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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 09 May 1994, part 2
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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: mixed elves
Message-ID:
Date: 8 May 94 20:43:47 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3947
Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 3935
> Alex Ferguson asks some questions about Pamaltela. Even though not
> directly to me, I'll naturally try to respond.
Sic tacuisses...
>>Vralos: Exclusively brown, or brown/green?
> Enkloso and Vralos are the site of Aldrya's Woe, a race war
> between Brown and Green elf peoples in the First Age. In general, the
> Green elves lost, and are now much less common than Brown. However,
> the Green elves are still fairly prevalent in Enkloso, and dominate
> some parts. There is no residual hostility between the elf types and
> all now regret the war.
While it is right that in the 1st Age the Green Elves were expelled
from Vralos, the Brown Elf kingdom there was heavily diminished in 654
when the God Learners burnt most of the forests of Vralos. In Enkloso a
lot of human are subject to the (Vronkali) Woodland Judgement, while
Vralos never was reforested to its former size, and still has mostly
independant human inhabitants.
> Note that a "war" in which elves are involved is not fought
> anything like a human war. No regiments of elves go marching out with
> arrows to impale one another. Instead, the war is like a long series
> of one-on-one murders, poisonings, sowing of lethal plants, etc. Elf
> wars can last decades, even when being waged against other species
> (such as the human/elf war taking place in Onlaks today).
Now this is interesting. Would the aldryami involve weapons of darkness
(voracious trollkin, molds) to defeat their opponents? Would they use
their archers on each other? (Why else have elf bows?)
> If we were to agree (for instance) that trolls are relatives
> of shrews, this may have useful implications for play. Likewise, if
> we instead agreed that trolls are man-shaped insects this, too, leads
> to interesting conclusions.
Aren't there Gorakiki- and Aranea-worshipping Hsunchen? According to
Paul Reilly's theory, these would be the man-shaped insects (in wider
sense).
> And besides, who says Glorantha has no evolutionary history?
> I think that there is plenty of evidence for organic evolution
> throughout Glorantha. Look at the gradual development of trolls into
> beasties fit for the surface world or the previously-mentioned
> Aldrya's Woe of Pamaltela, which is really just a thinly-disguised
> ecological succession. The existence of evolution in Glorantha does
> NOT eliminate a role for magic, mythology, or Creation.
On my (clearly evolutional) own RQ-gameworld, the evolution is one of
the consequences of the natural laws imposed by Creation, in some circles
called "runes". Note that magic and mythology on Glorantha are evolutional
rather than creationist - at least before the God Learners.
Martin Crim in X-RQ-ID: 3938
> Re: Islam, Christianity, and Malkionism
> For another, note the lack of a Trinity in Malkionism and
> its central importance in Christianity.
Who says that the Malkioni don't argue about the Trinity, e.g. of
(transcendent) Creator, (immanent) Spirit, and the prophet, or any
Stygian or Henotheist entity of importance?
The three corners of the Law Rune, analogous to the four corners of
the Earth Rune.
> Sure, the early
> Christians also argued about church governance, monastic
> practices, church-state relations, and the composition of the
> canon, but the different sects we know from history are known for
> their Trinitarian beliefs.
If you look into the western remains of the Roman Empire, the greater
issues were e.g. the Pelagian heresy and the Easter debate.
> Arianism, Monophysitism, etc., are
> all labels that refer to beliefs about the three persons of God.
> The gnostic denial of the Christ's physical body, the second
> century emphasis on the holy spirit as redeemer--where is this in
> Malkionism?
E.g. in the early Malkioni debates whether the prophet was the IG
incarnate, a divine being, or a mortal enlightened.
> Malkionism is about a revelation from the Invisible God to a
> prophet, who taught moral laws which are unfortunately subject to
> differing interpretations. Sound familiar? And the central
> confession of faith in Malkionism sounds a lot like the
> "testimony" of Islam or (a little) the Shema Yisrael of Judaism,
> not like the trinitarian confession of faith in most sects of
> Christianity.
Yeah, sounds like Moses' revelations in Egypt and the desert. Also see
the parallel that Malkion would not live in the blessed land.
> Sure, there are many question marks left to fill in.
> Obviously, no Terran missionary religion tried to pigeonhole
> people into a four-caste system. But when you're looking for an
> analogue to build your vision on, you can look beyond familiar
> Western Christianity.
Neither did the Hrestoli, the mainstream Malkioni for more than 1000
years (before the rise of Rokarism), although not necessarily as rabid
as 16th century Loskalmi. Think of the Seshnelan Castle Coast, or
Umathela before the Nolosian missionaries converted the Linealist Malkioni
into Rokari.
Hrestoli class (not caste) system is quite barbaric in nature, and goes
nicely along with e.g. Heimdall's visits to the Midgard humans, fathering
Jarl, Bonde and Thrall, which is quite Orlanthi, or Yelm's
creation of castes.
> King, by Grace of Orlanth, etc., of Holay, Saird, Tarsh, etc.
Another king with only matrilineal ties. No wonder the Orlanthi find no rest...
David Dunham in X-RQ-ID: 3940
> Joerg said of Minaryth:
> >My easiest solutions: 1. the write-up in RoC is wrong, or preferedly
> >2. the man was initiated into the pantheon, and slowly developed his
> >membership
> or 3. Minaryth Blue and Minaryth Purple aren't the same person. After all,
> the person who wrote that is hardly the one who got partly eaten by the
> dragon. I think this is what Greg says.
My equation of them was based on a rumour originating in California, from
the Chaosium sphere of influence. Anyway: Everything Greg says is wrong,
isn't it ?
> Neil Robinson said:
>> New GMs will find Glorantha overwhelming, to say the least.
> True, and I haven't seen anything that attempts to address this. (I wonder
> if that's a direction I should take one of my projects...)
On one side, the overwhelming amount of info on the world is what
endears it to people who keep on reading the stuff. If it only were
better organised.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Initiation: my position?
Message-ID: <9405082114.AA06246@keppel.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 8 May 94 21:14:03 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3948
Martin:
> Paul Reilly sez:
> "I think that Troll society is sufficiently different from
> human that it is difficult to compare what 'adulthood' means.
> Certainly they continue to gain status throughout life, thus
> 'adulthood' may be more relative than absolute."
> Yes, except for that initiation thing. So there is at least
> one jump. And humans gain status throught life in most
> traditional societies, too, so where's the difference?
I think the trolls place great emphasis on adulthood, given their
preoccupation with fertility. Thus a female uzko progesses through
the stages of Child, Adult, Mother ("pure"), (likely) alternating with
Mother ("impure"), and finally Elder. I'd guess a moderately Big Deal
was made out of entry into each state. The status of male trolls isn't
so important, or so well-defined, though.
The troll situation appears not unlike that of the Solar-worshipping
Pentans, though of course both would be horrified by the comparison.
If anything, trolls seem to be yet more monolithic in their identification
of cult and society, not to say race.
> He also sez:
> "2. Trolls _must_ use a lot of onomatopaeia, and also 'echoic
> onomatopaeia' - the word for an object may sound a lot like its
> echo."
> Yes! A bit of convergent thinking--I had the same reaction
> to Sandy's statement that Darktongue was hard-wired.
I find it difficult to imagine _all_ of Darktongue being instinctive:
perhaps there's a nounal (echos) and verbal ("echoism" (ow, appalling
pun), at least for actions which actually make a noise) "core" language
(compunerd, moi?), which has a "cultural" elaboration for more abstract
concepts, compound concepts, names, etc.
After all, what's the echo for Kyger Litor?
There's also the small detail that echos are ultrasonic, while most of
spoken Darktongue is in the human audible range (sensible, otherwise
speach would confuse, and be confused by, Darksense sounds). Nothing
a bit of hardwired fast fourier transform to do frequency shifting
wouldn't fix, I'm sure.
> Speaking of disagreeing strongly:
> Will Joerg and Alex please restate their points of view about
> whatever it is that they're talking about?
I don't think Joerg and I disagree "strongly" so much as "at length". ;-/
Anyway, I agree that Joerg should: even I'm getting confused about
what he's saying, but I'm sure it's wrong anyway.
> I think it was god v.
> pantheon initiation, initially, but I can't tell my players even
> WITH a scorecard, at this point.
Okay: I'm broadly in favour of the "cult" status quo, with some
modifications and liberalisations. As one of the consequences as this,
I don't think Adulthood/tribal/clanic initiation is necessarily, in all
cases, a "full religious" (I would say "cultic", but that's half the
argument, isn't it?) initiation.
In particular, I think there should be a greater stress on associate
worship, a recognition that many, if not most, cults have some kind of
meaningful "pre-initiate" (call it what you will) status, and perhaps
also a a certain ammount of creative fudging of what this absolutist
notion of "being an initiate of" a cult might mean, and consist of, in
different circumstances. Temple size rules should probably also be
inspiredly ignored in places, but not, I'd caution, in the direction
or extent of powergaming free-for-all.
Given my essentially conservative position, I think that Joerg (or his
cohorts) need to "make the case" that my stance and/or Zee Roolz are broken in a significant way: hence, the petty quibbling about
whether there exists a "hard case" someplace, where some poor hard-done-
by group _really, really has to_ worship some inordinate number of gods
in a manner which the current rules would make unacceptably (and
unfudgeably) arduous. (As a benchmark, if I were convinced a sizable
fraction of any significantly-sized community were _required_ to worship,
as "full" initiates something like 30% time/tithing, I'd be worried.)
Personally, I think Joerg and co. are digging a hole for themselves with
their stance on adulthood initiation, which they plan on then using as
a rationale for all-pantheon worship. Myself, I'd suggest "stop digging",
but I'd rather be stuck in the hole than that means of getting out of it.
We keep drifting off onto other topics, too, such as the Aeolian Church,
which are certainly interesting in themselves, but which don't impinge
directly on the initiation discussion in general. (Well, I think not --
certainly I think what Joerg describes is something of a special case,
and I'm reluctant to get into bun-fights about someone else's own personal
campaign material anyway.) I think I'll try to confine such stuff to
separate threads, to keep things less mailbox-busting. (On which subject,
Joerg is also one of the few people with a worse case of included-text-
itis than me. ;-P Mind you, I have to confess, I have this _nasty_ habit
of hitting the "reply" button, and finding myself replying to the whole
"part" of the daily digest, not just the message I intended to. Oh, for
a decent undigester...)
Now read on.
Alex.
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Lunar Clan society
Message-ID:
Date: 8 May 94 21:39:38 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3949
Alex Ferguson in X-RQ-ID: 3924
> For one thing the Lunar religion doesn't _have_ any particular
> clan structure to impose on people, and isn't philosophically inclined
> to do so anyway. This means they can either let the usual initiation
> process proceed unhindered (and they do so in the case of initiation to
> "safe" gods such as Ernalda), or they can simply _stop_ them, and/or
> eliminate the specifically cultic part, thereby breaking the traditional
> link between cult and clan. This leaves them free to try to convert
> the people concerned at a later date.
Lunar religion and civilisation is heavily influenced by Pelorian daily
life, which is dominated by clan-like familiy/in-law structures six or
seven generations extended (sounds familiar e.g. from Ireland). Genertela
Book presents the Sultanates as ruled by important clans, such as the
Eel-ariash. Dart competitions (not dart wars) are fought between clans
of nobles rather than between individuals.
Of the conquered people of the empire, the Dara Happans have extensive
noble families (aka clans), the Orlanthi have, the east Pelorian earth
worshippers (Jarst, probably Garsting) would be, and the Carmanians too.
The clan or enlarged family is the basic building unit of nearly all
Gloranthan human societies, weirdos like the Brithini excepted. As it was
on Earth.
The Lunar philosophy might not be inclined to think in clan structures.
Society does so, and religious practise probably as well.
>> We come together, if slowly. I would differentiate
>> between various forms of associate initiates, though.
> What does this mean?
For Orlanthi:
Youth associates, in-culture associates (members of Orlanth's stead,
or cultural heroes apotheosized), or extra-culture associates, like
Argan Argar or Storm Bull (not Urox) in the Garhound contest.
> I don't think their claim to Tribal Kingship in any way depends on their
> relationship to Sartar. Harvar is King of the Vantaros, Duke of Alda-Chur
> (and Farpoint?), I think, to be picky.
I didn't say that. But I think that nearly any candidate for tribal
kingship could produce a tenuous family tie to the royal house if
pressured.
>>> Perhaps I should have asked a more
>>> clearly-defined question, such as "Is it [the Aeolian Church]
>>> similar to the doctrine of the Henotheist Church [of Otkorion]?"
>> As far as I am concerned, yes, it is.
> Okay. My picture is of less Malkioni influence, and correspondingly
> a less prevalent role for the IG in Heortland.
Which I assume for the Volsaxi, Kitori, Marcher Barons and most of the
hill people, and even half of the Hendriki nation, mostly the lower
classes. That the higher classes of the Hendriki are somewhat malkionized
follows clearly from both Genertela Book and RQ-Companion.
> De gustibus, n'awrat.
Right, although if there ever should appear an officialized version of
Heortland, one of the views would prevail.
[Aeolians = / <> God Learners]
> Heh. No, what I meant was the inclusion of deities in the creed which
> aren't in _either_ Western or Orlanthi cosmology: I wasn't objecting
> to the combination of these two, which is obviously the whole point.
Which, for example?
>> They all say so in the credo their wizards/priests taught them. I doubt
>> that many would seriously reflect on the implications of this tradition.
> Said point was that this Trinity serves as a common "focus" for everyone
> to worship, whereas otherwise they'd be in distinct "cults".
>> I never said that the Elmali were anti-Wind
> You said Orlanth was, or was becoming "not a positive role-model", I think.
I did, I admit it. Yet the Elmali before the Cold Sun schisma would glorify
the Silver Age legends when Elmal led the Vingkotlings.
>> [...] The sacred marriage with
>> the land for instance would be Elmal's duty rather than Orlanth's in these
>> clans and tribes, and rather than to celebrate the short LBQ in Sacred Time
>> I'd expect them to reenact I Fought We Won, and the other events on the
>> Surface World during the LBQ. [...]
> I think this is true for Yelmalio converts, but for "Old Time Elmali",
> I'm not so sure. At least for Elmal _clans_.
The more rural you become, the less influential the tribe is. I think
we agreed that most ceremonies are held at clan-scale, or smaller.
>> The only Sartarite city to qualify before Dara Happans or Esrolites is
>> Boldhome, with approximately 10 to 12 thousand citizens (depending on
>> whether you count the non-humans).
> Not like you to apply Solar standards, Joerg. };-) I'm talking about cities
> by Sartarite definitions.
Which are stockades surrounded by stone walls, and ruled by a ring of
three or more tribes (except for Alone and Boldhome).
I just took the closest neighbours, let me throw in Ralios, Seshnela, or
the east, or old time Dragon Pass with its gigantic ruins from First
and Third Councils.
> When you speak of Initiates who don't sacrifice POW, don't gain magical
> benefits, but who do worship, how does this differ from the usual (God
> Learnerised, doubtless, RQ2 via assorted RQ3 long forms) idea of Lay
> Membership?
Initiates who enchant the divine link spiritual organ once, by expending
one POW, are different in that they are receiving passive magical
benefits (such as to become locatable by means of Divination) and an
assurance of afterlife the lay member who didn't enchant this link
does not. Would yu call Yelm the Youth or Aldrya Wood Children lay
members? They sacrificed their POW, but don't gain active magical benefits.
> It's not an idea I'm mad keen about, but I can see you could conjure up
> arguments in favour. It seems very odd that a factoid this whacky wouldn't
> have come to light previously, though.
I've tackled this before. You're just the first to jump at this...
> Runegate I must plead ignorance of, but I can easily believe this to
> be the case. Are these various spirits associated with each district,
> with different clans, or what?
Good question. My info comes fro the CHDP chapter in KoS.
> > and in X-RQ-ID: 3871:
>> Adulthood initiation wouldn't, the basic religious initiation would
>> involve POW sacrifice (once).
> Huh? What, then, is the "basic religious initiation" that costs POW,
> if it isn't "Voriof Initiation" (as you have said elsewhere), and it
> isn't "Adulthood initiation", which you insist have a mandatory religious
> component, via what previously seemed to be to be essentially a "cult"
> consisting of the entire pantheon. (i.e., what I thought we'd agreed
> _not_ to call "cultural initiation".)
The religious ceremony where the young adult enchants hir spiritual
organ by sacrificing one pointa POW to establish the divine link, to
whomever, which takes place in the year of hir adulthood rites, possibly
during these.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Subject: Taxonarama.
Message-ID: <9405082155.AA06267@keppel.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 8 May 94 21:55:51 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3950
Martin C:
> Alex mentioned that I had said that dwarves don't have the man
> rune. I got this from Mike Dawson, who claims its official, but
> I've never seen the source. Anyway, it makes heaps of sense to
> me. The shape was convenient when "Mostal" started making his
> little helpers. He didn't need to reinvent the wheel, as it
> were.
Weirdness. Surely, then, he "reused" (
#include "debate_on_componentware_and_object_oriented_software";
)
the Man rune to obtain the ever-so-versatile "man shape". Perhaps
the thinking is that they're less connected with the rune since they
are (allegedly) not "descended" from it, as such, but this seems like
a pretty fine distinction in the broad sweep of mythic origins.
> Count me as a member of the "directed acyclic graph" taxonomy
> party. Now if I could only understand what it *means*... But
> yeah, I've been arguing for abandoning all Earth-based taxonomic
> systems and taxons (mammal, primate, blah blah).
You'll be downheartened when I explain it in terms analogous to those,
then. Take a tree-shaped taxonomy of earthly animals, and add in unique
Gloranthan species, with their alleged taxons, a la Petersen. Then
equate, or merge, taxons which are "obviously" similar, or should be
identified due to runic similarity. (That is, "linking" some divergent
parts of the tree back up.) So for (brown) elves, I'd put them in the
same Family as humans, but a different Kingdom (and accordingly, Order,
Class, and Division). Thus:
Genus, species: Homo sapiens Dendro mreli
Family: gloranthomindae gloranthomindae
Order: primates dendranthopodes
Class: mammalia pandrya
Phylum: chordata ehilmspermata
Kingdom: mikyzoa gataphyta
Explanation:
gloranthomindae = all man-rune thingies
dendranthopodes = elves, "higher" runners
pandryta = dicotyledinae, plus all sentient Aldryami
ehilmspermata = angiosperma
mikyzoa = metazoa
gataphyta = plantae
Green elves would go into a different Division (since they're "conifers"),
as well as being a distinct species of the genus Dendro. Red elves would
be in a different Division, and may not be in gloranthomindae. They'd be
a different Genus, at least. Yellow elves I'm not sure about, divisionwise,
but would go in the same Genus.
Trolls: I'd go along with Sandy's suggestion of a styganthropes Order
of the mammals, but'd still put them in the gloranthomindae.
And as a sample non-mammal (I think) :-
Jelmre: chordata/polyemotia/eurmalides/gloranthomindae
The naming of the taxons could do with being "improved" by more use
of the appropriate god: does the Mother of Mammals have a proper name,
say?
Anyway, this is of course just (one of many) God Learner taxonomies,
which everyone else thinks is Hazia-induced, naturally.
> Speaking of outmoded ideas, tree shrews' inclusion in the
> primates seems to depend on when you went to college.
Probably where, too: my encyclopaedia cheerily recounts both versions,
seemingly with sentiment "take your pick".
> For all I know, they may be back in, now.
Someone give me a bell once they agree on the number of Kingdoms.
Alex.