Re: Teshnos in HW: Glorantha and HQ Voices

From: Tim <tim_at_-9vdzRXxt_Awz1PXR3t_hY_x0-K5z4KGMB_Qdl4JkBaec5vBHvuUrZp8pGmDM7inJuCk2HKT>
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:17:22 -0000

>
> I'd just like to add that although the life flame flame poem
>details nice and interesting, in my opinion they should not make >Teshnans inhuman, like reincarnating dragonewts. They should still >be recognisable human, still act in most ways like other people and >not wholly understand the mystical ramifications of their religion

I must say I agree with Keith here. While those at the top of society may be able to find out the full history of their life flame, I would think that most Teshnans know that their life flame accululates experience tha is written into it's flame poem through multiple lives without necessarily being aware of all the details. Of course sometimes they feel a resonance with a particular place or person as a result of their life flame burning brightly, indicating a previous connection, and the Zitr's can read patterns in the flame with whihc they can predict the owners destiny (although personally I doubt these are more accurate than any other Gloranthan prediction, being bound to time by the Great compromise, even if that event is not recognised by the predictors).

My assumptions are that the business of Reincarnation of the life flame goes on for the most part without the intervention of the priests - Although obviously if one partakes of the appropriate blessings and rituals (at the death and funeral of the old body and birth and development of the new) then a propritious transfer can be expected.

The transfer can be (almost) instantaneous, or it may take a while, and it may be very local, or to a new body some distance away (so if you are persuing a Teshnan villain who is killed, you can't tell when or where his life flame will reappear).

(Together, these mean that a Teshnan who dies alone along way from home is not necessarily cut off, but would still benefit from his friends seeking out his remains and taking them home for a proper funeral)

I don't think the life flame reincarnates into the newly born, but starts to manifet in children as they grow up, but with the possibilty that a nascent flame may move on or be displaced by another, and the "adult initiation" cements the tie between a flame and the physical body. (Of course there may be ways around this for the truly determined)

Zitrs can effect a deliberate transmigration, taking the life flame from an old and dying body and attaching it to a new, young, healthy body that can immediately carry on where the old one left off - or into a less desirable body as a form of punishment or pennance

I don't think this necessarily invalidates much of the (otherwise fascinating) discussion, all of which *can* take place, but just doesn't always apply to every single Teshnan.