Midwinter and Rituals

From: Michael Raaterova <michael.raaterova.7033_at_student.uu.se>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 14:51:44 +0100


Mark:

>It sort of strikes me that, following Michael's thinking, one way of looking
>at this would be to view a lot of festivals or rituals as being oppositional
>in nature; in theory, then, all cults should have both 'positive' holy days
>or festivals, in which they attempt to be proactive in the world, and
>'negative' or 'anti' holy days, festivals, or rituals, in which they are
>attempting to mythically and magically interfere with someone else's
>proactive ritual.

I'm not sure that all of the oppositional rituals would be intentional interference with another culture's rituals. Some of them could be directly against the _phenomenon_ that results from other cultures' rituals, and thus only indirectly against the culture.

But it's a very good idea.

RE: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF RITUALS There is one problem with quantifying rituals, and that is how Magical Cooperation works. It has to be defined and explained before we can detail the magical effects of rituals. A related, and equally important, problem is that YGMV - i don't think we can come to any definite consensus about the Nature of Magic in Glorantha, which i think is a prerequisite. But the idea is so fascinating that it is worth a try.

One very important factor in judging the effectiveness of seasonal rituals, is the success of the Sacred Time rituals, which sets the 'karma' of the following year. If the year has good karma, the seasonal rituals will be easier or more successful. If the reverse is the case, the seasonal rituals must succeed very well in order to alleviate the bad karma, but for that particular season only.

(A game mechanic for this could be that the success of the ST rituals carries over as a bonus on all the major rituals of the year. No wonder why every culture strives to do as well as possible during ST.)

This idea makes Sacred Time the most important ritual of the year, which is as it should be.

RE: MIDWINTER
>Like I said, I like the Ernalda-in-the-Underworld idea, but this actually
>strikes me as a pretty good idea of an "oppositional" ritual or holy day.
> The fact that midwinter is a major Darkness HD (which I agree with
>completely) doesn't preclude the notion, IMO, that it can also be a major Sun
>holy day, it's just of a different type, "oppositional" if you will -- hence,
>the putting out of the hearth fire and other unusual (noncommunal) elements
>of the ritual. Perhaps, then, the more appropriate foes would be darkness
>ritualists who attempt to interfere with the transport of the blessed
>torches, rather than Chaos fiends.

The midwinter rituals will vary tremendously from culture to culture. Uz try to eat the weakened sun, Chaotics try to destabilize everything, Orlanthi embark on the rescue of Ernalda, Yelmalions fight darkness and chaos so that Yelm can resurrect himself, Elmali fight darkness and chaos to protect the Ernalda-rescuers, Solars resurrect the Sun, Aldryami protect the World Tree, and Mostali try to stop everybody else from interfering with the proper schedule of winter. Praxians support Valind and Inora (for the snow and rain) but fight chaos and darkness.

I don't think simple opposition is very useful when trying to sort the results of all these rituals. What if the orlanthi, trying to rescue Ernalda, have the Sun as the major opponent? After all, Yelm was the one that dragged Ernalda with him to the underworld. In this scenario, the Uz could well be allies of the orlanthi (particularly in Kitori lands). In other myths, it was Ragnaglar that brung on the Great Darkness and wounded Ernalda. Here the solars and the Uz could both be allies in rescuing Ernalda and Yelm.

And how do the Grotaron midwinter rituals affect the other rituals? A less silly 'dark horse' is, of course, the ubiquitous Lunars - what do they do during midwinter? What about disruptive tricksters, who are bound to show up?

And what about other HD rituals? Orlanth's HHD is bound to have opposition, but from whom, and why?

All this is meant to be constructive. No negative vibes are intended.

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