Your Dumbest Theory

[scott-martin]

I have been told that Kralorelan sorcery is "unusual" in that it builds on the negative spaces around the runes or, in variant schools, the transitional processes that transform one rune into another. In this model, both "Glorantha" and consciousness conjugate like verbs and compound multi-rune forms are possible, but only lunar technicians really care. (They hate it.)

For most monomyth types the main point of intersection the character sheet on is the binary powers (either/or) with the elemental cycle being seen as more environmental, transitory and in general secondary. The parallels to what we think we understand about dragonewt magic are obvious.

Edited April 15, 2021 by scott-martin

[Sir_Godspeed]

39 minutes ago, Darius West said:

There are a few different types of giants.  Giants with the disorder rune are only one sort, and they tend to be smaller and more active than some of the others.  Flipping the matter on its head the way you have done is an interesting approach though Ladygolem.  It is quite possible that the disorder giants of today are echoes of the likes of Genert and Tada, who battled Chaos and lost, or have been infected by the trickster's approach to life.

Stupid Theory Time:
The "Disorder" giants are neotenous forms of "True" Giants. For some reason or another, they are left forever stunted and immature, unable, largely, to grow up and become the (mostly) sessile adult forms.

[Darius West]

25 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Stupid Theory Time:
The "Disorder" giants are neotenous forms of "True" Giants. For some reason or another, they are left forever stunted and immature, unable, largely, to grow up and become the (mostly) sessile adult forms.

Agreed.  The issue is really why they are as they are, and where they come from.  One would assume there are disorder giantesses in the Rockwoods birthing the disorder giants.  I wonder what they eat?

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Agreed.  The issue is really why they are as they are, and where they come from.  One would assume there are disorder giantesses in the Rockwoods birthing the disorder giants.  I wonder what they eat?

Even stupider theory: Giant-Mountains effectively act like barnacles, sending out reproductive material to mate with another, however it needs to be done. For whatever reason, this process has been messed up, and so the reproductive material is never properly fertilized, so the Giant Mountains are essentially just budding unfertilized, neotenous forms. 

The neotenous, immature form is simply more disorderly (moving around is a symptom of that) than the adult forms. 

This might explain(?) why we don't see "giantesses" or mother giants around. It's not that all giants are male or anything, it's just that none of them are really sexually mature, and are incapable of reproducing on their own. They're like big toddlers roaming about.

[Hijabg]

Even stupider than that: Giants ARE spermatozoa. They are the reproductive cells sent by giant-mountains.

They follow the River of Cradles until they reach Magasta's Pool, going down into Glorantha's womb.

This would also explain why there are no giantesses: reproductive cells by themselves are sexless, and I would be tempted to say the same about giants. Spermatozoa are the perfect example of something that is clearly associated with masculinity without it being male in and by itself.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Hijabg said:

Even stupider than that: Giants ARE spermatozoa. They are the reproductive cells sent by giant-mountains.

Now I can’t remember the name of the SF story I read long ago that was essentially this for a semi-human race.

[Nevermet]

Dumb theory from another thread: Lodril is Ganesatarus.  Here's my post:

20 hours ago, Nevermet said:

That's pretty much my thinking.  Just as Yelm can be broken into a myriad of component deities, so can Lodril / Turos.  There's Turos, ChekTuros, ErskiTuros, DedaddiTuros, HerraTuros, KetTuros... and GanesTuros,

 

GanestTuros is the Turos of the Gan Hills that create the Northern border of Spol.  He is the Turos who is the Shadow of Idovanus.  He is the Turos who Gives and Takes, the completely bitter bastard left over after being imprisoned and enslaved by apparently half the cosmos, who eventually just goes Fuck It and tries to take over after becoming an illuminated black dragon.

 

This is me, btw, at my most absurd and unhinged.  I will make no attempt to defend this silliness.

 

 

First, this is a Spolite argument.  Spolitism is a complicated religious tradition that was, as far as I can tell, a re-engineering of Pelandan myth at the end of the First Age where the forces of Darkness and the Underworld were marshalled together to defeat the Dara Happans and other post-Nysaloran religions based on Sky / Fire.  IMG, Spolitism is a religion that is deeply grounded in propitiating dark and powerful beings in the world, and also acknowledging the power of the Underworld and the inevitable goal of everyone and everything.  It knows how to appease Resentful Deities.  Gerra knows suffering, Natha demands human sacrifices according to the Old Ways, and Ganestoros is the God who Gives & Takes.

 

Name

I can imagine the same deity being named both “Turos” and "Estoro" (YarGan's name for him).  "Ganestoro” is just “Estoro” with “Gan" as a prefix, like the many prefixes Turos gets in Pelanda.

The Gan Hills are a border between Spol, Eol, and Erigia in the 3^rd Age.  In the 1^st Age, they would have been the edge Spol.  So, we’re talking about the Turos of Gan Hills when we are talking about Ganestoro.  "Ganesaturus" is apparently a name of Carmanian origin, or possibly a Dara Happen version of “Ganestoro.”

 

Earth not Underworld

According to the Guide, Enneserah in Fronela worships “Ganestos” as the patron deity of miners, as he stole secrets from Dwarves.  According to the Entekosiad, Estoro lives underground and his voice is heard through cracks in cave walls.  Additionally, he can appear in smoke from a firepit, as evidenced from the Entekosiad story of Purendi. 

So, Ganestoro is associated with being below ground, but there are no references to him and the Underworld.  He is associated with earth and smoke (but not directly fire).

 

Personality

Ganestoro is the God who Gives and Takes.  He is an enemy God because, frankly, he’s completely unregulated.  He does what he wants, how he wants.  His vengeance is disproportionate. He is greedy and takes all the animals and grain for himself. 

Turos is the God of Power.  Not justice, not balance, not wisdom… but power.  He does a lot, and not all of it is well thought out.  He sees the divine flower of heaven, desires it, and plucks it without knowing how to keep it alive.

Lodril is infamously the brother of Yelm who, euphemistically, lacks impulse control.  Put bluntly, Lodril is a violent rapist whose desires and emotions get him in trouble.

…These sound awfully similar to me.

 

The Aspects of Lodril / Turos.

GanEstoro is the “lower” Turos/Lodril.  Where Yelm disintegrated and Bijiif waited in ashes, Ganestoro, the extinguished Lodril, the Black Turos, was capriciousness for its own sake.  Ganestoro did not take to please himself, he took to hurt others.  While Turos slept (enslaved by Argan Argar and others), GanEstos sat upon is black, extinguished volcano and took.

 

How Does Idovanus Fit Into This?

According to GRoY’s description of Carmanian mythology, Idovanus & Ganesatarus are brothers, and Yelm is the eye of Idovanus that fell to earth. Ganesaturus, a great black dragon, was destroyed by Idovanus, save for 1 piece that fell to earth as an insect, and which regrew into Ganesatarus.

And so I say to you: Yelm threw his brother Lodril out of heaven for his desires, an act that both punished him and gave him over to his desires even more.  He was the Free Father, until other deities and enslaved him.  He gave comfort to the Kachisti, and Zzabur punished him.  Eventually, his fires grew low and he knew hate.  And GanEstoro was reborn.

[Monty Lovering]

On 6/8/2020 at 7:48 PM, pachristian said:

Also:

Genertela is actually post-holocaust North America. All that business about it being a flat world is just "we present it this way in publications because that's what your characters believe". 

I vacillate between the cosmology and mythology being just as scientifically accurate as it was in the Bronze Age world (it’s a world mundane as ours but with the addition of magic, a real after life, and the ability of people to be apotheosised by gaining vast magical power), and Glorantha being a computer simulation of such advanced scale the background characters are self-aware. And it’s only gods and hero’s who are ‘real’, albeit 12 year olds playing online from Milwaukee. 
 

I’ve just got in my mind this grand reveal after a five year long campaign where they gain access to some kind of feed in the Clanking Ruins where they can see the webcam feeds of actual players...

[Eff]

On 4/15/2021 at 10:26 AM, scott-martin said:

I have been told that Kralorelan sorcery is "unusual" in that it builds on the negative spaces around the runes or, in variant schools, the transitional processes that transform one rune into another. In this model, both "Glorantha" and consciousness conjugate like verbs and compound multi-rune forms are possible, but only lunar technicians really care. (They hate it.)

For most monomyth types the main point of intersection the character sheet on is the binary powers (either/or) with the elemental cycle being seen as more environmental, transitory and in general secondary. The parallels to what we think we understand about dragonewt magic are obvious.

Wu Xing over elements. This is suggestive. Perhaps we have a way to conceptualize "Metal" clearly in this, and construct an alchemy...

[Joerg]

41 minutes ago, Eff said:

Wu Xing over elements. This is suggestive. Perhaps we have a way to conceptualize "Metal" clearly in this, and construct an alchemy...

Metal is the Made form of the elements. It should be a form rune, alongside Beast and Plant. HeroQuest 1 called it "Mineral" and extended the concept to crystals and any non-living, somewhat solid or at least manually tangible stuff (with one metal and possibly a few "minerals" being liquid, and possibly some vapors or smokes or other such aerosols eligible as having a mineral nature, too).

While we can show the elements in a plane, I think that forms like plant, beast, spirit, or mineral would be properties orthogonal to that plane, and maybe not diametrically opposed, but at least opposed to one another.

An alchemical system might still project such a duality or ternality onto the same plane as the elements.

[svensson]

On 6/7/2020 at 6:50 PM, scott-martin said:

I know I've come up with some whoppers over the years but tonight I can no longer shake the suspicion that the whole Third Age cult around "heroes" is actually rooted in a faulty transmission of the archaic "horal" ethos. 

What convictions do YOU have that you recognize are ridiculous but love them anyway?

I believe that Pete Carroll thew away a Super Bowl so he wouldn't have to pay Marshawn Lynch 'Super Bowl winning touchdown' money.

And I will go to my Seahawks-loving grave believing that. 😉😁🤣

Edited April 27, 2021 by svensson

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, svensson said:

And I will go to my Seahawks-loving grave believing that.

I think Greg would have really loved this. Well played!

As for Eastern Sorcery, it would be good to explore all this in parallel to a Western exploration. Some recent thoughts on the form runes that might not be so dumb after all. For all I know Form is one of their core modes over there, taking over for the elements . . . but specialists will say yes or no.

[svensson]

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I think Greg would have really loved this. Well played!

Thank you. I hope so.

I've been a Seahawk fan for 45 years... since 1976. And there have been more bad seasons than good ones, believe me. Being an open Seahawks fan in a US Army barracks in 1983... for as much crap as I took, I might as well have told everybody I gay! 🤣🤣😂

PS: To the two people who PM'd me about the 'gay' comment...

Take a breath and think a minute. In a US Army barracks before the era of 'don't ask, don't tell', being called any pejorative that that implied homosexual activity was an instant fight. And those pejoratives were flung around with casual malice. Think of it as a high school locker room with less sleep, more stress, and access to firearms. That is the sense in which I use the term, not any homophobia.

Edited April 27, 2021 by svensson

[scott-martin]

3 hours ago, svensson said:

an open Seahawks fan

Those were primitive days. Gay gamers, Seahawks fans and others have taken us so far over the decades and there's still so far to go. Now even my sister is a Seahawks fan . . . I wouldn't be surprised to see ospreys as totemic hunting companions when we find the Helerite nation, it's a Navy thing.

[svensson]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Those were primitive days. Gay gamers, Seahawks fans and others have taken us so far over the decades and there's still so far to go. Now even my sister is a Seahawks fan . . . I wouldn't be surprised to see ospreys as totemic hunting companions when we find the Helerite nation, it's a Navy thing.

So, I'm a Civil War reenactor in my mid 50's. You'd be surprised at all the youngsters [say, folks under 30] who act like 'it's always been this way'. And when I disagree with them, they hit me with their patented 'OK, boomer' look. The nice thing about being a historian is that when I start out the lecture on 'You Didn't Pay Attention In History Class, Did You' I can square them up chapter and verse. The lecture starts with 'I was born the year after Kennedy was shot. When I was 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot....' and then I go down the list all the positive societal grown the US has experienced in just my lifetime. And note, I hit all the issues... race, gender, sexuality, politics, the whole crap-tacular. Mind you, I don't portray us as having finished that work. But I do point out that we've come a Hell of a long way.

But what do I know? I'm just a Middle Aged White Male Veteran, which apparently means 'fascist' nowadays.

[scott-martin]

Before the Council Broke, the orlanthite tribes bred freely with people we would now classify as trolls. Traces of this can be found in old pelorian lexicography as well as the original situation of the OOO. It's also an undercurrent in Black Arkat.

This is how to repair the curse of kin but nobody polite likes to think about it.

[jajagappa]

14 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Before the Council Broke, the orlanthite tribes bred freely with people we would now classify as trolls. Traces of this can be found in old pelorian lexicography as well as the original situation of the OOO. It's also an undercurrent in Black Arkat.

This is how to repair the curse of kin but nobody polite likes to think about it.

Go Kitori!

(Of course, there's an older tradition of such commingling in Esrolia: Norinel and Kimantor.  What secrets are kept by the Queens of Nochet?  Will Samastina seek out a troll lover?)

[Ali the Helering]

56 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Go Kitori!

(Of course, there's an older tradition of such commingling in Esrolia: Norinel and Kimantor.  What secrets are kept by the Queens of Nochet?  Will Samastina seek out a troll lover?)

Is Samastina a descendent of the OOO, and do the Uz already perceive her as one of their own?

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

Before the Council Broke, the orlanthite tribes bred freely with people we would now classify as trolls. Traces of this can be found in old pelorian lexicography as well as the original situation of the OOO. It's also an undercurrent in Black Arkat.

This is how to repair the curse of kin but nobody polite likes to think about it.

I talked to Greg about that when the Kitori reveals came out. At that time, the answer was that Kitori-born children wouldn't be Uz, but that something else, even if their natural form was that of trolls. Possibly more useful to have as offspring for an uz matriarch than a great troll or (KL forbid) enlo, but not a lineage that would perpetuate her uz-ness.

But then, a Kitori born troll might be able to undergo the ritual of adoption with a lot less pain and risk of becoming a special type of troll pickle when undergoing it from troll shape. Question is whether that individual would be a valid descendant of the uz mother adopting the individual, or the start of a new, unrelated lineage pulled directly from the Hell Mother. If a superior trollkin undergoing that ritual remains a child of the mother that birthed the individual, then a Kitori child might, too. On the other hand, the enlo (whether superior or not) always has been a descendant of both the mother and the Hell Mother.

 

I wouldn't really start looking at human descendants from Kitori individuals. Look at the Torkani for instance - even those adhering to Argan Argar don't usually acquire the Kitori powers.

 

Pulling in the Ergeshi population of Sun Dome County might provide willing test subjects. How strong is that curse that keeps them from attempting to follow their ancestral magic?

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

Go Kitori!

(Of course, there's an older tradition of such commingling in Esrolia: Norinel and Kimantor.  What secrets are kept by the Queens of Nochet?  Will Samastina seek out a troll lover?)

Mythically, she might wish to seek a Kitori lover. The Norinel story has Kimantor wearing his lead mask any time except in darkness, when her other senses told her that what she held in her arms was pleasing. So a suitor of unsure gestalt, a leader of trolls and possibly of Darkness shape-shifting other lesser copies of the Only Old One might be enough for Samastina's needs.

Problem is that a male's offspring doesn't mean that much in uz society, even less than in Esrolian society. Sure, Gash and Gore did found tribes in Dagori Inkarth, and are venerated as ancestors, but in the end, it was their spouses who perpetuated themselves in those tribes.

 

The uz solution to the Curse of Kin appears to be to abandon the entire Uzko continuation of their lineages and to start with new lineages of a less defective lesser offspring. The Uzko would be allowed to peter out in Enloism and then become unviable, but the remaining Mistress Race ancestresses of those will still have been strengthened, and the new type will be able to make up for the worshipers lost to the Curse of Kin over time. In the mean time, the dark trolls have become almost as expendable as the Enlo or the Cave Trolls.

[scott-martin]

Thanks to you guys I know now why the Swarm moved from west to east (to incorporate non-“troll” dark lines on the paternal side similar to “dehori” input into other mistress projects) but more on that anon. Unless of course Samastina enthusiasts want to pick this up…!

[Nevermet]

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

This is how to repair the curse of kin but nobody polite likes to think about it.

I love this.

I'm... unsure I can organize a game around it, but I love it.

[Nevermet]

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Thanks to you guys I know now why the Swarm moved from west to east (to incorporate non-“troll” dark lines on the paternal side similar to “dehori” input into other mistress projects) but more on that anon. Unless of course Samastina enthusiasts want to pick this up…!

This is relevant to my dumb theories and ridiculous interests.

[dumuzid]

On 5/18/2021 at 2:36 PM, Joerg said:

The uz solution to the Curse of Kin

 

On 5/18/2021 at 12:44 PM, jajagappa said:

Norinel and Kimantor

The last time I was on the player side of RQG I tried to work the problem in the first quote from the position of the second quote.  While playing an Argan Argar dark troll who was more or less consciously emulating OOO from the end of Dark Season 1626 onward (pulled together a Unity Army to drive Chaos from a ruined settlement, married a human Earth priestess, became the founding king of a Darkness+Earth+Harmony-centered society, etc.), I began a side project of attempting to fight the Curse of Kin using the intercession of Earth powers.  I tried this in two ways, with two separate results.

The character's human wife was a Gamari priestess from the Grazelands.  Their wedding was officiated by the Feathered Horse Queen, in a Great Temple to Ernalda, in the presence of an Ernaldan artifact from the God Time--essentially, stacking Fertility blessing upon Fertility blessing, in the hopes of making an uz-human union reproductively viable even in the full light of the Third Age.  The result was rather more than he could've anticipated: the priestess bore twins, one a human boy, and the other a female uzuz.  You can imagine the impact that had on the troll element of his community, to say nothing of the Grazelander in-laws.

He was emboldened by that success to attempt something more long-term, with the collaboration of a Xiola Umbar nurse.  He worked out a plan for the most senior enlo black badge of the settlement to choose a single, permanent mate, to be married in the same major Earth Temple under the Ernaldan rites, in the presence of the same artifact, with the expectation that both enlo would abide strictly by the conditions and obligations agreed to in the ceremony.  The couple successfully abided by all of it, and though their union did not produce dark trolls, it did uniformly and healthily produce superior trollkin.  While not the intended result, this too was considered a success, for the following reason:

As a condition of accepting the kingship of his new settlement, this troll had extracted a particular promise from the Kyger Litor establishment of its founding trolls.  Enlo worshiping Argan Argar and Humakt played a crucial role in triumphing over Chaos and founding the settlement.  To repay them, my character got the Kyger Litor females to swear that they would recognize the enlo of the settlement as trolls.  They did not make the oath without some grumbling, and would not have sworn if my character had not recently performed great pieties on behalf of the Hellmother--but he had, so they did, and each enlo who settled in the new town was reckoned an uz magically and socially.  If the enlo of the community could reliably reproduce healthily, and each was both an uz and a full member of the community (i.e., not a downtrodden slave), then the community's number of hale, capable uz citizens was bound to balloon over the years.

The game concluded before it could explore these possibilities too deply, in Fire Season 1628 I think, but at its close my character's long-term hope was to call on the intercession of Ernalda as a sort of cosmic midwife to allow both dark trolls and trollkin to reliably reproduce healthy offspring, of their own or other kinds of troll.  I haven't played out his adventures in the later years of the Hero Wars, but I'd like to think that in some far off Glorantha he sees some further success in the struggle with the Curse.

[Sir_Godspeed]

Overly convoluted theory for why Brithini and Mostali do not believe in an existence after death:

The reason why the Brithini ands Mostali reject notions of an afterlife is not because they are somehow ignorant of afterlives, but because they regard those as empirically limited as well.

As far as they view it, fully "sentient" ancestor spirits requires some form of remembrance (typically sacrifice and ritual contacting) by the living, meaning that theistic and animist afterlives are effectively subject to some kind of half-life (as they are inevitably forgotten as generations of the living pass on), where they almost inevitably turn into faceless, amnesiac, generic spirits as time passes on, a component voice of the overall collective choir of "ancestors".

The other option to retain individuality forever is to fully submit and partially be absorbed into the identity of a god (ie. herodom), which is also not desireable to them. 

The question is exactly when they got this impression, presumably after Death was brought to the Surface World, but given that the afterlives were still not entirely separated until the Compromise, it might have been hard to suss out the exact mechanics of it.