I don't really get what's the beef that the Elder Races have with one another

[Ynneadwraith]

@scott-martin Haha thanks!

I love the idea of treating them as 'parallel approaches to consciousness'. It's an approach I sort of take anyway when I'm doing my own creative work, but I've not seen it articulated so succinctly before. I think for me, there's almost an 'extended bechdel test' for non-human sapients in fictional works (bear with me, I'm coming up with this on the fly!).

1. Are there at least two factions within a non-human 'race' that interact with each other in a way that doesn't involve humans at all?
2. Do their cultures experience change as much as human ones do?
3. Is there some fundamental thing that makes these non-humans experience life differently to regular humans?
4. Once discovered, is that fundamental thing compelling to the real-world people experiencing it?

It sort of boils down to 'could you write a story only featuring X race and still have it be rich and compelling'.

I think trolls are closest to fulfilling those four tests. They're well developed in how they differ from humans psychologically and physically (which I think is the one that people most often get right). Personally, I find that difference compelling. There's a real, thorough arc of tragedy through the troll's story which I very much like, and I can imagine seeing the world through a troll's eyes. At the same time they're quite fun in a brutish way. They remind me a little of krogan from mass effect. If you implement your idea of each troll stronghold having a different culture (in all the richness that implies in Glorantha), I'd see them as 'complete'.

Interestingly, having given the Mostali a bit of the thought they deserve, I can kind of see how you could make them compelling (to me at least). Have you ever been in a group activity (say, a work project or somesuch), and you absolutely 100% know in your bones the right way to achieve a goal. And yet, everyone else around you doesn't see it. That's what it's like being a Mostali. If you can see a problem so important you cannot possibly let it go unresolved, but is so vast and complex and wicked that you can't see how to fix it. That's what it's like being a Mostali. Knowing what you need to do, but being blind to the fact that other people may have different end-goals they want to reach. This is what it's like being a Mostali.

I think dropping a couple of hints that they're right and if everyone just listened to them the world would be better might give them the air of tragedy that I apparently crave. It would also play nicely into the 'constantly facing a different set of internal recidivisms' idea, if even the Mostali can't agree within themselves what the right course of action is.

And so again we get to elves. Considering the trolls have sort of set the bar for tragedy, perhaps that's why I find the aldryami lacking (tragedy is elves' main big schtick). I do like your idea of leaning into the whole death and resurrection of plant-life thing. Perhaps in my glorantha, I'll remove the aldryami's long-lived nature. In my glorantha, aldryami are mayflies. Born in the spring, and die in the winter, only to be reincarnated come spring once again (not as the same person, but as someone obviously new and different to anyone who has survived that yearly cycle). This they are a-ok with. It is the right way of the world, and makes them happy. Aldryami care not if they die...so long as they are resurrected (hence why they are very, very angry at the destruction of their forests as it means they face proper capital D Death for the first time). Aldryami care not that they only live a year, and don't quite understand why the other races would want to live so long. Perhaps it seems selfish to them. The Aldryami like death in a way that no other cultures on glorantha do (or perhaps, only rarely understand what real death is like for others). You can get around the whole 'how does their culture pass on through generations' thing by keeping long-lived dryads as spring-time teachers.

Ok. It may have finally clicked!

I've got a bit of a personal preference that, in order to be compelling, the blue and orange moralities of non-human races should provide an insight into the way we think as humans that would otherwise pass us by. Usually, it positions humans as the naïve party not quite understanding the wisdom of an older, more philosophically mature race. It's a bit of a novel thing to position the elves as 'the little brother'. We learn something about our own nature in the teaching, rather than in being taught: why are we so afraid of death.

Thankyou 🙂 I needed that!

@mfbrandi Haha one of the things that draws me to glorantha is the philosophical razor that is 'YGWV'. It's easy to rise above the the petty 'does Orlanth have 2 arms or 4' when we have the literal Word of God saying 'both/maybe/neither/you're missing the point'.

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

There is probably some tension between passionately filling in the detail of an “invented world” and providing just enough detail to prompt us to exercise our own imaginations, no?

Now that is a better way of putting it. The aldryami and mostali for me feel/felt lacking in good 'brain-hooks' to hang compelling characters, roleplaying and scenarios on. It's not about filling in the blanks so everything is coloured just right (like a hard-line Mostali), it's about scattering enough seeds of inspiration that the concept feels alive with possibilities.

I think I've finally got there with 'mayfly aldryami', for me at least. The character of an elf that didn't die when they were supposed to has already popped into my head. This they would very much not be happy about. Perhaps they'd become a bit of a death-seeking berserker trying to right what they saw as a cosmic wrong (made even better if they kept surviving, as if the universe just wouldn't let them die). Would they think themselves cursed? Spurned even? Are they an aberration in the eyes of their gods, or do they represent the next iteration of a less ephemeral aldryami? Would their human companions help them find death and rebirth in the aldryami way, or would they try to teach them the joys of the bizarre human way of 'living to see the next year'?

Ooh, you could position Ty Kora Tek as a villainous god in Aldryami thought, for she is the death that does not return to life. The greedy god that covets and will not return what she has stolen from the cycle of rebirth.

For them, the greatest and most fearful of the Chaotic gods would be Kajabor. For even though Ty Kora Tek locks people away in death, at least they are still there and may conceptually be rescued. Kajabor, however, eats things entirely out of existence. This they fear far more than the simple mutation of the other chaotic entities.

You could even see many of the aldryami being perfectly happy with the lunar way, rationalising Sedenya as the rebirth of a dead god in the natural order of things.

Brain-hooks aplenty!

Edited January 4 by Ynneadwraith

[Ynneadwraith]

Ooh, how about the last tragic survivor of an elf-forest, reincarnating every year beneath their last standing tree, blissfully unaware of what's happened in the absence of a teacher.

Or perhaps trying desperately to discover what happened and who's to blame, recording their findings so they survive between cycles like a cold case detective noire.

[Malin]

Y'all are making me have elf feelings now... 💚

[mfbrandi]

25 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Or perhaps trying desperately to discover what happened and who's to blame, recording their findings so they survive between cycles like a cold case detective noire.

This elf — played by Guy Pearce — burned down their own forest?

[Ynneadwraith]

10 minutes ago, Malin said:

Y'all are making me have elf feelings now... 💚

That's how they get you...and then WHAM. Replaced by a changeling 😄 for Fair Folk elves at least...

Ooh, another neat little connection for mayfly elves. That's why it's important to make sure you always leave gifts for the elves in the nearby forests. Unless you feature strongly enough to make it onto their mythic springtime syllabus...no-one in the forest remembers you from one year to the next. The yearly offering is to remind them that you actually are friends.

Another thing I like is how open to abuse they seem to be. Lots of opportunities for unscrupulous individuals to convince elf-forests that their friends are actually their enemies (or vice versa), especially for newer forests with little in the way of a recorded history. The fact that it's so obviously open to abuse puts humans in a position of responsibility towards them (that 'big brother/little brother' situation again), which is neat and doesn't often happen in fantasy.

14 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

This elf — played by Guy Pearce — burned down their own forest?

Now we're talking!