That is all true. Rokarism is part of the broad backlash against the God-Learners and everything associated with them in the dark years between 1049 and 1300. The God-Learners are perhaps the most important Other that define the Rokari.
> In addition to the arguments advanced below (as if from inside Rokarism), the success of Rokarism has also been explained (from the outside) as 'a price worth paying' if it prevents a further cataclysm. My question is this: if Rokarism is a 'fundamentalist' response to the fall of the God-learners, why did it take the best part of four centuries to get its act together? Doesn't the passage of time make the disaster that strict Rokarism is averting seem less likely? Or is there a prophetic, apocalyptic edge to Rokarism, which tries to keep everyone on the straight and narrow lest there be another flood?
These sorts of huge shifts take time. Frex, it took nearly five centuries for Rabbinic Judaism to become predominant after the destruction of the Second Temple.
> I know analogies between Malkionism and Christianity are out of favour, but maybe one answer is that, as with Christianity in the West, it took the conversion of a powerful temporal leader (Bailifes the Hammer(?) playing the role of the Emperor Constantine), for these ideas to really take off-- even though they were centuries old by now.
Actually my preferred analogy is a little less grand - the alliance between Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab and the House of Saud in the 18th century. Bailifes was hardly on par with the Roman Emperor (even if he ultimately ended up recreating the Kingdom of Seshnela - he was more of a Clovis figure than a Constantine).
> Indeed earlier versions of Rokarism (like, if I remember correctly, the unofficial Tales of the Reaching Moon #12) suggested that Rokarism began as a 'grass roots' movement, telling workers that the road to Solace (and maybe even Joy, though if this ever formed part of canonical Rokarism it doesn't now), lay in accepting one's caste and performing one's caste duties to the best of one's abilities. Indeed this earlier version said that Rokar's teachings fell foul of the powers that be and he was martyred.
I don't think Rokar was matyred, despite Reaching Moon 12. And I do think that there was too much bleedover from Credo when Nick and the gang wrote that article. Hardly a criticism - Credo is a superb game and one I hope to have some good news about now. But what was written then does not match up with either Revealed Mythology or the old Cults of Terror descriptions.
> How different from the centralised, top-down movement that Rokarism has become by the early 17th Century ST! At the risk of drawing an analogy with the Western Church again, I suppose one could say the same of the Western Church before the papacy was invented. Then again, many cultures have legends justifying social class/caste-- even the Vikings have the story of Rig the Walker!
I think Rokarism was always tightly heirarchical sect with much oversight over the wizard caste (who are always the problems - let those wizards innovate and horrible things happen). I plan to post a bit on it on glorantha.com in the next week or two.
Jeff
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