Monster Empire

[JRE]

1626 ST Sartarites have a series of ideas about the world that probably are not helpful in the days of the Great Ice and the Smoke Storms, when the skies turn black and all children die. For them Uz are a lesser risk than the empire and common enemies against Chaos. In Inkarne's days they will become an existential threat that will devour everything if unchecked. That sounds familiar. If both Uz and Broo use the Blood Sun to get power, and sacrifice your people for their blood, you also would put them together in the same category. This is the end, and it is different from the other ends, even if Seven heroes and Five will avert it.

The signs are that both Cragspider and Ralzakark use Blood Sun magics at the same time. That is why I propose, and the texts quoted by jajagappa above seem to support, they are classed by the 1700s Sartarites as part of the same threat. It is not obviously chaotic, for me, and I propose that Ralzakark is beyond Chaos, as Chaos is just a tool for him. He wants to become Wakboth, but Wakboth freed from his own needs and compulsions, becoming Emperor of the whole Universe, not destroying it but ruling it. 

I am not sure if he uses the predictability of Uz, or if they are in their own Godquest to bring Wonderhome and all their deities to Glorantha, as they cannot return, with Yelm once again in permanent residence in Hell. 

Although I still think there will be a compromise at the Moonfall, it will not be I fought we won. Only a part of the universe joins, and that is why so many things do not persist in the Fourth age. I will stop here, as this is clearly into Dumb theory territory.

 

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, JRE said:

The signs are that both Cragspider and Ralzakark use Blood Sun magics at the same time.

At that point in the game, there is a good chance that both Argrath's magicians and Ralzakark's magicians do so, too.

 

1 hour ago, JRE said:

That is why I propose, and the texts quoted by jajagappa above seem to support, they are classed by the 1700s Sartarites as part of the same threat. It is not obviously chaotic, for me, and I propose that Ralzakark is beyond Chaos, as Chaos is just a tool for him. He wants to become Wakboth, but Wakboth freed from his own needs and compulsions, becoming Emperor of the whole Universe, not destroying it but ruling it. 

I am not sure if he uses the predictability of Uz, or if they are in their own Godquest to bring Wonderhome and all their deities to Glorantha, as they cannot return, with Yelm once again in permanent residence in Hell. 

The previous mainstay of Surface World uzdom, the Dark Trolls, are about to make their last grand stand before they all get obsolete. I don't know how much new troll births are regarded as a chance for re-incarnation of lost dead mistress or dark trolls, and whether and how trollkin figure in this set-up. With the multiple births of enlo, practically every ancestor runs the risk of being reborn as an enlo...

The new type of troll recently brought into the world by the efforts of the swarm will take time to become important. If you look at the Gbaji Wars, the Curse of Kin struck in 378, but adoption of massed trollkin doesn't seem to happen before Arkat's duel with Nysalor. They are certainly the major part of troll military in the disaster against the Yelmalions at Mirin's Cross in the early 600s. Great Trolls entered the picture in the early 800s, and became a significant military asset by the time of the Machine Wars.

The new superior type of surface trolls may be just about entering military age at this time, born from Mistress Race mothers breeding with the new magical method. There won't be many, yet.

[EricW]

On 6/1/2023 at 10:18 AM, Jeff said:

Or the Pelorians.

The Monster Empire gets its title because Peloria is ruled by a monster, backed up by broo and other horrors. Dragons, barbarians, and trolls pillage lands once peacefully ruled by bright lords and Lunar mystics. It is the time of the Empty Emperor, and even a monster is better than no emperor at all.

So is your perspective that the Lunars actually support the monster empire, at least to an extent? I always thought of them as purely victims of a magical catastrophe they found themselves unable to escape?

[Jeff]

6 hours ago, EricW said:

So is your perspective that the Lunars actually support the monster empire, at least to an extent? I always thought of them as purely victims of a magical catastrophe they found themselves unable to escape?

Some Lunar illuminates do, some don't. There are certainly Lunar cultists who welcome this, especially within the Red Goddess cult. At the same time, there certainly are Lunar cultists who strongly oppose this.

Let me correct your statement - the Lunars are not "purely victims of a magical catastrophe" that is very much the logical result of the Lunar Way in practice. The Lunar Way does not condone the moral evils of Wakboth or the nihilism that follows Kajabor, but nor does it prohibit it. Accepting this is key to the Lunar Way. 

Now again, do most initiates of Lunar cults support go full-Wakboth? No, of course not. But the possibility was always there.

[metcalph]

I think that most people within the Monster Empire blame its awfulness on Argrath and Sheng Seleris.  Admitting their own leaders might be responsible isn't going to make things any better so there's next to no incentive for any soul-searching.  

[JRE]

My own theory is that Ralzakark has usurped both Solar and Lunar legitimacy, so he is functionally Moonson, with the support of what remains of Yelm's and the Red Moon's cult after Sheng.

I am sure Ralzakark claims to be the one that finished Sheng, rather than Argrath, and he may well be partially right, as Argrath commanding Yara Aranis still grates me. Argrath may have supported Ral's legitimacy as a way to get an ally against Sheng. Damned boys and their lack of foresight.

[metcalph]

My crazy theory (based on a line in Lords of Terror):  Ralzakark's warlord and enforcer is one Oddi the Keen ("He killed me so I brought him back to life.  It's only fair")

[Nick Brooke]

1 hour ago, JRE said:

My own theory is that Ralzakark has usurped both Solar and Lunar legitimacy, so he is functionally Moonson.

You say “usurped,” he says “inherited.” 😈

[Soccercalle]

Reading the last parts of King of Sartar feels very much like reading the Book of Revelations in the Bible.

[JRE]

1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

You say “usurped,” he says “inherited.” 😈

He is right. If there is no other rightful inheritor, it is not usurpation... And Sheng made sure there were none.

But I am sure there are plenty of former Lunars in the Temples of the Reaching Storm, integrated in the Argrath NeoOrlanth cult that claim they have a better right to the title. Just because an ancestor was an Imperial bastard.

[Jeff]

5 hours ago, JRE said:

My own theory is that Ralzakark has usurped both Solar and Lunar legitimacy, so he is functionally Moonson, with the support of what remains of Yelm's and the Red Moon's cult after Sheng.

I am sure Ralzakark claims to be the one that finished Sheng, rather than Argrath, and he may well be partially right, as Argrath commanding Yara Aranis still grates me. Argrath may have supported Ral's legitimacy as a way to get an ally against Sheng. Damned boys and their lack of foresight.

Many Lunar cultists ally with Argrath against Sheng Seleris and later against Ralzakark. That being said, Ralzakark is Illuminated, he is the Emperor and able to pass the Ten Tests, and we all know that unicorns are celestial beings. 

[Joerg]

From our most recent episode my stance on Ralzakark in the fourth century:

He was very much the very civilized unicorn-headed guy in the City of Miracles operating this ancient technology, a good conversationalist, possibly a good dancer.

[g33k]

20 hours ago, Jeff said:

... The Lunar Way does not condone the moral evils of Wakboth or the nihilism that follows Kajabor, but nor does it prohibit it. Accepting this is key to the Lunar Way. 

Now again, do most initiates of Lunar cults support go full-Wakboth? No, of course not. But the possibility was always there.

This, of course, is the crux of the "Problem with Chaos" that's inherent to Sedenya's Lunar Way.

The "all differences are illusory" POV, taken to its radical extreme, posits that the "difference" between life-as-we-know-it, -vs- the complete destruction of the world and the death of everyone and everything that anyone has ever loved  is also illusory... and not actually a difference at all.

Now, there may be a problem or two -- or thirty-seven -- with "life as we know it."  It's far from perfect!  First Council era... Empire of Light era... there's some times & places in the Gloranthan historical record that look objectively "better" & "closer to ideal" than 3rd Age leading up to the Hero Wars.

But Sedenya's form of "Illuminated Wisdom" is a fundamental mistake. 

[Jeff]

48 minutes ago, g33k said:

This, of course, is the crux of the "Problem with Chaos" that's inherent to Sedenya's Lunar Way.

The "all differences are illusory" POV, taken to its radical extreme, posits that the "difference" between life-as-we-know-it, -vs- the complete destruction of the world and the death of everyone and everything that anyone has ever loved  is also illusory... and not actually a difference at all.

Now, there may be a problem or two -- or thirty-seven -- with "life as we know it."  It's far from perfect!  First Council era... Empire of Light era... there's some times & places in the Gloranthan historical record that look objectively "better" & "closer to ideal" than 3rd Age leading up to the Hero Wars.

But Sedenya's form of "Illuminated Wisdom" is a fundamental mistake. 

I don't view it as a fundamental mistake, any more than our own Scientific Revolution was a fundamental mistake. But it made possible things and approaches that had been forbidden, and perhaps it was inevitable that such liberating things would be abused and twisted into cruel mockeries of their once bright promise. 

[JRE]

Sedenya is just a phase of the moon, nothing more, painful but necessary, to achieve the objective of bringing the White Moon, which shines now over us, and getting rid of the God time, the Compromise and the old gods once and for all. Argrath did quite well to keep the project going.

Now, is the Fourth Age Sun Yelm or the Blood Sun, pushed into true light by the seas of blood brought by the end of the Third Age?

[Nick Brooke]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

It's far from perfect!  First Council era... Empire of Light era... there's some times & places in the Gloranthan historical record that look objectively "better" & "closer to ideal" than 3rd Age leading up to the Hero Wars.

Ahem. The Lunar Empire itself is canonically “probably one of the finest places to live” by the late Third Age. (Possibly not once it transforms into the Monster Empire, but that would depend on who you asked: Moonson Ralzakark thinks it’s dead good.)

[M Helsdon]

Peloria as a term in biology derives from Latin (a modern form) and from the Greek word pelōros, meaning 'monstrous'.

Just saying.....

[Eff]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

This, of course, is the crux of the "Problem with Chaos" that's inherent to Sedenya's Lunar Way.

The "all differences are illusory" POV, taken to its radical extreme, posits that the "difference" between life-as-we-know-it, -vs- the complete destruction of the world and the death of everyone and everything that anyone has ever loved  is also illusory... and not actually a difference at all.

Now, there may be a problem or two -- or thirty-seven -- with "life as we know it."  It's far from perfect!  First Council era... Empire of Light era... there's some times & places in the Gloranthan historical record that look objectively "better" & "closer to ideal" than 3rd Age leading up to the Hero Wars.

But Sedenya's form of "Illuminated Wisdom" is a fundamental mistake. 

I think that unless you want to posit a Glorantha where Lunar mystics regularly commit suicide because the difference between death and life is an illusion, this line of thinking is fairly out of keeping with what has been presented. It is of course fairly easy to posit examples of how you could take the things which have been presented as parts of Lunar philosophy and produce coherent reasons why ideas of the reconciliation of opposites don't lead to indifference to death and mass destruction. You could, for example, draw analogies to how Christianity, despite "my kingdom is not of this world", has not died out due to the entire Christian population embracing breatharianism. Or how ritual suicide followed by mummification is a feature of some Buddhist groups but not all of them, and is typically not done via violent means. 

Because if we took this proposition as a given... we would have to wonder how the Lunars accomplished anything at all, because clearly the distinction between accomplishment and failure is an illusion too. 

[Jeff]

16 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Ahem. The Lunar Empire itself is canonically “probably one of the finest places to live” by the late Third Age. (Possibly not once it transforms into the Monster Empire, but that would depend on who you asked: Moonson Ralzakark thinks it’s dead good.)

As of 1625, the Lunar Heartlands are:

1. Unvisited by war for more than a century. Although there have been the occasional civil disturbances (peasant uprisings, slave revolts, etc.), the Heartlands have not experienced war until 1624. That's last year. Sartar in comparison has had constant war for the last twenty plus years, and before that had war and conflict since the 1550s (almost all of it Lunar exported). Definitely the Lunar Heartlands has had it better.

2. Relatively low-levels of civil disturbances. Competition between the noble houses and the powerful are largely contained through the Dart Wars. Peasants and urban townsfolk can continue their lives oblivious of such conflict. Meanwhile, clan and tribal conflict is common in Sartar, and Orlanthi kin-structure means that such conflicts are felt by all their members. Prior to 1602, the Prince was able to minimise such conflicts, but not for the last generation.

3. Prosperous. Harvests have been good, winters have been mild, and the Grain and River Goddesses provide much food. I doubt there has been a famine in the last two Wanes. Sartar on the other has had to feed a Lunar Occupation Army, had widespread famine in the Great Winter, and has had harvests disrupted by war.

4. Fixed and reliable legal system and administration. The Lunars maintain somewhere around a hundred thousands of scribes. The majority are Lunar scribes of the Irrippi Ontor cult, but a significant minority are old school busier (Lhankor Mhy initiates). There's a network of local courts, and different peoples, including Lunar courts (for Lunar initiates), Dara Happan courts (applying Yelmite law), non-Dara Happan courts (e.g., Carmanian, Provincial, etc.), and trade courts. The system is reasonable and fairly predictable. Under the Sartar Dynasty, Sartar also had a solid legal system, but without a Prince to mediate between the tribes and cities, it didn't work well.

Now 20 some years ago, I think the Holy Country might have rivalled or even exceeded the Lunar Empire for being one of the finest places to live. But it is now a shattered land, with war, conflict, famine, pirates, and Chaos. Of course, most of those plagues are directly or at least indirectly the result of the Lunar Empire.

In fact, one could make the argument that the Lunar Empire is probably one of the finest places to live by the late Third Age because the Lunar Empire is one of the few places the Lunar Empire is not actively working to make a worse place.

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Lunar mystics regularly commit suicide because the difference between death and life is an illusion

IMG this is something that happens fairly often on the cycle of lunar consciousness but the Examiner system and other institutions work hard to mediate the existential crisis . . . either managing the moment for speed and safety (so by the time it unfolds we're already through it with soul and body unsevered) or impeding it as much as possible. This has obvious philosophical implications, "the entire Examiner system, much like the world, emerges as resistance to the crisis," what are you rebelling against / what do you got, etc. Anyhow they recognize this potentiality inherent in the doctrine and enough powerful people have a vested interest in the maintenance of the sangha that chiliastic outbreaks rarely deviate far from the old pelorian routes to renunciation.

But then I tend to get thrown off the bus before it hits full Monster Empire. Arguably most of the really alert people have already exited at that stage and those left behind either like it that way or have expressed everything they needed to express so are simply drying out like straw dogs. Every gesture is multiplied and concentrated as the mix thickens. Let them have it, I'm sure it's quite beautiful from the inside.

1 hour ago, Eff said:

how the Lunars accomplished anything at all

"I wonder what you would do / if you had the power to dream . . . any dream you wanted." When nothing is true in the pirsigian sense and everything is permitted, desire backed with attention takes on independent form with, for example, the power to surprise us or carry on in our absence. These are "gestures." For example you want frogs in your garden but your pond remains imaginary. Dig. While the absence or presence or persistence of the pond doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, at night the forest can echo with croaking.

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

I don't view it as a fundamental mistake, any more than our own Scientific Revolution was a fundamental mistake. But it made possible things and approaches that had been forbidden, and perhaps it was inevitable that such liberating things would be abused and twisted into cruel mockeries of their once bright promise. 

Remember, the Lunar Cycle includes both the Full Moon and the Black Moon. It includes heights of hope and marvel, but also the darkest pits of despair and depression. Yelm's bright light blinds many from seeing this truth, even many Illuminates. Similarly, Wakboth's malevolence blinds many from this as well, even many Illuminates. The Lunar Way can enable us weave from wax to wane and back again, without necessarily succumbing to either. But it is up to the individual Red Goddess initiate to walk that path on her own; only then can she be said to have walked in the path of the Red Goddess.

[Nick Brooke]

there is no dark side of the moon really

matter of fact

it’s all dark

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Eff said:

unless you want to posit a Glorantha where Lunar mystics regularly commit suicide because the difference between death and life is an illusion

2 hours ago, scott-martin said:

For example you want frogs in your garden but your pond remains imaginary. Dig. While the absence or presence or persistence of the pond doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, at night the forest can echo with croaking.

[Nysalor outside talker comes to town and starts to pitch.]

There are various things that might be meant by calling the difference between life and death an illusion (many of which I will not have thought of):

1. You cannot divide the world into the alive and the dead:
   if you have a reason to put something in one category, you have the same reason to put it in the other
   (at least, if you are seeing things clearly);
    
2. Life and death individually are illusions, bogus notions:
   “There ain’t no such thing as life, and there ain’t no such thing as death, neither, young feller”;
    
3. It is not that there is no difference between life and death, it is just that the difference is not important,
   because they are both illusions ( = temporary reality) and only truth ( = permanent reality) matters;
    
4. “Nothing ever was, anyway” — Annette Peacock

None of these seems in any obvious way to motivate suicide.

The third is the one that looks like it might have the seeds of future trouble: if only the eternal verities matter and the phenomenal world is worth nothing, to be ripped like a veil, then you may have little regard for life. But as long as you think death is maya, too, why would dying get you closer to Truth? Of course, if you think the cross/sword and truth belong together, that doesn’t look like something to blame on the Bright One.

What is it for the frog pond to be worth nothing “in the grand scheme of things”? Is it just that “thou shalt admire the croaking” is not written in galaxy-high letters across the sky? Well, if it were, what then? Does HPL’s cosmic horror come from the determination to derive ought from is? Are those who fret about nihilistic illuminism those who were overly impressed by the Death of God?

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain — he was never there.

All reality is temporary. You cannot rend the veil to reveal the eternal: behind “illusion”, there is only the Void, no pleroma, no fullness, no gleaming godhead. Just … nothing. So if you choose to value something, it will have to be some here-today-gone-tomorrow part of the passing show. The mystic has peeked behind the curtain and seen that the curtain is all we’ve got. If you want frogs, grab that illusory spade and start digging your temporary pond.

So are the illuminates in the world but not of it, or should we reserve that slur for those seek their eternal reward in the great beyond?

A spectre is haunting Genertela — the spectre of illuminism. All the powers of old Glorantha have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and we are at last compelled to face with sober senses our real conditions of life, and our relations with the Void.

[It is not holding together — it doesn’t look like the marks are going for it. Feels in satchel for canisters of anthrax. Reassuringly solid.]

Edited June 5, 2023 by mfbrandi
spelling

[DrGoth]

And all this is why I see potential in a Lunar campaign. Which way will the characters go? Which way will they be able to make the empire or whatever succeeds it go? You can draw on philosophical themes, politics, extremism. For a group that want's to explore themes like that, leading either to tragedy or redemption or both. There's a vast range.  How about a group that starts out being ruthless manipulators and see the error of theirs ways? Or noble minded ones that travel to hell one step at a time?  Or both in the same group?  Fighting against internal (evil illuminates) and external (Orlanthi/Pentan) enemies. So easy to get to make players feel desperate.

Orlanthi want to make the world free ... for more cattle raiding?

[mfbrandi]

45 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

Orlanthi want to make the world free ... for more cattle raiding?

I don’t get it, either. But rather than wang on about the intrinsic horror of Orlanth and his people (as I usually would), perhaps I should consider some external factors making the Lunars more appealing than the Orlanthi:

• There is the sheer weight of stuff about the Orlanthi — it is probably pretty hard to stay interesting at that length.
  The Lunars have the advantage of not so much stuff written about them.
  (I mean there was some, but it mostly got binned.)
• In-world POVs have long been a Glorantha thing, and there is this weird idea (not universally applied) that if x is the focus of attention we should have x (or an x sympathizer) do the talking.
  But naturally, it would be much more interesting to hear someone bitch about me than to listen to me talk about myself.
  (There is some recognition of this in making Ethilrist a crashing bore and copious memoirist.)
  Again this plays to the Lunars: Sartarite accounts of Lunar atrocities are going to make them seem more attractive than a Lunar commander telling us, “In order to save the village, I had to feed it to the Bat.”

It might have been interesting to have had the Lunars only described by external unreliable narrators, with each playgroup being forced to fill in the details for themselves if characters were going to interact in detail with the Lunars:

• FANDOM: What does Lunar philosophy mean? Is the RG a threat to existence? Just how big is the Bat? Who makes the best potato soup?
• CHAOSIUM: I dunno, you tell us — and you had better all have different answers!

And to leave a chaotic void at the heart of things would be thematically appropriate, but I am guessing it is not and never was the plan, we just got lucky for a while. What is more:

• I feel pretty sure that whatever question you might think up, Jeff has a definite answer to it
  — it may not be published (and perhaps never will be) but he knows.
• It would require heroic restraint for the worldbuilders to refrain from detailing the most interesting part of their world
  — and this being Glorantha, expect dense cross-hatching.
  (And if it turns out that the Lunars were more interesting before the detail was filled in … ouch!)
• Maybe — and on this, as on so many things, I am no expert — it would be commercial suicide for a mainstream RPG to embrace wholeheartedly a “Lunar Lacuna”.

Still I remain curious as to what the Lunar cults book will contain — although if it were anything earthshaking, I guess the people who’ve seen previews would have shrieked about it here. And if it is far too late to hope for truly blank lands, I still have a little faith that Chaosium will not scribble over the Fourth Age — that there will never be canon on what happens after Argrath nukes the sandpit.

What is the rôle of Gloranthan lore and how much of it do we need? Is consistency in lore a virtue? I guess whatever answers I might come up with would be very wrong.