Your Dumbest Theory

[scott-martin]

18 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Lightbringer -> Firebringer -> Prometheus bound.

Jetzt komme Feuer . . . now that you mention it, I see that the archaic firebringer aspects of universal trickster have been brought under the Lightbringer umbrella and teaches wind words now like some kind of unreconstructed orlanth. But that's heavy magic, a drastic resolution, not a good time for the good people of Slontos.

If the spiderweb was the primary signifier of the "lightbringer" revolution in consciousness and the bright god of the north is the bright god of the north then the weird celestial phenomena of late 375 can be interpreted as a clash of spiritual civilizations or a grubbier sort of assassination. And yet the spider has communion with fire. She just no longer knows who to invest that power in, unless you count ZZ and other vestiges.

[Eff]

45 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

rival systems of consciousness

 

I think tricksters are like dogs, I mean minotaurs, I mean spiders-men, and they just sort of do things randomly. Setting aside how big red ties herself to both instinct and contemplation, I suspect there's (at least) a third Feathered Rival System of Consciousness in here too. You can see it most easily with Gark the Calm and the Silent, but I hope those are maladaptive manifestations, the Gbaji mode.

[scott-martin]

3 minutes ago, Eff said:

third Feathered Rival

If hawk is solar and thunder bird has thunder, raven (although a darkness affiliate) is explicitly associated with "lightbringer." What archaic encounter or system does their cyclical "rivalry" preserve? I would ordinarily suspect that they came from three directions but it seems more likely that hawk and raven came more or less together, possibly as a vestige or precursor of some larger lost bird system ("vrimak") . . . and we know vrimak had a dynasty around the Suam Chow before the upheavals over there.

Two and a half dumb theories:
A. Trickster as a system of consciousness found its highest expression in the "dragon" way and, having fertilized those eggs for the mind, has since largely died out in the ostentatiously reactionary hillfolk communities that followed. Too dangerous to keep around unsupervised, too weird to kill, too rude to die.
B. Another "dragon" system, perhaps the first, entered the dawn age clash of civilizations from the east, behind the solar horse diaspora. Very little is known or appreciated today of what revolutions of consicousness these people pursued beyond "mysticism" and a certain dinosaur kung fu. But the traces can be tracked.
B Sharp. Law is a fourth corner. We know it today as the sorcerous mindset of course but in its day it was deployed to slay a lot of dragons. I know this because I had the unpleasant vaccine experience of spending a night with law dragon. Humakt comes from somewhere, is not a lightbringer or a feathered rival. Of course law is not antichaos. Law is its own thing.

[Nick Brooke]

Humakt is also a Raven.

Raven stole fire from the gods and gave it to Grandfather Mortal, that’s when his feathers were burned black. He was being Trickster at the time, or vice versa.

Sun Hawk always sees Raven coming, but can always be bullied by Thunder Bird. Orlanth wielded Death to slay Yelm: Death didn’t slay Yelm on its own. Round round get around I get around.

[Nick Brooke]

Brithini anti-vaxxers claim Nysalor’s  Riddlers were deliberately spreading a deadly plague they claimed to be curing. Sure thing, Karen. Show me some evidence, some peer-reviewed papers, and then we’ll talk.

[jajagappa]

38 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

that hawk and raven came more or less together

Perhaps those intriguing Dark and Light Dragons (aka Dark Mountain and Light Mountain) off to the NE in the Golden Age? Tholm's Path does lead from there after all, and who knows what climbs up or down the Dragon's Ladder.

[Eff]

17 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

If hawk is solar and thunder bird has thunder, raven (although a darkness affiliate) is explicitly associated with "lightbringer." What archaic encounter or system does their cyclical "rivalry" preserve? I would ordinarily suspect that they came from three directions but it seems more likely that hawk and raven came more or less together, possibly as a vestige or precursor of some larger lost bird system ("vrimak") . . . and we know vrimak had a dynasty around the Suam Chow before the upheavals over there.

Two and a half dumb theories:
A. Trickster as a system of consciousness found its highest expression in the "dragon" way and, having fertilized those eggs for the mind, has since largely died out in the ostentatiously reactionary hillfolk communities that followed. Too dangerous to keep around unsupervised, too weird to kill, too rude to die.
B. Another "dragon" system, perhaps the first, entered the dawn age clash of civilizations from the east, behind the solar horse diaspora. Very little is known or appreciated today of what revolutions of consicousness these people pursued beyond "mysticism" and a certain dinosaur kung fu. But the traces can be tracked.
B Sharp. Law is a fourth corner. We know it today as the sorcerous mindset of course but in its day it was deployed to slay a lot of dragons. I know this because I had the unpleasant vaccine experience of spending a night with law dragon. Humakt comes from somewhere, is not a lightbringer or a feathered rival. Of course law is not antichaos. Law is its own thing.

Let's get silly. Augment our fourths. Thunder is invisible. It's a sound or a force. Hawk defeats raven, because light makes darkness go away. Bird defeats hawk, because thunder has no substance for light to touch, and air lets light pass through. Raven defeats bird, because darkness hides where the sound is coming from. 

Inquiry- asking questions- contemplation- defeats arbitrariness by replacing arbitrariness with a chain of connections. A meaning. But contemplation is defeated by this other consciousness, submersion, where the meaning is underneath the connections and running through them. And then arbitrariness defeats submersion by rejecting the connections altogether. Wheels turn as a cart crosses over a bridge. 

In retrospect, the "London Underground" rune very clearly points the way to why the dragonewt rune looks the way it does, and power becomes an interesting statement in that geometry too. My only question is- where did the broken-horned rune come from? Who added that to the mix?

[scott-martin]

 

27 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Dark and Light Dragons

The binary elemental system (Light / Dark) always felt like it came from somewhere outside the seasonal cycle. Maybe the hordes brought it with them from the other end of the Genertan empire along with other things they carried. Maybe this created significant distortion in existing systems, forcing a season into the calendar for example or pushing "storm" and "troll" (and dragon) symbolism together.

God Learner versus Dragon is only the historical backdrop for Mao Tzen's cosmic gesture. The outcome of that gesture remains unclear. It's the story of our lives.

Chalana Arroy had a mountain too. Her other face is Mallia, pharmakon queen with spikey crown.

[scott-martin]

The identification of "Maggotliege" and other dead suns with the incumbent yelm was not logically necessary and happened later. The real story is practically overdetermined if not overcomplicated.

Thinking through the horn-headed rune shows me new things about the devil's two or three moms and the person who drops out of that calculus is the murdered vegetable arroin.

EDIT: These may well be the same story.

Edited May 9 by scott-martin

[mfbrandi]

20 hours ago, scott-martin said:

If hawk is solar and thunder bird has thunder, raven (although a darkness affiliate) is explicitly associated with “lightbringer.”

21 hours ago, scott-martin said:

And yet the spider has communion with fire. She just no longer knows who to invest that power in, unless you count ZZ and other vestiges.

To Hawk, Fire is external (or free). Raven has introjected it (no fennel in the underworld). If we allow Thunderbird lightning, too, then we may have an intermediate state: Fire manifesting, or becoming free, or being used? I dunno either. Seems a bit backwards, except possibly in the context of thunder as liberator/illuminator of sun/fire.

• Henceforth, humans would keep that meat for themselves and burn the bones wrapped in fat as an offering to the gods. This angered Zeus, who hid fire from humans in retribution. In this version of the myth, the use of fire was already known to humans, but withdrawn by Zeus. Prometheus stole fire back from Zeus in a fennel stalk and restored it to humanity — Wikipedia: Prometheus

Spoiler

Although dully obvious, we may as well store the key somewhere: Zeus = Orlanth/Thunderbird; Fire = Yelm/Aether/Hawk; Prometheus = Trickster/Raven.

If Fire = Eagle, Prometheus is punished using the very thing he stole back for humans, and Fire is the stick Storm uses to beat Trickster/Darkness … but Trickster knows swallow.

Trickster is bound (and cast out of polite/sane society) to prevent the spread of the story that although Orlanth did indeed steal the sun from people, it was Trickster who brought it back. Raven = lightbringer is a reminder of the truth?

Edited May 10 by mfbrandi
that -> who

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, scott-martin said:

If hawk is solar and thunder bird has thunder, raven (although a darkness affiliate) is explicitly associated with “lightbringer.” What archaic encounter or system does their cyclical “rivalry” preserve?

Perhaps rock–paper–scissors is not quite the right model.

• Thunderbird shoves Sunhawk down Raven’s gullet.
• Raven vomits up — or shits out — Sunhawk, largely unhurt.
• A rather queasy Thunderbird picks up a dazed Sunhawk in his beak … and LOOP.

I guess this casts Orlanth as Wakboth, breaker of toys. Yelm is cosmos and the eternal victim. The ambidextrous Raven (or Spider or …) is the end of all things and the origin of the world.

(Utuma variation: Yelm is well-ordered stuff; Orlankboth is the same stuff, now messed up and due to be tossed; Orlankboth dismembers its sorry self and throws the bits into the Void for recycling into the next cosmos.)

[Whizbang]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

Raven defeats bird, because darkness hides where the sound is coming from.

Then Hawk says, "what is that smell?" and Bird says, "you smelt it, you dealt it"

[John Biles]

13 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Brithini anti-vaxxers claim Nysalor’s  Riddlers were deliberately spreading a deadly plague they claimed to be curing. Sure thing, Karen. Show me some evidence, some peer-reviewed papers, and then we’ll talk.

A Brithini anti-vaxxer would boldly assert that Zzabur made up the story of the plague to try to bind them in caste rules to being immortal and thus immune, but that they did their own research, contacted the Vadeli, bought gorp, and smeared it on their body to protect themselves from the 'vita'rays' comng from Nysalor's shiny forehead which would make them get old and die if they didn't do this.

 

[Eff]

Some say that the Blood Sun and the Red Moon are connected, but I heard a traveling, truly manifest mystic say that there were four White Moons in the sky, which we can't see yet, and one is Avanapdur and one is nameless and faceless and would change color if she ever were named and one is some chalk that Martalak dropped and now rolls around the sky waiting to be found and one is real, so she's never there when you look for her. He then started talking about "similar but distinct colors" and I paid my tab and left.

[JayLay]

Lo, the blue moon has bestowed upon me many pieces of wisdom that I shall share now. I cannot and will not elaborate, because she hasn't told me more than what I share here.
 

• There is no trickster god. That was his greatest trick, making you believe he exists.
• There was never anybody called Harmast. A whole bunch of people who got charmed by Arkat were ashamed by it when he became a troll, so they claimed a guy called Harmast was the fatther. Arkat and Talor managed to leave Hell just by asking really nicely. The same will happen with Sheng Seleris.
• Pelorians don't actually know how to write. The scribe's secret is that every time they need to write they perform a divination and their deity tells them what to do.
• Heler is Malkion
• Speaking Wheel is Nysalor. The problem of the first age was that the golden wheel dancers were all female and so the real task of the Unity Council was to create the first male golden wheel dancer: Nysalor. Nysalor and the golden wheel dancers had many, many children (Golden Wheels). Arkat's quest was really an attempt to stop hyperinflation which was starting to ruin the economies of the western world.
• There are only 6 Lightbringers, just like the spokes of the fate rune ⚹. Somehow Eurmal tricked the entire world into thinking he was an integral part of the whole affair, bumping the number up to 7. This is also why the Lightbringer's Quest is so hard to recreate, because Eurmal isn't meant to be there and the tricksters are causing it to fail every single time.
• Sedenya is Flamal
• All the gods are mostali wearing funny hats. The reason the gods don't interact with the world anymore is because they got way too many fans and they don't have the time to entertain them all.
• Oakfed can only burn oak trees.
• Arachne Solara is a bug in the world machine
• The fire/sky rune is a cross-section of the cosmic egg.
• All the dragonewts of the first age were actually dragons. All the current dragonewts are humans from the EWF which is why they resemble the Human Rune.
• Dendara is a duck deity, but Yelm hasn't noticed because he never looks at her. The rest of Yelm's court never comments on this fact in order to not insult the wife of Yelm.
• Chaos and Law is a cycle, not a polarity. Eventually too much accumulation of Chaos leads to Law, and too much Law leads to Chaos.
• The power of horny is written into the fabric of Glorantha through the Chaos rune. Ergo Uleria is a chaos deity and not part of the Celestial Court.
• The original Eurmal was an exiled zzaburi from Brithos. When randomly asked what his name was he responded with the first name he could think of "errr... Mal-" and then realised that saying Malkion was a very poor choice. All trickster magic is actually sorcery, but using fragments of his grimoire that have been scattered over the world.
• Kralorela doesn't actually exist. It's just the dream of Godunya who was a member of the EWF that fled its collapse. That's also why it resembles a superficial version of China. (I am not sure what China is, the Blue Moon didn't elaborate)
• When dwarfs say they are behind the Red Moon, what actually happened was that the 7 Mothers asked them "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" And so they pushed the on button 🜕 and the world machine booted up.

 

Edited May 12 by JayLay

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, JayLay said:

Speaking Wheel is Nysalor. The problem of the first age was that the golden wheel dancers were all female and so the real task of the Unity Council was to create the first male golden wheel dancer: Nysalor. Nysalor and the golden wheel dancers had many, many children (Golden Wheels). Arkat's quest was really an attempt to stop hyperinflation which was starting to ruin the economies of the western world.

Having played Speaking Wheel at the only running of the Broken Council, I can confirm that Speaking Wheel was assimilated into Nysalor. 😉 

8 hours ago, JayLay said:

The original Eurmal was an exiled zzaburi from Brithos. When randomly asked what his name was he responded with the first name he could think of "errr... Mal-"

This seems logical.

[metcalph]

Apropos of recent celestial phenomena,

The God Solar Storm is recognizable as a version of Shargash or Tolat.  But ever since his unblinding, his worshippers can only cast the Aurora runespell.

Speaking of which, the visual effects of the runespell are.

1 point Aurora - Red

2 points - Red and Green.

3 points - Red, Green and Blue

4 points - Red, Green, Blue and Violet.

 

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

Solar Storm

I see the God Learners have been at it again.

[Ynneadwraith]

On 5/12/2024 at 6:04 AM, JayLay said:

• Pelorians don't actually know how to write. The scribe's secret is that every time they need to write they perform a divination and their deity tells them what to do.

I had this as a core aspect of my 'mayfly elves' idea. The idea being to inject a little bit more interest into Glorantha's elves by having them literally follow the cycle of the seasons. Being born in spring, growing strong during summer and then all dying off in winter (or the Gloranthan equivalents). People just don't notice because they can't tell one tree from the next, and think elves are just forgetful and need to be reminded who their friends are each year.

Dryads survive through the generational cycle, and are tasked with imparting the knowledge of how to survive the world to the next generation. This sets up a sort of 'naive younger brother' relationship between elves and humans that's a novel way of playing them, and adds a bit more motive to elves than just 'forests good, must protect forests'.

Anyway, the idea being that elves lost the ability to write when the Spike exploded. Mythically, as in they are just as incapable of writing as Ducks/Keets are at flying. This hampers their ability to pass on generational knowledge between years, down to whatever is easily teachable within a few months. It's possible for an individual elf to embark on a risky Heroquest to recover the secret of writing from the Spike (while it's exploding) and secret it away back to the present day, allowing them to pass on the information they possess.

I'm going to say that these golden nuggets of information are inscribed on the trees that surround their seed-dryad, adding a little more weight to their violent reaction to the destruction of forests. Trees might grow back, but the hard-fought and priceless knowledge of generations can't. It's like the burning of the Library of Alexandria for them.

On 5/12/2024 at 6:04 AM, JayLay said:

• All the dragonewts of the first age were actually dragons. All the current dragonewts are humans from the EWF which is why they resemble the Human Rune.

This I love. Consider it encorporated into my Glorantha. Gives just enough of a hint about what happens when you follow the path of Draconic Illumination to spring off from (perhaps the birth of a dragonewt is what's lying at the end of a human draconic mystic's journey).

Sprinkle in a little of the excellent 'failed dragon' idea from Elden Ring and you've got the beginnings of an awesome character path.

On 5/12/2024 at 6:04 AM, JayLay said:

• Sedenya is Flamal

Ok, this I have to hear the argument for...

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

I had this as a core aspect of my “mayfly elves” idea … born in spring, growing strong during summer and then all dying off in winter (or the Gloranthan equivalents).

Hmm … I reckon these Solomon Grundy/Roy Batty elves will strongly resent the longevity of trees and torch their own forests. Their leader’s slogan is “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

[mfbrandi]

On 5/12/2024 at 6:04 AM, JayLay said:

Sedenya is Flamal

6 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

OK, this I have to hear the argument for

Although a seven-day moon cycle resonates well with annual elves. The short time racket. (See also year length.)

Does anyone in Glorantha have a seven-day menstrual cycle? On Earth menstruation seems to be rare — primates, elephant shrews, a few bats, and the Cairo spiny mouse (AFAIK, the “winner” at nine days).

Live fast. Die young. Leave a corpse with hypnotic skin.

[Eff]

19 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Although a seven-day moon cycle resonates well with annual elves. The short time racket. (See also year length.)

Does anyone in Glorantha have a seven-day menstrual cycle? On Earth menstruation seems to be rare — primates, elephant shrews, a few bats, and the Cairo spiny mouse (AFAIK, the “winner” at nine days).

Live fast. Die young. Leave a corpse with hypnotic skin.

I mean, there's a planet with an erratic 28-day-cycle in the sky. There's even nominal resonance.

[mfbrandi]

13 hours ago, Eff said:

I mean, there's a planet with an erratic 28-day-cycle in the sky. There's even nominal resonance.

• Shargash … Many peoples claim it is propitious to make war while this planet is visible, while others say it is best for begetting babies.
  — Guide to Glorantha (PDF, p. 647)

We have couvade (Book of Uz, p. 33) for pregnancy and childbirth. Redirect the whole lozenge’s dysmenorrhea to Zorak Zoran — he has got to be useful for something, right?

Edited Tuesday at 09:13 AM by mfbrandi
everyone -> the whole lozenge

[mfbrandi]

We touched on time, so maybe something about space:

• The Big Rubble covers about 1,900 hectares … That’s a lot of space for adventuring.
  — Jeff Richard, How Big is the Big Rubble?

1,900 hectares is roughly 7.34 square miles. Yesterday, I was in Richmond Park, and that is > 5,000 acres (i.e. > 7.81 square miles or > 2,023 hectares), so that seems like a pretty good concrete comparison. The trail around the perimeter of Richmond Park is about 7 miles. Is the Big Rubble seeming smaller, yet? Richmond Park makes up very roughly 1.3% of the area of Greater London.

Spoiler

In population terms, London is about 1/3 of the size of Shanghai.

Anyone for a Richmond Park campaign? We can unite the red and fallow deer hsunchen — all 630 of them (regulated through culls by the Lunar Imperial Sharpshooters) — and attack the notorious troglodytes of neighbouring Wimbledon Common (whose terrifying battle cry is “reduce, reuse, recycle”).

[Ynneadwraith]

11 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

We touched on time, so maybe something about space:

• The Big Rubble covers about 1,900 hectares … That’s a lot of space for adventuring.
  — Jeff Richard, How Big is the Big Rubble?

1,900 hectares is roughly 7.34 square miles. Yesterday, I was in Richmond Park, and that is > 5,000 acres (i.e. > 7.81 square miles or > 2,023 hectares), so that seems like a pretty good concrete comparison. The trail around the perimeter of Richmond Park is about 7 miles. Is the Big Rubble seeming smaller, yet? Richmond Park makes up very roughly 1.3% of the area of Greater London.

  Reveal hidden contents

In population terms, London is about 1/3 of the size of Shanghai.

Anyone for a Richmond Park campaign? We can unite the red and fallow deer hsunchen — all 630 of them (regulated through culls by the Lunar Imperial Sharpshooters) — and attack the notorious troglodytes of neighbouring Wimbledon Common (whose terrifying battle cry is “reduce, reuse, recycle”).

Oh god, no wonder I hate the idea of living in Glamour. It's bloody Bond Street isn't it. Horrendous place...