From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Fri 14 Apr 2000 - 19:15:33 EEST
Moi:
> >I don't understand from your later comments (or otherwise) in what fashion
> >or in what respect this has been gregged: that the sultans have different
> >Masks as forebears, that they worship same, or the 'benefits' they gain
> >thereby?
Martin:
> Yep, Greg said that the Emperor is not worshipped on a large scale, he also
> said his devotees are a tiny bunch, mostly close relative and special agents
> of his power. All the Proxies are devotees though.
Well, the handful (OK, mutant tentacleful) of satraps, or even a layer
or so of the Imperial Top Poshes would hardly be a large scale; pretty
much just a matter of personal ancestor worship, which is in the grand
tradition... I'm not necessarily saying they're _devotees_, note.
> >I can't immediately even see what's controversial about this
> >(unlike all this Proxy stuff, which seems Very Eggy (not to be confused
> >with 'very Egi') to me, and I will refrain from comment on until it
> >starts looking like less of a moving target to we mortals).
> Hmm, I'm mortal too, try writing a moving target.
Tell me about it; try a perhaps slower-moving, but threadbare and
whacked-out mystic one. ;-) (OK, I should maybe say 'more so', in either
of the latter cases).
> It is controversial,
> especially to Nick and others, because it cuts the lefs out from severel
> preconceptions of how the Emperor is worshipped, especially from Chris
> Gidlows Red Emperor cult in Tales #16. I have discovered that such changes
> in fan perceptions do get the odd person annoyed, or hadn't you noticed Alex?
> :)
I know _parts_ of it are tubers of a very high energy state indeed, of
course; I just can't see what's controversial about if your great-
grandad was a Mask (setting aside whether he was a Omni-Being of
Magnificant Numbers of Double-Us, or a drooling double-chinned idiot
with a papier-mache crown), worshipping the old bloke in some manner.
Indeed, if the former school prevails, you'd think it would make it
_more_ popular (and feasible), on the lines of Dara Happan Yelmic
Ancestor worship, as I believe you've already outlined.
(This isn't a rhetorical 'I can't see' either, and I don't really have
any sort of vested position here, just thinking aloud, lest I be
taken as an armed combatent in the Emperor Wars.)
> > He has never been a human and is not an avatar (though he does contain
> > parts of Yelm).
>
> >I must confess, I don't understand why this _doesn't_ make him an
> >avatar of Yelm...
>
> He _is_ an avatar of bits of Yelm, usually Vrimak, but mostly he is not an
> avatar.
Well, after all, n in the fraction n/6 has sometimes been 5... Can't
If backed into a corner on this one, I warn you I'll summon a
the masks manifest more or less of the soul-parts of Yelm, as suits
their purposes? (I forget which is the 'standard' bit of Yelm for Ye
Olde Emperors to share; IIRC it's often (usuaally?) been just one,
admittedly.)
fully qualified Nils to demonstrate just how woolily the term
'avatar' can be used in any given sentence! (You make being
an avatar sound like a sort of dominant possession, whereas I'm
happy just to think of it as being any sort (or a wide range of
sorts, at least) of manifestation.)
> The key point here is that he is not, as some have speculated, a
> human with a past life who then becomes Emperor after being avatar to the
> Emperors spirit.
I don't see such a huge distinction in this as you do. (Or perhaps
as Nick et al. do too, since it takes too sides to make a feud (or
at least to make it last beyond the first wave of casualties...))
Is he a human? Well, human-_oid_, as Leela would say... He's not
mortal, but again, cause and effect here are ambiguous enough to be
interesting. Past life? Well, at the least, it often takes a
significant amount of time for one of the last Mask's children (I
assume the next Mask is always such, at least) to 'emerge' as the
true Moonson. And I suggest that Moonson isn't generally short of
a child or two, and that they're _all_ not exactly 'just human', as
far as their magical and mythic status is concerned.
As far as such outright ambiguities as one mask being born before
the last one has died, or of an apparent Proxy later being revealed
to be the true Moonson, I'll not speculate, but rather leave the
field to more expert (small-e) squabblers in the field.
> >Or to translate in Nick's Cynic-Speak: [snipped]
> You could say that, I couldn't possibly comment.
Very good Buseri impersonation, Martin: and whoever said you were
typecast as the lightly frothed Shargashi type...
Slàn,
Alex.
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