Your Dumbest Theory

[mfbrandi]

12 minutes ago, metcalph said:

merely being a sorcerer or philosopher does not make you an enemy of the Gods

This may be true, but if the gods could read the minds of sorcerer–philosophers, would they see it that way?

• For the humble researcher wrapped up in her art, entities as up themselves as the gods barely register (except perhaps as minor irritants).
• For the arrogant researcher wrapped up in her art, entities as shallow and stupid as the gods barely register (except perhaps as resources to be exploited).
• “Gods? I cannot think of any test that would show something to be a god. It is just not an operational concept. Stop bothering me. Can you not see that I am busy?”
• “God? Oh, you mean Cosmos. How could I be an enemy of that? Each of us is but a tiny fragment of Cosmos, and yet, I fancy the entirety of Cosmos is inscribed in each of us! Now, where was I? Oh, yes, my theory of collimated Light.”

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

If HeroQuesting to a myth before Death was introduced, the combat should not result in death of the opponent

I was chatting with this charming fellow from Dorastor and he assured me — and he was really very persuasive — that was the sword used to separate Cosmos from , so Death was available and in use since the first act of creation. If Grandparent Mortal and Yelm took their time — “no-time”? “time-before-time”? — getting on the pointy end of it, that was mere contingency and very slack of them.

Still, it is good to know that questing back to pre-creation Chaos isn’t going to get me killed.

[Ormi Phengaria]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:49 AM, mfbrandi said:

I was chatting with this charming fellow from Dorastor and he assured me — and he was really very persuasive — that was the sword used to separate Cosmos from , so Death was available and in use since the first act of creation. If Grandparent Mortal and Yelm took their time — “no-time”? “time-before-time”? — getting on the pointy end of it, that was mere contingency and very slack of them.

Still, it is good to know that questing back to pre-creation Chaos isn’t going to get me killed.

 

Quote

Mitchell Miller argues that the first four primordial deities arise in a highly significant relationship. He argues that Chaos represents differentiation, since Chaos differentiates (separates, divides) Tartarus and Earth. Even though Chaos is "first of all" for Hesiod, Miller argues that Tartarus represents the primacy of the undifferentiated, or the unlimited. Since undifferentiation is unthinkable, Chaos is the "first of all" in that he is the first thinkable being. In this way, Chaos (the principle of division) is the natural opposite of Eros (the principle of unification). Earth (light, day, waking, life) is the natural opposite of Tartarus (darkness, night, sleep, death). These four are the parents of all the other Titans.

He'll also happily Riddle you on Plato, so I'd say it checks out.

[mfbrandi]

46 minutes ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

Chaos (the principle of division) … Tartarus (darkness, night, sleep, death).

Quote

DEATH — (Separation) — Known to be the First Sword … Others claim this to be the first of the Runes, citing the separation of the world from Chaos as the first action in creation — RQ2 ‘Classic’ PDF, p. 58

I like it!

But in orthodox RQ speak, Miller’s names might map to different runes (if they mapped at all). Something like this, perhaps:

• M. Chaos —> RQ Death
• M. Eros —> RQ Harmony(?)
• M. Earth —> RQ Fire/Sky
• M. Tartarus —> RQ Darkness (& ‘Primal Chaos’?)

Miller’s Chaos might also partake of Storm (the separator) and Disorder (opposite of Harmony). Storm/Death/Disorder/‘Chaos’ — it is quite an attractive package, I am sure all Orlanthi would agree.

And I always like a scheme according to which Death is NOT separation. A return to the unthinkable, unlimited, undifferentiated Darkness?

I also like weeding out excessive ‘runeage’: maybe we can weld Death, Chaos, and Darkness into one multi-purpose party rune — fun all the way.

Or, you know … not.

[Squaredeal Sten]

8 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

I like it!

But in orthodox RQ speak, Miller’s names might map to different runes (if they mapped at all). Something like this, perhaps:

• M. Chaos —> RQ Death
• M. Eros —> RQ Harmony(?)
• M. Earth —> RQ Fire/Sky
• M. Tartarus —> RQ Darkness (& ‘Primal Chaos’?)

Miller’s Chaos might also partake of Storm (the separator) and Disorder (opposite of Harmony). Storm/Death/Disorder/‘Chaos’ — it is quite an attractive package, I am sure all Orlanthi would agree.

And I always like a scheme according to which Death is NOT separation. A return to the unthinkable, unlimited, undifferentiated Darkness?

I also like weeding out excessive ‘runeage’: maybe we can weld Death, Chaos, and Darkness into one multi-purpose party rune — fun all the way.

Or, you know … not.

Seems to me that Chaos is homogenization rather than differentiation or division.  All the old creation myths that start with chaos indicate that.

So I favor "not".   

Collapsing the Rune categories is going back to homogenization, an essentially chaotic act.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Division

[mfbrandi]

2 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

All the old creation myths that start with chaos indicate that.

But, @Ormi Phengaria tells us, not necessarily as they are read at Vassar. It is always good to hear a dissenting voice.

[Ormi Phengaria]

16 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Seems to me that Chaos is homogenization rather than differentiation or division.  All the old creation myths that start with chaos indicate that.

Yet it's the Chaosium which keeps the world from being endless, unchanging grey monotony. And Darkness could only be born through its separation from Water. Which reminds me:

Some Ancient Commentaries on Magic and Chaos

Quote

Breakaway, Breakaway, Let me alone!
Take your hands off, I'll cut them!
Take your feet off, I'll stomp them!
Look away from me, I cannot bear you!
Do not follow, you are my foe.
Do not pursue, I shall kill you!
Never come near, now we are separate.
Never come near, we are not the same.

 

[John Biles]

5 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

Yet it's the Chaosium which keeps the world from being endless, unchanging grey monotony. And Darkness could only be born through its separation from Water. 

 

Didn't Darkness break out of Chaos, then we get Water?

Darkness is the primal ME ME ME I EXIST.

 

[Ormi Phengaria]

8 hours ago, John Biles said:

Didn't Darkness break out of Chaos, then we get Water?

Darkness is the primal ME ME ME I EXIST.

 

If Water is all of the possibilities of the universe without Darkness, but came from Darkness, we can infer that it's the combination of Water and Darkness which is that primordial, undifferentiated state of everything and nothing.

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, John Biles said:

Darkness is the primal ME ME ME I EXIST.

Doubtless there are Darkness-identifying entities that shout that, but does Darkness’ presence in the early universe give it any special connection to that rant? Perhaps. I don’t know.

But consider also that when the last candle flame of ego is blown out, one is left in the Darkness. Or rather, there ‘is’ Darkness (if an absence is a presence), but no one left in it. We don’t expect to hear the cry of ME ME ME I don’t EXIST.

(It is best not to ask those who have heard Zorak Zoran’s pain cries whether they can make out words in them — they have suffered enough. Some have shyly volunteered ‘Wien’ and ‘virus’ — but the sages cannot find these words in their lexicons: they mean nothing to them.)

[Ormi Phengaria]

Oftentimes it feels like we've lost the bead in discussions about Chaos, constantly drawn back into a confrontation with mysticisms. The very great majority of Gloranthans do not believe the world was made from Chaos. They also are not wrong to think this even if their stream of belief doesn't account for its gaps. The Mythical Synthesis includes in its creation story the concept of the Void, and even sometimes prioritizes it as the Zero, but even this isn't Chaos as either its believers or others understand it. Mystics just tend towards a different view of Chaos than the other three streams, and this becomes conflated.

Chaos rather holds cosmological prominence in two other groupings, which were never fit into the Mythical Synthesis: Chaotic cults themselves, who demand eternal oblivion to the world in one way or another, and the Draconic Creation Myth, which begins "First was Chaos." In this story, Chaos is the first thing that was. But do not be misled: Chaos is not the Cosmic Dragon, which is beyond both existence and non-existence. Chaos, that which is not the Cosmic Dragon, was first.

I also feel like mentioning some of the First Rune mythemes. Five of the Powers (not Stasis, Illusion, or Life, meaningfully) are placed in opposition to Chaos as the very first act of creation. But the instinct to reduce further and see Chaos as being the progenitor of these Runes is mistaken. At most, they are mutually generative. Chaos is what the World Bird escaped from; the World Bird is that which escaped from Chaos. And so on. Consider also that the Powers are already formed in natural oppositions.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Ormi Phengaria

[mfbrandi]

9 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

we've lost the bead in discussions about Chaos, constantly drawn back into a confrontation with mysticisms … the concept of the Void, … Zero

In fairness to everybody else, that may just be me.

Who wants to build the Powers from Chaos stuff? Usually, it is the elements, isn’t it? Even then the idea that the earlier terms contain the later ones is likely open to various interpretations. If the tank contains water and the water contains fish, do we have to say that water is made from glass and fish from water?

I am also taken by this alternative:

… but to annotate it would be to take it too seriously. 😉

Spoiler

Isn’t playing with Cosmic Dragon = Chaos just nodding the head to Orlanth–Marduk vs. Dragon–Tiamat–Chaos?

[Ormi Phengaria]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

If the tank contains water and the water contains fish, do we have to say that water is made from glass and fish from water?

Excellent example. Chaos in this analogy is not the glass, but the empty space the water fills.

Regarding the elemental progression, the specifics do change quite frequently depending on where we start and end. The Dara Happan universe of Plentonius begins from Fire (of course), the Pelandan from a Fire-and-Water dualism, and even in the ancient West we find devolution into Fire as energy and Earth as matter, with Air and Water being the mixed states. And there are many others. But Water from Darkness has made the best case for a First Beginning, seen only from what is unseen, unknowable and unreachable. For the idealists, this is the natural environment to situate the prima materia.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Ormi Phengaria

[mfbrandi]

12 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

But Water from Darkness has made the best case for a First Beginning, seen only from what is unseen, unknowable and unreachable.

I think a lot of us feel it is the one that has been given the most “poetry” — whether that is because of what we bring to it or because of how well the setting authors have handled it, I am not sure. Anyway, it all seems to go quite nicely till we have Zaramaka lapping around Ga/ta, and have to decide how to introduce Aether:

• I want to have lights coming on in the distance to illuminate the scene for the first time
  — Unveiled by and scorching Uncle ZZ, perhaps
   
• The setting seems to want fire/sky lying on the earth waiting for the Freudian explosion of Umath
  — Was Aether a fire on the earth? Wouldn’t air just make it burn more brightly?
  — A plaster – or rubber! – ‘ceiling’ grounded and waiting to be moved into its ‘proper’ place?

Edited June 20, 2023 by mfbrandi
shortened

[mfbrandi]

Gloranthan Karaoke, part whatever …

A stooped figure — a Tusken bag lady? — under a tattered cloak and swaddled in bandages that might once have been white, struggles up to the piano. You can’t see their face. Just about stable on the stool, they cough once, start to play, and then sing in a voice a lot like Kate Westbrook’s:

Spoiler

When the only sound in the empty street
Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
That belong to a dark troll cop
I open shop

When the Moon so long has been gazing down
On the wayward ways of this wayward town
That Her smile becomes a smirk
I go to work

Death for sale
Agonizing plague death for sale
Death that’s fresh and still unspoiled
Death that’s only slightly soiled
Death for sale

Who will buy?
Who would like to sample my supply?
Who’s prepared to pay the price
For a trip to paradise?
Death for sale

Let Humakti pipe of death
In their childish way
I know every type of death
Better far than they

If you want the thrill of death
I’ve been through the mill of death
Your death, their death
Every death is my death

Death for sale
Agonizing plague death for sale
If you want to buy my wares
Follow me and climb the stairs
Death for sale

— with apologies to Cole Porter

There is a stunned silence at the end of the performance. They have slipped unnoticed out the back before the applause starts.

“Was that M-M-Mall … ?”
“No.”
“Ul … ?”
“That, my friend, was Arroin. Good, isn’t he?”

[Ormi Phengaria]

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I think a lot of us feel it is the one that has been given the most “poetry” — whether that is because of what we bring to it or because of how well the setting authors have handled it, I am not sure. Anyway, it all seems to go quite nicely till we have Zaramaka lapping around Ga/ta, and have to decide how to introduce Aether:

• I want to have lights coming on in the distance to illuminate the scene for the first time
  — Unveiled by and scorching Uncle ZZ, perhaps
   
• The setting seems to want fire/sky lying on the earth waiting for the Freudian explosion of Umath
  — Was Aether a fire on the earth? Wouldn’t air just make it burn more brightly?
  — A plaster – or rubber! – ‘ceiling’ grounded and waiting to be moved into its ‘proper’ place?

A third option: the dark waters reflect the light of below. But this is beyond just the suggestion of Annilla, it is entry into her hidden sky, and few would ever speak of it.

[John Biles]

19 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

•  
• The setting seems to want fire/sky lying on the earth waiting for the Freudian explosion of Umath
  — Was Aether a fire on the earth? Wouldn’t air just make it burn more brightly?
  — A plaster – or rubber! – ‘ceiling’ grounded and waiting to be moved into its ‘proper’ place?

Aether would be a fire on the earth until pushed away - air needs space and heated air expands, so his own power pushed him away from the Earth.

 

[JRE]

We all know there are different versions, and being Glorantha they are all true.

My personal favorite version is that Ether was alway there, the distant dome at the top, the counterpart to the dome of darkness at the bottom (this is why for Solars up is positive and down is negative), and it was not created as such from Earth, but it is contacted by Earth, when Earth pushes to expand all possible space. Where Earth and Ether touch, part of Ether interacts with Earth, which humans understand as marriage, and another part moves further away, to keep their purity. But I would understand it with Earth reaching up to touch the dome, so she "mates" with both Water and Fire. Water keeps her separate in most cases from Darkness, but insects prove there must have been some contact anyway.

Air comes in between, and as a jealous child, strives to keep their mother for themselves and the father away. Earth and Fire, despite having deities of all or no gender, are the only elements which generally personify a feminine and a masculine principle.

The three curious godlings tale is usually told from the Darkness point of view, so for them Darkness was everything and Aether was a new interloper. But it would work as well if they just went, before Water separated, to the limit of the sky dome, and they just tried to interact with the no-Dark, which was their opposite. In that way, Water would be what Dark, once it is clear they cannot beat each other, separated from itself to keep them apart, the growing interface between Dark and Light. And Lorion's invasion of the Sky Dome is just the new element taking its place in between the two opposites.

[Joerg]

On 6/19/2023 at 4:05 AM, John Biles said:

Darkness is the primal ME ME ME I EXIST.

Or it is the "Here I am" (as in Mother of Space)?

[mfbrandi]

9 minutes ago, JRE said:

The three curious godlings tale

Sure — put this tale as early as you like (presumably making AA twice-born). Darkness has always contained Fire and still does. This may suggest that there is something a little off about the Uz complaining about Yelm. (But only a little.)

[Ormi Phengaria]

With the Three Curious Spirits, we can substitute Subere, Xentha, and Dehore for Xiola Umbar, Argan Argar, and Zorak Zoran respectively.

Subere was untouched by light but still shaped by its presence, Dehore broke apart into the infinite shades, and Xentha was the veil around the godling.

 

[John Biles]

On 6/21/2023 at 3:01 AM, Joerg said:

Or it is the "Here I am" (as in Mother of Space)?

Water is the element which will rock you like a Hurricane.

 

[soltakss]

On 6/19/2023 at 3:05 AM, John Biles said:

Didn't Darkness break out of Chaos, then we get Water?

Dame Darkness saw that they had created all the Darkness that they could, and was so terrified at the thought that she wet herself, giving birth to the River Styx, the Last Drop of Darkness and the First Drop of Water.

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, JonL said:

Orlanth intervening within Time to strike down Zistor … Orlanth slaying the upstart deity

Quote

I believe …
That the Invisible God put the firewood there but that every man must gather and light it himself …
That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.

— Jeff Richard, Men of All

Quote

Zistor the Machine God … a God Learner idea, built by the Ingareens … can be thought of as a factory built and operated along logical, sorcerous lines … The workers of the Clanking City worshipped Zistor, which provided it with a constant supply of magical power …

the Ingareens — the atheists of God Forgot — … had no religious qualms against constructing the Machine God — quite the opposite, they embraced it thoroughly!

— Jeff Richard, Notes on the Machine God

The “machine god” was no more a god than this fake banknote I ran off in my garage is a banknote — but while my still-damp masterwork pretends to be currency, Zistor was no fake or wannabe god. That was its point: not to be a god (nor indeed God). It was a machine built by atheists for deists to mock those who claim that Orlanth and company are gods and that “sacrificing” POW to “deities” is worship. It was a theological argument — a demonstration — with a big budget.

God sets the universe in motion, and then She is never heard from again. There is no point in throwing POW in Her direction — and anyway, which direction would that be? By turning up to trash the Clanking City, Orlanth gives the game away: he is of the world and in it. He may be bigger, bluer, more pretentious, and have more arms than the wizard down the road, but he is an item of the same category. Zistor was not an artificial god, just an ersatz Orlanth.

“You think you can list the necessary and sufficient conditions for godhood? Well, we took your list and used it to build this thing, and while it is certainly useful, I think you will agree that the clanking abomination is not God — or not, as you barbarians say, ‘a god’ — so I think you had better rethink your rash definition … and demote your ‘gods’.”

So who failed to respect the divine, the Jrusteli who gathered their own firewood and knew it for what it was, or the barbarians who called firewood “god” but burned it just the same? “But in Glorantha, the gods are real,” people whine — but not every real thing is a god. (“Everything real = God” is a pantheistic identity for another day.) But sure, Orlanth’s PR consultants have to maintain that Zistor was a god … else they don’t get paid.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Orlanth gives the game away: he is of the world and in it. He may be bigger, bluer, more pretentious, and have more arms than the wizard down the road

Sadly that's not the case either - the Clanking City head sorcerer Triumvirate is an amalgam of three sorcerers, and has six arms.