What's Happening in Fronela after 1621?

[scott-martin]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Sorcery's been around long enough for secrets to have permeated out of the Zzaburite caste. An engineer's guild (or whatever's the Malkioni equivalent, if any) might have some very specific construction sorcery passed down through the ages, barely understood, but aped effectively enough for it to work. 

Dunno, that just seems more interesting to me that the alternative. I am not suggesting Malkioni engineers going around summoning catapults or raising castles overnight though.

One easy MGF solution is always to bring in a foreign savant and receive tutelage outside the formal caste monopoly. This can range from a broken dwarf or dissolute LM to something more exotic. Now that there are relatively easy routes from the Lunar Empire to the West, you can also bring back technique + lore that evolved outside the Law, and those lunar mistresses are especially fun as a destabilizing philosophical influence. 

The challenge is that the blue caste may pragmatically interpret its privilege as owners of sorcery as a mandate to exterminate "wild wizards" whenever they start getting any real traction. Maybe some secrets are perpetuated in guilds and secret societies. I'm curious to know more about what's going on in Pasos, for example. Either way, an effective rival system is not only competition in the rokarite sphere. It's blasphemy. MLKN in his wisdom gave sorcery to the blue caste. If you have sorcery and you aren't blue, you're outside the Law. Odds are good they suspect you of "vadelite" contacts and at times the doctrine is interpreted so that all independent sorcery legally originates from vadel and all vadelite sorcery is by definition any operation non-zzaburists perform.

This raises fun deep background questions about divergent / rival sorceries in the War of the Wizards period as well. 

Of course in the north it's a moot point. Everyone in charge has already gone through wizard school and any jock who tests well can aspire to getting training. The blue and gold castes are in perfect alignment, Siglat Says. MGF practically ensures that you'll also get some cincinnatus-style retirees who feel the pull of the farm or workshop and you'll get a geezer who retains full knowledge of sorcery. Does this person teach a little in secret? Maybe. It's the Hero Wars and a "retired" full MOA is going to be an extraordinary person a little outside the rules.

Do they hate these people in Sog? They kind of hate everybody in Sog, when they think about us at all. But they almost never leave, so who cares. 

What native northern magical traditions survive below the crystalline Siglatian surface? Fronela seems to have supported a weird henotheistic sorcery (Jonatsaga) that might actually end up as part of the Carmano-Lunar system. It's worth finding out. The Janube is a big river drenched in sorcery. Somewhere on its banks is, was or will emerge the independent teacher someone is looking for.

OF COURSE This is my interpretation, I could be wrong.

Currently rethinking the ascended masters as well. Unlikely to be productive but Fronela on the brain.

 

 

 

 

[metcalph]

Throwing out some ideas on how to handle Practical God-Learning

It seems to me that a starting Hrestoli after a practical God Learning is a Living Rune, a being of innate magic but relatively unskilled in using them (a baby yoda so to speak).  A beginning Hrestoli is likely to use his innate magics to offset the lake of skill.  He will be effective for a few fights but once depeleted he will be next to useless compared to an ordinary Gloranthan.  As the Hrestoli's skill increases, he's less likely to use magic for skill effects and use it instead as a source of power for his sorcery.

So a Hrestoli might have rune magics corresponding to his leading rune affinities powered with rune points sacrificed to Irensavel and recovered through medispection.  When a Hrestoli casts sorcery, the rune points can be used to power or enhance the casting of sorcery spells of the related rune.  The old rune magics are still there but held in reserve for awkward situations.

[davecake]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

You could, if you were so inclined, recast Hrestolism versus non-Hrestolism as being an extended philosophical debate about whether empirical evidence or reasoning is more important in the development of a coherent philosophy. Of course, pragmatism would suggest that you not go full New Hrestol Idealism and require all the zzaburi to first have worked with their hands and fought with them too before they get around to the study of the laws of the Creator...

"The Zendamalthan School rejects empiricism and holds material phenomena to be inferior and corrupt.", so the New Hrestoli at least appear to not be on the side of empirical evidence. The Brithini would surely claim they have thousands of years of empirical evidence to back up their reasoning, and the God Learners etc are just more empirical evidence they are right. 

[metcalph]

I don't think the Ascended Masters have anything to do with the teaching of spells as that's something that mundane gloranthans can do.  Rather what they teach should be aids to  Joy - ie emulate an Ascended Master sufficiently and achieve a bonus to the acquisition and manifestation of Joy.  

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

"The Zendamalthan School rejects empiricism and holds material phenomena to be inferior and corrupt.", so the New Hrestoli at least appear to not be on the side of empirical evidence. The Brithini would surely claim they have thousands of years of empirical evidence to back up their reasoning, and the God Learners etc are just more empirical evidence they are right. 

The Laws are self-evident. Practicioners are immortal. Apostates age and die. It doesn't get much more empirical than that. 

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

I don't think the Ascended Masters have anything to do with the teaching of spells as that's something that mundane gloranthans can do.  Rather what they teach should be aids to  Joy - ie emulate an Ascended Master sufficiently and achieve a bonus to the acquisition and manifestation of Joy.  

 

Speaking of which - why don't we categorize Joy as some kind of mysticism?

[Jeff]

10 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The Laws are self-evident. Practicioners are immortal. Apostates age and die. It doesn't get much more empirical than that. 

Speaking of which - why don't we categorize Joy as some kind of mysticism?

Apostate is not really the right world. "Failures" is probably better. The Brithini know that the Brithini Way is difficult. But those who strictly adhere to the Brithini Way without deviation or compromise remain ageless. Those who slip, compromise, or otherwise deviate in the slightest, age.

I imagine many Brithini see other humans as rapidly aging, erratic failures. You can watch them deviate and age, deviate and age, and it all goes by so quickly. The Talar of Arolanit is some 3000 years old. He witnessed the Dawn, the Sunstop, and the Closing. The Rokari are at best like children playing dress-up. At worst, they are revolting animals. No matter their efforts, they cannot walk the Brithini path, and their half-hearted hypocritical attempts to do so are between pathetic and ridiculous. 

From the other direction, imagine how the Malkioni feel about the Brithini. Ageless, emotionless, and engaged in endless pointless ritual that bear no relationship to the world and its needs. Sure they are ageless, but their rules are impossible to comprehend, let alone follow.

[Joerg]

11 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Apostate is not really the right world. "Failures" is probably better. The Brithini know that the Brithini Way is difficult. But those who strictly adhere to the Brithini Way without deviation or compromise remain ageless. Those who slip, compromise, or otherwise deviate in the slightest, age.

The Brithini way probably is impossible, within Time. Mistakes are accumulated even if one goes on tiptoes to avoid them.

Taking Brithos out of Time may have conserved a bit. Having an interface by  which the Brithini can influence the Surface World (and harvest energies they don't create outside of Time any more) might mar that existence.

 

9 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I imagine many Brithini see other humans as rapidly aging, erratic failures. You can watch them deviate and age, deviate and age, and it all goes by so quickly. ... The Rokari are at best like children playing dress-up. At worst, they are revolting animals.

The Rokari are using a God Learner scripture for their imitation of ancient Malkioni ways while condemning what that way was.

 

I think that Godtime Brithela offered a nice and pleasant way of life, before the Ice advanced and the Vadeli ruined it all.

The six tribes of the Logician men of Danmalastan followed each their intellectual challenge with sorcery derived from logic -- empirical experience (Viymorn), communication (Kachast), shaping (Kadenit), syncretic cogitation (Enro(l)val), external memory (Tadenit), and Sea (Waertag). Waertag's endeavor doesn't seem to be that intellectual when formulated like this, but maybe there was something else, less physical and more intellectual, at the base of his move to the sea. Perhaps Domination? The mastery over the Sea Dragons and the behavior of some of the Blue Folk of the invading waters in western Peloria point into this direction. Leaving the land in pursuit of this might originally have been little but a side effect.

Or the Logician who did this was Wartain, a triton. When I was involved in an (aborted, very early stage) project to explore the Seas of Glorantha, I came across a theory that the Seven Kindred of the Merfolk each had one of the ten tritons as their ancestor, and that the remaining three tritons were the shaman, the priest and the sorcerer of the seas. The Wartain tribe text from Wyrm's Footnotes 11 was slightly altered in the Sourcebook, replacing the name Wartain with that of Waertag, with the funny side-effect that Waertag becomes his own great-grandfather (father of Warera, grandfather of Malkion, who in turn sired Waertag). A case of incarnation in the third generation (or a later one if there were generations between the original one and Warera). Deities can do this stuff, Zzabur the son of Malkion claims a similar pre-existence as an Erasanchula.

 

IMO Brithela was home to King Drona, the boar earth king (son of Kala? Britha?) and friend of Eurmal, who left his ancestral lands for Fronela - possibly to escape the dictates of the Logicians. Possibly leaving his brother Dromal behind to do the bidding of the Logicians.

Anyway, with the Dromal caste (children of Kala, led by Dromal, the son of Malkion Aerlitsson and Kala, a mountain goddess of Brithela), the Logician men tribes received a caste of brown-skinned workers to do all the material stuff. Malkion had three (or four) sons with Phlia, the Tilnta, and (according to the genealogies in Hrestol's Saga) two named daughters, which then married two of their brothers - Menena marrying the supernumerary brother who doesn't have a caste named after himself, and Eule marrying Talar. (Blame @scott-martin for inspiring this convoluted concept...)

I have the impression that Malkion Aerlitsson provided a son each to all seven tribes of the Logicians for the founder to incarnate (or, in case of the female logicians, to marry their leader - for whom he provided a daughter to incarnate, anyway). Thus we get the branch of the family which Hrestol married into when he arrived on post-Dawn Brithos.

Hrestol's Saga throws some confusion into the use of Holar for the Red Caste son and  Horal as the husband of Menena, of the Talar caste although he is a (full) brother of Talar, and one of his son emerging as "Duke" of "Horalwal" on coastal (southeastern?) Brithos.

[Eff]

9 hours ago, metcalph said:

I don't think the Ascended Masters have anything to do with the teaching of spells as that's something that mundane gloranthans can do.  Rather what they teach should be aids to  Joy - ie emulate an Ascended Master sufficiently and achieve a bonus to the acquisition and manifestation of Joy.  

 

Hmmm. Is Joy as universal a goal for Malkioni as the Ascended Masters seem to be? (E.g. it's only Rokari and allied schools that largely reject it.)

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Hmmm. Is Joy as universal a goal for Malkioni as the Ascended Masters seem to be? (E.g. it's only Rokari and allied schools that largely reject it.)

Joy - or Henosis, oneness with the Creator - is the basis for Hrestolism even in its earliest manifestation in Year 2 ST. Hrestol's teaching basically is that there is more than the dour Solace which doesn't really promise anything as you decay by aging. (Which, incidentally, doesn't seem to be much of a problem for Hrestol himself as a third generation Brithini - both he and his sister were obviously born before the self-sacrifice of Xemela, which appears to have occurred a good while before the Dawn).

But yes, apart from a few schools that may have formed from isolated Brithini colonies (looking at the Ingareens here), Henosis is a basic tenet that separates Malkionism from Zzaburism.

The Ascended Masters are probably less common a trait than Henosis, and IMO henosis is still pursued among at least half of the Malkioni in the Kingdom of Seshnela. Just not confessed.

Do the Rokari watchers have a Joy Division, and do they sound like love will tear them apart?

[scott-martin]

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

(Which, incidentally, doesn't seem to be much of a problem for Hrestol himself as a third generation Brithini - both he and his sister were obviously born before the self-sacrifice of Xemela, which appears to have occurred a good while before the Dawn).

Mom is super weird even by brithos bride standards. She is a bona fide Tamala on at least one genealogy, by which we mean darkness demon of archaic Pasos and elsewhere . . . the "Xem" particle is not as arbitrary as it might initially appear. This raises new questions about how much of Froalar's later heresies were present in utero from the beginning but this is not the place for that.

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Do the Rokari watchers have a Joy Division, and do they sound like love will tear them apart?

 

We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chamber,
Pushed to the limit, we dragged ourselves in,

Watched from the wings as the scenes were replaying,
We saw ourselves now as we never had seen.
Portrayal of the trauma and degeneration,
The sorrows we suffered and never were free.

Where have they been?

 

In general though I've usually resolved JOY to the french philosophical framework around "jouissance," I think others would say "Die fröhliche Wissenschaft." Like many good mystical concepts, it's too big and too small to fit comfortably into most game mechanics, but maybe now that we have passions and the heroquest paths are open the road is finally clear. Could blither on at tedious length about Ram Dass, being here now, etc., but life's too short.

 

[sufiazafran]

Hello again:

Returning to the original topic, I just wanted to ask you guys a question:

I have doubts about how to play the events of the War against War, more precisely, how to establish a system of priorities so I don't pass a really important event or character as something petty. For the moment, I've been reading anything I find on GtG, magazines, etc. and then writing questions about whatever is not clear, so one of the goals for players could be answering those questions by taking part in the events.

For instance, what happens with the trolls of the black forest, are they all killed by KoW, do they play a part in WaW? What happened with Ganestoro after Varnaro summoned it, is it really a chaos creature? Who the heck is Ezdenia and how she ended up serving Lord Death in da house? What are the real intentions of Meriatan, does he fight only for his kingdom or are there other motives? Is Meriatan able to keep his "virtue" intact during the whole campaign, or is facing the KoW a task that changes him, little by little? What the heck is Lord Death in da house and who kills him, Meriatan, someone else or maybe he survives? If he gets killed, what happens afterwards? And so on.

So I guess I wanted to ask if you think this is a useful method to start writing an adventure and, if so, what questions would you like to see answered if you were to play the WaW?  So to say, after all said and written, what do WE, players, Mr Jeff Richards and other creators of Glorantha (I presume there are others in this forum) want to happen? 

As I said before, any suggestion would be really appreciated (actually this whole topic is pure gold, thanks!)

 

[sufiazafran]

Oh, and another question:

On page 205 of GtG says that Meriatan was king Gundreken's lover, so the question is simple: how does homosexuality play in Glorantha (specifically among Loskalmi, Jonatings and Janubians), and sex in public? Is there a topic about this already in the forum?

I have to ask because I've already played Zoria with my players once, and well, I imagine there are public displays of love and sex in Zoria, hetero or homosexual, but I don't really know how would a Loskalmi react to these, or an orlanthi, or a troll, or anyone else.

Can you help me?

[Jeff]

3 minutes ago, sufiazafran said:

Oh, and another question:

On page 205 of GtG says that Meriatan was king Gundreken's lover, so the question is simple: how does homosexuality play in Glorantha (specifically among Loskalmi, Jonatings and Janubians), and sex in public? Is there a topic about this already in the forum?

I have to ask because I've already played Zoria with my players once, and well, I imagine there are public displays of love and sex in Zoria, hetero or homosexual, but I don't really know how would a Loskalmi react to these, or an orlanthi, or a troll, or anyone else.

Can you help me?

The Westerners do not conceive of sexual orientation as a social identity - caste is one's identity, not sexual practice. It is normal for Western men to have emotional and physical relationships with each other, particularly between older and younger men. Women are necessary to continue lineages, but women also occupy an awkward category - are they a fifth caste or do they belong to their father's caste?

The New Hrestoli view women as members of their father's caste but practice pederasty between men and boys (which results in far more boys being prepared to become Men-of-All than girls).

The Rokari hold that women belong to their father's caste and that their primary responsibility is as a wife and mother. Male to male relationships are common in the noble and warrior castes, but men are also expected to have wives and children.

As for women, women to women relationships are not uncommon. As long as they do not interfere with their caste or familial responsibilities, they are likely ignored (or even mildly celebrated in poetry). I suspect amongst the New Hrestoli relationships between older and younger women are a common parallel to male pederasty. There are also opposite sex pederastic relationships, but that may be considered more problematic and dangerously selfish..

[Eff]

10 minutes ago, sufiazafran said:

Oh, and another question:

On page 205 of GtG says that Meriatan was king Gundreken's lover, so the question is simple: how does homosexuality play in Glorantha (specifically among Loskalmi, Jonatings and Janubians), and sex in public? Is there a topic about this already in the forum?

I have to ask because I've already played Zoria with my players once, and well, I imagine there are public displays of love and sex in Zoria, hetero or homosexual, but I don't really know how would a Loskalmi react to these, or an orlanthi, or a troll, or anyone else.

Can you help me?

Canonically, all Gloranthan cultures are accepting of homosexuality. What follows is mostly speculation/invention.

Sources are generally quiet on public sexuality, but as one of the main contrasts between Loskalm and Seshnela is that Loskalm is more restrained where the Seshnegi are more given to sensuality, I would suggest that Loskalmi probably hold sex and sexuality to be something of a private thing, not something to be expressed in public if you can avoid it. 

Jonatings, however, are culturally substantially much more Orlanthi. Orlanthi are canonically much more open to public displays of sexuality, but instead there's a distinction (expressed via the differentiation of both bed-marriages and love-marriages from regular marriages) between expressions of desire and expressions of love and expressions of social ties. 

I know very little about Janubians beyond the Arrolian Confederation. Lunars are fairly open to sexuality, but IIRC one of the Arrolian cities is ruled by Solar priests when it comes out of the Ban. They would probably be even more prim than the Loskalmi. 

In any case, Zoria, with its firm commitment to free love, would be deeply disorienting for Loskalmi, Orlanthi, and probably most human cultures (Lunars would attempt to embrace the disorientation as clearly leading them towards enlightenment) but for a variety of reasons. Trolls may or may not care. Uleria's city should definitely be strange to visit for anyone who's not one of her god-talkers, IMO. 

 

[metcalph]

4 hours ago, Eff said:

Hmmm. Is Joy as universal a goal for Malkioni as the Ascended Masters seem to be? (E.g. it's only Rokari and allied schools that largely reject it.)

I think it goes something like this:

BRITHINI:  Do not recognize Ascended Masters.  Do not venerate them either.

ROKARI:  Recognize Ascended Masters.  Do not venerate them.

HRESTOLI:  Recognize Ascended Masters.  Venerate them for Joy.

ARKATI:  Recognize Ascended Masters.  Worship Gods instead for better magics.

Most Malkioni recognize Ascended Masters.  Only the Hrestoli venerate them.  Some Ascended Masters are worshipped as Gods and Ancestors (i.e. Arkat in Ralios, Gerlant in Seshnela, Talor in Jonatela) but this is not veneration.

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, sufiazafran said:

For instance, what happens with the trolls of the black forest, are they all killed by KoW, do they play a part in WaW?

The Black Forest trolls are dead as a group.  Some trolls may be fighting in the Kingdom of War.

2 hours ago, sufiazafran said:

What happened with Ganestoro after Varnaro summoned it, is it really a chaos creature?

That was meant to be the huge translucent demon that's always by her side.

2 hours ago, sufiazafran said:

Who the heck is Ezdenia and how she ended up serving Lord Death in da house?

Greg had a fairly insane worldwide chaos plot about this.

2 hours ago, sufiazafran said:

What are the real intentions of Meriatan, does he fight only for his kingdom or are there other motives? Is Meriatan able to keep his "virtue" intact during the whole campaign, or is facing the KoW a task that changes him, little by little? What the heck is Lord Death in da house and who kills him, Meriatan, someone else or maybe he survives? If he gets killed, what happens afterwards? And so on.

The relationship of Meriatan with respect to Lord Death on a Horse is up for grabs at this stage.  My own personal theory at the time was that Lord Death was originally his younger brother or lover.   Exploring the Ban he fights and exterminates the Trolls of the Black Woods at great cost to his forces and his own sanity.  He then makes his way out of the woods where he runs into Harrek the Berserk.  After an epic battle in which he is driven off, Lord Death comes to the insane realization that Harrek is God and now he seeks to emulate his sheer capacity for destruction.  At some point, Lord Death is going to have an epic battle with Meriatan which leaves the latter rather shattered and broken.

[Sir_Godspeed]

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Brithini way probably is impossible, within Time. Mistakes are accumulated even if one goes on tiptoes to avoid them.

 

Except Arolanit is within Time? Well, mostly, barring some of the weirdness there.

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

I think that Godtime Brithela offered a nice and pleasant way of life, before the Ice advanced and the Vadeli ruined it all.

 

Possible, but Zenderel (aka proto-Brithos) is a post-Vadeli polity. Moreover, aren't several Brithini laws from the Ice Age? I seem to remember Brithini Zzaburite clothing being heavy and warm by Law. 

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

IMO Brithela was home to King Drona, the boar earth king (son of Kala? Britha?) and friend of Eurmal, who left his ancestral lands for Fronela - possibly to escape the dictates of the Logicians. Possibly leaving his brother Dromal behind to do the bidding of the Logicians.

 

Brother, or other half. Not sure how much of a difference there is for gods. 

6 hours ago, scott-martin said:

In general though I've usually resolved JOY to the french philosophical framework around "jouissance," I think others would say "Die fröhliche Wissenschaft." Like many good mystical concepts, it's too big and too small to fit comfortably into most game mechanics, but maybe now that we have passions and the heroquest paths are open the road is finally clear. Could blither on at tedious length about Ram Dass, being here now, etc., but life's too short.

Could it be similar to the Greek "eudaimonia" as well? It's also hard to express in English, sometimes being translated as "happiness", but my philosophy lecturer explained it in more specific terms as "the sense of good one experiences when being able to use one's abilities and will in a manner which is rewarding", hence why it's also sometimes translated as "flourishing". 

Less mystic/divine, perhaps, but certainly something that could make a self-realized warrior cry out in laughter...

Edited December 12, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[scott-martin]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

eudaimonia

A hard Kristevan run on Socrates may be coming in the fullness of Time. I am not the hardcore Platonist in my gaming group and even my neoplats are rusty. I've read Bataille a lot more recently.

IMG this sense of "rightness" or fulfillment feels almost like a hygge experience of comfort when the potentials have been matched with manifestation and the plenum is satisfied. I don't ponder Solace much but that sounds like Solace. You did it. It's done. Your incarnation can rest.

Call it "fati" also. JOY for me something just beyond. Instead of pleasure at the end when life achieves its meaning, it's a precarious and transient encounter with something that isn't pleasure, pain, happy or sad. It's unmediated, ineffable, below and before language, beyond the pleasure principle and the law of the name of the father. It's outside Time so it can look a little like a reversion to that other condition that gets built into "God Learner Maps." Sometimes it just hits you. You're drifting through the Internet like always and something catches and you remember who you are, where you are, how you got here, how it's all connected. Then, fast or slow, you get back to the hard work of life. Sometimes it's spontaneous. Other times people work at it.

It's connected with a deliberate and conscious embrace of all those things you remember. You can choose not to construct that world around the self that does the choosing. You choose it anyway, because you have amor fati, a love for what it is. Yes to all that. What is will be no matter what (que sera) but we have the power to embrace it or struggle against it. That's the "something more" we bring the plenum through conscious apprehension of everything that is. The Nietzschean embraces it as though it might recur eternally, as though this is the fulfillment at the end of the day, "all there is." All there is . . . is enough and more.

It's actually intimately connected to Kierkegaard but I have literally forgotten more Kierkegaard than I retained. Also probably Camus but that's even more deeply buried, we must imagine Hrestol "happy" despite all evidence to the contrary. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

I'm not sure how I feel about Joy being so transient, and connecting a transient sensation/experience to existentialists feel somewhat like a poor fit, though I'll admit existentialists (and proto-existentialists in the case of Kierkegaard) are a diverse bunch. 

I guess I can but "transient, but transformative". I mean, the Laughing Warrior kept laughing, after all.

[scott-martin]

18 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I guess I can but "transient, but transformative". I mean, the Laughing Warrior kept laughing, after all.

"The eternal, on the contrary, is the present. For thought, the eternal is the present in terms of an annulled succession (time is the succession that passes by). For representation, it is a going forth that nevertheless does not get off the spot, because the eternal is for representation the infinitely contentful present. So also in the eternal there is no division into the past and the future, because the present is posited as the annulled succession."

There are interpretations of Talor where he laughs ceaselessly and deliberately, others as an alternative to weeping at the woe of the world and still others where it's a transvaluation of values. To be honest I suspect all these sidestep the point of him. Climacus / Anti-Climacus: All Gloranthas Vary. Another:

"The laughter that destroys the seriousness of all authority and the gift that sweeps away the fundamental value of exchange: both participate in an alchemy of the self whose crowning glory is love, the philosopher's stone in which existence comes back to life and genuinely creates itself."

[davecake]

I generally think that the Loskalmi treat the female caste, the Menena, the same way as they do the others - there is caste mobility and it based on ability and occupation. And the Menena caste is about child care and reproduction. A woman enters the Menena caste on pregnancy, and remains in it as long as they are caring for children. 
But women have as much caste mobility as men (at least in theory) - they may become Guardians or Men-of-All. I think there is a tendency for them to be less common in both, but I think that is largely due to the responsibility of child care - the relationship with their children changes more than it would for most men, and most women who progress through the caste system are either unmarried or have a relative who is willing to assume all child caring responsibilities. Men-of-All probably have to live up living with families, at least until thet graduate from the monastic life. 
While the idea of patronage through pederasty might have some historical basis, I’d really hate to see it become a major theme in depictions of Loskalm, which is supposed to be idealized. 

[davecake]

I’ve tended to think of Joy as something like religious ecstasy. 

I’ve also considered something like concept of Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel from Western esoteric tradition,  it that seems ultimately too complex for something that is the entry level achievement for Men-of-all.

[Frp]

Now that sorcery skills are gone how are the Loskalmi caste restrictions going to work? 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Frp

[metcalph]

3 minutes ago, Frp said:

Now that sorcery skills are gone now are the Loskalmi caste restrictions going to work? 

IMO

COMMONER:  Nobody learns sorcery.

GUARDIAN:  People are taught a ritual on how to contact the Hidden Mover.  This involves INT+POW on d100 (same as for learning a new Rune of technique RQ:G p284).  Success confers knowledge of the Magic Rune (in the sense of communication between worlds).  Success means your eleigble for practical God-Learning and are taught a few sorcery spells to strengthen your contact with the Hidden Mover.  One such spell is Medispection (mentioned in the Middle Sea Empire).  Drain Soul, a magic rune spell that was part of the Hrestoli College spells in Avalon Hill's Gods of Glorantha is probably another - I suspect it's a spell to drain oneself or another of impure energies to aid in contact with the Hidden Mover.

No other sorcery is permitted as sorcery in general is believed to proceed from Makan, the evil demiurge. It's possible to use the sorcery spells on is permitted for combat purposes (cf Drain Soul) but more conservative Hrestoli will frown on this.  

WIZARD:  People with medispection and two other spells at 75% (say), one becomes eligible to be a wizard.  All forms of sorcery are now permissible as one is now trusted enough not to turn into a God Learner by studying them.

 

 

[Frp]

On 1/2/2020 at 7:58 PM, metcalph said:

IMO

COMMONER:  Nobody learns sorcery.

GUARDIAN:  People are taught a ritual on how to contact the Hidden Mover.  This involves INT+POW on d100 (same as for learning a new Rune of technique RQ:G p284).  Success confers knowledge of the Magic Rune (in the sense of communication between worlds).  Success means your eleigble for practical God-Learning and are taught a few sorcery spells to strengthen your contact with the Hidden Mover.  One such spell is Medispection (mentioned in the Middle Sea Empire).  Drain Soul, a magic rune spell that was part of the Hrestoli College spells in Avalon Hill's Gods of Glorantha is probably another - I suspect it's a spell to drain oneself or another of impure energies to aid in contact with the Hidden Mover.

No other sorcery is permitted as sorcery in general is believed to proceed from Makan, the evil demiurge. It's possible to use the sorcery spells on is permitted for combat purposes (cf Drain Soul) but more conservative Hrestoli will frown on this.  

WIZARD:  People with medispection and two other spells at 75% (say), one becomes eligible to be a wizard.  All forms of sorcery are now permissible as one is now trusted enough not to turn into a God Learner by studying them.

 

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What about the non-magical requirements? 

I'd think to become a guardian you'd need %60 Farming, and a craft rather than plant lore and a craft, since there was no farming skill in RQ3. I presume military skills would still be needed for a Man of All. 

I'd also like to know I'd there will be any behavioral restrictions for castes. I presume the Hrestoli will be far less strict than the Rokari. 

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Frp