Military Actions Involving Spirits

[jeffjerwin]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

You have never seen a Maori Haka, have you? A beautiful dance, and not at all peaceful.

Well, Harmony is not the opposite of Death... I used the wrong word there: though Harmony is still the principal "peace" rune.

Regarding maleficia - perhaps. Though necromancy is an extension of thaumaturgical capabilities inherent in the priesthood, and was more prominent as a problem for the church than mere low magic. Witchcraft of the hedge and cottage variety of course threatens sacerdotal authority by offering something outside their magisterium. In our world, though there is a whole gendered level of magic in the West (and, in so far as I have studied, in South Asia and China also) that is forbidden by being rooted in the "other gender" - from a male perspective.

Is there a strong connection between menses, pregnancy, menopause and magic in Glorantha? If so, there is indeed a feminine mystery that Earth can deploy that is not innocent, bloody, and natural [Earth+Water+Life]. Of course among humans, there are no doubt female ancestors and sub-wyters that are only for the Earth and Water cults.

 

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Well, Harmony is not the opposite of Death... I used the wrong word there: though Harmony is still the principal "peace" rune.

Harmony is the peace-making rune, but the status of peace is equated with fertility, if you look at Orlanthi war and peace clans.

 

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Regarding maleficia - perhaps. Though necromancy is an extension of thaumaturgical capabilities inherent in the priesthood, and was more prominent as a problem for the church than mere low magic. Witchcraft of the hedge and cottage variety of course threatens sacerdotal authority by offering something outside their magisterium. In our world, though there is a whole gendered level of magic in the West (and, in so far as I have studied, in South Asia and China also) that is forbidden by being rooted in the "other gender" - from a male perspective.

Which is pretty much the point I wanted to make. If our church had allowed officiating women, none of those items would have ended up on the list of suspicious items.

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Is there a strong connection between menses, pregnancy, menopause and magic in Glorantha?

There is, but the same goes for all kind of phallic matters and magic. Every kind of hormone-induced stupidity is magical and/or holy in Glorantha. Possibly as unwelcome on a personal level, but integral part of the magic of life.

Pregnancy and birth are the only secrets exclusive to females. and you need a bunch of immortal males to outlaw that and still survive.

 

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

If so, there is indeed a feminine mystery that Earth can deploy that is not innocent, bloody, and natural [Earth+Water+Life]. Of course among humans, there are no doubt female ancestors and sub-wyters that are only for the Earth and Water cults.

If you mean "let's trigger the war menses", let's not go there. We are hoping to expand our female player numbers, and that's how not to do it. Imagine a game that mandates "sure you can play a magician. When was your mage's castration, shortly after birth, or after his voice broke?"

 

[jeffjerwin]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

If you mean "let's trigger the war menses", let's not go there. We are hoping to expand our female player numbers, and that's how not to do it. Imagine a game that mandates "sure you can play a magician. When was your mage's castration, shortly after birth, or after his voice broke?"

I was thinking more along the analogy of giving birth to battle. This is a metaphor that already exists in the material.

While a little discomforting I would accept castration = greater magic in a fully realized culture or setting. Of course, Glorantha has multiple right ways to do magic, and even if that were true, it isn't universal. The Brithini are ascetic to nearly that degree.

I wasn't trying to exclude anyone - the mention of menses was extrapolating from Tantric materialist cosmology (which certainly includes male energies); I think overall the options for female characters in Glorantha should sometimes reflect practical aspects of their spiritual/physical lives. This would only apply to a subset Earth or Life magic based spirit cults rather than spirit cults of other runes. However, I admit that these runes so totally dominate female culture in Kerofinela and Genertela in general that it might turn from a cultural detail into something that people make universal, which would be wrong. Nonetheless, if we don't consider this important, there out to be a reason why non-matriarchal Gloranthan cultures don't have certain taboos. I get a real sense that underlying Dara Happan patriarchy is fear, which would go with the whole Gorgorma cult.

I don't consider hormones and reproduction stupid - simply a part of our animal natures.

One thing in the back of my mind was the feminisation of Christ in the arguably queer doctrine of the Moravians, though there the wound is the wound of Longinus' spear. To them, of course, Christ's unity with the Holy Spirit/Theophany is possible because he transcends gender - the androgyn you mentioned earlier. Unfortunately positing the androgyn as the ideal for a Mystic magician suggests that the elderly and the pre-pubescent make the best mystics... Maybe that's true - it would explain the dismissal of married life in real world mystic traditions. Of course left-handed traditions like Tantra flip everything around, though. Certainly that system - in both its Buddhist and Shaktic Hindu variants - along with Taoism in some varieties - has a nuanced relationship to asceticism.

It's difficult to thread the needle of gender and myth.

[g33k]

11 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

While a little discomforting I would accept castration = greater magic in a fully realized culture or setting. ..

I think the sacrifice/power pairing is adequately mythic that we acknowledge castration as one such sacrifice.

 

 

 

 

[g33k]

On 2/8/2018 at 8:11 AM, Joerg said:

If you mean "let's trigger the war menses", let's not go there. We are hoping to expand our female player numbers, and that's how not to do it.

Lets not go there, for sure!

It might piss off Athena, or Freya, or Kali, or the Morrigan, or Atropos, or ...

Plenty of darkling/death & war goddesses.

Edited February 9, 2018 by g33k
more goddesses! (can never have too many goddesses)

[Joerg]

12 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I was thinking more along the analogy of giving birth to battle. This is a metaphor that already exists in the material.

Yeah, anything could be born. But I found it already quite an effort to suggest pregnant or breast-feeding heroines for a pilgrimage scenario.

 

12 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

While a little discomforting I would accept castration = greater magic in a fully realized culture or setting. Of course, Glorantha has multiple right ways to do magic, and even if that were true, it isn't universal. The Brithini are ascetic to nearly that degree.

The descending pyramid in Spol has this, explicitely borrowed from meso-American nobility sacrifices (discussion with Greg at some Tentacles).

Gifts and sacrifices - so a magician would transform parts of his body _permanently_ into magical powers. WIth no guarantee that the trade actually works every time. This does make for interesting magicians, and like I said, Spol might be a place practicing something like this. Kralori austerities might cost a limb or other portions of health, too.

55 minutes ago, g33k said:

I think the sacrifice/power pairing is adequately mythic that we acknowledge castration as one such sacrifice.

That, giving up an eye, a finger, half a foot, ears, teeth, fleshy parts of the nose, and all manner of piercings and scarifications. Could also be a weird and (but for a few hidden grimoires) forgotten Rubble survivor group (except that, in the long run, it didn't survive).

Probably not something a gaming company would publish to the mass market, though.

 

[Joerg]

12 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I wasn't trying to exclude anyone - the mention of menses was extrapolating from Tantric materialist cosmology (which certainly includes male energies); I think overall the options for female characters in Glorantha should sometimes reflect practical aspects of their spiritual/physical lives. This would only apply to a subset Earth or Life magic based spirit cults rather than spirit cults of other runes. However, I admit that these runes so totally dominate female culture in Kerofinela and Genertela in general that it might turn from a cultural detail into something that people make universal, which would be wrong. Nonetheless, if we don't consider this important, there ought to be a reason why non-matriarchal Gloranthan cultures don't have certain taboos. I get a real sense that underlying Dara Happan patriarchy is fear, which would go with the whole Gorgorma cult.

Right now I get something like the message "female mystery is behind everything" which sort of devalues said female mysteries.

 

12 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

I don't consider hormones and reproduction stupid - simply a part of our animal natures.

In themselves they aren't stupid, but they start chains of barely rational decisions which definitely are. Both testosterone and menses-affected unreasonability bring back pubertarian decision-making to nominally adult persons, and giving in to such impulses can be stupid.

 

12 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

One thing in the back of my mind was the feminisation of Christ in the arguably queer doctrine of the Moravians, though there the wound is the wound of Longinus' spear. To them, of course, Christ's unity with the Holy Spirit/Theophany is possible because he transcends gender - the androgyn you mentioned earlier. Unfortunately positing the androgyn as the ideal for a Mystic magician suggests that the elderly and the pre-pubescent make the best mystics... Maybe that's true - it would explain the dismissal of married life in real world mystic traditions. Of course left-handed traditions like Tantra flip everything around, though. Certainly that system - in both its Buddhist and Shaktic Hindu variants - along with Taoism in some varieties - has a nuanced relationship to asceticism.

It's difficult to thread the needle of gender and myth.

There are other paths to mysticism. Yelmi/Dayzataran flame/fuel dualism. Reaching through Arachne Solara. Dragons. Vithelan ways. All unite polar opposites, and the gender vector is only one of many available.