>Greg:
>Judgement is not the sole provence of human beings.
>Logic, rationality and words are part of that same mental package, and
>again, are not the sole provence of human beings. Writing might be, but is
>not one of the things that made us human, just a byproduct of the rest
Hmm. That leaves us with the near-humans (Fiwan, Hsunchen, Praxians) some of which have fire.
Don't the Mostali have fire?
Reading about the Malkioni prehistory I've been wondering about the Theist quarter lately. Genner, the inventor of Sacrificial Worship, is a Great Spirit. Ehilm and Worlath are gods, but Ehilm never outshines Genner for this neutrally prejudiced observer. Worlath inherits only after Genner is defeated by Chaos.
Practically all the eastern half of the "theist quarter" is dominated by animist riding cultures (and a few sedentary animists in Prax as well). I feel a vague deja-vu when I theorize about Fiwan roots for both Pentan horse riders and Praxian Beast Riders, both having "gone wrong" with their Hsunchen/Fiwan ways when they separated permanently into a beast population and a human-shaped population.
The entire border region to the Malkioni consists of animist beast people, some of which have been converted to either materialist or theist practices in the course of history.
Peloria is a mishmash with about 60% theist practices, the Barbarian Belt as well if you take in barbarian Ralios and Maniria including Ramalia. The rest divides between animists, Malkioni and (in Peloria) mystical ways.
The Seas qualify as theist on roughly the same census. That leaves places like Fonrit, Maslo (?) and Teshnos as additional theist places. The rest of the east... all mixed up, too.
Hmm. Another thing I stumbled across is the "no integration of spirits for shamans" position. Most animists regard a discorporate existence as undesirable, right? Retaining individuality in a discorporate state is worse than a spiritual recycling undergoing a loss of identity in a corporeal form (like Dorad's grave sprouting plants).
Why is integrating spirits in a corporeal form contrary to animism? How much identity is lost when the core identity of the ability spirit becomes a (major) trait of the corporeal existance?
Integration now is said to be a mostly mystical practice. Well, we don't get a mystical magic system in the near future (i.e. in HQ base rules), but Revealed Mythology has hints about manifest(ing) mystic magic (as does draconic magic, i.e. Dream Dragons as emanations of True Dragons or Dragon's Eye of the Dragonet), Refutation as a major mystic technique (Mashunasan and his ilk), or Atrilith (Nenduren) integration with the world.
The question is: could there be (or have been) a strong mystical influence on (Genertelan?) animists to give rise to integration practices? Influences like Nysalor, the Jernotians, EWF, Sheng, Lunars...
A not too coherent (right now, it's late) Joerg
Joerg Baumgartner (via Hotmail)
mailto:joe_at_toppoint.de
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