It's occurred to me that we have a pretty good idea about Illumination
as practiced by
the Lunar Empire and some idea about Illumination as practiced by the
Nysalorans but
we don't have much of an idea about Illumination as practiced by the
Yelmics (also the
Sun Domers).
WHAT ARE YELMIC ILLUMINATES LIKE?
Plentonius describes Yelm's Illumination as experiencing the impossible
and knowing the
Other. Now Yelm (according to Plentonius) experiences this insight
while being among
the Many in Hell. So the original path towards Illumination might be a
destitute lifestyle.
An example of this is be Avivath who is a beggar and a thief before he
unties the knot
of Antirius to become his Avatar. Now this knot motif figures in some
interpretations of
Chakras, so Avivath could be a model of a Yelmic Illuminate (I say
"could be" because
Plentonius nowhere describes Avivath as Illuminated). This also meshes
with Illumination
being a favoured practice of the mob in the centuries after Nysalor's
death.
Other examples support this. The Margins have "origins among the
socially disenfranchised"
while the White Sun Lords were commoners who were "rallied by an Emperor
who had been
hiding among them". IMO then Illumination was originally a mental state
of Yelm that
spontaneously broke out among the rabble of the Empire and still does.
WHAT CAN YELMIC ILLUMINATES CAN DO?
We know the Yelmic Illuminates do not mess about with chaos. They don't
have glamours nor
can they use their illumination to substitute for other runes. They
could fight Dragons and
were very good at it. Avivath incarnates a god (as do Palangio and a
couple of others at the
Battle of Night and Day) and kills two Emperors with a Sunspear (which
he curiously had to
wait for). Kerestus could defeat the Zolathi when nobody else could so
was co-opted into the
Seleran Empire.
Incarnating a God in HQ2 is dealt with by Feats. The Dara Happans
fighting the Dragons were
done by performing the myth of Yelm defeating Burbustus the Dark
Dragon. But the Orlanthi
can do feats without the benefit of Illumination, so something more is
required.
I think the answer is at the Battle of Night and Day where we are told
the Compromise was
broken with the incarnation of Daysenervus. Therefore when the Yelmic
Illuminates do feats,
they can Do the Impossible and ignore some portion of the Cosmic
Compromise. Not as
spectacularly as the events of the Battle of Night and Day but enough to
make a significant
difference.
There are two risks to using illumination this way. The first is that
the soul can be utterly consumed
by the deity if the Illuminate surrenders everything (to which the
answer is not to surrender
everything). The second and more important risk is that if the
Illuminate ignores the Compromise
too much, then the Enemy Gods can manifest among his opponents and even
the odds. A third
risk might be environmental damage to the Cosmic Compromise (this is
based on a long ago remark
by Sandy that the Nysaloran Empire would have destroyed Glorantha if
Arkat hadn't stopped them).
So why don't the Lunars do this? The best (and simplest) answer is that
the Lunars don't have feats
so can't break the Compromise with them.
NYSALORAN CULTS
Armed with this, I'd say there's two components to a Nysaloran cult.
The method by which they
seek Illumination which can range from full-on slumming as the Cynics
did or to studying the Riddles.
Most schools will have taught a mixture of both. Exposure to the All is
a Lunar practice.
The second step is the deity they worship. Because they are
Illuminates, it can only be a light or
fire rune deity, such as Antirius, Shargash or Yelmalio. They can
ignore many "petty" cult restrictions
and hence are more demotic than their orthodox counterparts (an
Illuminated Priest of Yelm has no
need for family connections). In addition, they can only break the
compromise with light or fire-rune
feats (ie an Illuminated Yelmalion cannot use a Truth Rune Feat in this
manner). Hence Illuminated
Cults are truncated versions of the original cults and so rarely if ever
can replace them.
--Peter Metcalfe
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