Brithos divided

[davecake]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

No. Hrestolism never was a target of the Rightness crusaders

Depends what you mean by Hrestolism. 

[Joerg]

27 minutes ago, davecake said:

Depends what you mean by Hrestolism. 

Ok, so what brand of Hrestolism or what features of Hrestolism do you think were targeted by the Rightness crusaders?

[scott-martin]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

with the idea of the Secret Keepers, turned into a hereditary intellectual duty instead, thus de-emphasising the biological line

I like this take on them immensely because it also reflects the way sorcery cultivates artificial "bloodlines" via initiatory succession and, at the impersonal limit, transmission via grimoire. The revelation of the Book is obviously a critical moment here because once the doctrine is canonized the Secret Keepers become supernumerary to history. Suppressing that particular Book (via Return to Rightness or other reforms) then opens the door to religious crisis -- some might revert to oral master-to-prentice transmissions, others negotiate a continuum of book(s) plural or the familiar grimoires, generating confusion in what was once a unified "sorcery plane."

I also really like the notion that "menena" status is portable in sects that (a) recognize menena as a fifth caste and (b) allow caste mobility. As always with Chaosium, someone (probably Greg) made sure that a few biological males can join the Earth Witch subcult of Malkionism if they like (Mortal Lords playtest reprinted in the RQ2 kickstarter), so it's not a stretch to imagine debates and experiments around whether a true "Man" of All must necessarily stretch to incorporate the "feminine" role in order to truly Know Everything. [sic] This may even be a factor in documented homoromantic practices in the highest degrees of New Idealism for all I know. I'm not the king of Loskalm.

In other sects, authorities seem to devote significant effort to suppressing "menenism" outright -- in these communities there are only four authentic castes plus the transcendent and controversial man of all, and if anyone really knows what to do with women they tend to avoid talking about it. Women in these communities (much like dronars, whose economic roles often overlap as producers of raw resources, human or otherwise) are denied access to conventional magic and so are tempted to explore other spiritual practices for consolation. These practices are continually demonized for various reasons (competition, ideology, sexism) but nevertheless they persist simply because the same authorities who decry "earth witchcraft" from the pulpit are terrified of close contact with the women jeopardizing their own elevated status. One fragment I've seen specifically blames woman (as per Eve) for the Western analogue of original sin ("decay"). 

Now these heathen practices tend to resemble the woman-centric Earth Cult Complex of Central Genertela for obvious historical and structural reasons. I go back and forth on whether "the historical Menena" was adopted into the Family of Malkion from a neighboring tribe (forest or Pelandan bowl) or evolved in parallel from similar biological and social concerns. The former scenario means that Western "earth witches" are basically a local survival of our familiar land goddess cults grafted at a specific point in history onto the original four-class system. (This might have happened as early as Brithos.) After all, the runic affinities (Earth Fertility) line up nicely. Either way, odds are good that reciprocal initiation would apply and agrarian practices would be close enough to transfer. (The dronars, as closest to the land, would also be subject to this.) 

Obviously ancestor worship is in the mix there. This challenges the zzaburist monopoly on instrumental magic, of course. One reason menenism even survives is because it addresses problems that book magic fails to even acknowledge let alone solve. Dronar concerns are likewise poorly addressed except through what some rulesets lump together as "folk magic" or whatever. (I kind of slept through that part.) Doctrinally this is finessed in the hrestol histories where "the historical Z-B-R" conceded some quotidian magic -- the wellspring of what a few of us consider Gloranthan Reality -- to the community as a whole as reparations for transgressing caste limits back in the Dawn Age. Anybody is allowed and able to learn a little magic now. Naturally the boundaries of this concession are controversial and shift across history depending on who's arguing the show at the time, but The Law Is The Law. 

Yet another transgression also forced the zzaburists into ritual obedience to the talars. This is obviously subverted within history (otherwise it would be impossible for the blues to repeatedly outstep their role) but the very nature of the prohibition reveals the crime behind it. Like many trader "princes," I personally am on a long quest to recollect the magic of the original talars in particular. Maybe all the non-blue castes can resort to an abstract (communal) form of "ancestor worship" or "travel & journey" to repair their own hereditary birthright. Work in progress. 

One of the details that emerges from the background here is the fact that Arkat was effectively what we would call in the Pendragon groups "a fatherless boy" back on the island, raised by a woman and assigned for whatever reason to horalite training. The history of the horals on the island is extremely strange to me at least because they (maybe uniquely, maybe not) had a distinct society with their own de facto "king," nobility, etc., before the man of the blue tower decided to conquer them. Anyway, as the Guide tells us, he was pressed into service when, we're told, foreign missionaries identified with Nysalor came to the island. The Crusade against the mainland that followed appears to have had the goal (at least secondarily) of propagating what Revealed Mythologies fans might call "Brithinite Rightness" into the former colonies that had broken away into hrestolism, gbajism, henotheist froalism and God knows what else. The entire "Z-B-R Says" document is explicitly religious propaganda spread by missionaries who provide the island party line from a position of moral ("you malestini must listen") and metaphysical ("i am a product of the maseren") superiority. 

And yet the history of their doctrine is one of retreat and endless failure. Arkat, son of woman, apostatizes. The gods judge Seshneg. Witchcraft and the way-of-all persist. The missionaries protest too much. They might say that this is the world's fault for being so broken. After all, we, unlike "right" brithinists and brithinolators, die. (Man Rune, Grandfather Mortal, the Sacrifice.) I live in the world and am on the world's side. The world is all we have to undo the world, maybe all we need. If somebody told me Hrestol had a womb I wouldn't be extremely shocked.

EDIT TO ADD And there are phases when even the blue way provides its opportunities for transcendence and liberation, don't get me wrong. One fragment I've seen lays out a "western lightbringer quest" where "zzabur" is the synthetic goal of the work, the child of multiple father/mothers. This may be a tool for the colonization of storm spirituality (glorifying the blue man in place of Ginna Jar) or an authentic effort to repair the world. I'd like to believe the latter scenario, even though the self-serving history of zzaburism provides plenty of evidence that it's a trap.

Edited February 25, 2018 by scott-martin

[Joerg]

I already mentioned this once, but ancestor worship in Glorantha may be weirdly limited in exogamous (or in the Esrolian case, exoandrous) communities to those who died as a community member. Except when useful (Argrath claiming Sartar bloodline through Onelisin), maternal lineage appears to be mostly ignored in Heortling clans.

Or do the Heortling women (and the Esrolian men) have different ancestor rites, enabling them to interact with blood ancestors from outside of the clan (Esrolian house) who normally don't have any ties to their clan (house) of marriage? How much does this extend to their hearth, and does it jump to the children of that hearth (regardless of their physical parentage) through the private rites of the hearth (or whatever Esrolian men and men in matrilocal clans have as a shadow society)?

 

Malkioni customs are comparatively unknown. They are sticklers for male descendance, which suggests some strict control over the sex lives of their females, but there doesn't seem to be any prescription for marriage in the Abiding Book.

Guilmarn the Fat has four wives and countless concubines, all of them of the (Rokari) Talar caste (or in case of exotic foreigner females without Rokari caste assignation, elevated to such status).

At the same time, @Jeff mentioned in a discussion that marital fidelity is much less of an issue for Rokari women than selecting sex partners from the correct caste (her father's caste, at least her official father's caste). With concubinate, there will be children born outside of wedlock, or born into a marriage that doesn't include the father of the child. (There are or used to be practices where a concubine was placed in a marriage with some follower of the powerful man, often a marriage that may have consisted in a single cohabitation on occasion of the marriage of the often pregnant concubine, making sure that church or similar societal demands for wedlock were obeyed.)

I wonder whether the concubinat is practiced by rich burgher Dronars in Seshnela, too, and possibly by high ranking Horal people. If there are places with rich farmers anywhere in Guilmarn's kingdom, those famers might have effective concubinat with serving girls, too.

 

Arkat, the problem child and child prodigy:

In one version of the story I heard, Arkat was placed in the Horal caste by virtue of his maternal grandfather being one. In another one, there was speculation that he wasn't the first (or indeed, second) birth of his mother, and should have been assigned to the Zzabur caste instead (which in that case would come as third child caste). Both stories agreed that Arkat spent his childhood years with the Children of the Forest of Aldrya. (Two Elf forests are named for Brithos in the published fragment in Revealed Mythologies, the same as in Hrestol's Saga.)

 

The question is: how does such extramarital procreation affect ancestral ties? A formal adoption allows the adopted individual access to the community ancestors, but does it allow the community access to the blood ancestors of the individual in whichever magnitude?

We don't even know for the Praxians, their ancestor units are tribal, combining all clans' ancestry (only leaving ancestors of slave women from other tribes or even non-Praxians like e.g. Teshnos whose children of their owners became full clan members).

 

The baboon gift to Biturian illustrates that the Axis Mundi is mighty enough to allow access to ancestors of participants of the ritual even if they don't belong to the community that produced the Axis, but that might be reserved for extraordinarily powerful shamans (as the Baboons are famous for, even getting a shaman unit in the expanded unit line-up of the French Dieux Nomads edition). If contact can be made by any participant to all his blood ancestors, this form of ancestor worship is far superior in reach compared to the worship enabled at clan shrines.

[davecake]

8 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I already mentioned this once, but ancestor worship in Glorantha may be weirdly limited in exogamous (or in the Esrolian case, exoandrous) communities to those who died as a community member.

I don’t think this is true. You won’t get access to those ancestors through broad community worship ( eg Heorting clan rites), but that isn’t the normal pattern of Ancestor worship in Glorantha. If your ancestor has gone to join some weird other cult and gone on to a different afterlife that may be an issue. But I think you can use Ancestor worship to contact the spirit of your uncle who travelled to a different city etc. 

 

14 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Or do the Heortling women (and the Esrolian men) have different ancestor rites, enabling them to interact with blood ancestors from outside of the clan (Esrolian house) who normally don't have any ties to their clan (house) of marriage

They don’t get to see them on Ancestor day as part of Clan rites, but if they became true Ancestor worshippers (which would be unusual because Ancestor worship is still a shamanic tradition and so rare among the Heortlings), they would be able to contact them just fine. The problem isn’t clan membership, it’s about having a shaman who is in your bloodline to lead the rites. 

[David Scott]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

The question is: how does such extramarital procreation affect ancestral ties? A formal adoption allows the adopted individual access to the community ancestors, but does it allow the community access to the blood ancestors of the individual in whichever magnitude?

We don't even know for the Praxians, their ancestor units are tribal, combining all clans' ancestry (only leaving ancestors of slave women from other tribes or even non-Praxians like e.g. Teshnos whose children of their owners became full clan members).

For Praxians , it's a matter of what cult you were part of as to where you end up. But nearly all Praxians go via the Great Herd before their end place. The Great Herd is tribal, and to a certain extent intertribal.

Quote

When a Praxian nomad enters the spirit world of their own safe circles, they visit the Great herd. There is the Herd Protectress herself, a huge cow of whatever tribe the visitors are members of. She is surrounded by others less spectacular in size, but each with her own splendor. They are cows of the other great herds, as well as a variety of the visitors' kinship animal. So a bison tribe member would see a huge splendid bison, who is the Protectress, and around her black bison, long horn bison, ordinary bison, star bison and even a white bison, as well as a high llama, an impala, etc.
Surrounding those are thousands of the favorite herd beast, all contented and healthy, milling about with calves and bulls among them.

Within the Great Herd is the Clan's Home Camp. It is tribal, but does not preclude ancestors from other tribes. If you mother was a slave from another tribe she would be here. She would also be contactable from her original tribes rites at their home camp.

Quote

Praxian Clans have a campfire, tent, pack beast or other appropriate center for themselves it is anchored to the clan medicine bundle. Home Camp is always amidst the Great Herd someplace, hidden by the animals themselves. At its center sits the Protectress of the visitors' kin beast. Nearby are other female ancestresses. They are making things, nursing children, healing the sick and so on. There are many people about. Most are anonymous, some are recognized at times. Here you are most likely to meet the spirit of someone known. However, the nature of the spirit world is such that without a shaman's guidance visitors and the dead appear the same, and commonly look right at each other and do not recognize each other, though one was the parent or child or dearest lover of the other in life.

Slaves from other cultures may of may not be in the Great Herd, it depends on their cult, but it's likely they would be as they would have been sent off using Praxian rites to the spirit world.

The spirit world is all connected. The traditions of different areas overlap. If your mother was a Pentan slave, she would be contactable by both traditions.
 

[David Scott]

3 hours ago, davecake said:

which would be unusual because Ancestor worship is still a shamanic tradition and so rare among the Heortlings

Ancestor worship amongst the Orlanthi is much more common than first realised. You don't have to be an initiate to practice it and can just be a lay member giving offerings to the ancestors. Don't confuse animism (which is the belief that everything has a spirit) with shamanism (which is the practice of contacting spirits). Most Heortlings would be considered animists in this respect, you don't need shamanic technique to practice ancestor worship, you just need to put out offerings, dust their little votive figures, and basically make sure you remember them. If you want to interact with them then thats a different mater as you need some agency (usually a shaman or priest) to help you do that.  

[davecake]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Ancestor worship amongst the Orlanthi is much more common than first realised. You don't have to be an initiate to practice it and can just be a lay member giving offerings to the ancestors. Don't confuse animism (which is the belief that everything has a spirit) with shamanism (which is the practice of contacting spirits)

I think we are basically quibbling about terminology here. Or at least, we need to settle terminology before we can work out any real disagreements.

First, I think the way you are using the word animist there is kind of unhelpful. Everyone in Glorantha believes some variant of animism, I think (even the Brithini, sort of - they think it’s an Error, but they thin’ it’s a pernicious Error because the magic works, but for the wrong reasons). Rather, I’m using animism as a synonym for what the Guide calls Spirit Magic (a term I avoid due to its varying use within various RuneQuest editions), one of the four big magic methods. Which I think is what you are calling shamanism, the generic magic of spirit contact - but I don’t like using the term shamanism if there isn’t a shaman involved, and not all contact with the spirit world, or all Spirit Traditions, require a shaman (ie Storm Bull is animist, but not shamanist, because they have magic involving spirits, but no shamans). 

So, when I say the Orlanthi aren’t very animist, I’m talking about their magical methods than their beliefs. They believe in spirits all over the place, it’s just not a sensible way of doing magic compared to godly worship rites. And I certainly 

And when I use the term Ancestor Worship (inconsistently capitalising the w because I didn’t anticipate this terminological confusion) I mean the tradition Formerly Known As Daka Fal, known as Ancestor Worship in GoG, and assumed to be the basis of the many similar traditions (all animist, as they have Spirit Rune). The Orlanthi, by contrast, mostly just practice ancestor worship, that is they worship their ancestors, generally in a plain simple way of offering them worship without expecting much back in return (though on Ancestor Day and other specials occasions it becomes more interactive).  

[Joerg]

I think that the "three strictly separate worlds" doctrine caused much harm to the way the Heortlings were portrayed. "It's dreadful spirit magic, we cannot defend against that" is a common theme in King of Dragon Pass when a shaman goes against the clan. There may be such clans, but I don't think that they are the norm.

Unlike Hero Wars or HeroQuest, in RuneQuest it was considered normal for an Orlanthi to go to a shaman rather than traveling to a more distant temple for learning a spirit spell. These friendly or at least approachable shamans must be around somewhere, and not all of them will be without family ties to this world. There will be clans who have shaman members, and if they keep to the wilder parts of the tula, that still makes them no different from hunters or herdsmen.

What does it take to cast an Axis Mundi, and how does the caster renew those points from their rune pool? Is it a zero sum game, with the added opportunity for a POW gain roll?

Does the caster have to be a full shaman? If you have the Axis Mundi, it serves as the conduit that the shaman-fetch connection provides otherwise. An unguarded conduit will allow random access for all kinds of hostile spirits, but the Axis Mundi should filter the eligible spirits down to ancestors of the participants of the rite. If those include hostile spirits, having a shaman or similar spirit defenses at the ready is a good idea, but otherwise a retired hearth mistress should be able to perform such services, and have libation offerings or similar for notoriously ill-mannered ancestors.

 

Do the Brithini ascribe to animism? I think that their doctrine says that there is (tappable) energy in everything, and that animists and theists make the mistake to endow these energies with personalities that don't have any business in that place, leading to strange feedback loops enslaving themselves to the idols they made. A sorcerer with his mystic vision active will be able to observe a spirit or soul leaving a body, as a pattern or potential of (tappable) energy shifting its state of embodiment. In the case of multiple souls, the sorcerer may observe this pattern unravel into subpatterns moving on to certain runes, possibly only after a seven day grace period when the pattern can be restored. Brithini sorcerers know how to re-implant such a pattern into a body once it has been repaired of the damage that caused the pattern to leave in the first place. They might know ways to stabilize a pattern to keep it from deteriorating while preparing the actual resurrection.

Still, the Brithini procedure is subject to losses and risks, and doesn't always succeed completely, or at all.

I would be interested in Brithini observations of how such a pattern enters Solace and disperses there - there should be such observations.

Hrestoli sects believe in reincarnation. They should have similar access to observation of deaths and what happens afterwards, although I am not sure they possess the resurrection spells of the Brithini any more. Froalar's sorcerers probably still had that knowledge, but repeated foreign overlordship may have led to losses in the body of knowledge of the Malkioni sorcerers.

[soltakss]

On 2/26/2018 at 5:46 AM, davecake said:

They don’t get to see them on Ancestor day as part of Clan rites, but if they became true Ancestor worshippers (which would be unusual because Ancestor worship is still a shamanic tradition and so rare among the Heortlings), they would be able to contact them just fine. The problem isn’t clan membership, it’s about having a shaman who is in your bloodline to lead the rites. 

I don't necessarily agree that Ancestor Worship is always shamanic in nature.

In Prax and among Trolls, it is, perhaps also amongst Pentians.

Dara Happan Yelmites who trace their ancestors back to Yelm or other Solar Deities don't worship in shamanic terms, I would see them as having an established Family Tree that they give worship to, or they worship individual ancestors or heroes. The Clan would provide the structure of the cult and together the Ancestral clan would provide magic.

Orlanthi have a very strong Clan background and identify with their Clan. It is not too great a stretch to have Orlanthi worshipping the Clan Ancestors as a whole, or as a collective, in a theistic way rather than shamanically.

 

[jeffjerwin]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

I don't necessarily agree that Ancestor Worship is always shamanic in nature.

In Prax and among Trolls, it is, perhaps also amongst Pentians.

Dara Happan Yelmites who trace their ancestors back to Yelm or other Solar Deities don't worship in shamanic terms, I would see them as having an established Family Tree that they give worship to, or they worship individual ancestors or heroes. The Clan would provide the structure of the cult and together the Ancestral clan would provide magic.

Orlanthi have a very strong Clan background and identify with their Clan. It is not too great a stretch to have Orlanthi worshipping the Clan Ancestors as a whole, or as a collective, in a theistic way rather than shamanically.

 

Interesting take. Duke Raus' ancestor worship was represented as spirit magic in Borderlands, though that's long been superseded. KoDP treated spirit worship as identical to theistic worship. My sense is that ancestor cults have never been represented, however, in game, as providing rune-level magics - more the quotidian magics that are both practical and easier. In the real world, ancestor cults are clearly linked to family shrines, heirlooms, and graves, which all suggest that they should be treated as a wyter-like praxis.

[davecake]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

I don't necessarily agree that Ancestor Worship is always shamanic in nature.

I don’t think all ancestor worship is shamanic in nature, but I was using Ancestor Worship as by definition shamanic in nature. That is, I was using Ancestor Wirship as the collective name for the multiple Man and Spirit Rune based traditions, all of which I think are more or less identical, and the Spirit Rune indicates are shamanic. Variously Daka Fall, Old Man and Old Woman, Ebe, Iste, and probably a bunc( of other names too, including Darhudan and Grandfather Mortal. Most of the time when someone is an ancestor worshipper, I think that it’s that tradition or a close variant. 

But there are other ways to magically interact with the ancestors that are outside that near universal tradition. The Orlanthi do seem to interact with them as a clan, though it’s unclear quite how it works - the specific question would seem to be do the interact with the ancestors as a clan, or as a group of bloodlines. 

I certainly think that cultures we do not think of as animist still do ancestor worship, and probably also Ancestor Worship. And interestingly, though it is a shamanic tradition, it may be sustainable without shamans, as long as someone with the Axis Mundi spell is around. 

 

33 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

My sense is that ancestor cults have never been represented, however, in game, as providing rune-level magics -

I don’t know how to interpret that, because it’s obvious that in RQ2 and RQ3 the cult was written up with a full complement of Rune spells. Quite practically useful ones, too. 

[jeffjerwin]

2 hours ago, davecake said:

 

I don’t know how to interpret that, because it’s obvious that in RQ2 and RQ3 the cult was written up with a full complement of Rune spells. Quite practically useful ones, too. 

Yeah, I was misremembering. My fault for relying on my old brain rather than looking at the books...

 

Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder why Daka Fal gets divine magic in RQ... In the new RQ I'd be inclined to have it grant spirit magic and use rituals - trained Magic Skills - to do everything else that the older editions used rune or divine magic for; shamanic magic tends to be ritually intensive. DF and all the other ancestors are Great Spirits or Spirits, after all...

Edited February 28, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[davecake]

6 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder why Daka Fal gets divine magic in RQ.

Because there is a subtle difference between ideas like theism (an abstract concept) and Rune/Divine magic (a game concept), that may or may not represent important truths of Glorantha. Many of the interesting parts of animism are implemented, in RQ2 and RQ3, using divine magic rules (not just Ancestor Worship, essentially every interesting Animist tradition has Rune spells in those games, eg all the Hsunchen transformation spells). That might indicate that animism and theism are concepts that overlap somewhat and one can develop into the other, or it might indicate that the animism magic rules in RQ2&3 are somewhat underdeveloped and not capable of representing the range of magical effects that Gloranthan animism is capable of, or both (I tend towards both). 

6 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

In the new RQ I'd be inclined to have it grant spirit magic and use rituals - trained Magic Skills - to do everything else that the older editions used rune or divine magic for; shamanic magic tends to be ritually intensive.

The Mythras animism rules show that you could have animism rules that are capable of performing a much wider range of magical effects purely from using spirits rather than spells, which would reduce the need for every animist tradition to have Rune spells in RQ. RQG does not seem to have done much of this, and seems to be basically heading down the RQ2/3 route but with more interesting shamans. There are a bunch of reasons why they may have chosen to that route, some of them quite sensible, but it does mean that we shouldn’t take the use of Rune spells as necessarily implying a tradition being more or less animist if that is how the rules have to work.

i think all forms of magic are pretty ritually intensive, but usually provide you with really useful magic you can use in the moment as well. Ancestor Worship is no different - you can use its magic to have an ancestor help you out in an emergency, and it’s pretty good for certain emergencies (like being threatened by enem6 spirits). Quite how this is implemented in game may vary, but we shouldn’t expect any game to be a perfect simulationist rendition of Glorantha. 

 

[Joerg]

I wonder why everyone is so sure that ancestor worship deals with spirits. Where do these ancestors that can be called in before they get re-incarnated reside?

If it is an Underworld (not necessarily the charred Wonderhome that now is Yelm's underground realm, but possibly a spirit home like Aldrya's Depths, Ty Kora Tek's cavern, or other such places), it is a place where there is no clear division between spirits, divine entities, or even sorcerous essences (although the latter tend to regard the Underworld as antithetical to their state of energy patterns).

The Axis Mundi pierces the veil to wherever these ancestors reside. If there are plenty Orlanthi among the Praxians, as David pulled the numbers, these would have another Afterlife in addition to the Great Herd, which is Karulinoran in the Gods World (beyond the Hero Planes, although the usual starting point into the planes for Orlanthi questers).

 

As an aside, what happens when an ancestor re-incarnates as a new child? Do the descendants lose contact to the remains of individuality that reside in the respective afterlives? The re-incarnated ancestor will be a different individual, sharing some, but almost always not all traits of their former existence. (The reborn incarnations of Mani of the Rubble are a significant exception to this. If they still are canonical.)

 

In most Afterlives, Death causes a (degree of) loss of individuality, or at least a severe change thereof. Brithini expect complete dissolution of their individuality patterns of thought and energy in Solace. It is unclear whether they expect to be able to contact their grandparents who lived before Death entered the world in one of the Hero Planes. Being the Logician tribe and big on fixing Thought and Logic in documents, the Brithini might consult diaries (or something similar, possibly obituaries collected when they died) of their ancestors as a way of both honoring their ancestors and of learning from them.

 

There are Hrestoli (and hence there were Makanists) believing in re-incarnation. Orthodox Zzaburists don't/mustn't, and Rokari mustn't.

We know that Zzabur cleansed his doctrine by sending out the dissidents, much in the same way the Protestants of Europe used the USA as a dump for their weirder cousins in confession. I am not convinced that Zzabur would regard the Arolanit Brithini as equals to those he decided to keep under his let's say benevolence. Of the rest of these emigrants, most joined their (then Hrestoli) cousins on the mainland, with only tentative emigrants to Sog City/Akem or Arolanit and maybe God Forgot able to continue a Brithini existence resisting old age by going through the ancient motions, aging ever so slowly. It isn't clear whether any of the Second Age emigrants from Brithos died of old age before the cataclysms ended the Middle Sea Empire and the lives of millions of its inhabitants.

Quite a lot of these emigrants ended up in the parts of Seshnela and Jrustela which were claimed by the cataclysms that sank much of the God Learner empire (starting 1049 with the arrival of the Luatha), but there were survivors from those cataclysms in Genertela at least, flooding into safer places like Tanisor, and exile Brithini may very well have been among those.

 

The Guide statement on Hrestoli belief in re-incarnation is bloody obscure, and it seems to contradict the Malkioni doctrine we are served in the chapter on Western culture. However, that chapter is written mostly from a Rokari perspective, with some mentions how the New Idealist Hrestoli differ from that. While this does cover the official religious doctrine of the vast majority of Malkioni in Glorantha, neither Rokarism nor New Hrestoli Idealism are direct successors of the previous practices, but there may be significant numbers of only outwardly converted Malkioni. Southern Seshnela definitely has these, as per Guide, e.g. among the Pithdarans. But the Galvosti are a branch of Hrestolism that departed from Seshnelan orthodoxy possibly in the Gbaji Wars or the interregnum that preceded it, which means that this belief in re-incarnation may have been a Dawn Age development, or even older.

 

I wonder about Hrestol and his mother, Xemela. Xemela is counted among the Ascended Masters of Malkionism, which does seem to imply some continued existence, if not of her individuality, then maybe of her thoughts and teachings, the essence of her mind. To the Logicians, this might be a form of philosophical afterlife. Xemela's self-sacrifice falls into the Grey Age, IMO, possibly starting it for the Seshnegi colonies.

Maybe the "ancestors worshipped by the people of Seshneg as if they were gods" were these ascended masters. And just possibly many of the Danmalastan ancestors might somehow have qualified in their closeness to Malkion, so that this ancestor worship is somehow limited to those whose manifestations of their minds still are in any way approachable. Similar to the idea of Brithini obituaries for those who they lost.

Sorcerers will be quick to point out that the energy patterns that they see making up the minds of individuals are far from identical to such conserved expressions of these minds. They might also claim that a re-incarnation of the energies that made up a mind won't be in a pattern that they could identify with the former person's mind. But do they have the ultimate authority and knowledge about the world?

 

Exposure to chthonic practices (which include a belief in re-incarnation) comes already with the marriages of Malkion to the mothers of the Caste ancestors, especially Dronar's (or Dromal's) mother, Kala. These names come tied to (but left out of) the Brithos text in Revealed Mythology p.25f, the canonicity of which I doubted but which @Jeff pronounced True and Canonical for the Malkioni, alongside that much longer Zzaburist diatribe that precedes it, so the canonicity of Phlia, Kala and other wives of Malkion are a bit in doubt, but Jelela (mentioned  as mother of Waertag) survives in the name of the city of Jelelawal in Arolanit.
When the Guide says that Hrestoli sects believe in re-incarnation, it might simply mean that this is a thing the Rokari suppressed, and anything non-Rokari is easily subsumed in terms like Hrestoli or, if applicable, Stygian. In this case, it looks like a pre-Stygian notion which may be present in various Stygian creeds, too, although there the notion may as well have come from the non-Malkioni influences.

 

Another potential source for this belief comes from Hykimi Ancestor Worship that may have been adapted to the beast warrior societies which even the Rokari did not dissolve, despite their blatantly Hsunchen origin. It might be a case of "Wolf Runners" changing from Telmori to the warband which claims to have exterminated the Telmori (one of the weirder things in the Argrath Saga, and one I don't quite think of as true), but more likely is a post- (and counter-) factual declaration of such.

So, we have both the Warrior Caste (if maybe only post-Brithini) and the Farmer/Workman Caste (already Brithini or pre-Brithini) with a good access to ancestor worship and re-incarnation proof. That covers 98% of the Malkioni.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Joerg
The bloody editor got stuck and didn't allow linebreaks any more...

[jeffjerwin]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Another potential source for this belief comes from Hykimi Ancestor Worship that may have been adapted to the beast warrior societies which even the Rokari did not dissolve, despite their blatantly Hsunchen origin. It might be a case of "Wolf Runners" changing from Telmori to the warband which claims to have exterminated the Telmori (one of the weirder things in the Argrath Saga, and one I don't quite think of as true), but more likely is a post- (and counter-) factual declaration of such.

I'd like to discuss this, but it's off topic. Can we start a new thread on the wolf runners? This is the first I've heard of this. I thought Argrath simply extirpated the Telmori.

[davecake]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

I wonder why everyone is so sure that ancestor worship deals with spirits.

Well, the tradition also has the Spirit Rune. 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. 

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. . 

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

We know that Zzabur cleansed his doctrine by sending out the dissidents,

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

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

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Being the Logician tribe and big on fixing Thought and Logic in documents, the Brithini might consult diaries (or something similar, possibly obituaries collected when they died) of their ancestors as a way of both honoring their ancestors and of learning from them.

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. 

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

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

Xemela is counted among the Ascended Masters of Malkionism, which does seem to imply some continued existence, if not of her individuality, then maybe of her thoughts and teachings, the essence of her mind. To the Logicians, this might be a form of philosophical afterlife.

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. 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). 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.

(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 )

 

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Maybe the "ancestors worshipped by the people of Seshneg as if they were gods" were these ascended masters

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

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

And just possibly many of the Danmalastan ancestors might somehow have qualified in their closeness to Malkion, so that this ancestor worship is somehow limited to those whose manifestations of their minds still are in any way approachable.

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. 

[scott-martin]

58 minutes ago, davecake said:

if it’s not linguistic, it’s not Reason.

Is it possible within brithinist circles to lie in writing? If so, where does the prospect of error creep in?

In terms of the ancestors, I can't help but note that many of the spirits available through conventional (praxian) Daka Fal have rune magic they can presumably cast on behalf of a compelling summoner, so it's possible to call up people who don't share your religious or magical framework. If the lineage bond is strong enough, they give you de facto access to rune magic even though you personally are not acquainted with the divine source of that spell. (Since Cults of Prax explicitly mentions the possibility of a baboon ancestor recalling 7 Mothers magic there may even be a case for transmigration or extratemporal connections . . . you never know what qualifies as the lineage bond if you're a powerful or lucky enough spirit medium, as the Samyutta Nikaya observes, "It's hard to meet someone who has not been, at some time in the distant past, your mother, father, son, daughter, sister, or brother" and so may be theoretically available.)

This once-removed access to the broader universe of rune magic resembles Issaries spell trading in some ways, which conceals a Secret about the talking god as psychopomp, the origins of money, etc. Fetish and commodity.

On hrestolist "transmigration," I suspect they had their pythagorites and orphites in various places and various times, feeding the common religious vocabulary they all have to draw on now. (Everything that has been written about the West may not be True Today but has been argued, sometimes passionately and compellingly, by somebody on the lozenge.) At a guess the New Idealists are less concerned about where you go when you die because the parousia has already happened and the kingdom is already here, everything is a deeper revelation of JOY. Others have to find JOY in the dust of memory and the early days obsessed over in god learner maps.

When I was a child I thought SOLACE was the condition of being liberated from the cycle of energy in matter . . . good brithinists didn't come back, there was no communicable afterlife, dead is gone and that's either a horror or a relief. Of course this is a moot point if you're doing it right because we all know good brithinists live forever. (They would never, ever lie to us, in writing or otherwise.) The next best thing given those premises -- the consolation or "solace" -- is that if you do it wrong, the dance stops. I could talk for days about Xemela in this context but doubt it would be useful to anyone.

My current question is whether "ancestors" can teach sorcery or simply retain their ability and, with the right cajoling and geometric prompting, work their dead magic on your behalf in the here and now. Obviously within zzaburist circles this is somewhere between fallacy and blasphemy but if you do have a dead blue somewhere in your line, is he accessible? Or do the sorcerers make sure that they won't be called up? Is this part of what they call "solace" (maldek) or what we're calling "book" here?

Edited February 28, 2018 by scott-martin
western necromancy and publishing

[davecake]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

s it possible within brithinist circles to lie in writing? If so, where does the prospect of error creep in?

Absolutely. Just ask any Brithini, and they will tell you that the Vadeli lie all the time. 

[Yelm's Light]

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

...much in the same way the Protestants of Europe used the USA as a dump for their weirder cousins in confession.

Now there's an interesting rewrite of history...

[scott-martin]

2 minutes ago, davecake said:

Absolutely. Just ask any Brithini, and they will tell you that the Vadeli lie all the time. 

Do the vadeli have books? How do we distinguish between books that lie and the ones that contain all knowledge worth preserving? Or rather, who distinguishes for us?

[davecake]

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:My current question is whether "ancestors" can teach sorcery or simply retain their ability and, with the right cajoling and geometric prompting, work their dead magic on your behalf in the here and now.

We had a chat at Eternal Con a couple of years ago about Ancestor Worship with @Jeff and others that discussed this. I don’t think ancestors can transfer knowledge of sorcery skills etc magically, but they can use their if they are eg possessing someone, or can give much useful advice. 

I suspect this is pretty rare and covert among most Malkioni, and heretical for many. But it can be a very effective tactic for a lineage of sorcerers, and I think happens in both Fonrit and Kralorela. Very handy to call up your adept great-grandfather for a chat. 

There is a really nasty bunch in Fonrit I’m writing up currently. They are both ancestor worshippers and sorcerers, they believe slavery does not end with death, and they have spells like Dominate Ghost and Tap POW. They have a form of ‘immortality’ by Tapping the POW of slaves to almost nothing then having their ancestors possess them to live again. 

[scott-martin]

7 minutes ago, davecake said:

slavery does not end with death

Love it! To me this is exactly the kind of thing the Renewed are really fighting against. What the "rebels" want is liberation for the dead, one descendant at a time.

Edited February 28, 2018 by scott-martin

[davecake]

9 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Do the vadeli have books? How do we distinguish between books that lie and the ones that contain all knowledge worth preserving? Or rather, who distinguishes for us?

Yes, the Vadeli have books I think. 

Distinguishing between books that lie, books that contain useful knowledge, and those that are in between in a difficult business that has taken a fair bit of Malkioni history. There are a number of methods, but you are always torn between a too liberal policy meaning some books will be in error, and a conservative policy meaning you will reject something important, 

and There is always the question of how to interpret a book. Literally, metaphorically, magically, cryptically. I think they do use methods like Geomatria for example,  it not consistently. And there is deliberate use of obscure symbolism, steganography, etc to hide knowledge from the profane. It’s possible that sects may interpret books differently. Tomaris may be the Gloranthan Pythagoras, with the Rokari reading him only for his maths texts. 

[jeffjerwin]

2 minutes ago, davecake said:

Yes, the Vadeli have books I think. 

Distinguishing between books that lie, books that contain useful knowledge, and those that are in between in a difficult business that has taken a fair bit of Malkioni history. There are a number of methods, but you are always torn between a too liberal policy meaning some books will be in error, and a conservative policy meaning you will reject something important, 

and There is always the question of how to interpret a book. Literally, metaphorically, magically, cryptically. I think they do use methods like Geomatria for example,  it not consistently. And there is deliberate use of obscure symbolism, steganography, etc to hide knowledge from the profane. It’s possible that sects may interpret books differently. Tomaris may be the Gloranthan Pythagoras, with the Rokari reading him only for his maths texts. 

This reminds me of bibliomancy, and the book and key magic of European folklore. I suspect the Abiding Book could be used the same way. See here: http://newenglandfolklore.blogspot.com/2012/08/fortune-telling-with-key.html