The Prophecy of the Devouring Mother

[EricW]

From Lords of Terror;

Quote

 

The Deliverance

Three Ages of the world have passed, and three more are yet to come. The freedom brought by time is an illusion, but a comforting one. Our world is doomed to replay the folly of the Gods Age before the divine plan of the Goddess can be completed. The False Gods interrupted the cycle of creation, rebirth and destruction by sabotaging the coming of the sixth and highest element.

Six is the perfect number. In each recreation of the world, six ages are experienced. The great powers of Godtime failed because of their weakness and fear, letting chaos into the world and disrupting the plan of the Goddess. We who live within Time must struggle to succeed where our predecessors failed. Only in this way can our flawless creation be consumed and reborn to a more perfect state, as was planned from the Beginning by She Who Devours the World.

The First Age is the Age of Darkness, and ended in the Darkness brought by Arkat the Destroyer. The Second Age is the Age of Water, and was destroyed in Water with the sinking of Seshnela, Births, and Jrustela. Our Age is the Age of Earth, and will end in Earth.

The Fourth Age is the Age of Fire, and will be like the Golden Age of Godtime. For five centuries the world will live in peace and light. Mankind will be happy, but will fall away from the worship of the Goddess, until only a few true believers are left. But ever will the children of the Goddess wait with patience, far beneath the troubled surface world.

Then will stagnant peace be shattered again. The Fifth Age, the Age of Storm, will come after the great fires destroy the world. Mankind will be a pitiful remnant once again, and monsters of the Outer Void will freely roam the Earth. At the end, Orlanth will dominate all as he did before, but his victory will be an empty one. All will suffer as he is chained, as was his father before him. Then he will perish in his own storms.

Then will the Sixth Age come, as it could not before. The Perfect One will return to heal the daughter of the Great Goddess, who is the New Goddess to come. The Shattered Moon will reunite, and rise once more to rule the Age of Moon. The broken body of Glorantha will be healed, and the true Arachne Solara will rule for a thousand years of harmony and peace. 

Then when the world is healed will the Goddess rise to devour all. Krasht's true name will be revealed at the end of Time, and the Goddess will be left alone in the Void. Then will She give birth to the new world, as She herself was reborn. Those who served Her in this lifetime will be rewarded in the new creation, ruling it as the gods of old ruled this world. 

This is the Way and the Plan of the Great Goddess. Those who threaten Her threaten the rebirth of the world. They must be destroyed, fed to the Goddess to fuel Her recreation at the end of Time. We hope that in their next incarnation they will see the error of their ways, and come to serve the Goddess, even as we do. Praise the Goddess, and you will feel Her blessing up you. Milk.

 

Makes the White Moon cult look tame...

[Beoferret]

There's a definite Mythos vibe here. I could see a RQG campaign centered around stopping a group of Chaos cultists (in the Lovecraftian sense) who've decided to try and speed things up. Lots of room for parties made up primarily of Lhankor Mhy devotees who've teamed up with a couple of Uroxi. Wacky hijinks ensue.

 

[Martin Dick]

Yep, she's got them all fooled 😄 

Krarsht is bad bad news

[EricW]

5 hours ago, Beoferret said:

There's a definite Mythos vibe here. I could see a RQG campaign centered around stopping a group of Chaos cultists (in the Lovecraftian sense) who've decided to try and speed things up. Lots of room for parties made up primarily of Lhankor Mhy devotees who've teamed up with a couple of Uroxi. Wacky hijinks ensue.

 

Lords of Terror this was part of a report written by a very frightened illuminated Lunar spy who wanted out before it was too late.

[Akhôrahil]

I like this a ton!

Fifth Age seems like awesome gaming material! Can you HeroQuest into the future the way you can into the past?

Edited February 3, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[EricW]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I like this a ton!

Fifth Age seems like awesome gaming material! Can you HeroQuest into the future the way you can into the past?

This is where it gets weird. Time travel is impossible - but time doesn’t exist when the compromise breaks down. Heroes from the future can visit the Sunstop and other breakdowns in the compromise.

So what happens when a hero from the future spills information about future events, to other participants in such a cataclysm? Are they just too busy to pay attention?

[Akhôrahil]

44 minutes ago, EricW said:

This is where it gets weird. Time travel is impossible - but time doesn’t exist when the compromise breaks down. Heroes from the future can visit the Sunstop and other breakdowns in the compromise.

So what happens when a hero from the future spills information about future events, to other participants in such a cataclysm? Are they just too busy to pay attention?

You can HeroQuest into a past myth (even mostly within time) - this isn’t actually time travel, since it’s essentially subjective. So I think you probably could HeroQuest into a prophecy - it’s just that once again, it isn’t time travel (your subjective experience doesn’t define the future). You heard someone say something, but is it actually true? Who can tell? Some prophecies might actually be what a heroquester bring back from a wild trip.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Eff]

Isn't this just a simpler form of kalpas and yugas? 

[jajagappa]

17 hours ago, EricW said:

This is where it gets weird. Time travel is impossible - but time doesn’t exist when the compromise breaks down. Heroes from the future can visit the Sunstop and other breakdowns in the compromise.

I think it's better to say that during certain events the Godtime is close or proximate to the real world.  You can quest to the mythic events in the Godtime that were proximate when those events in the past occurred, but not to the actual past events.

 

[EricW]

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I think it's better to say that during certain events the Godtime is close or proximate to the real world.  You can quest to the mythic events in the Godtime that were proximate when those events in the past occurred, but not to the actual past events.

 

But surely when the compromise breaks and time stops, the real world enters a period indistinguishable from other parts of the godtime, other than that big spider crawling towards the sun?

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

But surely when the compromise breaks and time stops

But we don't really know that time stops, just that it seemed different after.  I'm in the anti-"time travel" camp, and by assuming that this is no different than a typical Worship service (just worldwide), then it's simply as if we've all stepped into the Godtime and all part of reshaping the myths.  It avoids the difficulties of trying to twist something into a "change" of the past.

 

[HreshtIronBorne]

I like the idea that the birth of Osentalka/Nysalor/Gbaji was a Lozenge-wide Worship Ceremony or HeroQuest. I feel it sort of jives with what we have recently heard from Jeff about the Holy Country and Proximate Divine Realms. 

I had never considered the Sun Stop from the ppint of view that maybe Time HADN'T stopped. Could you even tell if there was time if the God Time/Golden Age Static Sun was overlayed on Glorantha?

Maybe the Pseudocosmic Egg and the machinations of the Council brought the God Time to the Material World in the same way but everywhere?

 

The Spider in the Sky would be an interesting God Time moment to ponder. 

Edited February 4, 2022 by HreshtIronBorne
More ranting!

[Qizilbashwoman]

On 2/1/2022 at 4:52 PM, Beoferret said:

Lots of room for parties made up primarily of Lhankor Mhy devotees who've teamed up with a couple of Uroxi.

I'm late to this party but comedy gold teamup for a truly nightmare scenario. I definitely immediately thought of Drax the Destroyer when I thought about the Uroxi.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Qizilbashwoman