Re: Glorantha Digest V1 #221

From: Erik Sieurin <ERISIE_at_bhs.hb.se>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 19:20:50 +0100

Alex (about Babs Gor):
> The Orlanthi tale seems to have Eurmal as the intermediary in
most,
> if not all cases, so an obvious ploy would be to have Babs pulp the
> little bleeder to get the weapon, and then castrate him with it.
>

Note that it is said:
A, That Babs lept fully armed from her mothers womb when her mother was harmed/killed.
B, That Babs in her berserker mood slew the peaceful and non- resistant population of Healer Valley, and was up to vey high in blood, when Eurmal appeared and changed all the blood into beer. Babs suddenly got very drunk, and the few healers left were saved. The first thing makes me wonder if not Babs grandaunt TKT already knew about Death (perhaps it was within her realm). Th other thing makes me think that this was a case of Eurmal for once (you cant be predictable when you are a Trickster) feeling responsible for wht he did. "I give this dyke Death, and before you know it she goes off to kill a lot of unarmed people. Sheesh! Gotta do somthing!"

> Of Erik's Eurmal steals Death from Humakt to give to Orlanth
theory:
(some things deleted)
 I sniggered greatly at the
> bit where Eurmal calls Orlanth "darling": a Camp Luvvie aspect of
> the Monomythic Tricker God, anyone? (Perhaps following the example
> of S. Fry, this is a combination of the Fool and Truant aspects.)
I thought someone would ask me what games Eurmal wanted to play with young Orlanth, who I bet was both handsome and manly..... By the way, I checked both KoS and the Tales writeup. My version was not exactly coherent with KoS but close. And the Tales version explicitly said Orlanth _stole_ Death.
I like the idea that there are different versions to the story.  

> Tricksters aren't just people with a wergeld of zilch, which would
> not normally allow them to be killed with impunity, they can, in fact,
> be killed with impunity, unless they have sworn loyalty to some
> Orlanthi type, in which case you now have him to answer to.
Interesting question: Any example of a non-chieftain who does this? keeps a private Trickster, I mean?

And by the way, thanks for suggestions about Humakti geases etc.

Klaus O Kristianssen:
>
> The universe is a an unbounded sea of chaos. Since chaos is without
> constancy, occasionally bubbles of something else, something totally alien
> to chaos, appears spontaneously. Glorantha is one such. It is likely that
> Glorantha is both unusually large and unusually long lasting, but there is
> no way we can know. There is no way to learn what the outer chaos contains,
> since not even the gods can survive there.
>

Note that unless some "Lawful" place(s) existed within Chaos, Chaos would be consistent, ie not Chaos....

> II Glorantha is a machine.
>
> This is what the dwarfs believe. What is the purpose of this machine?
The purpose of the machine is to turn all Chaos into Reality, the opposite of Chaos! It is a self-duplicating machine to constrcut new universes!
Remember: the mostali are your
> friends, and happiness is mandatory. Ooops! Wrong game.
Not entirely. I have always envisaged Mostalidom as a Orwellian bureaucracy which is actually loved by the people.... Perhaps Brave New World is a better paralell (including incubated foetuses).

Erik

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