Your Dumbest Theory

[mfbrandi]

4 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Oh god, no wonder I hate the idea of living in Glamour. It’s bloody Bond Street isn’t it.

• The entire sentient population of Genertela is approximately 52 million … The Lunar Empire in comparison, includes about 9 million beings.
  — Jeff Richard, Population of Genertela

The current population of England is > that of Genertela, so mapping the Lunar Empire into London seems doable.

Did someone say Brithos was Wales, sunk under its own weight (βρῖθος)?

[Ali the Helering]

52 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Richmond Park makes up very roughly 1.3% of the area of Greater London.

One of the monks accompanying the conquistadors estimated that Salamanca could fit into one of Tenochtitlan's markets  

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

no wonder I hate the idea of living in Glamour. It's bloody Bond Street isn't it. Horrendous place...

I thought it would be Harrod's...

[Ynneadwraith]

16 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

I thought it would be Harrod's...

All the same spiritual sickness...

[scott-martin]

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

The current population of England is > that of Genertela, so mapping the Lunar Empire into London seems doable.

As we all know, from a "certain point of view," Nochet is also Portland Maine complete with explosive population boom . . . or Portland Maine is Nochet.

This is great stuff.

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

from a "certain point of view,"

I guess that from a certain point of view, Castañeda was a trickster-shaman … from another, just a trickster. Maybe if CC had been from Sarf London (in spirit, at least), we’d have had Kashamarka, the womble shaman — still a book deal in it, but possibly no PhD.

[scott-martin]

On 5/12/2024 at 1:04 AM, JayLay said:

Lo, the blue moon has bestowed upon me many pieces of wisdom that I shall share now. I cannot and will not elaborate, because she hasn't told me more than what I share here.

That's a lot of points of blue divination gathered here in an unwholesome pile like her body. I can't say she cares but want to say she would like it. Thank you for burning the points and daring to share the raw results, uninterpreted and so safe from breaking blue law.

All of them have a "truth" rating but I want to corroborate just one right now.
 

On 5/12/2024 at 1:04 AM, JayLay said:

• All the dragonewts of the first age were actually dragons. All the current dragonewts are humans from the EWF which is why they resemble the Human Rune.

Griffins are special because they are analogous to dragonewts on a divergent path: someone hunting a griffin egg is not really looking to breed bird-lion-horse animals but to breed consciousness. We have to read the King Griffin story backward. Only a few people know anything about this, which makes the big bird machinations around the Raus family cosmically important. You aren't just running military aircraft to the feuding tribes of Balazar. You're negotiating a partial reintegration of the big bird way.

In theory every korgatsu practice aims at something like a griffin or a dragonewt but the easy ways have been carefully obliterated, maybe by the spider or the spider's rivals or the spider's friends.

[mfbrandi]

13 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

You’re negotiating a partial reintegration of the big bird way.

Now look what you have done to my brain. (I am reimagining Vivamort, too.)

16 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

the spider’s friends

I am a big fan of the eight-legged critters, but they are not really known for their sociability, are they? Does even a cosmic spider have friends or just stratagems (and dupes)?

[mfbrandi]

Vivamort the Liberator ponders the best way to break the infinity rune
… which is just a set of manacles, after all.

Edited May 16 by mfbrandi

[Joerg]

28 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

someone hunting a griffin egg is not really looking to breed bird-lion-horse animals but to breed consciousness.

Obligatory nitpick: the only horsey parts in the Griffin are the beak, the claws, and the wings (more commonly associated with Vrimak's birds), common to all sky creatures until the first batch of human Dara Happans were made (including Murharzarm). The rest of the Griffin consists of lion parts, regardless whether it is the upright, four-winged humanoid King Griffon or the classical Eagle front, lion hindquarter griffin from Griffin Mountain.

[mfbrandi]

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Obligatory nitpick: the only horsey parts in the Griffin are the beak, the claws, and the wings

… and the ears, man, the ears! And how lionish does this thing look, really? 😉

[scott-martin]

9 minutes ago, Joerg said:

common to all sky creatures

Primal Horse stays in the picture! As always you make it better. 

It strikes me that modern Kralorela is not known for its "horses" and the "eagles" have been out of power there for a very long time. Instead they have something they claim is different. But just across the Shan Shan they have endless "horses" and a memory of "eagles."

Incorporating a ghost lion into the solar mix is rational but bears deeper investigation. Which lions? When? Where? Who did this and why don't we hear more about it? How many EWF are there?

[Ynneadwraith]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

common to all sky creatures until the first batch of human Dara Happans were made (including Murharzarm)

How do we know that the earliest Dara Happans lacked these features?

I've heard tell of some very old rock art deep in the desert listing the peoples of the world, with the inscription 'dr hp' beneath the falcon-headed figure:

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

… and the ears, man, the ears! And how lionish does this thing look, really? 😉

What type of beast was it originally called over in Spain, and who identified it as a griffin? I feel reminded of the (slightly later) carvings of elephants in that blackened chair in Coventry (exhibited in Mary Stuart's cell, I don't recall whose it originally was), with tapir-like trunks (at best).

Other than King Griffon, we also meet Galgarenge on the Gods Wall, and not as an example of the Carmanian Griffon (the owl puma mixed offspring of an illicit coupling, hunting both ancestral beasts). IIRC she is only a second tier entity on the Gods Wall, not rated as celestial. What is it with her?

 

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

It strikes me that modern Kralorela is not known for its "horses" and the "eagles" have been out of power there for a very long time. Instead they have something they claim is different. But just across the Shan Shan they have endless "horses" and a memory of "eagles."

Kralorela shares the Metsylan phoenix, far surpassing the base Vrimakan eagle. Do we know when Lion stole the dragon's mane?

Anyway, I am not aware of non-humanoid Vithelan "chimeras" (critters of various beast parts). Most seem to follow an (expanded) Man Rune architecture, often with grotesque heads.

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Incorporating a ghost lion into the solar mix is rational but bears deeper investigation. Which lions? When? Where?

Peloria sports two types of lion, the golden (Solar) lion, and the darker-maned Carmanian Lion (which may have entered with Syranthir's 10,000 for all we know, possibly of Pamaltelan/Seshnegi ancestry).

Durbaddath is not depicted as a broken creature like Gamara, so he might not be a broken descendant of King Griffon. He might be the war-child of King Griffon and Buburstus before the latter was petrified (or otherwise forced into stasis) into the Imperial throne. On the Gods Wall he appears as (so-so) noble ancestor of the Arcos basin humans, alongside his caprine spouse.

 

One thing I found weird about the Gods Wall is the great number of mammalian beast deities, and the total absence of gazzam - even the celestial kind (fluffy dinosaurs decked in down or even semi-functional feathers for flight).

My pre-Murharzarm Dara Happa has beaked and feathered humanoids with more or less ornamental wings managing fluffy dinosaurs for their proto-cities possibly built from solidified light (similar to the golden Sun Dome in the sky, and yes, I would like to see some artwork depicting such scenes).

(Some similar Godtime "technology" is found with the quasi-metallic glow of the blue moon inland of the Togaro Ocean where the Artmali first touched the ground.)
 

  

10 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

How do we know that the earliest Dara Happans lacked these features?

We don't know, and IMG they have these birdish features. Probably including Yelm, Lodril and Dayzatar. For all we know, Lodril's beak might have been duck-bill shaped... (think of duck penises longer than the rest of the bird...)

 

In my Dara Happan vocabulary, if Busenari translates as Cattle Woman, then Buserian translates as Sacrificer of Bulls (aka priest-scribe). These bulls may originally have been gazzam, but I suspect that we only get Buserian in the sacrificer role after the arrival of Oslira.

 

 

Edited May 16 by Joerg
spelink erors, and addressing Ynneadwrath's comment

[Ynneadwraith]

15 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Lodril's beak might have been duck-bill shaped...

Now this I am here for...

Also, new dumbest theory stemming from this. Dara Happans are more closely related to keets than Orlanthi, the two sharing a common ancestor sometime before the Dara Happens convergently evolved(/created) the man-rune bodyplan like their distantly related storm-barbarian cousins.

Spoiler

i.e. a spectrum of bird-totem hsunchen back in the pre-deific mythic architecture of Palaeolithic Glorantha. Bird hsunchen and their keet-brothers, before they lost contact with one another. 

 

Edited May 16 by Ynneadwraith

[radmonger]

38 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Dara Happans are more closely related to keets than Orlanthi

This seems related to the theory that the Praxian  Ostrich rider 'subcult' of Yelmalio has the mythic and social role that Eiritha plays in the other tribes. Ancestor of the herds, not their protector.

Presumably, some Dara Happan avilry were in Prax when the Wakbocalypse happened...

 

[Ynneadwraith]

32 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Bird hsunchen and their keet-brothers, before they lost contact with one another. 

Actually this I'm less keen on. I think I prefer the idea that they both used to be bird-headed humanoids with now-lost animal bird-brothers. At some point, some magic went wonky and their bird-features got transferred from one lot to the other, creating Dara Happans and Keets.

[Joerg]

25 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Actually this I'm less keen on. I think I prefer the idea that they both used to be bird-headed humanoids with now-lost animal bird-brothers. At some point, some magic went wonky and their bird-features got transferred from one lot to the other, creating Dara Happans and Keets.

While I see some fun in encountering Golden Age beaked descendants of Gazzamaritha (or Gazzameri?) following their fluffy shaker beasts in the still river-less Pelorian bowl (unless you count rivers of lava?), I like my beakheads in cities of solid golden light a little better, impossibly stacked (almost levitating) architecture, with gazzam overseen by fluffy hadrosaurian-headed workers doing fieldwork in the marshlands to create the rice environment.

[Eff]

Horse - the sun moves in a line, tirelessly.

Eagle - the sun is up in the air.

Lion - the sun is surrounded by a golden mane. 

All are conventionally regal or at least noble animals. The most interesting part to me is that there's myths of saving horses and killing lions all over Genertela. The ancient ones are no matter- I'm sure it won't surprise anyone to hear that Tada, Orlanth, and Oslira are in an exclusive club together.  But some are dated to clock-time. What did Hrestol do by skinning Penda? How is that related to the local experience of the Sun? 

[Joerg]

Weird idea of the day: could Manarlarvus's Dara Happa under the Dome have been a reflection of burnt-out Wonderhome? Effectively that Emperor took the remains of his realm and his sun god with him into a self-made Underworld away from the encroaching glacier.

Other than the gate to Ashliege's court guarded by King Gryphon and the Flame of Ehilm, what features do we know about the Underworld abode of the sun?

Does the former Wonderhome get relieved from the presence of Bijiif, or does Yelm's path step out of Time when reaching this far down, creating a permanent bleak day of Death down there?

Does the place experience the passing of Dendara and Lokarnos? (Dendara presumably yes, given the Sky Witches which include Lokarnos.)

[Erol of Backford]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Manarlarvus's Dara Happa under the Dome have been a reflection of burnt-out Wonderhome?

Why not when Yelm died he went down under and the trolls came up to the surface didn't they? Where is that best summarized? Thanks!

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

I think I prefer the idea that they both used to be bird-headed humanoids with now-lost animal bird-brothers.

Or humanoids — primate-alikes — are a poor imitation of the original dinosaurian/avian bipedal body plan?

If you are not a shaved monkey, you might not think in terms of a – polarity.

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Or humanoids — primate-alikes — are a poor imitation of the original dinosaurian/avian bipedal body plan?

If you are not a shaved monkey, you might not think in terms of a – polarity.

There is a rune for the original draconic humanoid - the dragonewt rune. A body plan imitated by the Newtlings, also with a life cycle in different stages, although the details vary strongly. But the dragonewt rune does not include a bird existance. (Not even the demibird.)

I am not entirely clear whether live births or hatching from eggs would make a difference. IIRC, griffins hatch from eggs, while horses definitely don't - no idea about hippogriffs.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

But the dragonewt rune does not include a bird existence.

Birds are just a subset of dinosaurs. How do dragonewts stand in relation to dinosaurs? (OK, there is the Guide, pp. 79 & 80.)

What if horses are not dinosaurs, at all, but related to quadrupedal flying reptiles — pterosaurs — and thus cousins to the crimson bat? Pycnofibres, not feathers.

Edited May 17 by mfbrandi
Guide to Glorantha reference added

[Ynneadwraith]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

There is a rune for the original draconic humanoid - the dragonewt rune.

New dumbest theory. What if the 'man' rune was simply made in imitation of the dragonewt rune (which presumably came first, dragons being as ancient as they are)? We're not made in God's image, we're made in the image of his tadpoles.