Worship in Malkioni lands part 2

[radmonger]

I think we have been reading the same soources, but it seems reading them differently.

As I see it, malkioni society can be divided into 5 groups. 4 of them are Brithini, Vadeli, Rokari and Hrestoli.  

Brithini society works stably for them, Vadeli are ther own thing. Rokari and Hrestoli both have aspirations to bascially become Brithini. Neither is a stable society, they will either succeed or collapse.

It is all the others who are  'most Malkioni'. Almost all Malkioni accept Rune Lords of approved gods as Horali, and God Talkers as Dronals. Most Malkioni accept Rune Priests of farming gods as (socially, but not magically)  Zzaburi. Fewer accept Heros of ruling gods as Talars. There are enough options to thoroughly paint the map of Western-Central Glorarantha with direrent interpretions of who society can afford to be Right.

A Rune Priest acting socially as a Zzaburi has low Rightness, and so cannot benifit from the magical support of more othodox Zzaburi. But if the local Talar merely turns a blind eye to them, the caste transgression may be recoverable, and not contagious. It may not be perfectly Right, but everyone gets to eat.

[Eff]

19 minutes ago, radmonger said:

I think we have been reading the same soources, but it seems reading them differently.

As I see it, malkioni society can be divided into 5 groups. 4 of them are Brithini, Vadeli, Rokari and Hrestoli.  

Brithini society works stably for them, Vadeli are ther own thing. Rokari and Hrestoli both have aspirations to bascially become Brithini. Neither is a stable society, they will either succeed or collapse.

It is all the others who are  'most Malkioni'. Almost all Malkioni accept Rune Lords of approved gods as Horali, and God Talkers as Dronals. Most Malkioni accept Rune Priests of farming gods as (socially, but not magically)  Zzaburi. Fewer accept Heros of ruling gods as Talars. There are enough options to thoroughly paint the map of Western-Central Glorarantha with direrent interpretions of who society can afford to be Right.

A Rune Priest acting socially as a Zzaburi has low Rightness, and so cannot benifit from the magical support of more othodox Zzaburi. But if the local Talar merely turns a blind eye to them, the caste transgression may be recoverable, and not contagious. It may not be perfectly Right, but everyone gets to eat.

All right. My interpretation is that the Rokari and "Hrestoli" represent clear majorities of Malkioni together, followed by Safelster's Arkatisms. Groups who are outside of this, like the Castle Coast, Arolanit, the Trader Princes, etc. are minor, based on Chaosium staff saying directly that they are minor when asked. 

I'm focusing entirely on Rokari because the non-Loskalmic Malkionism in Fronela is very tenuous and intermingled with Orlanthi practices- they may be almost "Aeolian" or they may be something quite different, but we don't know. Loskalm is explicitly a utopian state that does not work and must change when in contact with the outside world- it doesn't have to make perfect sense because the conditions which allowed it to exist no longer are in force. Arkatism is also explicitly "henotheistic", which in the previous mode of Malkionism would mean allowing the worship of "pagan" entities and in this mode remains undefined- does it reference whether zzaburi caste restrictions are looser, or something very abstract and nearly meaningless? Who can say? 

But the Rokari are well-defined and their caste lines are firmly drawn. We know that for sure. And the answers that have been given to explain the new mode of Malkionism indicate that the ancestor worship and theistic worship are performed within the non-zzaburi castes. So zzaburi are defined not by being religious specialists, but by being sorcerers (who use sorcery to worship the Invisible God etc. etc.) A Rune Priest is not acting as a zzaburi unless they're a Lhankor Mhy or Chalana Arroy one who's casting sorcery. 

Would it be more sensible for zzaburi to be "religious specialists"? Sure. That's, as I posted previously, a valid Glorantha. But it does not appear to be what is intended in the recent sources, where the intent seems to be a 1:1 relationship of zzaburi to sorcery and sorcery to zzaburi and of men-of-all as having sorcery through being able to be zzaburi. 

[Godlearner]

6 hours ago, Richard S. said:

nationally supported cults

Malkionism is a nationally supported cult.

I think what we are dancing around here that the source for all magic in Glorantha is the same, but to be useful to must be channeled and structured. I believe Jeff previously referred to making structures in order to cast sorcery. In the same way Rune magic and Spirit magic are already pre built structures. They are shortcuts with specific and limited results whereas sorcery is the long, but flexible way of doing it. If we consider that than the difference between Zzaburi and other castes is that Zzaburi do not take shortcuts. in this way we can see as to why Malkioni societies are in part no different than others since they are not so different, but at the same time more versatile as there is no need to adhere and promote different specialist pantheons and spirit cults to cover societal needs.

[French Desperate WindChild]

19 hours ago, Eff said:

Another alternative might be that Malkioni theism and spiritism are simply less effective and sorcery makes up the gap. That when they perform their ceremonies and rituals, they get worse results than members of other societies do. Almost as if their worship was, in some fashion, misapplied... 

"of course" theism and spiritism are less effective: based on Jeff's post they all have to spend 1 POW to become initiate of the invisible god. So there are less POW for the cults / spirit societies than in non malkioni society.

Another point would be the nature of the faith: as malkioni + X initiate you are not fully devoted to your god /entity X. You know there is something/one behind X, bigger, less understandable but incredibly more powerful than X.

And a third hypothesis would be that a community cannot get more "magical" power than a limit per individual, defined by the universe laws. After all, everyone, malkioni or not, lives in a world of runes/ So any way/magic, you follow, you will not be able to find more rune than what  exist.

Every time a community tried to "extract" more rune than possible, chaos becomes bigger, and, at the end of the process, a new age reboots everything

 

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by French Desperate WindChild

[Richard S.]

I wonder how good of an example Urvantan is for a Zzaburi with theist supporters. He certainly doesn't seem parasitic.

[Jeff]

4 hours ago, radmonger said:

I think we have been reading the same soources, but it seems reading them differently.

As I see it, malkioni society can be divided into 5 groups. 4 of them are Brithini, Vadeli, Rokari and Hrestoli.  

Brithini society works stably for them, Vadeli are ther own thing. Rokari and Hrestoli both have aspirations to bascially become Brithini. Neither is a stable society, they will either succeed or collapse.

It is all the others who are  'most Malkioni'. Almost all Malkioni accept Rune Lords of approved gods as Horali, and God Talkers as Dronals. Most Malkioni accept Rune Priests of farming gods as (socially, but not magically)  Zzaburi. Fewer accept Heros of ruling gods as Talars. There are enough options to thoroughly paint the map of Western-Central Glorarantha with direrent interpretions of who society can afford to be Right.

A Rune Priest acting socially as a Zzaburi has low Rightness, and so cannot benifit from the magical support of more othodox Zzaburi. But if the local Talar merely turns a blind eye to them, the caste transgression may be recoverable, and not contagious. It may not be perfectly Right, but everyone gets to eat.

Lets look at this differently. The Brithini system is "perfect".  The Brithini enjoy immortality and do not die of old age because of their adherence to perfection. Even the most menial of dronari enjoys immortality. They are by all accounts very well governed and haven't had a civil war (that we know of) since the Dawn. They made great sacrifices during the Gbaji Wars and survived. 

But nobody can become a Brithini from outside. It is a closed system. Their descendants all did things in the God Time and the Dawn that were incompatible with the Brithini Way. No going back to being immortals. We are all stuck with mortality now.

So how should us mortals - the heirs of the Brithini - live. If we approach Rightness enough, we can slow down the wear of mortality and become very long-lived (but not ageless).  However, that's hard work and sometimes makes survival in this flawed and degenerate world difficult. Do we just shrug our shoulders and run around with animals like the Hykimi and give up our cosmic knowledge to howl at the Old Gods? We sometimes see our Brithini ancestors and they look at us like we are short-lived savages, but we were them once. If we can't get back to that state, how should we live?

Most Malkioni sects are trying to answer that question (although some are looking at it from the opposite end of the telescope). 

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, Eff said:

Well, that's the thing, right? Malkioni societies are roughly on par with non-sorcerous societies in terms of agrarians pushing non-agrarians to the fringe, while supposedly fully containing an entire non-sorcerous society within themselves and ostensibly gaining benefit from their sorcerers by concentrating resources on them.

That's not quite how I read the histories of Seshnela and Akem.

First of all, Orlanthi or rather Theyalan theism is super effective, and still doesn't manage to maintain domination over subject peoples for even a century.

Lightbringer missionaries did not promote imperial ambitions (it was the Bright Empire which did that), although it is fair to say that the Lightbringer expansion sought both converts and colonialization area, especially in their interaction with the Hykimi and the Old Gods Beast Totem agriculturalists like the Enerali and the Enjoreli.

The Pendali were a Basmoli dynasty who ruled over conquered farmers, as far as I can discern, and probably made those Seshna-worshipping farmers (who might have a degree of forgotten Kachisti ancestry) build their fortress cities and temples for them. The Pralori empire covered the region east of the Tanier all the way into Entruli Slontos, wrapping around Tarinwood, but apparently avoiding conflict with the Enerali in the north. Other Hykimi had temple cities, too, like the City of Wolves in Telmoria. Something similar may have been going on there.

To come to a point, the tribes opposing Seshnela (and quite likely similar in Fronela) were not simple non-agriculturalists, but usually a military caste of conquerors ruling from edifices far beyond their Beast Totem tribal technologies. Not that different from what the Malkioni do themselves.

There is hardly anything about the worker and farmer caste of the Malkioni in the Seshnegi and (much less documented) Fronelan histories. All the info we have is on Talars, with Zzaburi and to some degree Horali getting mentioned (or drawn into the Man-of-All education). Effectively, being agricultural is a resource, but not a defining feature of the Malkioni protagonists, either.

The Malkioni priesthood is mostly limited to ancestral deities, with propitiation of or negotiation with non-ancestral deities left to the sorcerers. That's how their theism is weaker than Theyalan theism, indeed, but it is about on par with Pelorian limitation for their priests and holy people.

THe sorcerers interact with alien deities, usually from a position of some power rather than as supplicants. (Diplomatic or mercantyle approaches are the Talar caste job, the Zzaburi seem to use domination techniques on the servants of deities, with the occasional rewards or baits for the big ones.)

 

5 hours ago, Eff said:

So if XsubMalkioni is approximately equal to XsubOrlanthi, and XsubOrlanthi is (Theism+Animism) and XsubMalkioni is (Theism+Animism + Zzaburi), either their Theism+Animism has to be worse or their Zzaburi ineffectual.

Yes, their Theism and Animism is worse than the quite sophisticated Serpent Brotherhood shamanism. The Pendali magicians who interacted with Dark rather than Basmoli or Likitan deities were called sorcerers, too, probably for their "fishing outside of the hereditary pool".

The Lightbringer mix is really effective, enough so that the shaman-warrior Heort paved the way for Hantrafal's sacrificing. Sacrifice is a bloody affair in Theyalan practice, as it is in Pelorian and Earth cult practices, but the Theyalan mix the blood with a very high amount of personal mana compared to the Pelorians (who make up for less devoted individual mana donation by bringing huge crowds). The downside of the Theyalan way is that a lot of the magic gained that way becomes personal magic rather than community magic, with the individual often able to decide which leaders to follow (at least among the Orlanthi).

Pelorian theist worship and Malkioni Invisible God worship aren't that dissimilar except for the blood sacrifices in Pelorian rites. Malkioni don't have to sacrifice their steeds or tractors to support the Zzaburi magic. Pelorian sacrifice is overseen and performed by the lower Yelmic priesthood who funnel much of the magic to the Empire rather than the cult actually receiving the sacrifice.

 

5 hours ago, Eff said:

Which is what I mean by parasitism- Zzaburi suck in resources but, unlike a warrior aristocracy or temple hierarchy, would give approximately nothing back.

Invisible God rites overseen by the Zzaburi don't use up valuable means of production (other than the participants' time), unlike the bloodbaths of the Theists (who do give secondary use to the sacrificial beasts, but who feed rather high amounts of herd beasts to the rites). The ancestral deities don't demand that much in terms of beasts slaughtered for feasts, either. The Land Goddesses still ask for blood, but not necessarily herd beast blood - possibly they ask for worshippers' gifts of blood, or similar.

 

5 hours ago, Eff said:

1Which is also a consequence of how Malkioni societies post-bathwater incident have become increasingly less "Malkioni"- the laws of Malkion no longer applying to the peon drones and horals, etc. Because if you had some kind of social order where every class was integrated into it, you could at least envision the worthlessness of the zzaburi being difficult to grasp for people within the system. 

How is a sorcerer caste different from other hereditary temple families in Orlanthi lands or Esrolia? Not even Harmast became a chief priest, those roles are fairly firmly in lineages. (Not that Harmast lacked such a lineage, although a defeated one.)

 

 

5 hours ago, Eff said:

But post-bathwater incident, talars and zzaburi sit atop a mass of conquered subjects who have had "dronar" and "horal" applied to them after the fact, and this is used to describe Malkioni societies right down to the Gloranthan contemporary.

That may not be that different from the situation in Danmalastan, really. Not so much in the Zzabur text of Revealed Mythologies, but blatant in the Brithos text which has the three "upper" castes from a different mother than the worker caste. A mother whose hills happen to house one of the Vadeli castes...

 

5 hours ago, Eff said:

There is no social integration, supposedly, and the Malkioni would seem to most closely resemble European colonialism in Africa in their social order. 

Why not European colonialism in the Caribbean or on the American mainland?

(WIth a repeat performance of the combination of Koryonos conquest following the plague...)

 

5 hours ago, Eff said:

I think that's not good, as awful as we agree the Rokari to be. 

The Orlanthi instead sit on the conquests of their ancestors, much like British peers like to boast: Hill barbarians descending into the lowlands, taking over previous populations as their farmers and builders.

In a way, Malkioni and Hill Barbarian expansion come with reversed sequence. The Godtime Kachasti came as missionaries and diplomats, while historical non-Brithos Malkioni came as conquerors (if only starting out to prevent being conquered). Hill barbarians first came as conquerors, later re-awakening distant (conqueror) kin as Lightbringer missionaries.

[Eff]

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

How is a sorcerer caste different from other hereditary temple families in Orlanthi lands or Esrolia? Not even Harmast became a chief priest, those roles are fairly firmly in lineages. (Not that Harmast lacked such a lineage, although a defeated one.)

The temple family interacts with a god who is important to you and directly relevant to the world of your society. The zzaburi interact with a god who is not important to you and irrelevant to anyone but the sorcerers, because of how abstract it is. The extraction of wealth to support the temple family gives something back, but the extraction of wealth to support the zzaburi, given the assumptions made in the post up to that point, gives nothing back to anyone, because there's not really even room for people of other castes to have interest in the zzabur philosophy in the current model, especially for Rokari. 

In other words, the former is arguably unjust in a way that requires quite a bit of work to figure out, the latter is unjust in a way that makes it seem incredible no dronari or horali would have figured it out. And of course, in the Runequest Glorantha rules, sorcerers are not really capable of winning a fight against a few dozen people, so even the threat of incineration to repress both the peasantry and the armed populace seems rather ineffectual. 

My argument is that Malkioni societies should be adjusted such that they are unjust in a way that requires quite a bit of work to figure out. Entirely so that I don't feel vaguely unclean at the kind of implicit degradation-kink roleplay necessary to play Malkioni characters who are intended to be non-zzaburi and thus too stupid to see what should be obvious given what has been laid out, and not for any reason such as thinking it would make these societies stronger, more interesting, and more fun to play in and interact with. 

Quote

Why not European colonialism in the Caribbean or on the American mainland?

(WIth a repeat performance of the combination of Koryonos conquest following the plague...)

They don't appear to have physically exterminated the indigenous population to replace them with settlers, but instead use them as a perpetual source of labor (in the grim layout I've put together). Not really enough genocide going on for that to be the appropriate analogy. 

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, Eff said:

So if we want the Rokari wizards to be anything other than an instrument for proto-Marxist propaganda, we kind of have to solve this dilemma and answer just what it is that they do, what social function they have, without falling back on "they cast sorceries on the peasants for the benefit of all", which is now absurd when peasants have their own, entirely independent source of beneficial magic, which is just as good as the Sartarite kind. It makes them look ineffectual. 

I have a hard time trying to paint Rokari wizards as something palatable. Not so much Marxist, really more "Aryan" in ripping (male only) individuals out of their family environment, robbing them of ancestral benefits, and indoctrinating them very early on, with probably some "waste disposal" as individuals fail to live up to the expectations of their likewise indoctrinated superiors.

Monastic sorcerers have been a thing since long before Rokarism massacred the tenets of Malkioni society and philosophy by cutting off whatever displeased the founder(s), which was mainly any teaching derived from Hrestol despite Hrestolism being the original form of non-Brithini Malkionism (with the Ingareens and the Waertagi rare or rather distant outliers). I don't see evidence for under-age admission to these monastic orders of sorcerers, though, it looks like an alternative for zzabur caste members to pursue a return to henosis. No idea whether there were monastic sorcerer orders that also accepted Men-of-All born to other castes. (At least one of these survives basically unchanged from Makanist Seshnela, in Jonatela.)

The question must be allowed whether caste assigned by parentage or by order of birth basically at birth is any better than ripping out young children from their destiny defined by these castes to become an utterly vulnerable individual bereft of any security net while training for wizardhood, though. The "logic" of the caste system assigned by birth was (successfully) questioned by Siglat and his companions.

[Eff]

1 minute ago, Joerg said:

I have a hard time trying to paint Rokari wizards as something palatable. Not so much Marxist, really more "Aryan" in ripping (male only) individuals out of their family environment, robbing them of ancestral benefits, and indoctrinating them very early on, with probably some "waste disposal" as individuals fail to live up to the expectations of their likewise indoctrinated superiors.

Monastic sorcerers have been a thing since long before Rokarism massacred the tenets of Malkioni society and philosophy by cutting off whatever displeased the founder(s), which was mainly any teaching derived from Hrestol despite Hrestolism being the original form of non-Brithini Malkionism (with the Ingareens and the Waertagi rare or rather distant outliers). I don't see evidence for under-age admission to these monastic orders of sorcerers, though, it looks like an alternative for zzabur caste members to pursue a return to henosis. No idea whether there were monastic sorcerer orders that also accepted Men-of-All born to other castes. (At least one of these survives basically unchanged from Makanist Seshnela, in Jonatela.)

The question must be allowed whether caste assigned by parentage or by order of birth basically at birth is any better than ripping out young children from their destiny defined by these castes to become an utterly vulnerable individual bereft of any security net while training for wizardhood, though. The "logic" of the caste system assigned by birth was (successfully) questioned by Siglat and his companions.

I don't really care about making them palatable, I care about making their society look like one that could possibly exist in a material world populated by human beings and interacting with competing societies. The Rokari can be as evil everyone has their own point of view and nobody is evil in Glorantha no matter what they do as you like, I just think that Glorantha is better when it's populated by humans so that there's something to contrast the supernatural beings against. 

[Jeff]

20 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I have a hard time trying to paint Rokari wizards as something palatable. Not so much Marxist, really more "Aryan" in ripping (male only) individuals out of their family environment, robbing them of ancestral benefits, and indoctrinating them very early on, with probably some "waste disposal" as individuals fail to live up to the expectations of their likewise indoctrinated superiors.

I find the Rokari very easy to be painted as something palatable. They are "realists" about the world and human nature, and have as much joy and sadness, love and dislike, as any other human society. Their system is pretty easily to accept - if you are already a ruler, you get acknowledged as a hereditary ruler. If you are already a soldier, you get acknowledged as a hereditary soldier. And if you are everyone else, you get acknowledged as everyone else. 

And if you are a kid who shows magical aptitude, you get to go to Hogwarts and become a wizard. You lose your family (and don't deal with Muggles much any more), but get to become one of the most important people in the world - the people responsible for maintaining magic. Sure there is a Ministry for Magic, which regulates your life, but then again, you don't really have to pay attention to those Muggle Ministries anymore.

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Sure there is a Ministry for Magic, which regulates your life, but then again, you don't really have to pay attention to those Muggle Ministries anymore.

And even better, Death Eaters are us. It is Voldemort's power fantasy come true.

Which may be why I fail to find this palatable.

Rokari Talar palace life is great - Mhugal empire great, plus licentious as long as you keep your sexual organs reserved for other Talar caste ones. Mel Brooks was right, it is good to be the king, or someone close to him. It probably takes Fonritian non-owned or the Moonson palace to live in similar conditions.

Just like Athenian democracy, participation in sovereignty for everybody (male, Athenian, post-adolescent, free, tax-paying).

 

Yes, the Rokari system is fairly easy to accept on its own, unless offered alternatives (like the previous Hrestoli system, with its hope for re-incarnation, a running chance at man-of-all-dom, etc.).

Castle Coast sorcerer-knight princes are as easy to accept on their own, marred only by the thinness of that veneer of splendour. As perfectly logical, just the losers of two battles against Rindland barbarian upstarts pretending to be Seshnegi because a usually very minor God Learner ancestor married into wealthy Enerali nobility at the end of the Autarchy.

 

Rokari society is pretty bog standard fantasy stuff, with a bleak "you only live once" message that one might call "realist". Yet Rokari dead will go to Hell to face Daka Fal much like any other dead will, and Rokari ancestors receive worship much like Hrestoli ancestors do (and a lot of the Rokari ancestors are Hrestoli ancestors when they aren't barbarians who worshipped the Old Gods). There is no philosophical vision discernible other than "don't repeat the God Learner mistakes" while repeating them.

Selling a clearly stratified caste society outside of supremacist or fascist circles (the latter including most of the marxist/leninist/maoist brands) is a fairly hard sell to our world's modern age players, at best a form of "guilty pleasure" when indulging in power fantasies.

[Jeff]

2 minutes ago, Joerg said:

And even better, Death Eaters are us. It is Voldemort's power fantasy come true.

Which may be why I fail to find this palatable.

Rokari Talar palace life is great - Mhugal empire great, plus licentious as long as you keep your sexual organs reserved for other Talar caste ones. Mel Brooks was right, it is good to be the king, or someone close to him. It probably takes Fonritian non-owned or the Moonson palace to live in similar conditions.

Just like Athenian democracy, participation in sovereignty for everybody (male, Athenian, post-adolescent, free, tax-paying).

 

Yes, the Rokari system is fairly easy to accept on its own, unless offered alternatives (like the previous Hrestoli system, with its hope for re-incarnation, a running chance at man-of-all-dom, etc.).

Castle Coast sorcerer-knight princes are as easy to accept on their own, marred only by the thinness of that veneer of splendour. As perfectly logical, just the losers of two battles against Rindland barbarian upstarts pretending to be Seshnegi because a usually very minor God Learner ancestor married into wealthy Enerali nobility at the end of the Autarchy.

 

Rokari society is pretty bog standard fantasy stuff, with a bleak "you only live once" message that one might call "realist". Yet Rokari dead will go to Hell to face Daka Fal much like any other dead will, and Rokari ancestors receive worship much like Hrestoli ancestors do (and a lot of the Rokari ancestors are Hrestoli ancestors when they aren't barbarians who worshipped the Old Gods). There is no philosophical vision discernible other than "don't repeat the God Learner mistakes" while repeating them.

Selling a clearly stratified caste society outside of supremacist or fascist circles (the latter including most of the marxist/leninist/maoist brands) is a fairly hard sell to our world's modern age players, at best a form of "guilty pleasure" when indulging in power fantasies.

Well, to each their own. I find the Rokari easier to understand than the New Hrestoli myself. After all, the Rokari are closer to us moderns than the Lunars or Hrestoli....

[Eff]

3 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Well, to each their own. I find the Rokari easier to understand than the New Hrestoli myself. After all, the Rokari are closer to us moderns than the Lunars or Hrestoli....

Being able to understand the Rokari is not the same thing as finding them palatable or protagonistic. It is fairly easy to understand why some people find fascist ideologies attractive without yourself finding fascism attractive. 

And I mean, I know a lot more Lunars and New Hrestoli, metaphorically, than Rokari. Especially on a social level. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Eff

[Jeff]

9 minutes ago, Eff said:

Being able to understand the Rokari is not the same thing as finding them palatable or protagonistic. It is fairly easy to understand why some people find fascist ideologies attractive without yourself finding fascism attractive. 

And I mean, I know a lot more Lunars and New Hrestoli, metaphorically, than Rokari. Especially on a social level. 

I don't find the Rokari fascist at all. Nor the Lunars. Not even really the New Hrestoli, although certainly a better argument can be given for them. They are certainly theocratic, but then again so are most Gloranthan societies. Certainly the Lunar Empire is a literal theocracy.

Rokari Malkionism posits a hereditary caste system with a semi-meritocratic, non-hereditary "priestly" caste at the top (who doesn't muddy in their hands in the affairs of the world, but need to work with the nobility to maintain their position). I could imagine a Greek philosopher suggesting something like this to Demetrius of Bactria as a way of better governing his domains.

[Eff]

1 minute ago, Jeff said:

I don't find the Rokari fascist at all. Nor the Lunars. Not even really the New Hrestoli, although certainly a better argument can be given for them. They are certainly theocratic, but then again so are most Gloranthan societies. Certainly the Lunar Empire is a literal theocracy.

Rokari Malkionism posits a hereditary caste system with a semi-meritocratic, non-hereditary "priestly" caste at the top (who doesn't muddy in their hands in the affairs of the world, but need to work with the nobility to maintain their position). I could imagine a Greek philosopher suggesting something like this to Demetrius of Bactria as a way of better governing his domains.

That's an analogy. I am using that analogy to explain why understanding the Rokari doesn't mean thinking that they're a morally neutral society or social order, both absolutely and relatively to Glorantha as a whole. 

I also assumed that you were using metaphorical language when you said "us moderns" were closer to Rokari, because the literal comparison would be nonsense. So in that assumed metaphorical language, the point is that I know, personally, far more people who are ideologically committed to egalitarianism to the point of utopianism (New Hrestoli) and far more people who have unusual, expansive ethical precepts and are willing to embrace what is generally condemned (Lunars) and far more people who have mystical predilections or are friendly to mysticism (both) than people who are hidebound conservatives that believe social mobility leads to apocalypse and that mysticism is a negative thing (Rokari). All of these are, again, metaphorical terms to counter what appeared to be a metaphor about Rokari being more like modern humans. 

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, Eff said:

The temple family interacts with a god who is important to you and directly relevant to the world of your society.

You are wearing your Lightbringer hat here. Please try the Pelorian hat where the Yelmic Priesthood interacts with a god important to you personally but takes the good stuff away to their jealous emperor god rather than leaving it for you and yours, except for a few breadcrumbs that make you and yours productive for Them.

The Invisible God is the Lawgiver, the source of the laws enacted by the Malkioni castes. You might argue that now the laws are here, you don't need the lawgiver any more, but the same might be applied to Lightbringer deities who excuse their inactivity by the Compromise.

From the Invisible God emanated Malkion, the common ancestor. Even if he became Grandfather Mortal. Malkion's incarnation as son of Storm and Sea still bears that divine ancestry of the Invisible God.

Malkion is The Man, the humanist approach to understanding the world. Divinity was picked up, often by descent, but it is a Man's World, not some Celestial Court descendants'.

 

1 minute ago, Eff said:

The zzaburi interact with a god who is not important to you and irrelevant to anyone but the sorcerers, because of how abstract it is.

The Yelmic lower and higher priesthood... imperial solar families... same thing. Nowadays tinted red and mystically overwritten.

 

1 minute ago, Eff said:

The extraction of wealth to support the temple family gives something back, but the extraction of wealth to support the zzaburi, given the assumptions made in the post up to that point, gives nothing back to anyone, because there's not really even room for people of other castes to have interest in the zzabur philosophy in the current model, especially for Rokari. 

What does the appropriation of practically all the wealth in Orlanti society by the temple give back to the individuals other than some meat at temple feasts? Orlanthi property conventions are pretty close to "real existing socialism" with the means of production of wealth controlled by the temple "for the people".

 

1 minute ago, Eff said:

In other words, the former is arguably unjust in a way that requires quite a bit of work to figure out, the latter is unjust in a way that makes it seem incredible no dronari or horali would have figured it out.

Next thing you will tell me that Fonritians might figure out there is an alternative to a slavocracy? Caste is all-important as it defines your position in society. (Say among others the Dara Happans and the Teshnans, and other than Hsunchen and Orlanthi probably everyone else, too.) It is the concept of caste that prevents these folk from figuring out. Hrestolism offers the way out of that trap with the men-of-all.

Rokarism butchers the Hrestoli-shaped Malkionism. It is a mafioso take-over of the Enerali lands that belonged to the God Learners in the Tanier valley, claiming the title of a drowned and lost (Hrestoli!) kingdom with a zealous, likely monastic order of sorcerers and a few somewhat Malkionized Enerali nobility failing to connect with the Autarchy and instead recalling their Galanini roots. That unholy alliance overcomes the disorganized Old Way Hrestoli at the Asgolan Fields and declares all Hrestolism as Doubleplusungood. Rokari watchers are placed like the Stasi to report and stamp out all traditional ways, all hopes for reincarnation, etc, except among the Pithdarans who manage to play "good orthodox Rokari" while retaining their lineages, giving any Pithdaran selected to join the Rokari zzabur caste a vast advantage in connections and ancestral magic. While Leplain can try to win over individual Pithdaran sorcerers as zealots for their way, those are likely to meet accidents or other such problems, creating a mafia inside a mafia-turned-gestapo.

 

1 minute ago, Eff said:

And of course, in the Runequest Glorantha rules, sorcerers are not really capable of winning a fight against a few dozen people, so even the threat of incineration to repress both the peasantry and the armed populace seems rather ineffectual. 

Jeff is the first to admit that the sorcery rules in RQG cover the abilities of Lhankor Mhytes and similar part time sorcerers rather than professionals with access to greater Invisible God insights. The Rokari zzaburi have accomplices in the pagan-mounted-Horali-elevated-to-Talar caste as their enforcers lavished in luxuries none of the sorcerers gets to enjoy. The peasantry attempted to get some security against these enforcers building walls and ditches, but those were verboten by the enforcers.

 

1 minute ago, Eff said:

My argument is that Malkioni societies should be adjusted such that they are unjust in a way that requires quite a bit of work to figure out.

Other than being inflexibly stratified caste societies?

The "justice" of Yelm or the Esrolian Grandmothers is similar, and Orlanth is the (ever so slightly) reformed successful bully.

1 minute ago, Eff said:

Entirely so that I don't feel vaguely unclean at the kind of implicit degradation-kink roleplay necessary to play Malkioni characters who are intended to be non-zzaburi and thus too stupid to see what should be obvious given what has been laid out, and not for any reason such as thinking it would make these societies stronger, more interesting, and more fun to play in and interact with. 

Maybe the problem is the emulation of ancient world societies with such social stratification and a vast population accepting the divinity/exceptionalism of the leaders.

 

1 minute ago, Eff said:

They don't appear to have physically exterminated the indigenous population to replace them with settlers, but instead use them as a perpetual source of labor (in the grim layout I've put together). Not really enough genocide going on for that to be the appropriate analogy. 

The history of the Serpent Kings and their fights with the Pendali is a bit more complicated than that. Those struggles were followed by decline of Seshnela and recovery from that decline, with further struggles against exiled Pendali, Enerali, and Pralori conquerors of the lower Tanier valley. Tanisor was joined to Seshnela as on and off as the Serpent crown's influence declined and recovered. The populations assimilated by Seshnela during the Dawn Age were Pendali, Enerali, and possibly indigenous Hykimi.

[Eff]

20 minutes ago, Joerg said:

You are wearing your Lightbringer hat here. Please try the Pelorian hat where the Yelmic Priesthood interacts with a god important to you personally but takes the good stuff away to their jealous emperor god rather than leaving it for you and yours, except for a few breadcrumbs that make you and yours productive for Them.

The Invisible God is the Lawgiver, the source of the laws enacted by the Malkioni castes. You might argue that now the laws are here, you don't need the lawgiver any more, but the same might be applied to Lightbringer deities who excuse their inactivity by the Compromise.

From the Invisible God emanated Malkion, the common ancestor. Even if he became Grandfather Mortal. Malkion's incarnation as son of Storm and Sea still bears that divine ancestry of the Invisible God.

Malkion is The Man, the humanist approach to understanding the world. Divinity was picked up, often by descent, but it is a Man's World, not some Celestial Court descendants'.

 

The Yelmic lower and higher priesthood... imperial solar families... same thing. Nowadays tinted red and mystically overwritten.

 

What does the appropriation of practically all the wealth in Orlanti society by the temple give back to the individuals other than some meat at temple feasts? Orlanthi property conventions are pretty close to "real existing socialism" with the means of production of wealth controlled by the temple "for the people".

 

Next thing you will tell me that Fonritians might figure out there is an alternative to a slavocracy? Caste is all-important as it defines your position in society. (Say among others the Dara Happans and the Teshnans, and other than Hsunchen and Orlanthi probably everyone else, too.) It is the concept of caste that prevents these folk from figuring out. Hrestolism offers the way out of that trap with the men-of-all.

Rokarism butchers the Hrestoli-shaped Malkionism. It is a mafioso take-over of the Enerali lands that belonged to the God Learners in the Tanier valley, claiming the title of a drowned and lost (Hrestoli!) kingdom with a zealous, likely monastic order of sorcerers and a few somewhat Malkionized Enerali nobility failing to connect with the Autarchy and instead recalling their Galanini roots. That unholy alliance overcomes the disorganized Old Way Hrestoli at the Asgolan Fields and declares all Hrestolism as Doubleplusungood. Rokari watchers are placed like the Stasi to report and stamp out all traditional ways, all hopes for reincarnation, etc, except among the Pithdarans who manage to play "good orthodox Rokari" while retaining their lineages, giving any Pithdaran selected to join the Rokari zzabur caste a vast advantage in connections and ancestral magic. While Leplain can try to win over individual Pithdaran sorcerers as zealots for their way, those are likely to meet accidents or other such problems, creating a mafia inside a mafia-turned-gestapo.

 

Jeff is the first to admit that the sorcery rules in RQG cover the abilities of Lhankor Mhytes and similar part time sorcerers rather than professionals with access to greater Invisible God insights. The Rokari zzaburi have accomplices in the pagan-mounted-Horali-elevated-to-Talar caste as their enforcers lavished in luxuries none of the sorcerers gets to enjoy. The peasantry attempted to get some security against these enforcers building walls and ditches, but those were verboten by the enforcers.

 

Other than being inflexibly stratified caste societies?

The "justice" of Yelm or the Esrolian Grandmothers is similar, and Orlanth is the (ever so slightly) reformed successful bully.

Maybe the problem is the emulation of ancient world societies with such social stratification and a vast population accepting the divinity/exceptionalism of the leaders.

 

The history of the Serpent Kings and their fights with the Pendali is a bit more complicated than that. Those struggles were followed by decline of Seshnela and recovery from that decline, with further struggles against exiled Pendali, Enerali, and Pralori conquerors of the lower Tanier valley. Tanisor was joined to Seshnela as on and off as the Serpent crown's influence declined and recovered. The populations assimilated by Seshnela during the Dawn Age were Pendali, Enerali, and possibly indigenous Hykimi.

Yelm is the Sun, and of course I benefit from him because I, as a Pelorian peasant, need light to see and the Sun is so much cheaper than firewood and candles. Maybe I don't quite see what the benefit of sacrifices to Buserian is to me personally, but I know that scribes are very important for making sure that my taxes get recorded properly so I don't get my legs broken by a Shargashi again, and for other things too. There's an overall social order, and I can easily see how the tithes fit in, because there's social integration there. 

The Invisible God is now so depersonalized in the de-Christianized Malkioni that there is no remnant of any sense that he's at all relevant to me. He's almost purely an abstract Prime Mover, a purely philosophical entity. And the social order that is relevant to me is detached from the Invisible God and the zzaburi, because it's ancestor worship and agricultural gods and crafts gods. In fact, not only are the saints now Theosophical Ascended Masters, they're also not accepted by the Rokari, so even the ancestor worship is disconnected from the Invisible God except in the most abstract terms. 

And what happens is that people end up either bringing back in a little bit of that Christianity, to make the Invisible God interventionist enough to send his only beloved son Malkion into the world, or they take up the Indian elements and make zzaburi brahmins outright and suggest that anyone who does religious activities as an authority figure is a zzaburi. I think that says something about how unstable the Rokari as described are, that we either back away from them or slide in another direction entirely. Which is most obvious for the Rokari because the various softenings of the new Malkionism are least present there. 

EDIT: What I find most interesting is that not many people are going for the idea that Malkioni are in fact, as a society massively powerful because they have the benefits of large-scale sorcery spread out among the people alongside the benefits of theurgy and spiritism. We can all agree that there's a rough balance of power between the "four ways of doing magic", it seems. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Eff

[Jeff]

13 minutes ago, Eff said:

Yelm is the Sun, and of course I benefit from him because I, as a Pelorian peasant, need light to see and the Sun is so much cheaper than firewood and candles. Maybe I don't quite see what the benefit of sacrifices to Buserian is to me personally, but I know that scribes are very important for making sure that my taxes get recorded properly so I don't get my legs broken by a Shargashi again, and for other things too. There's an overall social order, and I can easily see how the tithes fit in, because there's social integration there. 

The Invisible God is now so depersonalized in the de-Christianized Malkioni that there is no remnant of any sense that he's at all relevant to me. He's almost purely an abstract Prime Mover, a purely philosophical entity. And the social order that is relevant to me is detached from the Invisible God and the zzaburi, because it's ancestor worship and agricultural gods and crafts gods. In fact, not only are the saints now Theosophical Ascended Masters, they're also not accepted by the Rokari, so even the ancestor worship is disconnected from the Invisible God except in the most abstract terms. 

And what happens is that people end up either bringing back in a little bit of that Christianity, to make the Invisible God interventionist enough to send his only beloved son Malkion into the world, or they take up the Indian elements and make zzaburi brahmins outright and suggest that anyone who does religious activities as an authority figure is a zzaburi. I think that says something about how unstable the Rokari as described are, that we either back away from them or slide in another direction entirely. Which is most obvious for the Rokari because the various softenings of the new Malkionism are least present there. 

EDIT: What I find most interesting is that not many people are going for the idea that Malkioni are in fact, as a society massively powerful because they have the benefits of large-scale sorcery spread out among the people alongside the benefits of theurgy and spiritism. We can all agree that there's a rough balance of power between the "four ways of doing magic", it seems. 

As you say, the idea of an almost purely abstract Prime Mover is not interesting to you. And yet, such abstract Prime Movers have been quite popular - at least among the intelligentsia - in many societies and many times. And since the zzaburi can wield magic and powerful magic at that, they must have something going for them.

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

As you say, the idea of an almost purely abstract Prime Mover is not interesting to you. And yet, such abstract Prime Movers have been quite popular - at least among the intelligentsia - in many societies and many times. And since the zzaburi can wield magic and powerful magic at that, they must have something going for them.

Are you illiterate, my man? 

 

For the benefit of the audience, an edit: when I said "I" and "me" in the post Jeff is quoting, I was putting myself in the position of a Gloranthan- a Pelorian peasant, and then by comparison, a Malkioni/Rokari peasant. I thought that this was obvious, because I talked about "me" trying to avoid getting violently assaulted by a Shargashi. Shargashi do not exist. So when I talked about the Invisible God being not relevant to "me", I am not talking about myself, but the imaginary Rokari peasant woman. 

This is thus a frustrating reply to receive, because from my perspective, it seemed pretty obvious my post wasn't talking about my personal opinions of the Invisible God and was talking about peasant opinions, so talking about the intelligentsia of societies following philosophical, abstract entities was, from my perspective, completely ignoring the conversation and contents of the post. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Eff

[radmonger]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Why not European colonialism in the Caribbean or on the American mainland?

 

Because if slavery was Right, slaves would be a caste. Which is presumably a thing someone somewhere believes. But within mainstream Malkionisn, using violence to make a worker work  is inherently going to be a caste violation. 

A different analogy is a modern 'third world' country trying to follow a particular path of development. Instead of Brithos as a template of what the end result could look like, there is Britain. Zzaburi are scientists and engineers. Caste magic is jumbo jets, cars and smartphones. The root ideology, fundamental worldview is materialism in general, with something like liberal capitalism as specifics. Within that framework,  Rokarism is the belief that the right way forwards is building a university and airport in the capital; Hrestolism is more like establishing a health clinic in every village.

Other nations accept that they are not planning on mass prosperity for all; only the ruling classes and their enforcers. The others must make do with whatever worldview doesn't require the effort of having them killed.

The fundamental dilemma all non-immortal Malkioni have is that training a sorceror takes at least half a lifetime, during which time they are not productive. So it is very difficult to support the number of skilled zzaburi Malkioni society actually needs to function. Say ten Dronali can materially support one Zzaburi, and one skilled Zzaburi can magically support ten Dronali. Half the Dronali are going to be without Caste magic; the Zzaburi they are supporting won't be good for anything for another 10 years. Except without that magic, they can't meet even a 10:1 support ratio, more like the 100:1 of real world ancient societies. So ever since Time, everything doesn't add up.

The mainstream Malkioni solution is to accept that the lack of Zzaburi mean that most or all of the lower castes are not going to get any caste magic, so they might as well not follow caste restrictions. Just pick the least-worst options for what gods they get to follow.

The radical Rokari solution is monasticism, where the best candidates from all other castes are educated intensively from an early age, at great opportunity cost. To support that, caste rules are actively enforced  in the general population. This serves to maintain the Rightness of those critical zzaburi, with the goal of the best of them living longer, ideally indefinitely. At which point everyone will get their rewards for the current austerity.

The radical Hrestoli solution is to have the candidate Men-Of-All work as farmers and then soldiers, so they are always being productive, or at least filling a role that would have needed to be supported anyway. Men of All aren't as good as fully trained Rokari wizards, but there can be more of them. Any progressive increase in their numbers represents the arc of history bending towards Rightness.

In both cases, a lot of nominal Hrestoli and Rokari do not fully buy into the corresponding plan, and so can be more accurately described as mainstream Malkioni. Everyone knows that regiment  secretly worships a misspelled version of Humakt. But so long as some level of plausible deniability is maintained, then noone gets hit with an unmanageable loss of Rightness.

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by radmonger
extended analogy

[davecake]

13 hours ago, radmonger said:

As I see it, malkioni society can be divided into 5 groups. 4 of them are Brithini, Vadeli, Rokari and Hrestoli.  

I don’t really see it that way - the various smaller sects are not all just variants of the 4 larger, but all quite divergent. But if you were to group them into 5 main groups, the fifth large grouping would be Henotheists. 
 

13 hours ago, radmonger said:

Rokari and Hrestoli both have aspirations to bascially become Brithini. Neither is a stable society, they will either succeed or collapse.

I think the Hrestoli absolutely do not aspire to become Brithini. 
The Rokari do. They are unstable in that this is essentially unattainable and their society is only viable because of the many ways they depart from Brithini practice - but on such hypocrisy many societies have proved stable for centuries, the Rokari amongst them. 

[metcalph]

Just to put my thinking out on how cults work in Seshnela.  Instead of cults being confined to single castes (ie only the Farmers worship Farming Gods), I view the Nobles as providing the Religious Leadership of the Seshnegi cults.  They provide the Priests and determine who gets initiated (their supporters obviously).  Lower caste Malkioni who worship the Gods without a Noble Priest are rebels, guilty of caste crime with consequent loss of Rightness (except they are Hrestoli which makes them even more wicked).

Since the demise of the God Learners, the Wizards do not get involved in the  worship of the Gods.  They are still haunted by what happened when their predecessors did.  Where they are involved is in two places - a) determination of which Gods are right and proper to worship and b) amplifying any blessings the Priests may cast.

A Priestess of Seshna Likita casts Bless Crops.  Because she is a Noble, she's not likely to be as common as her counterparts in Dragon Pass and the Holy Country or even as powerful.  But her magic is ultimately more effective because the Wizards see the magic as a beneficial blessing from the Gods (whom they regard as forces of nature) which they amply and boost as part of their duties.  Thus in Seshnela, the Nobles and Wizards work in syngery for the benefit of all (weighted in their own favour but for all).

 

 

 

[davecake]

4 hours ago, radmonger said:

Because if slavery was Right, slaves would be a caste. Which is presumably a thing someone somewhere believes. But within mainstream Malkionisn, using violence to make a worker work  is inherently going to be a caste violation. 

FWIW, I don’t believe that it is a caste violation unless you do it to someone who has a caste, and some sects have practiced slavery of others, but I do believe the Rokari and Hrestoli both consider slavery to be wrong, possibly for quite different reasons. 

The Vadeli consider that, as Zzaburs law saw says nothing about how to treat the people not following caste law themselves (in their interpretation, anyone not of ancient Danmalastan), and they care about caste law absolutely only in as much as following it grants immortality, anything you do to random non-Malkioni people is free from any consequences, moral or magical, and slavery is one of the more logical options. But then, the Vadeli are largely logical sociopathic nihilists. They had, in the distant past, at least one vast slave empire, and the slave magic of Fonrit is based on ancient Vadeli slave magic.

The Brithini probably don’t have slaves because they think they are inferior to having Dronar, and associating with non-Brithini is corrupting, or some such nonsense, essentially because they didn’t have slaves in Danmalastan rather than any moral reason. Besides, it’s kind of a Vadeli thing, and therefore suspect. Besides, they are so short lived, might as well just Tap them. 

I think the Galvosti would probably consider enslaving non-Malkioni a humane alternative to Tapping. 

[davecake]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Just to put my thinking out on how cults work in Seshnela.  Instead of cults being confined to single castes (ie only the Farmers worship Farming Gods), I view the Nobles as providing the Religious Leadership of the Seshnegi cults.  They provide the Priests and determine who gets initiated (their supporters obviously). 

I tend to think that this was how things work in Old Sesnela under the Serpent Kings and since the True Hrestol Way purified all this pagan nonsense this sort of thing is looked on with extreme suspicion.
Nobles leading Earth cults, in particular, especially if they make too many claims about their ancestral connections to the Earth giving them priestly authority, is particularly historically problematic, and will have the Ecclesiarch sending his Watchers around in no time. 
(Pointing here to @Nick Brookes History of Malkionism and it’s lovely depictions of both the outrages of the pagan excesses of the decadent hippy Serpent Kings and the rightful sealing of those dreadful serpent demigods into underground ‘dungeon’ complexes).

The Talars, advised by their zzaburs (who are guided by the wisdom of the Ecclesiarch) of course decide which of the dronars make acceptable priestly leaders, but the actual details are probably caste mysteries.

And of course it is important that the Talars are not members of the secretive War Societies, because if the Talars should discover the War Societies should be doing something so irresponsible as worshipping pagan gods in return for good combat magic, they might have to put a stop to it, and that would irresponsibility compromise their military assets.