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RQ Sorcery


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3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The concept of "rune ownership" strikes me as such an odd element of Glorantha. It feels decidedly "gamey". Why would the Malkioni acknowledge Arachne Solara as beyond the Invisible God, or how would Brithini acknowledge the runes as separate entities from the Erasanchulas that are presented as the literal runes with sentience? Does a worshipper of Entekos just roll over and go "oh yeah, our goddess is the mistress of air, the lungs of the world, the giver of life and good hue - but that angry hill barbarian god is the true owner of the rune of air because this poster says so, I guess."

I dunno, I just find it bizarre.

EDIT: I know one can write it off as more God Learner systematizing, but it's still an odd one to me.

Apart from a few mistakes about the current owners of Illusion and Disorder, these God Learner runic closeness assessment have not been disproven by experiment even though there have been powerful detractors attempting to do just that.

The Monomyth is true to some extent, and abstracting it as runes has reduced the inherent errors even further. Ease of identification may suffer in such an environment, however. But approaching these truths from a local myth will bring you across the barrier and into the environment to work those local variations into the story for your benefit as a quester.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I dunno man, it's just really weird that Issaries would be some kind of lozengal entity in ownership of the communication rune even in the East Isles and stuff like that. And how apparently the Invisible God is the "owner" of the Law rune even though the Invisible God is transcendent of the runic lattice/cosmos in several of the Malkioni philosophies, and so on. As said earlier, it just strikes me as game design pretending to be worldbuilding, and it stands out like a sore thumb to me. Or put otherwise - it's one of those "why did this need to be explained?" kind of things. Did runes need to have "owners"? Is that an essential part of Glorantha's ontology? Not from what I've see so far. Sure, some Malkioni will see the runes as being Erasanchulas, but that doesn't need they have to be paired with specific instances of said runic deity, imho.

Maybe I'm just being contrarian. It's just one of a few things I'd remove if I were ever to get into DMing for Glorantha.

 

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2 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

it's just really weird that Issaries would be some kind of lozengal entity in ownership of the communication rune even in the East Isles and stuff like that.

I think it is very much a "game" thing as you noted.  The question is really:  what does "ownership" signify?

The original "owners" were effectively the first emanations or "intelligences" of those Runes.  Acos is Stasis/Stability, Kargan Tor is Separation, Uleria is Fertility/Life, etc.

Most of those beings are gone - destroyed or "killed" in the Gods War, or perhaps just chopped up into the fragments/threads of those Runes that permeate the world.

The new "owners" would appear to be those entities that have collected, gathered, or utilized the "most" or "best" of that Rune.  That might not be the best way to phrase it, and it probably depends on the Rune.  Humakt is Death, therefore is the Separation of the mortal body and the spirit/soul.  Is he all Separation?  No, I don't think so, but he seems to have the most powers of Separation.  Only Uleria retains herself as the original emanation of a Rune.

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9 hours ago, Joerg said:

Revealed Mythologies p.17:

Actually no.  I just read it and nowhere does it mention individuals randomly achieving henosis with the Invisible God.  It mentions Hrestol finding Joy, but Hrestol was already well immersed in the tradition, and not someone struck randomly with the insight.

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

This means that the ordinary worshipper can experience Joy. No wizardry training necessary, not even the Men-of-All kind.

Xemela is ranked among the Ascended Masters. She was a queen, not a sorceress.

Not quite.  According to the most complete write-up of the Hrestoli in "Tales of the Reaching Moon #13", ordinary worshipers and non-Hrestoli can achieve Solace, not Joy, and there is a big difference between the two.  As to Queen Xemela the same information covers the fact that Farmers get a sorcery spell every 5 years, and that women enjoy the same social status as their husbands, making her a Lord, and therefore above even the Hrestoli Adepts in terms of access to sorcery and training.  The articles in question were co-authored by Greg and Sandy and provide more detail than the Revealed Mythologies on the subject.

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

As far as I know, there is no source stating this plainly.

http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Chaos

The Kralori believe that it is void out there, but that the void is a source of both bliss and Chaos  .  Earlier cosmologies talked about The Chaosium being the source of chaos in Glorantha. The Orlanthi believe that outside Glorantha is chaos, and given the horrors that mystics regularly inflict upon the world, the Orlanthi are probably right.  The Dragonewt mythology speaks about the Ouroboros being born out of the void, then fighting the Orxili (Chaos), and from the dismembered remains of Orxili the ancestral dragons of being were born. In summary, there are two things out there, void and chaos, and both are bad.  Mystics think that void is good, and that is how the chaos sneaks in.  Also, chaos uses the void as a weapon to destroy the world as one can witness when faced by the Crimson Bat or the Hydra.

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

My Gloranthan cosmology differs:

The Sky Dome comes in layers, and the one visible in blue throughout the day and in black throughout the night is just an inner shell, with several more layers to come. The far side of all the dome layers is Dayzatar's realm of contemplation, probably witnessing the emanations of the Void but infinitely distant from them. There is no entropy leaking in to Dayzatar's Realm except possibly where the Gods War may have left punctures, but given the fact that the Sky had been ably defended against Chaos by Orlanth, such wounds are unlikely.  There is plasma out there, pure flame. Bright, but transparent.

You can't be distant from a void that is all around you.  As to chaos leaking into the world from the Sky, there is the Dark Spot, and that is trouble waiting to happen.  And yes, there is entropy leaking into Dayzatar's Realm, because it too is subject to Time and the Compromise, but Gods themselves don't notice it as much as mortals who are continuously and subtly destroyed by it from the day they are born.

10 hours ago, Joerg said:

 

Nice quote, but from the Animism/Shamanism section.

P.16 (the Sorcery section) offers a different definition, IMO way more pertinent to the discussion of Joy:

And that's a Zzaburite perspective, not a Hrestoli or Rokari Malkioni one, describing the Invisible God.

LOL good point. Of course most of the discord among the monotheists is about their differing ideas about what the Ultimate is and how to deal with it.  But points to you, they are definitely mainly dualist and transcendent.  

So lets talk about Joy as you suggest:

Immeasurable Plane: Joy, the One Plane
From here came Creation, the First Action. It is beyond the comprehension of most people, but can be reached by transcendent religious practices. Hrestol taught the Joy of the Heart as a method for the faithful to experience this level, which is otherwise unattainable. (P56 Arcane Lore).

We also know that St Tomaris and the Zendamalthan School say they achieved Joy of the Heart through the study of Geometry and Mathematics.  They must have been very happy siege engineers.

We also know that the Rokari have dismissed Joy of the Heart as a mere spell.

When in doubt, I find that it is always best to trust in what the critics say.  And that would suggest that Joy of the Heart probably isn't that powerful, if the Rokari are to be believed.  We can certainly say that if the Rokari can dismiss it as a spell, it isn't illumination.

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Not quite.  According to the most complete write-up of the Hrestoli in "Tales of the Reaching Moon #13", ordinary worshipers and non-Hrestoli can achieve Solace, not Joy, and there is a big difference between the two. 

There are things in the Guide that are missing from the Tales version of the Hrestoli, and there is this entire "not a church" business which relegated Ttrotsky's "Kingdom of the Flamesword" and "The Book of Glorious Joy" to Alternate Glorantha.

 

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As to Queen Xemela the same information covers the fact that Farmers get a sorcery spell every 5 years, and that women enjoy the same social status as their husbands, making her a Lord, and therefore above even the Hrestoli Adepts in terms of access to sorcery and training.  The articles in question were co-authored by Greg and Sandy and provide more detail than the Revealed Mythologies on the subject.

The articles in Tales are also long in the tooth, based on yet different assumptions, and written before Revealed Mythologies and Middle Sea Empire revealed and refined these Malkioni concepts to that detail, although the authors had access to some of that material.

While I agree that this is the best publication for RQ available, it hasn't taken in subsequent discoveries.

 

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Not the best article on the Wikia, combining a bit of factual statement with a description of bias in the definition:

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The destructive force which is equal to the absolute evil for most cultures.

Very placative, a mission statement, but not really a definition.

 

 

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In your interpretation, this should read "Glorantha exists as a bubble in Chaos."

Your cosmos is also very simplistic, basically a three-dimensional object in a three-dimensional environment. But the topology of Glorantha is not such an easy Cartesian or Polar Coordinate model with Chaos on the outside, or meaningful measurements of distance or size once you leave the Inner World. See below.

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The Kralori believe that it is void out there, but that the void is a source of both bliss and Chaos  . 

Yes. Both bliss and Chaos and the raw stuff for Creation comes into the Cosmos through the Chaosium. IMO this is the most objective of all the views you quoted here.

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Earlier cosmologies talked about The Chaosium being the source of chaos in Glorantha.

The Guide p.162 says that it is the source of Chaos monstrosities as well as raw, unformed stuff (i.e. the raw material for Creation).

That deep down in the Underworld, monstrosities are the rule, not the exception, and most of them don't need Chaos to be monstrous.

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The Orlanthi believe that outside Glorantha is chaos, and given the horrors that mystics regularly inflict upon the world, the Orlanthi are probably right. 

The Orlanthi have been instrumental in inficting these horrors as much as the mystics of other origins. Their god (and his father) started the Gods War.

On the whole, you should have presented your text as "We Orlanthi (and Malkioni)" rather than in the third person.

 

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The Dragonewt mythology speaks about the Ouroboros being born out of the void, then fighting the Orxili (Chaos), and from the dismembered remains of Orxili the ancestral dragons of being were born. In summary, there are two things out there, void and chaos, and both are bad. 

So Ouroboros was born from Bad, and so were the Dragons? The dragons come from bad, and they strive to rejoin the bad?

Sounds like a biased outsider point of view rather than an internal meaning of that mythology.

 

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Mystics think that void is good, and that is how the chaos sneaks in. 

Failed mystics might associate the Void with good or evil. True mystics have experienced how meaningless those attributes are for the Void and what lies beyond.

 

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Also, chaos uses the void as a weapon to destroy the world as one can witness when faced by the Crimson Bat or the Hydra.

That's (the power of) Kajabor - the transition from Being to total Annihilation. The dissolution is Chaos. Whether whatever was affected joins the Void or not is not really a meaningful distinction.

 

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You can't be distant from a void that is all around you. 

If the Void would obey simple Cartesian or polar coordinates, it wouldn't be the Void. Your cosmological model of Void or Chaos like a liquid into which the ball of the Cosmos is submerged is too simplistic.

For a different model, consider the Void as a liquid and the Cosmos as a ball swimming on it, anchored down by the Chaosium, with an outer vague surface where stuff from the Void may creep up when not contained at the contact area. There are huge and horrible monsters down there, dealing with huge and horrible monsters coming up from that contact area.

Disorder is strong down there, being the least susceptible to the massive onslaught of Chaos. Darkness and Dark Waters are preeminent down there, doing their jobs. Separation aka Death is constantly challenged by Chaos, and when it fails, the other forces might be able to deal with an incursion. Liberating Death from the contact area may have been the cause why Chaos had an easier time to creep in and up the outer, hardly defined realms of the world and to intrude to known strongholds of the Unholy Trio.

But on the whole, you get a fuzzy, fractal semi-reality of Darkness, Sea, Storm and Sky beyond the Outer World as described shortly in the Guide. You don't get the Void, but the conditions out there are so weird that entering them unprepared and unprotected is lethal.

What you don't get is the naked Void, only a view of it.

On the far end of the bubble, you have the eternal source of energies, opposite of the source of raw matter (the Chaosium). All the true Otherworlds, whether the Hero Planes aka the cyclical Time parts that continue to exist parallel to the Inner World or the God Realms or the Essence Plane or the Spirit World all connect to that source and have permanence. Then there are (or used to be) Short Worlds, possibly temporary reality, which don't connect directly to the Absolute but which receive its energy indirectly via the Middle World. It is possible that much of Avanapdur's Realm was such.

The Absolute may be an aspect of the Void, part of it, or reachable through it as well as through all the layers of Creation and pre-Creation. Confrontation with it or even only with its lesser, Immanent aspect is the existential crisis triggered by the Mystical Bolt.

In my very limited understanding, the Absolute is part of the Void, too, but with a purpose, unlike the stuff that seeps in through the bottom.

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As to chaos leaking into the world from the Sky, there is the Dark Spot, and that is trouble waiting to happen.  And yes, there is entropy leaking into Dayzatar's Realm, because it too is subject to Time and the Compromise, but Gods themselves don't notice it as much as mortals who are continuously and subtly destroyed by it from the day they are born.

Dayzatar's realm lies at the edge of reality, but IMO not at the edge of the Void, and while it is about the furthest you can get from the Chaosium (at least of outermost Glorantha), it isn't necessarily any closer to the Ultimate than the e.g. heart of the Earth.

 

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LOL good point. Of course most of the discord among the monotheists is about their differing ideas about what the Ultimate is and how to deal with it.  But points to you, they are definitely mainly dualist and transcendent.  

Dualist in the sense of energy vs. matter, yes. Dualist in the sense that the Creator of the material world is evil - IMO generally not, not even in Loskalm: Irensavalism is a tolerated heresy rather than mainstream New Idealist Hrestolism, and a variant thereof is active in Carmania, more or less merged with the Lunar Way.

 

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So lets talk about Joy as you suggest:

Immeasurable Plane: Joy, the One Plane
From here came Creation, the First Action. It is beyond the comprehension of most people, but can be reached by transcendent religious practices. Hrestol taught the Joy of the Heart as a method for the faithful to experience this level, which is otherwise unattainable. (P56 Arcane Lore).

Yes. Transcendent practices, not sorcerous practices. Meditation, or ecstatic communion, which is a phenomenon also known in branches of Christianity, which can be triggered by participation in the rites, by personal seeker quests/pilgrimages, by asceticism.

 

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We also know that St Tomaris and the Zendamalthan School say they achieved Joy of the Heart through the study of Geometry and Mathematics.  They must have been very happy siege engineers.

The experience of the transcendent can result in an euphoria, and to be able to write a triumphant QED under pages of highly abstract calculations can, too. Siege engineering problems or civil engineering problems, or the exact calculation of the Southpath, possibly under the influence of substances which help focussing and doing calculations and supporting construction lines etc. purely in your mind may cause enough of a trance-like state of mind, entering the zone. Similar experiences can be made by musicians and composers, artists, lovers, etc.

Joy is a term associated with positive feelings.

 

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We also know that the Rokari have dismissed Joy of the Heart as a mere spell.

A mere spell inducing both euphoria and a huge boost to whatever the recipient attempts to do. But then the Breaking of the World also was a mere spell of Zzabur's, and quite a few other world-moving feats were, too. In the materialist world-view of the Rokari, spells are an expression of the ultimate logic, one of the highest expressions of the one mind one can experience.

Any Rokari who experiences Joy will be in a quandary. They can remain silent about their experience(s) and adhere to the forms and rites of Rokari philosophy by rote if not by persuasion, or they can exchange their elation from the experiences with like-minded folk, the old creed Malkioni lorded over by the Rokari watchers but still knowing how their Old Church faith valued such insights. At least in my Glorantha, the Rokari philosophy has a hard time to eradicate the promise of re-incarnation that the Hrestoli creeds offer, creating lots of hidden Old Church adherents wherever the Watchers aren't looking. In Pithdaros there are strong Hrestoli sentiments in probably only surface Rokari congregations, and the same likely goes for many of the provinces outside of Rindland and Tanisor.

 

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When in doubt, I find that it is always best to trust in what the critics say.  And that would suggest that Joy of the Heart probably isn't that powerful, if the Rokari are to be believed.  We can certainly say that if the Rokari can dismiss it as a spell, it isn't illumination.

Do the Rokari have spells to dispel Joy (I doubt that), or do they just have spells to eliminate the heretic caught experiencing Joy? Simple Illumination doesn't let you refute physical damage, heaviness, or attack spells. It takes much deeper mystical practices to get to a point where weapons or offensive spells fail to interact with you.

Edited by Joerg

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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18 hours ago, Joerg said:

A mere spell inducing both euphoria and a huge boost to whatever the recipient attempts to do. But then the Breaking of the World also was a mere spell of Zzabur's, and quite a few other world-moving feats were, too. In the materialist world-view of the Rokari, spells are an expression of the ultimate logic, one of the highest expressions of the one mind one can experience.

So, Joy becomes a passion?  Passions CAN still be dispelled with a decent spell.  Demoralize for example.  It is hard to be both Joyful and Demoralized at the same time.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Do the Rokari have spells to dispel Joy (I doubt that), or do they just have spells to eliminate the heretic caught experiencing Joy? Simple Illumination doesn't let you refute physical damage, heaviness, or attack spells. It takes much deeper mystical practices to get to a point where weapons or offensive spells fail to interact with you.

It sounds to me as if the Rokari are super effective at dispelling joy wherever they go.  In fact I doubt they even need a spell to do so.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Any Rokari who experiences Joy will be in a quandary. They can remain silent about their experience(s) and adhere to the forms and rites of Rokari philosophy by rote if not by persuasion, or they can exchange their elation from the experiences with like-minded folk, the old creed Malkioni lorded over by the Rokari watchers but still knowing how their Old Church faith valued such insights. At least in my Glorantha, the Rokari philosophy has a hard time to eradicate the promise of re-incarnation that the Hrestoli creeds offer, creating lots of hidden Old Church adherents wherever the Watchers aren't looking. In Pithdaros there are strong Hrestoli sentiments in probably only surface Rokari congregations, and the same likely goes for many of the provinces outside of Rindland and Tanisor.

I think people experience species of Joy every day, for example when a parent watches their baby takes its first step.  That "Kodak moments" kind of joy.  I think the Rokari simply don't elevate it to the status of a sub-deity in its own right.  

More importantly, I think that you have failed to account for the appeal of the Rokari.  If their belief system is so very onerous, why does it have so many followers?  Why has it been able to discredit and remove Hrestoli belief so successfully outside Fronela?  Remember that in Hinduism and Buddhism, reincarnation is an evil that one is subjected to, and not a desirable state at all, as one might well be reincarnated as a bug, not a bodhisatva, based on one wrong comment.  The aim is to get off the wheel of reincarnation, not perpetuate your own suffering.  Orthodox Malkioni don't believe in reincarnation for a good reason.  Why would you return from Solace?  This is why the pantheists  think that Malkioni are soulless. They don't reincarnate.  On the other hand, the Malkioni pity the pagans for much the same reason.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

The articles in Tales are also long in the tooth, based on yet different assumptions, and written before Revealed Mythologies and Middle Sea Empire revealed and refined these Malkioni concepts to that detail, although the authors had access to some of that material.

While I agree that this is the best publication for RQ available, it hasn't taken in subsequent discoveries.

 On the other hand, my response does answer the question of "how did Xemela perform her spell", pretty well.  I mean, are you seriously going to tell me that there is no such thing as a sorceress in the lands of Malkion?  Or that just because a woman is of Talar caste in a fluid caste Hrestoli society that she won't know sorcery?   I strongly doubt it.  Merely claiming  the info is out of date isn't good enough.  Give me a practical reason why Xemela can't know spells when even farmers learn a little sorcery in Hrestoli society.   Xemela WOULD know spells, as a participating member of Hrestoli society, because EVERY Hrestoli gets that opportunity in idealistic and egalitarian Hrestoli society.  That isn't going to change in any future write-up unless someone actively sets about wrecking the canon.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Not the best article on the Wikia, combining a bit of factual statement with a description of bias in the definition:

Very placative, a mission statement, but not really a definition.

So, if it doesn't support your argument, it is biased and not really a definition?  Sour grapes much?  Chaos is a destructive evil force.  Everybody knows that except for Illuminates, who are corrupted by it and have gained the chaos power of "cannot be detected by Sense Chaos, or spirits of retribution".  Chaos may have played a role in creating the world, but now it is simply hostile and destructive to the order that exists.  So in essence, when illumination teaches the illuminate that chaos is not evil or inimical, that is wrong.  A tsunami isn't morally evil, but it is inimical. So mindless chaos might not be morally evil, as it lacks the sentience for moral differentiation, but it is clearly inimical to life and order.  There are very few exceptions to this rule, and most of those exceptions are highly equivocal.  If you don't believe me, try having sex with the Cleansed One and see what happens.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

So Ouroboros was born from Bad, and so were the Dragons? The dragons come from bad, and they strive to rejoin the bad?

Sounds like a biased outsider point of view rather than an internal meaning of that mythology.

My actual point was that even Ouoboros fought and dismembered chaos, because chaos is evil and inimical.  I found your misinterpretation very humorous though.

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

Failed mystics might associate the Void with good or evil. True mystics have experienced how meaningless those attributes are for the Void and what lies beyond.

And by failed mystics, you mean anyone who isn't an illuminate?  Clearly the sucking void is harnessed by Chaos as a weapon.  It's not something that can be denied. When Chaos is finished with its victims, nothing is left, barely even a memory remains. We know this, as there is nothing to even reincarnate when the Crimson Bat eats someone.  So that lucky individual has returned to the void, don't you wish you were them?  Isn't the Lunar Empire's main weapon a glorious thing, offering mystical union with the void to everyone?  Every Illuminate should embrace the opportunity to be fed to the Crimson Bat and experience that wondrous revelation which they have sought for so long.

Edited by Darius West
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On 11/27/2018 at 1:09 AM, jajagappa said:

I think it is very much a "game" thing as you noted.  The question is really:  what does "ownership" signify?

The original "owners" were effectively the first emanations or "intelligences" of those Runes.  Acos is Stasis/Stability, Kargan Tor is Separation, Uleria is Fertility/Life, etc.

Most of those beings are gone - destroyed or "killed" in the Gods War, or perhaps just chopped up into the fragments/threads of those Runes that permeate the world.

The new "owners" would appear to be those entities that have collected, gathered, or utilized the "most" or "best" of that Rune.  That might not be the best way to phrase it, and it probably depends on the Rune.  Humakt is Death, therefore is the Separation of the mortal body and the spirit/soul.  Is he all Separation?  No, I don't think so, but he seems to have the most powers of Separation.  Only Uleria retains herself as the original emanation of a Rune.

The "Owner of the Runes" is part of the God Learner understanding of Gloranthan mythology, although it is based on the Orange Book of Zzabur. Many sorcerous texts used these gods in the similar way as RW alchemical, astrological, and hermetic texts used Greco-Roman and other deities as symbols and concepts. The approach is generally accepted and often used by Lhankor Mhy scholars as well.

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2 hours ago, Darius West said:

It sounds to me as if the Rokari are super effective at dispelling joy wherever they go.  In fact I doubt they even need a spell to do so.

The Rokari do have their own forms of joy, at least for the 1% with a little trickle-down for their henchmen, but they don't have any means against Henosis.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

I think people experience species of Joy every day, for example when a parent watches their baby takes its first step.  That "Kodak moments" kind of joy.  I think the Rokari simply don't elevate it to the status of a sub-deity in its own right.  

There are moments of experiencing transcendence, and there are moments of experiencing Joy of the Heart.

It may be the case that a Rokari zzaburi might be unable to recognize Joy, certainly in others, possibly even in himself.

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

More importantly, I think that you have failed to account for the appeal of the Rokari.  If their belief system is so very onerous, why does it have so many followers?  Why has it been able to discredit and remove Hrestoli belief so successfully outside Fronela? 

The Battles of Asgolan Fields hold the answer for the areas outside of Rindland and Tanisor. Continued survival is a strong bonus.

The Old (Hrestoli) Malkoni philosophy (named a church in the Middle Sea Empire commentary on the Seshnelan King List and Malkionism) persisted throughout the God Learner period.

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Remember that in Hinduism and Buddhism, reincarnation is an evil that one is subjected to, and not a desirable state at all, as one might well be reincarnated as a bug, not a bodhisatva, based on one wrong comment.  The aim is to get off the wheel of reincarnation, not perpetuate your own suffering. 

That's a totally different proposal of reincarnation when compared to the Hrestoli promise. That stands in stark contrast to the Brithini "dead is gone" and "Solace of the body" teachings which aren't worth much if you are aging.

Old Seshnela (and the God Learners) had the Men of All and their adventurism which some blame for the God Learner mistakes, but if you look at who really did all the bad stuff, you find the sorcerous orders at the heart of it. Pilif the Magus may have been overcome by the imperial inheritance, but almost all the weird stuff was propagated by zzaburi. Only the conquest of Eest and Kralorela and possibly Fonrit and Jolar had seen Men-of-all in leading roles. Slontos was weird, but relied on Zistorite weirdness.

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Orthodox Malkioni don't believe in reincarnation for a good reason.  Why would you return from Solace? 

Solace is not really an afterlife. At best its a peaceful end of your existence, something which Rokari society only makes look good for its lower 80% as it doesn't exactly make normal peasant life pleasant.

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

This is why the pantheists  think that Malkioni are soulless. They don't reincarnate.  On the other hand, the Malkioni pity the pagans for much the same reason.

Except that the philosophy which set Malkionism apart from Zzaburism - Hrestolism - does believe in reincarnation. The Rokari have suppressed that notion and other Hrestoli notions like men-of-all and Ascended Masters in a weird God Learner successor philosophy claiming to have broken with the God Learners while relying on their core document, the Sharp Abiding Book.

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

 On the other hand, my response does answer the question of "how did Xemela perform her spell", pretty well.  I mean, are you seriously going to tell me that there is no such thing as a sorceress in the lands of Malkion? 

There may have been in Danmalastan, before the Vadeli conquered most of it. The only text I have seen showing a glimpse of Brithos had (zzaburi caste) priestesses (and priests), but no sorceresses. The Priestess of Menena in Horalwal was the closest to a sorceress I have seen, and essentially she was the officiating Ancestor Worship and Ancestor Summoner.

Xemela was the mother of Hrestol, and died before the Dawn. She never saw her son's revelations lead the Malkioni away from the ancestral Brithini ways. Malkionism by non-immortals was more or less established by Hrestol, or led to weirdness like God Forgot.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Or that just because a woman is of Talar caste in a fluid caste Hrestoli society that she won't know sorcery?   I strongly doubt it. 

That's the thing - Hrestoli castes were a lot less fluid than Siglat's new model kingdom. You were a member of your birth caste, or you became a Man (!) of all. I used to call this Linealist Hrestolism, and back in the RQ3 days the concept of the Men-of-All was called chivalry.

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Merely claiming  the info is out of date isn't good enough.  Give me a practical reason why Xemela can't know spells when even farmers learn a little sorcery in Hrestoli society.   

Do they still?

RQG p.389:

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 Most Malkioni do not use Rune spells, although many use spirit magic. 

Rune magic (or spells) covers both divine and sorcerous magic.

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Xemela WOULD know spells, as a participating member of Hrestoli society, because EVERY Hrestoli gets that opportunity in idealistic and egalitarian Hrestoli society. 

There was no Hrestoli society prior to the Dawn. It was Brithini emigrants on the coasts of Genertela, following the old Zzabur's laws as good they could. Education of non-zzaburi was extremely limited outside of their caste requirements. Hrestol's Saga has a scene where a man-of-all manages to impress an unconventionally raised talar maiden from Brithos with his rudimentary star lore, knowledge that is more or less forbidden to her.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

That isn't going to change in any future write-up unless someone actively sets about wrecking the canon.

That Tales "canon" has already been superseded. More than once.

 

I'll spare the rest of the forum another tit for tat on your YGDV notions of the Void. Cults of Terror provided that look at the for pre-Creation entities Prime Mover, Silence, Primal Plasma, and the Void. Each is outside of normal mortal understanding and not survivable without preparation. None of them is Chaos.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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Brithini/Zzabiurite materialism does confuse me on some level - how does one profess the strict disbelief in a life after death when we have literal, objective evidence of people coming back from the dead, or traveling into hells and underworlds to find deceased people?

Is it, in a sense, that the Brithini simply see ghosts, souls, etc. as just another form of physicality?

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8 hours ago, Darius West said:

 Xemela WOULD know spells, as a participating member of Hrestoli society, because EVERY Hrestoli gets that opportunity in idealistic and egalitarian Hrestoli society. 

I love this thread but she does not survive into Time when Hrestol's reforms happen. Of course she might still participate in the society after her fashion.

Her miracle is more likely to be related to the "ultimate rite" of sacrificial exchange that survives in Loskalmite kingship / talardom than any conventional zzabur-driven sorcerous technique. If nothing else, this is symbolic calculus I seriously doubt the blue man understands.

Whether she could have learned conventional magic or even been considered a Talarite and not just a woman (and whether the zzaburites have women of their own) is interesting. As far as I know the original crime of zzabur that forced him to concede basic magic to other castes originated within time and so as always Xemela would've missed out on that. However, she might have also predated the caste complex altogether. She may not even have started out "human" as we use the term today.

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34 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

That makes a lot of sense - effectively they've become sorcerous symbols.

I like it too - it makes sense with the notion of Free INT in RQ (at least for me) - I mean, it is through the 'storing' and inner-eye visualisation of hermetic symbols and patterns that, for instance, that Giordano Bruno perceived the will acting on the universe (and, of course we see elements in this in the Golden Dawn, and through them to modern Chaos Magick).

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On 11/26/2018 at 5:37 PM, Darius West said:

Henosis is becoming at-one with a deity.

You have to consider that not only do different groups within Glorantha have really different ideas about cosmology and ideas like henosis, but so did the Neo-platonists from whom we get the idea of henosis. 

But to cut to the point - if Henosis is become at-one with a deity, then it is basically theism in Glorantha. And this is *right there* in the terminology we use - we call sorcerers who believe that henosis is becoming one with a deity henotheists, and they combine sorcery with theism. The other sorcerers in Glorantha do not think this, and we knows this because they are not henotheist. Greg was well and truly familiar with neo-Platonism and a lot of his sorcerous thought is based on it. 

On 11/27/2018 at 2:52 AM, Joerg said:

you don't need to know sorcery to achieve Henosis with the Invisible God.

I think sects differ on this point too. Or may even disagree internally, or have a range of views in between. I suspect the Orthodox Rokari view is probably that you do need theurgy to achieve henosis in this poor broken world, but that participation in sorcerer led ritual totally counts as long as you stick by your caste rules otherwise. I suspect the Hrestoli view tends to believe that sorcery is important for henosis, why else would they say the Men of All must learn sorcery? But there are range of possible intermediate views, including that sorcery is not strictly necessary but is very helpful, that it is only necessary because we live in the fallen world of the demiurge, that sorcery is strictly speaking not necessary but visiting the other side is, and so on. 

And noting that this was something that the neo-platonists disagreed on - Plotinus seems to have practiced magic, but believes theurgy is not required for henosis, same with Porphyry, but Iamblichus believed theurgic ritual was more important than contemplation. We are allowed to have our sorcerous sects disagree too. 

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11 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Brithini/Zzabiurite materialism does confuse me on some level - how does one profess the strict disbelief in a life after death when we have literal, objective evidence of people coming back from the dead, or traveling into hells and underworlds to find deceased people?

Is it, in a sense, that the Brithini simply see ghosts, souls, etc. as just another form of physicality?

I think in general, the Brithini see people as composed of Matter, Energy and Intellect, consider the Intellect the most important part, and think ghosts etc are just a bundle of Energy with no true Intellect, merely seeming to have Intellect to the uninitiated but it is a rote shadow. That would be saying that there is only a semblance of life after death, and it is really of no more significance than your corpse

But also quite possibly they just believe that your Energy and Intellect stay together for a short time after it is separated from your Matter, and it is possible it just gets delayed. Your Intellect and your Energy are still connected when you are travelling to the Courts of Silence, it is after that point they are separated and your unsustained Intellect dissipates into the universe (or in later Malkioni thinking, is freed to enter Solace). 

Then again, the Brithini in Seshnela seem to lapse into Ancestor Worship pretty damn quick, so clearly it is not THAT core a part of their belief system. 

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19 hours ago, Jeff said:

The "Owner of the Runes" is part of the God Learner understanding of Gloranthan mythology, although it is based on the Orange Book of Zzabur. Many sorcerous texts used these gods in the similar way as RW alchemical, astrological, and hermetic texts used Greco-Roman and other deities as symbols and concepts. The approach is generally accepted and often used by Lhankor Mhy scholars as well.

Yes. I think the Western understanding of the Runes originated with thinking of the Runes as very like Platonic Forms. The Brithini philosophy thinks of the idea that Runes have runes have personalities, that the various methods of worship are part of the true nature of the Rune rather than accumulated practices of mortals (probably erroneous ones), that they have lineages and disputes, etc as at best metaphorical explanations for the unwise, at worst a persistent source of Error or even such a great Error as to be a prime cause of the Fifth Action Disintegration.  But the Core runes, the Eranschula, are still the building blocks of reality and must be studied by the wise, and some of the deities are representations of (albeit flawed) the true fundamental Forms of the world. And those deep magical truths are, indeed, universal. 

Just filter that starting point through a few centuries of cultural interchange with benighted heathens, and foolish sorcerers more interested in symbolic games that can be exploited for personal power than they are in real Truth, and it becomes the idea that some deities Own a Rune while others merely borrow it, which is very misleading. But what else would you expect from benighted theist heathens and heretics? 

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I think the Irensavalists ultimately must accept Chaos because they seek true union with the One, and they think the One is bigger than the material world. If the One doesn't include Chaos, then it is not the One, it is just half of the Two. 

But I also think this is one of the very last steps on their way to true union with the One. It is a thing you deal with after you are a Magus at least (in both the RuneQuest rules, and Golden Dawn/Crowley use of the term Magus, probably). Or at least around that stage of development. To rush towards it is irresponsible. But Talor got there, and that is fine, because he was at that level of development. 

It may well be that they consider Chaos inimical in essentially all cases where Chaos enters or interacts with the material universe. But the material universe is the domain of the Demiurge, and the domain of the One is (by definition) bigger than that. 

It is true that it can absolutely look like suddenly going soft on Chaos etc, but that's mysticism for you. 

In Crowleyan terms, the Maklioneranists, Nysaloran chaos sorcerers, and other sorcerous Illuminates that are not Irensavalists are Black Brothers - they rush to cross the Abyss, but are not prepared to keep on the forward journey and dissolve their individual egos in blissful communion with The One. Instead they retain their individual egos, and their connection with the material world, and it all goes terribly wrong. The Lunars have more explicit Abyss/Choronzon imagery with the confrontation with Wakboth, but we actually don't know that much about Malkioni imagery - I do think this is sacrifice of Malkion imagery. I don't know if we have any one else knowledgable about Crowley here, but please feel free to chime in if you have opinions. I'd like to find a more ancient source that expresses similar ideas, but is also clearly linked to a more 'sorcerous' approach. 

 

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Joy of the Heart is not simply joy. It is religious ecstasy. This goes far beyond simple happiness. My personal experience would be to compare it to the joy of dancing in the rain that breaks a long drought.It has special power since its source is the divine/or within - it is not external, or dependent on external forces, and it deals with the spiritual. It is not, however, necessarily of great magical significance in itself, nor is it requiring years of study and magical preparation. 

It lets you transcend the rules of caste etc because it is a direct revelation from the Divine that overrules the rote learned rules. It is is like Illumination in that it allows transcendance of some things, and can lead to irrational appearing actions, but unlike in that its transcendant power is far more restricted. I think it is more comparable to the Lunar idea of kindling than of Sevening. 

It is perfectly understandable that some might consider it a divine blessing that allows you to do things others are not permitted to do, while others consider it simply an aberrant mind state that should not rationally change anything. That is pretty much how the current world, even the relgious world, divides on the issue of religious ecstasy, isn't it? 

It might be something that in the RQ Rules we can express simply as a passion that also has internal some magical significance, I don't know. But it need not be much more. 

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56 minutes ago, davecake said:

I think sects differ on this point too. Or may even disagree internally, or have a range of views in between. I suspect the Orthodox Rokari view is probably that you do need theurgy to achieve henosis in this poor broken world, but that participation in sorcerer led ritual totally counts as long as you stick by your caste rules otherwise.

Henosis with which emanation of Malkion, though? The Rokari deny all that new-fangled stuff introduced by Hrestol, such as Men-of-All, Ascended Masters, or Joy. And Solace is not Henosis.

I would expect the Rokari theurgists to seek to achieve a more intellectual unity with the One Mind, possibly seeing the ecstatic effects as displayed by Talor as a distraction to be avoided.

 

56 minutes ago, davecake said:

I suspect the Hrestoli view tends to believe that sorcery is important for henosis, why else would they say the Men of All must learn sorcery?

The Men-of-All learned sorcery because Hrestol finally managed to bring the insight across that the world is made of everything, and that he who stands against the troubles of the world needs to be experienced in everything.

Achieving knighthood (to use the out-of-fashion term) does have some elements of spirituality, but in the end these serve to ascertain the loyalty of the new superman to the ruler and the ancestors (which used to be called the church).

56 minutes ago, davecake said:

But there are range of possible intermediate views, including that sorcery is not strictly necessary but is very helpful, that it is only necessary because we live in the fallen world of the demiurge, that sorcery is strictly speaking not necessary but visiting the other side is, and so on. 

Et tu, David? Am I alone in thinking that Irensavalism is not identical and interchangeable with Siglat's and Gaiseron's New Hrestolism, but a compatible or at least acceptable variant?

From the description of Loskalm I don't get the impression that the New Hrestoli regard the material world as the work of evil and to be shunned.

Note that the Other Side as in hero plane is as much part of the material world as is the surface world. Even the First World is the product of the demiurge, with all its inhabitants.

 

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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25 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I would expect the Rokari theurgists to seek to achieve a more intellectual unity with the One Mind, possibly seeing the ecstatic effects as displayed by Talor as a distraction to be avoided.

Yes, absolutely. The open question is how much is it a purely intellectual process of contemplation, and how much is sorcerous ritual necessary. I do not expect they are necessarily unified on this question. The Rokari are radically different to Irensavalists, Loskalmi, etc. 

29 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Am I alone in thinking that Irensavalism is not identical and interchangeable with Siglat's and Gaiseron's New Hrestolism, but a compatible or at least acceptable variant?

I agree that Irensavalism is not identifal to New Hrestolism, but one is a direct linear descendant of the other. There are probably other descendant sects of Irensavalism - though to be honest, I think we are not yet clear enough on the metaphysics of Irensavalism to be clear what the metaphysical differences are. New Hrestolism is definitely very different politically and in many practical ways, but I don't think we know enough to say whether it differences significantly on metaphysical issues. Also, New Hrestolism is far more coherent and defined - Siglat has gone through the Irensavalist sources and decided what must be kept. 

 

31 minutes ago, Joerg said:

From the description of Loskalm I don't get the impression that the New Hrestoli regard the material world as the work of evil and to be shunned.

Irensavalists do, for sure ("Irensavalism identifies Malkion, who they call Makan, as the demiurge of a corrupt material world" - Guide), I think the New Hrestolists have a more pragmatic and practical approach, but not philosophically very different - they believe we are prisoners of the world so are stuck with it (and they reject the really radical idea eg Perfecti kind of stuff), but they have regular, daily even, practices of both spiritual and physical hygiene to keep the world of Makan from corrupting them. Note also the Zendamalthans, who might be considered, along with the Furlandan School, a major philosophical influence on the New Hrestolist Movement reject the material "The Zendamalthan School rejects empiricism and holds material phenomena to be inferior and corrupt."

That said, I don't think they, day to day, act as if the material world is evil and is to be shunned - they treat it as corrupting and spiritually dangerous, and requiring constant purification and/or vigilance, but in practice much of that involves engaging with the world *correctly* - regular exercise, careful hygiene, care for the fields and other necessities of life, civic maintenance, etc. as well as contemplation of the manifestations of the divine. The distinction is that they do not the world to be evil, but to be full of evils - so you must carefully build the City of VIrtue, cast out demons, and so on. You do not need to reject the world, but you do need to reject those aspects that interfere with doing what you should, like contemplating the divine. 

Now, I think eventually they feel you must transcend the material world to achieve true unity with the One, but that is Ascended Master territory, worry about it when you get there. Normal folk can just hope for reincarnation in a better world, and practice henosis and virtuous behaviour so they are better in the next life, not everyone is a 'Gold' (in Platonic Republican terms)

 

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19 hours ago, scott-martin said:

I love this thread but she does not survive into Time when Hrestol's reforms happen. Of course she might still participate in the society after her fashion.

Her miracle is more likely to be related to the "ultimate rite" of sacrificial exchange that survives in Loskalmite kingship / talardom than any conventional zzabur-driven sorcerous technique. If nothing else, this is symbolic calculus I seriously doubt the blue man understands.

Whether she could have learned conventional magic or even been considered a Talarite and not just a woman (and whether the zzaburites have women of their own) is interesting. As far as I know the original crime of zzabur that forced him to concede basic magic to other castes originated within time and so as always Xemela would've missed out on that. However, she might have also predated the caste complex altogether. She may not even have started out "human" as we use the term today.

You make a good point.  The fact is there is no info regarding who taught what to whom in the Before Time.  We can only say with certainty that the people of Fronela didn't make the cut to be considered "pure" by Brithini standards and so weren't allowed to migrate to Brithos.  Clearly they had slipped from caste system immortality.  Perhaps we should see Xemela's sacrifice as a mirror to Malkion's sacrifice then?  A Malkioni sacrficial Hero Quest to redeem her part of the world?  In terms of Xemela's survival, well, she was around enough for Snodal to rescue her from the well, but she wasn't exactly "alive" all the same.  Her symptoms sound similar to what the Broos of the Black Pus do to people.

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7 hours ago, davecake said:

I think the Irensavalists ultimately must accept Chaos because they seek true union with the One, and they think the One is bigger than the material world. If the One doesn't include Chaos, then it is not the One, it is just half of the Two. 

Irensavalism aims at what the Zzaburite devolution names Ferbrith.

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But I also think this is one of the very last steps on their way to true union with the One.

Is that even the Rokari goal, or is their highest aspiration to become one with the One World?

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It is a thing you deal with after you are a Magus at least (in both the RuneQuest rules, and Golden Dawn/Crowley use of the term Magus, probably). Or at least around that stage of development. To rush towards it is irresponsible. But Talor got there, and that is fine, because he was at that level of development. 

Talor was a Magus? Isn't that a bit of a role overload for a warrior-king? I think that he was a Liberator, not someone seeking apotheosis.

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It may well be that they consider Chaos inimical in essentially all cases where Chaos enters or interacts with the material universe. But the material universe is the domain of the Demiurge, and the domain of the One is (by definition) bigger than that.

The typical "why Chaos" or "why Evil" quandary of any single creator deity. Deities that just co-create don't have this kind of problem.

Quote

It is true that it can absolutely look like suddenly going soft on Chaos etc, but that's mysticism for you. 

Neither Talor nor Arkat essentially quested against Chaos. Talor defended against some very concrete threats, some of which were Chaotic, and he uttered a curse that turned the Telmori Chaotic blessing into something monstrous. I am not sure when he uttered that curse, but it looks to me like he did it after having broken their military might and having destroyed their sacred city. Anyway, while this curse certainly did damage the Telmori, it also furthered Chaos in Glorantha.

But this Chaos, even with Talor's curse to aggravate the impact, did not stop the House of Sartar to bind their bloodline to the Telmori of Boldhome, with Terasarin's daughters marrying two of the Helkos Brothers (Helkos and Goram), and Salinarg marrying a Telmori woman of uncertain ancestry (possibly also including Kostajor or Ostling). It isn't quite clear whether Salinarg's children (heads of the Household of Death) were bearing the curse. There is no documentation whether Helkos or Goram had children from Terasarin's daughters, either.

I don't see storm bull berserks raiding Dagori Inkarth to kill cave trolls, either. Is that "going soft on Chaos"? No mysticism involved.

 

IMO the mystic is able to analyze the wrongness of Chaos, and to recognize the wrongful intrusion of the Void (or however you want to call the re-Creation outside of the World) into Creation, and how it annihilates Creation, starting with the chaotic being.

Which does of course give us an interesting question: How does a cursed race like cave trolls or Telmori suffer that annihilation, or are they more or less immune to the immediate corruption of their taints? Are Telmori spirits that different from say Rathori ones (except for the animal shape)? Are they somehow lessened, or are they immune to both Nysalor's blessing and Talor's curse since they don't have bodies to transform?

 

I will admit that Illumination or Enlightenment can lead to the Illuminated person to embrace or enhance Chaos. Talor surely did with his curse on the Telmori. Living in a country full of bull berserks, he never got accosted for being chaotic, which either means he managed to speak the curse without receiving any taint from that, or that he was secure from the Bull sense for Chaos through his enlightenment. What was it?

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In Crowleyan terms, the Maklioneranists, Nysaloran chaos sorcerers, and other sorcerous Illuminates that are not Irensavalists are Black Brothers - they rush to cross the Abyss, but are not prepared to keep on the forward journey and dissolve their individual egos in blissful communion with The One. Instead they retain their individual egos, and their connection with the material world, and it all goes terribly wrong.

Illumination is incomplete mystic insight for most illuminates.Quite a lot of them never surpass their first riddle. That's Children of the Forest or Yelm the Youth level of initiation into the mystic way.

I have seen no evidence that an illuminated Orlanthi cannot send his Storm Soul to the Orlanthi afterlife. It will just be an incomplete bit of his former self, possibly less complete than that of a regular initiate of Orlanth. But then, what about a dual initate of say Orlanth and Elmal, or Orlanth and Lhankor Mhy.

Malkioni afterlife - including the question how Hrestoli waiting for reincarnation spend it, and where - has been badly under-explored. Other than the seven day descent to Daka Fal, we don't know anything.

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The Lunars have more explicit Abyss/Choronzon imagery with the confrontation with Wakboth,

Does the path of the Goddess intersect with that of Wakboth at any place?

We know she encounters Blaskarth in the deepest underworld, and exposes her full (remaining) self to its embrace, to emerge "on the other side" of that embrace as the Red Goddess mounting the Crimson Bat. Teelo Estara interacts with Gbaji (and Rashorana) and Blaskarth, and with the Bat. That's the known amount of her chaotic ties.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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5 hours ago, davecake said:

That said, I don't think they (Zendamalthans et al), day to day, act as if the material world is evil and is to be shunned - they treat it as corrupting and spiritually dangerous, and requiring constant purification and/or vigilance, but in practice much of that involves engaging with the world *correctly* - regular exercise, careful hygiene, care for the fields and other necessities of life, civic maintenance, etc. as well as contemplation of the manifestations of the divine. The distinction is that they do not the world to be evil, but to be full of evils - so you must carefully build the City of VIrtue, cast out demons, and so on. You do not need to reject the world, but you do need to reject those aspects that interfere with doing what you should, like contemplating the divine. 

If we are to take the Cathar Perfecti of the Languedoc as our example for this philosophy, most ordinary believers understood that they were in a state of sin, and were pretty laid back about it, as it was understood to be the way of an imperfect world.  When Perfecti status was granted, the individual had to abstain from the world and practice austerities, and any breach was seen as a dangerous failure.  Thus Perfecti status was often administered close to death, much like extreme unction in Catholicism, as it was easier to maintain austerities while fighting illness on deaths door in bed.

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8 hours ago, davecake said:

Joy of the Heart is not simply joy. It is religious ecstasy. This goes far beyond simple happiness. My personal experience would be to compare it to the joy of dancing in the rain that breaks a long drought.It has special power since its source is the divine/or within - it is not external, or dependent on external forces, and it deals with the spiritual. It is not, however, necessarily of great magical significance in itself, nor is it requiring years of study and magical preparation. 

It lets you transcend the rules of caste etc because it is a direct revelation from the Divine that overrules the rote learned rules. It is is like Illumination in that it allows transcendance of some things, and can lead to irrational appearing actions, but unlike in that its transcendant power is far more restricted. I think it is more comparable to the Lunar idea of kindling than of Sevening. 

It is perfectly understandable that some might consider it a divine blessing that allows you to do things others are not permitted to do, while others consider it simply an aberrant mind state that should not rationally change anything. That is pretty much how the current world, even the relgious world, divides on the issue of religious ecstasy, isn't it? 

It might be something that in the RQ Rules we can express simply as a passion that also has internal some magical significance, I don't know. But it need not be much more. 

The point about Joy not simply being happiness is an important one, I think. While I don't know the intentions of the writer behind this, it does *very* much smack of the kind of writing Greek philosophers would do: use a daily, common term, but define it in a very specific way within their writings (compare Theoria, and other mundane terms elevated to mystic and philosophical importance).

Joy of the Heart seems to me to refer to a complete, and sustained sense of meaning, purpose and self-fulfilment independently of external factors. It's not simply being ecstatic or frenzied or happy - I think it more refers to the kind of mental state where "petty" concerns that tie others into the immoral social ties and desires of the flesh simply lose their hold over the Realized Self. A self that is realized not necessarily out of intense scrutiny and logic, or sorcery, but out of long-lasting, gradually increasing devotion, sacrifice, austerity and, in a word, catharsis.

Joy is... I would argue - a term that seeks to encompass the mental and emotional state of someone who have gone beyond the mental and emotional frailty of ordinary people.

If I am to draw on something from Christianity (I do that a lot, but personal upbringing makes for a decent reference point), it's the kind of mentality that is espoused in Psalm 23, of "Valley of the shadow of death" fame. Joy is mental and emotional equanimity in the face of the brokenness of the world, one's surroundings, and even in the face of one's own limitations.

Can that be expressed as actual, literal joy? I have no doubt that it can. But more importantly, it is not called "The Joy of the Mouth" or of the eyes or whatever - it is "The Joy of the Heart". The internal state is the important part, imho. I'm sure some who've experienced Joy have come off much like a Stoic Sage, or a Zen Master. Quiet, composed, but overall people who seem oddly composed and content no matter the case, and also ready to do what must be done once they've decided on an action.

Religious exuberance, a la Holly Roller ecstasy or what have you is probably not the best model for this kind of thing, though it may very well be related, or seen as a possible step towards Joy.  Talor might've expressed his Joy in a personal, idiosyncratic manner.

This is all personal interpretation, of course, once again I can't claim to know the intents behind the writing.

6 hours ago, davecake said:

That said, I don't think they, day to day, act as if the material world is evil and is to be shunned - they treat it as corrupting and spiritually dangerous, and requiring constant purification and/or vigilance, but in practice much of that involves engaging with the world *correctly* - regular exercise, careful hygiene, care for the fields and other necessities of life, civic maintenance, etc. as well as contemplation of the manifestations of the divine. The distinction is that they do not the world to be evil, but to be full of evils - so you must carefully build the City of VIrtue, cast out demons, and so on. You do not need to reject the world, but you do need to reject those aspects that interfere with doing what you should, like contemplating the divine. 

To be fair, this does sound quite a lot like pretty mainstream Protestantism, especially the Pietist movements. "Yes, the world is irrevocably broken and full of evil, but we show our dedication to God through relating to the world in a manner that draws on the ideals of Christ, to show that our Faith is not idle bragging."

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On 11/28/2018 at 6:01 AM, Darius West said:

It sounds to me as if the Rokari are super effective at dispelling joy wherever they go.  In fact I doubt they even need a spell to do so.

They are one of the biggest buzzkills on the lozenge, it's true. Sober sufis at best, burning good people whose only crime was asserting like Hallaj that the fire and the rose are one. All they have is their "sorcery" and if that's a solace it's a cold one.

Since the question of how to model Hrestol's magic outside zzaburite sorcery has opened up, I'd might as well stick my face in the snake pit of canon one more time.  While I'm not deeply invested in the New Idealist system as the One True Way it does preserve at least the traces of archaic Talarite prerogatives that are no longer modeled elsewhere . . . they might even still have the Leadership ability up there as a way to directly translate free INT into fealty. I'm also seriously investigating ways to run miraculous effects off Passions now that we have them here and not just Pendragon. Passions are the new hot mechanics, gang. Trust me.

At least in some abandoned efforts the knights MOA could sacrifice permanent POW for miraculous defenses symbolically anchored in their armor. This scaled up to an impressive permanent Dispel Magic effect guaranteed to wreck a blue meanie's day. Maybe nowadays we'd run this as some kind of mystic refutation (laughter is the best banishment, as it were) with the MOA as a kind of transitional or "errant" active mystic literally wandering the earth to meet people, get into adventures the way other people negotiate an "abyss." Whenever I'm within the Hrestol consciousness every material manifestation is received as a direct communication with my soul, etc.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Perhaps we should see Xemela's sacrifice as a mirror to Malkion's sacrifice then?  A Malkioni sacrficial Hero Quest to redeem her part of the world?

Her people probably make that connection constantly and sententiously, especially in contexts where Malkion The Sacrifice is considered an unfit topic for common conversation or even blasphemy. Be good, turn the other cheek, look out for people smaller and weaker than yourself. I Fight So You Can Win. There's probably a mystery cult in Ralios right now that equates her to X[iola] Umbar and maybe they're not 100% wrong.

But the story of the well may be an apocryphal sentimental addition to the epic of Hrestol. Probably Akemite or at best dating from his Akemite period. He doesn't have a lot of time for it in the early versions . . . too busy running one genocide or another and if he took time out to save his mother's soul you'd think it would matter enough to the chronicler to set down. The plague imagery is new. In the earliest versions the "dehori" are simply besieging their town and she cuts a deal. 

That said, the TOTRM story hints at Xemela as default healing system before the Riddlers came from the east bringing the disease that was also the cure like Freud and Jung on their cruise ship, so it gets attached pretty early as another of the wonder tales. 

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8 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Whenever I'm within the Hrestol consciousness every material manifestation is received as a direct communication with my soul, etc.

I do tend to  think this is pretty much the exact opposite of the New Hrestoli mindset. We know the core texts of New Hrestolism reject, or label as intrinsically corrupting, the material, reject empiricism, and so on. And MoA sorcerers should have the abilities to tell the difference. 

I like the 'Arthurian knights' model for Malkioni heroquesting, but it does seem far more Rokari. 

8 hours ago, scott-martin said:

it does preserve at least the traces of archaic Talarite prerogatives that are no longer modeled elsewhere

Again, I would have thought that this was more or less the exact opposite of what they do. They explicitly reject hereditary leadership. 

(of course, there is that core hint of hypocrisy in that the doctrine of rejecting hereditary leadership was set forth by a hereditary leader who still leads them...) 

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