After reading this through I've decided to take this off-digest. I'm fairly sure we've exhausted the wider audience by now...
I don't have a problem with Malkion being identified with the First and Second Action ("incarnated" in thought...). I'm trying to get straight how Zzabur relates to Malkion, how both of them relate to the devolution sequence, and how the gods fit in.
Of course, I want to get something out of this - I want to get a the basics of Malkionism before the Jrusteli, especially at the interplay between deities and Malkioni myth in both the various sects of orthodox and the original one church of Stygian Malkionism. And a fringe sect in Heortland, of course.
>So could you please keep these digressions to a minimum?
I'll try. Don't feel urged to reply to clearly marked ones.
>Since I deny that the Brithini believe Malkion was the son of Aerlit
>and Warara, there is no reason for me to concede or even debate that
>Malkion had unusual burtae heritage, is there?
It is convenient to ignore parts of the Monomyth to stress others. I do that too. So I'll drop this as an argument, and ask meekly instead:
Since the Jrusteli - whose religion was derived from the Kingdom of Logic - accepted this myth, to which stage of Creation would they assign it? 3rd (Immortal) or 4th (mortal), or even 5th (loser)?
>>BTW Grandpa Mortal slain: Do the Malkioni apply this myth to Malkion, too?
>I would have thought that was what was meant by Malkion
>fighting Chaos and loosing.
Wasn't there a transcendent moment in the Malkioni creed? Malkion ascending into Solace?
>All that matters is how the Brithini remember it.
Whom you grace with perfect and immutable memory. Sorry, to me the way the Brithini remember isn't sufficient. The Brithini had lost information during the Ice Age and the Silence. The Malkioni left early enough to carry fragments of older knowledge into their religion.
>They know that:
How do the Dormal Scrolls relate to what the Brithini know?
<digression>
Dormal's best Brithini source was God Forgot, and later (shortly) Arolanit.
He didn't even find Old Trade (although the Old Trade pilots seem to have
received the secret of the Opening somehow, according to Missing Lands p.51,
or "Old Trade lies within the Sea of Brithos and only ships carrying Old
Trade pilots can find their way there" gets meaningless.)
</digression>
: 'Before the Gods War, Malkion gave power and ability to : his sons creating the Castes of the Malkioni and establishing : the King, the Wizard, the Defender and the Farmer.' : Wyrms Footprint p19
On Convulsion, Greg said that Zzabur (the Immortal) claimed to be created when Malkion was created. In which sense will Zzabur be Malkion's son, then? The son of Malkion of the 2nd Action, the impersonal power?
When did the Brithini realize there was a Gods War? Does Gods War mean Lesser Darkness to them, or Greater Darkness, or early struggles within the Golden Age?
"Before the Gods War" can mean before the Greater Darkness. In fact, that's the only sure information I can draw from this. How much before I can't say.
When the Gods War touched Brithos, their Golden Age ended.
>Hence the Classic Caste System existed in the Golden Age and was
>not a response to the Gods War. If there was anything before
>Malkion gave the Law to his sons, then Zzabur does not remember it
>and so it is invisible to Brithini myth insofar as the years before
>Yelm ruled are invisible to the Dara Happans.
So, basically, all of the First and Second Action is invisible to Brithini Myth? And possibly a good part of the early Third Action as well?
Hence Invisible God? ;-)
>>>And the Waertagi do not make an impression until the lesser darkness.
>>If there is any truth in Malkion's divine ancestry (of level 3 divinities,
>>aka Immortals), then his birth can be dated after the arrival of Umath, i.e.
>>into the earliest Gods War.
>But Malkion lived in the Golden Age of the Kingdom of Logic before
>the Gods War (explicitly mentioned in the Sea of Neliomi writeup in
>Wyrms Footprints).
This document doesn't seem to equate the Gods war with the invasion of the land by the oceans.
It also states that Warera _is_ the mother of Malkion.
>Thus the two myths are _incompatible_.
And presented in one source.
>Claiming that Malkion was born shortly after the arrival of Umath ignores
>the fact that his father Aerlit is the follower of Vadrus who is
>the Son of Umath.
Myth-wise, this is shortly after.
It seems that Warera's tribe also was responsible for the Blue People of Pelanda, and the logicians brought there.
Thus, while possibly invisible to Zzabur and the Brithini, the Logicians and (the Immortals of) the Wartain mertribe seem to have been intimate.
Look, the Brithini/Logicians had no problem with the Waertagi worshipping their sea-god ancestors. Neither had the 1st Age Seshnegi worshipping Froalar and Seshna (their royal ancestors).
It is this approach I'm trying ro reconcile with the Devolution scheme, or otherwise to find when Devolution replaced this approach. I am willing to accept that Brithini memory isn't that immutable...
>So Malkion cannot be born 'shortly afterwards'
>as his ancestry in the myth is explicitly Storm Age and spans two
>generations. This is roughly on par with Vingkot the Victorious.
I found generations among deities to be an unreliable way to measure the speed of time (though not the sequence).
Storm Age overlaps with Golden Age, because the three oldest sons of Umath each built up their power outside the direct control of the Emperor for a while. I'd place Malkion's birth roughly into the same era as Orlanth's wooing of Ernalda, and yes, the birth of Choralinthor.
>Rather than attempting to reconcile the two myths and end up with
>a compromise solution that is so full of fudges that my teeth will
>rot,
I won't want to be responsible for your dentistry bills, then :-)
>I simply say that the myth that Malkion is the Son of Aerlit
>and Warera is a late myth that is not believed by the Brithini
>themselves. Whence did it come from? Probably the Waertagi IMO.
But I don't see any indication that the Waertagi are a later mythical development than the caste system. It rather seems that they took over "human relations" from the Wartain Mertribe.
>>Vadela definitely is contemporary with "Malkion's kids". She is a Logician,
>>and stands for a caste system, too, a logical one, but different from
>>Malkion's.
>I'm sorry I didn't recognize the name. I had only heard of Vadel
>prior to this and assumed it was another name from the Book of
>Kings.
It is. One of many other names, including Malkion, Talar, Zzabur, Horal, Menena (IIRC not Dronar, though)...
>>Golden Age is all the time Yelm ruled the Universe. (There was a
>>"time" before, when the Runic Forces ruled the Universe.) Yelm
>>ruled while Umath battled the seas...
>Wrong. This is the God Learner Cosmology. The oldest Malkioni
>stream of thought would be the pure scheme of devolution.
What do you mean by "oldest Malkioni" in this context? Logicians? Brithini under Malkion? Brithini after Malkion's departure? Froalar's Seshnegi before the Dawn?
>Before was the reign of the Impersonal Forces. They caused to exist the
>Perfect Human Race, the highest form of existance in the Cosmos.
>This marked the start of the Golden Age.
No argument about this.
>It ended when people started going mad and embracing mortality.
When Malkion did?
<digression>
Or when the Vampire did? (After all there has been an agreement that at
least one branch of vampirism originated in the West.)
</digression>
>It was the God Learners who collected other people's mythology
>and started filling out the bare devolution scheme with names,
>places and dates. Such as when the world of mortality came
>into existance, that was when Death came into the world. Or
>the Immortals are the Gods.
I don't think this was so. IMO the already the wizards (the wise ones, advisors of the rulers) collected knowledge about other people's mythology. Zzabur foremost.
I don't think that Malkion was a Logician, he became one.
The Logicians were closely cooperating with the Wartain merfolk. Together, they invaded Wendaria and ended that era of Pelanda. (Entekosiad, Sea of Neliom)
This is late Golden Age, isn't it?
>>The pre-Hrestol Seshnegi and the Brithini were not divided about the
>>nature of the gods, but about the nature of themselves.
>I disagree. The Brithini did not worship Gods. Not then. Not
>now. Never.
No. They dealt with them, though. The Brithini wizards (at least) must have been aware of Waertag's ancestry, and of the holders of power in their lands.
In all the older writings, Zzabur seems to name the gods, and thereby derive his power over theirs.
>>Immortality for Mortals (i.e. Logicians) was fading, and the Brithini
>>stuck to the Laws of Old where the Malkioni turned towards Solace.
>But this may be what the Seshnegi experienced, it cannot be
>correct according to what Zzabur remembers.
A very good statement to show why we aren't really communicating. Peter quotes what Zzabur remembers, and seems to claim perfect, immutable memory for him. I claim that Zzabur's knowledge and memory is incomplete (nicely corroborated by Peter's statement above), that he underwent a lapse (which may have caused this patial amnesia) but recovered.
>By embracing mortality, the Seshnegi are mortals whether they are aware
>of it or not.
Seshnegi mortality never was debated.
>>>But do they believe that the humanoid immortal is the _same_
>>>as the rune power? I do not think so.
>>Neither do I. The materialist wizard prefers to work with a quantifiable
>>portion of a vast power over working with (i.e. against the natural course
>>of) the entire power, IMO.
>So Zzabur would not see himself as being the equal of gods-cum-
>impersonal forces?
>>I'm not so sure about Owners of a Rune (in the God Learner
>>scheme) who might be identified as both the Impersonal Force and the
>>Immortal Being using the force.
>I think it's the case of Rune=Impersonal Force and Owner=Immortal
>who embodies that Rune and so the Owners are inferior to the
>Forces.
To answer the question above, Zzabur may regard himself as the equal of any god Owning a Rune (and as superior to those who don't), but not as the Rune.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #159
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