Deja vu, just like the last time

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From: Argrath@aol.com
Date: Wed 29 Jun 1994 - 05:01:33 EEST


Joerg asks:
"First of all, do the Malkioni regard POW as part of the
individual's soul, or do they think of it as just another form of blood? POW holds no individuality, or does it?"

     The blood analogy has always worked for me, although I usually think of MP, rather than POW, as like blood. The people who ask to borrow a MP-storage device should get the response you would give if someone said, "Can I borrow a pint of blood? I'll give you a pint back later."

     This is off the point, but in Mike Dawson's "mojo" system, using someone else's MPs to cast a spell at them is an almost certain way to succeed. This dispenses with the irritating way PCs pass MP storage devices around.

Joerg, I think you missed the place where Paul said he was talking about the three magic systems from the shamanic POV. There being no objective POV, it is necessary to adopt a subjective Gloranthan one. Later, he can do the other magic systems from their own POVs, but for right now you need to understand the limitations of the way he's working. I think it's a fine idea, and I'd like to see it fleshed out. When he's got into shape, we can take it apart more and see how it works. Doing so now is not helpful.

Liked the Hrestoli knight's vigil, though why only Hrestoli? All sects should have this at some stage.

Can't a Saint be still living in the world? Our world has certainly had plenty of people who were considered saintly during their lifetimes. Sure, when he's gone, he IS, as opposed to has, a living presence on the OS.

Alex:
Being militia is proper for the Farmer class, so they're hardly untrained, or breaking caste prohibitions.

Jonas says:
"you are still assuming that you know what it means to
_hold_a_belief_, and that this psychological mechanism remains the same throughout the ages. Which may very well be true, who knows? It's at any rate not _a_priori_ ridiculous as a methodological assumption."

     Despite the apparent irrelevancy and general obscurity of the phrase "know what it means to _hold_a_belief_", there are great differences in beliefs: 

     I believe it might rain tonight.
     I believe that all drugs should be legalized.
     I believe that causality exists.
     I believe in things I can't even tell you about, because I
assume them at such a deep level that they are invisible to me and I have never even considered the possibility that they might be wrong.

     Isn't it clear to you that there are differences, even within your own experience, in what "believe" means? Haven't you met someone different enough from yourself (from a non-Western country, radical, or insane) who obviously thought differently from you, and started from a different base of experiences? The modernist looks at the non-Westerner, the radical, and the crazy person and say, "They're wrong, and I'm right." The pre- modernist doesn't even realize that there are different world- views.

Nils added:
"mundane actions are part of the ritual of the cults."

     Clearly. And an Orlanthi plowing his field, and an Ernaldan baking bread. If you are tuned in, everyday actions are ritualized in a life-affirming way. 

     "These are my magical acts:
     Hewing wood and drawing water."
               --Some Taoist Sage

Nils, anybody can CONTACT Dayzatar, but few would want to. His rune spells are useless, and his cult restrictions are burdensome. That doesn't mean the Teshnans can't _claim_ that their worship of him is the most ancient in the world, but how do you verify that claim?

Andre:
I think the initiate who misses the high holy day does become inactive automatically, even if he has a good excuse. The excuse gets him readmitted the next time he does come to the temple. Question #2 is answered in Dorastor.
Q 3: Griffin Island is not in Glorantha. Q 4: It would take an Aranea cultist anthropologist with immense patience and luck to connect with the spiders.

Chris Pearce:
Who is Barntar? After a lot of debate on this Daily, I still believe that he is a god within the Orlanth cult. In some times and places, he is the god whom plowmen worship. However, for game purposes, use the Orlanth cult.

Alex Ferguson asks us to decline "geas." No thank you.

Re: Five Arkats
I had a character meet four of them, and only one was apparently a fraud in my world. The character tried to test them (having met Arkat previously on the hero plane), and at least one failed the test (despite being mostly authentic). All of them were, in my mind, aspects of Arkat, though.

Alex on causality:
Hrm, I wasn't sufficiently obscure. Hint: Look for the paradox.

Alex on multiple suns and embedded quotes: The point of "Lies with Truth" is thinking about who the various Praxian tribes worship as the sun dome and how they do it. Everything else was intro/peripheral.

Unreconstructedly (but not unconstructivistly or... oh, forget it),

     Martin

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