> Your typical Sartarite Humakti has Orlanthi parents, Orlanthi grandpparents,
> weds an Orlanthi wife, has Orlanthi kids, has an Orlanthi chieftain, and
> goes to fight for Orlanthi causes. He's not in a little bubble, a
> little private culture of his own. He's very much steeped in Orlanthi
> virtues, Orlanthi vices, Orlanthi truths, and Orlanthi errors.
I'd like to take issue with the third and fourth items on the above list. There are two aspects of the Humakt myth that would incline me to say that most (not all; we need to have room to make these guys distinguishable) Humakti neither marry nor procreate: First, the muchheralded severance of kinship ties was an act of rejection of not only clan but also marriage. To my (petit) knowledge, Humakt never took a wife. Second, procreation is a function of the Life/Fertility rune, not a particularly mythic strength of Humakt. Again, as far as I know, Humakt has never fathered a child. There're no geases proscribing (or requiring) marriage or parenthood (if there were, I'd be curious to see the gifts), but I sure wouldn't want a Humakti for a spouse or a parent (cf. "The Great Santini"). The Beckerian death-sublimation/avoidance associated with orgasm is left as an exercise for the reader.
Loren Miller remarking on the Crimson Greg's clothes:
> So is GS doing what he is because he (a) is a perfectionist who can't
> leave good enough alone, (b) loves pulling the rug out from under
> people, or (c) wants to encourage us to leave official glorantha and
> create our own unofficial gloranthas? Who cares? It doesn't make any
> difference what his real motives are. Here's why. His motives don't
> affect us. But his actions do.
I never thought I'd ever usefully quote Alex Ferguson, but here goes: "If you want to know what Greg thinks, go ask him!"
> I don't really care to analyse GS's real motives more deeply (though
> IMO apparent motives are fair game), but perhaps the belief that would
> let the most people stay sane would be c, and we can adopt it
> unilaterally? Answer c will work in Glorantha, though obviously it
> works even better in a non-G setting, so let's keep it in mind (along
> with MGF) as we develop our petit-Gloranthas.
Of course, one has to wonder if "letting people stay sane" is among the goals of Greg or anyone else with custody over Glorantha and RuneQuest. Since neither Avalon Hill nor anyone else are going to publish useful source material for "petit-Gloranthas," interpretation (c) is just being charitable. To effectively remedy the situation, we should probably go with interpretations (a) and/or (b) and consider a more defensive response.
"I'm not afraid of you. I don't even need you any more. The wheel you set in motion has gathered momentum: who can control it now? . . . But you mustn't get the wrong idea. It's been delightful meeting you. I've freed myself, and that's just what I wanted: to get rid of you."
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