Establishing an Eurmal shrine

[Alex]

2 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Here's another thought: Eurmal isn't Chaotic, it's Disorder and Illusion - so possibly making it sacred to a Chaos cult would do the job.  This is when your vengeful Orlanthi are tempted to do evil "for the greater good". 

Now there's an "in order to rid your kitchen of bread mould, blow up the entire house" option!

[Bill the barbarian]

12 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Here's another thought: Eurmal isn't Chaotic, it's Disorder and Illusion - so possibly making it sacred to a Chaos cult would do the job.  This is when your vengeful Orlanthi are tempted to do evil "for the greater good". 

What could possibly go wrong... go wrong... go wrong... go wrong...
Oh loverly...  the Eurmali now have chaos features!

[Joerg]

Making the shrine and everything about it boring and stuffy without that being a trick to those who suffer from it is hard.

But then I suppose there are Eurmal shrines teaching spells like "sobriety" or "compulsive truth speaking" just to inflict that on others. Even a "what's so funny about that" spell to sour the audience of a fellow trickster.

 

Tricking the Orlanth cultist supervisor into doing something chaotic is a hoot. 

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

Quite.  The mind truly Boggles. 

Yes, Boggles would likely work.  But you'd probably be left with such a plague of Boggles that you'd have to recruit another Eurmali to get rid of them.

[Shiningbrow]

5 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Yes, Boggles would likely work.  But you'd probably be left with such a plague of Boggles that you'd have to recruit another Eurmali to get rid of them.

Most obvious would be to introduce a natural predator to the boggles... Cos that's never turned out bad... (or worse)

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Yes, Boggles would likely work.  But you'd probably be left with such a plague of Boggles that you'd have to recruit another Eurmali to get rid of them.

You need someone strong in embodying the Harmony Rune to allow themselves to be (almost) taken apart by the Boggles. Sending in someone strong in Illusion (Eurmal) has at the very best only an illusionary effect.

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

You need someone strong in embodying the Harmony Rune to allow themselves to be (almost) taken apart by the Boggles.

Actually, we know from the myth that it is Uleria who conquers the Boggles with the Body of Love (WF#5). 

[Joerg]

16 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Actually, we know from the myth that it is Uleria who conquers the Boggles with the Body of Love (WF#5). 

right, fertility, not harmony. Silly me. Still ended up as tatters of herself, only difference to Tylenea was that the Boggles were mollified somehow.

Strong harmony might work as a deterrent, or might inspire their lust for destruction.

[scott-martin]

32 minutes ago, Joerg said:

right, fertility, not harmony. Silly me. Still ended up as tatters of herself, only difference to Tylenea was that the Boggles were mollified somehow.

I wonder where and when these stories were recorded.

The "fertility beats disorder beats harmony" dynamic points to the occasional confusion over which runes actually oppose illusion and change. In a strict binary code system each power rune would have one polar opposite and more tenuous relationships to the other six powers. But in a more networked structure they might interact more like the theyalan elements, with one rune suppressing a second, which suppresses a third and so on through the cycle. Maybe they also have supportive or augmentation relationships if you look the other way around.

 

In this model maybe fertility beats disorder beats harmony beats illusion beats death beats stability beats change beats truth beats fertility. Or something like that. It depends on how a power rune civilization expresses the cosmic dance. The East is an obvious place to search because they need magic of their own that isn't just the I Ching or what is now a Western elemental pentagram.

[Eff]

58 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I wonder where and when these stories were recorded.

The "fertility beats disorder beats harmony" dynamic points to the occasional confusion over which runes actually oppose illusion and change. In a strict binary code system each power rune would have one polar opposite and more tenuous relationships to the other six powers. But in a more networked structure they might interact more like the theyalan elements, with one rune suppressing a second, which suppresses a third and so on through the cycle. Maybe they also have supportive or augmentation relationships if you look the other way around.

 

In this model maybe fertility beats disorder beats harmony beats illusion beats death beats stability beats change beats truth beats fertility. Or something like that. It depends on how a power rune civilization expresses the cosmic dance. The East is an obvious place to search because they need magic of their own that isn't just the I Ching or what is now a Western elemental pentagram.

Hmmm. I played around with the dynamics here, and produced a eight-spoked wheel (with a symbol of Moorcock-Chaos because I put arrowheads on the "opposing" powers) and for each Power rune, you have one superior rune, one inferior rune, one opposite rune, and four more nebulous relationships. I constructed, based on the oppositions and some of these mythical relationships, the following chain:

Life/fertility > disorder > stasis/stability > illusion > death > harmony > movement > truth > life/fertility

So if we take Life and look at it, we have truth superior and disorder inferior, death as the opposite. "Inner" connections: harmony, illusion. "Outer" connections: stasis, movement. There are some interesting immediate implications here!

Death has illusion superior, harmony inferior, life opposite, truth and disorder as inner connections, stasis and movement as outer connections. Outer connections are obviously going to be identical between opposed pairs. And the synchronicities just pile up if we assume inner connections are augmenting each other. Truth synchs with death and stasis, disorder with death and movement... so we could have our Chaos Star/Dharma Wheel and it generally fits together.

Interesting how the Dragon rune has eight points...

[scott-martin]

9 minutes ago, Eff said:

Interesting how the Dragon rune has eight points...

Love it. In the complexity of a fully developed East I suspect there are multiple competing configurations, each of which allow their adepts access to a different set of oblique strategies and occult politics. The current Dragon, for example, may only have prevailed through aeonic upheavals. 

Another thing that drops out of this is a Vithelan astrology separate from what they have in Dara Happa. For that matter that's probably where you see your tightest links between alchemies and esoteric planetology.

As for trickster, we know boggles eat precious quadrotriticale and breed like gremlins and other nanotech weapons.

[Joerg]

The sequence of the weeks is interesting compared to Eff's scheme.

There are always opposed pairs, so what remains are the transitions between pairs.

Harmony -> Death   inferior to superior neighbor

Fertility -> Stasis   neutral

Movement -> Illusion   augmentation

Truth -> Disorder    neutral

 

But then the sequences in seasons and weekdays aren't pretty well based in Godtime precedent, either. The sequence of seasons does reflect the weather pattern for coastal Genertela, and the sequence of the weekday elements is that of vertical order. (In Dara Happa and Prax, Fire Season is the rainy season?)

[soltakss]

On 9/24/2021 at 3:14 AM, Shiningbrow said:

Orlanthi may tolerate Lightbringers, but I doubt many would allow a murderer or thief to live amongst them.

Don't kill one of us, just kill those I tell you to.

Don't steal from us, just steal from our enemies.

Orlanthi are hypocrites, really.

On 9/24/2021 at 9:28 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Sometimes someone needs a damn good killing, and it's against the rules. That's when you need a trickster.

Exactly.

"It wasn't me, it was my Trickster. Bad Trickster! Let's flog him as a punishment. There, all done, now. Just don't do it again, do you hear me?"

 

[Shiningbrow]

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

Don't kill one of us, just kill those I tell you to.

Don't steal from us, just steal from our enemies.

Orlanthi are hypocrites, really.

Exactly.

"It wasn't me, it was my Trickster. Bad Trickster! Let's flog him as a punishment. There, all done, now. Just don't do it again, do you hear me?"

 

It sounds good... But I still think it'd be a case of "not in my stead". Just like prisons, and rubbish tips. We all agree we need them, but you don't want to have to live near it.

[FungusColombicus]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

It sounds good... But I still think it'd be a case of "not in my stead". Just like prisons, and rubbish tips. We all agree we need them, but you don't want to have to live near it.

isn't those words ring true to the party halls of the Storm Bulls too ?

[Darius West]

On 9/12/2021 at 11:53 AM, Scorus said:

My Eurmal player (Issaries as far as all but a few know) wants to establish a shrine and become a Priest. What would be involved in establishing an Eurmal shrine? To a certain extent anything goes, I guess, but what parameters/process/rituals would be involved?

The idea of a trickster shrine with actual worshippers is not without precedent, but hoo boy is that character signing on for some trouble.  Tricksters don't play well with others, including other tricksters.  It's not that they are crazy berserkers like ZZs or Uroxi, but they are compulsive scammers, cheats, liars, troublemakers, lunatics and sometimes they are given to the murderer aspect.  The God Learners tried to create a Great Temple to the Trickster in Maniria, and shortly after its creation the entire city winked out of existence (if my memory serves).  The trickster character in question should be advised to simply pay an Ikadz worshipper to torture him if he is that much of a masochist.

I don't know if this is the way most people play trickster shrines, but in my Glorantha trickster shrines can be found by tricksters using divination.  These sites don't have a large group of worshippers, but will be small, out of the way features where a trickster can go to worship on their own.  It's not that other tricksters can't be present, but they are inclined to annoy each other.  Sites will include things like a disused drinking fountain that connects to a septic tank, or a gold wheel that is solidly glued to the ground and cannot be moved, or really pornographic knotholes in the timber on a wall in an alley.  Tricksters may well find other tricksters lurking around such sites, but it is a moot point if they really want to acknowledge each other.

On 9/12/2021 at 11:53 AM, Scorus said:

Also, are there any precedents for a mobile shrine? I seem to remember that certain military banners or Humakt swords are mobile shrines? Could a Mostakos make their chariot into a shrine, for instance?

Yes there are.   The Wooden Sword is the classic example.  Certain sufficiently charged holy items/relics can act as a conduit to a deity and serve as a mobile focus of worship, that forego the usual requirements of hundreds of gathered worshippers.  It is possible, if not likely, that such a relic could exist for trickster, but do you seriously think any single trickster ever hangs on to it for long?  That thing will be passed around like an Alabama cousin.

[jajagappa]

15 hours ago, Darius West said:

The idea of a trickster shrine with actual worshippers is not without precedent, but hoo boy is that character signing on for some trouble. 

This is why I think the Trickster shrine actually receives it's magic points from the community during rituals in which the Trickster takes part.  By incorporating the Trickster into the rituals (to ensure the rituals go correctly, for surely Trickster was there in the story in the first place), the community effectively become lay members of the shrine (unknowingly or unwittingly of course) and some of the magic provided to the deity is "stolen" by Trickster for his own use.

[French Desperate WindChild]

6 hours ago, jajagappa said:

the community effectively become lay members of the shrine (unknowingly or unwittingly of course)

note that as lay members of the light bringers, I think they know what they do.

[Shiningbrow]

4 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

note that as lay members of the light bringers, I think they know what they do.

But where's the fun in that???

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

note that as lay members of the light bringers, I think they know what they do.

I think they accept that the Trickster is part of the rituals.  I don't think they need any further awareness than that. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

4 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

I think they accept that the Trickster is part of the rituals.  I don't think they need any further awareness than that. 

they lies to themselves ,then ! they are really good tricksters  😛

this god is the most powerful. If he wasn't his own opponent, he would be the emperor-king-god-chief-lover-deceiver-creator-destroyer of the world.. or maybe he is

13 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

But where's the fun in that???

Surprise !

[Darius West]

On 10/4/2021 at 12:07 PM, jajagappa said:

This is why I think the Trickster shrine actually receives it's magic points from the community during rituals in which the Trickster takes part.  By incorporating the Trickster into the rituals (to ensure the rituals go correctly, for surely Trickster was there in the story in the first place), the community effectively become lay members of the shrine (unknowingly or unwittingly of course) and some of the magic provided to the deity is "stolen" by Trickster for his own use.

This is an excellent approach to a knotty little problem.  If the matter ever arises, I will adopt this answer.