Jump to content

Lunar Names


Jon Hunter

Recommended Posts

20 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I think that one can very easily fall prey to the DH propaganda of a changeless society following a primordial religion. However, YGWV

I think you are definitely right.  If Dara Happa never changed it wouldn't bother to record its history to keep track of those changes.  DH history has in fact been tragic and tumultuous despite their efforts to remain in a state of peaceful Golden Age stasis.  We know that they change, but we also know that they view their rigid caste structure and conservative society as the most desirable social order, or "ideal".  Few societies come close to their ideals, despite their propaganda, IRL or in Glorantha, and we should probably be happy about that, because most ideals are actually dystopias.

Edited by Darius West
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The changing forms of rule reflect temporal failures of the aristocratic Solar religion to stand up to external conditions. Although pretensions to empire are vainglorious under the Lunar Empire, the language and cults of old Dara Happa have endured perhaps because they dominate by divine order most of the population and land powers.

Catastrophic events may disturb the stars and Yelm's mundane states may be shaken (I think this is true of other Sun-worshipping cultures too), but the general order is mostly stable. Empire as such is always Yelmic at the root.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Tcneseleis said:

The changing forms of rule reflect temporal failures of the aristocratic Solar religion to stand up to external conditions. Although pretensions to empire are vainglorious under the Lunar Empire, the language and cults of old Dara Happa have endured perhaps because they dominate by divine order most of the population and land powers.

Catastrophic events may disturb the stars and Yelm's mundane states may be shaken (I think this is true of other Sun-worshipping cultures too), but the general order is mostly stable. Empire as such is always Yelmic at the root.
 

I apologize if this comes across badly, but I wasn't sure how to read this. Is it meant seriously or cynically?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I apologize if this comes across badly, but I wasn't sure how to read this. Is it meant seriously or cynically?

I was in fact serious because Dara Happa is based on Yelm's cult who is a very important deity, who "makes" the Rich Land (and many or all other lands). It is essential to the conservatism of Solar cultures that Yelm is extremely reliable.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Tcneseleis said:

I was in fact serious because Dara Happa is based on Yelm's cult who is a very important deity, who "makes" the Rich Land (and many or all other lands). It is essential to the conservatism of Solar cultures that Yelm is extremely reliable.

 

Thank you for the clarification.  In that case I have to disagree with you. 

Consider Greg's 'The Cult and Worship of Yelm' and 'Low Dara Happan Religion' in FS. The nature of the cult and the understanding of Yelm changes repeatedly, an there are clearly more than one understanding in play at one and the same time.  Even when the cult is at its strongest, with a reciprocally rigid hold upon the nobility, the ordinary people of Dara Happa live a life far distanced from their dogmas.  The implicit weakness of the relationship between the Empire and Yelm is shown by the ease with which Umbarism, New Umbarism and the Golden Dragon displace his worship - even if temporarily.

The GRoY is a religio-political polemic concerning the way the Yelmite priesthood think things should be.  It is a poor mirror to hold up to Dara Happan life for the majority. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/26/2017 at 8:17 PM, Ali the Helering said:

Thank you for the clarification.  In that case I have to disagree with you. 

Consider Greg's 'The Cult and Worship of Yelm' and 'Low Dara Happan Religion' in FS. The nature of the cult and the understanding of Yelm changes repeatedly, an there are clearly more than one understanding in play at one and the same time.  Even when the cult is at its strongest, with a reciprocally rigid hold upon the nobility, the ordinary people of Dara Happa live a life far distanced from their dogmas.  The implicit weakness of the relationship between the Empire and Yelm is shown by the ease with which Umbarism, New Umbarism and the Golden Dragon displace his worship - even if temporarily.

The GRoY is a religio-political polemic concerning the way the Yelmite priesthood think things should be.  It is a poor mirror to hold up to Dara Happan life for the majority. 

It is interesting to examine the way different theological strands exist in real world in a 'truth based orthodox religion' - ie Christianity, these terms are not technical 100% bang on, but the show 4 broad different distinct movement within current thinking;

  • Reforming -  Those who would seek to redefine or reinterpret the faith within  a time and place and see development over time as natural within the faith. Usually called the liberal wing of the church.
  • Traditional - Church based - those who see a traditional line of consistency based from the teachings of doctrines as the church has passed them down through the ages. This allows the church to change faith as they seek to but they are loathed and very slow to do so. In practice they ended up very wedded to mid point forms and traditions ( use of latin, celibacy of priesthood, liturgies, saints etc) which are not part of the original faith.
  • Traditional - Scriptural Based - those who seek a traditional line of consistency based upon the scriptures and writings based down from the founders of the faith. This tend to be redactionist and seek to prune things back to original faith whenever possible. They tend to see things in terms of form - that which can be changed freely (not defined in scripture)  and essence (what is defined in scripture) which cannot be altered.
  • Fundementalism - An extreme form of scripture based traditionalism, that has interpreted the world, faith and truth through the scientific paradigm that it opposes. Creating a version of literalistic/scientific interpretation of spiritual truth which is significantly different from the original intent of the writers.

Out of these 4 schools, 3 would claim to hold to the traditional faith and take an 'unchanging faith' stance, these 3 stances then splinter into thousands of different denominational approaches to the faith.

Its very likely that the worship of Yelm would have the different schools, thoughts and interpretations. We then look at how the faith leaves the priesthood and enters and affect wider society we see many other areas where variation and deviation can enter the process. I hope the relevance of that makes sense to people. 

Edited by Jon Hunter
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

The nature of the cult and the understanding of Yelm changes repeatedly, an there are clearly more than one understanding in play at one and the same time. 

The social models, role models, systems of organizations, have little changed. How Yelm was understood by the Emperor and great magicians (rather than heroes) resulted in the foundation of shrines and priesthoods. Others were given up.

 

22 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Even when the cult is at its strongest, with a reciprocally rigid hold upon the nobility, the ordinary people of Dara Happa live a life far distanced from their dogmas.

They are not Dara Happan nobles but they obey the Solar order, which was not suppressed by the Red Goddess.

22 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

The implicit weakness of the relationship between the Empire and Yelm is shown by the ease with which Umbarism, New Umbarism and the Golden Dragon displace his worship - even if temporarily.

Their heresies did not survive the destruction they caused of the old Dara Happan Empire. But the Yelmites could also have all converted to carmanism.

22 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

The GRoY is a religio-political polemic concerning the way the Yelmite priesthood think things should be.  It is a poor mirror to hold up to Dara Happan life for the majority.

It describes the Empire quite well, although it no longer works exactly the same. It challenges the Orlanthi point of view that it is stagnant, but they do not tend to form stable governments with strong central power.

 

Edited by Tcneseleis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...