Re: Animism\t rituals

From: julianlord <julian.lord_at_cdqH3tzABhRi-rHoqxjFwAjN5rWZFxCH1DrXlPvRed3USCQDd9QKZj1LWorwbXxz>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:59:01 -0000

Chris :

> Julian responding to Jeff :
>
> > > I think what Chris is trying to get at is "narratively how does animist rituals work?"
> > > What concrete results do you get from them? Since he is working on some animist
> > > materials for Moon Design it is pretty important that he has a good feeling for this
> > > so he can describe it in manner that others can easily understand.
>
> In particular, I want to ease the narrators' tasks by giving them a few well-examined ways that animists act and how the rules handle the situations. Animism is very foreign to most moderns and our views of them are highly influenced by caricatures -- the cartoon headhunter, if you will. Giving the narrator a half-dozen encapsulated applications should make their jobs easier, not harder. Thus:

OK

I strongly agree with your point that animism is very foreign to most moderns.

Theism of the Gloranthan type can be quite foreign as well tbh, but at least there is some remnant in the form of Classic Greek and Roman mythology providing an at least superficial level of information as general knowledge, enough to game with anyway.

So ; would you need 1) some text presenting animism in some easy albeit superficial manner 2) transitioning in the body of that text to specifically Gloranthan issues, Glorantha being a World of Magic 3) some more extensive descriptions of animism in action, in the game, as magic, obeying both the simple approach of 1) and the specific quirks and contents of 2) ? That does indeed sound harder to actually do than such a simple ToC might suggest.

Personally, instead of bogging myself down in the related minutiae nor in the Grand N Worlds Cosmology, I would focus on one simple and easy fact : that animist magic is based on social interrelationships in a very *explicit* manner. Gloranthan theism is based on shared identity and sacrificing some forms of individuality to the gods ; sorcery appears to be an intellectually dynamic matrix of various conceptual dichotomies such as individuality/commonality, emanation/induction, materialism/abstraction, fact/theory, and other such complexities that basically mirror the ongoing philosophies and intellectual history of the peoples of mediterranean basin (beyond just the Christian/christianised West) ; the specifics of animism then should be that it is a conceptually simple approach, treating all people, animals, plants, natural objects as individuals, bound together in some specifically individualised sharing of personal relationships.

If the reader/GM can be brought to understand that he can treat animism in general to be like family, local politics, and other such individualised small-time social structures where actual individuals are involved at every level of decision making and where *everyone* has a personally individualised relationship with each of their leaders, friends, foes, followers, and even strangers (from their point of view), then I think that the difficulties and specific descriptions of rituals can be easily imagined as extensions of this Personal Touch.

"The Personal Touch" is probably a good catchphrase for animism, come to think of it.

It is easy to see how this would apply among friends and allies ; not so easy concerning rivals, enemies, and strangers.

The question is one of personal respect :

Let's continue with disease as the ongoing example -- the theist method of fighting disease is to consider it as a disharmony, a corruption of someone's true (theist) nature ; Chalana Arroy has the Harmony Rune, and she uses it to realign people's elemental/Runic being to cure them -- the sorcerous method of fighting disease is to discover how it works and spreads, to devise whichever effective countermeasures, and then to deploy them -- the animist method is to treat the disease spirit with the respect that it is due, and then to either negociate a withdrawal or to use the authority of one's powerful magic to scare it away, or in some cases to find out what it wants and offer to obtain it in exchange for the spirit agreeing to go elsewhere instead, or maybe even to sometimes accept that the spirit is there and all we can do is provide some comfort for the sick and wait for either it or the sick person's spirit to leave.

As for strangers, well -- the animist point of view is that once you have met someone, they are no longer a stranger.

I know that you have your handy table Chris, but it smacks of God Learnerism :D

Stay personal, make sure that your text is always focused on personal examples of these types of social relationships with the inhabitants of the spirit world, make sure that you and your reader will understand that spirits are neither abstract nor distant, but that they are personally related with at the individual level, and I'm sure that you will find your way.

> > Part of that understanding though will surely be -- which bits already exist in the rules?
> > and which parts have to be created fresh for the upcoming products? :)
>
> No new rules! Just suggested applications, cultural qualifications, and the like.

When you say no new rules, I have taken it as meaning no new rules except for the character generation ones ;)

> > This can take the form of a lingering benefit, of a new spirit ally/ability to be permanently
> > written on your character sheet, of an exhaustible resource usable once/X times, of a
> > storyline development not represented by any target number but by GM descriptions.
>
> All are both (a) rules applications and (b) things that animists do. Bringing them together in some short explanatory text is harder work than I thought it would be. I have some core applications that I think are common and evocative. But I tend to get wrapped around the axle when struggling with things that I haven't already assimilated.

Sure - as always, the problem is finding the right point of view to make sense of the complexities of any ongoing project.

> > I really think that the X versus Y contest should be a theoretically equal contest
>
> Presumably, you mean to qualify that with something like "in the absence of any story-driven need or the pass-fail cycle, as the narrator desires."  ;-)

Urghh -- Top Tip : don't get me started on the failures of the Pass/Fail theory ...

Julian Lord            

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