Does Illumination Liberate Malkioni Sorcerers from having to follow the rules?

[Darius West]

28 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Surely you can (re)incarnate from the Gods World? That Arkat apotheosized is completely canon. It’s almost immaterial exactly what happened to his body in the process. Did Sartar die? I guess in a way in that his body was consumed by flame, but it doesn’t really matter.

If Orlanth can die then so can Arkat.

[Jeff]

Just now, Darius West said:

If Orlanth can die then so can Arkat.

Arkat exists in the Hero Plane. You could go to Statham Well and meet him. During the era of the Dark Empire, his most devoted acolytes did just that. But when his empire fell, the God Learners destroyed every path to Statham Well. Try as they might, nobody could contract the Great Hero.

Despite that, Arkat is somehow back in our world. How that is even possible and what that means is a mystery, but he's back.

[Darius West]

12 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Arkat exists in the Hero Plane. You could go to Statham Well and meet him. During the era of the Dark Empire, his most devoted acolytes did just that. But when his empire fell, the God Learners destroyed every path to Statham Well. Try as they might, nobody could contract the Great Hero.

Despite that, Arkat is somehow back in our world. How that is even possible and what that means is a mystery, but he's back.

Gods die.  We know this.  It happened back at the Fall of Whitewall.  The Lunars wouldn't stop crowing about it.  Is it then any surprise that when Humans break the Great Compromise that they unleash forces of Cosmic Vengeance?  It happens at the close of every age.  Civilizations get hubristic and make gods, and then they get destroyed.  Arkat was the cosmic vengeance for the hubris of the creation of Nysalor, and Argrath was unleashed to destroy Sedenya, with the catalyst likely being the death of Orlanth and Ernalda.

[David Scott]

On 7/17/2022 at 1:27 PM, EricW said:

Jeff gave a great description of the rightness rules caste sorcerers must follow. My question is, what impact does illumination have on these strictures?

None. The illuminated one will know as truth that Chaos is, in itself, neither evil nor inimical.

On 7/17/2022 at 1:27 PM, EricW said:

Are illuminates liberated from having to follow Malkioni rules, in the same way illuminates can break the rules of theist cults?

No. Some illuminates have the ability to Ignore Cult Restrictions (not all). But that doesn't hide what you are doing from others.

On 7/17/2022 at 1:27 PM, EricW said:

Can an illuminated sorcerer commit wrong action without consequence,

If it means that they do so openly by treating chaos as neither evil nor inimical and there is no personal consequence, yes.

On 7/17/2022 at 1:27 PM, EricW said:

other than the possibility of being pursued by their society?

If society sees you doing it, you're going to suffer.

On 7/17/2022 at 1:27 PM, EricW said:

Or do the benefits of illumination only provide the ability to break theist religious strictures?

No. But likewise it doesn't hide your actions.

Illumination is not some superpower that lets the illuminated ride roughshod over all the rules. It only gives the illuminate a new mindset about chaos. Whether they do anything with that new knowledge is a different matter.

If your society allows you to tap chaos, there is no difference if you are illuminated or not.  

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Darius West said:

Sure, Arkat ultimately utterly betrayed the Hrestoli, sided with their enemies when it became expedient and even became a pagan, and then a creature of Darkness and Chaos. 

Sure, he became a worshipper of Humakt, but did that break the Hrestoli Code?

I don't know enough about it to say.

In the olden days, when we thought that Malkioni only worshipped the Invisible God, that might have been true. It is looking increasingly less true now.

[EricW]

On 7/21/2022 at 7:45 PM, Darius West said:

On the other hand Arkat does eventually die, so he definitely broke caste enough to lose his immortality despite his illumination.

I suspect if Arkat died it was by choice, like choosing to spend all his time somewhere else, rather than an event he could not avoid. Someone as powerful as Arkat could have performed one of the immortality heroquests with ease, if he wanted to.

[JonL]

I also think Arkat probably embraced Hrestolism before he was fully Illuminated. True Joy of the Heart likely has some things in common with Illumination though. The realization that the former and the latter, while not identical, are also not  completely different would be an interesting step along that road.

[metcalph]

43 minutes ago, JonL said:

I also think Arkat probably embraced Hrestolism before he was fully Illuminated. 

At what point do you consider Arkat to have been fully illuminated?

[metcalph]

18 hours ago, soltakss said:

Sure, he became a worshipper of Humakt, but did that break the Hrestoli Code?

I don't know enough about it to say.

In the olden days, when we thought that Malkioni only worshipped the Invisible God, that might have been true. It is looking increasingly less true now.

That's an interesting point.  To having mastered the arts of sorcery would have meant that he would have abandoned any worship of Humakt.  But before then he was a Brithini.  So to have been a full Man-of-All would mean that demonstrate his martial prowess before being inducted into the arts of sorcery.  But we know he had some trouble with the Brithini authorities before he became a Seshnegi and one of the stated reasons could have been the worship of his father through his sword.

Extrapolating this to the Loskalmi, I think that the Guardians (soldier) can and do worship War Gods.  But they are encouraged not to become too devoted (and if they do, further promotion is blocked).  Hence I would expect to see humakti initiates but not rune lords.

 

[JonL]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

At what point do you consider Arkat to have been fully illuminated?

Can't pinpoint, of course, but my guess would be sometime between returning from the Underworld and becoming a Troll.

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, metcalph said:

At what point do you consider Arkat to have been fully illuminated?

When was Nysalor Illuminated and when did he realise it?

[Darius West]

On 7/23/2022 at 1:26 PM, EricW said:

I suspect if Arkat died it was by choice, like choosing to spend all his time somewhere else, rather than an event he could not avoid. Someone as powerful as Arkat could have performed one of the immortality heroquests with ease, if he wanted to.

I think his body was likely disinterred from his Godly stasis and destroyed by the God Learners during the attack on Statham Well.

[Darius West]

13 hours ago, Jeff said:

When was Nysalor Illuminated and when did he realise it?

If by that you mean that Arkat achieved his awakening as Nysalor's shadow at the same time Nysalor achieved full illumination, that is an interesting perspective indeed.

[JRE]

According to my understanding, Arkat the Horal went to war on the orders of the talars of Arolanit. Seeing that within the limits of the Brithini allowed actions it would be impossible to win, he adopted the ways of the Seshnelan hrestoli allies, and became Arkat the Man-of-all, mastering all caste skills, including sorcery, in record time. Moving to Ralios after victory in Tanisor, he became aware that the Western approach would not bring victory there, so he searched for the power of the deities of his Orlanthi allies, becoming Arkat Humaktsson, manifesting the powers of divine death.  Arkat Humaktsson died at the hands of Palangio, went to hell, was brought back by Harmast through the first recorded LBQ in time, invaded Dragon Pass, found the Orlanthi mythically inefficient against the Bright Empire directly (and I wonder if his ressurrection hampered his standing with Humakt...) so he went the troll way, became Arkat kingtroll, avatar of Zorak Zoran, reached Dorastor and entered the Tower of Dreams. A hero calling himself Arkat (not a troll) left the Tower with a lot of god fragments, and had Arkat's companions spread and hide the fragments all over Glorantha. What pieces were Nysalor's and which ones were Arkat's is not clear, and I suspect Zorakarkat could be one of those fragments, kept in Halikiv. Arkat the Autarch mixed all he had learned before and founded the Empire of Peace, to unmake all the suffering he had brought in the Gbaji war. After many years setting up the Empire, he named a successor and retreated to his star, to watch over his Empire and his followers, though he never was worshipped because he did not allow it. Centuries later the God Learners attacked the empire and isolated Arkat, severing all paths to him and Statham Well, so nobody could reach him. People still tried, and the Arkati tried to keep his teachings alive, though lack of direct contact shattered the Arkati in many competing sects, bound all in secrecy.

Now, in the time of the Hero Wars, and with Rashorana back in the world, several people who claim to be Arkat or a part of Arkat, walk the world. I also believe the paths to Statham Well are now open, but Arkat is not found there.

I am sure some Arkati, specially in Western Genertela, consider he just took Hrestol's path further than anybody else, and his final victory and apotheosis prove he is an Ascended Master. That is rejected by many Malkioni, specially Rokari and New Hrestoli, but I would expect it is quite popular among others. I would expect both Sir Ethilrist and Mularik belong to this type of Arkati. I also expect that was how the Empire of Peace presented itself in Tanisor and Western Safelster, with Arkat as the logical extension of Hrestol. I think that he kept the benefits of a Hrestoli Man-of-all at least till his death at Palangio's hands. I am not so sure after his return with Harmast, but I believe that many of his companions remained steadfast Hrestoli, and we know the boundaries between Arkat and his companions were blurry. 

As for his illumination, some old sources (Cults of Terror) said he had been illuminated by elves in Brithos. Though the presence of elves in Brithos is doubtful, I would assume he was illuminated already in Brithos. Which fits, as I expect Nysalor was illuminated at the Sunstop, so Arkat could have assumed his role as his shadow and illumination at that point.

 

 

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, JRE said:

Arkat Humaktsson died at the hands of Palangio, went to hell, was brought back by Harmast through the first recorded LBQ in time, invaded Dragon Pass, found the Orlanthi mythically inefficient against the Bright Empire directly (and I wonder if his ressurrection hampered his standing with Humakt...)

You know, in all my years of thinking of Arkat, this never entered my mind, even though it is so obvious.

Maybe he had resistance from the Humakt Cult, which is why he went seeking for other allies.

 

[jajagappa]

21 hours ago, Jeff said:

When was Nysalor Illuminated and when did he realise it?

Sounds like a good Nysalor Riddle! 😉

[French Desperate WindChild]

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Sounds like a good Nysalor Riddle! 😉

and the answer is easy:

when was Nysalor Illuminated ==> tomorrow

and when did he realise it => yesterday

 

time is chaotic after all

[jajagappa]

39 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

when was Nysalor Illuminated ==> tomorrow

Alternately => Never, he always was, is, and will be.  Or => Always, and forever.

 

[davecake]

I think Joy and Illumination are very different. But with a few things in common. They are both personal, subjective experiences, and they both can reveal that rules you have learnt can be approached differently.

Joy is the revelation that it is possible to develop a personal relationship with the Invisible God, rather than relying on the methods laid down by Zzabur. 
I think to Hrestoli, they believe that Malkion understood the true way for mortals to approach life, for right and moral behavior and to cultivate a relationship with God, and expressed this as a series of principles. And Zzabur turned this into a set of rules, a list of not what we should do but what we should not, and in doing so made it a form of magic ritual, a life long ritual that if observed strictly functions as an immortality spell (it’s not intended as such, but as a spell of preservation, but as it was created before Death it protects against that - though from Zzaburs point of view it protects against further devolution and dissipation, including the terrible innovation of universal Death). To the Brithini, Zzaburs laws are the perfect expression of Malkions principles in action, and clearly work as designed. 
The Vadeli see that, by saying only what is forbidden, it does not constrain them from doing what it does mention, including the entire world outside the West (that the Viymorni, ancestors of the Vadeli, know more about than any other Westerners) - they can treat Zzaburs law as a morality free set of ritual constraints - and so go on to become the perfectly logical, immortal sociopaths we know. And make Zzabur froth with rage and hatred.

Hrestol comes at a much later time. The Brithini have already found Zzaburs laws incredibly hard to maintain in the Great Darkness. Many are not truly ageless any more, those that are are often falling to attack by external powers because their laws have not prepared them well for dealing with foreign powers, especially Chaos. And once it stops working, you can’t fix it - maybe it’s because it preserves not recreates an earlier age, but for whatever reason once you lose immortality you can’t get it back. Hrestol says Zzaburs solution isn’t working, and if they keep trying it is going to lead to their doom. But he wants to believe in it, and he eventually learns that there are other ways to follow the Teachings of Malkion than the Laws of Zzabur. 

The teachings of Malkion, and so the Laws of Zzabur and the teachings of Hrestol, say there is a world of Matter and Energy, but by our Intellect we can master it. Some schools, like the Irensavalists, say that this world of Matter and Energy is a trap, and by our Intellect we can escape it. The mystics say Intellect is just another part of the trap. Mostly Malkionism reacts badly to this. In Malkioni terminology Zzabur says follow my ways and you retain (if you are Brithini) the advantages of the world of the Forth Action and fend of the encroaching world of the Fifth Action. Hers too says too late, we are in the world of the Fifth Action, like it or not, but by following the ways of Malkion we can try to repair it. Mystics say the worlds of the earlier Actions can be reached inside us if we are willing to give up the mistakes, such as the idea of individual identity and the power of Intellect. Illumination gives a glimpse of this. And so most, but not all, Malkioni reject Illumination. But even those that do not reject it, treat it as dangerous. 
 

[JonL]

Sheng Seleris and Argrath's examples don't seem to suggest that level of symmetry in is inherent to the Shadow. That's not to say Arkat's case didn't play out that way, just that I wouldn't presume that it must have.