Jump to content

Eastern Hero Wars


scott-martin

Recommended Posts

Back in the nineties, Chris Gidlow ran a couple of dozen-ish player freeform games at conventions (Tarsh War sequels) set out on the eastern frontier: Revolt in the Redlands and Retreat from the Redlands. Unfortunately I was too busy organising the conventions where he ran them to take part, but one of these decades... 

Anyway, the schtick in Revolt... was that it was basically Custer's Last Stand, only starring General Thrax and the Red Army Cavalry Corps, while Retreat... was more of a retreat from Moscow scenario, slogging through General Winter's partisans.

As I recall it, every character sheet had a different ("Top Secret! Eyes Only!") account of who was actually behind the revolt: renegade Sultans, Blue Moon conspiracies, iconoclast settlers, you name it. Some of the characters were more extreme versions of the Tarsh War cast: the Char-un cossacks were replaced with Tusk Rider mercenaries, and the Lunar Magician (singular) was Professor Wyrmsett the Chronomancer, from a Major Class of the Lunar College. General Thrax's mission briefing came from Bellex Maximus himself. Stuff like that.

But I digress. We should probably be talking about the Alanthore Cult and the Silk Road, the Redhair caravans and flows of bullion, or the tidal ebb and flow of the Glowline across the steppes... 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Convulsion Goes Forth programme (Leicester, UK, July 1998):

Quote

Deployed by Moonboat to the dusty plains of Pent, General Livius Thrax leads an elite force of the Lunar Empire's finest troops to quash rebels, crush nomads, and impose the peace of the Red Goddess on this far-flung frontier of the Empire. But the Redlands are named, not for the colour of Her divine moonlight, but for the countless bloody skirmishes that have soaked their soil. Is this Thrax's last stand?

 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Blood, Blood and more Blood!

From Fod-Ariam's map in White Bear and Red Moon, I think the defeated White Moonies fled and established Heretic's Country.  

When Sheng returns, I think he defeated Phargentes the Emperor at the Battle of MolariSor.  He doesn't rule much longer (he defeats Can Shu and Kralorela according to the Crytpic Verses of the Yellow Calender) but doesn't make any effort against Prax before his defeat (I think he was aiming for Dragon Pass).  

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What is going on in the Redlands and points further east as the Third Age starts putting the chairs up on the tables and announces last call? The Red Hair Tribe of Pent seems heavily hinted to be ready to turn on the Lunar Empire at some point, while also being active practitioners of the Lunar Way. The Pentans themselves seem divided between solar and storm traditions, and the King of the Wings who is about to earn himself a Third Battle of Chaos is probably a member of the former. MGF tells us that Pent is of course extraordinarily disunited, and presumably beyond the big eleven there are many smaller tribes, all of them seeking to accommodate themselves to the changing world. The loyalties out here seem strange- if we assume the Red Hair Tribe don't make their play until later in the Hero Wars (which seems reasonable), then we have an alliance of Moon and Storm which is contesting with the Sun at the moment.

Perhaps, of course, Dranz Goloi has instead achieved a kind of Solar Storm unification, but that takes us into the Bliss of Ignorance, which I believe is currently ruled by a man exiled from everyday society who has gotten into selling drugs to fuel his return to full life. But I've never seen a single episode of Breaking Bad, so I can't possibly comment. 

But getting away from the macro and down to the micro, perhaps in the Redlands we have a mirror of Arrolia- a utopian vision of peace and harmony that proves to only be a mirage. Too much fear of Gorgorma, too little willingness to accept the Hellcrack into your life. Orathorn's immortal family of necromancers are presumably a particularly charged and physical metaphor, but not usually an activist one (it would ruin the stagnancy motif). Senbar is more malignant. 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1

 "And I am pretty tired of all this fuss about rfevealign that many worshippers of a minor goddess might be lesbians." -Greg Stafford, April 11, 2007

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Eff said:

What is going on in the Redlands and points further east as the Third Age starts putting the chairs up on the tables and announces last call?

We shouldn't forget the cover picture to the Guide vol 1 and the conflict suggested between Can Shu and Cragspider.  A struggle for control of the Black Dragon? Of the troll legions? Or something darker or more primitive?  Does this conflict intersect at the Hell Crack?  Or does this presage a return of the Black Sun?

15 minutes ago, Eff said:

The Red Hair Tribe of Pent seems heavily hinted to be ready to turn on the Lunar Empire at some point, while also being active practitioners of the Lunar Way.

What might there connection be to Alanthore or the Blood Sun?  Has the Red Hair Tribe been influenced by Can Shu to bring the Blood Sun west and unite it with the Red Moon?

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

We shouldn't forget the cover picture to the Guide vol 1 and the conflict suggested between Can Shu and Cragspider.  A struggle for control of the Black Dragon? Of the troll legions? Or something darker or more primitive?  Does this conflict intersect at the Hell Crack?  Or does this presage a return of the Black Sun?

What might there connection be to Alanthore or the Blood Sun?  Has the Red Hair Tribe been influenced by Can Shu to bring the Blood Sun west and unite it with the Red Moon?

Interestingly, Can Shu and Cragspider are presented as allies in the Kralori apocalyptic material, but perhaps that's an alliance of convenience. In Cragspider's own material, it's simply noted that Can Shu commands trolls, and the Blood Sun's priests make obeisance to the Mistress Race. So I think that there's something about command of the Dark at some deep level here, perhaps over what the ultimate source of Dark truly is. 

Granted, I'm still very unsure what the Blood Sun is at the moment. There's certainly some kind of connection there with the Red Moon, but is it an Annilla analogue, a piece of the dead Turning Sun that still remains present in the world, or is it a kind of parasite, or is it simply Natha in drag? 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1

 "And I am pretty tired of all this fuss about rfevealign that many worshippers of a minor goddess might be lesbians." -Greg Stafford, April 11, 2007

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sudden realization: Can Shu is able to become Kralori emperor despite everything arrayed against him, and seems nearly indestructible. This suggests he has some kind of draconic power... which he may be siphoning from the Black Dragon. Or he may be overlapping with the Black Dragon and occasionally waking up in Cragspider's embrace, smoking a cigarette, to much mutual embarrassment for all involved. 

  • Like 3

 "And I am pretty tired of all this fuss about rfevealign that many worshippers of a minor goddess might be lesbians." -Greg Stafford, April 11, 2007

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Lux needs to ask which way Glamour is in Phase Three (cf. my recent Zenith-infused Monster Empire musings elsewhere), that strongly suggests that Sheng's Shadowmoon Empire or its successor made it harder to see the Red Moon. Which again brings us to the Black Sun Cult, from two different directions.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a notion floating around that perhaps Sheng's "Shadowmoon Empire" somehow pushed the Red Moon into its Dark phases (or empowered them, or drew power from them), Yin to the previous Empire's Yang. Yara Aranis, the demon goddess of the Reaching Moon who haunts the nightmares of Pentans, is strongly associated with All Day Permanent Red, and after three Wanes in a Lunar Hell getting to know her intimately, Sheng Seleris might be strongly motivated to do something that would upset her. So reborn Emperor Sheng would have all the big bright Solar wang yang energy, relegating the Moon (and her priesthoods and people) to the female/dark/abused victim side. Those Pentans are assholes.

In Argrath's Monster Empire, of course, all sorts of things could happen to the Sky. See Phase Four for inspiration. This is just an overture.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And seeing the Monster Empire through the eyes of the Lloigor naturally gets you to the truth behind the illiterate scrawls in Argrath's Saga: the late Lunar Empire as a fully-actualised transhumanist project, on the brink of achieving the eschatonic singularity which had always been its ambition. Those heaps of discarded corpses in charnel pits? Their previous occupants have no need for them, now they have achieved spiritual liberation and discarded material dross. That substance you call "gorp"? It is the New Flesh of the Zeroth Element, in which we merge and are truly All Us, the blessed grey goo. When the New Gods descend from the Lunar Sphere, all will revel, for they will set us free. Those choruses of screams are the birth-pangs of the New Age. No more crowned Emperors, Kings, Sultans and Priestesses upon their golden thrones: smash up the old ways, discard what holds you back, and embrace cosmic transformation. By calling us insane, you prove you are unfit to judge us: your morality is obsolete. New times demand new thinking. Above us, our pregnant goddess throbs in the Upper Middle Heavens, as she prepares to bring forth the New World, the child of Time and Entropy, whereby all things will be forever changed. Glorious!

... I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. Hail Moonson!

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 4
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Eff said:

Granted, I'm still very unsure what the Blood Sun is at the moment. There's certainly some kind of connection there with the Red Moon, but is it an Annilla analogue, a piece of the dead Turning Sun that still remains present in the world, or is it a kind of parasite, or is it simply Natha in drag? 

The weird thing about the Blood Sun is that, it doesn't so much refer to the celestial object as it refers to a specific phenomenon that occurs during certain sacrificial rituals. 

It's entirely possible that there is a shift from the Blood Sun being a secret part of the sun revealed through human sacrifice - to being associated with the Red Moon. The Yellow Calendar seems to imply this, at least, and, well, there's the whole color thing. 

On the other hand, I've always been tempted to associate the Blood Sun with Shargash/Tolat. Granted, he has his own planet, but it does sometimes seem like all the celestial children of the Sun (Yelm or pre-Yelm), kinda has a "stake" in the sun as a symbol/object (including the moon, of course), and Shargash being the bloody, red aspect of it seems sensible. It would also fit with it being a darkness entity, aside from Natha as you mention, few celestial deities can pull that off. 

Whether any of these are compatible with the Vithelan Sky Tyrant, I'm not sure, though Shargash might once again fit with something that ended the Demigods Cycle and started the Human Cycle (much as he, in Pelorian reckoning, murdered the entire world to (presumably) start it anew).

But really, it's entirely possible that the "Blood Sun" is in itself not so much a deity as a kind of mantle or process that can be applied to several different things, I don't know.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

On the other hand, I've always been tempted to associate the Blood Sun with Shargash/Tolat. Granted, he has his own planet, but it does sometimes seem like all the celestial children of the Sun (Yelm or pre-Yelm), kinda has a "stake" in the sun as a symbol/object (including the moon, of course), and Shargash being the bloody, red aspect of it seems sensible. It would also fit with it being a darkness entity, aside from Natha as you mention, few celestial deities can pull that off. 

IIRC, there was a thread a few years back where someone (I forget who) wondered aloud about linking the Blood Sun to Spol for a lot of the reasons you say.

I wish I remembered more, but I thought I should mention it.

Edited by Nevermet
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks all for indulging this pivot so far. It's really striking how naturally the discussion gravitates to the eastern frontier as true key to the fate of the Lunar Empire. This is where much of what we consider the "classic" modern empire comes from, whether that's via the consolidation of local influences (dominant goddess centers in Karasal up to the Blue Moon) or the imperative to protect the open border.  In a lot of ways, the Red"line" History is really the Red"lands" History, the imperial saga that revolves around manifest destiny and the horse tribes.

But we know now that the horse tribes were never static. They have a history too (Palbar, for example, was once a nomad religious center, maybe something like the Paps complex) and are open to influences from all directions. They live in a corridor defined by Dara Happa and Chen Durel at the extremes.

UKnoBCu.pngThey're a trade route, that Silk Road. The horse cultural belt defines and in some ways embodies the relationship between these two imperial-magical systems. When Yelm communicates with Vith, it's through the horse tribes. And in the intervening space, local forms (rival suns and sunlets, starlight ancestors, "moons," planets) emerge like mirages in a landscape that's little more than sky. Apply the right kind of pressure to the right pool of influences and you get mutant movements . . . like the Ghost Dance or the Boxer Revolt or Mao's revolutionary doctrine. Maybe this has been going on for longer than people think and once in every couple millennia you get a Lunar Way emerging from the interaction of Karasal, Rinliddi, liminal states like Velthil and Althil. 

But that's another story. In a way it's a shame that Greg's angels let him linger in archaic Dara Happa and western Pelanda so long that we only get the deep past of the Mothers' own country in isolated asides. This project has me looking into ways to harness machines to spin up new Deep Sources to build on for the East and elsewhere. What could possibly go wrong with that? For now, all we really need to grapple with is that the horse people learned another new religion from the Nights of Horror, the way of West King Wind and his brothers.

(The "westernness" of the Aks tribes is suggestive. They're looking toward and probably beyond Dara Happa for their compass of how to be Storm people. East, where the sun rises, is crude and cruel. South is hot. North is cold. West, however, is where the king comes from. We don't know a lot about the influences the burgeoning lunar empire displaced. Some may have gone east like bodhidharma and ultimately seeded this revolution. That said, we don't know a lot about Kralorelan storm either. Maybe their elemental vocabulary consists of transitional forms we would consider bizarre: "solar storm," "black sun" etc. Basko is another power that recedes into the east in an earlier age. Blue Moon and her mythic enemies, Secret Water.)

What I am hearing is that the fate of the moon is really resolved in the east. Oraya (Oria) was historically the leading edge of imperial expansion until the east pushed back and, with the west closed, the south became important. (Why did the early empire forbid Dara Happa to look north? Why did that trigger a civil war?) But it's really all about Oraya and the eastern front. This is the real Eel power base, the province they built bespoke and where they are most at home. This is where setbacks cost them the most. Tarsh is a sideshow, a consolation prize. This is where they send Jar-Eel over and over. This is where Jar-Eel as an adult is really formed. (Song and dance.)

Beyond the Eels and their interests, there's something out across the steppe the empire wants to negotiate. The Red Hair Tribute is more than another bit of institutional cruelty designed to keep the locals submissive. Anybody can take hostages but then using them to secure a trade route signals something else going on. Iron for silk is nice but what else is being exchanged here?

zenithfour9.jpgSheng hates Kralorela. Whatever he inflicts on Dara Happa and the Red Moon is only a means to that end. He looks east. Odds are good that even after he clears out of hell, Peloria is only a place where he can recollect his hidden powers and build new ones to throw at the Shan Shan. He's a syncretizer too. Maybe he'll remind the solar peoples things they've forgotten about birds, stars, suns and horses.

I think the Rockwoods my man Larnste seeded to separate rival empires was actually the Eastern Rockwoods and those empires were the Vrimakites and the Hykimites, bird and dragon people. But I can't prove it yet.

I think it's suspicious that the modern Glow fails to defend the east. Either the locals have turned it off for reasons of their own, it isn't working or even Permanent Full just isn't enough to interfere with whatever magic the horse people have now. I want to know where they're getting that magic. Otherwise, some combination of the first two scenarios is more likely. Maybe after that, they decide the entire grid needs updated. Spolite magic probably runs on Permanent Dark, for example.

I love the Heretics Country. Let's do it.

It's interesting that while Sheng looks east, Can Shu seems to look west. He might not be a central factor in an Eastern Hero War at all (I'd look more closely at whoever oppresses Kralorelan peasants and mandarins!) but more about a Lunar Hero War. Either way, until someone recovers the early cryptic verses it's hard to tell. Maybe that's one thing we can do here.

(The mythic South will emerge in its time, as will Up and Down. Center is its own Hero War, bringing us back to Dragon Pass.)

Edited by scott-martin
left some junk in the trunk so why not a zenith panel
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 2

singer sing me a given

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:


 

I think it's suspicious that the modern Glow fails to defend the east. Either the locals have turned it off for reasons of their own, it isn't working or even Permanent Full just isn't enough to interfere with whatever magic the horse people have now. I want to know where they're getting that magic. Otherwise, some combination of the first two scenarios is more likely. Maybe after that, they decide the entire grid needs updated. Spolite magic probably runs on Permanent Dark, for example.

 

The Glowline doesn't provide permanent Full Moon; it provides Permanent Half Moon, stabilizing Lunar fluctuations which Sheng had exploited.  And it doesn't suppress other powers.

Given Oraya is not thickly settled and Sheng is, well, Sheng, it's not surprising that he could roll over Oraya like a nightmare tide.

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

It's really striking how naturally the discussion gravitates to the eastern frontier as true key to the fate of the Lunar Empire.

As the saying goes: "The East is Red"

On 5/7/2021 at 6:23 PM, Eff said:

Can Shu and Cragspider are presented as allies in the Kralori apocalyptic material, but perhaps that's an alliance of convenience. In Cragspider's own material, it's simply noted that Can Shu commands trolls, and the Blood Sun's priests make obeisance to the Mistress Race. So I think that there's something about command of the Dark at some deep level here, perhaps over what the ultimate source of Dark truly is. 

There's some deep battle here, I think, for the "soul" of the Darkness.  Wrestling for control over the Black Dragon, perhaps the primordial awareness of Darkness.  The hallucinations of Black Lotus dust vs. the visionary pictoglyphs of the Black Mountain.

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

It's interesting that while Sheng looks east, Can Shu seems to look west.

The Twin Dragon Phoenix?  One dark, one light?

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

(Why did the early empire forbid Dara Happa to look north? Why did that trigger a civil war?)

The Pit of Chaos?  Influence of the Altinae? 

5 hours ago, scott-martin said:

This is the real Eel power base, the province they built bespoke and where they are most at home. This is where setbacks cost them the most. Tarsh is a sideshow, a consolation prize. This is where they send Jar-Eel over and over. This is where Jar-Eel as an adult is really formed.

Not to mention her true love, Beat-pot Aelwrin is from there. 

It seems it's the Assidays, the Yelm folk, who turn southward trying to once again defeat the Storm.

5 hours ago, scott-martin said:

there's something out across the steppe the empire wants to negotiate.

Perhaps our lost isle/land of Sorkum? 

Or is it something more philosophical with the decadence of Ignorance?

12 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The weird thing about the Blood Sun is that, it doesn't so much refer to the celestial object as it refers to a specific phenomenon that occurs during certain sacrificial rituals. 

Perhaps it is that ritual point where the Red Moon and the Sun come together?  A reconciling of Yelmgatha and the Red Emperor?

 

On 5/7/2021 at 6:35 PM, Eff said:

Can Shu is able to become Kralori emperor despite everything arrayed against him, and seems nearly indestructible. This suggests he has some kind of draconic power... which he may be siphoning from the Black Dragon.

Or is the Black Dragon in its human dream....

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, John Biles said:

Given Oraya is not thickly settled and Sheng is, well, Sheng, it's not surprising that he could roll over Oraya like a nightmare tide.

Good to see you here. Yeah, I got taken in by the Permanent Full hype. But if even Permanent Half can't keep the horse tribes away from "the outskirts of Raibanth" itself as early as 1624, then adding Sheng to the mix when he returns is really only adding a little insult to grievous injury. 

This raises a side question of how the Empire recovers its credibility after 1625. Jar-Eel plus the Bat plus the remaining Provincial Army in its entirety is enough to hold Torang, but there aren't a lot of really good southern magicians left to exploit Glow conditions.

Whatever forces the King of Wings has on his side need to be countered and exceeded . . . I see a fevered hunt across the continent for lore and paraphernalia, hidden powers. A fun quest for Lunar players and Jar-Eel is evidently part of it. Unless they come back with new weapons, the magical arms race ends before 1630, which is probably not MGF.

On the other hand, if the new horse way can overcome Horse Eater so easily then maybe this is the secret origin of Reaching Storm. There's a lot we don't know about the scarier forms of steppe shamanism and they've had a couple of wanes to refine their contacts.

Unless those tricky dwarves up there are using their own mountain to fuzz the signal for their own purposes.

35 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

The Twin Dragon Phoenix?  One dark, one light?

I appreciate the cryptical verses for taking a trans-regional view of the fate or "dharma" of the eastern quadrant. While the cosmic ambition of Can Shu is clearly the primary interest of the author(s), the inclusion of incidents far from Chen Durel suggests a bigger narrative on the table. Twin Dragon Phoenix might be a storyline open to what we could call an Upper Hero War, leaving the various coalitions we see in the other surviving plates to resolve the truly Vithelan or Eastern bardo. Whether this ever becomes material history or remains allegorical / spiritual is just one of those questions we confront as we reach for the gates of dream. It makes a ripping yarn though with its scary monsters and super creeps.

As far as the north goes, the early Empire may have simply wanted to keep ambitious sun cultists from getting too chummy with the Blue Moon at too early a stage. What's remarkable to me is that the Dara Happans were willing to revolt in order to travel in that direction and Glamour was willing to enforce the edict in the face of that desire. The world was a lot younger and more volatile then, admittedly, but it seems to have been a big deal. The altinelan intervention at Four Arrows might have scared Glamour. On the other hand, fixing the Kalikos cycle doesn't start until 1593 so the north seems to slip everyone's mind at some stage.

Did they not find what they were looking for in the Ice Sea? Or get it early on and then abandon this somewhat uncanny frontier? One of the things I'm hunting in my free time is various precursor "old moons" scattered around the lozenge like the forces eventually integrated into Lunar Prax. The north might be full of that stuff or even undifferentiated Sky that the lunars wanted to keep strategic competitors away from.

51 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

visionary pictoglyphs of the Black Mountain

As of now, IMG the Mistress of Mistresses under Dagori Inkarth is going to have twins. From what I can tell about the (not strictly chronological) system organizing carvings of the Black Mountain School, 7-11 should be read as a single narrative unit covering "the troll plot." This is where we find most of the Blood Sun material, so I suspect the trolls are the ones calling the shots on that particular scheme. (28 is part of an extended apocalyptic "coda" outside the main sequence.)

Cragspider is one crafty lady. Perhaps she and Bina Bang come to terms . . . or don't. Red is an interesting color for these people.

  • Like 4

singer sing me a given

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Snodal saw a map of a sunken Fronela in Altinela. This may have been a premonition, but he interpreted it as a kind of plan by Zzabur. Of course, unless the map is modern enough to note contour lines, a sunken Fronela might well be a flooded Fronela... and there's an existing plan by the snow trolls to block up Magasta's pool with a very large iceberg. (One which the Triolini join in on.) An interesting convergence here. We may have a three-way conflict within Dark as a whole, the civil war within Shadow and then the powers of Cold offering their own approach, backed by the Altinelans...

Of course, Water and Dark coming together suggests the Blue Moon may be present here as well, which ties into the Lunar reluctance to go far into the North- keeping Eol and Erigia as buffer states, never attempting to incorporate the Blue Moon Plateau into the Empire. The open mouth of the Red Moon synchronizes poorly with the closed lips of the Blue, of course, and that may be all that's relevant here. I know what the (inner) party line would be.

But continuing well into Heretics Country, the Kalikos Expeditions improve the climate, but they would also weaken the Cold. Perhaps the Lunars are playing their own part in the struggle within Darkness. Natha certainly seems far more shadowy than icy, but I've never met her, so I may be off there.

Of course, if we have a struggle within Dark, we certainly have struggles within other elements (the ones within Moon are already at least three-way, possibly getting up to seven-way) and perhaps the Storm Pentans are taking part in a cold war within Storm. Certainly, their identification of Humakt as part of Storm would be controversial in other parts of Glorantha.

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1

 "And I am pretty tired of all this fuss about rfevealign that many worshippers of a minor goddess might be lesbians." -Greg Stafford, April 11, 2007

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm reminded of the existence of a Winter Win or northeastern (remember, the poles may have shifted 30-45 degrees) survival story in which Chen Durel participates along with the Blue Moon mutants and the Himile forces of the glacier. These people have a memory of cooperation and some kind of earned mythic compatibility. But that's among the trolls and for their enthusiasts to plumb. 

What's going on in serene Kralorela where the Golden Age never ended beyond a few invigorating interruptions? "Benevolent blessing binges" that lead to spontaneous outbreaks. Warring underground factions. "Random" ancestral curses suggesting a breakdown in propitiation or even explanatory systems. Scapegoats. Emergency infrastructure repairs. Reverse alchemists. Scapegoats. Zombie press gangs. Food riots. Starving hordes. Mass crucifixion. All the neighbors are pressing in on the center. The sacred oxen are on the move. The Huan To are coming. 

"Be tattered." That doesn't sound like the mandate of heaven is secure. It almost raises the unspeakable possibility that the exarch cabal gathering in the capital could be a coup hastening the emperor toward enlightenment. If not, "no blame," but it probably ripples across the Dragonrise one way or another.

Either way, the function of the East suggests that atrocious external events are best read as the ordeal of somebody's soul. The question is whose if not Godunya.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1

singer sing me a given

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The War of Stupidity against Ignorance is part of the Hero Wars, right? If so, do we know when/if it ends within the timeline?

It's nebulous, which goes nicely with the metaphysical "this is a bardo experience, somebody's consciousness breaking down / stepping up" interpretation but is tricky to align with more simulationist models elsewhere. We know Godunya is still officially extant at this stage because his passivity is part of the frustration, so this is well before the Summer Land exit . . . but if the Circle of Infinite Power helps trigger 1625, then we know the emperor persists in his material form at least to that point. If I were gambling I'd say that the War starts in the 1622-30 phase so it might already be a factor in the "Eastern Hero Wars Status Quo" . . . but again, time may be one of the constraints that break down as the emperor abandons the world.

The dragons they sent west need a little time to return.

In theory many if not all of the "demonic" or antigod aspects of the Eastern Hero War prophecies are simply more masks of the soul that need to be negotiated, embraced, absorbed and ultimately transcended before the process can continue. This would include people like Can Shu and his ten thousand conspiracies and fake cults, the "funeral for the outside world" ceremony and so on. Where Ignorance Is, Splendor Follows, to quote Freud. It's how the light gets in.

What's different this time around is that Yanoor officially hung around for centuries after the Sunstop in some form (and so could have interacted with the Nysalorians and/or Arkatites across the ancient Redland trade corridor, one of my current obsessions) whereas the Godunya expression is now exhausted . . . at least to all known appearances. Deep Sources and board games will provide additional incident.

While I would love it if the God Learners derived their notion of a "death spider" responsible for the Sunstop from Kralorelan sources, we would need evidence that our girl is known in that part of the world. However, they might have brought awareness of her cult Eest and it could have spread from that contact . . . not a lot known about her second age footprint. She might even have been one of the foreign devils they used to keep the locals in line.

Edited by scott-martin
correcting a binary becomes an occasion for small fixes: no blame
  • Like 3

singer sing me a given

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Nevermet said:

You're not making me want a Shadowrun / Cyberpunk Glorantha less, you know.

As I put it elsewhere, you can, based on the surgical aspects of the Kyger Litor adoption ritual, imagine Arkat Kingtroll as a cyborg, though made of lead rather than steel and aluminum. Robocop, the Six Million Dollar Uz, whatever. 

  • Like 2

 "And I am pretty tired of all this fuss about rfevealign that many worshippers of a minor goddess might be lesbians." -Greg Stafford, April 11, 2007

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...