Eurmal and god learners

[French Desperate WindChild]

Gentle people

 

few weeks ago I discovered here that god learners had a business with Eurmal

my scribes found only the surnames fire bringer , man friend (if my scripts are good) but I would like to know what happen.

what did Eurmal, if he did something ?

is it something known by people now (1600+) 

i even imagine that only orlanthi may consider did something (scapegoat) but godlearners saw nothing in fact (if fact means anything)

could you enlighten me ?

 

[EricW]

I have a non-cannon theory that Eurmal caused the Abiding Book to appear, the book which started the God Learner mess. 

Then when Orlanth said "Its your mess, go fix it".

Eurmal responded by teaching men to speak to dragons, which led to the creation of  the Empire of the Wyrms friends, a draconic Orlanthi religion so confusing the God Learners couldn't subvert it - a major force to oppose the God Learners.

"See Orlanth, all fixed".

Then later, after the dragons got fed up with the abuse of their magic, and the victorious old ways traditionalists marched on Dragon Pass, Orlanth caught up with Eurmal and said "see what you have done now?". So Eurmal went to the place where dragons sleep, yelled "yoo-hoo".

The dragons all instantly awoke. "Its him, get him guys!". Eurmal flew screaming to Dragon Pass, and only escaped when the dragons got distracted by all the free food on offer.

OK the cannon part is Eurmal teaching men to speak to dragons, so his contribution to God Learner fiasco was creating a major opposing force, but the rest fits in a kind of funny way, yes?

There was also that God Learner attempt to create an Eurmal Great Temple in Slontos, which may have sunk under the weight of Trickster magical abuses, when they obtained access to the full range of Eurmal's divine spells.

[Joerg]

In Fronela, Eurmal (or his son Yomat) is a promethean thief of fire and other civilizatory achievements from the gods, possibly including the secret of iron working for the Third Eye Blue people. This opposition to the (False?) Gods and their monopolies earned him (or his son) the title "Friend of Men". (The title "Friend of Women (as well as of Men)" as the seducer is another possible interpretation, there.

It would be a rare lineage that was not interrupted by Eurmal or one of his worshippers, at least biologically, at some time.

Part of the time passing on such civilizatory assets may have been a trick on the recipients, possibly breaking blissfully innocent Hsunchen folk away from the ways of their beast totems, condemning them to drudgery in agriculture.

[mfbrandi]

14 hours ago, Joerg said:

In Fronela, Eurmal (or his son Yomat) is a promethean thief of fire and other civilizatory achievements from the gods, possibly including the secret of iron working for the Third Eye Blue people. This opposition to the (False?) Gods and their monopolies earned him (or his son) the title "Friend of Men".

@scott-martin and I kicked this about a bit, recently — which should be warning enough for most not to read on. Only the bad ideas in the following recap-cum-ramble are attributable to me.

Yomat = Humakt. IIRC, iron was created to “carry death”. Yomat–Humakt is the friend of men because he brought death to the world. (Humakt “inherited” death from Eurmal, and perhaps that is as seriously as one needs to take Eurmal’s begetting Yomat.)

“Friend” is not merely ironic, as death is the agent of the progressive thinning of Glorantha through the Ages, leaving short-lived humans dominant in the Fourth Age and the troublesome gods and elder races dead or gone. (A trickster-centric fantasy ought to read against the grain.)

If the iron connection leaves those adorable time-travelling robots fighting their incomprehensible change war as agents of thinning, that would seem to fit the original conception of the Mostali. (If your captured putative Mostali has organic components, perhaps it is a cargo cultist — or an anti-semitic stereotype on the run from the Ring of the Nibelung.)

Edited September 25, 2022 by mfbrandi
capitalisation

[soltakss]

The God Learners had a Great Temple to Eurmal, where they collected every single RuneSpell that Eurmal taught and made them available to all the Eurmali in the Great Temple.

Apparently, they thought that this would be a wonderful idea.

Who knows if they were right or wrong?

In any case, the Temple was sunk, so now lies at the bottom of the sea, still populated by the descendants of the original Eurmali.

I think that they have not yet realised that the waters are about to crush them, in cartoon fashion, so they are waiting for reality to re-exert itself.

 

[mfbrandi]

6 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In any case, the Temple … now lies at the bottom of the sea, still populated by the descendants of the original Eurmali.

I think that they have not yet realised that the waters are about to crush them

How many copies of The Coyote Gospel does this temple’s library contain?
 

[soltakss]

7 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

How many copies of The Coyote Gospel does this temple’s library contain?

All of them

[scott-martin]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

All of them

All "mostali" are cargo cultists. Otherwise they would have fixed ur-metal by now to kill humans as well as their other enemies. But they can't do that without making their own weapons toxic to themselves. 

[EricW]

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

The God Learners had a Great Temple to Eurmal, where they collected every single RuneSpell that Eurmal taught and made them available to all the Eurmali in the Great Temple.

Apparently, they thought that this would be a wonderful idea.

Who knows if they were right or wrong?

In any case, the Temple was sunk, so now lies at the bottom of the sea, still populated by the descendants of the original Eurmali.

I think that they have not yet realised that the waters are about to crush them, in cartoon fashion, so they are waiting for reality to re-exert itself.

 

But what do they eat? 🙂

[mfbrandi]

39 minutes ago, EricW said:

But what do they eat? 🙂

Well, Wile E. Coyote seems to survive on a diet of never-caught roadrunner despite his frenetic lifestyle. Must be a lesson there.

[mfbrandi]

10 hours ago, scott-martin said:

All "mostali" are cargo cultists. Otherwise they would have fixed ur-metal by now to kill humans as well as their other enemies. But they can't do that without making their own weapons toxic to themselves. 

Eurmal cultists have bought up a load of oversized furniture from Peter Jackson. And a job lot of deceptive animals. High llamas rebranded as vicuñas. You get the idea. Snow White is an Agimori, a young giant … or a great troll in a wig?

They use all this to make humans insecure about their height: “You are about to be thrown out of your clan, Steve. They are all laughing at you, Steve. Don’t worry. Put on this cheap dwarf costume genuine Mostali clothing, and pray for cargo from Mostal. You will know it when it comes: all the crates are labelled ‘ACME’. Snowy here will show you the ropes — give us a twirl, Snowy!” Snow White: “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve. You just put your lips together and blow. Here’s your pick axe. The Krarsht complex dwarf mine is that way.”

[JRE]

My second age game had a God Learner spy that was actually a graduate from the Slontos University. A Gloranthan James Bond, creating disorder in the name of order. So yes, I think the God Learners wanted to create the perfect infiltrators, abloe to join almost all quests, capable of overcoming all barriers. And the magic allows that all too well.

The main problem I used, mechanically, was that he needed to perform increasingly large disorderly acts to recover his magic. It was ok while he was outside the Empire, but what happens when all those perfectly balanced individuals decide they want to return home (those that did not become dragons, or slave owners, or chaos monks)

The GLs forgot the impossible to control and in-built disloyalty, but it worked for a few centuries. I am not sure if we can say the same about our own info gathering establishment.

I agree in part with Eric's ideas, but using humans rather than deities. So the God Learners though that was a good idea, and suddenly they were splitting tongues, taking over Fonrit, duping the Kralorelans and even building cities in the middle of a desert. It was Eurmali, rather than Eurmal, but yes, once there were enough of them it was unavoidable the God Learners would fall.

[mfbrandi]

If Eurmal is Wile E. Coyote (i.e. Christ crucified), are they also that child in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”?

They are certainly Prometheus having his liver pecked out, and IMHO Zorak Zoran screaming in pain and fear for eternity.

So just how well do the Orlanthi treat their tricksters, all things considered?

[PhilHibbs]

On 9/25/2022 at 5:32 PM, soltakss said:

In any case, the Temple was sunk, so now lies at the bottom of the sea, still populated by the descendants of the original Eurmali.

I think that they have not yet realised that the waters are about to crush them, in cartoon fashion, so they are waiting for reality to re-exert itself.

15 hours ago, EricW said:

But what do they eat? 🙂

Hallucinations with Extension (if the audience will excuse the segue into RuneQuest mechanics).

Edited September 26, 2022 by PhilHibbs

[soltakss]

On 9/26/2022 at 6:41 AM, EricW said:

But what do they eat? 🙂

Each other.

 

[PhilHibbs]

On 9/26/2022 at 6:41 AM, EricW said:

But what do they eat? 🙂

Another answer is "Whatever they have enough points of Swallow for", again apologies for the game system reference! But in a thread on tricksters, surely there are no rules! 🤪

[Joerg]

Idle thought - do they keep an air bubble up using endless fart spells?

[mfbrandi]

16 minutes ago, Joerg said:

endless fart spell

Invented to melt Valind’s Glacier and raise sea levels?

[Jeff]

The God Learners were fascinated by the Trickster Archetype. They believed (quite correctly) that this archetype was powerful and a key driver of the events of the Godtime. Eurmal was the most fully-fleshed out Trickster cult, but there were so many others. Raven, Rakenveg, Firebringer, Bolongo, Ratslaff, and more. Members of one cult could use magic from another, and so on. Another theory was that Arkat-Nysalor might be somehow connected to this.

And so the God Learners gathered everything they could and made a veritable Clown College in Thanor. Great insights and discoveries were made - and at its height, the seas came in and Thanor was submerged. Everything figures that was just another one of Eurmal's jokes - a thank you for bringing all of his parts together in one place.  

[Bill the barbarian]

54 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Invented to melt Valind’s Glacier and raise sea levels?

 

Hey! Watch that kind of talk!

Edited September 29, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[EricW]

39 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The God Learners were fascinated by the Trickster Archetype. They believed (quite correctly) that this archetype was powerful and a key driver of the events of the Godtime. Eurmal was the most fully-fleshed out Trickster cult, but there were so many others. Raven, Rakenveg, Firebringer, Bolongo, Ratslaff, and more. Members of one cult could use magic from another, and so on. Another theory was that Arkat-Nysalor might be somehow connected to this.

And so the God Learners gathered everything they could and made a veritable Clown College in Thanor. Great insights and discoveries were made - and at its height, the seas came in and Thanor was submerged. Everything figures that was just another one of Eurmal's jokes - a thank you for bringing all of his parts together in one place.  

I suspect more likely it was one or more of the cultists who inadvertently caused the devastation. Imagine academic rivalry in place of study where there were an infinite range of prank spells available, and everyone knew God Learner sorcery to extend the intensity, range and duration of those spells.

The God Learners likely found all the power they hoped for, but lost interest in using it, except on each other. No doubt those magics included lunar / draconic style mind links, so the duration and intensity of the spells they learned was only limited by the number of people in their faction - Eurmal loves over the top special effects. But before they could share this discovery with outsiders, the academic rivalry got completely out of hand, with Eurmal himself whispering new ideas into the minds of rivals smarting under the latest outrage from their colleagues.

The water will recede as soon as the Eurmal great flood spell duration expires, or someone casts a really powerful dispel magic.

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Another theory was that Arkat-Nysalor might be somehow connected to this.

A theory, he says. Could one get more Tricksterish than Arkat — “No, he’s Gbaji!” — Nysalor, the lozenge’s greatest one-person double act and magisterial manipulator of smoke and mirrors?

[EricW]

6 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

A theory, he says. Could one get more Tricksterish than Arkat — “No, he’s Gbaji!” — Nysalor, the lozenge’s greatest one-person double act and magisterial manipulator of smoke and mirrors?

An illuminated Trickster is surely a follower of Eurmal the destroyer, Eurmal the world wrecker, who kept stealing death and passing it around for laughs - Eurmal before he got scared of all the vengeful victims relentlessly pursuing him, and ran to Orlanth for help. 

[mfbrandi]

13 hours ago, EricW said:

An illuminated Trickster is surely a follower of Eurmal the destroyer, Eurmal the world wrecker

Well, that’s how it looks, but I am increasingly of the opinion that Arkat the Deceiver, the Destroyer, the Trickster, really is on our side and suffers and dies at his own hand over and over again to “save” the world. Every time he destroys and recreates the world, it is a little bit better … and a little bit closer to its end.

[JRE]

Arkat followed may religions, but after his (supposed) victory he did not join any pantheon, not even the most recent, the dark, though he apparently remained in good terms with all of them, Malkioni, Orlanthi and trolls, as part of the Empire of Peace.

It really looks like a long con that manages to keep the marks (who provided him with most of their magic and secrets) happy after it concludes. From this perspective, he probably also tricked Harmast into ressurrecting him when he was looking for someone else...

Faced with a superhero master of Death (and how could he have the Unbreakable Sword when he left Brithos, unless it is his by right, as Deathbringer) and Disorder, maybe the College was the God Learners' way to steal power out of Arkat, so they could cut him down in size, and all the multiple Arkats are the multiple personalities left after they broke him up.

Zzabur recognized him, and subtly pushed him out of Brithos to play his fate in the mundane world, possibly as a personification of all Zzabur wanted out of his island. That also took all pleasure out of the island, while Arkat manages to personify all sins, as only the Trickster can.