Your Dumbest Theory

[Sir_Godspeed]

I hope I don't sound like a dumdumb, but since Broos take the trait of whatever living thing they gestated in, isn't it reasonable to just think the Unicorn Emperor is, well, a unicorn broo? That's always the impression I got. (I'm not going to dip my toes into this discussion deeper, since I find it a bit too semantically focused on what arbitrary label to slap on the fellow, but I'm referring specifically to the unicorn-headed body.)

Edited July 26, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Richard S.]

51 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I hope I don't sound like a dumdumb, but since Broos take the trait of whatever living thing they gestated in, isn't it reasonable to just think the Unicorn Emperor is, well, a unicorn broo? That's always the impression I got. (I'm not going to dip my toes into this discussion deeper, since I find it a bit too semantically focused on what arbitrary label to slap on the fellow, but I'm referring specifically to the unicorn-headed body.)

The problem is that you don't sound like a dumdub! Take your intelligent and reasonable ideas somewhere else 😛

[MJ Sadique]

54 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I hope I don't sound like a dumdumb, but since Broos take the trait of whatever living thing they gestated in, isn't it reasonable to just think the Unicorn Emperor is, well, a unicorn broo? That's always the impression I got.

You're in the only topic where being dumdumb is the objective !!! having Dum & Dumber theory is be the norm around here !

 

My Unicorn broo theory : he was just a horse-broo when he met Danold the Duck who had a unicorn magical spear (regular whale bone sculpted and sold as scam in sartar); Seeing the broo, Danold, like usual, fumble his spear-throwing and the tip get stuck right in the middle of the broo head, knocking him out. After waking up the broo could not get the spear out his head and just get his unicorn nickname, stealing the real Ralzakark fame and throne because Unicorn-broo is way cooler than having a scorpio arms.

[Ian Absentia]

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

These theories need to get dumber. 

The problem with coming up with something dumb is, in no small way, like acting drunk.  You really kind of need to just be drunk.

The classic spelling misread is one of the easiest inroads to dumbness, mistaking one thing as stated for another.  But even that can end up not-dumb, like how for decades I'd be misreading Inspiration of Moonson as Inspiration of Monsoon, which is too delightfully poetic to be dumb.

The contextual misread runs deeper, where you simply misperceive the world in defiance of the writer's clear intent.  I don't know that I have a solid example for Glorantha, but my experience with the World of Darkness (1st/2nd Ed) suggests that the place is predicated on contextual errors.  Maybe the RW-analogue trend of the '90s was a Gloranthan example?  But that's bad-dumb and not fun-dumb.

YGMV isn't "dumb," or at least it shouldn't be (though I've been feeling momentum shifting back in that direction).  Real dumb needs to just happen, though.

!i!

[Eff]

I don't know if you can get dumber for Ralzakark theories than that scorpion-arm and unicorn are just two guys with the same name. 

[Eff]

4 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

The problem with coming up with something dumb is, in no small way, like acting drunk.  You really kind of need to just be drunk.

The classic spelling misread is one of the easiest inroads to dumbness, mistaking one thing as stated for another.  But even that can end up not-dumb, like how for decades I'd be misreading Inspiration of Moonson as Inspiration of Monsoon, which is too delightfully poetic to be dumb.

The contextual misread runs deeper, where you simply misperceive the world in defiance of the writer's clear intent.  I don't know that I have a solid example for Glorantha, but my experience with the World of Darkness (1st/2nd Ed) suggests that the place is predicated on contextual errors.  Maybe the RW-analogue trend of the '90s was a Gloranthan example?  But that's bad-dumb and not fun-dumb.

YGMV isn't "dumb," or at least it shouldn't be (though I've been feeling momentum shifting back in that direction).  Real dumb needs to just happen, though.

!i!

A little disquisition on dumb:

Last December, I wrote a little piece that you can read here: https://eightarmsandthemask.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-good-emperor-phargentes-younger.html

It was inspired by another piece I'd written a little bit earlier where I sat and meditated upon the White Moon Rebellion and on the paradox between the violence and the pacifism, and I drew a historical parallel to the Ikko-ikki and Pure Land Buddhism in Japanese history, and then I posited Phargentes the Younger (being the end of the Lunar Empire's own Sengoku Jidai) as an equivalent to Oda Nobunaga. 

Why Nobunaga and not Toyotomi Hideyoshi or Tokugawa Ieyasu? Well, there's another inspiration here, and it's that one of the other fandoms that I'm peripherally involved in has Oda Nobunaga as a character, with two versions- one is a tiny, gremlinish woman who talks in gamerspeak and dresses in an androgynous military uniform, and the other is a six-foot-plus woman who wears fantasy villain garb and talks like a lesbian's dream. With, and this is critical, red hair and red eyes. I sat there and I 🤔'd, and then my mind put it together. 

So, in order to explain the illustrations (enjoy the alt-text on the second one, by the way, if you do click through), I proposed, tongue buried so firmly in my cheek I think it took most of the next 24 hours to fully extract it, that there was an artistic style wherein the Red Emperor, to denote that he was the son of Sedenya, would be depicted with breasts and hips, and then cracked wise about what it would look like for the old-guy Mask and the ferociously bearded Mask. 

I then sent it to a friend who's on the fringe of Gloranthaphilia. He responded, after reading it, "I thought the Red Emperors were all women doing the Hatshepshut thing and everyone was too humiliated by the fact to be honest in written records." 

And that, I believe, is the serendipity of dumb. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Eff
Corrected my inadvertent failure to capitalize "Mask".

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

A little disquisition on dumb:

Last December, I wrote a little piece that you can read here: https://eightarmsandthemask.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-good-emperor-phargentes-younger.html

It was inspired by another piece I'd written a little bit earlier where I sat and meditated upon the White Moon Rebellion and on the paradox between the violence and the pacifism, and I drew a historical parallel to the Ikko-ikki and Pure Land Buddhism in Japanese history, and then I posited Phargentes the Younger (being the end of the Lunar Empire's own Sengoku Jidai) as an equivalent to Oda Nobunaga. 

Why Nobunaga and not Toyotomi Hideyoshi or Tokugawa Ieyasu? Well, there's another inspiration here, and it's that one of the other fandoms that I'm peripherally involved in has Oda Nobunaga as a character, with two versions- one is a tiny, gremlinish woman who talks in gamerspeak and dresses in an androgynous military uniform, and the other is a six-foot-plus woman who wears fantasy villain garb and talks like a lesbian's dream. With, and this is critical, red hair and red eyes. I sat there and I 🤔'd, and then my mind put it together. 

So, in order to explain the illustrations (enjoy the alt-text on the second one, by the way, if you do click through), I proposed, tongue buried so firmly in my cheek I think it took most of the next 24 hours to fully extract it, that there was an artistic style wherein the Red Emperor, to denote that he was the son of Sedenya, would be depicted with breasts and hips, and then cracked wise about what it would look like for the old-guy Mask and the ferociously bearded Mask. 

I then sent it to a friend who's on the fringe of Gloranthaphilia. He responded, after reading it, "I thought the Red Emperors were all women doing the Hatshepshut thing and everyone was too humiliated by the fact to be honest in written records." 

And that, I believe, is the serendipity of dumb. 

I'm in absolute awe, that's not dumb, that's fucking brilliant

[Ian Absentia]

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I'm in absolute awe, that's not dumb, that's fucking brilliant

See?  Frivolous, but inspired, is not dumb.  Bleeding head good!  Healed head bad!

!i!

Edited July 27, 2020 by Ian Absentia

[Kloster]

On 7/26/2020 at 8:21 PM, MJ Sadique said:

You're in the only topic where being dumdumb is the objective !!! having Dum & Dumber theory is be the norm around here !

 

My Unicorn broo theory : he was just a horse-broo when he met Danold the Duck who had a unicorn magical spear (regular whale bone sculpted and sold as scam in sartar); Seeing the broo, Danold, like usual, fumble his spear-throwing and the tip get stuck right in the middle of the broo head, knocking him out. After waking up the broo could not get the spear out his head and just get his unicorn nickname, stealing the real Ralzakark fame and throne because Unicorn-broo is way cooler than having a scorpio arms.

Oh, somebody else remember Danold.

[Eff]

A theory that feels less and less dumb the more I think about it:

The Crimson Bat does not destroy the souls of those it devours. In a literal application of "We Are All Us", those who are eaten by the Bat become part of the Bat. 

(Only the most Lunatic acolytes of the Bat's cult are willing to proselytize for being eaten by the Bat as a good thing, but many secretly believe it and abnegate themselves as unworthy of such close contact with Sedenya as to become part of Her favored pet and steed.)

[Nevermet]

Depending on some details or one's perspective, that's potentially more terrifying than oblivion.

[Lordabdul]

On 7/30/2020 at 5:47 PM, Eff said:

In a literal application of "We Are All Us", those who are eaten by the Bat become part of the Bat. 

So the Bat becomes bigger and more powerful with every passing season of devouring people?

But here's the catch: the Bat's behaviour, allegiances, and general intelligence is driven by who makes up the Bat. So if you make the Bat devour too many Orlanthi hillbillies, the Bat would effectively become Orlanthi and, err, that's obviously not what the Red Emperor wants. So for every hundred enemies devoured, the Lunars have to feed three hundred of their own people to the Bat to keep things "balanced" in their direction. And maybe a hundred or so Chaotic creatures, just to keep things interesting.

And that's why the Lunars don't just send the Bat everywhere all the time.

[Lordabdul]

Elsewhere I was saying dumb things that might belong here, in particular that Rune Magic is effectively someone casting some magic ahead of time and letting you use it. And that is effectively "Spell Trading On Steroids". And we all know that Spell Trading is an Issaries thing, so Issaries effectively gets a cut on every single worship ceremony in the universe. Most Gods don't even realize this but Issaries is now ten times more powerful than any other deity or entity. He and his cult have been secretly manipulating the history of Glorantha from the shadows, and he might have to put his foot down if the HeroWars get a bit too out of hand.

 

[scott-martin]

24 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Rune Magic is effectively someone casting some magic ahead of time and letting you use it. And that is effectively "Spell Trading On Steroids". And we all know that Spell Trading is an Issaries thing, so Issaries effectively gets a cut on every single worship ceremony in the universe. Most Gods don't even realize this but Issaries is now ten times more powerful than any other deity or entity. He and his cult have been secretly manipulating the history of Glorantha from the shadows, and he might have to put his foot down if the HeroWars get a bit too out of hand.

Yes, I am still waiting for the dumb part.

[Nevermet]

2 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Yes, I am still waiting for the dumb part.

It involves Castelein.  At least for me 🤣

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Yes, I am still waiting for the dumb part.

Issaries caused the illiteracy plague.


Hey, that's still not dumb.

[jajagappa]

10 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Issaries caused the illiteracy plague.

Issaries saw this really, really cool hat that Kyger Litor was wearing (woven by Cragspider herself during one of those decades while she was waiting for someone to actually come by to visit and hear the omens), but he failed his Bargain roll and had to trade away his tongue to get it (figuring that he'd just hire Eurmal to steal it back).  But Kyger Litor ate the tongue instead.  As a consequence the illiteracy plague struck, but Glorantha was blessed with some really, really cool hats to wear.

[John Biles]

The death of both the god of Tradetalk (Issaries) and of Knowledge (Lankhor Mhy) is probably at the root of the illiteracy plague, since they both spread magical literacy.

 

[Nevermet]

I assume there's a dumb theory or two in trying to equate the illiteracy plague and the Cult of Silence?

[soltakss]

37 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

I assume there's a dumb theory or two in trying to equate the illiteracy plague and the Cult of Silence?

Ssssh"

[John Biles]

44 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

I assume there's a dumb theory or two in trying to equate the illiteracy plague and the Cult of Silence?

The Gloranthan equivalent of Depeche Mode's 'Enjoy the Silence' Heroquest got out of hand.

[MC Thorkrim]

The wisest Heroes who can predict what will happen, do not get divinations from the Gods.
They really are mere mortals possessed by powerful Spirits with Knowledge of all ages, present, past and future.
This entities were lured to Glorantha by mad warlocks' fumbled invocations.

And it's probably all Eurmal's fault. 😏

[scott-martin]

The extinct "dragonewt" nation of the Elder Wilds were technically more-or-less flightless birds in communion with Rinliddi and proto-Kralorela. When Nysalor cursed the reptile nations the dragon who ate it lived in the east and that's how they get their scales there.

[MC Thorkrim]

12 hours ago, scott-martin said:

The extinct "dragonewt" nation of the Elder Wilds were technically more-or-less flightless birds in communion with Rinliddi and proto-Kralorela. When Nysalor cursed the reptile nations the dragon who ate it lived in the east and that's how they get their scales there.

- What about the eggs?
- Won't somebody please think of the eggs?!

Alfrid Goodwing, rhetorical durulz 🦆

[MOB]

On 8/5/2020 at 8:03 AM, scott-martin said:

Yes, I am still waiting for the dumb part.

This thread continues to be my favourite thread on BRP like... ever!