Your Dumbest Theory

[mfbrandi]

We think of the gods as expressions of the runes, as having essences defined by their runes.

But maybe this is wrong: perhaps runes belong to religion, not divinity: we approach the divine via the runes — the runes are our path to god, not the destination.

That is why the warm Elmali see where the chilly Yelmalians see only . That is why the broos see where others see only and others might walk the path of — Mallia as life-giving “Yelm” seen by the dark of the Moon.

But then the monotheists will say that all runic paths — that lead anywhere — lead to the one god. And if the gods cannot be distinguished by their runes, who can argue?

The more pragmatic Jrusteli will say that any runic path can be assembled and all lead to fireworks of various colours.

The mystics say that yes, you can walk the runes as you would a path but you are on a road to nowhere, as you should be. For an encore, they will tell you that all superheroes are fools because they cannot even get nowhere, that like the sage Möbius, they tread the same somewheres over and over . In seeking the pleroma, they manacle themselves; in seeking to pierce the cloud of unknowing, they end up back where they started. No wonder they are tearing the world apart in their frustration.

[mfbrandi]

If we take the runic opposition too seriously, we will become like the narrator of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Spoiler

I began turning over in my mind the reason of Montgomery's despair. “They will change,” he said; “they are sure to change.” And Moreau, what was it that Moreau had said? “The stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again.” Then I came round to the Hyena-swine. I felt sure that if I did not kill that brute, he would kill me. The Sayer of the Law was dead: worse luck. They knew now that we of the Whips could be killed even as they themselves were killed. Were they peering at me already out of the green masses of ferns and palms over yonder, watching until I came within their spring? Were they plotting against me? What was the Hyena-swine telling them? My imagination was running away with me into a morass of unsubstantial fears …

Some of them — the pioneers in this, I noticed with some surprise, were all females — began to disregard the injunction of decency, deliberately for the most part. Others even attempted public outrages upon the institution of monogamy. The tradition of the Law was clearly losing its force. I cannot pursue this disagreeable subject.

My Dog-man imperceptibly slipped back to the dog again; day by day he became dumb, quadrupedal, hairy. I scarcely noticed the transition from the companion on my right hand to the lurching dog at my side. — H. G. Wells

[Joerg]

The Gods War had many gods defending territory against the incoming Chaos. One of the more successful defenses was Orlanth's defense of the Sky World, from which he cast out the Sky Terror.

We also know that the Gods War Lunar Empire (of the Artmali) turned to Chaos deities for aid in its later phase. These Lunar fellows would have known a back door into the realms of their ancestress Veldara, I suppose, and may have been led by an aspect or avatar of the Red One (Verithurusa), too.

As I said, Orlanth cast Chaos out of the Sky Realm. But now the Lunar goddess has entered much of the way in, and she is more chaotic than ever.

This makes me wonder how much the Gods War is old beef re-heated.

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

This makes me wonder how much the Gods War is old beef re-heated.

So the rebels kill the OG sun — probably in assassination of Julius Caesar or Murder on the Orient Express fashion — and probably for no better reason than that each of them wants to be in charge. (In time, the resulting world shows promise: cyclical ebb and flow; rotation with neat little epicycles. The only catch is the amount of noise the wind makes. But I am getting ahead of myself, and consequences are often unintended.)

Older beef than this? Bitter struggle among the Trotskyites — or if you were never there, all the factions in Life of Brian — such that every knife plunged into the sun was imagined to be ending a comrade? With the sun in the underworld, their internecine fury is given full rein — hot red-on-red action as each struggles to occupy the same niche: chair of the party, then Emperor of Everything (bow down gods and mortals, you are not worthy). Lots of small-c chaos.

In the short run, is in the ascendant, but perhaps is playing a long game by getting stitched into the Compromise. But by reaching so far into Balance and the Void, perhaps Sedenya — the er — has guaranteed that in the long run, no one can be Emperor.

All to the good, but was that Her divine plan? The White Moonies may think so, but maybe it is just — which is what you get when you tear away some of the Spider’s web.

Clearly, there is a Lunar faction we can call “Continuity Yelm” (well, we can call it that) who want the grandson of the sun to sprinkle the rest of us with His celestial golden shower in perpetuity — but we all hate those guys: that leaky dick-waving isn’t the feminist revolution we signed up for, is it?

But which is the true route through?

There is the Argrath way:

Spoiler

Here she comes, cosmopolitan enemy
Yes and here they come, interstellar diplomats

Some say the truth is meant to be hidden
Others maintain that nothing is forbidden
The key to the mystery …

And as our mind explodes in a post-draconic dawn
The future breaks like a tidal wave, hiding the sun at noon
Confusion and chaos, trauma of death
A strange new day for the people of breath
Traditions burned away by that falling moon

But that just repeats the primal scene, and if you tear it down, you’ll only have to bring it back, over and over (and that is quite another song).

If the red of the moon is just the blood of our own eyelid superimposed on Her face, maybe it is time to open it away from the bullskin crazies, the Arkati thought police, and the shaven-headed life coaches muttering “occlusion” like a pack of demented dentists:

Spoiler

The screeching, useless martyrs
Hanging naked upon the cross
They would have you believe
By the lies they shriek that all is lost

Forget their logic of desperation
Utilize your imagination
The future’s here right now
If you’re willing to pay the cost

Don’t make the (textually) corrupt choice.

Edited April 19, 2023 by mfbrandi
Apologies to Rob Tyner

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

This makes me wonder how much the Gods War is old beef re-heated.

And every Gloranthan war since? Have these people no imagination?

[dumuzid]

The Men-and-a-Half can finally go home to Pamaltela once someone convinces them that they're needed to face the power of Ompalam in Fonrit.

[mfbrandi]

Edited April 20, 2023 by mfbrandi
tweaked — extended

[mfbrandi]

[mfbrandi]

[mfbrandi]

[mfbrandi]

Quote

I am his highness’s dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

— Pope

The Orlanthi tell a tale of a dog who ran away from home to fawn on some windbag and hump his wife’s leg. It is funny because they seem to love him, and I thought the Orlanthi hated dogs.

Oh, it is not a dog, you say, but a god. Who wants a god with all the unattractive features of a dog? I don’t need to worship the top god, but I want one with some independence and self-respect. Loyalty, schmoyalty — give me a god who is complicated and has stories about Trade back in the day.

So what is it with Orlanthi and cats, then? Cats hate you. Cats shred the spines of your LPs. Cats piss on your friends’ trousers. Cats don’t understand loyalty. What is acceptable in a psychopathic ball of fur is unacceptable in a foreign god. Maybe they like cats because they remind them of their own family.

So it is just xenophobia, then — they like foreign gods to know their place? That cannot be it, because they seem actually to like him, not just the fact that he knows his place. So are we getting anywhere? Nowhere fast.

Maybe it is just that little e stands to Big O as they see themselves standing to Orlanth: they wouldn’t want to be O with all the stress of trashing/fixing the universe, all that guilt/responsibility — maybe the Orlanthi just want to sniff a few bottoms, get a pat on the head from the King of the gods, and maybe have a sly go on his wife’s leg. And if the miserable curs have to sleep in a kennel, they don’t see that as much of a price to pay.

(Remind me again why they don’t like dogs. Because they remind them of themselves, and they hate themselves? You couldn’t have mentioned this before?)

Meanwhile, chilly Y — like Bartleby — would prefer not to. Unlike Bartleby, this extends to dying, so he doesn’t. He is a cross-grained genius of perversity, and he probably plays the joanna like Cecil Taylor.

Edited April 20, 2023 by mfbrandi

[mfbrandi]

More Gloranthan karaoke.

Dusky, blonde Yelmalio likes to sing Moorcock’s “Veteran of the Psychic Wars”.

Spoiler

You see me now a veteran
Of a thousand psychic wars
I’ve been living on the edge so long
Where the winds of limbo roar
And I’m young enough to look at
And far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside

I’m not sure that there's anything left of me …

You see me now a veteran
Of a thousand psychic wars
My energy is spent at last
And my armour is destroyed
I have used up all my weapons
And I’m helpless and bereaved
Wounds are all I’m made of

Did I hear you say that this is victory? …

Send me to the rear
Where the tides of madness swell
And been sliding into Hell
Oh, please, don’t let these shakes go on

He knows how it looks (and that he has lousy pipes), but he has that glint in his brown eyes, and is perhaps thinking of his next step — the step that can only be taken when all weapons and armour have been laid aside. (Sedenya whispers, “Clothes, too.” ZZ, “And skin? Did I say that out loud? Sorry!”)

Zorak Zoran has the great white soul voice, of course, and knows the complete Hi Records repertoire of Al Green. Maybe it’s empathy over that pan of boiling grits. Maybe it’s just that he is full of fire. Some people are surprised to hear him sing “L–O–V–E (Love)” to his Only Yellowhair, but they should know better by now.

Spoiler

L-O-V-E is strange to me
I can’t explain this feeling
Can’t you see that salvation is freeing
It’s all in the heavens, can’t you see
You can always depend on me
To give you love

Love is a flower in my soul
Love is a story that just can’t be told
Can’t you feel it burning more and more
Stop and look at the big wheel roll
I can’t explain this feeling
Can’t you see that salvation is freeing
I would give my life for the glory
Just to be able to tell the story …
About love, Love is as bright as the morning sun

Do they have karaoke machines in Third-Age Genertela? Good question. I like to think the bar YO and ZZ frequent hires a newtling band, the Swampers. They are always on at ZZ to do “Take Me to the River”.

[DrGoth]

Not a dumb theory, but something I wanted to share.   Many years ago, I played the Cradle. One player insisted on playing a mistress race troll. He whined and pleaded until the GM said yes.

Said player than proceeded to roll nothing higher than 3 on his characteristic dice (yes, all of them) and not many 3's either.

We called the character the mistress race trollkin.

[mfbrandi]

10 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

Said player than proceeded to roll nothing higher than 3 on his characteristic dice

That was KL slapping him down for his impudence.

[mfbrandi]

One for the OP.

1. The living, dragon-scaled Beast …
2. also written like this …
3. now dead, cold, eviscerated, tits-up on the slab — leaving scientific Law
   — but that’s how you create a universe via utuma, ask any dragon.
    
4. So now we have this — who he? …
5. also written like this — so Genert …
6. now dead Earth.
    
7. Here the OG Sun (oracle bone script) …
8. later written like this (bronze script), so Fire–Sky …
9. and dead, cold, eviscerated Fire is Light
   — as any Elmali fool will tell you.

So which — if any — of the following appeal?

• Sun decays into immaterial Light and the too-solid bones of the Earth
  — planets are the ash of stars.
• 7 != 8, [•] != (•), and Yelm is not the OG Sun
  — but altogether less substantial, less real, lacking gravitas.
• Fire is revivified Light
  — but the Earth is still dead.
• Bubble Glorantha under its dome was a hasty improvisation after the untimely death of the Sun
  — it wants to be a real planet, but needs must when the Devil Orlanth drives.

Do we want to square the circle? Was the early universe strange, or is Pocket Glorantha the outlier?

[mfbrandi]

So if we buy all this line-into-point revisionist iconography, maybe we can see where the toy Sun came from.

Where do you hide an “invisible” Moon? In the Sun, of course — albeit a shabby, second-rate Sun — because Orlanth wouldn’t kill another Sun after all the trouble with the last one, would he? Well, you never know, so best put up a decoy.

You didn’t think that chunk of levitated Earth was the Moon, did you? That dead rock! What are you, a hill barbarian with phobias about perfectly ordinary livestock?

Sedenya and Orlanth were true rebels against the OG Sun — as Satan against God.

Spoiler

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, then serve in heaven.

— Paradise Lost (book 1, lines 254–264)

But which of them has repented and has the plan to crack open the “Sky” and return the pocket-universe hell of Glorantha to the wider universe and proper planetary shape (or as some insist, leave us defenceless before the immensity of the Void)? We each of us know who we would like it to be, but it is so hard to tell those two rebels apart, sometimes. What was that you were saying about two Devils and all the confusion that caused?

But for now we wait. And we march. Beneath a dreadful banner we march. Beneath strange devices of the Sun and Moon.

Spoiler

Edited April 27, 2023 by mfbrandi
tweaked picture

[mfbrandi]

SurEnslib escapes from the Lunar succession debate.

18 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Greg used to think … back when he obsessed about Heron … Goddesses, so the Weedy marshes of Darjiin are perhaps more in-scope.

Herons, like all archosaurs, are intrinsically cool, and my Darjiini informant has sent me this creation myth-cum-war story:

——————————————————————

Nakala, the infinite dark, was the firstborn of Chaos.

Then SurEnslib created herself,
and by her flight drew forth from the infinite dark both the Mother of Space and the liquid darkness of Styx. As SurEnslib flew lower, she caused Styx to birth Zaramaka, the infinite sea. By landing she ensured the presence of Ga, the first solid thing. Finally, SurEnslib sang into existence all the stars and planets — the many manifestations of Aether, the cosmic fire.

As her children began to burn, Nakala sought a weapon against watery SurEnslib and her fiery toys, so she punched a hole into the void, admitting the first of the monsters from beyond, Umath, the raging storm. Soon the stars were at a safe distance and the sun had been torn apart, but peace was not restored. No, the world’s troubles were just beginning.

But what of Sedenya?
Some say she was the last sung of SurEnslib’s heavenly baubles, and they point to her bootstrapping abilities as evidence of this. Some say that she must have crept into the cosmos in the wake of Umath, hiding among his children and plotting with them against the sun, and they cite her chaotic nature as proof. I … cannot say, but Mother Heron — She Who Rises in Brilliance — knows all things.

——————————————————————

(This is in part a gender-flip of Egyptian Bennu.)

Spoiler

Why? Because the war is between:

• Cosmos & Chaos … true natures hidden;
• Yelm & Orlanth … boys will be boys;
• Spring/Summer & Winter/Storms … hmm, maybe.

Edited April 29, 2023 by mfbrandi
illo

[Nick Brooke]

On 4/26/2023 at 9:21 PM, mfbrandi said:

Where do you hide an “invisible” Moon? In the Sun, of course — albeit a shabby, second-rate Sun — because Orlanth wouldn’t kill another Sun after all the trouble with the last one, would he? Well, you never know, so best put up a decoy.

But for now we wait. And we march. Beneath a dreadful banner we march. Beneath strange devices of the Sun and Moon.

 

🎼There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day's done… 🎶

 

&

 

🎼There is no political solution
To our troubled evolution
Have no faith in constitution
There is no bloody revolution

 

We are spirits

In the material world… 🎶

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone

 

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

 

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

 

&

 

Idiot wind
Blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

 

It was gravity which pulled us down
And destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage
But it just wasn't enough to change my heart
Now everything's a little upside down
As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad, what's bad is good
You'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom

[mfbrandi]

Eugène Marais peers into the soul of Glorantha’s great goddess:

Quote

If Nature possesses a universal psyche, it is one far above the common and most impelling feelings of the human psyche. She certainly has never wept in sympathy, nor stretched a hand protectively over even the most beautiful or innocent of her creatures … Pitiless cruelty, torment, and destruction of the weak and innocent. The thief, the assassin, the blood stained robber, these are her favourites.

[mfbrandi]

What are Donald’s nephews doing under the dome of Glorantha’s sky?
What is the true relationship between Grower and Maker?
Are there other worlds, or is Glorantha the only bubble in the Void?
Why can I never tell Mostali from Mallard?

Spoiler

Spoiler

[Erol of Backford]

On 4/28/2023 at 3:01 PM, mfbrandi said:

Herons, like all archosaurs, are intrinsically cool

I agree, really cool but based on my seeing their nesting habits first hand at the Lincoln Park Zoo, they smell as bad or worse then penguins...

Along the southern Praxian coastline not far from Sog's Ruins there have been sittings of a 40' electric chaos penguin with tentacles... tears the clothing off your back in the blink of an eye.

What some would consider even more gruesome is the projectile vomiting of acidic regurgitated meals its had which sticks to you like pratzim and melts your armor... truely a wicked creature, worse than the Praxian jackalope, with sharp pointy razor sharp teeth and horns like daggers to boot. 

    

Even better, our pigmy PC's are developing a Hero Quest so ostrich riders may get their mounts to be able to fly once again.

The air-mobile ostrich 1st lancers. Their lances are actually elongated didgeridoo's which they use to announce a charge or send coded messages.

They are also able to drop escretment from high elevations very accurately...

  

Edited May 9, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[Richard S.]

The Red Moon waxes and wanes as the pieces of other gods that make up the Goddess die and are reborn. She made the Moon so they'd have a closer otherworld to die into, so she doesn't have to go all the way to the underworld to bring them back.

[mfbrandi]

Another in my occasional series of Gloranthan Karaoke. This one almost made it into Dr Goth’s thread, but better here.

Rashoran/a–Sedenya (or whoever they are today) likes a bit of Van Morrison:

Spoiler

I have seen without perceiving
I have been another man
Let me pierce the realm of glamour
So I know just what I am

I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more

Feel the angel of the present
In the mighty crystal fire
Lift me up, consume my darkness
Let me travel even higher

I'm a dweller on the threshold
As I cross the burning ground
Let me go down to the water
Watch the great illusion drown …

I'm gonna turn and face the music
The music of the spheres
Lift me up, consume my darkness
When the midnight disappears

I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
And the dawn will end the night

[mfbrandi]

As that other thread seems to have become the broo mercenary thread (and good luck to it):

Why are Orlanth and Orlanthism so baffling? Is this the not-so-secret decoder ring:

• Orlanth is not (a) god and was never meant to be (but is possibly Rushdie’s apocryphal(?) god-shaped hole)
• Orlanth is (give or take) us: mortals, humanity
• Yelm is god, any god, all gods
• Everything else is in Nietzsche’s greatest hits (no deep understanding required, just bop along)

Freddy’s greatest hit was, of course, this:

• Whither is God? … I shall tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? … God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
  — The Gay Science, Section 125, trans. Walter Kaufmann

So we mortals killed the sun/god — just as we will kill Tinkerbell: by ceasing to “believe” — and the Orlanthi struggle to “emulate Orlanth” is the struggle to become a god. And what form do the festivals of atonement take? Why, they recapitulate their original sin by murdering god over and over again, of course. How else to become a god than hack your way to the top of a pile of corpses? That is the joy of polytheism: plenty of fresh meat. But of course, there can be only one … at most. Thus Arkat–Argrath really is the perfect type of the Orlanthi hero, because — you know — Everything Must Go.

The Orlanthi project is to step into the void where god used to be. — And if there were no void? I am sure they could clear some space with their machetes. — Orlanthism is the psychotic reaction to the void: they say Orlanth is not chaos, but we are Orlanth and our religious impulse, our Weltschmerz, is our chaotic feature.

I say “we”, but we are not all Orlanthi: for some of us god was never alive, never present, so there was no Nietzschean anxiety, no void needing filling, no parricide to recapitulate or atone for (or we just cannot react in any way to the blood on our hands, though it is there all the same); for others, perhaps, god never died, is alive and well and living in Poughkeepsie (or so they say). At any rate, we self-identified non-Orlanthi say we are not trying to climb that blood-slippery pole to heaven — as if that were any guarantee of innocence!

I said hits, plural:

• After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave, — an immense frightful shadow. God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow. — And we — we have still to overcome his shadow!
  — The Gay Science, “New Struggles”

Is this a blueprint for Sedenya’s overcoming Gbaji/the shade of Nysalor? If so, is this a different move than the Orlanthi one? I mean, Teelo still climbed a pile of corpses toward “apotheosis”, and Jar-Eel is still climbing them one after another, no?

If we, the people, are the Unholy Trio — hmm: [1] god is dead; [2] god is alive; [3] god, schmod — is the killing of Rashoran(a) the murder of god, too? Is the Devil god’s shadow, not a literal child of Thed? Is the murder of god/Rashoran(a) — freedom from fear, remember (“Macbeth does murder sleep”) — the cutting loose of god’s shadow, the “birth” of the Devil/cosmic anxiety/the Great Fear? But are we in god’s shadow or are we ourselves god’s shadow, the God-Killer, the Black Hole?

As always, the Bronze Age is a blind, a distraction, an irrelevance, mummery — Gloranthan religion is a late phenomenon, and originating in the USA, perhaps too late: Eden regained can only ever be dust — the lesson of Genert’s Garden?

But as it is all so simple, so pat, it must not be orthodoxy, not truth, but just a slick fantasy and just another dumb theory.

Spoiler

How would we assign our three monkeys/goats? Perhaps (but only perhaps):

1. God is dead —> Thed, the pessimist.
2. God is alive —> Ragnaglar, that crazy guy!
3. God, schmod —> Mallia. I was going to say “she always had a head on her shoulders”, but … umm.

The coming thing in parlour games and job interviews: Which member of the Unholy Trio are you and why?

Edited May 21, 2023 by mfbrandi