence of Zzabur and Mashunasan, these forces appear to be mainly resistant to novelty. The Hero Wars were touted to be the conflict between at least four major forces - Orlanth, the Red Goddess, Kyger Litor, and a new Chaos mastermind born to Eastern antigods.

 

[DrGoth]

Fabulous discussion all.  Something that occurs to me is: what angle do you want to consider this from?

• someone living in Glorantha?
• someone in our world studying Glorantha?
• someone in our world playing Glorantha?

I don't think those are the only options and I don't think the results are the same.

From my own perspective, I don't think there are definitive answers.  Glorantha is not a (world/setting/take your pick) where everything can be conclusive placed into "them good" and "them bad" boxes.  Subjectivity and ambiguity are at its heart.

Why?  One reason is to allow for player choice.  YGMV. That doesn't work terribly well if  too many things have answers.

Another possible angle is, fundamentally, is chaos capable of being understood? At least for us humans (and Gloranthan humans aren't all that different to us, at base). My thinking is 'no', it can't be. There's value in trying, and possibly rewards for doing so (both inside and outside Glorantha), but it's a quest with no end (and I say 'goody' to that).  

In some ways this is mirrored in Glorantha between those who say an emphatic no to any chaos and those that draw the line elsewhere (and I do remember reading somewhere about many Lunar heroes making their name fighting chaos monsters). The ambiguity makes for a creative tension in which many different and differing stories can be told.  And if you regard Glorantha primarily as a vehicle for story-telling, then I consider that a good thing.

[Joerg]

On a different note: Eurmal stole Death from Subere's Vault, with Nontraya a seduced accomplice. He loaned it to Humakt or invited Humakt to take its shape, and then loaned it to Orlanth, and afterwards to many others. Since Eurmal was not interested in owning something only occasionally funny above some things more fun like Disorder or Illusion, he retained some possession of Death while leaving the rest to be diced out between Humakt and Nontraya.

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, DrGoth said:

I don't think those are the only options and I don't think the results are the same.

Yeah, as i understand it:

• traditional solar cultures don't make a strong distinction  between disorder and chaos, except on a technical magical level. There is storm-flavored disorder and darkness-flavored disorder and chaos-favoured disorder, and all must be fought.
• orlanthi distinguish between disorder and chaos,. they claim you can get all the mythic benefits of creativity and change that the solars are seen as lacking from disorder, personified by the trickster Eurmal, rather than chaos. With the good parts removed, what remains is pure evil that must be fought.
• lunars mix  the solar perspective on the lack of distinction between chaos and disorder with the lightbringer views on the necessity of creativity and change. Which implies chaos contains some good as well as lots of bad. What and who should be fought becomes a matter of complex policy considerations that are rarely as simple as what anyone has tattooed on their forehead. 

it's an interesting point that the real-world company name Chaosium matches the lunar perspective of chaos.  

 

 

[mfbrandi]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

You cannot have a hole in the Void.

No one said you could punch holes in the Void — “look: here is a void with a hole in it”; not that.

If a thing — e.g. Krarsht worshipper — has a Chaos taint, Greg compares that ‘taint’ to a hole in reality, in existence. Think of the hole in reality as a void (surely) or a connection to the Void (which we can quibble about amiably).

What do you think Greg was trying to get at if not tying notions of absence, of reality failure — i.e. of some kind of void — to Chaos?

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, DrGoth said:

is chaos capable of being understood? … My thinking is 'no', it can't be. There's value in trying, and possibly rewards for doing so … but it's a quest with no end …  And if you regard Glorantha primarily as a vehicle for story-telling, then I consider that a good thing.

I imagine Nysalorean scholars as chaotic little Wittgensteins garrulously rattling on about what cannot be said.

Spoiler

6.522   There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.

6.53   The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said … and then, whenever someone wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions …

6.54   My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them — as steps — to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

7   What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

[Joerg]

18 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

No one said you could punch holes in the Void — “look: here is a void with a hole in it”; not that.

If a thing — e.g. Krarsht worshipper — has a Chaos taint, Greg compares that ‘taint’ to a hole in reality, in existence. Think of the hole in reality as a void (surely) or a connection to the Void (which we can quibble about amiably).

What do you think Greg was trying to get at if not tying notions of absence, of reality failure — i.e. of some kind of void — to Chaos?

Chaos entered the world, originally as a regrettable (but manageable) by-product of Creation, confined to their own section of the Underworld. These entities carried some of that potential that had not been shaped by runes. There is an emptiness of purpose, of definition, when they carry these non-atoms of random change and/or annihilation.

Later, the Unholy Trio learned the detached view of the world from Rashoran, and killed her for that insight. Then they set about to give birth to the embodiment of their desire for revenge and ill-wishes, for evil, and summoned the stuff that is not of Creation, with the result that Thed gave birth to Wakboth. It isn't clear where this happened - Mallia's support might suggest somewhere in the deep darkness of the Underworld where "pools" or agglomerations of this wrongness abound, or whether this happened on the Surface World.

Whereever and however that happened, the Trio and their despicable child were banished from Creation, and they collected allies not of the Cosmos. Following the lead of Wakboth, the Trio and their new accomplices entered Creation from the weakness caused by Shargash crashing Umath into the Northern Pillar. What followed was the Chaos invasion of the Lesser Darkness (still), with the course of the Chaos forces mapped in Troll Pak.

Ultimately, the Chaos horde (or at least a critical mass of its minions) entered the Spike when other forces attacked it, too (such as High King Elf putting the axe to its base, and Zzabur sending the blast that broke the world). The Spike imploded, starting the Greater Darkness, which saw the northern lands shattered and a gaping rift of Chaos spewing corrosive Chaos into the world, hardly formed potential which nonetheless received enough definition that we can discern between Kajabor, Pocharngo and Krjalk and their special forms of corruption or annihilation, and less primal entities like Seseine or Gbaji, or the deities receiving cults in Cults of Terror.

I am not sure whether to regard the Chaos Rift in the center of the world (deep down in Magasta's Whirlpool, enclosed and attacked by the combined forces of Sea) as an opening to the Void or rather an upwelling of barely formed potential through the Chaosium. I tend to see it as the latter, a mass of corrosive un-being that is corroded away by the forces of the Seas about as much as it is replenished through the Chaosium.

The triumph of the Seas and the regrowth of that corrosion fluctuate, contributing to the Flood, and of lately reflected by the Red Moon.

 

That's my theory. I think I had dumber ones.

[Eff]

46 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Whereever and however that happened, the Trio and their despicable child were banished from Creation, and they collected allies not of the Cosmos. Following the lead of Wakboth, the Trio and their new accomplices entered Creation from the weakness caused by Shargash crashing Umath into the Northern Pillar. What followed was the Chaos invasion of the Lesser Darkness (still), with the course of the Chaos forces mapped in Troll Pak.

I have an annoying, Wittgensteinian comment to make- what is outside of creation to be banished to? It might be worth asking if "Chaos" isn't a void but a pleroma, since it seems very inhabited for uncreated nothingness. 

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Eff said:

I have an annoying, Wittgensteinian comment to make- what is outside of creation to be banished to?

Not annoying. Clearly, there is no ‘place outside of all places’ — if you find a place where the scary monsters are gathering, you are still inside creation. Try as you might, you cannot get on your bike and pedal out of Cosmos.

Cosmos can contain spaces — voids — but it cannot contain the Void, neither is Cosmos located in the Void.

The Void is nothing and nowhere.
It is not a part of the furniture of the world.
It is an excuse for wordplay.
It is what I have in place of a heart or compassion.

Polyphemus cries out: “Nobody has hurt me.”

Gloranthans scream: “Chaos has wounded the world.” If they but knew it, they are right: nothing has wounded the world; it is doing just fine.

Polyphemus was not so lucky: somebody had blinded him.

Edited March 24, 2023 by mfbrandi
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