>GRoY. And I think Peter may be wrong -- p.22 shows Elempur, south of
>Saird. I'm aware that this is one of the least representational maps
>in the book (and isn't Golden Age), but in modern times, south of
>Saird means Tarsh, which is Dragon Pass.
Ahh. But what the GRAY _calls_ Saird is actually the Sylilan hills and the Vanch plains (cf p49 of the GRAY) which makes Ancient Nivorah being somewhere near or beneath Jillaro.
This puts "South of Saird" GRAY-style would be on the modern plains of Saird (east of the Aggar Mountains and south of the Imther Mountains, ie: Holay) and that Ancient Elempur might be somewhere near Mirin's Cross (although I have my own pet theory on where it might be).
>Elempur brings the Bow of
>Dominance to Anaxial, which also suggests that norther archers
>dominated Tarsh.
>
>
>David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com>
>Glorantha/HW/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html>
>Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 11:27:49 -0400
>From: Mike Dawson <mdawson_at_mac.com>
>Subject: Gamesmaster, Gods and truth
>
>on 9/29/00 12:40 AM, From: Julian Lord <julian.lord_at_wanadoo.fr>
>Subject: Gods and truth m wrote:
>
> > Mystic, he say : self-knowledge and self-delusion transitory and false
> both.
> > Anti-gods not know Truth ! Truth lies in Void. Transcend the Veils !
> >
> > The sorceror says : only God has True knowledge of our nature, and the
> > 'gods' you worship are but False Demons. The Truth is in the Abiding Book ;
> > but even so, we will only understand the Truth if we become deserving
> of God,
> > and He decides to reveal His splendour to us. Our self-knowledge is but the
> > shadow of a shadow. Place your Trust in Malkion, my son...
> >
> > The animist perhaps agrees with you.
> >
> > "The" theist : which religion are we discussing here ? ;-)
>
>And there is one more viewpoint that is, if you'll excuse me, transcendant
>over these four.
>
>The Gamesmaster thinks to himself: All the material of Glorantha has been
>presented to the world as a jumble of self-contradiction that apparantly
>denies One Truth on its face. This is the only way that I may decide on the
>nature of the One Truth for my game. Thus, Issaries Inc and my fellow GMs
>may share the largest part of the creation of a world, leaving me to decide
>details of the True Nature of my personal Glorantha.
>
>Certainly, most GMs don't consider such questions. Too bad. To steal from
>Plato: "The unexamined game is not worth playing."
>
>I have enough trouble keeping my players out of the future timelines as
>published already. I want the presence of Argrath, the nature of Pavis, the
>Troll Ice Flood Conspiracy, the Rise of Sartar to come as shocks and
>surprises to them. And when they, many years from now, quest deeply into the
>realms of the gods for answers to questions of Ultimate Reality, I want
>there to be Big Revelatory Surprises.
>
>This is the only way I could keep looking seriously at Gloranthan
>contradiction. There is a Higher, Ultimate Truth in MY Glorantha. There
>should be one in YOUR Glorantha. But they won't be the same, and they won't
>EVER be contradicted by published material.
>
>- --
>Mike Dawson mdawson_at_differentcomputers.com http://www.differentcomputers.com
>It is for this reason that pleasure must have at least this element of
>risk...That perhaps this joy will never occur again. But this serpent will
>invade only the loveliest, most bountiful of gardens; his presence in such
>gardens is inevitable, and we accept it serenely, and with gratitude, for we
>know that we have been privileged. ---Steven Brust.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 08:48:29 -0700
>From: "Richard, Jeff" <Jeff.Richard_at_METROKC.GOV>
>Subject: Elmal the Sun
>
>I take a year-long break from the digest and people are still bickering
>about the same subjects. New people, same old arguments. Great to see John
>Hughes' posting, though.
>
>Perhaps the perennial debate that most mystifies me is the ongoing
>Elmal-Yelmalio-Yelm jeremiad. Peter Larsen writes:
>
> >>Dragon Pass and Dara Happa are a long way from each other
> >>to such an extent that the Orlanthi and the Pelorians are
> >>completely different people. As far as can be seen from
> >>Dara Happan maps, Yelm never ruled over Dragon Pass in the
> >>Golden Age.
> >So why did Orlanth need to rebel? Or is Elmal a remnant of the
> >Emperor's court, the stiching on the graft job from the 1st Council? Which,
> >now that I think about it, could go a long way towards reconciling this
> >Elmal thing in my mind. It raises other questions, but they are not
> >questions I have any great interest in answering.
>
>An odd assumption in this line of thought is that somehow Orlanthi myth and
>Dara Happan myths should be boiled down to a single Truth. That, gentlemen,
>is pure God Learning and in a just world, anyone proposing such deviancy
>ought to be stoned, drawn and quartered, and their remains burnt to prevent
>their souless corpse from haunting the living.
>
>Elmal is the old Orlanthi sun god. According to the Heortlings, Elmal was
>visible even during the height of the Darkness, in his palace atop Kero Fin.
>During the Darkness, the remnants of the Vingkotlings worshipped him as the
>last light in the sky - as Orlanth's last remaining thane. Elmal offered
>protection from the forces that raged across the world during the Darkness -
>although he was not strong enough to defeat these forces and grew
>ever-more-injured each time he fought to defend those Vingkotlings who still
>worshipped him. Importantly, the Orlanthi claim that Elmal never died
>during the Darkness.
>
>At Elmal's core is this "protection in darkness" theme. When Orlanth and
>the Lightbringers returned from Hell with brought with them the bright Sun,
>this myth becomes complicated. Is this bright Sun a reinvigorated Elmal
>(who no longer lives atop Kero Fin) or is it something else? The Pelorian
>warlords and their subjects, the Dara Happans, claimed that the bright Sun
>was something else other than Elmal - when the Dara Happans cast off the
>warlords and announced the return of their ancient empire, they told the
>Orlanthi that the Bright Sun was none other than Yelm - whom the Orlanthi
>identified with the Evil Emperor.
>
>This Orlanthi uncertainty and ambivalence regarding the nature of the Bright
>Sun is the root of the uncertainty and ambivalence regaring the whole
>[Y]elmal[io] mystery. The sun is Elmal, but the bright Sun is also
>identified with the Evil Emperor. Complicated. Yes. Confusing. Yes. But
>why shouldn't important "things" be given multiple identifications and
>meanings? In our own Western mythologies, "things" like God, the US
>President, movie stars and capitalism are assigned a wide array of conflict
>and contradictory meanings and interpretations. Why should meaning be
>easier for the Orlanthi?
>
>Jeff
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 11:44:01 -0700
>From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_mail.utexas.edu>
>Subject: Misc threads
>
>Phil Hibbs comments:
>
> >lets take this point literally. The "myths" are a mortal interpretation of
> >the divine world, so maybe the god doesn't know their own myths. They know
> >what their existence is like, but this doesn's map 1:1 to the mundane world.
> >It may seem at times that you get contradictory answers from the deity. You
> >may well ask Yelm "Are you the Sun that I can see in the sky", and actually
> >get a "no" answer. If you asked the question in Dark Season, when the sun
> >according to DH mythology is Yelmalio, and Yelm is dead during winter, for
> >example. I'm not saying that, it's just an example off the top of my head.
> >It may however be true in some places, or at some times.
>
> Well, thanks. This is a clear statement of this approach, and one I
>can accept. I think the "map disjunction" has to be pretty high for the
>amount of confusion seen on Glorantha (especially in Peloria which seesm to
>have a lot of trouble with heresies and schisms), but it's more a matter of
>degree than kind.
>
>D. Pearton says:
>
> >There are so many great potential wine heroquests out there... Maybe I
> >should actually write them down sometime.
>
> Now that would be lovely. As Tim Power's "Earthquake Weather"
>shows, there is nothing trivial about wine and myth... Besides, heroic
>actions for food processors and nice wine have a certain Califoria-ness
>about them that seems very appropriate to Glorantha....
>
>Olli Kantola describes a broo tragedy:
>
> There's a whole "West Side Story" theme to be explored, too. "How
>can I love her, she only has two arms..."
>
>Peter Larsen
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 17:57:47 +0100 (BST)
>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
>Subject: Re: Nandan
>
>Nils Weinander:
> > I was rather surprised that everybody assumes a connection
> > with homosexuality for Nandan. When I first heard of Nandan,
> > that he saved the clan by giving birth when the women turned
> > barren, I assumed that he was a man whose wife couldn't
> > have children and whose heroquest to have a child ended
> > up with him learning woman mysteries and coneiving a child
> > himself.
>
>No, he's not. The story, any time I've heard it from Robin and from
>Greg, explicitly involves sleeping with another man; sleeping
>with another man without subsequent actual Birthing, is Nandan's
>"lesser magic"; and they adopt a female social role.
>
>
> > That said, modern day Nandanites could of course be gay, but
> > I don't think it's necessary. I think it's a valid path for
> > a man with a barren wife as well.
>
>As per the above, I don't think it is. Well, other than by the
>"bi excuse" route... OTOH, the term "gay" has connotations that
>may not be very helpful (such as Nandan/Nandan liasons, which
>wouldn't be "mythically correct" -- not to say they can't happen).
>
>Cheers,
>Alex.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 18:01:13 +0100 (BST)
>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
>Subject: Re: Malkioni Luatha??
>
>Mikko Rintasaari:
>
> > :> The Luatha are Malkioni according to Anaxial's Roster.
> > :
> > :Really? I haven't seen it. Other sources describe them as children
> > :of the gods, right?
> >
> > Aren't the Luatha the people and warriors of Rausa, the crimson goddess of
> > sunset, guardian of the gates of Dusk and the daughter of murdered Yelm?
>
>That's certainly the Orlanthi take. OTOH, perhaps they're "objectively
>wrong"(TM). (i.e., GL rationale for giving them a whopping great
>"alien realm" penalty when they're on the LBQ. A crude account, in
>my view, but perhaps not entirely off the mark.)
>
>Cheers,
>Alex.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 18:44:18 +0100 (BST)
>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
>Subject: Re: being dead
>
>David Cake:
> > I think being dead is not quite the same as simply being in
> > the land of the dead. The dead lack free will, heroquesters in the
> > land of the dead do not. This distinction is very important (the
> > dead, lacking free will, can normally not have any choice which route
> > they take through the land of the dead).
> > In another sense, you are dead - being lost in the land of
> > the dead and unable to escape is indistinguishable from being dead.
>
>Right, I think it's in large part a matter of 'what do you mean by
>dead', which is hardly a trivial question in RL, either. The
>situation of the quester in Hell, and the dead-by-traditional-means
>person in Hell, do differ, at least potentially, so there's room
>for definitional quibbling, at the very least. The quester is
>probably there in his entire person, for example, whereas the
>dead-dead are in some sense "decomposed" (into one's Yelmic parts,
>to chose one construction). The quester isn't hacked into little
>pieces, consumed by disease, or enfeebled by age. The quester
>is (if he has a brain) prepared, and was at the least expecting
>to be here, and has a purpose in mind. But hang around the land
>of the dead long enough, and these distinctions will disappear
>pretty smartly. And some people/religions/cultures may not consider
>them especially significant in the first place, and believe that
>a priori, in the land of the dead means that you're dead. Not
>the Humakti, you'd imagine...
>
>
> > And Greg is even more notoriously changeable on subjects like
> > this than on other subjects.
>
>Doesn't it require quite a sophisticated treatment of transfinite
>numbers to verify the above?
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 19:00:14 +0100 (BST)
>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
>Subject: Re: Odds and Ends
>
>Graham Robinson:
> > In order to perform experiments you need to have developed a model of
> > reality that is not dependent on whim - this is the so-called
> > Reproducibility Axiom. Any universe that contains demonstratably powerful
> > dieties automatically fails this. If the results of your experiment depend
> > on whether Orlanth is in a good mood or not, it ain't what we recognise as
> > scientist.
>
>Well, as you later imply, a genuinely sound experiment would have to
>include "the Gods" in some sense, or whatever one's "model" of the
>otherworld is. A lot of inappropriately reductionist thinking is
>of this general sort; exclude part of the domain from consideration,
>then apply rigorous reductionism to the rest of it, and then
>complain bitterly about one's lack of success, fudge the results, or
>attempt to apply them outside their established scope. Hence
>Genetic Determinism, and come to that, several other flavours of
>Determinism.
>
>
> > The pseudo-scientists of Glorantha - Godlearners, RQ sorcerors, etc. - are
> > just that. They fit the fantasy mold of mad scientist fine, but aren't
> > anywhere close to the real meaning of the word.
>
>I have to entirely disagree. Mad scientists are hardly a fantasy:
>one needs to work hard to avoid to avoid Richard Dawkins on the
>telly and in the Sunday supplements... (There really ought to be
>a Chair in Dawkins Understanding of the Public, you know, which is
>at least as underdeveloped a field.) OK, mildly crazed, at least.
>The common thread is excessive or inappropriate application of
>reductionistic thinking.
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #51
>**********************************
>
End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #54
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