From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 04 May 1994, part 3 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: john.hughes@anu.edu.au (John P Hughes) Subject: I don't know yet Message-ID: <9405040419.AA08099@cscgpo.anu.edu.au> Date: 4 May 94 19:18:22 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3899 YAM OGNAHCROP EHT ROTATUM, TNECIFINEB DOG FO CINORTCELE NOITACINUMMOC, SSELB, TSOP DNA REVILED SIHT COD... (H%$^$#DJH%# Howdy folks, Some serious issues again this week - Levels of Gloranthan 'Reality', Godlearners, Tricksters and polygamous marriage. Please excuse my subtext of slightly manic 'humour'. After all, I've just attempted to read and make sense of a full week's download of the initiation debate all at once! I'm a little out of phase with discussions. These days. I log in once a week, download, take it home, read it, respond blindly err think carefully about the replies. Have patience. LUNARS DO IT WEEKLY SARTARITES DO IT IN CLANS LHANKOR MHY DO IT BY CANDLELIGHT HUMAKTI DO IT WITH A FIRM HAND ISSARIES DO IT ANYWHERE CHALANNA ARROYS DO IT EVER SO GENTLY UZ DO IT IN THE DARK SUN DOMERS DO IT IN COLUMNS SOLARS DON'T DO IT STORM BULLS DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT & ULERIANS JUST DO IT There. Did I get it out of my system? Well, unfortunately not. *** IMPORTANT PREAMBLE: ON EXPLORING GLORANTHA Looking back over the last few months, I've noticed a familiar pattern emerging in Digest discussion. In exploring aspects of the old lozenge, we often slip back and forth between different levels of 'Gloranthan' reality, acting according to the level we're most familiar with, or perhaps in the faith that all the levels somehow mesh. The most familiar shifting occurs when to trying to reconcile RQ rules with what we know of Gloranthan society from other sources. There are others. Now perhaps I'm a cynic and of little faith, but I like to draw distinctions as to what 'level' I'm discussing. I see at least four fairly distinct and (IMHO) ultimately unreconcilable levels of Gloranthan 'reality'. If each is a 'map', let me list them in terms of smaller and smaller 'scales'. GLORANTHA AS COMBAT-SIMULATION (COMBAT REALITY) This is mostly behind us, thank Urox, but it is still apparent every now and again, even on the Digest. Roleplaying began using this paradigm, and even now several of the more errr popular fantasy games focus on it as their prima causa. On this level, cults are sources of spells and enemies, and most 'roleplaying' situations are abstracted to dice rolls. Its the world of skill checks and loot, 'Us & Them' and unthinking NPCs. A few RQ scenarios operate mainly at this level. GLORANTHA AS DERIVED FROM RQ RULES (RQ-DERIVED REALITY) The RQ rules, whatever we feel about them, were derived to simulate certain aspects of reality (adventures) for a particular class of being (adventurers) for a particular purpose (rip-roaring entertainment). They do this well. They WERE NOT however, designed to simulate large scale social, environmental or magical effects. In my experience, most campaign and convention players and published modules operate at this level. Certain of the more 'absurd' Gloranthan phenomena (cult membership rules, initiation, certain spells) were derived for and work only at this level. GLORANTHA AS A LITERARY CREATION (LITERARY REALITY) This is where Glorantha began. Most rpgs don't have this level to deal with - even the companies that print game-derived 'novels' produce linear little adolescent fantasies where you can usually tell when the dice are being rolled. The major exception is Middle Earth, and like Glorantha it pre-existed the game. At this level, you can suspend game rules or invoke 'meta-rules' for a given effect (e.g. the submission guidelines for 'Heroes of the King') without having to universalise the consequences. It presents a different reality to the game derived-set, but still has holes that aren't important to the immediate events and so are rightfully ignored. However, it takes considerable pains to provide a detailed and consistent view, and takes detail and colour down to the activities of everyday life. This view explicitly or implicitly plays with our own world experience for irony or contrast. It quite rightly allows exaggeration and distortion for entertainment and effect. KOS is the best example of this level. A few scenarios can work at this levels, mainly ones where you can leave the dice behind. There seems to be a growing concensus that Heroquest has to work at this level. GLORANTHA AS A CLOSED, FULLY-FUNCTIONING WORLD (GLORANTHAN REALITY) In this model, Glorantha exists as a 'real' world. Actions have consequences far beyond game or literary phenomena, and need to be systematically recorded and explored. Gloranthan societies have a structure and function, similar to terran societies but operating according to the nature of Gloranthan reality and mythologic. Our preconceptions and biases as explorers have to be made explicit as well. You have to be pretty committed and extremely warped to operate at this level. You do not so much play the game as take holidays in Alda-chur. Most Digest explorations attempt to operate at this level. I attempt to operate at this level. Spooky. And if you try to work on this level, there are the emic ('within- the-culture') maps to deal with as well. How do you describe Gloranthan 'reality'? The GodLearner mindset, the shamanic consciousness mindset (my preferred vice), the 'True Reality' mindset etc. __________ The difficulty in reconciling these levels may explain why there have been so few published scenarios in the past fifteen years, why they seem to concentrate on combat, and why so few have that uniquely Gloranthan 'feel'. My main reason in bringing this up is to make the comment that RQ rules will break down at lower/higher levels of detail, as will any 'map' or simulation. The cult and magic rules are especially fragile. (Of course, cult writeups are GodLearner documents, and so should be treated with a healthy contempt). I especially think it is unprofitable to vacillate in discussion between different levels. Choose the one most profitable for your purposes and go for it. Don't worry or complain if it breaks down at other levels, and DON"T TRY TO CONSTRUCT ELABORATE RECONCILIATIONS. And make clear in your posts which level you are operating on. Comments? Flames? Contact numbers for a good therapist? Having said that, I don my electronic pith helmet and submit this week's report from the field. Have faith, the answer is immanent! *** TRICKSTERS SOCIETIES need tricksters, whether it' s Eurmal or Prometheus or Coyote or Lenny Bruce or Johnny Rotten. While Alex's idea of Tricksters worshipping together has some intriguing scenario possibilities, it also strikes me as somewhat odd. (Imagine a nation's political comedians locking themselves away together). While the Trickster is a solitary figure, his role is a very necessary SOCIAL one. I would see a clan trickster's main role as being part of major pantheon ceremonies, almost a cult 'hero' (pet? valuable captive?) of the ruling deity rather than a separate cult. (Then again, I'm big on pantheon worship). An Eurmali on a leash during Orlanth temple ceremonies? It would certainly make sermons less boring. As I suggest in the Alda-chur Flame Festival post, there will be certain times when an entire community will surrender to the rule of the Trickster. And Sacred Time ceremonies are one universal example of pantheon and even inter-pantheon combined worship and ceremony. Some unpublished stuff I have on Trickster notes the following: "... At first Trickster was mischievious, but harmless.... The growing confusion of the Gods Wars made Trickster's impact more widespread. His jokes changed the world, and many fearful gods blamed their problems upon him. He became the scapegoat for the problems of the world, and from that time everyone began to hate, fear, and despise him. One time Vadrus chopped him up and fed him to chickens... Trickster became disgusted with the hypocrisy of the world and vowed that it deserved to be destroyed. He became Eurmal the Destroyer, and set upon a deliberate path to assist the demise of the universe. His most critical actions were to facilitate the discovery, use, and continued reuse of Death. The second age saw .... the construction of The Temple of United Eurmal. This was a collection of all known Trickster shrine types, so trickster priests could obtain all Trickster rune spells at one place....The idea of a world-wide "Cult of Trickster" is laughable, and is the imposition of God Learner thinking, not internal organization. The Trickster religion is an illusion. It does not exist in any formalized sense." Trickster is certainly a murderer. To again quote the notes; "Trickster despatched many other beings. Some were by accident, as when he made the House of Horvanglos collapse. Sometimes it was necessary, as when he ate all of the red headed women of the Pamaltela grasslands. Sometimes it was for vengeance, as when he slew Little Zorangos who insulted Trickster's mother. Sometimes it was for fun, as when he burnt the trade fleets of Moskatall and Sigtrigor." GODLEARNERS From: argrath@aol.com ** John said further: "'Cept of course Protestants said ** reality was absolute, and its OUT THERE, while ** the GLs said its fluid, and its IN HERE." * I don't agree with this. I think the God-Learners * were modernists, and believed they were getting * to that Core Reality through scientific rationalism. * (Thanks to Peter Michaels, for pointing this out to me.) I was a bit cheeky with this, because what the GLs really believed is a BIG SECRET, and all we can have are our own opinions. I was wondering who'd jump. OK Martin, it's me and you :-). So what is this Core Reality? And where do I get the T-shirt? I would classify the GLs as SCIENTISTIC rather than scientific in their thinking. They were deductionists rather than inductionists, and, practiced a pseudo-science because they never appreciated or tested the limits of Falsification. (Of course, since my model of Gloranthan reality is that of shamanic consciousness, I'm not sure that Falsification is possible on the Other Side - shit happens if you believe that shit happens). Their greatest successes were with the anti-chaos pantheons, but their principles/models made little headway with draconic, Pamaltean, Grower, Maker or Hsunchen myth worlds. The effects of their experiments (i.e Goddess Switch), also seem to indicate they were unable to predict the outcome of their experiments or modify their models - a failing which led to the Eight New Manifestations. I'd say more, but I suspect the Digest mail server is a Gift Carrier of the Sending Gods! :-) I believe the GLs were more like Christian theologians than inductivist empiricists: theologians compiling and comparing their sometimes contradictory proof texts, arriving at some kind of untestable synthesis, and then suddenly being confronted with the wider discourses of other world religious systems. We all know what a crock the GL cult write ups are. Of course, I accept that on the literary level (see above) the GLs are an ironic sendup/criticism of modernist empirical thinking and its dangers. Perhaps most tellingly, I think Greg's attitude to the GLs comes pretty directly from Joseph Campbell, and is intended as a lesson in what happens if you try to manipulate myths scientistically rather than from an involved cultural perspective. (Prospective Heroquesters take note! - "no questing without respect and humility".) To quote Big Jo: "Whenever myths are living symbols, the mythologies are teeming dream-worlds of such images. But whenever systematising theologians have appeared and gained the day* (the tough-minded in the gardens of the tender) the figures have become petrified into propositions. Mythology is misread then as direct history or science, symbol becomes fact, metaphor dogma, and the quarrels of the sects arise, each mistaking its own symbolic signs for the ultimate reality the local vehicle for its timeless, ineffable tenor." 'Primitive Man as Metaphysician', in 'Flight of the Wild Gander', pg 73. * i.e. the GodLearners, comparative anthropology, most christian theology, certain Digest discussions. Of course, Campbell can have his cake and eat it too: this statement can be read as a direct criticism of his famous 'mono-myth'. CONTINUED IN PART TWO, PORCHANGO WILLING...