Lunar Taboos

[Pentallion]

3 hours ago, davecake said:

Even if you are granted immunity, you are a carrier. It's kind like saying a Ponzi scheme isn't bad, because it works for those inside the scheme. Or waging aggressive continual war on your neighbors isn't bad, as long as you treat them nicely if they surrender. Pretty nihilist, really.

but hey, maybe you are right. There are certainly people in Glorantha who claim you can interact with Malia in non-Chaotic ways. Some of them might even be right. But the majority of her worshippers (especially broo) accept immunity in the spirit of  'I'm alright, so who cares if you die hideously?'

You missed the part where if EVERYONE joined with Malia, then nobody would die horrible deaths.  she's the inoculation.  I guess there will always be die hard Orlanthi that think she causes autism.

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Even if you are granted immunity, you are a carrier. It's kind like saying a Ponzi scheme isn't bad, because it works for those inside the scheme. Or waging aggressive continual war on your neighbors isn't bad, as long as you treat them nicely if they surrender. Pretty nihilist, really.

Is it in any way different from any other predator to prey relationship, like e.g. Orlanthi war clans or outlaw bands  living on the tribute they can extort?

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

but hey, maybe you are right. There are certainly people in Glorantha who claim you can interact with Malia in non-Chaotic ways. Some of them might even be right.

Are there ways to propitiate Malia without becoming a carrier? There are non-magical ways to survive diseases. These don't grant you immunity or shelter from disability, but catching a low-intensity disease is nothing more than a temporal inconvenience, possibly leading to some unplanned recuperative "stat-training".

Are Malia's infections (not as a carrier, but as a victim) stackable, or are they exclusive? The RQ rules construct of covert possession for diseases (as opposed to similar damage rules but different coping mechanisms for venoms) may be more than a rules artifact.

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

But the majority of her worshippers (especially broo) accept immunity in the spirit of  'I'm alright, so who cares if you die hideously?'

Aren't broo immune already without sacrificing to Malia anyway? They transfer the disease by exposing their weapons and belongings to the disease, in addition to using their own bodies.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Pentallion said:

You missed the part where if EVERYONE joined with Malia, then nobody would die horrible deaths.  she's the inoculation.  I guess there will always be die hard Orlanthi that think she causes autism.

It still remains a Ponzi scheme. You need to initiate to each disease (subcult) separately. Even if you limit the number of diseases to the number of stats that RQ uses, that may be enough to remove a fully inoculated character out of play.

And yes, accepting Malia initiation is a form of autism, of pure self-reference. The outward symptoms and effects of psychopathy and autism can be similar.

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, davecake said:

I think of Kajabor as a Western concept,

The Lightbringers' Quest brings Orlanth into direct conflict with the Lesser Kajabori, aiding the Uz living along the route. This is one of only two cases I can name where Orlanth overcame a Chaos foe or army. The other is the defence against the Sky Terror. Neither are common monsters fought by the Orlanthi - any more.

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

and when they say he was eaten and became time, they are on the one hand saying Kajabor was destroyed as a separate Independent Eranschula, but on the other hand in that process became confirmed as an intrinsic part of the universe.

I am not sure how much the writings of Zzabur go along with the myths of Arachne Solara. Malkion the Sacrifice transcended in the face of entropy before the Ritual of the net came about. The Malkioni may very well take this event as the fertilization of Time, and refuse to name a mother.

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Now the universe is always broken. When Kajabor was alive, he could be fought, but now he is halted, but ever present. Everything is a bit wrong (entropy and division) and there are cracks where the brokenness can't be ignored (Chaos). Kajabor is the reluctant, despairing acceptance that the Fifth Action made our world. 

I disagree with that point of view. The reason why Glorantha began to fall apart even before the entry of Death or the birth of Wakboth was an overabundance of Creation, stretching its confines and creating cracks that allowed the Predark to enter. The coping mechanisms of Making vs. Growing fell flat first. The introduction of Death delayed the complete collapse a bit longer, but rampant growth continued to outpace even this new force, and given the huge opening provided by the Unholy Trio, maybe entered into the world prematurely.

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

And of course he is just a concept. Personalising a concept to be a being is an Error, even more than it would be for a benign concept like Storm. 

Personalizing a rune is not a problem, especially if this personalizing offers a better handle for manipulating that concept/being to succumb to the sorcerer's will.

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Wakboth is a bit more complex. Wakboth as the great God of Chaos is the ultimate foe is a theist concept probably. But the Brithini understood moral evil and entropy as the same power manifesting in different ways (it's all just the manifestation of Error, which became the Devil). So didn't even think of Kajabor of having separate existence, and yet the God Learners synthesized this with Theyalan myth to treat them as two beings.

If there was a synthesis, it happened before there were Malkioni on Jrustela.

The westerners have a concept of evil, and a concept of dangerous and destructive otherness. They name their evil Vadel. Their dangerous and destructive otherness is Krjalk.

They somehow appear to have avoided confronting the "Nothing", except through Malkion's self-sacrifice. Maybe through their mastery of Tapping?

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

I think most Westerners not corrupted by God Learnerism, probably most non-Theyalans, think the idea that moral evil was defeated by a bovine squashing it with a big rock to be a laughably confused typical bit of theist nonsense, displaying the level of sophisticated understanding you would expect of... well, cattle. 

I wonder how Storm Bull's austerity calling in the Block is much different from Mashunasan's austerity calling in Kabalt. Granted, Storm Bull's act is instinctive, an animal reaction of the world, using the fallen bull's reviving as the conduit. It is the desperate defence of the cows against whichever overwhelming predator.

This isn't exactly the Theist resistance against evil. The Heortlings have an inconclusive exposure to Wakboth through Heort's Star Heart encounter, and subscribe to the Ritual of the Net and the Great Compromise. The Dara Happans claim total destruction of the world through Shargash as the way to prevent annihilation by the rampant entropy of the Empty Emperor.

All of these have an element of (self-) destruction in the face of annihilation, and subsequent reappearance.

 

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Land of course they are expressed in Glorantha. By Malkions sacrifice etc they were smashed as independent, rebellious, Eranschula. And thus the world was saved. But they still exist as principles which exist in the world, and sorcerers who are wicked enough to directly access the Chaos rune (or even indirectly, as Vadeli are assumed to do essentially by their every magical act) can access that power.

(FWIW, for Chaotic sorcery, rather than demonology per se (which can just be literally demonized paganism), I generally go to the idea of the qlippoth applied to the Runes - the broken inverted reverse of the runes. )

I think there are three ways of chaotic sorcery.

One is the Tapping of Chaos for energy - e.g. the Boristi way. This is similarly tasteless as the Tapping of the Underworld powers of Undeath etc.

One is the use of command spells to control chaotic entities, possibly requiring some attunement (read:corruption) to establish that line of command.

One is the knowledge of the intrinsics of Chaos to use in formulaic spells - again, requiring some attunement to the bad stuff.

In all of these cases, some form of Illumination or even Occlusion may be helpful for getting the magic done, never mind the welfare of the caster.

Then there is the Cursing of foes, resulting in Chaotic manifestations bound to the target. See Dorastor, the Telmori, Dilis and whatever lurks behind the Gate of Banir. I am not clear whether this is sorcery or something else, possibly mystical.

 

On the other hand, there is Evil. Given the psychopath nature of Zzabur, an interesting concept when projected on the equally psycopathic Vadel. Don't as I do, because I am me, and you aren't.

I don't even think that Tapping was evil when Creation still was overabundant - it was a valuable check against overabundance of Creation, limiting the out-of-control situation in the West. For the westerners, the Gods War was the terror of personal Death (rather than entropic annihilation of the world) and a lost Civil War ended by atrocities caused by "our side". Any existential angst was about the individual, not the world. Humanist, indeed.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

3 hours ago, Pentallion said:

You missed the part where if EVERYONE joined with Malia, then nobody would die horrible deaths.  she's the inoculation.  I guess there will always be die hard Orlanthi that think she causes autism.

And yes, accepting Malia initiation is a form of autism, of pure self-reference. The outward symptoms and effects of psychopathy and autism can be similar.

@Joerg the "die hard Orlanthi that think she causes autism." is a reference to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy

[Pentallion]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

@Joerg the "die hard Orlanthi that think she causes autism." is a reference to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy

Joerg's just being the Lhankor Mhy to my Eurmal

[davecake]

13 hours ago, Pentallion said:

missed the part where if EVERYONE joined with Malia, then nobody would die horrible deaths.  she's the inoculation.  I guess there will always be die hard Orlanthi that think she causes autism.

'You don't understand we just want to make the world better under our control. The problem is all those people who resist, they are the reason why we have to kept murdering and hurting people.'