Steve on Aldrya
>>I disagree. There are shamans of Aldrya.
>
>I said that there were shamans among elves, though again not shamans of
>Aldrya -- any elf shaman is a shaman of Aldrya, because all elves are
>part of Aldrya.
Saying there are no shamans of Aldrya is a fairly big change to the published cult, Steve. If there are no shamans of Aldrya, there is no means for a non-combatant (ie magic specialist) elf to progress purely within the Aldrya cult. Which I think is a big and undesirable change to Aldrami society.
>One of the current theories is that elves are literally
>each a component of Aldrya, such that they make a large consciousness,
>with some individuality as well. If you agree with this (as I mostly do),
>then there really is no such god as Aldrya, because she is not a god, not
>even an ancestor -- she is a name for the "Group Mind" of the elves.
And if you disagree with this theory, as most of us seem to, then obviously you disagree with the conclusion. Just say no to the elven group mind.
Steve on Orlanth
>In the case of Orlanth, the Godi class probably fills the role of the
>shaman in my theory. Especially as Jeff Richards defines the Godi (whcih
>I accept with some quibbles).
I thought Godi were not full time priests in most cases - I figured them being more the acolyte class rather than shaman/priests.
>>Stephen Martin ask for (bullied me into) comments on his Orlanth Rex:
>>
>>Command Worshippers: This is a very powerful spell, especially for a
>>reuseable one, and I can't really see the use of it. It would allow a
>>traitor to open the doors to an invading army!
>>
>Except that, by definition, a traitor is no longer a viable worshiper of
>Rex, and the spells would not work for him.
Unless he is illuminated/uses Betray Loyalty (from DODR), furious rationalising that the tribe will be better of in the long run if all the hothead thanes are stomped by a Lunar ambush now rather than draggin the whole tribe into prolonged warfare, etc. etc.
Yes, it could be devastating in the hands of a traitor. On the other hand, for a member of the tribal council (who are the only ones who get the spell) to turn traitor without suffering Orlanths curse (ie spirits of reprisal stripping spells away), is almost unheard of, and would be the sort of infamous act that starts those famous Orlanthi kinstrifes.
Nick corrected me on my Brithini theology
>> Brithini ... consider that their own souls are dissipated at their
>> death (and so find the fact that the souls of the pagan peoples do
>> not a disturbing aberration)...
>
>No, no, no: the Brithini see no difference between what happens to their
>souls and what happens to the souls of pagans. They're all dissipating into
>nothingness.
Fair enough. The Brithini feel even less qualms about Tapping POW then - the spirit they are destroying is just being thorough, and preventing the possibility of perverse pagan magic making your foes spirit return to plague you. Moral implications very few. Of course, you shouldn't Tap the POW of someone you shouldn't kill in the first place, but to a Brithini whether to Tap someones POW is a question like 'should I burn the body?'. Its just a more thorough sort of dead.
How do Brithini feel about summoning spirits of the dead, then? Obviously they don't feel that you are bringing back the person in a meaningful sense, but as an information gathering exercise? You have made me some Malkioni attitudes to death, resurrection, etc, in a whole new light.
BTW does this mean spirits of dead Malkioni do exist?
Killing people
>Read the spell description. Cannot lower a stat below 1 (sorry).
Damn! Kicks things, etc. Well, IMG at least the dastardly Brithini can do it.
Other comments welcomed. The Soul Waste idea had occurred to me, I just didn't think it was very practical for most people.
I mentioned that Divine cults descend from shamanic ones
> However, in some cases it
>seems the shamanic stage is "missing", or obscured, or is perhaps just
>so long ago or "purged" that it appears that the thje current "divine"
>cult evolved from something quite other. This seems to be the case
>in Peloria, for example, and to a lesser degree in the East.
Oh, I quite definately agree that in many cases the shamanic origins are obscured completely. And there are some cults that do not descend from a shamanic one, generally those founded by someone of heroic status skilled in magic initially. A cult founded by non-shamans (leaving sorcerous cults out of the equation here) is generally a) small and more centralised - its not like a shamanic cult were shamans can independently contact the same spirit and b) arise in societies that already have a fairly sophisticated magical class. A good example is the cult of Atyar, founded by Treack Markhor.
But all divine magic dominated societies were once shamanic, IMO. Can anyone suggest a counter example?
In the case of Peloria, there are quite a few hints on the old shamanic origins of many cults scattered through GRoY and Entekosiad. While we certainly don't know everything about it, I think we have enough to conclude that shamanism was much more important in Peloria long ago.
Steve also says
>In general, I think the RQ4 draft of shamans was a vast improvement and
>extremely clever idea, and would like to see it taken even further.
Ptooie! Yuck! I disliked that particular section of the RQ4 draft intensely, as some people may recall from the rq4 list.
That said, I disliked it because the mechanics were grotesque, not because I disliked the idea that there were a wide variety of shamanic abilities and most shamans had a small subset of them. I have at least two good ideas (not exclusive) for how such a system might be constructed without the mechanics in RQAIG, which someone pointed out as being strongly reminescent of AD&D 1st ed. psionics - ie awful.
>I
>envision a system where even the spirit link is not always a fetch -- for
>some shamans, it would be a totem spirit more similar to the
>fetches/allied spirits shamans had in RQ2.
There is also a good argument that some shamans allow spirits to voluntarily possess them, a common real world shamanic practice (especially in Africa) which in Glorantha occurs only in a few very restricted cases (you could argue that ancestor worship spells produce a similar effect).
Frederic Ferro asks
>I have no knowledge of the Dara Happan lore <sigh> but what would be
>the role of Arachne Solara, if the Time really flowed before the Dawn ?
Good question, I say! I'm going to bravely contradict both Stephen Martin and Peter Metcalfe and say that the Pelorians do know of her - I'm pretty sure its mentioned in TFS. In fact, we know more about the Pelorian worship of her than we do of Orlanthi worship, though what we know of Pelorian worship is pretty odd (check out the Pelorian Prosopaedia, guys - http://www.cwr.uwa.edu.au/~cake/Pelproso.html ).
I'd even go so far as to say she may be native to Peloria, rather than Maniria, but that would be *extremely* speculative. Mind you, it would be very speculative to say otherwise as well... possibly another one of those First Council cultural cross over things - possibly even where the Orlanthi Ginna Jar was identified with the Pelorian Arachne Solara?
I think that those Pelorians who acknowledge Arachne Solara think of her role as being the one who repaired some of the damage to the universe, much as the Orlanthi do, though they think of her in a more mystical sense than the Orlanthi. More details when I look at some source materials...
I don't think the Dara Happans acknowledge her, but there are a lot of non-Dara Happans in Peloria.
>In Dave Cake's version, the
>Godtime would be only a kind of archetype of the real Prehistoric
>time, the ghost of the past in the Heroplane.
A nice way of putting it! Though I'm not quite sure that its completely correct. Its certainly a good description of what Valare Addi discovers, and as hers is the best documented heroquest we have, we have to give it a lot of weight. But I think its also possible that when you travel to the GodTime you travel to the Godtime of current myth, not past myth, unless, like Valare Addi, you travel on a path specifically designed to take you to the Godtime of the past. Certainly the Godtime can be like that. But it may also be like something else.
BTW I think Frederic Ferro has a very good grasp of the issues of heroquesting. Post more, Frederic. And I'll certainly be trying to read some Mercia Eliade myself.
Cheers
David
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