Your Dumbest Theory

[mfbrandi]

5 hours ago, Eff said:

The reason Chalana Arroy is Neutral towards the Crimson Bat, it is said, is because the Bat is capable of being healed.

On the face of it, this is a very odd reason: at some time in the future, the Bat god may be healed, so right here, right now the CA cultists should be neutral to the Bat cultists. Huh?

And arguably the Bat cult is the enemy of the Bat, anyway. Surely, it exists to control it and deploy it as a weapon, not to be its BFF. “I am going to take a neutral attitude toward your abuser today, because in the future you may be healed.”

[metcalph]

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

And arguably the Bat cult is the enemy of the Bat, anyway. Surely, it exists to control it and deploy it as a weapon, not to be its BFF. “I am going to take a neutral attitude toward your abuser today, because in the future you may be healed.”

If the ultimate fate of those eaten by the Bat is the highest form of enlightenment then surely the Bat has no need of healing?

[Eff]

9 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

On the face of it, this is a very odd reason: at some time in the future, the Bat god may be healed, so right here, right now the CA cultists should be neutral to the Bat cultists. Huh?

And arguably the Bat cult is the enemy of the Bat, anyway. Surely, it exists to control it and deploy it as a weapon, not to be its BFF. “I am going to take a neutral attitude toward your abuser today, because in the future you may be healed.”

That is an arguable interpretation, but of course other possibilities exist, here in this thread where we can speak idly and casually. I think there's some interesting work that could be done with the Bat being a Hero by boardgame rules. 

But I think that CA-of-Cults-of-Terror probably wouldn't turn Bat cultists away if they needed medical care. Chalana-of-the-recent-incarnations? Who can say? Perhaps she's indifferent to the continuation of existence, or perhaps her cultists are consistent enough to yank IVs out and unplug equipment if they identify a Bat cultist in the ward. 

[mfbrandi]

7 hours ago, metcalph said:

If the ultimate fate of those eaten by the Bat is the highest form of enlightenment then surely the Bat has no need of healing?

Quote

The cult promises nothing about life after death, except that loyal and lucky cultists will be spared the eternal agony of being eaten by the Bat. — CoT, p. 70

Are all forms of being eaten by Chaos the same?

• Kajabor: snuffed out, so arguably the highest form of enlightenment
• Crimson Bat: eternal agony, so sounds more like Hell (and not distinctively Chaotic)
• Krarsht: who knows? maybe mystical union or snuffing out; maybe uploaded and filed for future reference

But if the status of Bat food got retconned into send to /dev/null in pursuit of “all Chaos is the same and it is all bad”, what does that tell us?

[John Biles]

6 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Are all forms of being eaten by Chaos the same?

• Kajabor: snuffed out, so arguably the highest form of enlightenment
• Crimson Bat: eternal agony, so sounds more like Hell (and not distinctively Chaotic)
• Krarsht: who knows? maybe mystical union or snuffing out; maybe uploaded and filed for future reference

But if the status of Bat food got retconned into send to /dev/null in pursuit of “all Chaos is the same and it is all bad”, what does that tell us?

Being eaten by Krarsht means your essence is processed into more Krarshtkids to go eat more people to make more Krarshtkids.

 

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Are all forms of being eaten by Chaos the same?

Eaten is relative...  Gorp will consume whatever they engulf, but is that eating?

 

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

• Kajabor: snuffed out, so arguably the highest form of enlightenment

Sort of... Enlightenment usually means confrontation with the Absolute, which is distinct from Kajabor, found on the opposite end of the Cosmos, even though insights into that may come from meditations of the Void "below" everything.

IMO a true ascension will consume the physical existence through the ascension rather than giving it over to entropy.

Descent into Entropy (whether Kajabor, Wakboth or the threatened (but modified) Blaskarth experience/non-experience of the Red Goddess) deletes not just the current identity, but eliminates the victim from existence past and present (and future).

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

• Crimson Bat: eternal agony, so sounds more like Hell (and not distinctively Chaotic)

A form of ongoing Hell, yes. Outwardly the victims have been claimed by Chaos, even though the process might be ongoing indeterminately for the victims. We don't get any first hand experiences, I suppose - a heroic escape from the Maw of the Bat will send the escapee through Hell, but not into Chaos.

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

• Krarsht: who knows? maybe mystical union or snuffing out; maybe uploaded and filed for future reference

Krarsht may be the most "Eaten" of all these examples. And possibly the most "recoverable" of demises. I would not be astonished if Belintar underwent this once or twice in his career.

 

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

But if the status of Bat food got retconned into send to /dev/null in pursuit of “all Chaos is the same and it is all bad”, what does that tell us?

One possible parallel for souls being eaten by the Bat might be objects ripped apart and "parking" in the accretion disk around a black hole, without any hope of escaping the attraction while still undergoing that destruction. 

[mfbrandi]

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

Krarsht may be the most "Eaten" of all these examples. And possibly the most "recoverable" of demises. I would not be astonished if Belintar underwent this once or twice in his career.

I had in mind the fate of Krarsht worshippers after death.

[mfbrandi]

Quote

I thought Dendara was just a face of Ernalda … But both Ernalda and Dendara stubbornly rejected that. — WoD

“I thought Nysalor was just a face of Gbaji, but both Nysalor and Gbaji stubbornly rejected that.”

“I thought Batman was just a face of Bruce Wayne, but both Batman and Bruce Wayne stubbornly rejected that.”

One person denies wearing many hats, but what evidential weight should we give that? “But it is not one person, it is two!” — If that were already conceded, we wouldn’t need to ask.

[g33k]

5 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

“I thought Nysalor was just a face of Gbaji, but both Nysalor and Gbaji stubbornly rejected that.”

“I thought Batman was just a face of Bruce Wayne, but both Batman and Bruce Wayne stubbornly rejected that.”

One person denies wearing many hats, but what evidential weight should we give that? “But it is not one person, it is two!” — If that were already conceded, we wouldn’t need to ask.

We are all Us, @mfbrandi -- the differences are illusory.



(we are all just going through the process of being digested by the gigantic lozenge-shaped gorp that is Glorantha; not even Sedenya has realized this)

[Erol of Backford]

I keeps becoming relevant.

Orta is sitting on Nysalor's mouth, Speaking Wheel. Where are the other parts hidden and where/what year would one of Arkat's minions have met Orta to give him Speaking Wheel in their inanimate form?

Why weren't the parts of Nysalor thrown into the void? There are a few entrances to the void documented on Glorantha IIRC.

[jajagappa]

4 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Orta is sitting on Nysalor's mouth, Speaking Wheel. Where are the other parts hidden and where/what year would one of Arkat's minions have met Orta to give him Speaking Wheel in their inanimate form?

Assuming that's where you want to place Speaking Wheel (in tool form), why would the place/year matter? It would have been ~1000 years before.

[Erol of Backford]

For the game show, Glorantha in Jeopardy of course - Sun Wheel Dancer Trivia for $200, Jim.

[Erol of Backford]

I do want ideas for the other parts/pieces as to where they were placed. We can rebuild him, we have the technology.

Maybe the Dwarves actually built Nysalor.

[mfbrandi]

15 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Why weren't the parts of Nysalor thrown into the void?

What would this have achieved? If what freaks people out about Nysalor is illumination, would people have ceased to ask and answer the dangerous questions if Nysalor had been more thoroughly destroyed? The genie of illumination is out of the bottle, and it is too late to do anything about that now, no?

Even if we think illumination is dangerous and undesirable, perhaps we need to keep asking questions in a free and unpoliced manner. If we don’t, maybe we will all end up as Gark zombies.

I imagine illumination and the Void (and so Chaos) to be intimately connected — as I am the one imagining it, it is probably stupid, wrong, and far from canon — and I doubt that throwing stuff into the Big Nothing is an effective anti-illumination method. Being extinguished by the Void is illumination, isn’t it?

I wonder also whether the beardy guy hatched from the egg wasn’t a piece of very effective misdirection — not so much the deceiver as the decoy — while we are watching him and wrestling with him, the real work/mischief of illumination is happening elsewhere. Chop him into bits. Chuck him in the memory hole. It makes no difference.

14 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Maybe the Dwarves actually built Nysalor.

Quote

Whatever occurred was quickly healed when Osentalka stepped forth from the glowing area which hung where the miraculous Egg had been. The shell lay about the ground like bits of dwarf stuff and vines. — GtG, p. 717

“And vines” — who project managed that collaboration?

Edited March 8, 2023 by mfbrandi
imagine --> am the one imagining

[hipsterinspace]

58 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

I do want ideas for the other parts/pieces as to where they were placed. We can rebuild him, we have the technology.

Maybe the Dwarves actually built Nysalor.

It's still one of my favorite theories that the 7 Mothers' Quest was actually an extremely dangerous twist on the Lightbringer quest to bring back Nysalor.

[Erol of Backford]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

I imagine illumination and the Void (and so Chaos) to be intimately connected — as I imagine it, it is probably stupid, wrong, and far from canon — and I doubt that throwing stuff into the Big Nothing is an effective anti-illumination method. Being extinguished by the Void is illumination, isn’t it?

We love illumination, always will.

We don't like creating disease, spreading it secretly, killing 1,000's and then suddenly appearing - claiming to have a cure via a new bright god... sounds a lot like the plague mother...

1 hour ago, hipsterinspace said:

It's still one of my favorite theories that the 7 Mothers' Quest was actually an extremely dangerous twist on the Lightbringer quest to bring back Nysalor.

This is nice and would like to run a Hero Quest that directly apposes it, somehow.

Honestly, never played Hero Quest. Does anyone know of a YouTube link that records a session that uses hero points, etc. I'd love to watch or even listen if its only a recording. it never "Dawned" on me until just now to ask this Forum!?

mfbrandi - Vines, webs, shells, what is it all meaning and who for sure...

Edited March 7, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

 

Why weren't the parts of Nysalor thrown into the void? There are a few entrances to the void documented on Glorantha IIRC.

Presumably for the same reason no-one tries to drown a water elemental, or throw a salamander into a volcano.

Worst case is it works, and you realize you were wrong as to which out of Nysalor and Arkat was Gbaji .

Edited March 7, 2023 by radmonger

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I do want ideas for the other parts/pieces as to where they were placed. We can rebuild him, we have the technology.

Maybe the Dwarves actually built Nysalor.

When Nysalor was built in the Broken Council LARP, there were a lot of pieces.  I don't know if anyone would remember how many though (I think it was over twenty though - just walk through a list of key organs and you'll see that it's more than a handful). 

Also, bear in mind that the number of parts that Arkat divided Nysalor does not need to equal the number of parts that went into Nysalor. In fact, much better if they don't as it makes it more difficult to reconstruct him.

The building of Nysalor was a collective effort (again the Broken Council LARP guidebook was very useful to see the range of folk involved). Also remember that it started with an Egg, not a mold or the like, so you have to pass parts into the Egg. 

If you take those who broke away from the effort (dragonewts, trolls, Heortlings), then you're left with those who remained to support the effort.  DH became leaders, but you also have Lokaymadon (and the Talastari Orlanthi), Dorastans, dwarfs, elves (who continued to significantly support Nysalor as a god of light), river cultists (e.g. the Oslir), Telmori (if I remember correctly), and even folk from Ralios. This was a multi-year effort with a lot of magical coordination needed. 

[John Biles]

3 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I do want ideas for the other parts/pieces as to where they were placed. We can rebuild him, we have the technology.

Maybe the Dwarves actually built Nysalor.

This is from my Blue Moon Empire project 

Troll Heresy

The Blue Moon Trolls always had an important place for Annila, the Blue Moon Goddess, unlike most trolls.  The formation of the Empire and the Goddess walking among them and providing a home for many trolls under the islands of her Moon, where the sun cannot touch them, has led the Blue Moon Trolls into full blown heresy.

Trolls initiated to her cult can live comfortably underwater, and the light of the Blue Moon during the day protects them from the Sun.  (Conveniently, the Blue Moon sets when the Sun sets).  They now see Annila as the supreme mother of Trollkind and Kygor Litor as her daughter, while Nysalor is seen as, basically, evil incarnate, too evil even to be eaten.  And Trolls will eat Chaos creatures.

One of the central goals of the cult is to obliterate Nysalor; the deepest enemy of the cult are the Nysalorean Riddlers who show up like outbreaks of plague.  According to cult tradition, Arkat tore off Nysalor's arms and legs, then forced him to eat his own genitals, then chopped his torso into four pieces, then cracked his skull open and ground his brains into powder.  So there are ten pieces of Nysalor, though one piece is powder in a jar.  Unfortunately, he hauled them all off to Stygia and when that fell, the pieces were scattered.

The cult has found five of the pieces and keeps them at hidden, widely separated locations - they have the skull, the upper right piece of the torso, the left arm (found by Sheng Seleris, recovered when he was slain), the brain powder, and the lower left piece of the torso.  The case of Sheng Seleris revealed something horrible - a person missing the appropriate part can graft a chunk of Nysalor to their body and gain some of his power.

Someone bringing a chunk of Nysalor to the Blue Moon Trolls would be greatly rewarded.  

Blue Moon Trolls are not immune to the curse on Trollkind, but those initiated to the Blue Moon only give birth to trollkin in one of three births instead of half the time.  They believe they can end it entirely if they can ever get their hands on all of Nysalor's remains.

[Erol of Backford]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Also, bear in mind that the number of parts that Arkat divided Nysalor does not need to equal the number of parts that went into Nysalor. In fact, much better if they don't as it makes it more difficult to reconstruct him.

I wonder what happen to his blood, seeped into the earth, did it crystalize, burn like acid? What would its properties be? Who might have some as Arkat was too exhausted to actually gather Nysalor's blood... he could barely walk out of the place (Where was it again?).

Just maybe a really large crystal somewhere powered Nysalor... and still does just sayin. (Isn't this a dumb but cool theory?!)

 

2 hours ago, John Biles said:

Someone bringing a chunk of Nysalor to the Blue Moon Trolls would be greatly rewarded.  

All the PC's have to do is get Orta to stand up and take Speaking Wheel from under where his butt was and they'll be richly rewarded by trolls?! What's the catch here?

[John Biles]

15 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

I wonder what happen to his blood, seeped into the earth, did it crystalize, burn like acid? What would its properties be? Who might have some as Arkat was too exhausted to actually gather Nysalor's blood... he could barely walk out of the place (Where was it again?).

The blood is in Dorastor, so it likely is now part of a Chaos monster.

15 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Just maybe a really large crystal somewhere powered Nysalor... and still does just sayin. (Isn't this a dumb but cool theory?!)

 

All the PC's have to do is get Orta to stand up and take Speaking Wheel from under where his butt was and they'll be richly rewarded by trolls?! What's the catch here?

 

And I'm sure that hauling a piece of a dead god who corrupted people and died in Dorastor will be 100% safe and fun!  Certainly no angry Arkati or other lunatics would want to take it themselves.

[Erol of Backford]

5 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Honestly, never played Hero Quest. Does anyone know of a YouTube link that records a session that uses hero points, etc. I'd love to watch or even listen if its only a recording. it never "Dawned" on me until just now to ask this Forum!?

Is there a good source for a sample of Hero Quest play recorded on YouTube?

 

Also why not rebuild Nysalor, the PC's may actually be rebuilding Arkat IIRC?

These faces could all be the same just at different times of the same life:

  

Edited March 8, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[Garry]

The Zorak Zoran participant in Kargzant's hill of gold so throughly beat the fire (and light) out of him, that even Kyger Litor took pity on him.  He returned the favour by becoming a role-model for Troll warrior-males. [Karg zant -> Karrg's Son]  This is why male light sons may never disguise themselves as females

[mfbrandi]

13 hours ago, radmonger said:

Worst case is it works, and you realize you were wrong as to which out of Nysalor and Arkat was Gbaji

Although I suspect that if Arkat and Nysalor are not in fact one person, they are so similar that feeding Arkat to the Void would be similarly ineffective.

[mfbrandi]

Forget the ‘snake ladies’, the authorial sneering at the monotheistic westerners and dwarves, and the supposed Indo-European polytheism — they are all snow. While reading Antony Black this morning, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Orlanthi are the spiritual descendants of the ancient Israelites (or Black’s version of them).

I suspect others have long had this feeling, and some have spoken it openly. Is this part of the appeal for some — a polytheism palatable to those from the Jewish/Christian/Islamic tradition (including some atheists)? A source of disquiet to others — lacking the ‘gods are the enemy’ feel of Greece and Sumer?

Spoiler

Quote

[G]roups of Palestinian peasants and city-dwellers became disaffected with their overlords and with the class system of the cities. They established a new confederacy of tribes with an informal military leadership … Such a process of ‘retribalization’ was highly unusual. And indeed Israel presents the only instance in the ancient world of an articulate, self-conscious tribalism. — p. 47

Even if the Orlanthi didn’t undergo retribalization, perhaps this is the experience of the player “becoming” Orlanthi.

 

Quote

[T]here was also a covenant between Joshua and the people, to the effect that they would ‘banish the foreign gods’ and worship Yahweh alone — p. 50

Death to Yelm and Sedenya!

 

Quote

There was no distinction between crime and sin, since everything in the law was the command of Yahweh. — p. 51

The obsession with the corrupting force of Chaos as the preoccupation with sin — sin which is not merely forbidden by some mortal legislator’s whim but by the infallible divine. Pushing it too far?

 

Quote

[L]aw, religious observance, and literacy all made the Jews in some ways more ‘democratic’, in some ways more conservative, than other peoples. — p.53

[No comment.]

 

Quote

They would have a super-leader: someone would come from the old royal house, a ‘Messiah’, who would possess in his own person all the qualities of the ideal just king that had been so lacking in their experience of actual kings — p. 61

So softened up for whichever Argraths wander into shot.

 

———————————————————————————

All quotes from Antony Black’s A World History of Ancient Political Thought — Its Significance and Consequences

Edited March 8, 2023 by mfbrandi
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