Lhankor Mhy sorcery

[Kloster]

6 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

So how was mhy horrid francais?

Almost as good as mhy polish: phonetically almost correct.

[Bill the barbarian]

Just now, Kloster said:

Almost as good as mhy polish: phonetically almost correct.

That bad, huh? Oops, egg on face, will slink away now...

[albinoboo]

15 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

That bad, huh? Oops, egg on face, will slink away now...

That's oeuf of that

[metcalph]

8 hours ago, Kloster said:

Yes, but not that it is mandatory.

I used the words expected and ideal rather than mandatory..  There is any number of reasons why a starting Lhankoring would not have knowledge of sorcery.  That does not alter the expectation that he should learn sorcery to truly know Lhankor Mhy rather than it being an option.

 

[Bill the barbarian]

19 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

That's oeuf of that

Oui, s'il vous plait!

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Yes, there is a strong portion of Lhankor Mhy tied to sorcery, but his main rune is Truth (as the current owner, or in the phrasing of this document linked from glorantha.com, its manifestation).

The current owner of Truth is Dayzatar.  As to what Lhankor's main runes are, take it to the glorantha discussion.

 

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Hence, any character in the pursuit of knowledge/Truth is a valid  Lhankoring, whether he knows sorcery or not.

I'm really not interested in exegesis of on-line documents to promote some contrary version of Lhankor Mhy.  Lhankor Mhy teaches sorcery.  It is not an optional part of him taught by a cult hero but a core part of his identity,   I've already stated my position about the prevalence of sorcery among Lhankor Mhy worshippers - engage with that rather than waste time with trivia.

 

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

I disagree. It is an ideal expected in societies tolerant towards sorcerers, but not expected in "every" local Lhankoring in societies where sorcerers are suspect.

Where is this reference to Lhankorings being persecuted because they know sorcery?  He's one of the Lightbringers!  His magic is by definition Good (largely because it's useless but still!)

 

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

I doubt that more than a minority of Holy Country libraries have the requirement for Lhankor Mhy rune masters to be able to cast sorcery - Heortling Mythology certainly doesn't seem to suggest this. Safelster probably is a different proposition.\

The RuneQuest Runes state differently as referred to by the mention of Torvald's fragments being in the temples.  I fail to see how you can go from there to only a minority of Holy Country libraries.

 

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, albinoboo said:

It's best put down to your Glorantha mhy vary..........

Really need to have a good <groan> emoji... 😓??

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, Kloster said:

Almost as good as mhy polish: phonetically almost correct.

Is this what we've come down to? Mhy puns are better than yours?

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

I'm really not interested in exegesis of on-line documents to promote some contrary version of Lhankor Mhy.  Lhankor Mhy teaches sorcery.  It is not an optional part of him taught by a cult hero but a core part of his identity,   I've already stated my position about the prevalence of sorcery among Lhankor Mhy worshippers - engage with that rather than waste time with trivia.

I've stated mine, we differ, and that's nothing new.

The cult of Lhankor Mhy does teach sorcerous spell craft, but that isn't the only form of knowledge based magic coming from this cult, and absence of it won't make a Lhankoring worthless. While the cult values intelligence as a measure of memory, there is no entry requirement to have an INT of 13, and hard-working scribes or archivars without the mental flexibility to learn sorcery are still valid Lhankorings if they use mnenonic tricks rather than native characteristics to provide their

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Where is this reference to Lhankorings being persecuted because they know sorcery? 

Persecuted Lhankoring sorcerers in a hostile environment would be persecuted for God Learnerism or Arkatism (regardless of their real ambitions), not for being Lhankorings. Whether that persecution would involve more than being shunned, unfunded and their advice remaining unheeded for that taint or whether it means expulsion from the community is another question. The Elmali who left for Sun Dome County were "persecuted" for similar values of persecution.

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He's one of the Lightbringers!  His magic is by definition Good (largely because it's useless but still!)

Yes, it would take a Lhankoring mastering useful sorcery (like significant combat boosts for one's rivals) to get accused of those "evil" -isms.

 

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The RuneQuest Runes state differently as referred to by the mention of Torvald's fragments being in the temples.  I fail to see how you can go from there to only a minority of Holy Country libraries.

Please don't mis-quote me. I doubted the ability to cast sorcerous as a requirement, not as an availability. I would need some convincing by exlicit and impeccably official sources to make the Derensev Library a center of sorcerous teachings that makes sorcerous spell casting mandatory for its Rune Ranks and forces it on its initiates.

Sorcerous spell craft is an option for Lhankorings, not their definition. Mechanics or potion-making Alchemy are options, too.

Creative Heroquesting to change the myths is an option. EWF lore is an option. The study of Illumination and its techniques is an option. All of these latter three deal with concepts that will elicit hostile reactions from stodgy Orlanthi, and even Lhankorings who will make documents like this unavailable for distribution. putting them into the repositories for "toxic" or forbidden knowledge.

[davecake]

On 7/5/2019 at 6:59 PM, metcalph said:

Gloranthically Lhankor Mhy has the Law Rune which is associated with sorcery (I'm aware that RQG gives him the stasis rune but that's an artifact of the game system)..  In the HeroQuest: Glorantha, his sorcerous nature is even more explicit than in RQG.

While totally true, it is also explicit (in both HQG and in the RQG GoG draft) that the Truth rune and knowledge skills are required for advancement in the cult, sorcery is not. The SKoH writeup also notes that there are some Lhankor Mhy who are deeply conservative regarding sorcery, and essentially consider the study of sorcery beyond Torvalds Fragments to be problematic. 

On 7/5/2019 at 8:34 PM, metcalph said:

To get around it, you have to again mentally insert qualifications that are nowhere present in the text.

Or clearly present elsewhere in the text, depending on perspective. 

I certainly think that LM never shies away from Rune magic - it is how they express the divine power of Truth, rather than the limited power of human intellect which strives towards it. LM sages are not Malkioni philosophers. And note that becoming a sorcerer, for most LM, is actually going to *weaken* their magic for many purposes (as they have access to a wide range of spirit magic from associated cults, and generally speaking will know only a very few spells). Most Sages do not have the time to become an expert dedicated sorcerer, but have other things that consume their time (the requirement to become an expert at Lore skills, priestly duties, duties to clan or tribe if not living at a knowledge temple). If there is no requirement to become a sorcerer to be a senior Sage, it is not necessary to perform the core duties of a sage, and is not often a magically sensible choice, I would assume many Sages would have little interest in becoming an expert sorcerer. 

But one of the things we do know about the cult is that it is highly factionaiised and has no central hierarchy. And we also know that it varies widely. 

As the HQG writeup puts it:

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The Lhankor Mhy cult consists of several large organizations that cooperate but do not obey each other. These organizations ignore tribal and national borders; each has its own temple hierarchy at a particular cult library.

and 

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His worshippers range from the advisors of wild hill chieftains to sedate urban librarians.

The idea that all LM sages are sorcerers seems implausible for a cult of advisors to wild hill chieftains, especially as it seems to have a very limited connection to the majority of LM myth and social role. So I am going to assume that the study of sorcery is very much optional. However, lets assume that their exist LM temple organisations or factions that DO believe sorcery is mandatory, and assume constant squabbbling. When we think of LM sages, let us imagine in every grouping of multiple temples, there is channeling Peter's viewpoint, deriding the non-sorcerers as bumpkins or incompetents. 

On 7/6/2019 at 3:19 AM, Joerg said:

A Lhankoring seeking to become a Rune master IMO would be obliged in demonstrating some faculty with sorcery. 

It certainly does not seem to be a requirement in any existing cult writeup, including relatively recent ones. Lhankor Mhy is the god of written language, and of knowledge, and those are the formal requirements. I am sure there are LM who insist that demonstrating facility with sorcery should be a requirement, but there are also some who think every Sage should be able to function as an Orlanthi lawspeaker, and some who insist that every sage should be able to write multiple languages. 

I kind of like the idea (mostly for comedy purposes) that in some temples it is treated in much the same way as disciplines like psychology treat statistics. You learn enough to get past your exams and then never again. 

On 7/6/2019 at 3:19 AM, Joerg said:

I doubt that more than a minority of Holy Country libraries have the requirement for Lhankor Mhy rune masters to be able to cast sorcery

I think it is more common than that - for example, of the 6 named Sages of the Jonstown temple in the Sartar Companion, 3 are given the Law rune and can be assumed to be sorcerers, including Minaryth Purple, Garangian Bronze-Guts (the Chief Librarian), and Kalf the Maker (a student of Alchemy and Mostali lore). (Not saying those who do not have the Law rune are definitely not sorcerers, but I do think those with the Law rune definitely are). Whether any of them knows any sorcery beyond cult sorcery is another story entirely (though I wouldn't put it past Minaryth, and it is implied that Kalf knows some Mostali secrets - whether this extends to actual Mostali sorcery is another question). 

but I also think that libraries with significant material beyond the Torvald Fragments are much rarer than that. The majority of temples are going to have some subset of the Torvald Fragments and a few scraps here and there - and what they have is often going to be sorcerous material that is untranslated and in its original tongue (usually Western, Auld Wyrmish or in some temples New Pelorian). Note the rule about sorcerous skills being limited by literacy (and yes, this is the original tongue the spell is written in - translation is not automatic, but more like creating a new spell), and many Lhankor Mhy regard use of sorcery that is not translated by the Alien Combination Machine process (and so part of the Eternal Book) to be suspect. In short, for most Lhankor Mhy sorcerers study of the Torvalds Fragments grimoire is relatively straight forward, becoming a master sorcerer tends to distract from the mastery of Lore that leads to being a senior Sage - but study of other sorcery is even more so, time consuming and frustrating and perhaps the work of decades to get access to the level of knowledge a Malkioni might have access to during their apprenticeship. 

 

 

 

[jajagappa]

15 hours ago, davecake said:

So I am going to assume that the study of sorcery is very much optional. However, lets assume that their exist LM temple organisations or factions that DO believe sorcery is mandatory, and assume constant squabbbling.

There are certainly differences within the LM cult regarding whether sorcery can/should be used.  The LM Temple of Knowledge in Nochet (largest in the world now that the City of Wonders is gone) is largely divided into 6 "schools", each of which has differing opinions on what is allowed or not. These are a couple snippets that Jeff and I worked on for the in-process Nochet material:

"The Black, Blue, Green, and Purple schools also maintain sorcerous traditions, and even the Grey Lords hold some of the Torvald Fragments and know the secrets of the Alien Combination Machine.  The Charterists, on the other hand, maintain a strict doctrine forbidding sorcery to their initiates and take every opportunity to destroy such blasphemous writings (with such events often sparking one of the notable Scholarly Riots)!"

"Because of their large Scriptorium, old palace associations, legal expertise, and study and involvement with the Charter of Nochet, the Charterists are the largest of the schools and train most of those who become scribes and lawspeakers among the houses of Nochet.  The Grey Lords and Blue Philosophers have been particularly favored by merchant families due to their knowledge of other lands (the latter particularly by the sea captains).  The Black Philosophers are skilled in understanding and dealing with the trolls …"

[Noita]

This thread is a pretty good example of why the RQ and Glorantha forums are so painful at the moment. Arguementative, borderline rudness with a bunch of highbrow stuff thrown in that makes it personally unreadable.

 

[soltakss]

On 7/5/2019 at 11:34 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Does this imply some deeper truth about Lhankor Mhy, that their sorcery is just an optional part of the cult? 

Reading about Arkat a while ago, I came across something that said that he joined Humakt and Orlanth and gave the Orlanth cult his Brithini and Malkioni regalia for safekeeping. Now, to me, these sound like Artefacts and probably give access to Sorcery. Orlanth wouldn't want these, particularly, so could have given them to the Lhankor Mhy cult for safekeeping.

That might be one way for Lhankor Mhy cultists to access sorcery.

Alternatively, Lhankor Mhy might have come from the West and might have known sorcery right from the start.

[soltakss]

On 7/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, metcalph said:

Stasis is not associated with sorcery - Law is. 

Mostal was associated with the Stasis rune, I think. Mostali use a form of sorcery.

Lhankor Mhy had the Stasis rune in RQ2 and the Law rune in RQ3.