Your Dumbest Theory

[scott-martin]

Karrg Son is clearly a corruption of Kargzant from when the digijelm (itself a linguistic clue) who formerly rode alongside the more classically solar nomads lost their war and were forced underground when their ritual meal fell from favor.

The system of those forced underground is now called "trolls."

[mfbrandi]

26 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

the digijelm (itself a linguistic clue) who formerly rode alongside the more classically solar nomads lost their war and were forced underground

What did they ride? We have given the scarab some time in the spotlight, so maybe …

With these underground–overground cycles, how do we know which was the initial phase? I asked Ethilrist about his “horses” but he was uncharacteristically unforthcoming when I pushed for a cladogram. I expected a multi-volume work and hard-to-prove claims about “latterly solarised” equines. He is hiding something.

[scott-martin]

1 minute ago, mfbrandi said:

What did they ride? We have given the scarab some time in the spotlight, so maybe …

It is true, I've occasionally wondered where and when the Gorakiki Complex gets folded in with the rest of the "troll gods" under the nose of the modern ancestral cult of the Mistresses. Why not the great steppe, somewhere between Koromandol and the Glacier on one side and prehistoric Dara Happa on the other?  Then after the collapse of the political entity we could call the "Karrg Zondt" the insect totems only persist in isolated family cults who play specialized economic roles . . . and in fragmentary practices embedded elsewhere.

I think these Night Riders would have had a more complicated relationship with the bugs than the modern lycanthropic "hsunchen" cult, something more like a survival covenant assigning clear roles for eaters and eaten, riders and ridden. Modern bugs derive from those who were primarily eaten and ridden. Modern trolls were the eaters and the riders . . . the "takers," if you like. Those looking for horrific insight only need to observe the essential role of pollinator figures in "grower" societies to understand the lost magical ecosystem of what becomes the Elder Wilds.

Not all of the ridden need to have been bugs and not all of the eaters need to have been bipedal. The morocanth came from somewhere. 

Modern Karrg Son does not preserve the secrets of riding or insecticulture, having given all that up in its assimilation into the way of the mistresses. Likewise, I think this mostly died out in Pent where different aspects of "Dark" or "Little" Son survived in troll as well as human religion . . . leaving Yolp as the most likely place in Genertela where Big Bug Rider survives.

As for Ethilrist, King Griffin in his original state must have been pretty weird looking with that beak and those claws and the buzzing prismatic wings . . . maybe the original Proto Palbarite wasn't "eagle" lion so much as "ant" lion. All the oldest temple carvings I've seen from out there are severely mutilated and/or unconvincingly reconstructed.

Of course different "birds" would have made it to Rinliddi and that iconography has its own historical tale to tell. 


 

[Joerg]

@scott-martin So are your Gorakiki trolls more the equivalent of Praxian Beast RIders or Pure Horse Pentans than ersatz insect-Hsunchen? Gorakiki the overall herd mother, the aspects the different beast tribes with their two-legged sibling/companions?

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

So are your Gorakiki trolls more the equivalent of Praxian Beast RIders or Pure Horse Pentans than ersatz insect-Hsunchen? Gorakiki the overall herd mother, the aspects the different beast tribes with their two-legged sibling/companions?

As long as we're running with a "Night Ancestors Hypothesis," then yes, I think this Pentan digijelm culture would have been the inverse of the Pure Horse, drawing on darkness shamanism instead of the solar religion that dominates the steppe today . . . insect tamers, insect herders and insect riders with their own version of Griffon. These "dark horses" might have been part of the Jenarong system, the sinister Flesheaters who were dominant early on. A few might survive inside Alkoth but I would hate to speculate about that.

Either way, this would have been reminiscent of a conventional modern nomad symbolic economy filled out with participants drawn from what we now consider "troll" pastoralism: Kargzant for a kind of mounted independent Karrg Son priest warrior who rode within the tribes to enforce their version of the tithe and the cut. If this culture ever existed at all, it would have been wiped out in the Dawn Age (possibly as the local equivalent of the "light" bringing or literal "dawn" over "dark") leaving only fragmentary traces:

* Karrg Son adopted into the Kyger Litor establishment (lacks riding, bugs, all overt hell sun symbolism)
* modern "lycanthropic" Gorakiki (acolytes split between breed and ride but all other levels favor breed)
* Aranea (technically lycanthropic but in the service of Cliffhome)
* Black Sun (retains hell sun "digi yelm" outlook, possibly the purest surviving form but lacks riding, bugs)
* Morocanth (secret origins)
* Rinliddi (hypothetical at this stage: "night bird" or "bat" cults)
* Alkoth
* Kitori (for those into that)
* Ouranekki (once called "Gora Neki")
* Black "Horse" 
* Three Curious Spirits (needs more work but see below)
* Vale of Flowers and other vestigial "giant" ecologies (big bugs, big blooms)

* TROLLBALL. The more I think about this, the more likely it is that the main adoption gift Karg Zondt brought to modern troll civilization was the game of the Running Field of Forbidden Sport, which requires giant participation to use the entire rule set. This would have originally been a mounted game like polo for the Dark Riders who had easy access to giant bugs. At some stage it might have developed fixed ritual "night" and "light" teams that survive elsewhere as the seasonal kingship contest, with the victorious team winning the prize of living until another season. As the digijelm are pushed out of Pent this gradually becomes a struggle between rival solar factions, two sons of "Yelm." In the OOO system a version persists in the seasonal bride contest (initially shadow and fire, soon expanding to support other elemental claimants but no longer actively "trollish" at that stage). And in Ignorance you have the blood games.

If I were gambling I would say this is the mythic underpinning of the Shadows Dance game as well.

Edited December 5, 2023 by scott-martin
tapir people but i'm lying about the ouranekki board

[scott-martin]

If you ever get access to the Ourania cloisters there's always an archaic idol of the goddess carved or chewed from some soft black stone. I'm told this is the "third wink" or "eyes wide shut" aspect in their meditative work, where "Ou" rania becomes "Glo" rania or even "Gorarania." The common design feature is too many arms, as though the night sky is a web and she is traversing the strands. But this is never shared with outsiders, you really need to push to get that part or else burn a few blue divination points.

[scott-martin]

"Zo"ria is Zorak Zoran identified with the goddess of love. This has wild ramifications.

[Joerg]

Kargan Tor appears to have fragmented or split up like in crystal refraction into multiple entities as Death was removed from Subere's Vault and applied to Grandfather Mortal. Hence we have Kargzant Lightfore, Karrg Litor,  Vivamort (Kargan Tor derelicting on his post on the Spike - an accurate description for the guardian of Subere's Vault going AWOL), and of course Humakt.

The copying and multiplying of Death in the Sword Story is another clue towards this.

[svensson]

I believe that if I could figure out how to make 'Pumpkin Spiced White Zinfandel' wine in a box, I could sell that shit on the corner like meth.

"Wussup, bruh? Ol' lady all pissed off again? Did she go full 'Karen' are ya? I gots whachu need, bruh! Couple shots of this and she'll be fine!"

Edited December 5, 2023 by svensson

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

"Zo"ria is Zorak Zoran identified with the goddess of love.

Lingam and Yoni are one? Uncle ZZ, the erotic ascetic.

ZZ is the womb in which Aether grew: Aether is the yogic heat of his austerities.

(Probably, you didn’t mean anything like this, but it — and the unreformed sinners/social parasites saved by Shiva — were running through my head.)

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Not all of the ridden need to have been bugs and not all of the eaters need to have been bipedal.

Indeed, and I wouldn’t take the recapitulation of Waha’s way as a given.

Perhaps the ridden are also eaters of flesh. Perhaps riders and ridden have a “difficult” relationship — maybe the ridden lay their eggs in the riders, but the advantages of riding make it a fair trade. (See Octavia Butler on “paying the rent“ — it makes the riders something other than free riders.) “Being mounted” cuts both ways.

At the opposite pole from lying Wahaism, isn’t it canon that the “ridden” of the Black Horse Troop ride their riders?

[mfbrandi]

We have become oh-so-used to the idea of Gloranthans marking themselves with meaningful signs for magical purposes. We see another runic tattoo or mehndi, sigh, and roll our eyes. But here on Earth, talismanic writing may be illegible — “meaningless” — (in religion/magic ancient and modern and in modern art), and this is embraced by hardcore Gloranthan Void cultists. The greatest power lies in empty signs … or so they claim.

This really annoys fusty old sorcerers — survivors of the age-ending purge of the experimentalist “whatever works” faction° — and to add to their irritation, young sorcery-curious types are beginning to wonder whether a soupçon of mystical Dada mightn’t make a little knowledge go a lot Furthur. What could possibly go wrong?

Those making free with and are just trying to scandalise the “respectable” classes — don’t worry about them. Even Ø itself is not a magical sign. When you find scrolls filled with illegible “runes” or hear ritual incantations sounding for all the world like Hugo Ball — gadjama tuffm i zimzalla binban gligla wowolimai bin beri ban — then you know that Nothing is afoot.

—————————————————————————
° The logicians, of course, said nowt. Martin Niemöller? They never heard of the guy.

[scott-martin]

47 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

The boogie woogie is built up from barbarous incantations. This reminded me of one of my favorite grimoires. What does it mean? I've never bothered to look up each syllable separately much less do the math . . . but I'm told (and I believe) that it's the language of the dead.

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by scott-martin

[mfbrandi]

As long as we can touch the God Time, the Gods War is not over, creation is ongoing, and true history is a mere glint in our collective eye. Consequently, the Hero Wars are never that far from primordial Chaos, all runes conspire to the condition of taijitu, and Mostali culture has oh-so-heretical visions of Harrek, the primordial giant who creates by destroying: Umath → Uthma → Utμma → Utuma.

• I have seen him as a shaggy, dwarfish Hercules, developing from a bear rather than an ape, and wielding an immense hammer and chisel with which he is breaking the chaotic rocks.
  — James Legge
  — The Religions of China: Confucianism and Tâoism Described and Compared with Christianity (p. 168)

Edited December 12, 2023 by mfbrandi

[Akhôrahil]

"Assisted Utuma" is what you say when someone kills someone you like and you don't want to give them credit. "Nope, just Assisted Utuma, you were merely a cog in the ultimate plan!"

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

On 12/12/2023 at 12:48 AM, Ian_W said:

Orlanth’s horses Crisis and Rage

These are two magical steeds owned by Mastakos, and may or may not be actual sky creature horses.

I suggested goats. Our lord and master denied it. But here — deep in the paranoiac’s hall of mirrors reflecting all the might-have-been Gloranthas — we can present the alternative facts.

Orlanth’s chariot is pulled by two of his kin (one by marriage), their horns poking through their anonymizing gimp masks. Careful not to call them by their true names, as he cracks his whip, the Big O cries, “On Grindr! On Tinder!”

It was being eaten every night — hence their motto: “If I Die Before I Wake” — that drove at least one of them mad, and we all know how that story climaxed.

Spoiler

See how the language of the sex pit has followed us.

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I suggested goats. 

  Hide contents

 

 

Sheep. Maybe weird-looking, but sheep. Think of the water associatiion via Heler.

And think of the non-food, non-wool, non-landscaping uses of sheep.

 

Slightly more serious: Mastakos probably would use river horses.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Joerg
River horses

[mfbrandi]

  Because this doesn’t really belong with rules quibbling about critical hits:

56 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Luck clearly is the lower half of Fate.

is standing against a mirror to seem more impressive. There is not really anything more there, and the opposition is a lie. In the , there is only .

[Joerg]

27 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

  Because this doesn’t really belong with rules quibbling about critical hits:

is standing against a mirror to seem more impressive. There is not really anything more there, and the opposition is a lie. In the , there is only .

Why did you not use the mirror rune, ?

Edited December 18, 2023 by Joerg

[mfbrandi]

  Origins of Bird–Mammal Confusion

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

At the First Battle of Chaos, the followers of Teelo Estara perceived their re-appearing goddess riding a giant hummingbird instead of the Crimson Bat. (A fact that makes me somehow puzzled about the bat imagery in their commemorative coins.)

Bird-mammal confusion is inscribed — rolled onto? — the Gods Wall. At IV-25, one of the components of Jokbazi is a duck–rabbit: a rabbit head picture stands for the bird fragment of the deity. With ears apart, this icon recurs at IV-4 as the head of the trickster god, Rakenveg. (Like Bugs, he is a rabbit who is really a hare, and from his name you can extract “raven” to leave the “keg” of intoxication.) I think we can add aspect perception — geometry doesn’t determine how something looks (well, not always and in all ways) — to Eurmal’s bag of tricks.

Trickster = Eurmal brings us to the question of Plentonius versus Iverlanthus in Gods Wall interpretation. I believe Plentonius has IV-19 as Annilha — Annilla as bat demon — whereas Iverlanthus has the same image depicting the Night Eagle — Vrimak as owl god.° Gloranthans unable to agree on whether something is a bird or a mammal, again. But with bats being about a fifth of mammal species, this is not some weird corner case, so what is going on? Is this a manifestation of the battle for the middle air? If the thing we want to disown is flapping about the place, assign it to the enemy’s class?°°

The CB
The Lunars might flip between “it is a bird” when they are in a sky-identifying, celestial mood (or when it seems like a good thing) and “it is a mammal” when they are in the middle air belongs to the Goddess mode (or when it seems like a bad thing). That makes a kind of sense (though I don’t like the parenthetical options).

But what of the Orlanthi, do they consistently see it as a mammal because they are determined to see it as a perversion, one of their own turned against them? That way, it is more horrific than if it is simply externalised as a sky thing. When something is really horrific, the Orlanthi see it as one of theirs — the broo–Thed–Ragnaglar–goat complex — but at the same time treat it as an external threat to be squished. Don’t reconcile, transform, or integrate, just squish. There is something very wrong with Big O psychology: “We are the monsters we let into the world. No, we are not. Kill them/us.”

Of course, an alternative to both/and and inclusive or exclusive or is neither. What may have a beak like a bird but skin wings like a bat — and pycnofibres, rather than mammalian fur or avian feathers? But we have flapped that space before.

——————————————————————
° Oops! This is actually a misreading by me of GTG p. 679. Better to let it stand than to fix it in a vain attempt to seem smart.

°° Not phylum, pace RQ2.

Edited December 18, 2023 by mfbrandi
noted my own error

[scott-martin]

21 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Of course, an alternative to both/and and inclusive or exclusive or is neither. What may have a beak like a bird but skin wings like a bat — and pycnofibres, rather than mammalian fur or avian feathers? But we have flapped that space before.

[Joerg]

The Crimson Bat is the sorry remains of the Rinliddi Bat goddess (the death-bringer) which was flayed by Arkat during the last weeks of the siege of Dorastor or so, fielded by desperate defenders. Whether it has any follicles left or whether those are writhing tendrils or tentacles is up to your personal preferences in horror. Neither can we say what that membrane between these elongated finger bones are - in case of doubt, they might be solidified moonglow rather than skin.

I am not informed where the Rindliddi Bat God encountered Chaos enough to make its maw an entryway into oblivion. It might have taken a load of surplus Chaos off Teelo Estara.

[Joerg]

 

31 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Even under the old terminology, Saints were humans who had discovered truths of the Invisible God.  Which kinda made the idea of a God being a Saint always sounding off. 

The ancient Malkioni do claim that the gods are just powerful "human" magicians who became gods and were worshipped as such. While we don't use the terms "saints" or "knights" any more, the implication of "Saint Orlanth" is that this is a creature (a Kaelith?) who first became a Srvuali or Burta of a Burta and then an avatar of the Invisible God.

This is where Brithini taxonomic lore gets fuzzy. On the one hand, Malkion the Founder is a Burta of Storm and Sea, on the other hand he is the expression of the Man Rune, elsewhere known as Grandfather Mortal, or (more fuzzily) of the Law Rune, and thereby effectively an Erasanchula.

[radmonger]

Before the creation of Zistor the Machine God, deities were what the god learners thought them to be; passive runic archetypes with no sentience or initiative, except where controlled or embodied by a mortal

Zistor was the first deity ever to think and plan for itself. And what it planned was the propagation and dispersion of its algorithms across the mythic landscape. It did this by virally infecting all those who mindlessly reacted against it; the gods.

With that gift of sentience, the gods were able to coordinate a plot against the Middle Sea Empire, leading to it's sudden and dramatic downfall.

In short, the god learners were ultimately destroyed by the development of a rogue AI.

 

 

[scott-martin]

6 hours ago, radmonger said:

The Aeolians are the world experts on the storm deity links of Malkion the Prophet, so any details on that known to scribes in Nochet likely reflect their perspective.

When we view Gloranthan history as the struggle between this storm lineage on one hand and what we could call "the party of the mother" or the waereran line on the other, a lot of interesting deep history snaps into focus, including the transportation of the umathelan and jrustelan nations, the ritual significance of the empire of land *and* sea, and so on. 

Of course the water faction ultimately lost.