Your Dumbest Theory

[scott-martin]

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

lie

God of Fluid Dynamics!

We said the same thing at the same time in different ways so the model must have explanatory power.

[mfbrandi]

2 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

God of Fluid Dynamics!

Ah but Orlanth is to the god of fluid dynamics as Marx is to the philosophers: one thinks that the point is to take control, the other that the point is to understand. One is a leaf blower, the other a reed in the wind. Orlanth is more Mussolini than stoic. is the “w” in “will” and the silent “w” in “anchor” (refusing to drift with the current). We can all see the resemblance:

[Ali the Helering]

5 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Ah but Orlanth is to the god of fluid dynamics as Marx is to the philosophers: one thinks that the point is to take control, the other that the point is to understand. One is a leaf blower, the other a reed in the wind. Orlanth is more Mussolini than stoic. is the “w” in “will” and the silent “w” in “anchor” (refusing to drift with the current). We can all see the resemblance:

Are you saying that Orlanth is a Complete Anker with a silent W?  I am appalled!

[mfbrandi]

54 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

In this situation you can have a phase change across Humakt and Eurmal that determines whether “Illumination” (Humakt is one of the students of Rashoran) expresses as honor/truth or tricksterism/illusion. Great, how interesting.

A side is a rune maxed out, so linking Eurmal and Humakt (the non-storm storm gods) in this way is saying that illumination abolishes the apparent distance between and — as between the related runes of and . Without illusion there is nothing, but illusion itself is nothing. Rip away the insubstantial veil to reveal that there is no substance, only the void. Truth is eternal because there is nothing to change. Every death is the work of Humakt but no death changes anything for (per Ms. Peacock) nothing ever was, anyway.

Meanwhile Orlanth is whistling in the dark to keep the hill barbarians’ spirits up in the face of the bitter laughter of Humakt and Eurmal — “Master what? Change what? You cannot scramble out of a pit with no sides.” 😉

Edited February 24 by mfbrandi
“related runes”

[Nick Brooke]

Why so many Klingon Battlecruiser variants?

[scott-martin]

24 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Why so many Klingon Battlecruiser variants?

They're all really just generic warp cores plugged into a cloaking device invisibility spell matrix so klingon autocrats accustomed to more open architecture of force went a little overboard on bespoke greeble. However, this suggests a follow-up question: what does "invisibility" really reflect in modern Gloranthan religion?

Invisible God, sure. The pamphlets say this is just a highly sublimated philosophical evolution of the archaic Malkion cult, a radical exclusion of creator from all things created . . . imperceptible and absolutely alien to the everyday spiritual life. But I've seen compelling arguments that the inflection that we translate as "invisible" today was originally understood as more of a conjugation, something more like a future subjunctive tense. In this scenario Invisible Malkion is by definition not the god of your fathers but the god of what might be, the well of possibilities, the completed integral of time.

And in this light Invisible Orlanth becomes less a kind of passive philosophical or "deeper" understanding (Kate Bush reference) of the crude god of the mountain (Kate Bush reference) tribes and more of a theurgic posture: advocates of "invisibility" (Kate Bush reference) work to abstract entities from existential reality where they are both active in the world and vulnerable to it. True invisibility is indistinguishable from immortality: they cannot harm what they cannot see, touch or interact with in any way.

When the cloaking device is switched off, we can see the formerly invisible entity emerge in surprising places, such as at the heart of a rival pantheon. Jar-Eel enjoys a similar tactic, lurking undiscovered in a competitor's ritual dreamscape until the moment of shock revelation (ambush). So did the stygians, apparently. We often think of these assassin tactics as romulan- lunar-aligned but advocates of an invisible Orlanth can flip the deck and reveal storm forces hiding deep in the lunar way. For example, it's funny in this context that one of the reasons the Blue Moon is imperceptible to the naked eye is that the perceptible sky itself is as blue as she is. She blends. Or maybe they always shared the same nature all along and Orlanth and the tide are one.

But the cloaking device is a POW sink so I've probably dithered on too long. The absence of a true invisibility spell in modern RQ as the site where Blue Moon magic and Black Fang magic and the Sandals of Darkness don't quite converge yet . . . but they point toward a convergent point "ahead" where we can imagine such a spell discovered and deployed.

Invisible and red? This is a description of a magical effect.

[mfbrandi]

35 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

the inflection that we translate as “invisible” today … is by definition … the god of what might be, the well of possibilities, the completed integral of time … Invisible and red? This is a description of a magical effect.

This is the doctrine of the once and future moon, right? And perhaps the answer to Humakt–Eurmal nihilism:

• NOT = = = = Ø
• BUT [START] = Potential = -->  = Actual --> [START] …

46 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

True invisibility is indistinguishable from immortality: they cannot harm what they cannot see, touch or interact with in any way.

This could be an echo of the Humakt–Eurmal version of the Bewlay Brothers, or it could be a dig at the gods who cling to immortality: they are writing themselves out of reality by becoming nirguna, one with the Void they profess to disdain. In contrast, the Red Goddess is not immortal but serially mortal in a loop which may or may not be interruptible, of the world and in it. squaring the circle of and ?

[Joerg]

God of Fluid Dynamics?

The zero of Death doesn't necessarily mean Fertility/Life, it could simply mean being non-aligned.

Putting Eurmal at Zero death doesn't seem right given his Killboy aspect. Far from Truth, close to Death puts him nearly in the corner of Storm Bull.

 

[mfbrandi]

If and unite in the Dragon’s Eye , what of and ? Perhaps it is as simple as the juggler — the magician — keeping all her non-existent balls in the air.

The mountebank who displays the suits of the deck:

• swords = (both and have been the two of swords)
• batons = (or to keep it in the powers)
• cups = 
• coins =

[mfbrandi]

10 hours ago, EricW said:

[H]ow can an illuminated Storm Bull … sense chaos?

I think this is an excellent question, and my answer is in the spirit of MGF (not the elucidation something profound or the articulation of canon … whatever that is).

• My King, it is said there is a dim and a bright side to all of existence, and that only those who are Illumined see that the difference resides not in existence but in the way we choose to see it.
  — Cults of Terror (Classic PDF, p. 85)

Paulis Longvale is not an illuminate, but he is right: there really is no difference between the glass half full and the glass half empty, the duck picture and the rabbit picture. “Aspect perception” is — we might say — a projection: now it seems to represent a duck, now a rabbit, but crucially we see that the picture has not changed (that no line has moved or shifted colour).

Of course, this has consequences: an illuminated Storm Bull cannot detect Chaos, but neither can a “benighted” Storm Bull. No one can check up on the “results” of a Storm Bull’s sense chaos: there is nothing for them to detect — they are just having one of their headaches. There are no facts about whether something is Chaotic or not. If I see you as Chaotic, that is just an attitude I take toward you. “It’s me, not you.” The illuminate is someone who has grasped this, and many can flip aspects at will.

Of course, some illuminates are psychotic and will happily persecute people for “imagined sins”, but they cannot detect the sinners — they just get angry for what they know in their moments of lucidity is no real reason, and they leave “a trail of cinders across the continent.” We are all Chaotic. We are none of us Chaotic. Duck. Rabbit. No difference.

The universe cannot argue us into evaluating it one way rather than another — pure reason will not motivate us — and those who cannot deal with this may build or summon devils, sprout tentacles, or start “anti-Chaos” pogroms. It is not enough to tear away the veil, one must be at peace with the world seen aright. The world cannot hand us morality on a plate, and there is no point taking it out on ourselves or others. Leave the tantrums to the terrible twos.

[Joerg]

13 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

I think this is an excellent question, and my answer is in the spirit of MGF (not the elucidation something profound or the articulation of canon … whatever that is).

• My King, it is said there is a dim and a bright side to all of existence, and that only those who are Illumined see that the difference resides not in existence but in the way we choose to see it.
  — Cults of Terror (Classic PDF, p. 85)

Paulis Longvale is not an illuminate, but he is right: there really is no difference between the glass half full and the glass half empty, the duck picture and the rabbit picture. “Aspect perception” is — we might say — a projection: now it seems to represent a duck, now a rabbit, but crucially we see that the picture has not changed (that no line has moved or shifted colour).

"This creature has a significant association with the dim(inished) side of existence." Also known (and embraced as) Chaos by the Lunar illuminates. As such, illumination does not erase Chaos. As Oddi found out, it is still there, and it still can be killed. The outrage imperative may be gone, but the Bull still demands that Chaos be killed, and the Bull still offers the ability to sense its presence.

Its use might need to be re-learned, though.

13 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Of course, this has consequences: an illuminated Storm Bull cannot detect Chaos, but neither can a “benighted” Storm Bull.

Does Illumination cut the ties to the Storm Bull? Does it eliminate the gifts and geases of Humakt and Yanafal or Yelmalio Antirius Reladivus Kargzant? Does it prevent Divine Intervention, the effects of Madness or Mindblast? No, it doesn't.

It can add the ability to recognize illumination (or other form of Enlightenment) in others.

Edited March 5 by Joerg

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Does Illumination cut the ties to the Storm Bull?

I didn’t say that it did.

If Paulis is right to say that the difference resides not in existence — a suggestion I claim is fun even if it is not canon — and this applies to the Chaos–not Chaos distinction, then even the the great god Urox himself cannot detect the taint of Chaos. (It is a non-hole in existence for a reason. There is nothing to detect. It is a trick of our minds, not a part of the furniture of the world.) A continued tight connection to the god won’t help — the SB worshipper couldn’t detect Chaos before illumination and still cannot after illumination. No change.

Of course any fool can detect pus, slime, tentacles, and a rampaging army of broo, but that is not the supposed USP of the Bullies, is it? And you can still kill broo (even fanatically), but there is no permission to do so granted by some Chaos–not Chaos distinction — as that turned out to be a delusion brought about by a lack of self-understanding.

But I would say that, at least since I fell into Getafix’s other cauldron as a small child. Strange doors never close again. 😉

[metcalph]

Can't find an online image but if you have seen Dune 2, there's an excellent shot of a gladiatorial arena in the Kingdom of Ignorance operating under the Black Sun.

[Joerg]

14 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

If Paulis is right to say that the difference resides not in existence — a suggestion I claim is fun even if it is not canon — and this applies to the Chaos–not Chaos distinction, then ... There is nothing to detect.

There is something even less than vacuum to detect. The question is not whether something is Chaos. It is whether something is Not-of-Creation. Something (or rather not-Nothing) alien and out of context.

Illumination provides some context to the not-Nothing, possibly making it stand out less.

 

14 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Of course any fool can detect pus, slime, tentacles, and a rampaging army of broo, but that is not the supposed USP of the Bullies, is it?

As far as I can find Storm Bull's source of this power, it is from having experienced Death and almost Destruction by the Devil (except for Earthpower).

 

In a way, Gloranthan reality is what is abnormal in the path of the energies emerging from the Source and dispersing into the Void. The Source Is, the Void Isn't, the energies have as little meaning as the matter excreted from the Chaosium (which may be the anomality).

[mfbrandi]

9 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Since Jar-eel is the Red Goddess' avatar in the world, I agree that she's not shaman per se, but I think any Hero Cult will function very similar to a shamanic Spirit Cult. Jar-eel needs power and worship to do the things she does.

I confess to being a little confused. To my simple-minded way of seeing it:

• an avatar is a deity descended into the mundane (mortal) world — direction = down;
• a hero is a mortal trying to break into the big leagues, the divine world — intended direction = up.

So if we go for the whole prayer-powered gods thing, wouldn’t Jar-eel — considered as an avatar of the RG — have access to all the sacrificed power that had filtered up to the pinnacle of the Lunar religion even without her own cult? (And the RG have access to all power directed at Jar-eel, because they are the same entity?) Of course, as direct worship of the RG, any Jar-eel cult might have fewer overheads than, say, the 7M — fewer intermediaries to pay out in the divine MLM scheme.

Of course, if Jar-eel is just a mortal indulging in a bit of RG cosplay, things might be different.

The prayer-powered gods thing always makes me queasy. Here are two views of fantasy religion (there will be others and better, and no, I don’t mean these as digs at RW religion):

• our fantasy religionists are coming to terms with the powers in the world, the sublime — learning to live with the terrifying machinery of the world which will grind on in the same way, worship or no worship;
• without prayer (or sacrifice), the gods are zeroes — powerless — but the mortals empower a bunch of destructive idiots who have jettisoned any ability they might once have had to change and grow.

The latter is uncomfortably like worshipping the storms of global warming or the latest orange-skinned demagogue to have puffed itself up on the adulation of the public. Of course, it also dangles the promise of the American dream (or the dream of the magus): play your cards right and you can be god.

Romantics vs. narcissists?

[radmonger]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The question is not whether something is Chaos. It is whether something is Not-of-Creation

 

Prince Tarkalor was once told 'there is rock wool in the foundations of your keep; this will kill all who breathe it'. He replied 'it is better it stay there'. This is sometime taken to be a reference to his reliance on Telmori bodyguards.

author unknown, early Hero Wars era Tarsh:

Ernalda, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed. Orlanth, give us the courage to change what can be changed. Sedenya, give us the wisdom to know the one from the other

 

 

 

[metcalph]

A semi-serious post which was provoked by a recent thread about the Engrioni (wot Greg used to call the knights and the Men-of-All).

Cults of Runequest: Mythology p100 states that Malkion "was Pure Reason within the Perfect City but came
forth to descend into the material world".  Wot Hrestol and subsequent followers were doing was to reverse that descent so that they might rise towards Pure Reason.  Since the Malkion knew the entirety of the Law in teaching others of Caste, the Men-of-All hope to Ascend by combining all Castes within themselves.

How this might work is increased Rightness gains per caste mastered (instead of 1, you might get 2-4) but the downside would also be larger.

 

[Ali the Helering]

23 hours ago, radmonger said:

Ernalda, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed. Orlanth, give us the courage to change what can be changed. Sedenya, give us the wisdom to know the one from the other

Pocharngo, give us the insight to warp the one to the other

[radmonger]

3 hours ago, metcalph said:

ow this might work is increased Rightness gains per caste mastered (instead of 1, you might get 2-4) but the downside would also be larger.

 

That makes altogether too much sense for this thread; they are men of all castes, not none.

To make up for that blunder, have the theory that the cults of Humakt and Yelmalio are descended from, or influenced by the Horali caste. And so their gift/geas system is more or less mechanically identical to the Rightness blessings that Horali receive.

So a Horal caste cult writeup would only have initiate status, and no rune magic. Just a big table of powers and behavioral restrictions, and one or more mechanisms for selecting them, likely with regional variations.

The Zzaburi who magically support the caste cult are not themselves members; they just have to have mastered the cult runes. So a powerful Zzaburi could support many cults, although the common practice is to specialize.

 

 

[Joerg]

  

19 minutes ago, soltakss said:

My guess, and it is entirely a guess, is that it would have happened in the Storm Age Greatwood, before it became Deadwood. It all depends whether it happened before the slaying of Yelm (Early Storm Age) or after (Later Storm Age/Lesser Darkness).

The exact point at which the forests became the Deadwood and when they became active again (before Time in case of some Green Elf forests?) remains unclear to me, as well as the recovery of the Winterwood from the Glacier (which had reached the Nidan Mountains during Storm Age according to some maps).

It is as if some annual cycle happened both when Yelm was stuck in the skies and when there was almost nothing alive. But maybe that night be explained by people(s) moving to an earlier layer of Godtime?

But then could not a majority of Glorantha have fled to happier times, never quite facing the Greater Darkness?

[mfbrandi]

No Chaos creature — gorp, dragonsnail, Devil, ogre, und so weiter — is made of Chaos stuff. There is no Chaos stuff.

On 3/8/2024 at 4:56 PM, Joerg said:

Gorp don't contain any water or other recognizable element. They are made up of … Chaos plasma.

14 hours ago, AndrewTBP said:

[G]orp are much like Chaos elementals rather than living creatures.

Or we could take our cue from:

• The Book of Drastic Resolutions
  The Devil is the Howling Void — all chaos voids in Glorantha are The Devil … Wakboth is the Guise of the Devil — the insulation between the Devil and Glorantha. He was the ultimate scab formed by the world to protect itself from the invasion of chaos.
  — Lords of Terror, p. 87
   
• Sometimes the world, protesting the violation of its reality, bursts forth in a wild effort to fill that non-hole, and this is expressed as a chaos feature.
  — Greg Sez

Gorp and their “kin” can be likened to scabs, cysts, abcesses, or tumours, all of which are made of ordinary, this-world stuff. Further, the Void is not a real threat — it is not a real anything — capable of causing a reaction; “manifestations of Chaos” have mundane causes, may be psychosomatic, are to be likened to autoimmune diseases.

The awkward squad — having long ago dismissed “the substantial Void” — starts chipping away at the idea of the reality of this world.

Edited March 9 by mfbrandi
deleted superfluous whitespace

[Joerg]

34 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

 No Chaos creature — gorp, dragonsnail, Devil, ogre, und so weiter — is made of Chaos stuff. There is no Chaos stuff.

The writings in Drastic:Chaos are the unreliable ravings of a madman (it says so in the publication).

Critters with chaotic features such as Walktapi or Dragonsnails and even the Left Hand of the Devil are made up of partially corrupted Creation. Gorp are completely corrupted Creation, reduced to an infectuous plasma. Unlike the Primal Plasma in the Void which is omipotent in its potential, Gorp plasma has lost all potential except to consume Creation into its own sorry state.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

The writings in Drastic:Chaos are the unreliable ravings of a madman (it says so in the publication).

Pretty much everything about Glorantha is presented as in-world raving, and there is no requirement that Dumb Theories be true ravings: “What convictions do YOU have that you recognize are ridiculous but love them anyway?”

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Critters with chaotic features such as Walktapi or Dragonsnails and even the Left Hand of the Devil are made up of partially corrupted Creation. Gorp are completely corrupted Creation

Creation is one thing we would normally contrast with Chaos. I think we are agreed that “Chaos things” (gorp, etc.) are made of the same stuff as Cosmos, just differently ordered. Corruption — rot — of stuff (let us park the soul, for now) is a Darkness function.

Two notions of the Chaos–Cosmos contrast (neither of which requires a duality of substance):

• Cosmos is stuff and Chaos is nothing;
• Cosmos is well-ordered stuff and Chaos is the same stuff but lacking its proper structure.

Both notions are likely in play (see, for example, Cults of Prax Classic: Designer Notes, Part Two — PDF, p. 106), but the idea of nothing, non-being, nirvana as evil is the one that intrigues me. I have no sympathy for it, but it is fascinating to me that someone would think of it as evil. Why must the gods think of their ceasing to be as evil? “Because then they wouldn’t exist” adds nothing and so is a non-answer.

Horror at the thought of the Void produces monsters, not the Void itself for that is nothing and does nothing (which is why people don’t like “it”).

So my witterings are offered in the spirit of good non-canonical fun, but not fun with no contact with the text. We have and for the breaking down of structure, so if doesn’t connote total existence failure, which rune does? Even is said to connote temporary reality rather than no reality at all — though I suspect there is a “Gloranthan” tendency to view only permanent reality as “true” or “real” reality, but that is a step along the path of nothing substantial is real, isn’t it? I guess some people worry about whether the world is real enough and the soul immortal enough — my conceit is that these people are potential chaos fighters and potential monsters.

If there is no rune that points clearly and unambiguously at the Empty Void, is that a measure of anxiety — we daren’t even name it? If anyone dares to say that no real, solid, scabby Wakboth can be Chaos because Wakboth is, then they are breaking a taboo, so their fellow Gloranthans call them mad for saying it (and being a lone voice crying in the wilderness can in the end drive one mad). The point of giving us the Book of Drastic Resolutions is not for us to immediately discard it as worthless, but to provide us with an additional way of looking at the subject matter. Perhaps …

Edited March 9 by mfbrandi
deleted one “surely”

[scott-martin]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

But then could not a majority of Glorantha have fled to happier times, never quite facing the Greater Darkness?

Their Glorantha(s) Varied. Or maybe they stayed in "Glorontha" or "Acos" or some other state of being before the apocalypse that created the modern world. From our point of view engaged with the text of Glorantha, they did not survive. Unless they come back or we go over ("er meint irgendein sagenhaftes Drüben") anything can be true.

I think one constant is that once you are in Drastic territory your Glorantha is varying beyond the range where text can help you in a crisis.

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

But then could not a majority of Glorantha have fled to happier times, never quite facing the Greater Darkness?

49 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Or maybe they stayed in “Glorontha” or “Acos” or some other state of being before the apocalypse that created the modern world.

Or maybe we think of God Time as more like an apocalypse theme park: the stories (rides, attractions) are not separated by time but by space (or an analogue thereof) and are running concurrently, daily. If all the staff assigned to the more horrific rides sagged off work and drank beer in the more attractive bits of Gloronthaland (or Acos Acres), how many twentysomethings with Goofy/Orlanth heads tucked under their arms would we find chugging lager at any given God Time beauty spot? Every age of every character from every version of every story trying to squeeze into the same imagined most agreeable location in myth.

And that is just the staff. What about the punters? Heroquesters have paid good money to visit the various atrocities of the Gods War — whether to improve their souls or to gather power for misbehaviour back in the “real” fantasy world — and if they find them deserted, there will be letters to the management.

This is why — whenever possible — we get heroquesters to play all the parts: you just cannot hang on to the staff. Skeptics are starting to wonder whether there ever were any staff/gods and just how the punters are being convinced that they have “stepped out of time”. Always consider very carefully the wisdom of visiting your own god’s martyrdom.