Brithos divided

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Well, the tradition also has the Spirit Rune.

The Daka Fal cult of Cults of Prax is a Praxian tradition, so I don't doubt that the Praxians contact spirits. I am a lot less convinced that Duke Raus, a documented ancestor worshipper, contacts spirits, too, and the ancestors as per King of Dragon Pass are visiting from the Godworld (or an underworld, not sure about that, and that's why I asked).

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

The idea that there is a strict division between the otherworldly nature of dead people (eg that there is a strict division between souls and spirits etc) isn’t one I really have much truck with, it seems a lingering thing from the Hero Wars era - but if it was a thing, then being an active member of a Spirit tradition would surely tend to put you the Spirit side of that divide. 

Indeed, full agreement there.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

I do think that an ancestor who has been reincarnated will tend to be hard to contact, but also that anyone who has ancestor worship as their primary magical tradition, and is still given worship by their ancestors, will resist reincarnation. . 

Interesting opinion. On the other hand, ancestral spirits crave the embrace of mortal flesh, and will go into deals with descendants to be able to experience living bodies once again.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

I thought we’d already gone over this, and the Seshnegi left for political, not doctrinal, reasons.

Froalar and his followers did. No idea what sent Duke Neleos and various other Greater Darkness colonists packing.

But I am talking about later exodus movements. Arkat's Crusade was the first within Time that I know of - it appears that the participants all remained in Genertela, to wit Arolanit, and did not return to Brithos.

There are two documented further waves of Brithini immigration in the Seshnegi Kings List, and it was those I was talking about. So no, you did not yet send any denial of this.

1 hour ago, davecake said:

FWIW I don’t think Zzabur spends a lot of effort on doctrinal cleansing, the Brithini are unique in their lack of need to do that. If you don’t follow the Law, you start to age and die, so most issues of heterodoxy sort themselves out pretty quickly (from an immortal point of view). 

Unless you need a very united Brithos to stand behind you for the project to return the island to Danmalastan, with such measly side effects like drowning Fronela, which made Prince Snodal perform the theomachy of the God of the Silver Feet.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Well, mostly. The Vadeli are able to prove they follow the Law, as they don’t age either, this infuriates the Brithini beyond words, 

And this couldn't apply to other groups who have differences with Zzabur while remaining true to Malkion's Laws?

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Yes, not only do the Brithini believe that the appropriate way to transmit knowledge is by writing it down, they believe that knowledge that can’t be transmitted through languages and thus written down in a book, is not worth transmitting, if it’s not linguistic, it’s not Reason. And if it’s not Reason, it’s therefore Error. I’m pretty sure this is what the Brithini think about both Joy of The Heart, and Illumination and other mystic insights. Not Reason, so therefore Error. 

So the recorded memories of or about a deceased person are as much as the dead ancestor has to impart as knowledge (and knowledge means magic).

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Later Malkioni generally feel differently. Though maybe not most Rokari. 

I wonder about the Rokari creed. It appears harsh and hopeless to me, lots of fire and brimstone but hardly any promise of a better place in either this world or whatever comes after.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

I think that even the Brithini admit that great magicians may, instead of dissipating, have their Intellect preserved, by means of close magical identification with an Eranschula etc. they just don’t necessarily think it’s desirable. But again - what they can teach us through Reason must therefore be capable of being written down.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

To the Brithini (and Rokari) needing anything more than that is usually indicative that you are seeking something beyond Reason and Logic. There certainly exists the possibility that it might be useful to contact a dead person to learn something they just didn’t write down, but that is rare and weird, and in general necromancy is considered a bad idea by the Rokari (though there is the occasional case of ‘oh grandfather, where did you leave the map to the treasure vault’ I’m sure). 

It is known that Zzabur is incapable of doing and knowing what the Creator did, so there is proof that even Erasanchula Reason and Logic cannot write down or otherwise communicate what lies beyond.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

To the Hrestoli, who believe that Joy can only be taught through experience, and is beyond the reach of philosophical enquiries alone, the idea that you might want to contact the dead Ascended Masters directly makes much more sense, as they have wisdom beyond words and can guide you through the ineffable mysteries.

Wisdom, and direction in their decisions. Like Hrestol did when he conceived the concept of the Men of All or the theomachy of Ifftala.

1 hour ago, davecake said:

(In the guide it’s noted that veneration of the Ascended Masters can help you attain Joy. Perfectly sensible if you are Hrestoli, just asking for trouble if you aren’t )

So the question is whether this might be the form of ancestor worship hinted at in the Praxian Daka Fal write-up from Cults of Prax.

The restriction not to be initiated to any rune cult is almost impossible to maintain for Heortlings. Pelorians are surprisingly a lot less likely to initiate, so there might be a stronger direct ancestor worship.

But we know that Heortlings worship their ancestors, and possibly including individual ones, too. To them the Daka Fal _cult_ as written in Cults of Prax is worthless.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Yep. And we know how the Rokari and Brithini feel about venerating Ascended Masters. And just another example of the Seshnegi descent into henotheism. 

Note that Hrestol spread such ideas on Brithos, too, when he visited.

 

1 hour ago, davecake said:

While I think this is kind of magically plausible, I’m not sure it really is culturally. Danmalastan ancestors have only the secrets of Reason to teach, which they should have written down in a book if it was important. And if you just want to summon them up because they are powerful, then just summon them, don’t mess around with worship. 

In order to summon them up you have to grant them some form of perpetuity after Death, something hotly denied by Zzaburism and Rokarism. You can summon up Erasanchula, Burtae or Srvuali (or spirits) who never were mortal and who accept worship, and in all likelihood the summoning will be almost indistinguishible from worship when perceived from the other side of the veil, but you cannot summon what was destroyed and subjected to entropy.

You might contact the inhabitants of the Godtime (or whatever the sorcerers called it prior to God Learner monomyth) by visiting and interacting with them on the hero planes, but that's decidedly different from reaching through the veil.

Now no sorcerer would deny that errant and disgusting fragments of identity of worshippers can be forced back from whichever wrong limbo they get stuck in. It is a filthy and hostile place, tearing at the substance of their magic and consuming it, but it can be done.

 

[Joerg]

moved to the Telmori thread

Edited February 28, 2018 by Joerg

[scott-martin]

15 minutes ago, Joerg said:

perpetuity after Death, something hotly denied by Zzaburism and Rokarism [...] you cannot summon what was destroyed and subjected to entropy.

This is an interesting juxtaposition as the Mallia thread prompts me once more to test the mythic obfuscations around the "two devils problem" and why it's even an issue in the texts. Entropy isn't personal or moral. It's a cosmological threat. And it looks a whole lot like some reductive zzaburist teachings about where we go when we die. ("What the Wizard Says" is evidently a Malkionist compromise, allowing the prospect of "earning identity and consciousness after death.") I would not be surprised to see kajabor triumphant on the island nowadays, which may be why nobody here has been able to find it.

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Do the vadeli have books?

Of course!  How can they possibly corrupt the followers of the Knowing God without them?  Or get inveterate knowledge seekers to open the doors into the mysteries of chaos... 

[davecake]

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Daka Fal cult of Cults of Prax is a Praxian tradition, so I don't doubt that the Praxians contact spirits.

And Ancestor Worship among the Hsunchen (Old Man and Old Woman), and the Kralori and the East Isles (Ebe, Iste) according to the Guide (all have the same exact runes - double ir ownership of Man, plus Spirit), and in Gods of Glorantha it’s called Ancestor Worship and is explicitly generic. If you are basically going to argue from a close reading of Cults of Prax but not look at later sources, it’s going to make discussion pointless. 

The evidence is that Grandfather Mortal (and Grandmother too) has many names and guises, is the core of an active magical tradition of Ancestr Worship in many parts of Glorantha, and their core practices are animist and shamanic (as indicated by both the Spirit Rune and the GoG writeup).

Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t magically access your ancestors in different ways. It is possible that you can use sorcerous necromancy or some form of divine intercession. And we already know that the trollish version is so closely tied to Kygor Litor as to effectively form a single mixed tradition. But those are going to be side offshoots to the main thing, what in Hero Wars days would have clearly been Misapplied Worship, but these days is just a sub-optimal weird way of doing things

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

I am a lot less convinced that Duke Raus, a documented ancestor worshipper, contacts spirits, too,

. Contacting his ancestors would seem to be the entire point of being an ancestor worshipper? Either you are proposing an extremely odd version of Ancestor worship that doesn’t involve contact with the ancestors, or you are hung up on a pointless terminological distinction. 

 

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

ut I am talking about later exodus movements. Arkat's Crusade was the first within Time that I know of - it appears that the participants all remained in Genertela, to wit Arolanit, and did not return to Brithos.

That seems rather the opposite of what you are arguing - rather than exiling heterodoxy, that is Brithos exporting Orthodoxy. Projecting power, in the modern argot, to defend against threats. 

 

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

Unless you need a very united Brithos to stand behind you for the project to return the island to Danmalastan

If I was a court, I’d be shouting ‘objection, speculation’. There is no evidence that Brithos has been pursuing a dedicated policy of exiling the heterodox, and significant evidence they have no significant motivation to do so (the problem usually neatly takes care of itself if they do nothing). Speculating about possible motivations to do so doesn’t change that. We have no evidence at all that pure orthodox of participants is required for Zzabur to cast a big spell, and indeed the last great spell to end the ice age had ouri and Aldryami participants, and Danmalastan was never a pure unity (eg always had the Waertagi etc around), so this would seem to be an idea you have made up with little to support it. 

[davecake]

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

So the recorded memories of or about a deceased person are as much as the dead ancestor has to impart as knowledge (and knowledge means magic).

To the Brithini, the recorded knowledge of most people is largely worthless, and those whose magical knowledge is worth knowing are capable of writing it down in a book. Not all knowledge or experience is of value, only those parts that are endowed with Reason. Spending a lot of effort on heterodox practices just to pick up a few scraps is very unwise, when you could be continuing to study the vast wisdom of Zzabur and his acolytes, conveniently recorded in giant libraries for your convenience. Besides, if you really want to know some scrap of wisdom from a 2000 years ago, there are living people around you can ask. 

[davecake]

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

It is known that Zzabur is incapable of doing and knowing what the Creator did, so there is proof that even Erasanchula Reason and Logic cannot write down or otherwise communicate what lies beyond.

Sure, but are you claiming to be able to achieve what Zzabur can not? < eyes the possible deluded heretic suspiciously >

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

Quote

Yep. And we know how the Rokari and Brithini feel about venerating Ascended Masters. And just another example of the Seshnegi descent into henotheism. 

Note that Hrestol spread such ideas on Brithos, too, when he visited.

And the subsequent murder of Hrestol by Brithini we may take as a response to how well that was received. 

[scott-martin]

24 minutes ago, davecake said:

Sure, but are you claiming to be able to achieve what Zzabur can not? < eyes the possible deluded heretic suspiciously >

And the subsequent murder of Hrestol by Brithini we may take as a response to how well that was received. 

Oh, he did pretty well on the island while he was there. 

Zabur came too, and with him all the barons of the land.  The aged wizard was pale, as if he had exerted great effort.  The barons bore mixed expressions of grief, fear, anger, and determination.  In the field between the camp and the city the men listened to the speech of Zabur, for after the greetings the seer began.

“Most noble men of the First Caste,” he began, “it has come to me during the night, brought by a messenger from our Father, Malkion, who rules in Heaven, that this bloody and unholy war between kings should be ceased immediately, upon threat of eternal banishment and damnation for all who take part, for it is hated in His eyes.  He has said that men should not fight against the holy laws which He made to preserve us, for they were made for our protection and to guide us towards His sacred ways.  It is for this reason that I, his eldest remaining child, do foreswear this grievous battle, accepting the fault as my own, and taking as my penance the blames and sufferings of all the people.  Upon this, my sacred scepter of knowledge, I do swear that for my punishment I shall leave this land, going into solitude within my crystal tower, never again to leave in bodily form, but to remain there as a link with the kingdom as a guardian of those laws which our Father, Malkion, has laid upon us, and to act forever for the interests of those laws which have been made, whether the offender be craftsman or servant, soldier or farmer, sorcerer or king, native or foreign, alive or dead.  It is for thus that I do leave you now, and leave the spiritual guidance to my son, Kaldes, and retire.”

Edited March 1, 2018 by scott-martin

[scott-martin]

As it happens, the surrender of Z-B-R is a direct response to this passage (we're quoting the closing section of Hrestolssaga) in which inhabitants of a um "divided" Brithos debate the moral limits of ancestor worship and the magic of mothers. The first speaker is Antalos, leader of the original horalites and a religious conservative until pushed.

“Britha is most powerful in this land, just as Seshna is in yours,” replied the duke.  “But she has withdrawn from the favors of men ever since Zabur forced her under the ocean to drown the Vadeli who nearly overran us in the Great War.

“Next is Malkion, the Founder.  But he would not war directly against us or Zabur’s men.  What Power he does lend we men go directly through his son, Zabur, and it is that which gives him his great strength.

[other options are discussed, cut here to skirt reprisal]

A woman rose, and she wore the blue cloak of the Priestesses of Menena.  Hrestol recognized her as the High Priestess, Britica, and she said, “There is one of our ancestors who has no love for Zabur, and that is our Mother, Menena.  Let us summon her for the fight [...] It was through her skills that Horal was able to free himself from the magical chains of Zabur, and then move to this land.  And it was through her powers and skills that we peacefully joined the race again.  She is strong.”

Antalos looked about the room, and there was no word of protest.  He smiled, and said, “It is good, and obviously the right path.  Let us begin the preparations immediately.”

Note that Horal and Menena share a temple here so horalites of both sexes participate in the rite. Hrestol does not share the right bloodline and so is excluded. 

Edited March 1, 2018 by scott-martin
tyling the lodge

[davecake]

On 01/03/2018 at 1:51 AM, Joerg said:

Quote

(In the guide it’s noted that veneration of the Ascended Masters can help you attain Joy. Perfectly sensible if you are Hrestoli, just asking for trouble if you aren’t )

So the question is whether this might be the form of ancestor worship hinted at in the Praxian Daka Fal write-up from Cults of Prax.

No, veneration of the Ascended Masters is not Ancestor worship. It is venerating them for their spiritual achievements, not their familial relationship to you. It’s closer to Hero cults, but still a long way from that. You are trying too hard hrre, trying to fit a square block into a round hole. 

On 01/03/2018 at 1:51 AM, Joerg said:

The restriction not to be initiated to any rune cult is almost impossible to maintain for Heortlings. Pelorians are surprisingly a lot less likely to initiate, so there might be a stronger direct ancestor worship.

But we know that Heortlings worship their ancestors, and possibly including individual ones, too. To them the Daka Fal _cult_ as written in Cults of Prax is worthless.

And the mistake here is to continue to make your argument based on a close reading of Cults of Prax while ignoring other sources. That’s not a rule for the broader RQ3 version, and though we don’t have a specific HQ writeup that rule does not appear to be the normal rule for spirit traditions in HQ2. 

Though on a close reading, it only says the worshipper must be willing to relinquish other traditions, not that they always are required to, the likelihood of getting an ancestor who knows other cult magic is pretty high, and Daka Fal has a couple of associated cults. And of course it might be only for Daka Fal in Prax, and other variations may have different rules. I wouldn’t read too much into even if I was drawing only on RQ2 sources for some reason. 

 

[Tindalos]

On 02/03/2018 at 5:28 AM, davecake said:

No, veneration of the Ascended Masters is not Ancestor worship. It is venerating them for their spiritual achievements, not their familial relationship to you. It’s closer to Hero cults, but still a long way from that. You are trying too hard hrre, trying to fit a square block into a round hole.

Personally I view it as similar to being the father of X.

So Xemela may be the Ascended Master of Healing, and her teachings may be usable as a grimoire, but she's no more worshipped than Hippocrates.

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Personally I view it as similar to being the father of X.

So Xemela may be the Ascended Master of Healing, and her teachings may be usable as a grimoire, but she's no more worshipped than Hippocrates.

Hippocrates appears to be sufficiently grounded as a real person in a time when the gods were seen as more remote, but he was given a divine descendance from Asclepios/Aesculap, the divine healer, with about ten generations distance.

Hrestol and Fenela don't appear to have had a shrine or similar to their mother, and there is no burial site mentioned.

In a way, a burial site acts as a shrine to the ancestors buried in that place, a place for veneration (or sacrifice of flowers or similar). A necropolis like the Antones Estates of Nochet is powerful.

[davecake]

I think this duality - that great fathers like Hippocrates were considered both great authorities whose writings contained vital practical knowledge, and also considered to have some divine ancestry and could be treated as a minor deity - mirrors the treatment of Ascended Masters, who are generally understood as notable to great scholars by all Malkioni, but worthy of veneration by only some. 

I do not think this anything to do with ancestor worship (or especially Ancestor Worship) - they are an Ascended Master quite independently of whether or not they are related to you. 

And let’s not confuse theurgy and necromancy. Unless you are a Rokari deliberately demonizing Hrestoli practices, of course. 

[Joerg]

I was looking for an orthodox Malkioni practice (not that I don't quite consider the Rokari orthodox) that mirrors some form of ancestor contact and learning from ancestors.

The only such hint in the Guide is The Families Book, one of the Writings of Zzabur.

The Brithini and Rokari doctrine of dissolution of the self after Death is of course some strong contra-indication for there being spirits/souls/mind expressions available to contact through an Axis Mundi-like ritual.

In 2013, Jeff mentioned in an exchange with Jon Quaife that the Malkioni do believe in the journey to the Underworld and meeting the Judge of the Dead. http://www.glorantha.com/docs/malkioni-culture/

 

But I notice that most Malkioni sorcery schools are extremely ignorant of the underworlds, as their magic doesn't work there as expected. There used to be one school or order specialized in exploring the underworld and using its magic, but I cannot find it right now.

Stygians strong in Darkness may have a different relation to sorcery in the Underworld. That may be part of what scares the Rokari and what scared the Makanists.

But mostly I mention this weakness in dealing with the Underworld as a reason why the sorcerers aren't well-versed with ancestor worship. (Their Resurrection ritual is going to be interesting in this regard...)

 

One aspect that triggers my academic curiosity is the passage of time in the Underworld. The Brithini and Rokari agree that the soul dissipates once it leaves the Middle World, and surely it will deteriorate. But if time doesn't quite apply to the Underworld, does that mean that basically all souls of those who died are still "in contact range" once they have encountered the Judge of the Dead?

And is the Judge of the Dead for the Malkioni their Fifth Action Founder?

[davecake]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

 

I was looking for an orthodox Malkioni practice (not that I don't quite consider the Rokari orthodox) that mirrors some form of ancestor contact and learning from ancestors.

 

So, hypothetical ultra-orthodox Malkioni but who follow a practice that almost every way we look at it, seems somewhat heterodox? 

I do think that even the Brithini go to the Underworld and the Courts of Silence at death. When judged if able to choose their afterlife, they should choose ‘none of the above’ (regarding them all as essentially eternal servitude of some kind): and choose the bliss of dissolution. It may be that the Judge gives them no choice. 

I’m not sure that all Malkioni schools are as ignorant of the Underworld. Some notable Ascended Masters have been there, and returned, and probably written about it. Arkat in particular. And the God Learners of course. Though I doubt the Rokari think there are good reasons to spend too much time studying it.