> From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_bigfoot.com>
> Subject: Gods and truth
>
> Andrew Larsen:
>
>> I think there are real problems with
>> the approach that each culture's truths are mutually true even when they
>> contradict each other. That's a very late 20th century attitude which may
>> work quite nicely for cultural and religious things, since we can't 'email'
>> our diety or higher power for a direct answer.
>
> This alleged inability to email our deity for an answer is a red
> herring. In glorantha, they email them and get contradictory
> answers depending on the god contacted. Whom do you then believe?
> In resolving this riddle, you arrive straight back at RW conundrums
> on the nature of truth.
It's only a red herring if you think that the gods don't know who they
are or how they relate. I see no reason why this should be so. There's no
sense in any RW religion that I know of that dieties aren't aware of who
they are and how they relate (although it's not the sort of topic that
really occurs often in sources, so far as I know). A person knows who he or
she is and what he or she does, and I have to assume that gods, being much
larger and more powerful, would have the same self-knowledge.
>> Different cultures might have different names and
>> tell different stories about that body, and one might distinguish, as
>> someone did recently, between the Yelm the Sun and Elmal the Solar
>> Charioteer, but ultimately there can be only one thing up there going across
>> the sky.
>
> However different cultures have different ways of talking to the
> sun and get different answers. How do you as a gloranthan determine
> which is the correct answer?
I agree that Gloranthans have different ways of looking at the same
thing, but ultimately, only one thing can have happened in any given event,
such as the slaying of the Sun. Did the Sun die or did only a part of the
Sun die? Both cannot be true in an objective sense, regardless of whether
worshippers of that Sun are capable of objectivity.
>> Chaos is a good example of this. Is chaos evil and destructive to the
>> world? Most cultures say yes, the Lunars say not necessarily. But
>> clearly, I think, everything suggests that Choas is destructive and
>> essentially evil.
>
> I don't see how you can claim "...everything suggests...", when you
> have just admitted that the Lunars dispute it. For instance, the
> Goddess is chaotic. Is she destructive and essentially evil? No.
> There are also non-lunar myths in which Chaos is used as a positive
> force.
Let's see. We have Thed, the goddess of rape; Malia, the goddess of
disease; Thanatar the god (or gods) of headhunting and knowledge stealing;
Urain, the god of senseless violence; Vivamort (or whatever he's called
these days), the principle of vampirism; Seseine, the goddess of temptation;
Ompalam, the god of slavery and subjegation, Ragnaglar, the god of
uncontrolled lust; Cacodaemon, the god of cannibalism (and various other
nasty things), Pochorngo, the god of corruption, Krjalk, the god of
monsters, and various other dieties, all considered to be chaotic. With the
possible exception of Malia (who is something thought of as having a place
in the universe despite her efforts in creating the Devil), by what measure
are these not evil and destructive forces?
If there are myths in which chaos is positive, I'd like to hear about
them.
Andrew E. Larsen
- ---------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 00:30:44 +0100
> From: Madeleine Eid <eid_at_maddye.demon.co.uk>
> Subject: Clothing - and the reasons for it
>
> Same reason for the use of split saddles by the cavalry.
>
> TTFN
> Maddy E
>
>> Trousers (including shorts) make their first appearance in the RW with
>> horseriding basically because no man wants his balls flapping around
>> between himself and a horse's spine, so he wears tight trousers to
>> hold them out of the way. Everything else is status, fashion and social
>> convention.
>>
>> - --
>> Donald Oddy
>> http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
>
> - --
> _________________________
>
> A line of wild geese
> Flying in the sky
>
> The autumn wind is blowing
> It is lonely everywhere
>
> _________________________
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 02:34:47 EDT
> From: TTrotsky_at_aol.com
> Subject: Re: Up Yer Kilt!
>
> Alex:
>
> << David Dunham ties himself in knots on Canonical Orlanthi Dress:
>> A quick look at the encyclopaedia reveals that New York state, where I
>> grew up, is colder than Scotland in winter (supposedly average
>> January is above freezing for goodness sake!). Iceland's coast is
>> slightly colder still. No kilts there!
>
> So the climatic model for Sartar -- just spitting distance away from the
> balmy Manirian coast, and several hundred miles _south_ of the middle of the
> continent where the serial toga wearers all hang out -- is now _Iceland_?
> Curiouser and curiouser. Previous guesses, such as central France, seemed
> much more on the money, for me. >>
>
> Or Switzerland for some of the more mountainous regions, perhaps.
> Iceland and New York certainly don't seem to make any sense as models at all.
> Mind you, its even stranger if Ralios *is* warm enough for fanatical
> kilt-wearers - after all, its further north, further west (which tends to
> make it cooler in Glorantha), at about the same altitude and just as full of
> storm barbarians (whose worship might affect the weather).
>
> Keith:
>
> <<Or what Geordies wear for a night oot.>>
>
> Wey aye, man, wor Keith knas what he's on aboot. (Translation: As a bona
> fide geordie myself, I can confirm that the above implication is an entirely
> accurate representation of our wintertime sartorial habits).
>
> Forward the glorious Toon Army!
> Trotsky
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 09:09:51 +0200
> From: Nils Weinander <nils_w_at_yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Inspirations for Gloranthan Myth
>
> John Hughes writes a lot of interesing myth parallells,
> which reminds me that it was a rather surprising revelation
> for me when I realized that Yelm borrows a lot from indian
> Shiva: he is both the great king and the lord of ashes. In
> his destroyer (Shargash) aspect he destroys the corrupt world
> to make place for the new, clean one.
>
> In Vithelan myth, Vith is inspired from both Shiva and
> Vishnu. The god/antigod theme has parallells in indian
> myth. One conspicuous difference though is the lack of a
> destroyer aspect of the high gods of Vithela (though I
> have a very heretic idea for this as well).
>
>> The Bible does not seem to feature heavily in Greg's inspiration, but this
>> may be to do with our cultural taboos about treating the Bible as myth. A
>> pity in some sense, for the Old Testament is filled with heroes and
>> tricksters and heroquests if we read it with our mythic senses tuned.
>
> OTOH, the Malkioni remind us of both christianity and islam,
> and Hrestol has similarities both to Christ and the martyred
> saints.
>
> One can also make a parallell between malkionism and ancient
> greek philosophy with the God Learners as pre-socratic natural
> philosophers and the modern malkioni theoogians as post-socratic
> moral philosophers.
> ____________________________________________________________
> Nils Weinander
> The world is a beautiful place and it's worth fighting for
>
> _________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free _at_yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 10:35:17 +0300 (EEST)
> From: Olli Kantola <nysalor_at_lyyra.kempele.fi>
> Subject: Re: The Glorantha Digest V8 #25
>
> On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, The Glorantha Digest wrote:
>
>> He can't. I remember Greg saying that the ultimate Humakti heroquest was
>> also his final.
>
> I believe that he must have meant that the final/ultimate heroquest is
> death. The last journey, the great mystery etc. It truly is a great HQ and
> everyone gets to do it.
>
> Olli Kantola
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 09:08:13 +0100
> From: "Nick Brooke" <Nick_Brooke_at_btinternet.com>
> Subject: Being Dead
>
> Andrew B writes:
>
>>> Yelm still went to Hell (even if it was in small pieces) and
>>> that is the same as being dead (even for heroquesters).
>
>> In which case, how can a Humakti ever heroquest to Hell and return?
>
> When he's in Hell, he's dead. When he returns again, he isn't. (Though he
> would still be Death). Resurrection taboos don't apply when you are
> following in the footsteps of your God.
>
>
> Christoph writes:
>
>>> Greg was pretty definite at Victoria, that if you are in the land
>>> of the dead, then you are dead.
>
>> So then the Lightbringers were dead too when they went there ?!?
>
> Yes, absolutely.
>
>
> Andrew L writes:
>
>> That would mean that all the Lightbringers died and resurrected
>> themselves.
>
> And resurrected everything else in the cosmos at the same time, yes.
>
> Why is this a problem?
>
> :::: Email: <mailto:Nick_Brooke_at_btinternet.com>
> Nick
> :::: Website: <http://www.btinternet.com/~Nick_Brooke/>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 09:03:49 +0100
> From: david.boatright_at_clinisis.co.uk
> Subject: Re: Androgeus and Nandan and Contradicitons
>
> Philip.Hibbs_at_tnt.co.uk
> ================
>> That would put your story in the peculiar position of being the only
>> bit of Glorantha that is not directly contradicted by another bit of
>> Glorantha. You should accept that something is going to
>> contradict it, and embrace it - - like the Gloranthans say, "The
>> contradiction that proves the rule"?
>
> Lets hope this is the view of Issaries as well so we can get game in
> Glorantha with the D20 system.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 02:03:16 -0700 (PDT)
> From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Tom=20Merchant?= <eachequal_at_yahoo.com>
> Subject: Orlanth the Class Warrior
>
> So property is not odal in Sartar and clans are based
> around upper classes with property and lower classes
> as wage slaves. Anyone going to explain to me how this
> is done without a sophisticated legal system that
> specifically protects property (like the UK) or
> tyranny?. Surely small isolated communities divided
> along class lines without outside influence is going
> to descend very quickly into anarchy.
>
> Just a thought,
> Tom
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
> http://photos.yahoo.com/
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 21:15:49 GMT
> From: donald_at_grove.demon.co.uk (Donald R. Oddy)
> Subject: Androgeus and Nandan.
>
> In message <200009270548.WAA14970_at_chaosium.com>
> owner-glorantha-digest_at_chaosium.com (The Glorantha Digest) writes:
>>
>> From: Michael Cule <mikec_at_room3b.demon.co.uk>
>>
>> In message <200009261845.LAA10235_at_chaosium.com>, The Glorantha Digest
>> <owner-glorantha-digest_at_chaosium.com> writes
>>> Perhaps Androgeus is a priest of Nandan.
>>
>> I think *not* as Androgeus is depicted as a pre-Dawn, pre-human being if
>> immense power. (Naturally, I'm prejudiced in favour of my story about
>> his origins and don't want anything that contradicts that.) But I think
>> that Androgeus ought to be part of the mythology of Nandan.
>
> I don't think I've seen that story, all I know is what's in WBRM.
>
> - --
> Donald Oddy
> http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 21:23:03 GMT
> From: donald_at_grove.demon.co.uk (Donald R. Oddy)
> Subject: Re: Bloodline stuff, etc.
>
> In message <200009261845.LAA10235_at_chaosium.com>
> owner-glorantha-digest_at_chaosium.com (The Glorantha Digest) writes:
>>
>> Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie> replying to me
>>>
>> But 'stickpicker' is an _occupation_, not a class or legal status
>> of person. I agree these appear to overlap to the point of confusion,
>> especially in the case of carls, but they're not by any means identical.
>> I'm not saying a stead will be anything like monolithic in bloodline
>> terms, but I equally don't see there being three or four social
>> 'layers' in a stead, each characterised by a different bloodline,
>> all pretty much of the same social class. More likely one bloodline
>> is numerically dominant, with odds and sods from elsewhere.
>> Stickpickers probably are people with little immediate kin, or
>> those whose kin are mightily disenchanted with them, rather than
>> coming from a long and proud line of stickpickers before them.
>
> I'm not saying that the bloodlines follow class lines or occupations
> to any great degree, merely a tendency for sons to follow fathers
> and wealth to remain within a bloodline. The stickpicker is an example
> of someone who does not produce their own food and instead relies on
> working for others in a menial occupation. As such they are going to
> have a social status lower than those who own a vegetable plot or herd
> sheep. They and their families are also those who are going suffer
> first and hardest when food is short.
>
>> Right; I mean possibly four or five generations 'horizontally',
>> not necessarily vertically from a live ancestor. I'm not counting
>> young children, though, as I was counting back from the PCs, who all
>> belong to the same largeish bloodline (which I'd guess had someplace
>> north of 100 warm bodies, but is pretty geographically diffuse).
>
> I'm afraid I don't follow the idea of horizontal generations. To
> me generations are always vertical - grandfather, father, man, son
> and grandson etc. Certainly I would regard a hundred plus members
> as a big bloodline, not only because it means several generations
> with several surviving boys but also because you are reaching the
> limit of people who are actually known to one another.
>
>>> While I accept that it is possible to be the forth son of
>>> the forth son of the forth son of a Carl and therefore have little
>>> more than your clothes I would contend this is rare. If it were
>>> common the clan involved would be in serious trouble as it would
>>> mean they were breeding more children than the land could support.
>>
>> Not that rare. It'd be in the nature of things that the wealthier
>> types expand fastest (becoming well wealthy per capita in the process).
>
> I don't see any reason why they should, a wealthy person is equally
> likely to produce mainly girls as mainly boys exactly as a poorer
> one. Survival rates to adulthood may be higher among the wealthy
> but I'm not sure the wealth differences are sufficent to make that
> a major factor. Fewer of the poor will go off raiding and to war
> so the mortality rate there will be lower.
>
>> _Ought_ to be done tactfully, sure. But what's wise, and what actually
>> happens, may not be especially close cousins in Orlanthi politics.
>> The sort of micro-management I meant though, is more to do with the
>> sort of not-formal-trade 'exchange' we were discussing; you might
>> have it 'made known' to you that a certain amount of generosity
>> was expected, or would go down well with the clan, even if you don't
>> especially like the intended recipient.
>
> That's even more difficult to phrase without accusing him of being
> ungenerous which is almost certainly an insult, even if true. Actually
> I would expect a need to be communicated though the womens' gossip
> grapevine ending up with a wife asking her husband to send such and
> such to so and so because they're short and we've got plenty. I don't
> see it being sufficently formal to be regarded as micro-managment
> and certainly not the top down approach implied by the term.
>
>> You don't need to 'trade' every day, though; an annual gift of grain
>> is more likely than regular consignments of bread, but with the
>> same net effect, that not everyone has to be an equal generalist.
>
> Then you are restricted to a fairly small number of items - those
> which won't deterioate. Basically grain, hides, preserved meat,
> some vegetables and cloth. Certainly individuals aren't equal
> generalists and even steads will tend to specialise but I don't
> see large scale transfers of basic produce between steads. Grain
> is in fact a bit special, at harvest time it is essential for as
> many people as possible to work on a field at once. So not only
> will every member of a stead be involved it is quite likely that
> people from neigbouring ones will also turn up. Those who are
> carls will be repaid with help on their own fields but those who
> are not will be given a share of the crop. Incidently do the
> Orlanthi have clan flour mills or does each stead grind its own?
>
>>> Looking at that bit in KoS, it doesn't seem to distinguish between
>>> disputes at between clans or between individuals within a clan
>>> apart from who is accepted as the court.
>>
>> Well, it states the the case of feuding clans is 'typical', in the
>> description of lawsuit procedure, and in contrast, 'normal justice
>> occurs within a clan, and concerns only its members', which sounds
>> different to me.
>
> What's the difference between 'typical' and 'normal' ?
>
>> I don't necessarily disagree with any of that. 'Property' is just
>> such a loaded word that I'd prefer to avoid, or at least explicitly
>> qualify what we mean by it when we use it. There's a sense in
>> which you can say of 'formally odal' property "this is ours", but
>> there's an at least as important sense in which the chief can say
>> "no it ain't".
>
> I'll try and stick to 'property right' to cover all the different
> bits of things which aren't property in the modern sense, unless
> you have a better term.
>
>>> That is a property right which could be removed from that
>>> person and given to another, e.g. to pay a fine.
>>
>> That's misleading; the point is that it can be removed _at the
>> chief's discretion_, not solely through 'due process', which I
>> contend is meaningless or illusory at this 'level'. Of course,
>> a political debate among the Orlanthi will often sound like a
>> legal argument (precedents are cited and counter-cited), and a
>> law suit will often sound like a political debate (our side is
>> vainly boasted about, yours is slandered and baited, threats and
>> promises are trundled out shamelessly), so certainly the line
>> is very blurry in practice, that I agree on.
>
> I don't believe that in practice a chief has that much discretion,
> even the feudal system didn't give that much power to the nobility
> although some dishonest lords did grant and forfit tennants
> property arbitarily. If wealth can be reallocated at the discretion
> of the chief then you get a very centralised power structure
> with the chief at the top, then his cronies and finally everyone
> else.
>
> In Heortling terms, I think Orlanth granted the chief the right
> and duty to allocate clan resources as he sees fit for the benefit
> of the clan while Heort ruled that it was in the interests of the
> clan to respect an individual bloodline's use of land and livestock.
> In practice therefore land and livestock will not be taken from a
> bloodline unless they have committed some sort of offence (which
> might just be some form of neglect). That doesn't stop all sorts
> of accusations, false allegations and so forth for political ends.
>
> - --
> Donald Oddy
> http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 12:45:26 +0200
> From: Julian Lord <julian.lord_at_wanadoo.fr>
> Subject: Re: Death and Hell
>
> Christoph Kohring :
>
>>> Greg was pretty definite at Victoria, that if you are in the land
>>> of the dead, then you are dead.
>>
>> So then the Lightbringers were dead too when they went there ?!?
>
> Yes.
>
> Andrew Larsen :
>
>>>> Yelm still went to Hell (even if it was in small pieces) and
>>>> that is the same as being dead (even for heroquesters).
>
> Those pieces of Yelm were dead ; and his Yelm-piece was dead.
>
>>> In which case, how can a Humakti ever heroquest to Hell and return?
>
> Good question : When a Humakti goes on the Road to Hell, it means
> that he has lost his Sword and is seeking it there. Humakt goes to Hell
> and finds his Sword and the Monster of the Void. He cripples it so that
> Arachne Solara can overcome and swallow it. Humakt then joins the
> Council of Gods and uses the Death Sword to shatter the Well of Death
> and restore life to the world.
>
> This is Humakt's greatest Quest ; the transcendental LifeQuest of
> the Death Wielder ; it is the only proper way for a Humakti to return
> to life.
>
> Yanafal Tarnils did something else though, didn't he ; or Humakt
> wouldn't have been so shocked.
>
>> For that matter, that would mean that all the Lightbringers died and
>> resurrected themselves.
>
> They did. That was Chalana Arroy's Quest, more than the others.
>
> But they were all seeking to bring the dead world back to life ; and
> they needed to be dead themselves to acheive this (to express the
> idea in rather mundane terms).
>
> Julian Lord
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #26
> **********************************
>
End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #29