Dumping Argrath

[Eff]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

We seem to have lapsed into even one-note Harrek is more interesting than Argrath. What is going on?

You can do similar kinds of analysis for Argrath too. However, Argrath carries symbolic importance Harrek doesn't, as an avatar of the orange/brown side of the wargame board. Pulling at the threads of Argrath means pulling at the threads of Sartar/Orlanthi/Orlanth, because he's been made into this figurehead of one "side" in the factional struggle. 

Argrath is a bastard, a sociopath, an inhuman monster, for many people talking about Glorantha, in part because his function to them is to blow up the setting. To take all that loving anthropological material about the Orlanthi, the gorgeous lozenge in an infinite pool, and smash it into pieces and then let the pieces reconstitute themselves. For another set of people, Argrath is monstrous because fandom discourses around the Lunars from the Orlanthi perspective frequently appear monstrous, and so Argrath is a means to condense this perspective into a figurehead to attack. For some people, Argrath is a force that keeps the setting on a predetermined critical path towards its inevitable end, and they seem to see this as a positive. 

In all of this, of course, Argrath is not really a person at any point. Argrath moves in a unilateral way, operating without doubts or concerns or introspection. Argrath is an object, and there's a limit as to how interesting a pure object can be without some anthropomorphism. So what I think about Argrath is- he's a fraud and knows it. 

Argrath is a guy who's suffered. At the hands of the Lunars when young, and then for an extended period at the hands of the Bison People. Like certain other figures in Glorantha, he psychologically displaces his righteous anger at the people who are currently keeping him in the degraded state of a slave but who he also depends upon onto other figures who have hurt him but that he isn't dependent on. So much so good. In the approach of the boring master planner Argrath, I might then go on to say that the White Bull is simply a means for bloody revenge against his tormentors, extended out to all the Animal Nomads- the eschaton is upon you, follow me and be my cannon (cult) fodder. 

I think it is probably better to understand Argrath as someone who has internalized some of these conditions, such that when he has an encounter with the sacred world of Prax and is treated by the White Bull as if he were Praxian, he can't believe it. He assumes, perhaps, that he's managed to trick this spirit, and that even the transcendent beings are fools, gullible, easily led by the nose, and from there he becomes a conspicuous liar, deceiver... trickster. Not that he's a Trickster, oh no, that's displaced onto the recurrent elusive Elusu. 

So Argrath "tricks" Harrek, "tricks" Mularik, "tricks" Leika, "tricks" Annstad and Onjur... but he isn't, really. People can see who and what Argrath is off of the bat, right down to the very obvious damage. (My Argrath probably has a limp or an unusual gait from having been hobbled at some point early in life.) Maybe some of them even care about Argrath. And maybe there's a certain desire in all of this to gain control over the situation through "acting out", as a coping mechanism for having spent so much time with nearly no control over any situation. Which in turns makes it pretty easy to manipulate this Argrath, though not always predictably so. 

Of course, all of this does somewhat diminish the power fantasy of Argrath as super-GM, planning all of future history out in advance, but phooey on that power fantasy and its inverse. Anyways, healing this Argrath would be a tricky proposition, but I think there are multiple angles and approaches to doing so. 

Now, a word of caution here- this does, I think, require some fairly careful work at the table to avoid racializing things such that Argrath becomes an angry white guy stereotype, or having Argrath be a victim of white slavery or what have you. But that's work that Glorantha always needs to be done at the table.

[Akhôrahil]

19 minutes ago, Eff said:

In all of this, of course, Argrath is not really a person at any point. Argrath moves in a unilateral way, operating without doubts or concerns or introspection. Argrath is an object, and there's a limit as to how interesting a pure object can be without some anthropomorphism.

I think one of the problems here is what we see happening in the comic - he swears on the River Styx, and that essentially means revoking his free will and any concerns whatsoever apart from that oath (this is the reason no sensible person swears that way, or is expected to). This is why, as you say, he's a mere object now, a plot-point that walks like a man. He gave himself up 100% to Fate, and this is what happens to you when you do that. It would be a tragedy, except for all the damage he does.

19 minutes ago, Eff said:

Now, a word of caution here- this does, I think, require some fairly careful work at the table to avoid racializing things such that Argrath becomes an angry white guy stereotype, or having Argrath be a victim of white slavery or what have you. But that's work that Glorantha always needs to be done at the table.

It doesn't help that the whole White Bull thing is essentially Dances With Bisons, where he has to show the Praxians how to do their own culture properly.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Eff]

2 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I think one of the problems here is what we see happening in the comic - he swears on the River Styx, and that essentially means revoking his free will and any concerns whatsoever apart from that oath (this is the reason no sensible person swears that way, or is expected to). This is why, as you say, he's a mere object now, a plot-point that walks like a man. He gave himself up 100% to Fate, and this is what happens to you when you do that. It would be a tragedy, except for all the damage he does.

Hold on, though. Who says that this must be the case, that Argrath is required to be this object because of a rule that's straightforwardly an exaggeration from "oaths must be abided by, lest the being you swore by bring their wrath down" to "oaths turn you into a deterministic piece of clockwork if you swear them on the right object"? That, too, is also a choice. 

[Jeff]

2 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I think one of the problems here is what we see happening in the comic - he swears on the River Styx, and that essentially means revoking his free will and any concerns whatsoever apart from that oath (this is the reason no sensible person swears that way, or is expected to). This is why, as you say, he's a mere object now, a plot-point that walks like a man. He gave himself up 100% to Fate, and this is what happens to you when you do that. It would be a tragedy, except for all the damage he does.

I wrote the comic. It is just one take on the character, and never even got far enough to explore the character past the Cradle scenario. The purpose of the comic was more about Kalin and I playing around with ideas and visuals, that later informed what became RQG. The idea was never that the comic was to become the definitive treatment of the characters.

At the time I was playing around with the idea that the Red Goddess was behind the Hero Wars, seeking a way out of the prison that she had put herself in. Argrath, her self-proclaimed Destroyer, would aid her in her Liberation and the rise of the White Moon. 

If I were to do it again, I would likely present it quite differently. 

But since people are putting labels on characters based on the comic, here's my take. Argrath's not a sociopath, he's a shaman. Same with Harrek and Jar-eel. They all see into the Otherworld, into the realm of gods and spirits, and all see their paths through the mundane world accordingly. 

[Akhôrahil]

17 minutes ago, Eff said:

Hold on, though. Who says that this must be the case, that Argrath is required to be this object because of a rule that's straightforwardly an exaggeration from "oaths must be abided by, lest the being you swore by bring their wrath down" to "oaths turn you into a deterministic piece of clockwork if you swear them on the right object"? That, too, is also a choice. 

This is my take on swearing on the River Styx: There are many different ways to take an oath, and one we know about is the oath to Humakt, backed by the Oath-spell. This "merely" kills you if you break it (and then bad things happen to you in the Underworld as an oathbreaker), but this seems to be considered right and proper among the Orlanthi - taking this oath is surely a sign of honor and dedication, and praiseworthy. But then there's swearing on the River Styx, and this simply isn't the done thing - it seems that it's too much, even for this culture. Too much - when the kosher option is to get killed outright and doomed in the afterlife. What I take this as, is that it's not merely a case of "these are the consequences if you break it" - instead, it twists Fate around the oath, binding the user to it. As a comparison, it could be like the combination of the Oath of Fëanor and the Doom of Mandos... possibly squared. This is what I mean by saying you surrender your free will - it's now replaced with the driving force of that oath that should not be taken. I don't think Argrath could turn aside from it, or prioritize anything above it. He's being wielded by Fate, now.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

This fantasy is something Muzak Jerry believes is cool, supercool, ultracool, especially as opposed to the rather deadbeat teen Muzak Jerry … Now, Muzak Harrek doesn't seem to like The Berserk or think The Berserk is cool.

Fair enough. And we can all nod along with Muzak Harrek as he tells us about his woeful alter ego.

3 hours ago, Eff said:

I can certainly think of many people … that had a similar understanding of themselves … as needing to put on a mask of hypermasculinity … But as far as voicing how they got out of it, well... it's pretty radical. 

Sounds like Trouble on Triton.

As a little kid, my idea of a man was Roddy McDowall, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, or John Inman. I’d have killed to have been any of them. But even with that early suspicion of hypermasculinity (and even the common-or-garden sort of masculinity), I found there was still plenty of scope for dysfunctional behaviour. 😉

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

Argrath is a bastard … for many people … because his function … is to blow up the setting … smash it into pieces and then let the pieces reconstitute themselves.

I don’t care about Argrath as a person and I don’t care for his little Oregon militia human-triumphalist speech after the  great god munching, but blow it up and see what happens next, you gotta love that, right? I guess I spent too much time with revolutionary socialists who liked to say “it is not for us to know what life after the revolution will be like.”

[Rodney Dangerduck]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

Argrath is a guy who's suffered. At the hands of the Lunars when young

I'm going to differ here.  True, Argrath suffered.  But so did thousands of other Sartarites.  As I've mentioned before, most of our PCs are orphans.  With some parents destroyed by the Bat.  Same for lots of NPC Sartarites.

We choose not to be psychopaths.   Well, one PC has a very high Hate Lunars, but he's no Argrath Destroyer of Worlds.

Argrath's actions, for good or evil, cannot be justified by "Lunars killed his parents, boo hoo".  There's a far deeper reason, whether mystical (e.g., he's the Shadow) or psychological (e.g. he's a psycho David Bowie).

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

There are many different ways to take an oath, and one we know about is the oath to Humakt, backed by the Oath-spell. This "merely" kills you if you break it

There are oaths and there are contracts.

OATHS
IRL, if I ask some god to strike me down if I break my word, part of the point is that no deity will in fact strike me down — that kind of thing doesn’t happen around here and it never has — but it is a way of asking to be taken seriously. This is a game for trustworthy people, or at least it is a game of trust. (Honour? I’ll leave that well alone. Sounds like The Godfather.)

CONTRACTS
At least one of us is a rogue, so we put a mechanism in place to ensure that god or no god, if I break my word I will be struck down (or you will get the other agreed remedy for me being such a rat). This is a game for people who — perhaps for very good reason — cannot trust each other (though they need to trust the enforcement mechanism).

Doesn’t the oath spell reduce making promises to signing a contract? Seems a shame.

However, I do quite like the idea of those who take oaths to Humakt being so trustworthy that no one really knows whether the spell has any power. Is anyone’s Glorantha like that?

[mfbrandi]

28 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Argrath's actions, for good or evil, cannot be justified by "Lunars killed his parents, boo hoo".  There's a far deeper reason, whether mystical (e.g., he's the Shadow) or psychological (e.g. he's a psycho David Bowie).

Well, I hear that vampires stole his lunch money, too.

The deeper reason — not a justification for personality dysfunction, I grant you — is that he is an agent of thinning or of demystification: just as Glorantha’s creation was not done before the Great Compromise, it is still not done as the Hero Wars rage. It’ll be done when all the gods and monsters have vanished and we wake up disenchanted next to Jerry and half-a-dozen used needles in some decaying squat off the Portobello Road. All RPG worlds conspire to the condition of Muzak … of mundanity.

It is a young man’s person’s journey to Viriconium/London, no? Not only have the trolls and dragons vanished, but they were never there. The trip is over and maybe we — kinda? sorta? — still wish we could catch a glimpse of an elf in a mirror, but the smell of cabbage soon puts an end to that daydream. And Jerry seems to have stopped breathing. Soon he will stink worse than the cabbage.

Edited January 10, 2023 by mfbrandi

[Akhôrahil]

27 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

OATHS
IRL, if I ask some god to strike me down if I break my word, part of the point is that no deity will in fact strike me down — that kind of thing doesn’t happen around here and it never has — but it is a way of asking to be taken seriously. This is a game for trustworthy people, or at least it is a game of trust. 

I mean though, it's literally the name of the spell and it says it's an oath... 🙂 "Contractual Obligation" sounds more like an Issaries spell.

I would agree that it's probably used most when you either want to make a point of how serious things are, or when you're not sure about the other party. And oaths without the spell are still to be taken seriously.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[scott-martin]

26 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

disenchanted

I finally got back to  ̶M̶a̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶ Maniria this morning and was confronted with something big and pink and not like me, the new Journal of Psychick Albion. Not sure yet it's relevant to the interesting twist this thread has taken but we will go there.



And then PiL demanded to enter the Eurovision contest. But in terms of the thread topic, I think this is the kind of "director's opera" that the Great Hero Wars Campaign needs to be able to support. How wonderful an achievement it would be if this had the recombinant persistence of Shakespeare, endless interpretations and creative stagings locked in tension with the mostly fixed text with its mostly inexorable wyrd.

26 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

elf in a mirror, but the smell of cabbage soon puts an end to that daydream.

How can we be sure these aren't Jethro Tull lyrics?
 

Edited January 10, 2023 by scott-martin
pil prompts more serious teaser

[mfbrandi]

1 minute ago, Akhôrahil said:

I mean though, it's literally the name of the spell and it says it's an oath... 🙂

Absolutely. It is one of those weird distortions that come with Gloranthan religion. Glorantha seems to be the RPG world for people who take religion — and other “anthropological” stuff — seriously, but the way it makes things “literal” or “real” twists everything to no longer have its real-world meaning. Fun, huh?

[mfbrandi]

2 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

How can we be sure these aren't Jethro Tull lyrics?

I could swear an oath on my signed paperback of The Black Corridor that I might sink to Hawkwind but never Jethro Tull, if that would help. (Of course, it is not signed by the true author, so this is a very slippery proposition.)

[Eff]

51 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I'm going to differ here.  True, Argrath suffered.  But so did thousands of other Sartarites.  As I've mentioned before, most of our PCs are orphans.  With some parents destroyed by the Bat.  Same for lots of NPC Sartarites.

We choose not to be psychopaths.   Well, one PC has a very high Hate Lunars, but he's no Argrath Destroyer of Worlds.

Argrath's actions, for good or evil, cannot be justified by "Lunars killed his parents, boo hoo".  There's a far deeper reason, whether mystical (e.g., he's the Shadow) or psychological (e.g. he's a psycho David Bowie).

None of that was a justification of Argrath, which is itself a separate matter, it's a way of interpreting Argrath as a person, a character, rather than as a plot function. In this specific instance, someone who's deeply unpleasant as a person, has reasons for being that way, and perhaps can be made to have reasons to be a different way.

 

One other option, of course, is to use Argrath (or Jar-Eel or Jaldon or whoever) as a fiction suit to project into and experience vicarious enjoyment, which is an orthogonal approach, but one that probably does require more editing to cut down on the grim aspects that I assume aren't in anyone's fantasies. But if you stick to the board game and making swordfighting sounds while moving Argrath and the Sword Brothers in a stack down the Royal Roads... 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Eff

[Eff]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This is my take on swearing on the River Styx: There are many different ways to take an oath, and one we know about is the oath to Humakt, backed by the Oath-spell. This "merely" kills you if you break it (and then bad things happen to you in the Underworld as an oathbreaker), but this seems to be considered right and proper among the Orlanthi - taking this oath is surely a sign of honor and dedication, and praiseworthy. But then there's swearing on the River Styx, and this simply isn't the done thing - it seems that it's too much, even for this culture. Too much - when the kosher option is to get killed outright and doomed in the afterlife. What I take this as, is that it's not merely a case of "these are the consequences if you break it" - instead, it twists Fate around the oath, binding the user to it. As a comparison, it could be like the combination of the Oath of Fëanor and the Doom of Mandos... possibly squared. This is what I mean by saying you surrender your free will - it's now replaced with the driving force of that oath that should not be taken. I don't think Argrath could turn aside from it, or prioritize anything above it. He's being wielded by Fate, now.

I think that broadly, I take it more in the sense the Greeks used it- even Zeus Horkios, Zeus-we-swear-by, is bound by oaths by the River Styx, because of reasons that feel like they're probably retrojective explanations of the existing oath by later individuals. So it's meaningful in the King of Sartar original because of that subtitle: "how one man became a god". Argrath is already doing what gods would do, foreshadowing his apotheosis. 

And then this is queasy and spooky because it's tantamount to declaring yourself a god, and it also speaks to the tangle of Argrath between cynicism and idealism. Does it bind Argrath any more than any regular oath would? Well, perhaps his apotheosis is preconditioned on his fulfillment of the oath. Or perhaps it keeps him out of the cycle of death and rebirth and renders him an undead monstrosity until he fulfills it. But Fate, like Luck, doesn't seem to be extraordinarily powerful here. 

[radmonger]

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

the way it makes things “literal” or “real” twists everything to no longer have its real-world meaning

Real-world meaning to modern post-Enlightment types, that is. As Bret Devereux argues below, it is generally safe to assume that people in the past believed their own religion.

 

https://acoup.blog/2019/10/25/collections-practical-polytheism-part-i-knowledge/

[mfbrandi]

10 hours ago, radmonger said:

it is generally safe to assume that people in the past believed their own religion

Isn’t it safe to assume that people in the present believe their own religion? I didn’t mean to question it, nor to assume they are wrong to do so — although I am not a believer myself — but I don’t think that IRL religion needs the world to be like Glorantha-per-RPG-mechanics. I appreciate that in this forum that may put me in a minority.

[radmonger]

A clear majority of contemporary people do believe in some form of religious magic; angels, miracles, curses, horoscopes, etc.This is as true in the heartland of the american empire as it is in the lunar one. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-nearly-8-in-10-americans-believe-in-angels/

https://www.livescience.com/38033-how-vatican-identifies-miracles.html

The difference between illumination and enlightenment is that illuminates only believe they are _personally_ immune to magical consequences. 

To be clear I don't believe in that kind of religious magic, and likely you don't either. But reasoning from that belief system to how those who don't share it think and feel is making an error similar to a christian who asks 'why do pagans worship false gods when that means they will go to hell?'.

People believe in _their_ belief systems, not a wrong version of anyone else's.

Argrath believes the lunar empire is fundamentally chaotic, and acts to destroy it. A lunar might well believe Argrath is the moon's shadow, and so acts to challenge it to become something better.

They might act on that belief; Argrath won't.

 

[Squaredeal Sten]

49 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Isn’t it safe to assume that people in the present believe their own religion? I didn’t mean to question it, nor to assume they are wrong to do so — although I am not a believer myself — but I don’t think that IRL religion needs the world to be like Glorantha-per-RPG-mechanics. I appreciate that in this forum that may put me in a minority.

As a fellow nonbeliever. I estimate that IRL religion is at its most powerful and most dangerous when the believers treat the myths as literally true.  Even especially the myths that their leaders made up recently. 

So maybe "needs" is not quite the word that fits best.  Most of the time most IRL religion and religious are not in that mode, else we would live in a constant series of crusades and inquisitions.  

(Some of that is behind the RW Enlightenment.  People in Europe had had enough of crusades and inquisitions after the Thirty Years War.  Elsewhere, not so much. )

But at times in the past they have been in that mode and it lasted for and beyond  lifetimes, and plenty of our ancestors lived through it.  Or died during it, thus "beyond lifetimes."  

And SOME of them are in that mode right now.  How is that for a chill up your spine?

But back to fantasy and Argrath: You can read different things into his fictional words and acts.  There is no true explanation because he is a fictional chracter and his author is no longer here to explain.  IMHO there is a possibility that he was originally modeled on various historical AND Legendary people's acts, so he is a composite.  And if Greg Stafford were here he might give you different explanations on different days depending on the status of the game.  All of the individuals behind the composite had some motivation, but it's your interpretation which of those might apply to your interpretation of Argrath.   And you can play with more than one interpretation.

 In tbe end Argrath  serves to write a conclusion to the story of Glorantha. Why? Because Greg Stafford thought that stories should have conclusions.  There is wide agreement with that general proposition. 

If you dont like the current conclusion, make yours vary and proceed to write a 4th Age Glorantha.  I have already had an in game event in one campaign that should make a less destructive Argrath, but am not sure I will ever work the implications out in game, nor do I have Stafford's ability to make sweeping stories.  So I am unlikely to write a 4th age myself.  Have at it!

[Ali the Helering]

As an ordained Christian minister who has specialised in interfaith relations, I absolutely agree that religion is terribly dangerous - for the mental state of the believer and all too often the mental and physical health of those who don't share that belief.   

I have always liked Mark Twain's comment that "faith is believing what you know aitent so', since faith is implicitly irrational.  I think that I am in the only job where you are required to be irrational.  Indeed, a plagiarist too, since an excess of original thinking tends to get labeled as heresy!

Of course folk have always believed their own religions, and there were always some that rejected those religions.  It is worth remembering that atheism is not a new idea.  Psalm 14 opens with the assertion that "The fool says in his heart 'There is no god'".  In Glorantha terms I would suggest that it is perfectly possible to acknowledge the existence of powerful and dangerous beings, without deeming them worthy of worship.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

I would suggest that it is perfectly possible to acknowledge the existence of powerful and dangerous beings, without deeming them worthy of worship.

I.e. the Brithini.

[Richard S.]

As a person of faith, if I swore with "or God strike me down" or similar, I'd certainly consider that a possibility of breaking it. What "strike me down" actually ends up being, of course, is up to my imaginary friend. I've never sworn that sort of oath though - on my honor is typically good enough, as I expect it is for most Gloranthans.

Remember that the setting was made by a practicing shaman - someone who actually had belief, not someone trying to say what it was from an enlightened pedestal. Many of the elements he included were probably real to him.

[mfbrandi]

I wasn’t trying to make an anti-religious point. (Think how tired atheists would be if we spent all our time railing against religion!) I was just trying to draw out a potential difference between swearing an oath (i.e. making a promise) and signing an enforceable contract (i.e. putting remedies in place) — and then point out how an oath spell threatens to erode the difference.

My idea was that swearing an oath by [insert appropriate religious content here] showed the seriousness of the commitment being made — someone who swore by that wouldn’t be fooling, they would be fully committed to doing what they promised — and that that had nothing to do with calling on one’s god to enforce a contract. I mean, how arrogant to think that one could command the supreme being to enforce one’s contracts!

I am not trying to say that God couldn’t strike me down if She wished to — let us say that She could (because I broke my promise, for another reason, or just because She chose to), that She is no one’s “imaginary friend” but a real force in the world — I still think that when we say “I will do it or God strike me down” we are showing our seriousness by invoking something sacred, not commanding God to get involved in our petty matters. Not everything is about the existence of God.

But I have been wrong before, will be again, and may be now.

Peace?

[DucksMustDie]

The problem with Argrath is this. He´s the ultimate crazy cultist who knows everything. He can do anything. He´s been everywhere. He can kill anyone. He hardly reminds a human, he´s like Superman but worse, there´s no kryptonite to kill him --> he´s boring. Impossible to relate with