Weinander isn't a "real" swedish name. Sure, names ending in "ander" are common, but they are comparative latecomers. Why swedish people started creating names with a latinized greek ending eludes me. Weinander was invented in the '40s by my father and his brothers who though Jansson was too common.
Anyway:
>> My theory is that this is the beauty of the afterlife system devised
>> by Thalurzni: you don't have to be particularly good to get the benefits,
>> you just have to follow the rules and avoid being bad.
>
>It probably isn't a matter of being good or bad as such, but of reaching
>the Correct Mystical State.
Actually I think both are equally valid: in my model Thalurzni's afterlife is for everyone. You don't have to be an enlightened mystic to get there, you just have to follow the rules and be a good kralorelan, i.e. act appropriately for you position in life and give worship to the emperor through the exarch of your province. On the other hand, the enlightened mystics probably get there even if they are more lax in their duties to the emperor just because they do attain the CMS.
>> There's a Sky culture under the draconic stuff in Kralorela.
>
>Well, I know they're one of the Speckled areas in GoG, and I've heard
>assorted theories about the relationship between Kralorela and other
>Solar areas, but it doesn't amount to much, to date.
Emperor 1: Aether Emperor 2: Yelm Emperor 3: Metsyla son of Yelm
Main agricultural goddess: Den Xi (Dendara)
People: children of heaven
...
That's evidence for a strong Sky association.
>My personal
>suspicion is that there's not different "layers" of distinct cultures,
>a la Peloria, but that sun worship just happens to figure as an
>aspect of Kralori mysticism.
The first emperors were clearly solar dudes, the draconic stuff came with Daruda. I think that's evidence for some layering (not so many layers as in Peloria though).
>> I'd say the solar heaven is a lot
>> tougher to get to, but once you succeed you get there right away. All
>> in all, you win some, you loose some.
>
>I don't think there is a different Solar heaven, rather I think the
>reincarnation schtick is how solar beliefs are manifest in the current
>setup.
I didn't mean that there is an alterntaive solar heaven for present-day Kralorelans. In other solar cultures like Dara Happa and Teshnos there sure is and it's difficult in the extreme to get there IMO.
>A strong cyclical element also fits in with the draconic theme, though.
So does a way out of the cycle. After all, the dragonewt cycle ends when the 'newt finally becomes a dragon. No wonder the western dragonewts call the Kralorelans heretics when it comes to draconic philosophy: those pesky easterners have found a short-cut to leaving the cycle.
>The Sandy/Nils scheme seems only tokenly cyclical to me, and
>not all that different from Bog Standard Theistic Stuff.
It's definitely cyclical, there just happens to be a short and wide path out of the cycle. I bet the kralorelans claim that foreigners and benighted fools like Animal Men, Ignorants, Trowjang raiders and Vorumai pirates must do the old reincarnation thing to no end.
Btw, I don't think there is Bog Standard Theistic Stuff about afterlife. That just happens to be an underdeveloped part of Gloranthan mythology.
START NIT-PICK Kralorelan != Kralori
Kralori is the oriental race. Kralorelans are Kralori, but so are Teshnans and East Islanders too.
END NIT-PICK
I missed a couple of Digest issues courtesy of our beloved computer service people who accidentally shut off our entire mail system friday to sunday. I tried to pick the missing issues up from the WWW page
http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~major/glorantha
but Mosaic wouldn't find the page for me. Has it been moved?
/Nils W
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