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, Sat, 25 Jun 1994, part 4 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 24 Jun 1994, part 4 Message-ID: <9406241952.AA01237@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu> Date: 24 Jun 94 19:52:41 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4813 Paul Reilly here. Nils Weinander writes: >I prefer a rule where really devout worshippers, priests, rune lords >and exceptional initiates can get divine favours. If you have done I think it's important to keep in mind that ancient religion as represented in Greek, Roman, Sumerian, Egyptian, and other sources (leftout some examples) had much more emphasis on the correct perfomance of rituals and/or promises of sacrifices than on 'faith' and 'devoutness'. Even ancient Judaism matches this description. Catholicism moves away from it but we only get the full blown "God favors you if you are giddy with faith in and love for Him" with Protestantism. Now, SOME ancient religions had emphasis on this kind of relationship (Dionysian worship comes to mind, and Cybele) but I would say the standard in the Mediterranean and Near East is closer to the RQ description where you do the ritual right and make or promise the right sacrifices and you get the juice. Some Roman priests were notorious for near-atheist beliefs, Julius Caesar for example. He was Pontifex and coldly cynical rather than devout, and this was OK as long as he did the rituals right. Perhaps the "devout" quoted above means "dutiful, performs correct sacrifices, etc." rather than "loves the deity, etc." I am not trying to argue with Nils W., he just reminded me of something I've been meaning to say for a while. Joe Lannom writes: "I suppose I look at the God plane like a giant couch with all the Gods sitting there, munching on chips and viewing Glorantha through the lens of the Hero Plane. Only the good myths get syndicated and played as re-runs" We view it this way to, at least some of our characters do. One character thinks the gods are always butting in on her life to make their entertainment more interesting. (No, they don't 'show up, she just attributes it to Orlanth when she gets rained on, etc. - and the gods who supposedly are helping her, she suspects are getting her into predicaments because they are entertained by watching her try to get out of them. Buttinskies.) Alex writes: >According to the Box-Shaped Oracle, English shephards who were dugless >used bull-roarers to Encourage the sheep on their way. Excellent, fits in with Heler's cloud-sheep and Orlanth's thunder. Question: Did the shepherds with dugs try to lure the sheep on with the promise of breast-feeding? (Couldn't resist) Barron Chugg writes: > This is the crux of my idea: that runemagic comes from within. Now, you I wrote something like this in a letter to Greg, if he replies I will let you all know... - paul --------------------- From: jesper.wahrner@hts.ct.se (Jesper Wahrner) Subject: Rules vs Reality Message-ID: <2dfbc12b@hts.ct.se> Date: 13 Jun 94 00:15:00 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4814 John Hughes wrote a lot of stuff about the importance of keeping different aspects of Glorantha apart namely: 1. Glorantha as Combat- Simulation, 2. Glorantha as derived from RQ rules, 3. Glorantha as literary creation and 4. Glorantha as a closed, fully functioning world. I can't help feeling that these distinctions are artificial and ought not to be there at all. I can understand why he makes them though. The problem with RQ and Glorantha has always been that it has been that while Glorantha is a world that is a work of art and a true masterpiece, RQ has always been a gamesystem that is mediocre as best. Characters does easily become stereotypical, the resistance table is a mathematical fumble, but worst of all, the gamesystem start to break down about at the same time as the scenario is getting interesting. ie when you get to play something but generic adventurer type characters which seems to be all the gamerules are meant to cater for. When You advance to priest for example you're told that you're supposed to spend 90% of your time with priestly duties, but instead of providing means of handling this in play it is supposed to happen off play, and if you get to be a RuneLord your skills are so good at about everything that the gamesystem start to work badly. You CAN play ordinary people and get away with it, but the gamesystem is still so centred at adventuring that the rules gives little advice on how to handle it, neither for GM nor players. Thus people who are rooted in a society or those with the most mythological scope gets little help from the gamesystem. In fact I would go so far as to say that there are only two real reasons to play RQ, but those reasons are strong enough to make me shut up and suffer the gamesystem most of the time. (Although I need to let of my steam like this sometimes, thanks for bearing with me.) The most important of these reasons is Glorantha. (The other one is of course the "Dropped oil-lamp table". I can't understand what players of other games do when they drop their oillamps. Games without DOL-tables are incomplete and not worth playing! :-) ) The problem I have with John's distinctions is that he seems to want to separate Glorantha as derived from RQ-rules into a separate object from the Glorantha we all know and love when what we really ought to do is to work to transform RQ into a gamesystem that can handle John's categories of 3 and 4 (whom I incidently make very little difference between). I see the gamerules as the natural laws of the world I play in, and every world - even those as relativistic as Glorantha - needs natural laws, if only to explain why they are relativistic. Sure, the rules will by necessity be incomplete. There will always be exotic magic and situations which the gamesystem doesn't cover, but this is not really a problem. Thats what our imagination is there for. I want a Glorantha that is a closed, fully functioning world that works as a literary creation and which I can play in. (I want it to work as a combat simulation as well whenever it comes to battle for that matter.) What is true in Glorantha as a game-simulation should be equally true in the closed, fully functional world of Glorantha. If they don't work together something is definetly wrong. (Most likely with the gamesystem.) Yours, Jesper --- Blue Wave/RA v2.12 [NR] --------------------- From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 24 Jun 1994, part 1 Message-ID: <9406242225.AA02891@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu> Date: 24 Jun 94 22:25:04 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4815 ---------- X-Sun-Data-Type: text X-Sun-Data-Description: text X-Sun-Data-Name: text X-Sun-Content-Lines: 106 Hi everyone. Paul Reilly here. Here is my original message on Malkionism from a while back. I will send this and see what the response is before posting more... Hi everyone. I am thinking about the origins of Malkionism. here is (I hope) some food for thought. If you are not interested or too busy, just ignore/delete this message - otherwise I would like to get a discussion going. These ideas are growing out of discussion with Mike Holliday. - Paul More on Malkionism: Hi guys. I think that we should investigate Malkion's original group of converts, and that this will give us more of an idea of what Malkionism is. My supposition is that during the Darkness, the Brithini were forced into a society-threatening level of both warfare and breeding. Many forbidden actions were required for survival. Many people were involved in actions such as The Spell Forbidden by Urostio (sp?), dooming them to slow death, and many more were called upon to breed to make up the losses of the wars and natural disasters, dooming them as well. Let us call these people the Doomed Ones. I postulate that following the general pattern of the world wearing down that the zeroth generation of Doomed Ones would age only slowly, by normal human standards. They could live on for decades or centuries. This seems like a quick enough demise to a Brithini... Now, the Doomed will include people from all classes. And because some were involved in the last-ditch protection of Brithos and its colonies, they will include some of the best commanders (Talars), war wizards (Zzaburi) and soldiers (Horali). The ones selected for breeding will also be talented, to breed good stock. OK, so we have a large pool of people who have every reason to resent the uppermost Talars and the other still-immortal Brithini around them. They have good potential leaders. I think rebellion or at least social disorder (practically rebellion by Brithini standards) is a possibility. The upper Talari think so, and carefully make sure that Brithos itself is relatively free of the Doomed by rotating them into the outland colonies (Akem, Seshnela, Arolanit). It is this disaffected group that I think will provide Malkion with his converts. His revelation of Solace is pretty meaningless to the still-immortal Brithini on Brithos and he won't make much headway with them. However, it is acceptable to the authorities as a belief for the Outland Doomed Brithini because it may serve to quiet them down. The zeroth generation of Doomed is dangerous, because they hve millenia of training - their children should be no problem. Once the original Doomed die off, the colonies can be brought back into line (think the Talars). OK. Now, knowing this, what is Solace all about? And who is the Invisible God? Consider the people who are converting: they are Brithini by birth and training, so the 'solution' that Malkionism presents must seem logical or they would not be convinced. It must be grounded in their existing belief systems. It must fit the name of Solace - solace for what? Their main problem is that they are going to die, which seems stupid, pointless, and possibly unjust to them - they are doomed to die because of their heroic actions which saved the OTHER Brithini - not them! Commendable but disappointing. I will digress for a moment and throw in some notes I have on what I think the Brithini beliefs are - about their own identity and about death and dying. I have some more notes on the Brithini as well - will send if anyone asks. More later, Paul Brithini: We are the heirs of the Kingdom of Logic and the only true human race. Various other races are traitors (The Vadeli - do you think they were Tribe of Law or Tribe of Chaos? The Ogres - Tribe of Chaos and descended from true humans, but lost their humanity) inferior counterfeits, (Teleosi, Veldang, maybe Agimori) degenerates, (Westerners) other beings forced into the human shape (Most other human races, Hsunchen, Aldryami) or alien beings (Kralorelans, Dragonnewts, Uz). The world obeys certain laws. There is no evidence of a Creator responsible for those laws; postulating one is unnecessary. The world and its laws ARE; there is no need for an aetiological explanation. We also obey certain laws which define our humanity. Those who do not follow them become non-human and subject to aging and death. Death is a return to component elements. The body decays, returning to its formative elements, although it may retain its general outline for some time. Similarly the spirit also decays, returning to its component energies, although it may also retain its general outline for some time. Neither the spirit nor the body constitute a living person; a person is the combination of spirit and body. Their separation constitutes death. Death is to be avoided. Pain is to be avoided. This is self evident. Excessive pleasure brings on pain as a reaction and is to be avoided. ---------- X-Sun-Data-Type: default X-Sun-Data-Description: default X-Sun-Data-Name: Malkion2 X-Sun-Content-Lines: 99 David and Nick: Object if you want to be taken off this thread. I am trying to get my own thoughts together. Yesterday I sent some preparatory stuff - today will be partly preparatory also. ----- We have established (for the sake of argument at least) that the ones doomed to die are those in need of Solace and thus the ones likely to become Malkioni. Now what exactly is Solace? Boring answer: Just another afterlife. Digression: On Earth, many religions are not particularly concerned with the afterlife. Furthermore, even if they are, they do not necessarily hold out rewards and punishments in the afterlife for how you act while alive. This sort of thing is ingrained in popular Christianity and several other religions, but I could give many examples of religions that say little (Biblical Christianity) or nothing (Main line Buddhism) about the afterlife. Judaism is concerned with a covenant between God and Man in _this_ life; in exchange for obeying the Law and worshipping YHWH the descendants of Abraham are made a great nation and given the land of Israel. Other ancient religions are also concerned with benefits in this life. Even 'good' Mexica got only a short afterlife, after which (according to their belief) they were extinguished utterly. Etc. , etc. However, the RQ Cult writeup format and the 'Who the heck are we?' question format both prominently feature the afterlife. The Christian idea of acting in a certain way because your god will reward or punish you after death is present as a common feature in these writeups. OK, I can accept this as a cultural feature of Central Genertela. BUT I see no reason why it should be world wide! I will offer an alternative below (actually developed more by Mike Holliday than myself, but also drawing from other sources). Let's take as a given (for the duration of this missive) that the Brithini do NOT believe that a 'spirit' or 'ghost' is the person. Now, promises made by pagan gods to care for and nurture the ghost of a person do not seem so attractive - little more so than saying "After you die, your body will be carefully preserved in deluxe accomodations. You will lie on silk sheets, be rolled around in a wheelchair by beautiful women, and receive a hot bath once a day." Not very attractive, because your body isn't YOU. Similarly, the offer of a cushy afterlife doesn't seem so great if you don't think your ghost is YOU, just a decaying complex of spirit energy. ----- End of digression... OK. There is a need for a new belief. The Brithini elders find it useful to allow one to exist, so it can happen. The social conditions match what we know of the history of Malkionism. SO what can these people believe in? 1. Logic They are descendants of the Kingdom of Logic. They have lived for millenia on the basis of Reason. I don't think that the habits of thought of such a lifetime can be easily abandoned. So the new belief should seem logical. 2. Useful The belief should somehow seem useful. If the new believers can't get their immortality back, they should be getting something that can console them for this potentially infinite loss. ------ OK. Is the Belief in the Invisible God logical? I think so. Argument follows, derived from conversations with Mike Holliday. There seems to be a general Law on Glorantha concerning personalization. It is explicitly mentioned in some of the writings on Chaos - anything on Glorantha gets a personalized representative of some sort, even the non-being of the Void. A second law seem to exist: that power and freedom are inversely correlated. From these premises, we can deduce the existence of an all-powerful entity that does nothing. As part of Glorantha - since ARRGH I JUST LOST ABOUT FIVE GOOD PARAGRAPHS BY HITTING THE WRONG BUTTON more later, frustratedly, paul