> there seems to be no account taken of any post-Malkion, pre-Hrestol
> "Malkioni"
OK, here's my latest version of events. This story begins after the expulsion/exodus of Malkion and the Malkioni from Brithos; one way or another, they have crossed the Raging Sea and settled in Seshneg.
This is quite lengthy, as I have found it's necessary to do a lot of preparatory work defining my terms before laying down the Law in this area. Note that throughout the text below I am using "Brithini" and "Malkioni" in their traditional senses: the "Brithini" are the atheist inhabitants of Brithos who follow Malkion's original Logical Laws but reject Malkion's later Prophetic revelations, while the "Malkioni" are those Brithini heretics who followed the Prophet's new revelations and went with him in his exile from Brithos. Please don't confuse them!
Big thanks to Peter Metcalfe and Paul Reilly for helping me out with some of the more colourful details!
Solace of the Body was the secret Malkion taught in his New Laws. This enabled people to use the resources of the world to obtain liberation from their troubles. Regardless of the flaws and follies of the world, it was possible for those who obeyed the Laws of Malkion to obtain perfect preservation and protection after their physical demise, in the spiritual haven of Solace in Glory. Solace of the Body taught that there is more to existence than this one life; that a man who lives in accordance with righteousness will not perish utterly from this world.
The Brithini completely rejected the need for, nature and existence of Solace. The Brithini "religion" - the Brithini Way - denies that there is any life after death, and most contemporary accounts of Solace come down to interpreting it (however crudely) as a form of post mortem survival. PB:G p.20 :- "Malkion's big revelation was that of Solace, which in its crudest (and best understood) form provided the message that followers of the Invisible God could attain a perfect life after physical death."
It's not that the Brithini have "forgotten the original version of Solace": they listened, but they weren't convinced.
"Solace of the Body" means: behave yourself, follow the letter of the law as it applies to someone of your Caste, and the Creator will look after you when you die. This is something the Brithini have never needed to be told; and after all, if it was a *REVELATION* to Malkion, it can't have been a logical conclusion (and therefore wasn't part of the Kingdom of Logic's Laws). Being "Solace of the BODY" means that you don't have to think or believe anything in particular: it's a religion for everyday life and ceremonial observances, with no room for Belief, Faith, Conscience, etc. (i.e. the parenthetical "of the Body" is a late addition made after Hrestol, to define the state of affairs that had earlier existed). If problems arise with this, then the fortunate inhabitants of Malkonwal always have recourse to the Prophet Himself, who could show them how to interpret His Laws.
(Alternative Interpretation One: Some people have queried whether Solace of the Body is really about life after death. After all, this is the Prophet's teaching as perceived by the Modern Malkioni. Some may think the earliest Malkioni would perceive this as something different. But the Kingdom of Logic is being attacked by things there are no Laws to cover. Chaos is one, the very embodiment of Illogic. More terrifying to the Brithini, though, is Death. Therefore it is far more likely that Malkion's revelation was of some way of transcending Death [with the modern harps and clouds version being a crude distortion of the original] than that it was merely another repetition of what had been, after all, the Brithini Way ab initio.)
(Alternative Interpretation Two: It's also been suggested that perhaps Malkion's message was, simply "Live the perfect life according to your caste, and you will live forever". This is, after all, what some Rokari are trying to do. But those Rokari who do so are going "back to basics": before even the "Exilic" Malkonism of Malkion the Prophet, back to the Logical Laws of Malkion, Lawgiver of Brithos. This fits the Rokari's "reformation" idiom. While the Prophet is among them, guiding men in the paths of virtue, many of the inhabitants of Malkonwal are indeed unaging by reason of their bodily purity and adherence to the Laws of Caste. But they still need to fear sickness, injury, infirmity and contamination, quite apart from Death. At this point in the Godtime, good Malkioni don't age, and bad Malkioni aren't Malkioni! This is the Great Darkness, guys: you gotta stay good to survive!)
I'd say that while the world was fragmenting under the onslaught of Chaos in the Great Darkness, Malkion kept his people devoted to God the Creator alone. Their single-minded dedication gave him the strength to fight the "I Fought We Won" battle on behalf of the whole world, pulling everything back together. All the Malkioni experienced what their Prophet had gone through:
> "The tattered remains of the world seemed to have no chance for unified
> action against the forces of chaos. They were isolated by unbridgeable
> gaps ... There was a unity between them in their wish for survival, and
> this unquenchable desire brought individuals across time and space,
> order and chaos to confront the final dissolution of the world. It did
> not matter from whence they were drawn or where it occurred. They
> fought their last desperate fight against overwhelming odds, motivated
> by their survival and determined to do their utmost. In this way they
> combined forces and unconsciously aided each other against their own
> fears. They were alone, yet they found themselves with others like
> themselves and gained strength."
At the moment the Universe fails, Malkion is absorbed into the Invisible God, and together they recreate the Universe and inspire its inhabitants. Although the world is almost destroyed, Malkion single-handedly saves it, but goes to Solace himself in the process. The Holy City fades from the world with all of his most faithful followers in residence; it's now a Hidden Castle of no fixed abode.
In a sense, this is the Malkioni Compromise, and is also what derails their religion without the Prophet present to guide them. Because, you see, his Old Way had stressed how devotion to God Alone was necessary, that the Malkioni were unique in being survivors from the Old World. This becomes part of the "unbridgeable gap" between the Malkioni and the rest of the failing world.
When Malkion saved Creation, however, the experience brought Malkion and his followers together with everything else that was now a rightful part of Glorantha. "They found themselves with others like themselves" -- and accepted them! So a whole new can of moral worms is opened (there are acceptable "pagan" gods!), just when the Prophet is no longer around to guide the faithful through it.
(Gloranthan Parallels #1: Compare to Orlanth and Yelm recognising each other's rights in Hell: a painful transformation for both religions to undergo, and one which is usually ignored by their followers in the real world. This is the kind of thing necessary in the Darkness: that Survival/Compromise moment when "the gods of Glorantha erase their old differences and stand united against their foe of Chaos" -- "Monomyth", GoG Cults Book p.11).
(Gloranthan Parallels #2: Paul Reilly, a God Learner apologist ["Burn him!"], has described the "I Fought We Won" as Malkion's Utuma sacrifice. I think this kind of Gloranthan coherence is a great asset, especially if we let it lie tacit in the final writeup. Like the Red Moon going down in an Utuma ritual: transformative self-sacrifice to re-create the cosmos isn't how Argrath usually tells the tale...)
Worship of Other Gods:
I'd lump original Prophetic/Exilic Malkionism in with the other "harsh survival myths" of the Darkness: follow this Law in every way, without question, and you *may* just survive. So Malkion's Kingdom in the Ice Age was essentially monotheistic -- under siege! -- but subsequently united with everything else in Creation after "I Fought We Won". This was when the Malkioni learned about and accepted the existence of all the other deities.
New problems immediately arise, as the Prophet's followers now know that the other non-Chaos entities and peoples of the world have contributed just as much as they did to its salvation. They know that there are other "good guys" out there, all mutually indebted to one another. Their grim, austere monotheistic religion starts to become pantheistic.
The Malkioni Wizards of the Grey Age and Dawning periods knew all of the gods from their own personal experience, and taught their flocks which of them should be prayed to under which circumstances.
Probably post-IFWW pre-Dawn Malkioni simply used the gods - not theistic worship, but not God Learner exploitation. It'd be one of those Arkati "respect" things, hard to put into words. I'm pretty sure by now that a Malkioni "priest" is an underqualified wizard, but he does love and in some sense "worship" the gods he uses. They are, however, a degree more abstract and less mythological than theistic deities, a process which accelerates through history to culminate in the Elemental Schools of Wizardry (probably already present in the late First Age).
The Problem of Age:
Of course, while everyone was living under the perfect guidance of the Prophet, nobody was erring or ageing. But devolution etc. rears its ugly (and wrinkly) head again as soon as he is gone from his followers; and the excess of wizardly legalism is in part an attempt to find a cure for the renewed problem of Age.
After the "I Fought We Won", there were no longer any immortal/unageing Malkioni: all those who were worthy were swept up in the Rapture which removes the Holy City of Malkonwal to Solace (and Hidden Castle status).
Bereft of the Prophet's guidance, and inadvertently trespassing against His Laws, all the relict Malkioni were now starting to age. Their godlike ancestor Malkion had left them, and while supposedly a joyful event, this is a source of grief to the Malkioni: "Oh, Father, why hast thou forsaken us?" They viewed the disappearance of the Prophet with great anguish and remorse because they knew that by ageing they were not living up to the ideals of the Castes. Some came to despair of achieving Solace, while the Wizards' grasp upon the Laws and their interpretation grew ever stronger (if nothing else, then from a sense of professional self-protection!).
The message of the wizards to their now-ageing populace was: "Fear not! Live your lives perfectly according to the Law, and you will not perish utterly when your mortal frame expires." Unlike the earlier Malkioni of the Prophet's era, the wizards now accept that almost everyone will die, slowly, from age. The promise of Solace *needs* to be broadened out to cover everyone, but there have as yet been no miraculous revelations to show this is possible. Malkioni become fearful: "If I commit one tiny act against the Laws, will my soul be extinguished utterly upon my death?"
So we have a strictly legalistic (but pantheistic and deeply confused) religion, one which feels remorse and loss at the death or disappearance of their Prophet/God Malkion, and is under the rigid rule of the Wizards' literal interpretation of scriptural laws, at the moment of the Dawning.
When other, pagan gods are revived by the Great Compromise and the Birth of Time, the Malkioni are to some degree "left out": their corresponding weakness in the face of Basmoli attacks leads directly to Hrestol's need for a new revelation -- which I think we've already covered here on the Daily.
Any questions or comments?
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