Curses, Atyar, Law

From: Nick Brooke <100270.337_at_compuserve.com>
Date: 11 Mar 96 04:15:13 EST


Pope Jim asks:

> Which Gods can protect their adherents from the previous God's curses?

Well, my 'curved swords theory' (not the 'curved light theory': does everything I touch end up bent?) would hold that Yanafal Tarnils can protect his followers against one part of Humakt's curse (as curved swords are immune to Swordbreaker), but the downside (that Resurrected Yanafali may become vulnerable to Swordbreaker's attacks) shows that *although* a Yanafal worshipper may have no contact (personal, cultural, spiritual) with Humakt, he'd still be vulnerable to a Humakti spirit of reprisal.

Possibly something similar happens with Etyries (anyone think Lunar merchants exhibit signs of Raw Greed?) and Irrippi Ontor (a good source for those bureaucratic paper-pushing scribal drones, whose creative intellect has been flayed away for distorting True Knowledge?). Their source cults' hard'n'fast restrictions (no stealing/cheating, no distortion/destruction of Truth) may be somewhat eased by the Lunar Way, but the retribution of the original god can still hit his apostate's followers. OTOH, as Jim pointed out, Humakt is unusually severe and 'straight' in this regard, so I'm not overly committed to this theory.

I'm pretty sure the Seven Mothers Cult can protect worshippers from the spirits of reprisal of their previous cults, as otherwise it'd be damn' hard to make converts. "Join the Seven Mothers and become infested with impests! Suffer the Borabo Nightmare, courtesy of the Lunar Way! Watch your genitals shrink and your headaches multiply!" Only a Loonie would join...

Atyar is an interesting case. My own opinion (from personal experience) is that "Atyarism" is far more common a heresy than the vicious chaos-cult version presented in CoT, SotB, LoT, BoDR, etc. would lead you to believe. Atyar is... well, remember that last week before your university exams, when you sat staring at a Big Book on the shelf that you really ought to have read three months ago, but somehow never got round to, and you're sure all the answers to all the questions the examiners are going to ask will be in it somewhere, but it's too late to start reading it now...

Well, Atyar is the answer to that conundrum: Instant Knowledge. Like walking into the exams with a book shoved into your brain, only you forget it all afterwards. It's not so much that the original work of True Knowledge is destroyed (as in Ingest Scroll, Devour Book, etc.), but that the knowledge you gain from it is temporary, one-use, fugitive. You gain the use of the areas you NEED in your present desperate extremity, but not the understanding of why it should be so, or any long-term benefit.

(Another Atyar spell not described in the existing write-up is Swallow Tongue, useful for gaining the use of those Lhankor Mhy language skills, but that's a bit harder to get away with).



Joerg asks:

> What is the relation between Illumination and Law in Glorantha?

A Lhankor Mhy sage answers: "Between Illumination and *what*?" (I remain convinced that most LhMs would not know the meaning of the Law Rune they were assigned in GoG, preferring the traditional Stasis Rune).

> I always understood that Law was not the exact opposite of Chaos.
> The antithesis of Chaos is Creation, AFAIK.

Could be Creation, or Nature, or Glorantha, or Us.

See Sandy Petersen in v2#308 (3 Jan 96) for a brilliant exposition of the nature of Law in the West: Laws of Nature, Moral Laws, and Laws of Men. Chaos violates any and all of these. But the idea that the Men of the West are therefore any more devoted to the fight against Chaos than the Praxians is, of course, absurd.

NB: The dweebish/DnDish "Sense Law" and "Defend Against Law" skills'n'spells from the old Krjalk Cult in CoT were (sensibly) deleted from Lords of Terror, but anyone who wants them can find them in the Book of Drastic Resolutions.



Nick Fortune (another Nick! God be praised!) writes:

> _Are_ riddles spells? I would have said not. I believe they are
> psychological exercises aimed at breaking down a particular barrier
> in the minds of sentient beings.

I am, of course, in full agreement with my fellow Nick on this matter. Of course there are folk in Glorantha who'd consider Nysalor Riddles "spells", but I don't think anyone who actually knew, studied or comprehended the Riddles would be likely to do so. Any more than a Waha Khan thinks of the Peaceful Cut as a "spell", or a Hrestoli Knight thinks his Sword Prayer is a "spell". It's like that old question of whether Aldryami use Rune spells to make babies: ridiculous, when you think about it. *All* life is magical.

We know from D:LoD that there are differing "degrees" of Illumination, and I think it makes sense for the depth to which one is Illuminated to vary depending in part on the seriousness and personal significance of one's approach to Illumination. This *can't* be made mechanical, as the Path of Illumination rules nobly avoid doing. But I submit that someone who treated his riddles as "spells" would be unlikely to get much further than the shallow end of the great ocean of Illuminated Insight (and, further, that many graduates of the Lunar College of Magic are paddling happily in that shallow end, blissfully unaware of the depths of wisdom possessed by the Illuminated Masters).



Nick

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