Re: Third Council mysticism

From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 13:45:33 -0600


Keith Nellist says:

>My position is that the EWF was, originally, a load of mystics but that the
>guys that misunderstood the mystic patheway, that abused the powers of
>mysticism and fell from true understanding were the ones who started
>worshipping gods, creating empires, wanting to be worshipped as gods, and
>generally missing the point of EWF, as a mystic dragonic practice. The Third
>Council was the one that got entangled in the world and ended up as
>dragonfood as a result.

        I think the EWF was somewhat more complicated than this. The EWF (or, rather, what would eventually be called the EWF) started with some draconic revelations, probably best understood as mystic insights. While these insights were new to Orlanthi society, I suspect that there were plenty of draconic mystic/dragon worshipping groups in Dragon Pass. By the end, the EWF consisted of many groups:

  1. Your average jane/joe on the tula -- most likely, these people were relatively orthodox Orlanthi with a draconic gloss. Most people worshiped Orlanth and Ernalda, plus the usual lineup of gods. Many of these cults would have produced specialized "dragonfriend" sub-cults to take theist advantage of the draconic ideas and energies floating around, but most would be as recognizable to modern Orlanthi as any other 2nd Age specialist sub-cults. Obviously, the same comments apply to Orlanthi animists.

        I suspect that these "average Orlanthi" occasionally engaged in rituals designed to empower the mystic upper classes/government, but how this worked and how it would be described in a "4 worlds" way, I don't know. Community support through rules-defying draconic wyters? Inefficiently in "misapplied mysticism?"

2. The cynical mystic upper class -- these are the guys who are leading the EWF at the end. I think this "wanting to be worshipped" stuff is theist propaganda -- I think they were using a sort of "pyramid scheme" to enhance their mystic attainment, in much the same way that the Kralori government is a largely mystic organization that rests on the efforts of a mostly non-mystic population (except, of course, that the Kralori system is "correct" or, at least, not exploitive enough to bring destruction down on them). In other words, the EWF leadership didn't want to be worshipped, but what they were doing was at least as bad.

3. The "honest" mystics -- Plenty of people, including Ingolf from KoS, tried to follow draconic paths faithfully. Many of these people fought against the "Up-Toppers," which may have been noble but was ill-considered from the standpoint of mystic progress. Especially since the dragons killed them, too, despite their good intentions. As far as I can tell, the EWF and Kralorela differ quite a lot, not least in their conception of what it means to "become a dragon." The EWF mystics seem to have taken it very literally; they wanted to grow scales, wings, breath fire, etc. The Kralori, on the other hand, want something like a "dragon spirit" -- to think and be like a dragon without necessarily looking like one. As far as I know, not of the emperors ever grew scales and tails, but they are all undoubtedly dragons. The Kralori equivalent of the EWF is more likely the Path of Immanent Mastery, which makes the same sort of "being a dragon" errors.

4. The Dragonewts -- Doing their own thing. It's important to remember that, while mysticism is the closest human approximation to draconic philosophies, the "pure draconic" experience is likely very different. Other non-human groups also benefited from the relative peace and openness of the period while advancing their own agendas.

5. Non-mystic upper class -- the EWF seemed to have sponsored or tolerated a great deal of magical experimentation that has nothing to do with dragons -- Pavis and Delecti come to mind. There seem to have been wide-spread experiments to recreate the mythic ages (something like some current Lunar plans) with mixed successes. I doubt if most of these experimenters and their backers were connected to the mystic portions of the government, although they benefited from it's powers and policies.

        This is a pretty rough breakdown (not to mention pretty much out of my own head). While the whole mystic nation thing was big, what with the struggle against the Godlearners and all, I'm sure that Orlanthi politics, with clan and tribal struggles, cult interactions, etc. were in full swing as well. It's not like everyone stopped being Orlanthi for a couple of centuries after all.

Peter Larsen
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End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #630


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