[Glorantha] Ancestor worship (was some meaningless number or other)

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20>
Date: Thu Feb 15 20:00:19 2007

• Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de> wrote:

> > My understanding of the cycle of birth and death
> is that the surface world
> > and underworld are both mixed worlds, and that all
> mortals are mixed beings.
> > Dead souls go to the udnerworld and lose their
> personal identity over 7
> > days, when they are judged and go to the part of
> the underworld reserved
> > for them ( if they were good girls or boys).

ISTR that in "King of Dragon Pass", one of the things that could go wrong for your clan was the Ancestors getting annoyed with you, and explaining this forcefully. That implies that, as a mass at least, they were aware of what was going on with their former clan, and had enough potential impact on the live clan to make a serious threat. And enough free will to decide to do so. Long, long, after the 7 days is up.

Could Mr Dunham or anyone else involved comment?  

> That isn't too different from theist "remembered
> feats". Ancestors are
> remembered for their achievements (including "father
> of" or "mother of")
> rather than for their likeability or loveability.
> Someone's little sister
> who died of hunger a few years ago will linger among
> the ancestors as long
> as those who had a personal relation with her
> remember this relation, but
> may return to rebirth rather soon.

I seem to remember once creating a bit of Gloranthan trivia: a flower called the Korabloom. Checking: no, it never went back on the "new" website, but a quick Google just found it in list archives.
(Incidentally, Google doesn't work on Yahoo archives, and their own search facility is lousy...)

http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd5/1997.11/1863.html

Precis:

This is a flower that grows on graves. It flowers at any time of the year, as long as the person whose grave this is is still remembered. The colour varies, but flowers on the grave of a person who died violently are often red. Any resemblance to the Flanders Poppy is strictly intentional. People who have recently lost a friend or relative often wear a Korabloom from their grave. The flower will stay fresh as long as genuine grief is felt by the wearer: picking Korablooms every day is a sign of hypocrisy.  

> As someone (Jane?) said during the rules list
> relation discussion, even a
> relation to a dead person still may be used as a
> suitable ability for augmentation.

If I did, I expect I was paraphrasing Mike Holmes' ideas.                                   

---

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