Stars in Hell?

[Snugz]

Weird question: if you looked up in a fairly open space in Gloranthan Hell, would you see stars?

i.e. dead, weakly glimmering  stars in the Underworld "sky" (upper Underworld or something)?

Maybe former Sky Realm stars; or parodies/nightmares of them?

[Nick Brooke]

Black stars, darker than the surrounding Darkness.

[EricW]

43 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Black stars, darker than the surrounding Darkness.

OK, I'll bite - what strange magics to these blacker than black stars grant to worshippers? If normal stars are light in darkness, what does darkness in darkness do for those who follow this esoteric spiritual path? Can you visit these hell stars?

[metcalph]

14 hours ago, Snugz said:

Weird question: if you looked up in a fairly open space in Gloranthan Hell, would you see stars?

i.e. dead, weakly glimmering  stars in the Underworld "sky" (upper Underworld or something)?

Maybe former Sky Realm stars; or parodies/nightmares of them?

The stars could be the spirits of the inhabitants of the mundane cities - orange for storm, yellow for solars, red for moon etc. 

[mfbrandi]

58 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Black stars, darker than the surrounding Darkness.

If dead stars are dark stars or black holes, what does this tell us about the relationship between Yelm and Kajabor (and Jerry Garcia) — and what was the trolls’ real beef with the Sun underground?

(Of course, you may just have meant that “negatives” of the living stars could be seen from Hell.)

[French Desperate WindChild]

16 hours ago, Snugz said:

i.e. dead, weakly glimmering  stars in the Underworld "sky" (upper Underworld or something)?

Maybe former Sky Realm stars; or parodies/nightmares of them?

for me, if there is something glimmering, it is probably trail of the Sun's (and co) blood, son on the ground or potential walls, not upper (except if upper is a solid ceiling of a cave or something like that, something where blood from an underground battle was blown over.

 

However that doesn't mean there is nothing upper, in an "open" darkness but imo, not something of light, just some "monster", "demon" (from a human perspective) or any kind of nice  darkness resident

I dislike (personaly, no offense) the concept of "mirroring" the sky in the hell (in Glorantha). For me Darkness is Darkness, it is "rich" by its own nature(s), that's not a copy of an unimaginative devil. It is the source  of the world

 

16 hours ago, Snugz said:

if you looked up in a fairly open space in Gloranthan Hell, would you see stars?

but there is at least one place where, maybe you can see the stars (the "true" stars)

There is a hole in mundane plan, if you jump or fly or try to climb down, well... you probably starve, but your body, dead or alive, land into the hell.

So at this darkness place, if you look up (and have enough vision to see so far) you may see a star or two ?

[Ynneadwraith]

I like the idea of there being still-glowing spatterings of the sun's blood scattered around the underworld. Perhaps it provides a refuge for surface-world heroes questing into the darkness. Unless you're a troll, of course. In which case it'd be viewed in the same way we'd see the scorched-bare impact crater of a meteorite. A scar on the fabric of Wonderhome.

[Joerg]

The stars on the rim of the visible sky dome include stars from below the horizon, especially at the winter solstice when the sky tilts far to the south, spilling heat into the Sea of Fire. Those stars shed light, just like those from above the horizon.

The planets that enter the Underworld (Dendara/Moskalf and Lokarnos on the Sunpath, and the Southpath planets Tolat, Artia and Twinstars) and the Sun Disk, do shed (deadly/death-bringing) light in the Underworld.

There remains a question whether those bodies will be above or below the observer.

[Charles]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

The stars on the rim of the visible sky dome include stars from below the horizon, especially at the winter solstice when the sky tilts far to the south, spilling heat into the Sea of Fire. Those stars shed light, just like those from above the horizon.

The planets that enter the Underworld (Dendara/Moskalf and Lokarnos on the Sunpath, and the Southpath planets Tolat, Artia and Twinstars) and the Sun Disk, do shed (deadly/death-bringing) light in the Underworld.

There remains a question whether those bodies will be above or below the observer.

And…

There’s no reason that these celestial bodies should appear or act identically while in the Underworld. It’s quite possible that each must adapt to be more martial, more inconspicuous, and/or other possibilities during their dangerous journey into an ‘alien’ world.

[Malin]

Look, all I am hearing is that somewhere, there is a Lhankhor Mhy trying to desperately fund their next research expedition...

[jajagappa]

7 minutes ago, Malin said:

there is a Lhankhor Mhy trying to desperately fund their next research expedition...

Easy to get there!  Not so easy to get back with the results... 

[Manunancy]

14 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Easy to get there!  Not so easy to get back with the results... 

Accept only married researchers who have childrens - that gives a fallback solutions with 'summon ancestors' magic.

[Malin]

2 hours ago, Manunancy said:

Accept only married researchers who have childrens - that gives a fallback solutions with 'summon ancestors' magic.

I am now imagining one last misson for an aging and dying Lhankhor Mhy scholar. Make a starmap of hell, and then make sure their descendants summon them to get all the details... I'm kinda getting invested in this guy now.

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Malin said:

One last misson for an aging and dying Lhankhor Mhy scholar. Make a starmap of hell, and then make sure their descendants summon them to get all the details.

Presumably, this LM has a family solely for the purpose of being able to dictate findings into the library post mortem. I wouldn’t want to be one of the kids.

Has no one mastered summoning non-ancestors? That sounds like a worthwhile research programme, right? To get the stories of the childless and those whose lines have been expunged, doesn’t that sound like the LM way? Let nothing be lost!

[Malin]

35 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Presumably, this LM has a family solely for the purpose of being able to dictate findings into the library post mortem. I wouldn’t want to be one of the kids.

Has no one mastered summoning non-ancestors? That sounds like a worthwhile research programme, right? To get the stories of the childless and those whose lines have been expunged, doesn’t that sound like the LM way? Let nothing be lost!

A Lhankhor Mhy delving deep into shamanism and ancestor worshipping instead of sorcery. I approve!

Not gonna lie, I need to introduce this guy in my campaign now.

[mfbrandi]

28 minutes ago, Malin said:

I need to introduce this guy in my campaign now.

We know they have a tattoo.

[Manunancy]

Back on 'summon ancestors', it may still work even if you're not lieterally descended from who you want to summon : As long you have common ancestors and both you and the deceassed belongs to the same clan/family group - you may work your way down to the last common ancestor (or maybe lower for a more reliable/skilled/in tune with your cause one) who will brign along his dead descendent.

[hasevir]

Trolls have eyes, even the styganthropus vorax ie old skool trolls that actually came from hell vs surface weak sauce uz variety (sun really is baad, mkay?). Thus hell has light, and the stars would be there alongside other sources from burning mouth horses to fluorescent bugs, shrooms and rocks. besides how scary is a place you cannot see anything in vs a place you can see the horrors in?

As for summoning ancestors, herdmen are awfully useful for that. There is no need at all for the ancestor to give the body back, keep it as a gift! And not terribly different from sacrificing bulls/pow to ancestors. Now making the correct kind of offspring can be tricky as 50% are human and 50% herdman in human-herdman.. umm.. bestiality. Luckily im sure there are similar heroquests as the blue boar but hunting herdmen. In short: hunt & kill, peaceful cut and get some magical powers and ...well..- ahem.. the ability to father superior piglets on a sow. Or in this case ensure a plentiful healthy crop of herdmen cattle. That just so as it happens would be also blood related.

See reaching moon #7.

[Ynneadwraith]

3 hours ago, hasevir said:

As for summoning ancestors, herdmen are awfully useful for that.

As herdmen are mythically animals, does that mean you could summon ancestors into other animals as well?

Anyone read Pratchett's Small Gods? I sense a fun little plotline of the spirit of Waha accidentally getting reincarnated into the body of a tortoise 😄 

[Ynneadwraith]

3 hours ago, hasevir said:

Trolls have eyes...thus hell has light.

That's an awfully evolutionary argument for a world that has no evidence of evolution taking place (at least, not in any way we understand it). Some morokanth have opposable thumbs, but that implies nothing about an arboreal natural history to Glorantha's tapirs.

I'd argue it's more likely that the Man rune has 'eyes' as part of its form, meaning anything with the Man rune has eyes of some sort. Glorantha operates under fundamental laws very different from our own.

[Ynneadwraith]

Double post

Edited February 28 by Ynneadwraith

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

That's an awfully evolutionary argument for a world that has no evidence of evolution taking place (at least, not in any way we understand it). Some morokanth have opposable thumbs, but that implies nothing about an arboreal natural history to Glorantha's tapirs.

An argument might be made that Glorantha allows Lamarckian evolution (like the dark trolls inheriting the burns of their ancestors), although the Morokanth thumbs aren't one of these - they still have to be obtained individually by winning a contest against a human. (BTW, a contest can be lost - what does a human contestant have to gain other than keeping their thumb?)

1 hour ago, Ynneadwraith said:

I'd argue it's more likely that the Man rune has 'eyes' as part of its form, meaning anything with the Man rune has eyes of some sort. Glorantha operates under fundamental laws very different from our own.

Any runic loreperson will assure you that sight is a function of the Fire Rune, but accounts about the construction/creation of Man by an assortment of deities always have them insert Fire.

It isn't clear whether Kyger Litor came into being possessing eyes, or whether she acquired them along with the Man Rune that she passed on to her descendants. Sandy Petersen's Gods War miniature (heh) of the Hellmother doesn't show any eyes, but the stelae with the moomin-troll-like Kyger Litor undergoing her trials in Troll Pak has a very humanoid Trollmother.

[French Desperate WindChild]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Any runic loreperson will assure you that sight is a function of the Fire Rune, but accounts about the construction/creation of Man by an assortment of deities always have them insert Fire.

another perspective, from a non runic loreperson 😛 , is that as Darkness is the first element and all others come from it, it is possible to imagine that any power of any element has its source in darkness ans specialized itself in some way.

 

Darkness is not only black, a part is dark grey, a part is light grey, etc...

So sight exists in darkness, in a very weak prototype, ans fire, by construction, captured the essence of this primitive function, developping it until a wonderful power.

 

in the same way that darkness is not only frozen, part are just cold, etc..  so there is a kind of prototype of heat in darkness too.

 

 

 

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Darkness is the first element and all others come from it

• Perhaps like a tribble Darkness was born pregnant.
   
• Perhaps it is the matryoshka doll which contained all the other elements
  — unveiled sequentially but not created so.
   
• Perhaps the elements remain nested one within the other, and Nakala remains surrounded by …
  But we do not name it lest it manifest!

[hasevir]

6 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

As herdmen are mythically animals, does that mean you could summon ancestors into other animals as well?

Anyone read Pratchett's Small Gods? I sense a fun little plotline of the spirit of Waha accidentally getting reincarnated into the body of a tortoise 😄 

More like the humans that didnt get smarts still the same type.. one with a man rune and the other without which can be switched. Just as there are sentient and nonsentient fish of the same types or sentient and nonsentient baboons.