Western Hero Wars Status Quo

[Sir_Godspeed]

You know, I kinda think the Brithini have like a weird reverse-Gnostic thing going on. Somatics (the bodily ones) were basically just animated meat walking around, while pneumatics and hylics had "gnosis" (wisdom, awareness) of their super-material nature, which of course made them superior.

Conversely, for the Brithini, the rest of the world is basically swaying around in a cosmic fever dream, imbuing Runes with personality and irrationally throwing themselves around according to their whim, with no real understanding of the real, immutable laws of the cosmos. 

Unlike the Gnostics, of course, the Brithini have very tangible proof for their worldview. Their immortality. 

I've always thought this puts non-immortal Malkioni in an interesting position. You have to convince your followers that your version of Malkionism, or Rational Law, is truer in a way that is perhaps harder to define. Hrestol explored personal struggle and enlightenment, with promises of afterlife, iirc. Other schools seem to vary from "we do this one kind of magic, I guess", or "who would want to live forever anyway, bodies are yucky" to "We have a model of society that will produce the perfect one, in the grand scheme of things" or something similar.

 

/tangent

Edited May 3, 2021 by Sir_Godspeed

[metcalph]

IMO the Rokari (wizards) do not have a desired outcome but are a reactionary creed intent on avoiding highly undeseriable outcomes (such as the Doom of the God Learners).  They may consider many things within the Kingdom to be just bad but accept there's little that can be done about them.  That is why they place such a great stress on acquisition of Rightness and entrance into Solace.  It's the One Big Thing that they can do that Matters.

[Jeff]

3 minutes ago, metcalph said:

IMO the Rokari (wizards) do not have a desired outcome but are a reactionary creed intent on avoiding highly undeseriable outcomes (such as the Doom of the God Learners).  They may consider many things within the Kingdom to be just bad but accept there's little that can be done about them.  That is why they place such a great stress on acquisition of Rightness and entrance into Solace.  It's the One Big Thing that they can do that Matters.

The Rokari are also Realists. They take the world as it empirically is. They also believe things exist independent of our perception and understanding. This is to be contrasted with the New Hrestoli Idealists who believe that reality is indistinguishable from understanding/perception.

[John Biles]

3 hours ago, Nevermet said:

I agree with all of this.

One of my big questions for Rokarism is given what they want to do and be, why don't they just become Brithini?  I think they answer is that's more or less what they want, but the Brithini aren't about converts.  So, IMG Rokarism's ideal goal is to start with "normal", mortal humans and the surviving insights of the Abiding Book after Rokar "sharpened" it, and figure out how to bend that toward the eternal stability and immortality of the Brithini.

I don't think the goal of the Rokari church is to move to full Brithini practice.  The Rokari believe in Solace, which is the goal of the entire system - obey caste law, know eternal bliss after death.  The Brithini believe death = erasure, which is why they desperately cling to life in a screwed up world, until they accidentally eat cheesecake, break caste, and die.  Further, the ruling elite of Seshnela is all about war and conquest and that's *suicidally stupid* in the Brithini system, because war = a risk of ceasing to exist forever.  Whereas, going into battle is part of the job of Talars in Seshnela.

So the Rokari are doing it wrong, but in Glorantha, if enough people do it wrong together, it becomes right for them.

 

 

 

[Nevermet]

That's all completely true. I still think that Rokarism moves toward the Brithini more than anyon other extant form of Malkionism.  It rejects Hrestolism hard as Rokarism does in favor of law, caste, etc.  I completely agree with the notion of Rokarism having a reactionary element to it, and they probably have a rhetoric about taking the "last teachings of Malkion" and applying it to modern day, ignoring all the Hrestolist heresies that caused so many problems.

 

Put another way, since Rokar isn't starting with immortal humans, the law and order being promoted must be qualitatively different than what the Brithini maintain, though it will have more of a family resemblance than what's going on up in Loskalm.

[Eff]

Rokarism derives from the Sharp Abiding Book, which took divine truth and then pared it down further. Rokarism is perhaps best understood as Hrestolism that has been mugged by "reality", or what Rokar believed was reality. The Brithini, after all, are idealists in many key respects, rejecting the empirical evidence of Solace, Joy, pagan afterlives, etc. (or rather, believing in an entity like a soul which is irretrievably destroyed when the body dies, not that you would say they believe in a soul to their face). 

Of course, realism versus idealism is a false dichotomy. I'll refrain from joking that the Great Talar of the West surely must have learned a more constructive approach at the feet of the heretic Emmanuelle de Bois-Pierre, because that cut is deep and the pun is bad. 

[Kloster]

11 hours ago, John Biles said:

So the Rokari are doing it wrong, but in Glorantha, if enough people do it wrong together, it becomes right for them.

Not completely different to what we have here on earth.

[Snugz]

13 hours ago, metcalph said:

IMO the Rokari (wizards) do not have a desired outcome but are a reactionary creed intent on avoiding highly undeseriable outcomes (such as the Doom of the God Learners).  They may consider many things within the Kingdom to be just bad but accept there's little that can be done about them.  That is why they place such a great stress on acquisition of Rightness and entrance into Solace.  It's the One Big Thing that they can do that Matters.

I thought the Rokari were trying to recreate Danmalastan? Maybe that is in some non-canon stuff I read, though. 

[John Biles]

9 hours ago, Kloster said:

Not completely different to what we have here on earth.

It won't enable you to throw Sunspears on Earth, though.

7 hours ago, Snugz said:

I thought the Rokari were trying to recreate Danmalastan? Maybe that is in some non-canon stuff I read, though. 

The Rokari use of older concepts is rather like a game of telephone.  

But the founding moment of the Rokari was Rokar purging the God-Learner holy text to try to purify it to avoid the sins of the God-Learners.

 

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, John Biles said:

It won't enable you to throw Sunspears on Earth, though.

Right, but don't underestimate the power of a good ol' flamethrower (or sword, or atomic bomb).

[soltakss]

On 5/3/2021 at 10:40 PM, Eff said:

Rokarism derives from the Sharp Abiding Book, which took divine truth and then pared it down further. Rokarism is perhaps best understood as Hrestolism that has been mugged by "reality", or what Rokar believed was reality. The Brithini, after all, are idealists in many key respects, rejecting the empirical evidence of Solace, Joy, pagan afterlives, etc. (or rather, believing in an entity like a soul which is irretrievably destroyed when the body dies, not that you would say they believe in a soul to their face). 

The symbol of the Rokari should be a red pen, which they use to strike out anything that has been added to their scriptures.

 

[Joerg]

56 minutes ago, soltakss said:

The symbol of the Rokari should be a red pen, which they use to strike out anything that has been added to their scriptures.

The Abiding Book presumably was written by the hand of god, and Rokar was his editor?

That's quite different from the decision Irenaeus faced when selecting four gospels as canonical, condemning the rest to heterodoxy. These gospels were named after mortals who collected those anecdotes.

It's like taking the 10 article slots of the original Credo card game, and reducing those to five or so. (Has the new edition been published yet?)

Malkionism was effectively Hrestolism, although Hrestol reset his approach at least twice to get better. Seshnegi Malkionism was Hrestolism Mk1, and Fronelan Malkionism (other than Jonatelan/Junoran) is derived from his later teachings. Irensavalism apparently was proselytized by Tomastus, a disciple of the later (or possibly latest) approach Hrestol took.

It is interesting that Hrestol's own offspring did not follow his teachings, but being raised on the Vadeli Isles might do that to young Malkioni.

 

There is a weird parallel to the Malkioneranist Sharp Abiding Grimoire, derived from the Abiding Grimoire of the mainstream Makanists.

Both Makanist Hrestolism and Malkioneranist Reconstructionalism were called "God Learners". The Makanists were the mainstream Malkioni. Their sorcerers maybe a little less so.

Looking at the results of Rokar's reforms, it looks like he repudiates Makanism by embracing Malkioneranist methods.

I wonder whether this is another case of something intended to aim at the clerics only and then spread into a popular movement, similar to the 95 theses Luther wrote in Latin to start a discussion inside the clergy. It seems to have been Watcher Mardron who allied with Bailifes the Hammer to dictate a radical reform of the caste system, abandoning the Zzabur caste and joining the Talar caste with the Men-of-All quasi-caste.

[Akhôrahil]

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

The symbol of the Rokari should be a red pen, which they use to strike out anything that has been added to their scriptures.

It's said of Marcion of Sinope (condemned as a heretic by the Catholic church) that he "edited with a scalpel", cutting away everything in the holy texts he didn't like.

[Sir_Godspeed]

This might be better fodder for another thread, but it does raise an interesting issue: how do you confidently edit away parts of a book that was directly revealed by miracle? Did Rokar need to develop a theoretical framework that discredited the self-writing miracle? Did he stick to the miracle, but attritubed certain parts to later additions by Jrustelans? Is there any writing on this?

[Richard S.]

19 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

This might be better fodder for another thread, but it does raise an interesting issue: how do you confidently edit away parts of a book that was directly revealed by miracle? Did Rokar need to develop a theoretical framework that discredited the self-writing miracle? Did he stick to the miracle, but attritubed certain parts to later additions by Jrustelans? Is there any writing on this?

AFAIK all the stuff he cut out he claimed was additions by the God Learners and not part of the original. And to be fair, he does have a little bit of a point, since the abiding book was really just put together by a bunch of wizards handpicking the stories that fit their beliefs.

"Mundane Explanation
The Abiding Book was put together by the early God
Learners, and was indicative of the work they would later do
on a larger scale. Admittedly, they were probably under the
divine guidance of Malkion, but they selected the stories
that most illustrated their monotheistic revelations, revised
them into a pleasant style of narration popular in the period,
and began copying it in scriptoria to spread Malkion’s word."
-Revealed Mythologies, page 17

[dumuzid]

Ahem, I believe that if you consult the learned preceptors of the Word you'll find that the Abiding Book was written by the very hand of Malkion, to the astonished reverence of the Jrusteli church fathers

[John Biles]

On 5/6/2021 at 10:39 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

This might be better fodder for another thread, but it does raise an interesting issue: how do you confidently edit away parts of a book that was directly revealed by miracle? Did Rokar need to develop a theoretical framework that discredited the self-writing miracle? Did he stick to the miracle, but attritubed certain parts to later additions by Jrustelans? Is there any writing on this?

Two thoughts:

1.  Rokar probably Heroquested to answer some of his questions about what to cut and what not.

2.  He likely asked 'Did this lead to God-Learner abuses, like participating in pagan rites?'  If so, he sliced it.  Removing anything that would justify theistic or animistic practices.  

 

[Nevermet]

On 5/6/2021 at 3:04 AM, Joerg said:

The Abiding Book presumably was written by the hand of god, and Rokar was his editor?

That's quite different from the decision Irenaeus faced when selecting four gospels as canonical, condemning the rest to heterodoxy. These gospels were named after mortals who collected those anecdotes.

It's like taking the 10 article slots of the original Credo card game, and reducing those to five or so. (Has the new edition been published yet?)

Malkionism was effectively Hrestolism, although Hrestol reset his approach at least twice to get better. Seshnegi Malkionism was Hrestolism Mk1, and Fronelan Malkionism (other than Jonatelan/Junoran) is derived from his later teachings. Irensavalism apparently was proselytized by Tomastus, a disciple of the later (or possibly latest) approach Hrestol took.

It is interesting that Hrestol's own offspring did not follow his teachings, but being raised on the Vadeli Isles might do that to young Malkioni.

 

There is a weird parallel to the Malkioneranist Sharp Abiding Grimoire, derived from the Abiding Grimoire of the mainstream Makanists.

Both Makanist Hrestolism and Malkioneranist Reconstructionalism were called "God Learners". The Makanists were the mainstream Malkioni. Their sorcerers maybe a little less so.

Looking at the results of Rokar's reforms, it looks like he repudiates Makanism by embracing Malkioneranist methods.

I wonder whether this is another case of something intended to aim at the clerics only and then spread into a popular movement, similar to the 95 theses Luther wrote in Latin to start a discussion inside the clergy. It seems to have been Watcher Mardron who allied with Bailifes the Hammer to dictate a radical reform of the caste system, abandoning the Zzabur caste and joining the Talar caste with the Men-of-All quasi-caste.

Loved this post

[Nevermet]

On 5/6/2021 at 9:34 AM, Akhôrahil said:

It's said of Marcion of Sinope (condemned as a heretic by the Catholic church) that he "edited with a scalpel", cutting away everything in the holy texts he didn't like.

This comparison is not making my like Rokar more.

[Qizilbashwoman]

47 minutes ago, Nevermet said:

This comparison is not making my like Rokar more.

You're not really supposed to like Rokar

[Nevermet]

42 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

You're not really supposed to like Rokar

*JoeyFromFriendsShockedFace.GIF*

[John Biles]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

You're not really supposed to like Rokar

Rokar is an Old Testament style prophet, who goes into the wilderness and comes out sharp as a razor to tell you that you suck and must change your ways or die.

Rokar is a logical response to the God-Learners' tendency to say that their will was the whole of the law.  Going buck wild = apocalypse.

For all his flaws, the Rokari are never going to try and turn everyone in Genertla into one big dragon or sink entire continents or try to wipe out all humans.

 

[Nevermet]

10 minutes ago, John Biles said:

Rokar is an Old Testament style prophet, who goes into the wilderness and comes out sharp as a razor to tell you that you suck and must change your ways or die.

Rokar is a logical response to the God-Learners' tendency to say that their will was the whole of the law.  Going buck wild = apocalypse.

For all his flaws, the Rokari are never going to try and turn everyone in Genertla into one big dragon or sink entire continents or try to wipe out all humans.

 

Yeah, I'm willing to believe Rokar is a more sympathetic character than Theoblanc

[metcalph]

Recently had the stray thought that the Great Talar of the West is none other than Meriatan.

[Qizilbashwoman]

On 5/7/2021 at 9:08 PM, John Biles said:

Rokar is an Old Testament style prophet, who goes into the wilderness and comes out sharp as a razor to tell you that you suck and must change your ways or die.

Rokar is not a Prophet of the Hebrew Bible, Rokar is 100% a Protestant ball-buster. The Prophets came out to tell you you sucked with poetry and screaming about angels made of a thousand eyes and a thousand wings, they brought plagues on Pharaohs and talked to burning bushes, they met prophet-queens from alien lands who blessed them with rich spices and incense, they got eaten by whales and vomited up later a thousand miles away. Even New Testament prophets prophesied of the coming of Elijah while eating only honey and locusts (they're kosher and full of protein) like a werewolf, or early saints who were burnt alive on a holy wheel only to have the flames turn into winding flowers.

Protestant reformers burned icons, nailed reformations onto churches, railed against excess, trimmed the fat, demanded a narrow new piety without priesthood, repudiated the past for a new future based on new interpretations. All light and fury, wrapped in sack-cloth.

Rokar is 100% the fury of the Reformation.