[Glorantha] Re: EWF humans, Utuma and reincarnation

Mikko Rintasaari speculates evocatively on EWF re-hatching rituals.

I like the jade scale to dragon scale analogy and metmorphosis. Perhaps at the earlier levels, the use of jade is only partial. The first step is slicing your tongue with a (jade?) knife.

I could see the second step being placing a jade scale on each eye. Apparently, snakes have no eyelids, but have a clear scale covering each eye. So, this step gets you unblinking snake eyes. Thus, when the EWF was killed off, the "scales fell from their eyes" (an old Biblical reference alluding to the conversion fo Saul).

Maybe they get other features, like claws. Maybe you go into the ritual wearing long jade fingernail extensions. At some point, they have to add the scaly skin. That's what the jade suit does. At higher levels, people have to add a tail and wings. (I suppose those would be a lot of jade, but I'm not seeing any evocative images. For wings, maybe some kind of cloak of jade scales held together with wire? No ideas on the tail.)

I also like the notion that you have to emerge at each stage. I'd be satisfied with shedding your skin, though, since snakes do a lot of that. If you preferred re-hatching from the egg, that would be cool, but it seems awfully complex for the EWF. (A pyrmaid scheme has to be affordable at the bottom levels; dying -- even with the promise of rebirth -- does not seem all that enticing a proposition.)

Obviously, these rituals fail sometimes. So modern Heortlings sometimes find entire suits of jade. All of them would have to be so obviously impractical as to make modern Heortlings wonder, "What the hell is this?" The jade fingernails would make doing anything with your hands impossible. They could try wearing the suit as armor, for example, but would find it very heavy and it isn't really built for protection. Etc. The further you go, the less practical the items should be.

Chris Lemens Received on Fri 26 Jan 2007 - 15:23:22 EET