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, Mon, 20 Jun 1994, part 2
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
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From: Argrath@aol.com
Subject: Let there be Lite Beer
Message-ID: <9406181243.tn88112@aol.com>
Date: 18 Jun 94 16:43:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4659
Re: Orlando
Another (rather less fortunate) association with this name
is an immortal transsexual presented in a rather boring and artsy
movie.
Re: He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake...
There's a major problem with figuring out "what the god
knows," which is that no mortal can know the mind of a god. The
usual analogy is that an ant (or other small critter) cannot
understand the actions of a human. The evidence (if we want to
be empiricists) is that gods do act against their worshipers on
occasion, and show greater favor to those who are (or at least
appear to others to be) pious. Whether this is due to the
worshiper's own virtues or to the beneficial gossip of others is
unknown and unknowable, as is whether the priest who ACTS pious
really is sincere. Get out your sincerometers, folks, and do
some empirical research.
What the priests (and even most slackers) say, however, is
that the gods do watch over you and see your soul. Many cults
are more concerned with orthopraxy (right conduct) than with
orthodoxy (right opinion). Check out the Old Testament for rules
on how to live and very little about internal mental states. Or
remember that comment from G.I. Joe Campbell's "Power of Myth" TV
show, attributed to the Shinto priest: "We have no theology--we
dance."
I 'spect that internal states are more important in the
West, as part of their belief in "salvation." Just saying "There
is no god but the Invisible God, and Malkion is his prophet"
isn't enough--you have to believe it. Whereas Orlanth membership
is more of a cultural and ritual thing, with conversion being a
matter of going through the rituals and devoting your soul to the
god.
OTOH, once you're a Malkioni, you're forever a Malkioni,
even if you lose your belief. You can be an ex-Orlanthi easily:
just stop worshiping. But "an apostate Malkioni is still a
Malkioni, just a bad one," according to the unpublished IG write-
up. So there's a cultural aspect to Malkionism, too.
I guess the distinction I'd draw here is this: theistic
religion in Glorantha requires a personal devotion to the deity,
which carries with it an obligation to emulate the deity;
Malkionism requires a belief in the saving power of the IG
through his prophets, which carries with it an obligation to
follow the laws of Malkion.
I disagree with Devin's belief that you have to have belief
to properly perform theistic rituals. Illuminated people know
that it's all arbitrary, yet they continue to serve as priests in
many cases. To take another tack, I prefer a game world where
the Archbishop of Malkonwal can say, "God has given us the
Archbishopric, now let us make use of it." In Devin's world,
there are no false priests (though I suppose there is still some
spectrum of devotion?).
A plea:
Could people please limit their use of >'s, >>'s, and especially
>>>'s? I've read some messages four times now. Why not
summarize (fairly, if possible), or at least quote the minimum
number of lines that you must?
--Martin
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From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 18 Jun 1994, part 2
Message-ID: <9406181855.AA22397@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 18 Jun 94 18:55:16 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4661
Paul Reilly here. Sandy writes:
> I have read a couple of books which claim that some
>Landsknecht units, primarily pike-armed filled their front rank(!)
>with two-handed sword wielders.
This is correct. A two-handed swordsman was a _doppelsoldner_, receiving
double pay for the great risk he was taking. Their function was to break the
pikes of the enemy before contact, if possible.
Sometimes there was a whole pre-contact unit (a unit to meet the enemy before
the pike formations met) called a verlauren Haufe, a forlorn hope unit.
Their ensign was the blood red flag, indicating their willingness to die.
The forlorn hope was usually two handed swords and halberds and tried to
break up the enemy pike square's formation before the main contact. Ouch.
Dave says
>I think that the Loskalmi think that they are well prepared, their
>knights practice a lot at tournaments and duels. And many of their
>knights are extremely skilled - at individual combat. When it comes
>to warfare, the vast majority of them are parade ground only.
Agree completely. I am working on a story set at Molene, showing the first
contact between large KoW and Loskalm units, among other things. The Loskalmi
are very confident...
I agree that KoW will have great initial success due to their superior
experience of actual battle, but that the numbers and wealth of Loskalm will
tell. Like Nazi Germany vs. Stalinist Russia.
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From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: Efficacy of Sorcery/Rune Spells
Message-ID: <940618205014_100270.337_BHL21-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 18 Jun 94 20:50:15 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4662
Here's a chunk of Real World theology, to be thrown into the melting-pot
re: Rune Magic and where it comes from. Hope you like it.
Paul wrote, re: Sorcery/Wizardry
> These sacred things can be used rightly or wrongly. Sorcery, the misuse
> of wizardry, is thus a foul crime - it perverts the sacred knowledge of
> God's plan for the universe to be used against God's will. Evil, evil,
> evil. _But_ it still works for the evil - a person's magic is not
> necessarily a sign of holiness. Holy men have great magic, but so do
> the unholy.
The Church Fathers came up with a similar - but more religious - doctrine
on the efficacy of the sacraments in response to Donatism, the schismatic
notion that their validity depended on the worthiness of the minister or
recipient: a naughty bishop cannot ordain priests, while a wicked person
cannot benefit from baptism. (They aren't priests; he isn't baptised; even
though both rituals were perfectly performed).
From Augustine, De Baptismo:
> To my mind it is abundantly clear that in the matter of baptism we have
> to consider not who he is that gives it, but what it is that he gives;
> not who he is that receives, but what it is that he receives...
> Wherefore anyone who is on the Devil's side cannot defile the sacrament,
> which is of Christ... When baptism is administered in the words of the
> Gospel, however great be the perversity of either minister or recipient,
> the sacrament itself is holy on His account Whose sacrament it is.
Incidentally, the real reason for squashing Donatism with this farrago of
misapplied logic is the knock-on effects. If a bishop is naughty, he can't
make any priests, who therefore can't perform baptisms: because, whatever
they may think, they aren't *really* priests, so they can't administer any
sacraments. Even if they're good and pious men who *believe* themselves to
be priests, the Bishop's little incident with a nun twelve years before has
shattered the chain of Grace. Sooner or later everyone gets discomfited...
(In Gloranthan terms, this is like finding your 1 POW initiation sacrifice
has gone up the spout just because the Rune Priest leading the ceremony was
himself ordained by a man the impests once visited).
So real-world Catholic-descended churches tend to believe that, although
the sacraments are about as holy as you can get, they _still_work_for_the_
_evil_. The spin-off for Malkioni and "mechanistic" Sorcery is obvious.
In Gloranthan terms, a sorcerer could Tap others and Immortalise himself
until he resembled the First Age Kings of Tanisor, but his sorcerous powers
would still function. (That's orthodoxy. If we posit a dualist [Boristi-
like?] Malkioni sect, Tap and similar evil spells might be powered by the
Devil and not by God -- but that's not necessary).
Now, I intuitively tend towards Devin's side in the current debate over
"What Is Rune Magic?" - largely because the clunkiest and most unpleasant
aspects of RuneQuest powergaming come from the desire to get loadsaspells:
Issaries' God Learner Spell Trading, Vampiric and Thanatari Rune-rape, and
of course Nysalor Illumination's less interesting multi-cult side.
I don't think the gods constantly check up on their worshippers, know each
of them on a personal basis, and vet every request for RunePowers. Perhaps
invoking a Rune spell is like tweaking a god's reflexes: push *that* nerve
and he'll always react like *this*.
But I think that if a god's attention were to be drawn to an individual
worshipper's worthiness (or lack of it), he might be able to do something
special about it. About as rare and dramatic as Divine Intervention, maybe
(and moreover, Priests and Lords are more likely to be checked up on)...
Perhaps the GM could make a DI roll whenever he thinks a Gross Misuse of
Rune Magic is about to take place?
No mechanics, no dogmatism. It's not something I've thought too hard about.
But I do think Donatism would work for those egg-headed Dayzatar types,
self-righteously purifying and refining their souls, picky old men with a
well-trained eye for fault-finding. IMHO it has the right sort of petty,
introverted, backwards-looking and arbitrary feel to suit them to a "T".
====
Nick
====
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From: cullen.oneill@thuemmel.com (CULLEN O'NEILL)
Subject: souls and true believers
Message-ID: <940618100053361@thuemmel.com>
Date: 18 Jun 94 15:37:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4663
Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 4634
S> It's my belief that the Individualist dwarfs believe in a subdivided
S> soul -- the POW and MPs go to fuel the World Machine, and the
S> personality, if strongly enough developed, goes Elsewhere.
Good dwarfs are immortal... If you mess up you die and are recycled
into something better able to continue the repair... but this belief is
held by all dwarfs, not just individualists.
Are you perhaps saying that individualists believe in an immortal soul
(holding the kernel of the personality) while other dwarfs don't? Do
other dwarfs believe that the soul exists and is changeable or that
nothing survives after deaths except parts?
_____________________________
Devin Cutler in X-RQ-ID: 4636
D>
D>Cullen writes:
C>> I think you're suffering from overexposure to modern rational
C>> people. Do you really think someone who was raised in Ancient
C>> Sumeria or as a medieval peasant really reasoned like you do?
D> Yes, in general I do. Do you really believe that someone who was
D> raised in Ancient Sumeria or as a medieval peasant is really that
D> different from us today (at least emotionally)?
Well, as for emotionally... yes and no. The emotion of a medieval
peasant might or might not be more intense than yours or mine, but it
would be largely untemperd by reason. A medieval peasant doesn't have
any of the background you do. He's never been to school (and doesn't
know anyone who has), never heard of science or logic, almost certainly
never been more than a dozen miles from his village. He's been raised
on stories that are full of superstition, and the most skeptical person
in the village probably just says 'those tales are exaggerated!' (ie:
not untrue, just exaggerated.) The priests are figures of authority who
are very respected and tell simple tales that everybody agrees with.
I could go on, but instead let me take a different tack. If people
didn't believe fervently in religion, why were they willing to kill
other people over things like: The father has the [same nature/ a
similar nature/ a different nature] from the son. etc, etc, etc... In
the late middle ages many peasants couldn't have told you what country
they lived in, but many Cathars resisted conversion to the Roman
Catholic way even when being tortured or burned at the stake.
If you are raised from birth in an environment where everyone tells you
that something is true. If your culture is set up on the assumption
that something is true. You will believe that that is The Truth, and
will most likely kill anyone who seems likely to convince you its not
the truth. Its essentially a form of extremely effective brain-washing.
Of course, our society here in the US is still steeped in religion, and
large numbers of people proclaim that 'The Bible says it, I believe it,
Thats that!' And large numbers of these people would be quite willing
to kill and/or die to protect their faith.
Personally, I don't think I'd find RPGs interesting at all if it weren't
for this. The chance to try out strange new sets of belief is the most
interesting part of RPGs. But the idea that such people don't exist or
that they weren't even more common than they are now in the past seems
ridiculous to me. If you want more examples I'll provide them, history
consists almost entirely of such.
Cullen
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From: DevinC@aol.com
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 18 Jun 1994, part 1
Message-ID: <9406190517.tn105933@aol.com>
Date: 19 Jun 94 09:17:22 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4664
Devin Cutler here:
Nick writes:
"Yes, in general I do. Is reading history not fashionable in California, or
something? Why not look at the way they acted, wrote, thought: *then* tell
me they're "no different from us". Instead of building castles in the air
with your head in the sand. (Hmm... an odd mixture, but I like it)."
Gee Nick, no. I'm just an ingorant So Cal country bumpkin. It's a wonder I
can read the RQ rules at all!
I find it rather bizarre that you ASSUME that I know nothing about ancient
history. I am not saying that I do or don't, but I have never dealt with
ancient hostory much on this list because I want to get away from the
Glorantha as Ancient Earth shtick. Why not ask if I have read about Sumerians
rather than assuming the worst?
I think you will find a lot of people who will support my contention that,
while yes, there are differences in the trappings of ancient vs modern life
(of course) that the "human predicament, and the way humans react to their
environment and condition has not changed all that much. After all, we study
history (at least in part) in order to gain insight into our own lives.
Joerg writes:
"Neither do I. If they tried to torture the priest within his own temple
to make him betray his deity, I think he'd DI out of it right into Humakt's
Halls and take the secrets with him, reactivating all the temple defenses
lots of Sever Spirit) to take the torturers with him.
Even a Chalana Arroy priestess would rather die by DI (healing her slain
or fleeing companions while consuming the mundane part of her soul) than
reveal the cult secrets to Chaos."
But the Priest will make DI about 18% of the time. The other 82% he will
simply be tortured.
"About the same as the real world occurrences of apparent death, or people
fetched back after being clinically dead. The latter doesn't work either
if you come way too late. Too late on Glorantha is about a week."
The occurances of "Resurrection" in modern life is rare compared the the
occurance in Glorantha. Also, we in modern times have science to explain away
this phenomenon. Gloranthans don't AND the pre-Renaissance man did not have
these occurances of Resurrection since life-saving techniques were
unavailable.
"A question of appeal to all the Gloranthan RuneQuesters out there: can
we make away with the concept of Blank Lands by now?"
I always liked the idea of out-of-the-way Blank Lands, so that someone who
was running "official Glorantha" could have free-rain and not worry too much
about conflict. nevertheless, you are right that with Multiplicity Glorantha
reinign supreme, the need for Blank Lands is lessened.
I also felt that the turing of Balazar to a Blank Land was a Bad Thing. I
really enjoyed Griffin Mountain and was sorry to see it de-Gloranthanized.
Sandy writes:
"That (or something like that) is what Ralzakark's band o'
Humakti broo are. They don't obey many of the Humakti rules, and
wreak havoc on the cult sensibilities, but at least they got the
power. Ditto for Ralzakark's Chalana Arroy healers, who pretty much
only heal broos. "
Humakt doesn't care if Chaotics worship him. As far as not acting in a
Humakti fashion, they are Illuminated, aren't they? Same for the Chalanna
Arroy broo.
"Even the Brithini (even the Dwarfs!) know that the spirit retains its
personality for a week after death, at which time it breaks up into
energy. Of course, theists claim that the 7-day time limit is simply
how long it takes for the spirit to make it to Daka Fal's palace. "
Even knowing that there is a personality after death is one step farther than
Terrans have.
Also, I believe the 7 day rule was dropped from RQ3.
Colin Watson writes:
"#1 Why is Excommunication left in the hands of Priests? Surely the God would
know best who should be allowed in the cult; who should get spells etc.
Why is a priest-driven ritual required to cast someone out?"
In Cults of Prax, most of the Spirits of Reprisal seem to be able, on their
own, to excommunicate apostates. I have always viewed the RQ3
"ecommunication" spell as an Alternate Earth spell set up because they do not
have Spirits of Reprisal
"#2 Why have initiates? Why not give *all* the right-thinking worshippers the
same powers as priests and screw the rest? The cult would be lots more
effective at fulfilling the wishes of God.
Well?"
Because Gods cannot invasively read the minds of worshippers, but they CAN,
over a period of time, by observing rituals, tell whether an initiate is
truly devout. I imagine that before a Priest is ordained, that a Divination
IS done to ask the god if he favours this candidate. The god, having divined
something of the devoutness of the worshipper not only because he followed
the procedures of the cult rituals, but also because he invested his heart,
emotion, soul, etc. into them, on a metaphysical level, will eventually know
how the worshipper feels.
Regards,
Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com