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, Thu, 21 Jul 1994, part 2
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From: cullen.oneill@thuemmel.com (CULLEN O'NEILL)
Subject: Well, I dunno...
Message-ID: <940720223854329@thuemmel.com>
Date: 21 Jul 94 08:56:52 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5245
Barron Chugg in X-RQ-ID: 5194
B> The problem is that I (and I think many others) have is that we are
B> conditioned based on our various studies of history in many areas.
B> So we go in with preconcieved ideas as to what is accurate.
Actually, in my impression, inequality between the sexes only really got
going after the industrial revolution. The man was now out there
working and the woman stayed at home and cared for the kids. Previously
the husband and wife were a team on the farm/cottage industry, with the
wife doing much of the work. At least I've read a couple of
articles/books that reach this conclusion.
This would lead me to conclude that the Hrestoli might easily have a
fair amount of equality. But, as you say, there could be carefully
deliniated roles for each sex.
__________________________
Jon Green in X-RQ-ID: 5205
J> in tongues, ... Doesn't mean the followers actually _do_ experience
J> the God Plane though, just that they _think_ they do.
I think in Glorantha it would... but I meant more that this would be how
all the lay members might prepare for the HHD (at least). I had
something more like spirit sight in mind. So they could participate at
a higher level than normal.
J> Perhaps a
J> closer experience of the Divinity is limited to the Priesthood?
I would tend to think so. Although in those cults that have them RLs
are IMO even closer to the divinty than priests.
J> Alternatively, perhaps the spell is reusable, but can only be
J> reclaimed when the user's over 18 (or 15) POW - a minimum necessary
J> to gain the attention of the patron Deity?
Yes this does sound fairer if we don't use the RQ:AiG rule about HHDs.
One could argue that the meditaion required to relive the Runepath (if
you like that metaphor) requires a strong connection to the god, which
requires a high POW.
J> WF 12: "The god is incapable of invading a person's mind."
J> If this were entirely true, how could a God give a Vision to a waking
J> or sleeping follower? Whilst in general Initiates are lowly enough
This means the god can't decide lets go see what my worshipper Barak the
bald is thinking.... Oh so thats what what he wants for dinner! etc...
This is not to say that the god can't send a vision to the worshipper.
J> 1. Unless an individual invites a God to inspect their intentions
J> their "soul" in ritual), the mind of any character is opaque ...
I would tend to rule that even in this case the god would be limited by
its permanent nature. The god can't understand humans because humans
are in time... The relationship with the god will be scrutinized in
this case but that is the only thing the god can micromanage. With
RLvls the god is monitering constantly so for the HHD everybody goes up
a step in godly monitering?
J> 2. Gods can communicate with their followers' minds, but the
J> communication is very weak, and subject to misinterpretation (and
J> therefore misrepresentation) by the subconscious mind of the
J> follower;
Is a vision a communication with a followers mind? isn't it just
a phantasm sent to his spirit as it wanders. Maybe the spirit is
summoned into a higher plane.
J> 3. Communication of that nature is rare, and much less likely to
J> happen to non-Rune-levels, unless there is a specific and good reason
J> for it;
Sometimes people walk the spirit plane at night....
J> Not necessarily; when an ogre worships, the ogre's POW is filtered of
J> the worshipper's ogre nature. But I *love* the idea of _malicious_
This has some kind of cleansing effect? Why?
J> mass worship of an enemy God by antagonistic and powerful forces
J> seeking to poison or subvert the God!
What I meant was: Maybe ogres are a chaos plot to do just that. Maybe
the POW of ogres is tainted in such a way that the gods can't detect it,
but in such a way that it does change them (weakens them?).
____________________________
Nick Brooke in X-RQ-ID: 5222
N> Is there some difference between this and hostile HeroQuesting?
Well in what I was suggesting it is a slow subtle poisoning of the god
with the ogre's chaos...
Cullen
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From: cullen.oneill@thuemmel.com (CULLEN O'NEILL)
Subject: Going offline?
Message-ID: <940720223857331@thuemmel.com>
Date: 21 Jul 94 09:13:05 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5246
Devin in X-RQ-ID: 5211
D> Gods will only give power to those who are truly devoted to them.
By the time you get to Rune level, your devotion will have been
tested by the cult. When you become rune level the link between you and
your god will be strengthened and more power will be given to you.
Your suggestion that initiates and RLvls basically bare their souls
ritually is unsupported in the literature. I think it would be
mentioned that Orlanth takes a core dump every HHD in the article we've
been citing if it was the case. After all this would be a new source of
knowlege for him.
D> If Orlanth were limited in how he could spread his awareness, then
D> you wouldn't even be able to get the general info as per WF12...you'd
D> get "I don't know, I was looking at Valind's Glacier at the time"
But this question is about the here and now. Why cant this just be that
when asked he takes a very quick look around?
D> Number one, on the face of it, this flies in the face of Stafford's
D> writing in WF12. Maybe the writers of Gaumata's vision chose to
No it doesn't. It just means acolytes are too indistinct for Yelmalio
to examine. Fethul was very fearful he was damned for his actions and
was involved in performing action that would be unacceptable to his
cult. Yelmalio may have senced a problem in the area and he examined
what was wrong from a spirit plane view (thus the vision), but he
couldn't communicate with or probe the mind of Fethul, or else he'd be
meeting Monrogh.
D> We should ask them. Stafford makes it very clear that a god CAN
D> divine the intentions of Rune Level worshippers, especially if these
D> intentions involve the deity in question. This seems to me, to be
It specifically says the god cannot. It says the god can make out the
thoughts regarding him. Nothing more, no intentions, motivations...
It does not say especially thought about the god, it says only.
D> It is probable that Greg does not believe that Initiates are devoted
D> as I do. I choose to extend his writing on Rune Levels to the
D> Initiate level as well. It makes more sense IMO.
From the article it appears certain that this is correct.
D> I think gods do understand their worshippers. At least their base
D> emotions like betrayal, fear, awe, passion, devotedness, etc.
Yes but they don't understand why their worhippers feel these emotions.
(By the way, "betrayal" is not an emotion, IMO)
" The motivations of individuals are almost always a mystery
to the gods. A Priest of Yelm may have slain someone, but the
best that the god can tell anyone is that fact. If pressed for a
reason they would be most likely to say, "For the good of the
God." They are simply incapable of figuring much else out.
- Divination and Divine intervention
By Greg Stafford p 19. (c) 1981 Chaosium."
D> Especially if the individual is from another cult. Orlanth is
D> certainly not going to have a clue why a Yelmic priest slew someone.
D> The example you cite does not say that the person doing the
D> divination as also a Yelmist.
From context it is plain that Greg means Yelm.
Since the article states plainly in the second to last paragraph that a
god cannot invade the mind of another god's worshipper, and before that
that a god cannot invade the mind of his own worshippers, obviously this
final paragraph is here to emphasize the point that gods can't figure
even the mortals in their own cults out.
D> Gods concern themselves with religious matters. If a politically
D> motivated slaying ocurred, you are right, Orlanth might not have a
D> clue about what happened. Orlanth probably doesn't know Politics from
D> Chaos. But if you ask him why his High Priest sacrificed a lamb
D> instead of a goat this year...he would be able to tell you.
No he would be able to tell you what the priest thought about Orlanth
when he was doing this, and would be able to tell you if the HP told
him, "Sorry but we're outa goats, there was a plague." But not what the
priest was thinking or what his motivation was not what his emotional
state was (unless this emotion was directed towards the god). Only what
the priest told the god and what he felt/thought regarding the god.
Cullen
PS: Devin, if you want to take this offline that would be fine with me.
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From: cullen.oneill@thuemmel.com (CULLEN O'NEILL)
Subject: Scripts and Mundanity
Message-ID: <940720223855330@thuemmel.com>
Date: 21 Jul 94 08:58:55 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5247
David Cake in X-RQ-ID: 5221
D> I was referring to the different dialects of Chinese (though a
D> situation analogous to Japanese Kanji is certainly not impossible, I
D> just can't think of any Gloranthan analogues).
The difficulty I have with this is that it would mean learning the
language was incredibly difficult. I'm studying Japanese and learning a
phonetic language is abreeze compared to learning what each Kanji means
and what exactly they mean in conjunction. Are you proposing a magical
method of learning in Hrestoli areas so that learning how to read late
in life is not an (almost) impossible task?
I find your idea interesting, I don't see why a Latin or Sanskrit model
wouldn't work just as well, with a seperate language for writing things
down in from what is generally spoken (Latin) or a shared alphabet that
can represent several languages (Sanskrit).
Another example would be Greek which was used to represent several
languages and evolved into Coptic and Cyrilic (and influenced several
others such as Latin). Note that Cyrilic is also used to represent
several different languages.
Perhaps a Russian model would work better than a West European one?
_____________________________
Barron Chugg in X-RQ-ID: 5229
B> Another thought, do people think that the Glorantha of today is a
B> lower magic world than it was in the RQ2 era? You know, back when
B> gods were real gods and magic was real magic. Now everything is so
B> well defined it is becoming almost mundane or pedestrian. I think
B> this is a shame. For me the Argrath Saga in KoS is as much a record
B> of fact as an excercise in florid language. What drew me to
B> Glorantha in the first place was the wonder of the place. The image
B> on the cover of RQ Companion for example. What do other people think,
B> are we moving in the direction of mundanity?
One of the things I liked about Glorantha was that the fact that there
was pervasive magic made the cultures operate differently from standard
European models. This struck me as not being the case in most fantasy
worlds. In them the magic didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever on
the social structures.
I do feel that something has been lost through copying too much from
Earth cultures. This has lead to (IMO) cultures that work too much like
Earth cultures despite the magic. Which has lead to the magic being
de-emphasized.
I'm not positing overly involved gods here, i just want the fact that
spirit and divine magic is available to have some sort of effect on the
way the cultures work. The few notes on wounds and the like in the
intro to the the Glorantha Book (G:CotHW) have not (IMO) been worked
into the basis of the cultures as presented.
Cullen
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From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake)
Subject: Re: Western and Latin
Message-ID: <199407210329.LAA14102@melomys.cs.uwa.oz.au>
Date: 21 Jul 94 03:32:43 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5248
> _________
> Dave Cake
>
> > The difference is that someone who learns to read Loskalmi, can also read
> > (say) Jonatelan. In mediaeval times it was not the case that learning to
> > read French allowed you to read Italian (though it probably helped due to
> > language similarity), because if you wanted to read you probably first
> > learned Latin.
>
> EXACTLY! Latin existed before either French or Italian, and Latin script
> remained in widespread (all but universal) use even when the populace were
> speaking Romance languages. What I'm suggesting is that the Gloranthan
> Western *written* language is still at this early stage of development:
If Greg meant that the Western tongues had no written form, and that
there was a psuedo Latin used by the literate classes, he would have said it.
What he said was that the various Western tongues share a written form,
which is quite different (though with similar social consequences).
> just plain WRONG to anyone able to read it. Before mass literacy, the fact
> that the written form of the language isn't the same as what people are
> saying should come as no surprise at all.
>
Actually, it was my impression that at the beginnings of mass literacy, the
written form was closer to what people actually said than it is today, as
spelling was less formalised and more phonetic.
> I should qualify what I'm saying slightly, given that IMHO there is more
> local variation between Western written languages and scripts than is
> described in the Glorantha Book -- e.g. the Jonatelans may have an alphabet
> which relates to standard Western as Cyrillic does to Greek; the Carmanians
> certainly have several "new" letters adopted from Pelorian alphabets; etc.
>
Yes, that is why you want to get your read Western up well above 50%, so you
can read all those bizarre dialects.
> But if the Language of Learning in the West is the ancient Brithini written
> script, you get exactly the result described in "Glorantha" -- literate men
> from Loskalm to Seshnela to Malkonwal can write to one another in the
> universal language of Western Learning. (And they could probably speak it,
> too, though to a limited extent).
>
And they can't speak to one another, other than according to normal language
similarity.
> I'm not flaming Kanji (whatever turns you on, frankly) -- I'm just pointing
> out that the situation prevailing in the West has a simpler explanation,
> one more familiar to the mediaeval setting of the West. Gloranthan Wizards,
> like mediaeval clerics, doctors and scientists, write and lecture in the
> ancient language of True Learning. "Sorcery" is studied in Brithini. (This
> would also follow Martin Crim's Islamic parallel, of course, if we assume
> Western to be the language of the Book).
>
My explanation actually creates what is known about the West, yours
approximates it (well, different orders of approximation for the pedantic).
Given that the ideographic language fits the known facts better, why
fight against it?
And also - I regard Latin being more appropriate for mediaeval Europe
being something against it - the most common complaint about the West is that
it is to Europe like, and not Gloranthan enough. Why then further this
impression by making it more Europe like?
Cheers
Dave
> ====
> Nick
> ====
>
>
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From: PMichaels@aol.com
Subject: Thanks for the thoughts!
Message-ID: <9407202053.tn689936@aol.com>
Date: 21 Jul 94 00:53:22 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5249
Hi all!
Just a quick note of thanks to all of you who responded,
either publicly or privately, regarding my Hearts of Humakt
post. I'm thinking about your comments and suggestions, and
plan to post my responses/thoughts on them sometime in the
future.
Peace,
Peter
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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Writing Latin
Message-ID:
Date: 21 Jul 94 05:03:06 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5250
Nick Brooke is^Hn Learning to Read
X-RQ-ID: 5222
>Dave Cake
>> The difference is that someone who learns to read Loskalmi, can also read
>> (say) Jonatelan. In mediaeval times it was not the case that learning to
>> read French allowed you to read Italian (though it probably helped due to
>> language similarity), because if you wanted to read you probably first
>> learned Latin.
> EXACTLY! Latin existed before either French or Italian, and Latin script
> remained in widespread (all but universal) use even when the populace were
> speaking Romance languages. What I'm suggesting is that the Gloranthan
> Western *written* language is still at this early stage of development:
> there is (as yet) no such thing as "written Seshnelan" or "written
> Safelstran", as the literate classes in those lands still read and write
> books in the ancient Brithini language. You could try writing down what the
> common people are saying, but it would look hideously ungrammatical and
> just plain WRONG to anyone able to read it. Before mass literacy, the fact
> that the written form of the language isn't the same as what people are
> saying should come as no surprise at all.
Another thing about medieval Latin is that it was writ. in horr. abbrev.
which had no relat. to the spok. lang. whatsoever, so you could perfectly
well hide the local variants of Vulgata behind abbreviations. This is how
I figured out written Western. In its most retarded form, the abbrevations
have been replaced by handy symbols, and the whole is called Tradetalk.
In short, I'll side with Nick on this issue.
See some of you on Convulsions!
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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