Gloranthan Genre conventions / tropes

[Mac Logo]

These are other "States of Mind that are not explicable except to those who have achieved them" -- or been born with them.

Doh! Yes, I'll buy that.
Thanks Nick.

Graeme

[simon_hibbs]

ObGlorantha: So what about the various forms of "Transcendental Conciousness"? In a thread that started as being about (paraphrasing) "What makes Glorantha Glorantha?", surely this count. It is an aspect of Glorantha that has been present from the very early days, has massive implications to the world and potentially affects everybodies game. Even though the magic system supporting it has been dropped from HeroQuest (for now...), its effects resound throughout the rules when discussing the Secrets of religions. It's also a fairly major part of the history of Glorantha and part of the reason that Orlanthi hate Lunars. The effects of it are everywhere. It must surely count as one of those trope thingies?

This is one area where I differ with Greg. I think recognising Mysticism as being a seperate magic system, or even form of worship, is not helpful. I believe that all major Gloranthan religions (the ones with Great Secrets) are ultimately transcendent. Greg says no, and that the mystics of the East categorise these religions as being the worship of anti-gods. I think that's bull. The easterners being wrong in this doesn't harm the validity of their religion per se, and every religion has it's flaws and false dogmas. I just think that in developing a purist conception of Eastern Mysticism Greg got carried away.

Oh yes, Kudos to Nick for bringing the elder races into this. Of course the 'true' elder races (Mistress Race Trolls as against Dark Trolls, etc) are the ideal embodiments of these states of mind - hence their immortality. This is also why the Brithini are so interesting, or were untill they vanished, although of course we are left with the Vadeli and they're even more interesting again!


Simon Hibbs

[pete_darby]

Well, I don't know... pretty much all great gods have as their secret "Become one with part of the universe, please deposit you character sheet with the GM on your way out." Once you can encompass the entirity of the being of, say Orlanth, you acheive transcendance, because the great entities of the Otherworlds have a transcendant nature.

It's also nigh of frickin impossible to do, comparable to mystic enlgihtenment. You "become one with the soul of the storm..." having acheived it through ego-lossy identification with an impersonal principle, Orlanth with all the mythic accretions stripped away. Which, as I've said before, is pretty much impossible for mortal minds to achieve.

Mysticism seems to me the, possibly in Glorantha misguided, attempt to acheive gnosis of the transcendant without the material, magical or mythic. In GL terms, to know the runes without the intermediaries of great gods, great spirits, or the saints...

But that convention about transcendance seems a very Gloranthan, and quite subtle, theme in the world.

One thing I don't think I've got across in this "Otherworld entities as expressions of cosmic principles" thing is whether the principles that are being expressed are different between otherworlds. Frex, are Humakt, the power behind Bardan's Turret, and Jardan the warrior, expressions of the same cosmic principle of death, or of separate, incompatible, yet functionally identical cosmic principles of death, originating in transcendant truths alien to each other?

The creation myths of Glorantha, which hint at Glorantha being created by the collision of the three otherworlds point to the latter, but the description of mysticism as acheiving transcendant knowledge of the cosmic fundamentals without the mythic structures of the otherworlds, hints at the former.

I can square the circle by saying that mysticism acheives transcendant knowledge of the inner world, not the outer world, as a cosmically perfect mix of the three otherworlds... but that sounds more like absolute materialism and ensarement with the illusory, which is mystically bad, m'kay?

Or do I just say mysticism debates are screwed till we get a definitive answer from Issaries... so till then, box number two, they're from different places, kid.

{edit: yes, once again, argumentatively agreeing with Simon... something about me keeps misreading him on first look.}

[simon_hibbs]

Replying to Pete:

Yes it's not possible for mortal minds to 'Become Storm', you have to become immortal first; but that is possible, so it's not an unachievable goal. The problem I think you've identified is that the myths are about human relationships with these powers, they are essentialy human constructs that resonate with the nature of (say) Storm. They are a route to connect with Storm, but the real things is much more than that. To actualy Become Storm you have to move beyond the myths, beyond the human relationship with it, and actualy beyond magic itself. You leave play because you've left human concerns, as a focus of your being, behind.

A quick point on the creation myths, many of them concern the dissolution of a pre-created unity into it's components. For example the self-dismemberment (Utuma) of Ouroboros, the Cosmic Dragon. I think these notions of dissolution and collision are realy a product of human analysis rather than being essential truths about what is going on. The other point is that the creation, and later destruction of the cosmos occur outside time. If you want to look into it at this level of depth, forget about the creation occuring 'before' time. It's happening right now!

As for the ultimate transcendent nature of, say Death. Well, it's transcendent! I don't think petty cattegories like Theist and Animist mean much at that level. Humakt is the Great God of Death. I think what Great God means is, more than just a god. More than just theist at a transcendent level, although that's how his worshipers interact with and experience him. However there are aspects of his worship and nature that are innaceessible to his worshipers, that are alien and seem unaproachable. That's because when you get behind the mask, you get behind the god, behind anything a worshiper with his theist soul can relate to. That's a theory anyway, I have to say I'm not 100% sure on this. But no, I'm not going to forget about this untill Greg tells me what to think. He can change his mind too so he's obviously not infalible.


Simon Hibbs

[contracycle]

Remember that you are under no obligation to try to please Gareth or anyone else. He hasn't really asked any questions, and he is not really interested in what you, I, or anybody else has to say.

Bullshit

He just keeps repeating the same thing over and over again, in different wording. In my book, that is intellectual dishonesty.

Thats becuase you keep failing to answer it or even address it, to the point that I consider the answers intellectually dishonest.  And I'm sure its very comfortable to draw down the barriers and construct an Us vs. Them dichotomy, attribute malicious motive, and all the rest of the bunker mentality.

Also, he has pretty much presented the solution to his own problem long ago:

Yes, I have.  And after going through a similar, but much less well mannered discussion on the list, I completely withdrew.  For almost the entire length of time this forum has existed on the forge, I've made only the most nominal comments and restricted myself primarily to the mechanics, which don;t suffer from this abject confusion.  The only reason I stuck my oar in at all is because I though the Genre approach might be conducive, and because Brand had levelled such a blast at your high-and-mighty "if you don't like it fuck off" arrogance.  But, it seems, even that was ultimately futile.  Some people just can't be helped.

[pete_darby]

I don't know... we've got to the point of debating whether three transcendant principles of death are separate but identical, or indetical but incompatibly expressed. Which is an awful long way from getting the cows milked, as my Uralda priestess would say.

And folks, lets keep this friendly, and Glorantha focussed. The point of the thread is supposed to be the conventions of Glorantha, right? The more help we can get nailing them down, even if they're nonsensical or problematic to some, the better.

[simon_hibbs]

I don't know... we've got to the point of debating whether three transcendant principles of death are separate but identical, or indetical but incompatibly expressed. Which is an awful long way from getting the cows milked, as my Uralda priestess would say.

The way I see it everyone dies (with some notable exceptions), whether they're animists, theists, monotheists or whatever. When a Malkioni meets a Sartarite and says 'My cousin died the other day' they both know exactly what he's talking about. They differ in what they think that means happened in the otherworld(s), but in the mundane world that doesn't make a lot of difference. Ok, there are some diferences because a Sartarite might be able to contact hsi ancestors somehow, while a Malkioni can't, but again that's realy a difference in the other side, not in the mundane world although it does have some effects there.

Humakt's Sever Spirit power works just as well against Praxians and Kralorelans as it does against Lunars and Heortlings. Humakt realy does embody True Death, but from a mythic/magical/metaphysical level he does so in a theist manner.

Imagine light from a point source radiating towards a lense, which re-focuses it on a point. The otherworld is a lense through which mortals view the transcendent (or vice versa!). You can think of theism, animism and so on as being like different colours, different wavelengths and each person tunes in to a different one.

IMHO

Simon Hibbs

[Valamir]

Hmmm...folks, this thread is up to 9 pages long.  Which for a Forge topic is enormous.  As with most threads that reach this length it has become quite bloated and flailing.  

I'm certainly not a moderator here, but as an interested observer, I'm thinking now might be the time to find the handful of items that have been reasonably collected as being central tropes and summarize them here at the end.  

Then find those items that are still at various stages of being hashed around and start a new thread for each of those to focus just on that topic.  

And then call this thread done...

[pete_darby]

Okay, I can see that... but looking back, I've thoguht of calling this thread dead at a couple of points, but it's like so many Gloranthan signature characters, it keeps coming back from hell...

That, and at any one time, the thread's kept relatively focussed.

I'm still not buying that the three otherworlds are expressions of the same fundamentals. Sounds like god learner talk to me.... (Ducks thrown objects, objects to thrown ducks, and closes thread).

Short of a comprehensive listing of the identified conventions, are we done here guys?