Things man was not ment to know

From: Mikko Rintasaari <rintasaa_at_mail.student.oulu.fi>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:41:51 +0200 (EET)


Last night I was idly leafing thru Elder Secrets, and trying to visualize some places in Glorantha. I had just skimmed the familiar entry on the Block when something suddenly seemed very wrong. I reread the entry carefully and was overcome by a horrible understanding.

(Page 10 in Secrets Book)

"The Block
In Prax sits a tremendous cube of Truestone nearly two kilometers per side. A long furrow, now clogged with marsh, marks its final trajectory as it clattered in from the edge of the universe. It sits, askew in its balance, beside a range of great hillocks, ant atop the greatest foe of the Praxians, the Creator of Evil, the Devil. Thus a piece of Law Incarnate struck down the chaos god..."

Now, I may be the thickest Glorantha gamer ever, since I've been GM:ing and studying the world for at least seven years and I only got the absurdity of this yesterday, but...

THE BLOCK IS A GIANT DIE!
  Most of you have propably experienced the phenomenon just described. You have an intense conflict goin on in the game. To help keep it manageable you have visualized it with figures, and then an excited player rolls his die straingt at the bloody miniatures sending them spinning, and possibly breaking some of the flimsier (prettier) ones. One of my gamers actually specialized in rolling 01 criticals at the figure of his foe... and compleatly by accident (as if you could plan it).

As a RPG gamer the symbology of it all is painfully clear. Urox beat Wakboth against all odds... rolling extreamly well, you could say.

I don't have the relevant text handy, but I seem to remember reading something in the lines of...

"...and having exhausted all his allies and resourses, the universe itself responded to his (Urox) cry..."

Truestone is the most "real" substance in glorantha, and a giant cube of truestone sounds to me like a die in Greg Staffords hand. Especially since truestone is often referred to as "solified law". The only thing puzzling me is that I think the mythology of the block was created by Greg before the age of role playing games.

So Greg, did a giant die come bouncing from the edge of the universe and crush Wakboth? :)

Having just spen't a couple of years sorting out the metaphysics of Glorantha I was rather unprepared for this.   My brain still hurts, but at least I now know what sudden illumination feels like. And I've been wondering what sort of tricksters to have lurking in Pavis. They believe in the Die of the Gods.

Nice one Greg, ever the trickster. :D

        -Mikko Rintasaari, the Adept

I think I think... Therefore I think I am.


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