Thank you for the reply!
> A definition first. A Mystic is someone who spends his time meditating
> or grokking some unknowable concept. It really doesn't matter about his
> background - a priest of Dayzatar, a Hrestoli hermit or a Storm Walker
> are mystics as Mashunasan is.
Sure. I prefaced my engagement in this thread by saying I knew the definitions. I've read Max Weber: "contemplative flight from the world...it entails inactivity, and in its most consistent form it entails cessation of thought, the nemesis of everything that in any way reminds one of the world."
The Guide says "Mysticism: Also called draconic magic or illumination, this method of conceiving magic involves the search for the Unknowable. Mysticism rejects logic and experience, and uses austerities to sheer away the dull realities which daily and cosmic living accrues upon us. The magic provided is inconsequential and typically of no interest to those who study it."
So far so good, I hope.
> Other cults make use of mystical practices in order to strengthen their
> attachment to their divinity. In HQ2, this is largely colour and
> doesn't need any special rules to handle. Any improvement is considered
> training and is just as effective as doing martial drills every day.
> For this reason, I don't see any need to speculate about the powers of
> mystic cults when they could just as easily be considered sorcerous,
> theistic or animistic cults. For example, Yelmalio is a pretty austere
> cult but it's handled well through theistic magic.
That works wonderfully for me personally, since I was never a fan of the Four Directions / Three Worlds / Four Paths To Magic construct in the first place. Let any devotee approach the object of the cult in as pragmatic, personal, intellectual, emotional, active, passive, internal or external a way as moves him or her. Awesome. Complex. Non-reductive. Realistic.
But the Four Paths To Magic is currently still baked into the Guide and implies exclusivity among the systems. Lose that box and we might lose a lot of the confusions that have cropped up over the years. I hope they're listening. Maybe if I say the God Learners "edited" the cultures they classified and ruled.
[nice stuff on the Isles]
> I don't quite say this. What I do say is that the Eastern definition of
> mysticism is different from the standard/God Learner definition of
> mysticism. The Easterners say they are mystical and on their own terms,
> they are. In standard terms, they are not mystical but their religion
> is sufficiently infused with mystical wisdom that it has some effect
> upon their magic.
Again, if we lose the Four Paths To Magic box, this becomes easier to swallow in terms of the text. Right now we have "Gloranthan scholars generally recognize four distinct ways," which implies a common "standard" that may in turn be misleading.
How does the Eastern definition of mysticism differ from this from the Guide below?
"Mysticism: Also called draconic magic or illumination, this method of conceiving magic involves the search for the Unknowable. Mysticism rejects logic and experience, and uses austerities to sheer away the dull realities which daily and cosmic living accrues upon us. The magic provided is inconsequential and typically of no interest to those who study it."
Personally, if in the East they say they are "mystical," I would rather the text (if retained at all) reflect their usage in addition to / instead of the standard/GL definition. Again, it would help to eliminate misunderstandings and game artifact creep.
> As for Kralorela, I'd say it's the land of Draconism rather than
> Mystics. Because they were originally part of the Vithela, they
> consider their rulers to be Mystics but in truth most of them are
> draconists with a small minority being Mystics. There's also a minority
> creed that follows the sagely teachings of Niang Mao rather than Draconism.
I like this personally. The Guide pervasively refers to "draconic mysticism" as practiced in Kralorela and the EWF, so the Kralorelans currently appear to be *both* dragon-happy *and* "mystics" according to the terms laid out in that book. Maybe they'd disagree with this in the Isles (which we may agree are "mystical" but not draconic) but I don't know that yet.
Finessing the "mysticism: also called draconic magic" formulation would help to clarify that "draconic magic" is a flavor of standard Gloranthan mysticism and not a synonym.
Mysticism: Often manifesting historically as "draconic magic" or "illumination," this method of conceiving magic....
As for Niang Mao, separating his VOID from the dragon powers often associated with it increases complexity in Kralorela and likely Maximizes Glorantha Fun.
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