lunar empire Questions on the cult of the penitent

[mfbrandi]

10 hours ago, metcalph said:

Danfive Xaroni can steal - they just have to be ordered to do so

Sure, they can steal if ordered to, but MGF suggests that if they carry out the theft as ordered, they then have their hand removed. Same goes for celibacy: if ordered to look at the opposite sex, blinding and neutering will surely follow. The Lunar Way Requirements to Belong (PDF, p. 48) has only no harming others as a conditional prohibition, so the others are categorical, right? That the requirement for obedience overrides the other strictures doesn’t mean of itself that one will be excused the punishment for breaking them — even if the Red Emperor himself ordered the transgression — so the law of maximum fun says the punishments stand. You are still breaking a rule, even if another rule says you must break it. It is one of those numbered catches.

I say MGF not because amputation is fun — it is not and leaves dreadful stains on the carpet — but because a mission most easily accomplished by theft will present a fresh challenge if theft is off the table. There is always another way, right? If it were up to me — and it isn’t and shouldn’t be — I would make the no harm rule categorical, as well (violence is never an option).

Only a sadistic overseer would order an underling to break a stricture (possibly on the pretext of testing loyalty), but one would hope that the higher-ups in the cult were more penitent, more reformed, and less likely to order such a thing than newbies (who happily have no underlings). The Emperor and his flunkies might be more of a problem. This generates more story: the cult tries to protect its members from the awful people to whom all of its members have sworn unswerving obedience. Tricky. Those at the bottom of the heap must become resourceful.

I mean, maybe this is not how things are … but they should be, right? 😉

[metcalph]

54 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Sure, they can steal if ordered to, but MGF suggests that if they carry out the theft as ordered, they then have their hand removed.

Nope.  Read the description.  Obedience to their orders supersedes everything else.  Their commander wants tough people who will do anything he says.  If they start cutting their hands off because he ordered them to steal, then he'll order them not to. 

Edit: Any conflict between what DX stipulates (do not steal etc.) and what their non-DX commander tells them to do us most assuredly a source of spiritual torment for the Xaroni.  But that's not their commander's problem and spiritual torment is the point of the cult, no? 

Edited July 31 by metcalph

[Aurelius]

9 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Sure, they can steal if ordered to, but MGF suggests that if they carry out the theft as ordered, they then have their hand removed. Same goes for celibacy: if ordered to look at the opposite sex, blinding and neutering will surely follow. The Lunar Way Requirements to Belong (PDF, p. 48) has only no harming others as a conditional prohibition, so the others are categorical, right? That the requirement for obedience overrides the other strictures doesn’t mean of itself that one will be excused the punishment for breaking them — even if the Red Emperor himself ordered the transgression — so the law of maximum fun says the punishments stand. You are still breaking a rule, even if another rule says you must break it. It is one of those numbered catches.

YMGFMV.

IMG if a proper Lunar authority orders it, it is not theft. And in a chaotic empire full of overlapping power structures, figuring out ”proper Lunar authority” is an endless source of mess and confusion. 

And for my MGF, depending on the situation and the genre of the campaign and the tone of the scene, I might go for nickbrookian Lunar newspeak. 

Its only repossession if it is done by an authorized xaronite repo man, otherwise its just sparkling theft.

That messiness and confusion and internal conflict is critically important for the Lunar Empire IMG. Start examining your assumptions from reading xaronite stricture and the Dart Competitions side by side. Same rules absolutely do not apply to everyone in the Empire, and even longform cult descriptions are mere summaries. 

[radmonger]

15 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

IMG if a proper Lunar authority orders it, it is not theft. And in a chaotic empire full of overlapping power structures, figuring out ”proper Lunar authority” is an endless source of mess and confusion. 

To me, that's the situation you get to when you are illuminated; the rules are made up and the Rune Points don't matter.

Before that, a true DX penitent ordered to do something that is clearly stealing will do so. Then, at the first opportunity, they will cast Endure Pain, cut off their own hand, and then cast Regrow Limb. While it unfortunately not explicitly spelled out in the text, it seems to me that is what their cult magic is clearly intended for. Why else would it serve the mythological purpose of the cult for its members to be able to magically ensure pain? It is not about punishment as revenge, it is about using it as an incentive for spiritual and moral change.

That the cult makes Illumination a pragmatic and rational choice to be aspired to is hardly likely to be an accident.

 

 

 

 

 

[mfbrandi]

11 hours ago, metcalph said:

Obedience to their orders supersedes everything else.

I saw it. In an earlier draft, I had a little rant about how that meant there was really only one rule. I decided the charitable thing was to write it off as a poor choice of word and to substitute the slipperier “override”.

11 hours ago, metcalph said:

Any conflict between what DX stipulates (do not steal etc.) and what their non-DX commander tells them to do us most assuredly a source of spiritual torment for the Xaroni.

But if the strictures are of the form do x unless y, then where y holds — you are ordered to do something else — there is no conflict and nothing to agonise over. For example: hang them unless they are innocent — one doesn’t agonise over not hanging innocent people. That is why don’t harm others unless ordered to is unsatisfactory.

Is all this what Jeff intended? Is my reading mandated by the text? Probably no in both cases, but it seems more fun to let all the rules have weight — yes, the DXers have to do evil when ordered, but it is still evil and still demands punishment. Sometimes, one has no choice but to do a bad thing, even if one thinks that all things considered it is the right thing to do. (In the world of make-believe, at least. Consequentialists will quibble IRL.) It is more stimulating if values can conflict — if the DXers are right to feel “spiritual torment”. No?

11 hours ago, metcalph said:

spiritual torment is the point of the cult, no?

Perhaps — I am no authority — but what if it were merely a means to an end or just the inevitable consequence of coming to terms with one’s transgressions? What if the point really is reform and not punishment (or cannon fodder capable of any atrocity)?

Does the RG want to punish Orlanth or to change him? In the old dispensation, “compromise” meant repeating the agon until the end of time — with Yelm and Orlanth as a Sisyphus–rock pair (you pick which is which) — but maybe the RG is for real change, not just the turn of the wheel (on which we are all broken). Maybe. 😉

Edited August 1 by mfbrandi
wrong -> evil

[Eff]

19 hours ago, WolfskinSon said:

I never got the comparison between DX and Orlanth. Orlanth willingly went on the lightbringers quest, Danfive was captured by Yanafal to take part of the ritual. Orlanth willingly endures the horrors hell to reconcile with Yelm. 

Yanafal Tarnils has a lot of Orlanth associations as well. Bears Death with him on the quest, is called a "ram"... but Yanafal is the squeaky-clean member of the (adult) Seven Mothers, and so interpretations that pitch the 7M and their quest as oppositional to the conventional Lightbringers look more towards suspicious Danfive. 

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, Eff said:

Yanafal Tarnils has a lot of Orlanth associations as well. Bears Death with him on the quest, is called a "ram"... but Yanafal is the squeaky-clean member of the (adult) Seven Mothers, and so interpretations that pitch the 7M and their quest as oppositional to the conventional Lightbringers look more towards suspicious Danfive.

The Seven Mothers contain a number of "inversions" of and relationships to Lightbringer members.

• Orlanth carries Death (his sword); whereas YT is (nominally) Death but is named Ram (which might be his helmet)
• Eurmal is the bound Trickster; DX is the bound rebel
• Orlanth is the repentent but unbound troublemaker; DX is the repentent but bound troublemaker
• Issaries is the Pathfinder (though Eurmal gathers them when they are all lost); DX is the "Bridge for the Seeker" 

 

Edited August 1 by jajagappa

[metcalph]

13 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I saw it. In an earlier draft, I had a little rant about how that meant there was really only one rule. I decided the charitable thing was to write it off as a poor choice of word and to substitute the slipperier “override”.

No, in the first few years, the initiate is given no orders that supersedes the basic cult restrictions and thus they carry out *all* the rules (hence "looking at the opposite sex in the first year merits blinding and dismissal" LW p8).  It is only after "many years of hard effort" (Ibid p8), that they are given orders that supersede the basic cult restrictions and enable them to function within Pelorian society.  The basic cult restrictions still remain active and  are useful as a method of discipline should the initiate should screw up or otherwise displease his commander (aka suspended from duty, all privileges revoked, demoted to the ranks, assigned to Slough House etc)

 

 

[mfbrandi]

On 8/1/2024 at 1:11 PM, jajagappa said:

Orlanth is the repentant but unbound troublemaker

Kinda–sorta: the Big O is perhaps repentant (or regretful, anyway) at a certain point in the story, but it is the story of the establishment of cycles — the Compromise is that the sun is murdered annually and daily and that this loop goes on “forever”. A bit like the parent who beats their children, weeps and fusses over them, and beats them again tomorrow. Is Hades a god who has learned better because Persephone is allowed out of the Underworld for half of each year … or just a repeat offender?

Does the story really convince as both an aetiological myth and a story of moral growth? For me the rinse-and-repeat aspect undercuts any aspects of “progress” — but I am a little quirky, so perhaps that is just one of my blind spots.

Aren’t we told that the gods sold their freedom for continued existence. Orlanth is right at the heart of that story. Is he now more of a wind and less of a god? Perhaps even this is a lie, and the gods were always unfree, bound. Just faces painted on bits of the landscape. 😉

[Eff]

49 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Is Hades a god who has learned better because Persephone is allowed out of the Underworld for half of each year … or just a repeat offender?

Well, there's a distinction between the inciting event and the cosmological order that establishes it, at least in real-world mythology. The Greeks didn't believe that Kore/Persephone was kidnapped annually, but rather that because of the kidnapping and her eating the pomegranate, she was partially a native of the underworld and partially a native of the surface world, and went down at the end of the spring and emerged four months later in the autumn. But she was also queen of the underworld, at all times, because aetiological myths describe transformations. 

Gloranthan discussions are perhaps overly indebted to Mircea Eliade and taking the "eternal return" in a very literal way. But it is worthwhile to consider whether we should therefore presume that Danfive Xaron perpetually reenacts the actions of the Seven Mothers, knife in hand, or whether his transformation from predator through penitence is meaningful, one which other people can emulate. 

[mfbrandi]

[boring — deleted]

Edited August 2 by mfbrandi
too dull to keep (even by my standards)

[Joerg]

On 7/29/2024 at 2:48 PM, radmonger said:

Another things that is missing from the way cults are written up is a link between the cult and occupation system.

For DX, the available occupations would be:

- labourer (from Nochet player's guide): default on cult entry

- warrior: after a few years, once trusted. Mostly serve as bodyguards or lackeys for a Lunar noble. DX penal battalions also exist, as expendable troops.

- priest: after meeting stated Rune Lord requirements. These run the cult.

World-wise, there is a good chance that a DX cultist has previous experience from a life as a criminal - a thief, a rebel (often a non-specialist from a non-warrior occupation taking up arms against authority), the victim of a smear campaign...

Quite a few DX initiates may have skills from their earlier cults. (Which makes me wonder - do Sense Chaos or Sense Assassin become inactive after leaving the respective cults?) Quite a few Provincial DX initiates may have been Orlanth initiates before their conversion. In the Heartlands, Lodrili rebels might be offered to repent in the DX cult rather than being sacrificed to the Glowline or some other Lunar blood magic (maize, the Bat, ...)

[davecake]

On 7/31/2024 at 5:30 PM, WolfskinSon said:

Considering there’s no named way for leaving the cult in game with out meriting a punishment from the cult. If I get the chance or time to run a lunar game I’ll homebrew up way DX leave a free of sin.

The Danfive Xaron cult does not punish members that leave the cult. It just withdraws the protection it offers. There is one obvious and easy way to leave the cult without punishment, it just isn’t through cult processes - for the authorities to pardon you for the crime, so you no longer need the cults protection. 

[davecake]

On 8/1/2024 at 7:00 AM, Aurelius said:

IMG if a proper Lunar authority orders it, it is not theft.

Well, sure, but it doesn’t really contradict @mfbrandis point - all the rules of the cult are subordinate to the rule of obedience. If a cult superior orders you to look at a member of the opposite sex in your first year, it’s not breaking the rules. And even if such theft was a crime (the penitent knew the superior did not have the authority) it would still not be a violation of cult law - and IMO failing to carry out such an order still would be. There is no law but Danfive law once within the cult. 
Which of course makes them useful as a ‘dirty tricks’ department of the Lunar state, unlike those Yanafali with their honour and stuff. 

[mfbrandi]

8 hours ago, davecake said:

Well, sure, but it doesn’t really contradict @mfbrandis point - all the rules of the cult are subordinate to the rule of obedience. If a cult superior orders you to look at a member of the opposite sex in your first year, it’s not breaking the rules.

That may be the correct interpretation of the Chaosium text — with a big rubber stamp from Jeff and everything — but it is not my idea of MGF. According to me — and I may be a minority of Ø — it is what you have to do, but it is still breaking one of the rules and earns neutering and blinding.

Consider:

1. Obey the emperor and his proxies and agents
   (on pain of death).
2. If you are not neutered, don’t look at other genders or lustfully
   (on pain of blinding and neutering).
3. In case of conflict, obey rule 1.

According to me, if Yelm-on-Earth orders you to look at someone of another gender and you do it, you have obeyed rules 1 and 3 but you have broken rule 2, and a cruel Emperor would be acting “properly” if he then ordered you blinded and neutered. In DX induction, they will tell you as much, “If the proper authorities order you to break the rules, you must break them, but don’t expect to be excused the punishment for breaking them. The Emperor may show mercy, but he is not obliged to do so — the punishment has still been earned.” No harm to others is the odd rule out: in that case, it is not breaking the rule if ordered by the RE, as the rule itself is conditional — don’t harm others unless we tell you to.

We do not even need multiple rules to set up a conflict: if two cult superiors of equal rank simultaneously order you to do contradictory things — “Kill the prisoner, now” vs. “Do not kill the prisoner, ever” — you are for the chop whatever you do.° You are not even allowed to hesitate (delay) or complain (Lunar Way PDF, p. 48), so you are forbidden from saying, “I would love to help, so sort it out between you and get back to me.”

Part of the fun of being a DXer is that you can be put in “impossible” positions: damned if you do; damned if you don’t. As an Orlanth proxy, what else would you expect?

8 hours ago, davecake said:

Which of course makes them useful as a ‘dirty tricks’ department of the Lunar state

I am sure you are right that most DXers will do as they are told, but I am not sure all of their hearts will be in it: was cruel and bloodthirsty, but now meek and penitent. I wonder whether there is a White Moonesque tendency in DX: they refuse anti-social orders even from the Emperor himself, bow their heads to receive the killing stroke, and die illuminated. Their prison tattoo: a headless penitent holding the severed head of a dragon in their left hand.

——————————————————————————————
° Imagine the Red Emperor himself splitting into two bodies before your eyes, giving two evil grins, and ordering you in stereo.

Edited August 14 by mfbrandi

[WolfskinSon]

On 8/14/2024 at 4:01 AM, mfbrandi said:

Part of the fun of being a DXer is that you can be put in “impossible” positions: damned if you do; damned if you don’t. As an Orlanth proxy, what else would you expect?

I would call it fun in the tradtional RPG sense the 13th Age Glorantha write up gives a much better look into playing a DX.

You are here to suffer.

It doesn't matter if two superiors give contradicting orders you follow them and take your punishment.  Going with the interpretation that DX is being a stand in for Orlanth an taking on the unforgiveable sin of robbing the universe of Yelms light all the punishment of yours. It well never be enough and it will only end for YOU when you die.