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Runes for Vithelan Gods and Antigods


aumshantih

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2 hours ago, Joerg said:

The deities (or at least the non-antigods) in Revealed Mythologies appear to me quite stodgy, a typical Celestial pantheon problem.

Hardly!   The Parloth are, on the surface, Celestial-ish, but way less stuck up than the Dara Happan pantheon.   

I'm drawing a lot of Puranic mythology, in which the Vedic devas (gods, parloth) and the various asuras (antigods, adpara) are constantly in battle, until some antigod gets a boon, overthrows the Cosmic Balance, and one of the High Gods (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti) are called in to defeat the antigod and teach you some esoteric spiritual lesson as well.   Hinduism has 18 major ones, and about 100 or so minor ones, and the fascinating thing is that they clearly tell many of the same stories over and over again, in different order or remixes, but with the emphasis of different sectarian High Gods.     
 

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

A possible trickster character could be Larn Hasamador, one of the three sages, who meditated on Nothing. All mentions of him run like "And Larn Hasamador? Oh, nothing." Other than Nenduren and Mashunasan, this sage has no heroic moments. 

We have introduced a Hasamadori mystic, who may or may not be a Keet and may or may not be drunk or perilously in your way while you are attempting to do important hero things.    Larn's runes are weird - Moon seems the most apt, and then either (Stasis/Change) (Disorder/Harmony).    Our Glorantha Has Varied, and for the sake of Maximum Game Fun I might allow any of those Runes to have Immotion Lessons taught off them.

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They have Trickster in the East Isles, same as everywhere. I don't think Trickster is usually a Parondpara or a Parloth or a mystic deity (though there could certainly be a mystic tradition that attempts to reclaim the Trickster). Not all gods have to be. There will be Tricksters known across a few Islands, or that have a few local legends. Many Tricksters will be considered among the antigods. 

We actually know of a whole bunch of Tricksters gods from the East Isles from various official sources, but especially the Sartar Companion Eurmal writeup. 

One is Invisible Jayoran, a Thief aspect trickster who stole his fathers magic cattle, weapons, and ship then sailed away leaving a doomed island behind. Another East Isles Trickster lived for 78 years and had sex with a different married woman every night (Seducer aspect, obviously). Denbro the Almighty, who comes from an island whose population is 222 people. Vor Faraga Zel, who eats people and mermen, and is considered an antigod. 

Thats the four mentioned in existing Trickster writeups I could find. I'm sure there are many more. 

Keets may well be Tricksters too. Of course, an alleged Sparrow keet pirate called named Jack is obviously an East Isles Trickster.....

Australians might also recall hearing of a parrot keet in the pudding thief business, an obvious Trickster, the Magical pudding in question being a small god, a grumpy Parondpara that provides food for its people my giving of (endlessly renewed) self. A belligerent penguin keet is among his defenders. 

 

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49 minutes ago, davecake said:

Keets may well be Tricksters too. Of course, an alleged Sparrow keet pirate called named Jack is obviously an East Isles Trickster.....

Australians might also recall hearing of a parrot keet in the pudding thief business, an obvious Trickster, the Magical pudding in question being a small god, a grumpy Parondpara that provides food for its people my giving of (endlessly renewed) self. A belligerent penguin keet is among his defenders. 

It looks like you have fallen afowl of a Trickster here: the keets (other than the Pterodactyl ones) all are related to webbed foot water fowl in appearance.

There is a parrot folk on Forng (sp.?), but they are not keets. I strongly suspect there are numerous other vaguely anthropomorph bird folk, or at least that there were such in the very early Golden Age, including Dara Happa (e.g. King Gryphon on the Gods Wall).

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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3 hours ago, Joerg said:

It looks like you have fallen afowl of a Trickster here: the keets (other than the Pterodactyl ones) all are related to webbed foot water fowl in appearance.

 

I say, I say, that was a joke son. 

But since you bring it up, here is a quote from the Guide (emphasis mine). 

Quote

Keets are a bird-people similar to ducks. The vast majority are similar to the ducks of Dragon Pass and the Holy Country. The East Isles hold various other tribes: booby, coot, cormorant, gull, merganser, parrot, pelican, puffin, and tern. At least one island boasts a village of flamingo-men.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Borygon said:

Okay hear me out.

TRICKSTER SORCERERS

Trying to master the material world and its secrets rather then striving to transcend it.  It fits.

Actually, the last Glorantha game I PC'd for (run by my friend who is currently co-GMing this game with me), our group of Caladralanders had a Trickster Sorcerer / Inventor from God Forgot as a member of our band of heroes.   Er, "heroes".   

Regarding the player in question, I think we are heading towards an animistic Trickster Spirit Society called simply  "No!   Bad Monkey!"  (Disorder / Beast(Monkey)).

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To really get into Tricksters in the East Isles, consider that Tricksters use Illusion magic and the Illusion rune, and that so does Dream magic, and the whole Avanapdur cycle is about Illusion vs true knowledge. 

That both gives a way for Trickster magic to be tied into the central cultural myths and into unique local magic and for all sorts of quite deep interaction with various parts of the local myths and culture. Though it also tends to put the Tricksters fairly much on the side of the antigods. 

But there is also a whole debate within the Dream Cycle/Mirror War cycle and their magic traditions. The Waking Magicians say that dreams are lies and deception and dream magic must be destroyed, but Thella says that deeper truth can be taught through dreams. Who can say truly which is right? So a Trickster master of Illusion and dreams could be a builder of elaborate deceptions and fantasies, or find deeper insights beyond the mundane world. A whole campaign could be constructed around these themes easily, trying to work out who is the mystic teacher and who is a shallow selfish fraud pretending to be a guru. 

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