Deities of Beer and Wine

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, Steve said:

22 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

Personally I bristle at the idea that alll cause-and-effect processes must be magic-based, that there's no such thing as nature except as it's related to some god(dess).

That's how Glorantha works though. Everything has a myth/god/spirit/sorcery-based explanation, not a science-based one. Plants grow because of myth and magic, not because they're just following natural processes. e.g. if you get ill, it's not because of some natural effect like a virus, it's because of a spirit or curse or similar.

Often enough the magic and the myth is in the being, IMO.

The world of Glorantha is permeated by spirits, by essences, and by divinity. That's different from our world. These presences can be expressed as runes, although those runic descriptions usually are only a partial description.

We have seen several philosophies of atomic Glorantha - the Three Worlds Model for instance described everything in terms of divine, spirit and essence components.

We have seen the suggestion that everything can be broken down into core runes.  I can accept something like that, although in my perception of submicroscopic composition of matter these runes would be subatomic particles rather than the equivalent of chemical elements or isotopes. Matter has realized expressions (liquid water), but also has potential expressions (steam, ice, air humidity, surface-adhesive water) that also are inside the runic composition. Sea water also has all the food taken from the land, all the diffuse and concrete life (cyanobacteria, microalgae or luminous bacteria surely are a thing in Glorantha, observable in collectives, which may be described as spirits, as matter, as divine influence), dissolved salts and minerals, suspended soil particles. Not to mention observable life - borderline visible organisms, the stuff filtered by numerous organisms like shells, sea anemones, sponges, worms, up to swarms of herring or baleen whales.

 

According to Orlanthi, Pelorians or Lunars, each person is made up from 5, 6 or 7 souls. The Orlanthi make these the five elemental souls, suggesting that a single rune suffices to describe this soul. That would be an oversimplification on the scale of God Learner mistakes when approaching a local deity through runic analysis rather than through its myths, interconnections and dependences on other deities.

The Malkioni have a concept of a magical energy inhabiting a person, but one that dissipates upon death, except for a number of Hrestoli (and presumably als a number of Henotheist) sects who believe in reincarnation (like the Galvosti, the only sect explicitely stated to have this belief in the Guide). Nothing about elemental souls, beast or other parts.

Various mystical practices untie the mystic's identity from the entanglements of the world. That might alter their runic affiliations.

 

Anyway, how does a change in runic affiliations affect the runic make-up of one's body and/or soul?

 

[g33k]

On 9/18/2017 at 8:28 AM, Yelm's Light said:

Personally I bristle at the idea that alll cause-and-effect processes must be magic-based, that there's no such thing as nature except as it's related to some god(dess).

Well, YGWV.

Personally, I think you're right... but also wrong:  the "scientific" outlook is just another explanation, no less-true than any other myth in Glorantha.  But also just as un-true (if you venture into the domain of a relevant Power) ...