From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 22 Apr 1994, part 3 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: john.hughes@anu.edu.au (John P Hughes) Subject: Initiation, bits Message-ID: <9404220142.AA24933@cscgpo.anu.edu.au> Date: 22 Apr 94 16:42:11 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3754 I'm off like a krashkid at a Stormbull temple bash... RE: INITIATION, CULTURAL OR OTHERWISE WHAT EXACTLY IS INITIATION? My main point being, its not primarily a test, but a change in the way you look at the world. Humans seem biologically programmed to learn certain things at certain times - language is the strongest example. Human cultures make use of the psychological and physiological changes of puberty to impress upon their young a set of lessons and values. This we call initiation. Initiation is a way of cutting someone off from one set of attitudes (childhood dependency, ignorance, self- centred pleasure, stagnation) and substituting another set in their place (adult selfdom, gnosis, conscious social will, growth). It tears apart one reality and replaces it with another. It is SYMBOLIC REBIRTH. Initiation rituals make use of fear, pain, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, isolation, ecstasy and transcendence to impart their lesson. My first point is that (in terran cultures at least) initiation is not a test of skill except in the most rudimentary way. One's courage and patience may be tested, but not one's jumping or weapons skills. (You'll be expected to be reasonably fit and to be able to handle a weapon in some fashion - but you won't be considered for initiation until AFTER you can do all that). Remember initiandes will have been preparing for years, and the entire village will have been watching very carefully. Courage and dedication count for almost everything, skill levels very little. (Major exception: hunting/gathering societies where if you can't hunt or gather enough to feed yourself, then you won't survive. But here the test is 'scrounge by yourself in the desert for a week', not spear 50% check, jump 50% check etc). My second point is that initiation (sometimes quite literally) scares or sears a new way of thinking, a new set of symbolic orientations (religious or moral ideas) into your head. Because of this, religious symbols ALWAYS take their part, whether or not the initiation is overtly cultic. (Our own society is one of the few on either world where one can realistically separate religion and community). What I'm suggesting is that rather than a test of skills - the explicit game model - initiation is primarily a kind of self- transforming heroquest. In my own thinking three of the twelve major types of heroquest (those of the INNOCENT, ORPHAN, and SEEKER) occur almost exclusively during childhood and initiation, while that of the WARRIOR must lay its foundation there. And if there's one lesson that comes out of heroquest, its that dice rolls and skill tests CAN'T recreate the experience. Initiation is dangerous, and sometimes deadly. I believe it must be tailored by the MLD to the individual storytelling and transformative needs of questers. Initiation should strip them down to their core, and will begin their reintegration. It should release their adult personalities, both the noble and ignoble sides. And it should align them absolutely with the values of their people/cult. Some netters have argued that you can be an adult without being initiated. I believe the opposite, that the uninitiated (or those initiated 'elsewhere'), whatever their status, cannot be completely trusted, for their loyalty and devotion to the clan can only be skin deep. Initiation literally scars that loyalty onto the depths of your soul. Hence the almost universal distrust of strangers and foreigners in the tribal world. (If I wanted to be electronically incinerated, I'd suggest that initiation tells us that we have to LEARN to be human, and that we have to ACTIVELY CONSTRUCT a 'reality' from the infinitude of possibilities that surround us (this we call 'culture'). Those who have lost true initiation (i.e. us) - it went the way of the extended family - either create their own (the street gang model) or wade through life buffeted by meanings and loyalties, unanchored and relatively adrift. However, I want to stick to the direct implications of the topic so I won't mention it :-). So... the 'non-abstracted interpreted-interaction heroquest- transformation low initiate pantheon initiation' faction? Am I a party of one? GODLEARNERS & PROTESTANTS Joerg said: ^ The God Learners with their large scale ^ experiments are unparalleled on Earth (except for a few small scale ^ Jesuit experiments in South America). And China. I would have thought the entire rise of European Protestant rationalism, with its techo-industrial ethic, its abolition of the magic and pagan elements of Catholicism, it's philosophical and empirical traditions, it's expansionary/colonising ethic and its subversion of traditional beliefs (including - with the rise of historical bible scholarship and form criticism - it's own) was a pretty good take-off of the entire GL trip. 'Cept of course Protestants said reality was absolute, and its OUT THERE, while the GLs said its fluid, and its IN HERE. JOERGISH BITS Thanks for the reminder about 'were' ducks Joerg. Wheww. And your list of Rokari Seshnel all-in-the family roleplaying suggestions was BRILL. Up there with "Argrath & the Devil" and the RQIII 'Dropped Oil Lamp Table' (:-)) for maximum ideas per square centimetre. The more I play, the more I'm convinced that family/community/clan based play is the way to go, rather than lone adventurers out for themselves and their god. In fact for Heroquest, I think clan-based is the only way to go. (I'm writing some TOTRM column stuff on this right now). Your list has been taped to the inside cover of my campaign book, even though I'm an Orlanthi Far Pointer. Great Stuff. RELIGION - THE ETERNAL FLAME WARNING: MAINLY NON-GLORANTHAN RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION FOLLOWS Sandy said > I consider this thread closed unless you can find me an > example of a large-scale religion that thinks it's good to rob and > kill on an everyday basis, w/o special permission from God. Just a few years ago tens of thousands (some estimates 250,000) innocent men, women and children were murdered by citizens of the United States, mostly in a painful and horrific (though mercifully quick) manner. The murders occurred under the express orders of the US legislature. Those who committed the killings represented a cross-section of most of America's major religious traditions, though there were some exceptions. American tv crews covering the mass-murder were ignored and finally fired by their network employees. Yet apart from the Quakers, I know of not ONE single American religious body to have spoken up against the murder (though organisations of concerned individuals from many of these bodies have, and I thank them). The murders occurred in Iraq, and the killings (the results of 'surgical' bombing raids- masterly propaganda that) occurred because one US-sponsored henchman (Hussein) turned against his old masters and threatened America's cheap oil supplies. Now Christianity, Judaism and Islam all have theological notions of what constitutes a 'just war', and in this case the necessary preconditions were NOT fulfilled. Most nations have codes of conduct (and in most cases legislation) relating to the protection of civilians in wartime, not to mention having signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now this example was chosen only to illustrate a general principle - I could use examples from most other major world powers fairly easily. My point is that this entire religion/morality discussion seems to run aground because: a) it believes humans think rationally, and therefore cannot hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. b) it ignores the difficulty we all have in separating what's good for our selves/family/community/nation (our what we are told is good for us) from what's good for everyone, and therefore MORAL. Oh for the smug simplicity of historical and moral hindsight... c) it ignores the way simplistic moral formulations fail to deal with the profound ENVIRONMENTAL causes and limits of human behaviour (e.g. is infanticide murder when an extra mouth might mean death for a whole family? Is it the profound lack of salt in their diet that leads to Yanomamo aggression, rather than their religion - or perhaps the effects of colonial predation and missionisation? Can ANYONE tell the absolute truth, and live with the pain and suffering this would cause, even though every major moral system has injunctions against lying? etc etc. See alt.skeptic or alt.atheist or any of the more honest religious newsgroups for examples ad infinitum ad nauseum). Now moralists have been struggling with these questions for thousands of years, and the jury is still out. Me, I'm concerned with the seriousness of these issues, obviously, but suspect we aren't going to make much headway with them. Flame Off? (tendency for throwaway line curtailed by delicacy of entire situation). --------------------- From: argrath@aol.com Subject: The Light of the Dark Side Message-ID: <9404212252.tn31093@aol.com> Date: 22 Apr 94 02:52:23 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3755 Re: Stein Illumination IMHO, the Socratic method works better at exposing the inconsistencies and lack of grounding in people's beliefs. I got a lot of this in law school, but the professors always stopped after you had successfully argued back to first principles. But why do we have first principles? Why do we value consistency? Why am I asking so many questions? Re: Discovered Tricksters Greg Stafford's answer appears in the booklet coming from David Cheng (flogged in X-RQ-ID: 3689). It is not much like those proposed here. In short, a trickster needs a powerful patron to keep people from lynching him. jonas says (BTW, these multiple >>>'s get very confusing. Wouldn't quote marks be easier?): "Only if you find me a quote where Eurmal actually _uses_ Death, instead of just giving away franchises. I will admit that I have no basis for the other aspects you mention, apart from my 'feel' for what a Eurmal trickster would get up to." At the risk of irritating people by referring to non-published sources, let me point out that some expansion of the "murderer" aspect exists in print, and one day may be published. But, if you look at page 71 of GoG, you'll see "Strike (Murderer aspect)." And on page 70, "a murderer" is listed as one of his "shapes." Re: Malkioni as analogues of Christianity or Islam Consider: ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY MALKIONI EARLY ISLAM Theology: Trinity (some say all single high god single high god equal, others not) Central figure represents: incarnation prophet prophet Legal teaching: reaction to old law new law given new law given Important role-models: saints saints saints (Shi'a only) Cause of internal divisions: heresies heresies dispute over succession to caliphate Teachings about What the World Is About: messianic non-messianic non-messianic millenarian non-millenarian somewhat millenarian salvation from sin laws from God laws from God church/state relations: separate unity unity Martyrs? many maybe few Reaction to Visible Gods: Adopt some as saints, Same as Xian Reject condemn rest Attitude toward the world: In but not of In and of In and of Central rites: Eucharist, baptism, ??? fasting, pilgrimage, marriage, unction, prayer 5 times/day, ordination, penance, alms, confession of confirmation, etc. faith Dietary prohibitions: no meat on Fridays ??? pork, alcohol, blood, anything which dies of itself, 4-footed predators with canine teeth, birds of prey with talons, asses, mules, ravens, bustards, etc. I see as much similarity between Malkionism and Islam as between Malkionism and Christianity. BTW, there is a little-known schism (nay, RANKEST HERESY) in the stodgy old Presbyterian church these days. Seems that some members of the church have added a new deity to the religion, by name of Sophia. She represents the feminine dimension of the divine, I guess--I don't have full details. (Really, I'm not making this up--I couldn't have come up with something so simultaneously mundane and shocking.) It's like something out of Credo!, where you can end up with a Sol Invictus creed. "There is but one god, and he is the sun god, Ra! Ra! Ra!" --Martin --------------------- From: Aden_Steinke@ms-gw.uow.edu.au (Aden Steinke) Subject: Lunars as Protagonists Message-ID: <199404220509.PAA13486@wyrm.cc.uow.edu.au> Date: 23 Apr 94 02:00:24 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3756 Martin says: >I'm supprised at the assumption that most people use Lunars as protagonists. >I've never had a Lunar PC or played a campaign set in Peloria. The campaigns I >know best have never taken a Lunar turn. I ran a Lunar campaign once, for one >adventure. What are other persons' experiences and preferences for milieu? I agree, in the 12 or so years (I think) that we have been playing RuneQuest here in Wollongong, our current campaign (set in 1623 in Prax/Sartar) is the first with Lunars as a major feature. My character in this is a Dara Happan merchant. All of our previous RQ campaigns have been in Pavis / Prax / Balazar but set slightly earlier than this, so players have been followers of Humakt, Yelm, Yelmalio, Black Fang, Daka Fal, the Orlanth panthion, Pavis, Zorak Zoran, Aldrya and Zola Fel, but not of Lunar cults such as 7 mothers and Etyries. We have had Duck, Troll, Aldryami, Agimori and Baboon player characters but no New Pelorians. Now that I am playing, and enjoying playing, a civilised person from a literate civilisation, for once, it is most terrible that Greg Stafford has released KoS with it's huge umpires fudges bringing down the Lunar Empire, so my character - if the campaign goes as long as our last one, 6 or 7 real years, 20 or 30 game years - will have little real incentive to progress as a Lunar unless we depart from the time line rather markedly. The gaming is different, even though we are in basically the same part of the world, since as Lunar citizens we cannot just go around committing banditry and tomb robbing in the pursuit of the twin gods of experience rolls and wealth.B-) Aden ---------------------