> I liked Western as an ideographic language for two main reasons
>1) it seemed to make the idea that the runes (which are somewhat
>ideographic) originated in the West very natural and straightforward.
I think there's a major misunderstanding between pictograms and ideograms here. The letter 'A' is a pictogram that originally denoted the head of an ox (turn your monitor upside down if you don't believe me). It is however used in an alphabet to denote the sound 'a' because the greeks used the oxhead rune to denote that vowel sound.
In glorantha, the Dara Happan alphabet is based on runes as can be evidenced by gawking at the Fortunate Succession. The Pelandans next door have used the same runes and turned it into an ideogrammic script which hardly anyone uses. Thus whether or not a script is based on runes has buggerall to do with whether it is an ideographic script or not.
>2) I wished specifically to avoid the Latin parallel, as I like to stress
>the differences between the West and medieval Europe rather than the
>similarities. This is purely a matter of taste.
So stress Arabic instead...
Chris Bell:
>What are the views of the Orlanthi cultures,
>Pelorians/Lunars, Praxians, Westerners, Praxians, Doraddi, Teshnans,
>Fonritians,Elder Races, of souls and the afterlife, on their terms?
Most of those are in the Gods of Glorantha. The few that aren't are as follows.
TESHNANS (IMO): The Teshnans believe the Soul to be a flame and in their worldview, they call it the Life-Flame (as per the Teshnan greeting in the Genertela Book). Upon death, the flame normally goes to the Abode of Furalor and is purged of bad stuff before returning into Glorantha. The Teshnans however keep the Lifeflame burning in the mundane world by transmigrating a flame from the funeral pyre of the deceased into a five year old child. The Teshnans believe the kid is now the same person as the deceased. So a Teshnan farmer may reasonably state that he has tilled his land for ten generations. Normally no memories are transferred by this process, but the older (in terms of previous incarnations) Teshnans eventually become aware of the previous experiences of their past hosts.
This makes the concept of an afterlife pretty much superfluous to most Teshnans. They aim to be reborn into the Nobility which is pretty much Paradise on Glorantha for your average Teshnan. The Nobility are aware of the Afterlife and they know as their life-flame becomes Perfect, they will ascend into Heaven.
FONRITANS (IMO): There is no Fonritan concensus on the nature of Souls or the Afterlife. A Good RW parallel would be Sadduccees and the Pharisees of 1st Century Judea whom, despite having the same scriptures, disagreed most vehemently on whether there was a life after death, on the existance of the soul or angels.
Most may simply believe in reincarnation. Some might believe in something like a Malkioni Solace or an Egyptian Land of the Dead. Others might claim that there is no soul and only by Living Rightly will one achieve an extended lifespan. Some may even reclaim that only by Living Rightly will you avoid being reincarnated and end up in Solace/Silence/Nowhere.
Most Fonritans are pretty tolerant about these sort of beliefs. They afterall have far more important things to fight over.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #164
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