Observations of the Lunar Way Cults.

[metcalph]

SEVEN MOTHERS CULT

Prior (RQ) version: Cults of Prax

New Details:  Used to be in the past the Provincial Church.  Now some influence in the Heartlands as well (wot HW/HQ texts would have called the cult of Rufelza).  As a result, the Red Dancer of Power has been promoted.

Biggest surprise:  Worshippers can learn sorcery from the Irrippi Ontor subcult.  

CRIMSON BAT

Prior (RQ) Version: Cults of Terror and Tales #8.

New Details: Trivial stuff about length of service (20 years unless crippled).  

DANFIVE XARON:

New (although Tales did produce their own version).

General vibe: penitent Martial Artists.  

Biggest surprise:  His worshippers dress up as little girls.  

DEEZOLA

New although Tales did do a fan version.

General Vibe: Lunar Dendara with a dash of suffering.

Biggest surprise: She was killed before the Red Goddess was born.  Possible connection to the Ritual of the Web.  

ETYRIES

Prior (RQ) version: Shortform in Gods of Glorantha

General Vibe: Lunar Issaries.

Biggest surprise: She has spirits of Reprisal.

HON-EEL

New

General Vibe: Lunar Grain Goddess.

HWARIN DALTHIPPA

New

General Vibe: Athene with a touch of Yelorna.

Biggest surprise:  She is associated with Yelmalio who provides... Kuschile Archery!  A way to tell people that they are not really friends (he also provides Cloud Clear which is slightly more useful).

IRRIPPI ONTOR

New

General Vibe: Lunar Lhankor Mhy

Biggest surprise:  They can retire to become monks of Dayzatar.

JAKALEEL

New (although Tales did do a version)

General Vibe: Lunar Shamans.

Biggest surprise: She's still friends with Zorak Zoran.

NYSALOR/GBAJI

Prior versions: Cults of Terror and Dorastor Land of Doom.

Interestingly Illuminmation is now a two step process with stage 1 being the acquisition of the Illumination skill and then Illumination.

RED EMPEROR

New (although Tales did a version based on Yelm)

General Vibe: Carter Burke from Aliens.

RED GODDESS

Prior version: Shortform in Gods of Glorantha

Biggest surprise: The Scarlet Scimitars are back.

TEELO NORRI:

New

General Vibe: Poor.

YANAFAL TARNILS

New (although Tales did do a version)

General Vibe: Lunar Humakt

Biggest surprise: A gift of a chaotic feature has the geas to mistrust all non-cultic chaos?!?

YARA ARANIS

New

General Vibe: Lunar Gorgorma

 

 

[theconfusingeel]

The most interesting thing is in the irippi ontor write up, where it says something along the lines of "all buseri know the gods of the sky have equivalents on the surface and underworld", which I guess explains Zorak Zoran and Shargash

[French Desperate WindChild]

8 hours ago, metcalph said:

Biggest surprise: She was killed before the Red Goddess was born

is it a surprise ? a true question as I always believed she was sacrificed to get back the red goddess ? Or did I misunderstand something before which now the good understanding ? ^^ truth is a cycle !

[metcalph]

3 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

is it a surprise ? a true question as I always believed she was sacrificed to get back the red goddess ? Or did I misunderstand something before which now the good understanding ? ^^ truth is a cycle !

Teelo Norri/"Young Life" was sacrificed.  This is the first time Queen Deezola is noted as having anything worse than a broken fingernail.

[radmonger]

8 hours ago, metcalph said:

Biggest surprise: She was killed before the Red Goddess was born.  

That time, she got better. She was 'released from the suffering of life' by the Red Goddess in 0/12.

I suspect that is the point where the student became the master.

[theconfusingeel]

A question for the people who have played more runequest, is it me or does Deezola kind of lack magic? She's "the mistress of earth magic" and a healer but she only gets one special healing spell and dismiss/summon earth elemental(+heal body and resit pain through associates). I thought she was going to be a kind of lunar mini-ernalda but that's not the case.
Also I would have thought they'd leen a bit into Hon-eel's violent aspect too, I was expecting her to be a mix of babeester gor and a grain goddess I guess.
 

[Akhôrahil]

Friends don't let friends learn Kuschile Archery.

EDIT: The Solar book would be a good place for a reworked, functioning Kuschile Horse Archery that isn't just something we joke about?

Edited May 23 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

10 minutes ago, theconfusingeel said:

I thought she was going to be a kind of lunar mini-ernalda but that's not the case.

Or even mini-Chalana Arroy, if we map the 7M quest to the LBQ.

[David Scott]

29 minutes ago, theconfusingeel said:

A question for the people who have played more runequest, is it me or does Deezola kind of lack magic? She's "the mistress of earth magic" and a healer but she only gets one special healing spell and dismiss/summon earth elemental(+heal body and resit pain through associates).

She's only really important as one of the Seven Mothers and as that provides a bigger Earth elemental than the Young Elementals. Her secret is that she knows how to survive and return after dismemberment, which is not that important to most people. She doesn't appear as a separate cult in the Mythology distribution charts either.

29 minutes ago, theconfusingeel said:

I thought she was going to be a kind of lunar mini-ernalda but that's not the case.

Dendara is a more important Earth Goddess (Deezola was a priestess of Dendara), along with the Grain Goddesses (see the mythology distribution numbers).

29 minutes ago, theconfusingeel said:

Also I would have thought they'd leen a bit into Hon-eel's violent aspect too, I was expecting her to be a mix of babeester gor and a grain goddess I guess.

As a former Queen and Dendara priestess, she doesn't really fit the bill. As her cult is often subsumed into Dendara's, where her sister Gorgorma fulfils the role of defender.

[Eff]

2 minutes ago, David Scott said:

As a former Queen and Dendara priestess, she doesn't really fit the bill. As her cult is often subsumed into Dendara's, where her sister Gorgorma fulfils the role of defender.

@theconfusingeel was asking about Hon-eel in that section of their post.

49 minutes ago, theconfusingeel said:

A question for the people who have played more runequest, is it me or does Deezola kind of lack magic? She's "the mistress of earth magic" and a healer but she only gets one special healing spell and dismiss/summon earth elemental(+heal body and resit pain through associates). I thought she was going to be a kind of lunar mini-ernalda but that's not the case.
Also I would have thought they'd leen a bit into Hon-eel's violent aspect too, I was expecting her to be a mix of babeester gor and a grain goddess I guess.
 

All of the Lunar cults are lacking in magic compared to what you might expect from previous texts. You're also not going to get a sensible answer out of Chaosium, I suspect- "the cult isn't that important" suggests that runespells are dependent on how many fans you have, rather than mythological acts the god performed. Which would be a drastic revision of long-standing assumptions about the setting in several different respects. 

I think that Hon-eel is ill-served in part because of gendered assumptions that appear to apply to any new cults that are being formatted for Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Babeester Gor gets grandmothered in, but the Artess is more or less new, so her cult is a girl's cult that's about passivity etc.

[Jeff]

Just now, Eff said:

@theconfusingeel was asking about Hon-eel in that section of their post.

All of the Lunar cults are lacking in magic compared to what you might expect from previous texts. You're also not going to get a sensible answer out of Chaosium, I suspect- "the cult isn't that important" suggests that runespells are dependent on how many fans you have, rather than mythological acts the god performed. Which would be a drastic revision of long-standing assumptions about the setting in several different respects. 

I think that Hon-eel is ill-served in part because of gendered assumptions that appear to apply to any new cults that are being formatted for Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Babeester Gor gets grandmothered in, but the Artess is more or less new, so her cult is a girl's cult that's about passivity etc.

And that's not it either. 

So let's start with Hon-eel. Her cult is that of one of the Grain Goddesses of the Lunar Empire, a key insight of Greg's when we first started working on this. She is at the end of the day the Maize Goddess. Blood sacrifices are held in her honour to celebrate the cycles of Life becomes Death becomes new Life. That's not Rune magic, that's the ceremony itself. You might want her to have different Rune magic from Bless Crops (Maize) and Charisma, but that's not what her cult is. 

Deezola's key magic is the ability to summon medium Earth Elementals and to Regrow Limb. Her cult is the Lunar manifestation of Gerra the Suffering One. Gerra suffers. Deezola's suffering is her path towards the Red Goddess.

But it is clear you have a different take on the Lunar Way from me and the team (which I should not need to remind you, included Greg until his untimely death). Maybe you should lead with "I would have done this differently" rather than with ad hominem attacks.

[theconfusingeel]

13 minutes ago, Eff said:

All of the Lunar cults are lacking in magic compared to what you might expect from previous texts. You're also not going to get a sensible answer out of Chaosium, I suspect- "the cult isn't that important" suggests that runespells are dependent on how many fans you have, rather than mythological acts the god performed. Which would be a drastic revision of long-standing assumptions about the setting in several different respects. 

I think that Hon-eel is ill-served in part because of gendered assumptions that appear to apply to any new cults that are being formatted for Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Babeester Gor gets grandmothered in, but the Artess is more or less new, so her cult is a girl's cult that's about passivity etc.

To be fair I think the cult is supposed to be focused on Hon-eel as a maize goddess, and so disregards her other aspects even if she could provide magic for them.
This discussion has made me want to post some "YGWV" ideas I have on here, mostly about the lunar cults and how theist magic works, but I'll probably make a different post for that.

[Eff]

40 minutes ago, Jeff said:

And that's not it either. 

So let's start with Hon-eel. Her cult is that of one of the Grain Goddesses of the Lunar Empire, a key insight of Greg's when we first started working on this. She is at the end of the day the Maize Goddess. Blood sacrifices are held in her honour to celebrate the cycles of Life becomes Death becomes new Life. That's not Rune magic, that's the ceremony itself. You might want her to have different Rune magic from Bless Crops (Maize) and Charisma, but that's not what her cult is.

Her cult isn't anything, because Glorantha is a fictional setting. It's not a question of what I want, it's a question (to me) of whether her mythological actions (breaching the barriers of the Lunar Sacred Time rituals, befriending the dragon and sending him away from Doblian, turning the Telmori into wolves to break their curse, bringing back maize through ritually slaughtering the Blood Sun, the long and complicated mythological actions necessary to produce the twin deities Nightlight and Twilight, and proving that She-Who-Waits was Ernalda to the people of Tarsh) are indeed represented fairly by those two runespells and only those two runespells. And that's something which invoking a dead man as a shield does not concern- if Greg agreed that what was more important than having a cult which reflected the mythology of the deity, even in confounding or seemingly incompatible ways was fitting Hon-eel into a predetermined box of Grain Goddesses, then that was his decision and it does not change the problems that I see with that approach in light of the existing, previous Gloranthan texts. So what I want in all this is, well, nothing at all, because I could quite easily write my own Hon-eel cult and use that. But there are other people who do want to talk about these matters.

Quote

Deezola's key magic is the ability to summon medium Earth Elementals and to Regrow Limb. Her cult is the Lunar manifestation of Gerra the Suffering One. Gerra suffers. Deezola's suffering is her path towards the Red Goddess.

But it is clear you have a different take on the Lunar Way from me and the team (which I should not need to remind you, included Greg until his untimely death). Maybe you should lead with "I would have done this differently" rather than with ad hominem attacks.

I really don't see where you see ad hominem attacks in what I posted. I commented that the answer provided by a Chaosium representative would represent a casual and drastic revision of long-standing statements about Glorantha and thus that it was not a sensible answer in light of those statements without a further clarification that, yes, that revision was in place, and runespells are detached from mythology now. I also indicated a pattern which can certainly be identified in things Greg Stafford was writing twenty years ago, and before then, and which is, in and of itself, not an argument about any people who would be contributing to that pattern.

Hmmm, when did that get in there? Anyways, there is a very clear distinction between arguing about the "facts" of a setting which, by its primary creative voice for the majority of the last 50 years, does not have firm facts, YGWV; and discussing published texts and what we think about them, which is part of the process by which Our Gloranthas Start Varying. The former can be useful in its own right when kept in a strictly playful ground, but in the end, all fiction is mutable in a way that the real world is not.

Edited May 23 by Eff
semicolons

[Jeff]

4 minutes ago, Eff said:

Her cult isn't anything, because Glorantha is a fictional setting. It's not a question of what I want, it's a question (to me) of whether her mythological actions (breaching the barriers of the Lunar Sacred Time rituals, befriending the dragon and sending him away from Doblian, turning the Telmori into wolves to break their curse, bringing back maize through ritually slaughtering the Blood Sun, the long and complicated mythological actions necessary to produce the twin deities Nightlight and Twilight, and proving that She-Who-Waits was Ernalda to the people of Tarsh) are indeed represented fairly by those two runespells and only those two runespells. And that's something which invoking a dead man as a shield does not concern- if Greg agreed that what was more important than having a cult which reflected the mythology of the deity, even in confounding or seemingly incompatible ways was fitting Hon-eel into a predetermined box of Grain Goddesses, then that was his decision and it does not change the problems that I see with that approach in light of the existing, previous Gloranthan texts. So what I want in all this is, well, nothing at all, because I could quite easily write my own Hon-eel cult and use that. But there are other people who do want to talk about these matters.

I really don't see where you see ad hominem attacks in what I posted. I commented that the answer provided by a Chaosium representative would represent a casual and drastic revision of long-standing statements about Glorantha and thus that it was not a sensible answer in light of those statements without a further clarification that, yes, that revision was in place, and runespells are detached from mythology now. I also indicated a pattern which can certainly be identified in things Greg Stafford was writing twenty years ago, and before then, and which is, in and of itself, not an argument about any people who would be contributing to that pattern.

Hmmm, when did that get in there? Anyways, there is a very clear distinction between arguing about the "facts" of a setting which, by its primary creative voice for the majority of the last 50 years, does not have firm facts, YGWV; and discussing published texts and what we think about them, which is part of the process by which Our Gloranthas Start Varying. The former can be useful in its own right when kept in a strictly playful ground, but in the end, all fiction is mutable in a way that the real world is not.

Nice that you forwarded an email from Greg to make your point. I am pretty sure I have written similar emails. 

You have your take on the Lunar Way. It is not really in synch with what Greg and I put together over a many year period starting with the Guide to Glorantha and culminating with these Cults books. That's fine - you can have your version of Glorantha. But as the email says, Greg (and I) did mind it when people argued that he (or I) am wrong. And that is what your posts come over as saying. Again and again. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

3 hours ago, metcalph said:

Teelo Norri/"Young Life" was sacrificed.  This is the first time Queen Deezola is noted as having anything worse than a broken fingernail.

I confused, thanks ! big surprise then 😉

 

[radmonger]

1 hour ago, theconfusingeel said:

A question for the people who have played more runequest, is it me or does Deezola kind of lack magic?

I think the statement 'initiates of Deezola may freely join those other cults as associate cults' means that a Deezolan gets the standard menu of Mindblast, Madness, Reflection and Summon/Dismiss Lune. Together with Regrow Limb, Heal Body, Resist Pain, Resurrection, Chaos Gift, and Summon/Dismiss medium elemental, that seems playable.

Chalana Arroy is a better professional healer, with reusable resurrection. But a Deezolan doesn't have to take a vow of pacifism, or use their healing magic on wounded foes. It suits a noble who wants to make sure their spouse and children are always going to have healing and resurrection available, even in a general crisis.

 

 

[Eff]

Another thing you might have expected to see in Deezola is some kind of magic associated with ruling and rulership, as even though she may have been a Dendaran prior to her newly revealed extended torture session, she was still a queen regnant afterwards. You might even expect that kind of experience and event to produce a magical differentiation from Dendara which would make worship of her attractive, as offering a slightly different path. I suppose the torture survival content is meaningful too.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

@theconfusingeel was asking about Hon-eel in that section of their post.

oops.

2 hours ago, theconfusingeel said:

Also I would have thought they'd leen a bit into Hon-eel's violent aspect too, I was expecting her to be a mix of babeester gor and a grain goddess I guess.

She's the classic earth sorceress, reaching maturity fast and emracing the earth and its cults at a young age. A secret daughter of the Emperor who uses magic and beauty not violence. I see her like Xilonen (the young Maize, before she becomes mature as Chicomecoatl), as the washer woman's daughter whose parentage is revealed allowing her to become the Maize. 

[Tatterdemalion Fox]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Her cult isn't anything, because Glorantha is a fictional setting. It's not a question of what I want, it's a question (to me) of whether her mythological actions (breaching the barriers of the Lunar Sacred Time rituals, befriending the dragon and sending him away from Doblian, turning the Telmori into wolves to break their curse, bringing back maize through ritually slaughtering the Blood Sun, the long and complicated mythological actions necessary to produce the twin deities Nightlight and Twilight, and proving that She-Who-Waits was Ernalda to the people of Tarsh) are indeed represented fairly by those two runespells and only those two runespells.

This raises interesting questions about the nature of Lunar deities and the shape of their cults. Are they, and their magic, as presented, the result of the actions taken inside of time, or the result of the needs of their worshippers? (And for my next trick: expand the thought outside the Lunar Pantheon.)

If the latter, then no wonder that Hon-Eel’s cult as presented is focused so heavily on maize, and that Deezola has no magical associations with leadership. It is sufficient to say that leadership resides within the Red Emperor, and there is therefore no reason for the cult of Deezola to have developed magic reflecting her crown.

22 minutes ago, Eff said:

Another thing you might have expected to see in Deezola is some kind of magic associated with ruling and rulership, as even though she may have been a Dendaran prior to her newly revealed extended torture session, she was still a queen regnant afterwards.

Discussion has convinced me that I am more interested in Deezola as //. Not the first substitution I’ve done among the Lunar pantheon; I’ve written elsewhere about Etyries as //, the goddess of The Economy and The Invisible Hand— though that’s tied into my very heretical origins for her, and non-canonical but compelling depictions of the Red Dancer of Power.

[JDM]

If Hon-eel's cult is one of the Grain Goddesses, how come one of her Associated Cults is Grain Goddess? 

Edited May 23 by JDM

[Eff]

12 minutes ago, JDM said:

If Hon-eel's cult is one of the Grain Goddesses, how come one of her Associated Cults is Grain Goddess? 

That's a good question. A fruitful one for provoking further thoughts.

[scott-martin]

7 minutes ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

Hon-Eel’s cult as presented is focused so heavily on maize

IMG this is how it plays out across the last few wanes. Not a lot of people were ever going to be able to emulate the insights + exploits one of the greatest magicians in Gloranthan history left trailing in her wake. Her heirs have preserved a version of her thing that is important to them and then the institutional cult develops along lines that could thrive in the mass market of the soul . . . something like a fertility cult with artificial packaging around the edges. I don't know how well they've succeeded with that but the cosmic agony of the house of Eel is literally not my problem.

It raises questions about the larger role of "magic people" or religious specialists in the early hero wars period and throughout Gloranthan history. Is this primarily a female role or for boys drawn more to the life of the mind? What do these people do? What do they contribute in tangible terms? When does it look like shamanism and when does it look like sorcery? When they encounter each other in the field, how do their interactions play out? For example, there are people inside the empire who remember what Hon-Eel was really like outside the accumulated apparatus of the public cult. At this point they themselves are strange and unusual in their own right (150-200 years old) so are unlikely to be emulating her except in a personal "this worked for her and she could have done better here" context. 

At first I thought this would be a tangent to a discussion of the modern lunar way but that last bit suggests that it's actually central to our understanding of how the mass cults in the book interact with the real new approach to the magic life that the way promises. However the audience for this type of conversation is still too small to justify a significant print run with nice pictures and binding. We have to get there together first.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, JDM said:

If Hon-eel's cult is one of the Grain Goddesses, how come one of her Associated Cults is Grain Goddess? 

As all Grain Goddesses are associates of each other.

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

befriending the dragon and sending him away

You know, the Lunars would have been well served if they had a bunch of people with such magic. Maybe they do change cult priorities some time after 1625.

[Nick Brooke]

The cult of Sartar won’t give its members all the weird personal magic Sartar used as a wonder-working magician who eventually became a minor god.

The cult of Hon-eel doesn’t give its members all the weird personal magic Hon-eel used as a wonder-working heroine who eventually became a minor goddess.

This honestly shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody, but apparently it does.