> Kralorela:
> What is the Kralorelan system of government? How closely does it resemble
> the Imperial Chinese system?
Very like it in flavour. As per the Exarchs questions, am trying to determine certain details currently. One thing that should be borne in mine is the _purpose_ of the government: apart from such usual functions as the well-ordering of society, making the rickshaws run on time, and ensuring people only get mugged in cases where they were "asking for it", is its religious purpose. Specifically, it has a basically "pyramidal" structure that in one direction funnels magical energies to the Exarchs and the Emperor, which they use to better run the land. Working in the other, it lets the unwashed populace benefit from the mystic wisdom of the emperor. In particular, it means that the loyal subjects can go ultimately from the Summer Land Heaven to their final reward, which is a place beyond the ken of theist knowledge, which would otherwise be knowable only by, oneself, practising insanely lengthy, exacting and difficult techniques and what-not of mysticism.
Effectively, Godunya and his predecessors are a sort of boddhisvattva.
Leading me neatly too:
> What in Glorantha is "Kralorelan Mysticism"?
As Peter said, the most important form is Darudism, or Draconic Mysticism. This is of course what the Path of Immanent Mastery is a perversion of. As a practice, it's pretty broad in scope, and includes some very different-looking ends to achieve the common end of "realising your draconic nature".
There are also some devotees of NiangMao kicking around, though its main significance is the effect it had on Darudism. Still, you do get the odd naked monk renouncing all wealth and fasting by a banyan tree, and such persons are widely respected.
Those are the major traditions of mysticism that I currently know about. As well as assorted branches of the above, I'm sure there are manifold different, minor traditions. One thing to note is that most mystic traditions are rarely "hostile" to each other in any meaningful way; acolytes might hotly dispute teaching, but true sages would consider such activity manifestly pointless. The result of this is that an elaborate and apparently diverse web of superficially contradictory disciplines, philosophy and cosmology kicking around, to no-one's evident disquiet.
> Is there a Kralorelan equivalent to Confucianism?
I think many of the precepts are present similar: lots of filial piety, yessir, oh yeah. Now what? Ah, yes, the basic reservation is that Confucianism is too "secular" a philosophy to be a ready match for a long of God-Emperors and self-abgnating mystics of inconceivable power that they never use. Certainly it's not clear who might be any sort of direct analogue of K'ung-fu-tzu himself.
> How closely does Kralorela resemble the China known by Li Kao and Number Ten
> Ox? : )
Again, very much like it in flavour and Mythic Tenor. Your detail may vary!
Slan,
Alex.
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