What happens when you're dead

[David Scott]

A new thread carried over from the History of Balazar where @Darius West, @M Helsdon and other interested parties can carry on with the world of the dead.

 

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

The clear separation of body and spirit/soul only happened as a result of the compromise. 

I have never come across this.  What is your source please?

Me and lots of background reading, that's how I'm presenting it in the Prax book. Looking at the devolution of the Animist's world in Cults of Terror, you can see that the Primal Plasma gave rise to the runes, which included the spirit rune, but there was no separation at this point - It's called the First World, the Ultimate in Arcane Lore. So discorporate beings have existed since creation, it wasn't until the use of death that other beings could have their spirit/soul part separated from the rest of their being. The world was then filled with the living, the living who had had their bodies separated into two parts - a corporate part and discorporate part, and the beings who had always been discorporate. The discorporated living wanted their bodies back and there was no way to do this (this is a common theme real world animism and shamanism). set this against the backdrop of the Gods war and the Great Darkness and you have a mess. Daka Fal established how to tell the dead from the living and as a result was made Judge of the Dead at the Dawn. He established that the dead spirits go to their respective land of the dead, clearing the world of the confusion. The separation of the Middle world and spirit world at the dawn established the barrier between corporate living and the discorporate beings who weren't dead. Hence my use of "Clear separation".

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

You say he is definitely Grandfather mortal?  Good.  He'd know.

I didn't say it, I think Greg was the author.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

You are not "dead" merely because you are in the underworld.

You are in my Glorantha. YGMV. Everyone who goes there with their body or not is treated as though dead. 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

So... are you suggesting that the dead when resurrected by spells aren't in the underworld?

Yes, Martin is correct here. the RQ resurrection spell only works on the spirit of the dead person that hangs around for seven days before going to the path of the dead. Look at Chalana Arroy's resurrection spell for more details. This is similar to the ideas in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is part of the basis I'm using for Daka Fal.

 

[M Helsdon]

4 hours ago, David Scott said:

A new thread carried over from the History of Balazar where @Darius West, @M Helsdon and other interested parties can carry on with the world of the dead.

 

Thanks for the invite, but this topic has been done to death.

[Darius West]

6 hours ago, David Scott said:

Me and lots of background reading, that's how I'm presenting it in the Prax book. Looking at the devolution of the Animist's world in Cults of Terror, you can see that the Primal Plasma gave rise to the runes, which included the spirit rune, but there was no separation at this point - It's called the First World, the Ultimate in Arcane Lore. So discorporate beings have existed since creation, it wasn't until the use of death that other beings could have their spirit/soul part separated from the rest of their being. The world was then filled with the living, the living who had had their bodies separated into two parts - a corporate part and discorporate part, and the beings who had always been discorporate. The discorporated living wanted their bodies back and there was no way to do this (this is a common theme real world animism and shamanism). set this against the backdrop of the Gods war and the Great Darkness and you have a mess. Daka Fal established how to tell the dead from the living and as a result was made Judge of the Dead at the Dawn. He established that the dead spirits go to their respective land of the dead, clearing the world of the confusion. The separation of the Middle world and spirit world at the dawn established the barrier between corporate living and the discorporate beings who weren't dead. Hence my use of "Clear separation".

I don't want to be deliberately obtuse, but are you saying

(a) that the corporate part was "alive" without the discorporate part to animate it (before time)?  If so, why would the discorporate feel cheated by being separated from their still alive bodies?  Surely "Death" would become the gift of being able to travel the spirit world freely as a shaman does if the separation didn't involve the actual loss of direct ego control of the corporate, the corporate ceasing functions such as breath and pulse, and ultimately the corporate part decaying to nothing ?  If the corporate and discorporate were simultaneously alive after death Before Time, surely people would hold Humakt up as a gift giver and the grand teacher of the shamanic path and Horned Man would be out of a job.  

Or

(b) There was a Humakt induced "shaman plague" brought about by death, with newly liberated spirits hijacking other people's bodies, while their own bodies went on living like Brithini (i.e. without spirits)?  Because in such a case there were plenty of bodies, because death wasn't really death as we understand it, but merely the alive corporate being separated from its alive discorporate.  Because apart from some stronger spirits getting better bodies in the deal, it isn't as if any spirits were truly without homes to go to.  Daka Fal would have been rounding up the homeless dead and allowing them to choose from the spiritually empty but alive bodies that could host them.  I imagine that under such circumstances you might well wind up with POW being equal to the SIZ +STR+DEX+CON/4 of the conquered host, as each spirit finds its natural physical level of body ownership based on its spiritual energy.  On the other hand, we have a problem, as two spirits can live in the same body, it is a process we have spirit possession rules for.

Or

(c) If the corporate ceases to function and begins to decay to nothing, leaving the discorporate howling in the hostile alien darkness of the Near realm and being dragged inexorably to the underworld, you might understand why the newly discorporate and "corporeally disinherited by death" wanted a better situation that the one they just had forced upon them, and consider death a bad thing.

Perhaps we need to invoke "The Princess Bride" here and consider a gradation of exactly how dead we mean?

Now the notion of death before time is problematic.  If there is no Time, then death is sort of impossible. Under such circumstances it is perhaps prudent to think about the space the entity occupies rather than their actual "death".  So "death" becomes tied to place.  For example, "I am dead in Sartar but not dead in Tarsh and Far Point... or... I am dead in Prax, but thanks to Chalana Arroy I live again in the Stinking Forest and I was never dead in Dara Happa", with all the intrinsic mythic implications that may mean for a deity, while proto-mortals only get the single territory that is their habitat to be "alive" in before time and death but subsequently have that attachment ruined by the ubiquity of death in the Lesser and Greater Darkness and After Time.  This also lines up with the "Many gods in the Lands of Dawn, few gods in the Land of Dusk" notion of how the further West you go, the fewer deities there are because at Dusk is the Gate of Death.  

On the other hand, perhaps Time as we understand it in Glorantha is actually entropy? Obviously "Before Time" things happened, but without time, is action even possible?  Everything is static and there can be no story because nobody can move, or speak or act without a time dimension. So do we view the world before time as having movement or was it actually a static meaningless frieze that Kajabor put into motion with by introducing new dimensions?  No, we must dismiss this heresy.  Clearly the world was like a comic book or a run of friezes like the God Wall, where the Observer could superimpose their notion of meaning, process and narrative onto static panels, but the Observer is located within time looking backwards in a form of retro-relativity i.e. you only appear to move because I am moving.  This model fits with the idea of the Gods giving up free will and having no ability to really change within time, except there is no meaningful "Great Compromise"; that is merely the explanation for why things are the way they are, and if fresh deities come into existence, they distort the static pre-Time reality into themselves and engender an entropic quasi-karmic backlash.

As to the Chalana Arroy 7 day skill loss rules for resurrection, sure, I have no problem with that, in fact I like it.  A pity in some ways that Glorantha doesn't have a River Lethe to cause them to forget their skills, nor does Glorantha really have a solid mechanism for Bad Karma clouding the memory of the reincarnating spirit (to explain the ignorance of babies etc.) as one finds in the Bardo Thodol.  Instead we have something akin to an entropic process of memory decay in the discorporate, more akin to a notion of brain damage due to oxygen deprivation becoming irreparable after 7 days as opposed to 15-30 mins.

 

Edited December 14, 2016 by Darius West

[simonh]

Hi Darius,

I think being 'stuck' discorporateclong term is a horrible state to be in. The body is a useless, volitionless lump of meat; the spirit is lost, vulnerable and separated from its family, culture and religious community. Both are largely ineffectual.

Also bodies and spirits aren't freely interchangeable and I'm not sure that all spirits are capable of possessing bodies that are not their own. That feat may not have even existed or been possible, at least for most. In the wrong body you have the wrong family, the wrong physical urges and needs, you're in the wrong place, speak the wrong language, etc. It's a desperately unhappy state of affairs. It might be a useful trick in certain circumstances (adventuring) but a very crappy way of life for most people.

Simon Hibbs

[Roko Joko]

"The clear separation of body and spirit/soul only happened as a result of the compromise."

At least compared to the Great Darkness, which was like a zombie apocalypse among other things.

"The realms of life and death could not be told apart and we find demons and the dead moving through the same realm as those who are struggling to stay alive. This means, by the way, that the dead were also struggling to stay dead and, in a perverse sort of compoeteness, the devourers were trying to be eaten, the conquerers were trying to defeat themselves, and the good were trying to be bad enough to survive."

http://www.glorantha.com/docs/devil/ 

[Steve]

Carrying on from the previous thread. @Darius West said:

Quote

You are not "dead" merely because you are in the underworld.  You are dead if you die in the underworld, and the underworld is inimical to life, which means staying alive is much harder down there.

 

Except that Jeff has already said that's exactly how it works, back in the previous thread - if you're in the underworld then you're dead. What is your source for contradicting this?

I'm a bit puzzled about the way that you're trying to argue against Jeff. I could understand it if you were saying "well, in *my* Glorantha, it works like ...", and that's cool because we all know that YGWV. But you don't seem to be doing that, you seem to be trying to argue the canon.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Steve

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Roko Joko said:

http://www.glorantha.com/docs/devil/

Good reference, I'd forgotten about that one, thanks.

[Zit]

59 minutes ago, Steve said:

if you're in the underworld then you're dead.

What about Darkness creatures from the Underworld ? Or did they all flee as Yelm went to hell ?

[David Scott]

15 minutes ago, Zit said:

What about Darkness creatures from the Underworld ? Or did they all flee as Yelm went to hell ?

If you are from the underworld, you are not dead and it's your natural place. However it could be argued that going to the surface world worked the same way. Yelm going to the underworld did cause the uz to come to the surface. Fortunately this mythology stuff isn't perfect. Have a look at page 8 of the Guide, the underworld has different areas.

[Tindalos]

I must admit I wonder how Ernalda fits into this, given the myths where she is described as sleeping, not actually being dead.

 

IMG leaving the Middle World is by its nature a transformative experience, you leave your material and mortal self behind, becoming a Spiritual Being. For many, this is an unfortunate experience, only happening after Death, and ending up in the lands of the Dead. Other beings view it differently.

The Trolls view this as the natural state, where Korasting and Kyger Litor provide fertility, where there's many fungi and animals to eat, and Uz and Dehori are difficult to distinguish. The material and mortal existence is a curse, brought upon by the Burner who drove them from paradise. They can only return there after death in the mortal world... or depending on your method of thought, a purifying period in the Bright Hell of the Burner, before you can return to the True Darkness of Wonderhome.

The Elves view as a period all life undergoes. The cold potential vs the bright action which is called Life. The Mreli come here every winter, to rest in the darkness until it comes time to grow once more. The Vronkali visit it at night, which other races mistake for sleep and dreams (if such a thing is a mistake.) To the Aldryami, this is just a different state of being, no worse or more evil than life, and just as inevitable.

Is this Death? Well, yes and maybe.

[David Scott]

8 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

I must admit I wonder how Ernalda fits into this, given the myths where she is described as sleeping, not actually being dead.

She is actually dead, as she's in the underworld. But rather than being awake dead, she's sleeping dead. It's more of a sleeping beauty thing than coming into contact with Death. Don't forget, she's also with Yelm. At the Dawn she returns to the surface and becomes alive again.

[boztakang]

 

a few snippets on the Trolls views of death and dying...

The Origin of Spirits

In the underworld, where the great ancestors of the Uz were born, there was no significant difference between Spirits and other beings. When you died, you’d just pull yourself back together and carry on with what you were doing. Some Uz had bodies, and some didn’t, and no one really cared all that much one way or the other. 

Death changed all that, dividing Uz-with-bodies from those without, and making it much harder to match bodies and spirits together once they’d been separated. Uz-without-bodies were further divided into Ancestors, who can recall having had a body, and Dehori, who may or may not have ever been so encumbered. There are many other sorts of spirits as well, but they are not Uz, and therefore not so important.

Young uzko are raised in a dark nursery full of friendly ancestors and other spirits of darkness. Many of these spirits are family, and some are just friends or visitors. Trolls learn as children the sacrifices and taboos required for safe and friendly interaction with a great variety of spirits of darkness and the dead.

Not all Uz spirits are friendly or safe, however. Many important troll ancestors do not recall anything but the bliss of wonderhome, and are unaware that little things like being eaten or having your head bashed in are no longer just a minor inconvenience. In addition to good manners and basic respect, young trolls are taught to recognize and avoid spirits that are too powerful or dangerous for them to deal with.

and, from "Wisdom of the Mothers"

Why do we die?

We die because the evil outside gods broke the world. Gods of Light and Fire, and Storm and Death. We die because we are careless and weak, and are not careful with our mother’s gifts. We die when we fail to bring a new generation of healthy Uz into the world to praise and worship and strengthen Kyger Litor.

What happens after we die?

When you die, your spirit part can no longer control your meat part. Some of us stay in the world as ancestor spirits to complete a task, or to help, teach and protect our family and clan. Others return to the underworld, where they wander the blasted grey wastelands that were once wonderhome, eating dust, and drinking from shallow pools of tasteless water. Eventually, they are called back into the world to live again in new flesh.

basically, Death used to keep underworld things in the underworld, and overworld things in the overworld. Eurmal broke it, so that it "cuts sideways" and everything's been much worse since. Time simplified things a bit, decreeing that the spirit part of dead things go to the underworld, and the physical part stay where it is... but it can still sometimes be confusing to figure out what exactly belongs where.

[soltakss]

On 12/14/2016 at 4:01 PM, David Scott said:

Me and lots of background reading, that's how I'm presenting it in the Prax book. Looking at the devolution of the Animist's world in Cults of Terror, you can see that the Primal Plasma gave rise to the runes, which included the spirit rune, but there was no separation at this point - It's called the First World, the Ultimate in Arcane Lore. So discorporate beings have existed since creation, it wasn't until the use of death that other beings could have their spirit/soul part separated from the rest of their being. The world was then filled with the living, the living who had had their bodies separated into two parts - a corporate part and discorporate part, and the beings who had always been discorporate. The discorporated living wanted their bodies back and there was no way to do this (this is a common theme real world animism and shamanism). set this against the backdrop of the Gods war and the Great Darkness and you have a mess. Daka Fal established how to tell the dead from the living and as a result was made Judge of the Dead at the Dawn. He established that the dead spirits go to their respective land of the dead, clearing the world of the confusion. The separation of the Middle world and spirit world at the dawn established the barrier between corporate living and the discorporate beings who weren't dead. Hence my use of "Clear separation".

 

Daka Fal separated the living from the Dead, within God Time. I believe he also separated those who had died from those who had never lived, so arranging the Halls of the Dead. I thought those happened before the Dawn.

[Noita]

Do bodies decay like those on Earth?

[M Helsdon]

3 hours ago, Iskallor said:

Do bodies decay like those on Earth?

Unless they are the bodies of dead Dream Dragons...

Note that for Resurrection to work within six days, the body must be healed, which can be taken as countering the effects of putrefaction - the fifth stage of death, which occurs after the earlier and relatively quick stages of pallor mortis, algor mortis, rigor mortis, and livor mortis. The healing counters all those stages, to sufficient extent to make the body sufficiently healthy to live again, if the resurrection attempt succeeds.

[soltakss]

I think the healing is to stop the person dying again from the wounds. There is no point resurrecting someone who has been chopped in half unless you join the two halves together first.

[MOB]

2 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Unless they are the bodies of dead Dream Dragons...

Note that for Resurrection to work within six days, the body must be healed, which can be taken as countering the effects of putrefaction - the fifth stage of death, which occurs after the earlier and relatively quick stages of pallor mortis, algor mortis, rigor mortis, and livor mortis. The healing counters all those stages, to sufficient extent to make the body sufficiently healthy to live again, if the resurrection attempt succeeds.

and

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

I think the healing is to stop the person dying again from the wounds. There is no point resurrecting someone who has been chopped in half unless you join the two halves together first.

I would say for resurrection to be successful both conditions must be countered by healing (or, the case of wounds, at least stabilized: presumably you could still resurrect someone who died after losing a limb, even if you don't have the limb). Also, if the person died of disease, that would have to be cured too, otherwise they'd just succumb again to the illness.

 

 

 

 

[MJ Sadique]

Resurrection... ah, it bring me back some good memories. I remember my first team of RQ always keep a barrel of ant's alcohol (formol) to preserve them form putrefaction. But the main problem was to heal a dead body : "Divine magic" was the only way and the cost was frightening. Our master of time always present us resurrection as ritual to sew back a soul to his body but the ritual in itself need to convince the dead soul to back in the living world instead of following his journey to his god's Elysium / Hell (and solve by spirit fight, so I loved having low POW : unlike some friend, I never failed being resurrected XD).

After some years of mastering, I always view The Death Rune as the Power of Separation, separation of soul and body or separation of material (cutting). As for Resurrection, it become for me a way to just sew back a soul to its body if body is intact and soul is nearby, cooperative. Knowing what happen when you're dead may lead to find Malkion or accomplish the Lightbringers Quest.

My theories :
I may be presumptuous, but I always though that Malkion is the first man not only receive it but to accept Death (as Grand Father mortal) and first to seek the path from the mortal world to the Solace. Being the first to do so, he is the one who can guide a soul to his path (as Fleshman of the Lightbringers) and he is also the one who is at the end of the path to open the Door of Solace, the Elysium of gods or even Hell (as Daka Fal, Judge of Deads).
I really think Daka Fal = Grand Father mortal = Malkion. Like St Peter, Keeper of the gate of Heaven, Malkion is the chosen one to built the church/school that will teach the way to salvation (easy path to solace). Harmast, the first to succeed in the lightbringer quest, bring Talor back and befriend him not only because Talor was the best choice but also because Harmast as accepted Malkioni belief and he know that Orlanthi and Malkioni could be allies like Orlanth and Malkion during the Quest to save the world.

What happen when you died is (to me) a compendium of all actions made :
  1- You must accept your own death (or stay as phantom, wraith, guardian spirit etc...)
  2- You start to quit the mortal world to follow the path to underworld (just have to follow the queue of last week deads)
  3- ??? Long way within underworld for some see sighting, a little cruse on the Styx ... etc (buy Eurmal traveller's guide for deads)
  4- If you've killed an innocent, you must face his fury and found pardon (Orlanth vs Yelm)
  5- At the End of the Path, you face the Judge of Dead to know were you can go
  6- [Good Dead] Solace or any god Elysium [Not so good Dead] Reincarnation or stay here till you face your murderer [Bad Dead] any Hell to face your sins

The First Age Theyalan's cultist change his name because having Malkion as one of the lightbringers will just cripple their new-born cult. And it's Also why so few people can do the Lightbringer's quest... who will ever thought that Malkion himself, the very first enemy in term of religious belief is one of the young gods who save Glorantha. And also that one of the main culprit of all this war of gods mess is Orlanth himself... they better hide well Malkion implication.

[Darius West]

On 12/16/2016 at 0:01 AM, Steve said:

Except that Jeff has already said that's exactly how it works, back in the previous thread - if you're in the underworld then you're dead. What is your source for contradicting this?

I'm a bit puzzled about the way that you're trying to argue against Jeff. I could understand it if you were saying "well, in *my* Glorantha, it works like ...", and that's cool because we all know that YGWV. But you don't seem to be doing that, you seem to be trying to argue the canon.

I am saying that such a ruling makes little to no sense, and that there are precedents within the collected lore that seem to contradict this notion as being as iron clad as many seem to think it is.  On close inspection, you will find that the notion of always being "dead" if you are in the underworld introduces a series of logical contradictions which I have outlined previously.

The primary contradiction is this...

There is a MAJOR difference between (a) entity who is killed by another entity and sent to the underworld, and (b) one who goes there as part of a hero quest, entering the underworld while still alive.  (a) is involuntary, (b) is voluntary.  If (a) happens you are stuck unless someone does (b) to get you out.  Of course things can go wrong during (b) and they might become actually dead and therefore unable to return, but they are NOT otherwise actually dead...

For how can you be dead if you are not separate from your body?  It flies in the face of what has been established by spells like resurrection and sever spirit, not to mention cults like Daka Fal to say that a person who has not been separated from their body is dead, even if they ARE in the underworld, except as some spurious theoretical and factually incorrect "ritual notion of death attached to entering the underworld", developed by cult theologists but having no practical bearing on what actually happens. 

There is also as more precedent for LIVE mortal heroes of various Earth mythologies within the underworld as there is for them being notionally "dead", especially if we are drawing from the Greek, Celtic, and Norse traditions, which are the main mythological traditions on which most heroquesting is based.

To make the ruling "you are always dead in the underworld" dogmatically "part of the canon" is rigid and absurdist fundamentalism, and also, when you look at it in practical terms, unworkable, as it creates more problems than it solves.  It is certain that SOME cultures assume that you are dead within the underworld even when you were alive going in, but there is "no way in hell" they ALL think that, and the ones that do probably have major gods who died.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Darius West

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

I am saying that such a ruling makes little to no sense, and that there are precedents within the collected lore...

It's not a ruling, it's an established part of Greg Stafford's world. Jeff is certainly not the origin of this, Greg almost certainly is. Jeff (and myself) will certainly uphold Greg's basis for the world. Having heard Greg talk about this kind of stuff for years, I feel that this is an established Gloranthan world view. Also, mythology doesn't have to make sense, that much I did learn from Greg and my own subsequent experience and education. You are most certainly welcome to argue your point, I don't however think it will change established Glorantha to your version. 

[Darius West]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

It's not a ruling, it's an established part of Greg Stafford's world. Jeff is certainly not the origin of this, Greg almost certainly is. Jeff (and myself) will certainly uphold Greg's basis for the world. Having heard Greg talk about this kind of stuff for years, I feel that this is an established Gloranthan world view. Also, mythology doesn't have to make sense, that much I did learn from Greg and my own subsequent experience and education. You are most certainly welcome to argue your point, I don't however think it will change established Glorantha to your version. 

Fine, where is it SPECIFICALLY WRITTEN in the canon that heroquesters and deities are dead merely because they are in the underworld?  Because if they aren't separated from their bodies, then death has not overtaken them.  Greg has Gregged himself before btw, and that is just another reason why the whole notion of canon carries its dangers.  Even Greg can't be right about all things in all parts of Glorantha at all times, and nor should he be made to be, it's kind of unfair on him to expect that.

According to what you are saying you see, what happens when a heroquester in the underworld has sever spirit cast on him?  Nothing, because according to "canon", they are already dead.  In fact, if two negatives result in a positive, you might even be forced back into the land of the living.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Darius West

[David Scott]

50 minutes ago, Darius West said:

According to what you are saying you see, what happens when a heroquester in the underworld has sever spirit cast on him?  Nothing, because according to "canon", they are already dead.

Dead meaning you are in the underworld, but with your body and spirit intact, not just your spirit and your body in the middle world. In this case death being separation, would sever your spirit from your body. I think I said earlier, your body may appear back in the ritual starting space. Whilst your spirit remains. Casting sever spirit on a spirit in the underworld, will have no effect IMO. I defined two states you can have in the underworld in both cases your spirit is there, with or without your body. In both cases you are "dead".

[scott-martin]

Is all of this an objective and universal mythic "fact" or do, for example, pure animistic cultures (if any) interact with Death differently? 

[Jeff]

Well in the sense that pretty much all Gloranthans divide the world into a World Above, a Middle World, and a World Below. The World Above is the Sky Dome, the Middle World is the place us mortals live, and the World Below is the Underworld, the Realm of the Dead. If you are in the Sky Dome, you are in the Sky and as long as you stay there, you are outside of Time. You don't die of old age, etc. If you are in the Middle World, you are in the world of Time. You age, you will die, etc. And if you are Below, you are in the Realm of the Dead. As long as you stay there, you are one of the dead - although one of the key marks of a Hero is being able to leave the Realm of the Dead and reenter the Middle World.

How you get to the Realm of the Dead is immaterial. Maybe you got there when your soul fled its body after the body was cut down, got burnt, or just died of disease or old age. Maybe you got there by falling down the Hellcrack or sailing down Magasta's Pool. Maybe you voluntarily entered the Realm of the Dead through the Westfaring or Indrodar's Stones, or entering in during Sacred Time or really screwing up your initiation rites. Really that is immaterial. As long as you are there, you are amongst the Dead and for all purposes, dead. But what you can do in the Underworld - your ability to act on your own will, well then it can matter a lot HOW you ended up dead.