> And citing p109 as a reference of CoP is useless, cause that's the
> exact line I'm questioning!
Ur, we cite Cults of Prax as a reference for Lunar views on slavery because for the last twenty-plus years it's been the canonical source re: Lunar views on slavery.
There's great new stuff in the Glorantha paperback (see p.96 in particular), which drive home the *irony* that the "liberating" Lunars have actually revitalised the previously moribund institution of slavery. (Remember irony?)
> Nobody has remotely explained (to me) a Lunar Religious Philosophy
> (you know, the one supposedly about LIBERATION) that is actually
> pro-slavery.
We all agree that the cosmos and everything in it needs to be liberated, right? Surely that means that *until* it's been liberated, it must be bound. That's the *metaphysical* sense in which "we are all slaves". The lowest of the low within the Empire are our personal slaves. But as we increase our understanding, we realise that *we* are also slaves: to our ambitions, our appetites, our desires, our fears. The Lunar Way teaches us to liberate ourselves from this slavery; the more we immerse ourselves in its revelations, the more we become liberated as individuals. In the Perfect Lunar Cosmos (towards which we strive), *everyone* will have attained a state of divine liberation from every form of slavery, and we will all coexist in perfect freedom and transcendent bliss.
But we all know that not everyone in the world today is a perfect Sedenyic Illuminate... and the people who are furthest from becoming so are the Barbarians, beyond the Empire. By making them our slaves, we can expose this teaching to them -- if only by example. We "free" them from their uncouth ambitions/ desires/ appetites/ fears etc., replacing this wholly unproductive state with the desirable one of serving the Liberated Lunar Elite, working to our direction and helping -- albeit unwittingly -- to bring about the Cosmic Transformation for which we strive.
> If you guys want the Evil Lunars to have religious philosophy that
> is pro-slavery, not pro-liberation, while their Char-Un atrocity
> troops sin against the Universe and turn into broos before our very
> eyes, go ahead and fuck with Glorantha all you want.
Morgan, like Peter I don't understand what it is that's set you off. The Lunar Empire has always been presented as a place where slavery is practiced, and where cynical illuminated insiders abuse their liberating religion for petty personal and political gain. There are good and virtuous imperial citizens who despise this, of course - they're often our heroes! - but we certainly don't have to whitewash the Lunar Empire (no slaves, atrocities, chaos, politics, arenas, demons...) to make it into something worth saving. There are many good and beautiful things about the Empire, but there are ugly blemishes too. That's what drives stories: the conflict between ideals and reality, myth and fact.
As a Lunar sympathiser, I urge you to strive *in games* to make the Empire a better place, not to establish *pre-game* that it's already perfect. You'll have more fun (and more interesting villains) that way.
Refs: check out just about anything in the Moonie Madness section of www.etyries.com, but especially (for this subject) my article on "The Evil Empire," the "Lunar Way Seminar" transcript, and the "Withering Away of the Empire".
Cheers, Nick
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