THE RIVER OF CRADLES, CHAPTER SEVEN: THE CRADLE (PART ONE)

Chapter Seven:

THE CRADLE, PART ONE

for Greg Stafford (1948-2018)

“If you are going to have a story, have a big story, or none at all.” (Joseph Campbell)

#WeAreAllUs

INTRODUCTION

GREG STAFFORD’S The Cradle arrived in 1983, part of the Pavis: Threshold to Danger boxed set.  By this time we had already seen the classics Snake Pipe Hollow, Apple Lane, Borderlands and Griffin Mountain, not to mention the legendary Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, but still there was something groundbreaking about Pavis and its companion, Big Rubble, something I think The Cradle exemplifies. 

In The Cradle, a godlike race of giants is giving one of its infants to the sea.  In an ark-sized magical cradle the baby is sent sailing down the Zola Fel river, where eventually she will arrive at the ocean and then float towards Magasta’s Pool, a hole in the center of the world that will carry her beyond the mortal realm of Time.  We can only guess at the giants’ motivation, but the fact that the cradle is laden with magical treasures and secrets suggests that they are trying to preserve an ancient way of life that is fading.  Like Bithia did for Moses, or Kunti did for Karna, the giants are risking their precious child in a desperate attempt to save her.  Weighed against this is the Lunar Empire, and an ambitious governor who wants the secrets of the cradle for its glory (and his).  The player characters are hired or persuaded to join the defense of the cradle so that it can sail unmolested to its destination.

Now there are many terrific scenarios in Pavis, but The Cradle stands out for several reasons.  First of all the entire city of Pavis and the Big Rubble ruins exist because of this very practice; the ancient God Learners built the first settlement here, Robcradle, to do exactly what the name suggests.  Robcradle was destroyed by angry giants tired of their children being abducted and dissected, and Pavis eventually rose in its place.   Now for the first time in an Age it is happening again. Second, the mysterious figure orchestrating the cradle’s defense is none other than Argrath, the future King of Dragon Pass who will both save and destroy the world.  His presence in the story links the player characters to an even greater myth cycle, making them part of history.  But the thing that really makes The Cradle exemplary in my mind is that it could really only happen in Glorantha.  File the serial numbers off Snake Pipe Hollow or Apple Lane and you could pretty much transplant it to any fantasy setting; the plot I just described above?  Not so much.  By logical modern standards it is totally mad, but compared to some of the episodes in ancient mythologies fits right in.  You could easily imagine Heracles or Gilgamesh boarding a giant baby cradle to defend it.  I see The Cradle as a scenario that really ended up defining what Glorantha is and what makes it unique.

REWRITING THE CRADLE

THERE WAS NEVER any doubt in my mind that my player characters were going to end up participating in the cradle story, but it was happy coincidence that we were going to end up playing it during the Greg Stafford memorial event, #WeAreAllUs.  As a GM I cordially dislike running other people’s scenarios for the same reason players create their own characters.  But this was a classic, and it was Greg, so I was ready to break my personal rule for it.  

On the other hand, as written, The Cradle simply does not work for HeroQuest Glorantha.  This is a very tactical scenario, and the engine driving it is RuneQuest’s gritty combat system.  The drama arises from facing wave after wave of attackers, from the prolonged running battle.  How long can the players hold out?  Can they hold out?  Part of the genius of The Cradle is how Stafford makes superb use of a highly simulationalist game system to create dramatic tension.  For a narrative system, the drama would have to come from elsewhere.  This necessitated three new elements;

• the player characters needed to have emotional stakes; the old plot hook of being hired at Gimpy’s simply wasn’t going to work.  They had to need something that only participating in this episode would provide them.
• they needed an antagonist beyond merely the Lunars, something that cast doubt over the entire adventure.
• there would have to be some crisis, some stakes-raising twist, to turn the climax from “yet another big battle” into something really compelling.     

With this in mind, I also knew it was going to have to be shorter.  My version was falling into an on-going campaign, and a long journey down the Zola Fel to the sea made little sense in the context of that.  I decided to make this the turning point in the current campaign arc; the climax had to mirror the battle at Pimper’s Block where they set fire to the settlement and drew the Lunars’ wrath.  This time, though, they would rain devastation on Pavis and anger even the governor.  So the Sun County, Grantlands, and Corflu half of the original scenario had to go.  The climax had to happen in Pavis.

What follows then is my take on The Cradle, along with an After Play report on how things went down in the game.  

THE CRADLE: PART ONE   

Setting: Pavis; both New Pavis and the area known as the Big Rubble.  The Zola Zel river north of Pavis. 

Theme:  Luck versus Fate.  As the player characters increasingly find their lives seemingly following prophecies, they question whether chance or destiny governs their lives.   

Stakes:  “Starbrow’s Children” have become entangled with both Argrath White Bull, the shaman-leader of the White Bull spirit society, and Garrath Sharpsword, an Orlanthi adventurer and rebel.  Paradoxically they are two masks worn by the same man, leaving the player characters uncertain who he really is and how far they can trust him.  And yet, access to the resources of the White Bull society and Garrath’s rebel underground are vital to the success of their own mission; freeing the enslaved women and children of their clan up and down the Zola Fel. So when Sharpsword asks them to help in the defense of a giant’s cradle coming down the Zola Fel, it is an offer they cannot refuse…especially since he indicates he might not be coming back from this adventure and wishes to entrust some of his considerable resources to them…         

Subplots:  Kalliva’s relationship with freed Dara Happan slave Orininus becomes increasingly more complicated; Garrath assumes a seemingly mentor-like position in Beralor’s life, leaving Beralor to wonder if this is because of his kinship with Beralor’s adoptive father Affar; Kalf is haunted by a growing shadow in his mind, a mixture of fear for Esrala and his child, worry over Ashart, and guilt over the Lunar he killed; Leika is drawn deeper into the White Bull society, and forced to question if her albinism was chance or destiny…  

Our Protagonists

Leika Faransdotr

The daughter of the Black Stag Clan’s chief spirit-talker and human leader of the local White Hart Spirit Society, Leika’s mother died in childbirth.  Raised alone by her father and somewhat spoiled by him, she was instructed from a very young age in the spirit world and its magic.  An albino, she was something of an outsider to her peers.  She is now a member of the Kolat Spirit Tradition.

Beralor Three Fathers

Raised by Harvarr—his clan’s Redsmith—and his Nandan partner Affar, Beralor is actually the son of Harvarr’s sister and the bonded Eurmali Trickster Kheladon Blue-Eye.  An enthusiastic Orlanth initiate, his path (and consequently that of his friends) has been manipulated by his Trickster sire for reasons he cannot guess.

Kalf Light Foot

A herdsman and shepherd raised by his widowed mother after his father died in Starbrow’s Rebellion, Kalf married his youth-time sweetheart Esrala and the couple are expecting a child.  Wanting only a quiet family life that his father’s death deprived him of, he nevertheless finds himself in the foreign lands of Prax trying to save his mother—and fellow kinsmen—from Lunar slavery.

Kalliva No One’s Daughter

The daughter of a Vingan and a Lunar commander, Kalliva was raised by an aunt who always resented and later rejected her.  Herself a Vingan initiate who wants only to protect and defend her kin, she is marked by powerful Dragon Magic that pulled her into the designs of Kallyr Starbrow and a destined role in events yet to come.   

Dramatis Personae

Argrath White Bull

• Runes: Harmony, Beast, Spirit
• Shaman and White Bull Spirit Tradition leader
• Goals: To unite the Tribes of Prax against the occupying Lunar forces.
• Notes:  Yes…that Argrath. Argrath White Bull is the cliche riddle wrapped in an enigma and packaged in mystery.  A Sartarite, he was found and taken captive alone on the plains of Prax by the Bison Tribe, who made him a slave.  At the time he was just fifteen.  Over the next five years of captivity, he stunned his captors by mastering their language, their customs, and more disturbingly, their magic…almost intuitively.  Tribal spirits swarmed to the young outsider, embracing him as their own.  When he heard the legend of the White Bull from the tribal elders, Argrath announced he would seek out the spirit and free it, much to the mocking amusement of the tribesmen.  Then he did exactly that…his body cold and dead for three days and three nights while his spirit went out to find and bring back the Bull.  When he returned with the spirit, much of the tribe fell on their knees to him.  He was quickly accepted and trained into a shaman, and founded the White Bull Spirit Society.  Argrath wandered Prax for two years after this, approaching other tribes and inviting him into his society, slowly building an underground army, a tribal confederation unlike anything seen in Prax in ages.  In 1618 he relocated to the Big Rubble in Pavis, from which he leads his society.  
• Roleplay Notes: Think Gandhi.  Think Buddha.  Think “deep, mystical, shamanic wise man.”  For a young man of 24 years he seems ancient, with a gaze that seems to stare right through the Mundane World into the Spirit Plane.  He has the same annoying habit as Starbrow of speaking in pronouncements (“you will do this,” “you are going to do that”) but when he does it, it comes off prophetic instead of imperious.  In playing him, keep the Harmony Rune in the front of your mind.  He is a uniter, a peace-maker, a healer.  People come to him broken and he fixes them.  They come to him drifting, and he gives them purpose.  His society turns members of different tribes into the same tribe (their animals become albino as a sign of this shared unity).  Now, if it seems odd to you that a man of peace is building an army, buckle-up buttercup, because it all gets weirder with the next entry…       

Garrath Sharpsword

• Runes: Air, Mastery, Motion
• Sartarite Wind Lord, Weaponmaster, Teacher, and Adventurer
• Goals: To personify Orlanth Adventurous, to be a thorn in the Lunars’ side.
• Notes:  Sharpsword turned up in New Pavis two years ago, a Sartarite exile with a taste for adventure, ale, and attractive young people (of both genders).  Charismatic, ridiculously charming, and just a little bit wicked, he is almost too much of a swashbuckler to be in a Bronze Age heroic fantasy setting…yet there he is.  Sharpsword proved himself as a Rune Lord to the Wind Voices of the city, and to the adventurering regulars at Gimpy’s as a swordsman to be reckoned with.  His mastery of styles, especially Wind and Dragon, is deadly.  He regularly makes forays into the Big Rubble, sometimes alongside other adventurers like Krogar Wolfhelm, Wolfhead, and Griselda, sometimes alone.  He has also joined the White Bull Society.
• Ropleplay Notes:  Garrath Sharpsword is an adventurer who gets off on the thrill of danger.  He is a risk taker.  He puts others in harm’s way.  He is a shameless flirt who sees lovemaking as a sport, and plays it with both attractive men and women.  However he is also loyal, dedicated to Orlanth, and a man of his word.  Like Batman and Bruce Wayne, you will never see Garrath and Argrath in the same room together (you do the math).  As the anagram indicates, there is more to Garrath than meets the eye.  In playing him play up the mischievous twinkle in his eye, the sly grin, the dashing charisma.        

Jarang Bladesong

• Runes: Air, Mastery, Motion
• Adari Wind Lord, Adventurer, Rebel
• Goals: Vengeance against the Lunars for reasons he refuses to speak of.
• Notes: Another Wind Lord associated with the Orlanth cult hiding in the Rubble.  
• Roleplay Notes: As the original Cradle pointed out, Jarang will speak extensively about Orlanthi honor, catalogue the long list of crimes committed by the Lunar Empire, and talk about the rich plunder this adventure offers (he will not say that part in front of Garrath, who expressly forbids any plundering of the Cradle 

Javis Gan

• Runes: Darkness, Death
• Dark Troll Zorak Zorani Rune Lord, lover of Queen Rebecep of the Javis Clan
• Goals: Kill.  Rend.  Maim.  Tear.  Fight Chaos.  Serve the Queens of the Javis Clan.
• Roleplaying Notes: Being in the room with Javis Gan should feel like being a shark tank with a great white, or a cage with a tiger.  You can never be comfortable in his presence.  He is part of the Troll defense of the Cradle, however, and will channel his rage towards the Lunars.  

Nemolayope the Nymph

• Runes: Fertility, Harmony, Magic
• Nymph of Life, protectress of the Child and Cradle commander
• Goals:  Defend the Child.
• Roleplaying Notes: Inhumanly beautiful, slim, with pupil-less eyes and a melodic voice.  She does not walk, she floats, her hair billowing around her as if she were underwater.  The player characters will only encounter her if they go below decks on the Cradle.  She understands that they are there to defend the Child, and if asked why the giants send their infants to Magasta’s Pool, she will answer only “They seek to save the Future.”

Orvost Tintalker

• Runes: Air, Motion, Mastery
• Wind Voice, the Rebel High Priest of Orlanth Rex in Pavis
• Goals: To restore the worship of Orlanth in the city
• Notes:  Orvost is the grandson of Dorasar, the Sartarite founder of New Pavis (1550 ST).  When the Lunars took the city, the Orlanth temple was outlawed and the previous High Priest killed.  Orvost escaped with the sacred temple regalia into the Rubble, and has lived in hiding there since.  The Lunars have placed Faltikus the Good (a worshipper of Maru, a storm god in Talasar) in charge of the city’s “Air Temple,” as closing the temple entirely was not an option (it is responsible for bringing the life-giving rains to the city).  For the Sartarite true-believers, however, Orvost is the true spiritual heart of the community.  he carries with him the sacred Lightning Bands of Saronil and the Silver Mantle.      
• Roleplay Notes: Orvost is, perhaps, a bit too obsessed with Faltikus and the Pavis Air Temple for his own good.  He speaks of the Lunar official priest as “the Imposter,” and even “Gbaji.”  In his own mind he sees himself as Arkat, meant to bring the false priest down.  Regardless, he is a good and true Voice of Orlanth and faithfully sees to the spiritual needs of those who come to him in the Rubble.  

“Orin” (Orininus (or-i-NIGH-nus) Prathvi Yuthaldrex)

• Runes: Fire/Sky, Life, Truth
• Slave
• Goals: Teol has promised him the ability to but his freedom at some point in the future, an option he likely would not have under a Lunar master.  This makes him surprisingly loyal to Teol.
• Notes: No more than seventeen, his pale skin tanned by the sun of Prax, his hair pale blonde and eyes sky blue…is from the Lunar Heartlands.  He is originally from a well-placed Dara Happan family that fell afoul of a Dart Competition.  The adults in his family were sentenced to death, the children to slavery.  Orin was sold to a wealthy Lunar magistrate soon after assigned to Pavis, and lost by his master in a dicing match.  That is where Teolrian bought him.  The boy is useful because he is fluent in Trade, New Peolrian, and now Praxian, knows arithmetic, and can read well.  While obviously a Lunar, he is by no means a Lunar.  He recognizes the Red Goddess and the Emperor as the supreme powers in the world, but culturally he is Dara Happan.  He sees the Red Goddess as something that happened to his people, not something they have become.  His father taught him that one day the Sun would vanquish the Moon…which is in part the kind of heresy that destroyed his family.     

Ashagara Bonewitch

• Runes: Moon, Darkness, Spirit
• Seven Mothers Jakaleel Devotee (“…the Mistress of Black Magic, Keeper of Secrets…(h)er sub cult explores the horrors and solaces contained in the secrets of the Dying Moon, and has some close associations with the Blue Moon”)
• Goals: To redeem her failure by bringing “Starbrow’s Children” to justice.  
• Notes: Ashagara never acts without consulting the Runes.  She keeps a set on her person at all times in a black pouch at her belt.  These are carved on the bones of her female ancestors.  No one knows what she looks like.  She is always covered from head to toe in black (robes, tattered cloak, deep hood), her face, hands, arms, etc are wrapped in black linen bandages.  She wears lead claws on her fingers (these are like thimbles with long razor-sharp nails).  

PROLOGUES

I. KALLIVA NO-MOTHER sits beneath the STARS with ORIN

They are looking up at the night sky.  As Storm Season draws to a close and Sacred Time nears, the nights become more clear.  “My family was from Yuthuppa,” Orin says to her, more introspective than usual tonight.  “It is famed throughout Peloria for its knowledge of the stars.  I learned all their names by the time I had five years.  My father insisted on it.”

He points.  “We divide the sky into regions.  The Celestial Desert, the Celestial City, the Celestial Fields, the Celestial Forest, the Celestial Marsh.  And of course the Celestial River.”  He leans closer to her and points to a bright yellow planet.   “And you see that one?  My people call it Antirius, or Lightfore.  I believe yours call it Yelmalio.”

Whether or not Kalliva corrects him she was always taught it was “Elmal.”

“Antirius is the Son of the Sun.  He follows his father unfailingly, as a son should.  The moment Yelm sets, Antirius rises and follows his path across the night sky. He moves, over the course of the year, through all the celestial regions.  It is how we track the seasons.”

He falls silent here.  Clearly something is bothering him.  If Kalliva asks he will answer.  Otherwise he will mention it himself.

“Kalliva.  There is a neighborhood here in Pavis.  In the new city.  It is called Suntown.  The people there are my people…or close to it.”  He pauses again, staring at Lightfore.  “This man, Garrath.  He introduced me to an associate of his.  A man named Runespear.  There is a temple in Suntown.  A “sun dome” they call it.  To Lightfore.  Son of Yelm.”

He grows very silent at this, his face flushing.  “I…Kalliva I am not…I mean that is to say…”  He falls silent again, then after an interior struggle forces himself to speak.  “I was sold as a slave before I could take the manhood rites.  I am still…a child.  This Runespear has offered me the adulthood rites of my people this Sacred Time at the Pavis Sun Dome.  I want…I want to be a man.  It didn’t matter to me when I was a slave.  I was nothing then.  I never dared imagine I might have a future or…a woman…”  He flushes again.  “You freed me.  You took the collar from my neck.  But I still want your permission to do this.  To go and become a man.  Then I will come back to you.”  He stammers.   “I mean, of course, all of you.”

II. LEIKA FARANSDOTR is in the Rubble with ARGRATH WHITEBULL.  He has asked to see her alone.  His people have escorted her to a location just outside of Manside, a ruined villa that once must have been a grand house.  He awaits her by an ancient fountain in a courtyard.  The water still flows as a trickle.

Whitebull has no time for pleasantries.  He gestures for her to sit beside him on the rim of the fountain.  “Nothing is more precious than water in a desert,” he tells her.  “It animates the dust much as spirit animates flesh.”

He sends the guards away so that they make speak privately.  “I am told you summoned the White Bull and it came to you.  It aided you.”  He waits for her to answer and listens (whether or not she points out that he was standing right there as Garrath Sharpsword when it happened.  If she does, he will just let the question pass unanswered).  “The White Hart of your clan, the White Bull of Prax.  Both so like unto you.  Both tied to you.  Does this make you the White Doe, I wonder?”

Draws a Rune in the dust.  It is the web of Arachne Solara.  Fate.  “Are you the kind of person who believes in Destiny?  I am. It is no coincidence that you are here now.  You are right where and when you are needed.”

He stands, turning his back to her.  “Prax needs the White Bull.  We have built an army against the Red Moon, a coalition that transcends tribal rivalries.  The White Bull itself is integral.  He is the heart of this magic.  I awoke him and have been his voice.”

He looks over his shoulder at her.  “Yet…things are transpiring that will remove me from the field.  Shortly, Leika, I will need to disappear.  I tell you this in confidence, but things are in motion that will take me away from Prax.  For years, perhaps.”

He turns to face her.  “I have khans who can oversee the military aspects of the alliance, but I need someone to keep the White Bull.  To *be* the White Bull.  I believe you have come here to do this.  I believe this is your destiny at this time.”

III. BERALOR TWO FATHERS has been training with Garrath Sharpsword in the Wind and Dragon techniques of the sword. 

“No, no, not like that,” he shakes his head, correcting Beralor’s form.  “You swing as if you want the sword to do all of the work.  Lightning is a manifestation of the storm.  The sword is a manifestation of you.  Lean into it.  Use your weight behind it.  A storm is not timid or cautious.  It rolls in unafraid of anything in its path.”

Beralor tries again, doing as instructed, and forces Garrath back.  “There?  See?”  He hold up his hand for the student to stop and pours then both a drink.  “There is no such thing as ‘destiny,’ Beralor.  Or ‘fate.’  These are justifications and excuses for death and failure.  You cannot go into battle questioning if this is the day you are ‘meant’ to die.  You go into battle to win, every time.  Death and failure are never things the Wind considers when it blows.  It blows, and it blows as it wills.”

He sits beside Beralor on a low stone bench, noticing Beralor eyeing his sword.  “Ah…have you never touched Iron before?”  He hands Beralor the blade.

It is longer and lighter than his own Bronze weapon, the edges far more keen.  The silver-gray metal seems to absorb the light.  Runes of Motion, Air, and Death adorn the blade near the bronze hilt, which is wrapped in cloth.  “The Mostali called this out of the earth, or conjured it.  Who can say?  The Elf-killer.  The Troll-bane.  But it is not something one can just wield, Beralor.  It is the Magic-bane as well.  It resists spells.  Your magic must be strong, and you must be one with the weapon, to make it work.”

After Beralor returns the sword, Garrath puts his hand on his shoulder.  “Sacred Time is coming and we are between the Years again.  It hasn’t been an easy one for you, has it?  You have been asked too quickly perhaps to be a man.  But this year, the new year to come, is when you have to answer a deeper question.  What kind of man will you be?”

He stands.  “Something is coming, Beralor.  I cannot tell you how I know this, only that I know it from a friend.  A very large friend.”  He grins at this private joke.  “When the storm comes I want you with me and my men.  All four of you.  You brought Kallyr of Kheldon luck and I will need some of that too.  I will see you next, I wager, at the sacrifice.  Towards the end of Sacred Time I will send for you again.”         

IV. KALF LIGHTFOOT dreams.

He is running through the woods, Nightclaw at his side.  These are the woods of home, the woods of the Vale.  Judging from the deep snow, and the flurries swirling around him, it is Dark Season…but the sky seems too bright, like spring or even summer.  Even through the falling snow the light above is dazzling.  It feels wrong.

Then there is the sound of a horn again, an alarm, a call for help.  He remembers why he has been running.

He pushes himself harder, faster, flying through the trees like a deer.  In the clearing ahead he stumbles across a young man, a hunter.  He looks like Ashart but is older.  In the snow at his feet lies a dead Lunar soldier, and his face is one that has been haunting Kalf.  A locket lies in the snow inches from his head.  The young man who looks like Ashart grabs his arm, breaking his train of thought. “Have you see it?  Have you seen the Bear?”   Before he can answer the horn sounds again, calling him.  She needs him.  His wife is in peril.

He runs.

He breaks through the treeline and can see the cottage ahead, half buried in snow.  Only Deer Run, the little river that cuts down the center of the Vale, breaks the fields of white.  It hasn’t frozen over yet, and the water rushes hard and black.

Esrala stands by the riverside, the white horn falling from her hands.  She is bundled in heavy sheepskins against the cold.  Turning a tear-stained face to him she points at the river.  

He sees. 

The rushing water carries a cradle upon it, and somehow he knows it contains his son.  It moves swiftly away from them.  “They will try to kill the baby, Kalf.  Promise me you will not let that happen.”

He wakes.

ACT ONE: UPRIVER

Beginning: Winds Day, Fate Week, Sacred Time (between 1620 and 1621).  Hidden in the ruins of an ancient amphitheater in Manside, the Big Rubble, the Orlanthi faithful gather to perform an illegal Sacred Time sacrifice to their god.  Seven have been chosen to perform the roles of the Lightbringers in this holy recreation of the Saving of the World;

• Garrath Sharpsword, painted blue with sacred woad, is Orlanth
• Savdor the Copyist, is Lhankor Mhy
• Ystara the White-Handed is Chalana Arroy
• Vorgar the Listener is Issaries
• Three masked figures, whose identities remain unknown, play Ginna Jar, Flesh Man, and Eurmal

All celebrants have woad smeared on their throats (“With this we awaken the breath of Orlanth”), mouths (“With this we speak the words of Orlanth”), and brow (“With this we think the thoughts of Orlanth”).  The woad has a slightly hallucinogenic and dreamlike effect.  After a bull is sacrificed, the rite begins and the Lightbringers come face to face with the Devil…

On cue the Lunars descend.  A contingent of soldiers has been tipped off about the illegal rite and come to bust it up.  This would be disaster; the successful conclusion of the rite is required to read omens for the next year and to receive the god’s blessings.  The seven playing to Lightbringers, as well as Orvost Tintalker who is officiating, cannot fight and must be defended.  This leaves it to the player characters and Wind Lord Jarang Bladesong, as well as a handful of other men.

The 13th episode in the series, the base difficulty is 17.  The augment value is 15.  This confrontation should be an Extended Contest of Moderate difficulty.

Inciting Incident: Clay Day, Harmony Week, Sea Season 1621.  Garrath Sharpsword sends for the player characters.  He is holding a secret meeting.  About forty people are present, including Jarang and Orvost, several trolls, a few newtlings, and a large number of Sartar exiles and Pavisites.

For the first time in centuries, for this first time in the Third Age, a cradle has been spotted coming downriver.  Garrath admits to knowing it was coming from a meeting with the giant, Gon Orta.  He also knows that the governor, Sor Eel, wants the cradle for its own and plans to seize it like the God Learners did of old.  His information comes directly from a spy he has planted in the governor’s household…and at this point he introduces Beralor’s father, Affar.

Garrath has sworn to Gon Orta to protect the cradle, and towards this end will fight alongside the Zola Fel river cult and the Trolls of the Rubble.  He delivers the following speech on why he proposes to defend the cradle;     

“Many of you are asking ‘why?’  ‘Why are we doing this?’  Even if you don’t ask it with your mouths you ask it with your eyes.  There is no plunder here.  No treasures we dare take.  This is not a fight for clan, for tribe, for kin.  Why then do we risk our lives for this?  

I could answer you it is important to deny the Lunars.  That every magical secret and treasure we keep from their hands hurts them.  That if the Lunars want it, it is cause enough to deny them.

But that would be a false answer.  An incomplete answer.

No.  I say to you that the Giants are part of a dying world.  I say to you the way they have always existed has come to a close.  That all they know, their way of life, is fading and will soon be just a story in pages.  And we—every single one of us—knows what it means to live with the same fear.  We know what it is to wonder if our traditions, or peoples, or identity, will survive the next ten years, the next season, the next year.  We know this pain.  We know.

This is why we do it.  We do it to say “not yet.”  We do it to spit in the face of extinction.  We will tell the Lunars and the whole of the world that the Old Ways are not yet gone.  That we will fight to preserve them.  That so long as we breath…they cannot yet replace us.

We fight for this Giant child because it is OUR child.  Because he belongs to a world that we love and that we see dying.  We fight because we are all us.”

GIANTS?  WHAT GIANTS?

Players familiar with the “Giants” described either in HeroQuest Glorantha or the RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary may be wondering why anyone might wish to mount a defense of them.  Suffice it to say, these are not those Giants!  The Giants behind the manufacture of the cradle are to lesser Giants as Mistress Race trolls are to Trollkin; they are primordial beings originating in the Gods Age, on the same scale as True Dragons and minor gods.  This will become obvious the moment the player characters lay eyes upon the cradle itself, a highly magical artifact whose design is beyond mortal capabilities.  This is, of course, why Sor Eel wants it, why the God Learners built an outpost here.  These Giants assisted the gods in the raising of mountains, and as with Dragons, it is said that some mountains are in fact Giants who are sleeping.  They were known to once work closely with Mostali in the Gods Age and First Age of the world, until a falling out over the dwarf-made “giants,” the Jolanti, occurred.  In fact, this entire business of putting an infant upon the waters is a sacred and spiritual act.  It is part of their mythic life cycle.  The child passes out of Time where it grows and is initiated into Giant ways and Giant secrets.  Those who return to the mortal world (and in the time of the Hero Wars, none seem to, leaving the world as if some disaster were coming) are not merely surly and distrustful brutes, but purveyors of great wisdom.  

Garrath knows all of these things, and will try to persuade the player characters of them if there are any lingering doubts. 

Second Thoughts: The meeting will conclude with the tearful reunion of Beralor and his father, Affar, who was sold into slavery following the events of The Turning (nearly a year ago, in Sea Season 1620).  As discovered in There is Always Another Way, Affar is kin to Garrath, and they grew up together.  As a small child, Garrath looked up to his older cousin until Affar was initiated into the Women’s Tribe.  When Affar was sent to the slave market’s at Pimper’s Block, Garrath pulled strings to have him bought and placed in the Governor’s household as a spy.

Roleplay out the reunion, but it needs to conclude with an important scene.  At some point Affar needs to pull Beralor aside and confide in him.  “Garrath has accomplished so much since he was the boy I knew…a Wind Lord, a champion.  But Beralor…he is not the same person I knew.  Something is different behind those eyes.  Promise me you will be careful around him.”  

Climax Act One: The PCs travel overnight roughly 35 km north of the city to intercept the cradle.  As dawn breaks they see several other parties gathered as well along the riverbank; many of the faces are familiar from Garrath’s meeting.  Jarang Bladesong is there but not Orvost.  Everyone waits as Zola Fel river priests stand waist deep in the waters, their hands and faces raised in a sing-song chant.  Half of the priests are river folk, the other half are Newtlings.  It is hard to concentrate on them, however, with the miracle floating downstream towards them.

The cradle is larger by far than any ship they have ever seen.  It looks to be carved of a single, massive piece of wood, its sides polished smooth and glowing with the sunlight.  The prow is carved into the head of a roaring dragon, and fire burns in its jaws.  The sides of the vessel are carved with immense faces, each with a menacing expression.  To their shock, the players realize these faces are animated and move.  Eyes watch them, mouths open and close.  The entire thing moves faster upon the water than it should, as if the river itself pushes it along.  This is in fact the case.  Zola Fel has an old bond with the giants, and both protects and speeds the cradle on its way.

Though the player characters will have no reason to do so, attacking the cradle has a difficulty of Nearly Impossible (!).  It will fight back belching fire from the dragon prow and shooting bolts of fire and lightning from the eyes of the wooden faces.

The river priests finish their chanting and the cradle suddenly slows.  The expressions on the great wooden faces—which were threatening before—now look peaceful.  Garrath gives the order to board.  It is safe now.  Once the defenders are on deck, the river priests will reactivate the cradle’s magical protections.

While the cradle is calmed, getting aboard the cradle has a Moderate difficulty.  Player characters can either climb the sides with grapples and ropes, or use magic.  Once everyone is aboard, the Trolls rush below decks and Garrath signals the priests to reawaken the cradle’s defenses.  This is done just in time.  A large number of mercenary Impala riders are approaching rapidly from the opposite bank.

The deck is massive.  Thirty-five men could lay down head to toe in a line from bow to stern, and fifteen could lay out from port to starboard.  Animated wooden statues move around it, apparently at random.  They seem to form a sort of crew.  In the center of the deck there is a great cloth.  Peeling this back reveals a window set into the deck, looking straight down at its precious cargo.

The giant baby is 10 meters long and female.  She is painfully beautiful to look upon, so much so that it takes effort to look away.  She looks like a child of ten months or so, and is currently asleep, sucking her thumb.  At her head is a titanic sow, whose full breasts provide the child with milk.

There is little time to stare in wonder, however.  With the Impala Rider mercenaries following the ship on one bank, a cry goes out from the look-out stationed on the bow.  Riding fast from the direction of Pavis are the Lunar Antelope Lancers, at least 300 strong.  

The cradle is now passing the small hamlet of Bullford, 25 km northwest of Pavis.  From the small cluster of buildings emerge even more mercenaries, mostly Pavisite.  With the blare of horns and a chorus of shouts and battle cries, all three enemy forces converge of the cradle and commence their attack.

• Unless you are using the Pass/Fail system, the difficulty here should be High (Base +6).  This battle is an Extended Contest.
• The cradle defends itself.  Once the assault begins the dragon prow breathes forth streams of flame.  The wooden faces howl obscenities and curses in the giant tongue, their eyes firing bolts of fire and doom on those who dare profane the cradle.  
• The player characters first contend with arrows and javelins being hurled at them, then with opponents who manage to get aboard through luck or magic.  These boarders must be killed or driven off.  
• This conflict is primarily a physical one; the Lunars are saving their magics for the second assault.                  

If the characters lose this battle, they have the option of abandoning the cradle or retreating below decks.  If the latter option is taken, see the story Beat at the beginning of Act Two below.

ACT TWO: THE SECOND ASSAULT

Beat:  In the wake of the battle, the player characters have the opportunity to go below decks if they wish.  They will find a warren of smooth tunnels bored through the walls of the cradle, roughly man-sized.  These allow the animated wooden statues who maintain the ship the ability to move around.  There are also treasure vaults; a room filled with maps and scrolls, another with magical crystals.  Again, Garrath was insistent none of this was to be touched.

The battle awoke the infant, and it is wailing.  In response, the wooden statues tear open mouths in their smooth, featureless faces and begin singing lullabies.  Many of the warriors aboard join in, compelled by some ancient magic.  The lullaby is potent…those who hear it—including the player characters—feel youth and vigor flow through them.  Battle fatigue is washed away and wounds are healed.  Some might even have spontaneous visions of the future…     

Midpoint/The Big Twist:  There is little time to bask in these miracles.  Within the hour horns and calls from the deck summon the defenders.  

The cradle is in sight of the Rubble’s great walls, but between it and the city at least 2000 Lunar troops have assembled.  Foot soldiers are lined up in neat ranks, archers ready behind them.  Worse…on both sides of the river elevated wooden platforms have been raised.  Standing atop both of these are red-robed Lunar magicians from the College of Magic.  Dozens have been assembled.  Hovering over their heads, one on each side of the river, is a great sphere of crimson light.  Great chains of magical force hang between these spheres, seemingly blocking passage further downriver.  In actuality, as the cradle passes between the spheres, the chains will pass harmlessly through the cradle…stripping it of all magical defenses.

• This is the big, epic battle.  It is an Extended Contest.  Assume a Very High (Base + Mastery) difficulty.
• This time there is a great deal more magic.  Lunes are summoned and unleashed, bolts of magical force fire from the spheres and smash against the walls of the cradle.  Arrows rain upon the deck.
• The real purpose of the attack though is to distract the defenders from the real obstacle (see below) and to strip the vessel of its protections.
• The player characters may decide to attack the platforms with the magicians.  If they can do this, it is possible to avert the disaster below…  

Obstacle/Disaster:  As the chains strip the vessel of its magic, the flames go out in the dragon’s jaws and the faces on the side of the cradle go lifeless and inert.  The baby starts howling in terror.  With a wrenching lurch, all forward motion will halt as the Lunars reveal their true plan.  Across the river they have erected a wall of stones, wagons, crates, and silt, a barricade to beach the cradle.  When this happens they will swarm aboard en masse, forcing the player characters to either abandon ship or flee below decks…

THIS IS THE END OF PART ONE.  IN LIEU OF A THIRD ACT THE STORY CONTINUES IN PART  2.

AFTER PLAY REPORT

IN RPGS things seldom go as planned, and history was rewritten a bit here.

The players were initially forced below decks during the final battle, but their the Nymph Nemolayope granted them a vision of the blockade and the true threat the chain posed.  They decided to take the battle to the magicians, using Motion magic to teleport from the ship behind enemy lines with several other defenders.  

Kalliva shows a contingent of Dragonewt mercenaries the mark on her hand, and these enigmatic creatures turn on the Lunars and fight with the defenders.  Meanwhile Leika’s spirit magics bring the platforms down and the Zola Fel priests cause the river to swell, smashing the blockade.  All of this was the result of clever tactics and good luck with the dice.  As a result, the cradle is not halted or stripped of its protections, and continues its journey downriver unmolested.  The episode ends, however, with the player characters on the riverbank fighting for their lives against the Lunar forces.

More disturbingly, however, Beralor’s true father, the Eurmali Kheladon Blue-Eye, appears to him in the heat of the battle and convinces him to try and sway the Broo forces to their side.  He pulls this off, accessing again the darker, Tricksters streak in his nature.  

The story continues in Episode Two, where as a consequence of the events here, we deviate quite a bit from the original.  Stay tuned.

YOUR GLORANTHA WILL VARY...SO DOES THEIRS

“...consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

IT IS A MAXIM that anyone who plays RuneQuest, HeroQuest, or 13th Age Glorantha knows; Your Glorantha Will Vary.  On one hand this is a natural and necessary component of a setting as deep, developed, and complex as Glorantha.  Permission has to be given to players and gamemasters--especially those new to the setting--to deviate from canon.  Asking anyone to commit to memory the 800+ page Guide to Glorantha, the Glorantha Sourcebook, and the entirety of the Stafford Library, and to stay strictly within the bounds of that material, is absurd.  

On the other hand, it isn't just about contradicting Glorantha...Glorantha consistently contradicts itself.  It has to.   It must.  If it didn't, it would no longer be a believable setting.  It would be plastic.  A cartoon. 

"Canon" refers to doctrines imposed by ecclesiastical authority; in its original meaning it is all about telling you what you must do and think.  It's the mental equivalent of a straightjacket.  Modern usage broadens the word somewhat, especially when applied to the science fiction and fantasy genres. The idea here is that enforced "consistency" makes fictional settings more realistic.  Of course nothing could be farther from the truth.

Expecting a character should always behave exactly the same way he or she has in the past is to assume people can never surprise you, that they are not complex, irrational, or impulsive.  Predictability is comforting, but hardly realistic.  Assuming history is correct merely demonstrates an ignorance of it.  It shifts and gets rewritten generationally the same way a beach is reshaped by the tides.  And assigning uniformity to a culture, language, or religion has been tried and has always failed.  Regional variations are the norm and always reassert themselves.  "Truth," the titular character in Mike Carrey's Lucifer asserts, "is a local phenomenon, like a microclimate."

Expecting reality to be consistent is a very modern Western concept, one shaped first by institutional monotheism and later by the scientific revolution. Natural law behaves consistently, but somehow this conned us into thinking you can use the same standards used by the physical sciences to the social.  We fell in love with our power to impose definitions, and then talked ourselves into believing they meant anything.  It even bled into how we tell stories.  In the days of oral traditions, stories were fluid, local, and mercurial.  They changed depending on who told them and to whom they were told.  Now we fix them on the written page and expect them to stay there like insects in amber.  Thus in the West we now expect the Iliad, not an Iliad.  It's a cultural conceit that confounded European scholars trying to translate the Mahabharata, because there is no such thing as a single definitive one.

None of these are illusions that Gloranthans labor under.  Your Glorantha Will Vary, but theirs does too.  It is a mistake coming at Orlanth as if he is the same Orlanth in every clan, every shrine, every region.  We have to assume the cult we see in the rules books is A) specific to Dragon Pass and B) a generalization.  The fact that we want to nail him down to a few-page-long definition doesn't mean that Gloranthans do.  The Greeks understood, for example, that Zeus Georgos, a farming deity, Zeus Agoreaus, who looked over the marketplace and ensured fair trade, and Zeus Tallaios--a sun god--were all masks of the same being.  We expect Zeus to be the same Zeus everywhere because centuries of an institutional church made us think gods must be consistent.  Again, Bronze Age peoples (like Gloranthans) knew better.

Thus, while players for years have struggled with the Yelmalio/Elmal business, but it is unlikely that their player characters would in any way be confounded by this.  Yelmalio, Elmal, Lightfore, Antirius, and Kargzant would all be recognized by a world traveller with little or no comment as aspects of same beings.  Do they differ?  Grant different magics?  So what?  Agoreaus would have granted trade magics and Tallaios solar ones, but both were Zeus.

In fact, it is probably a good idea for gamemasters to make cults and gods different from region to region.  You can probably expect relative uniformity among the Orlanth cult in Sartar, for example, because that is one of the first orders of business Sartar would have attended to founding his kingdom.  Part of the magic is establishing a nation would be to standardize the language and religion alongside building roads and making laws.  Yet the Orlanth worshipped in Old Trash should be different.  The Orlanth worshipped in Esrolia even more so.  And the Orlanth worshipped in Fronela strikingly so.  If we think of the Orlanthi in terms of the Indo-Europeans, for example, the Orlanth of Sartar--a sophisticated urban culture on the southern coast of the continent--might look a bit like Indra, depicted with four arms and a vajra.  The Orlanth of Fronela, positioned in the frozen northwest of the continent, might look more like Thor, with two arms and a hammer.  The Orlanth of Ralios might then resemble Zeus.  The point here, of course, is that trying to define the Orlanthi as Indian or as Norse or as Greek is a fool's errand.  Different Orlanthi would likely resemble all three.  Their Glorantha varies.  And an Orlanthi from Dragon Pass visiting Ralios would most certainly recognize Orlanth, no matter what his local iconography or name might be.  We've seen ancient peoples do this in the way the Greeks recognized Thoth as Hermes or the Romans saw Athena as Minerva.

It isn't just that Your Glorantha Will Vary, it is that it does vary and should vary.  This is what makes it believable.  It should be inconsistent and complex and confusing, because that is what the real world is.  The more we nail down definitions the closer we get to Deities & Demigods, where divinities end up mere collections of stats.  YGWV doesn't just give you permission to deviate, to forget things, to make mistakes, it makes your game a richer experience.  

  

THE MANSIONS OF SILENCE, OR, WHY DO THE TRUE DRAGONS GO?

In the midst of Silence, there was in me spoken a secret Word.

But where is this Silence?  Where is the place where the Word  is spoken?

Meister Eckhart 

There are two paths: one leads to servitude, the other to Liberation.  Their principles are “I am this” and “I am not this.”  Man is bonded by the former and liberated by the latter.

Kulārṇava Tantra

PRELUDE: TRADITIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 

RID YOURSELF right now of the modern notion of consciousness. If you proceed viewing consciousness as mere electrical activity in the matter of your brain, you aren’t entering into the spirit of things.  Depending on your point of view, it may or may not be true; in Glorantha, however, it isn’t.  

I am going to kick off the discussion then by quoting a lengthy passage written by my mentor, Seyyed Hossein Nasr.  Bear in mind he would scold me for being lazy, but this is a blog, not an academic paper, and he sets the table nicely for us;

When we turn to the sacred scriptures of various religions, we discover that in every case the origin of the cosmos and of man is identified as a Reality which is conscious and in fact constitutes con­sciousness understood on the highest level as absolute Consciousness, which is transcendent and yet the source of all consciousness in the cosmic realm including our own. Furthermore the “in the beginning” is understood not only as belonging to the past but also to the present moment which is the eternal now. That is why “in the beginning” must also be understood as “in principle” as the Latin translation of the opening verse of the Gospel of John asserts, “in principia erat verbum.” Whether we speak of Allah who commands things to be and they are, or the Tao, or the Word by which all things were made, or Brahman, we are speaking of Consciousness of an ever-living and present and this truth is made especially explicit in Hinduism where the principial Reality which is the source of all things is described as at once Being, Consciousness and Ecstasy. Nor is this unanimity of vision of the Origin of all things as identified with consciousness confined to sacred scriptures. Both Oriental and traditional Western philosophers speak of the same truth. The tò Agathon of Plato is not only the Supreme Good but also supreme awareness of the Good, and nous or intellect, so central to Greek philosophy, is of course inseparable from consciousness. Islamic philosophers consider being to be inseparable from knowledge and therefore awareness, and consider cosmic levels of existence also to be levels of knowledge and awareness. As for Hin­duism, in its worldview the existence of a thing, even a rock, is also a state of consciousness.  (Nasr, “In the Beginning was Consciousness”)

Nasr is telling us then that from the Traditional viewpoint, we might view all of existence as a Mind and everything that exists as thoughts within it.  Further, our own consciousness is a Microcosmic reflection of this Macrocosmic Consciousness.  This has to be made clear at the onset, if we are to understand how a change in consciousness could correspond to a change in being.  If we are to understand how Gloranthan Dragonewts change and evolve as their consciousness changes, then we need to start here.

Imagine the Universe as mind and all the rest as narrative.  Then we can begin.

THE DRAGONS OF EARTH

FIRST LET US DRAW a line between the Dragon of myth and the dragon of folklore.  No; it was not a mistake that only one of those was capitalized.

The folkloric dragon--and I am going to lump into this category the quasi "historical" dragons reported by the likes of Herodotus, Flavius Philostratus, and Claudius Aelianus--is a strictly local phenomenon.  It is essentially a beast, albeit a big one, and exists mainly for pious knights or virgin martyrs like Saint Margaret of Antioch to slay.  There is often a religious component to this.  Slaying the dragon is a metaphor for conversion (though for the Greeks and Romans it was more a case of "civilizing" than converting, as dragons invariably inhabited untamed regions).  This is not simply a Western conceit however; here in Japan, an hour south from where I write, villagers once sacrificed maidens to the dragon of Enoshima until a wandering monk converted it to Buddhism.  After that, it was the island’s beneficent patron.

The mythological Dragon is an altogether different creature; Níðhöggr is an existential threat that gnaws at the roots of the World Tree.  Jörmungandr encircles creation.  Marduk slays Tiamat and from her fashions the entire universe.  Vritra swallows all the waters of the world until Indra kills it and releases them.  Apep is the a threat to the entire cosmic order, and Sìhǎi Lóngwáng—the “Dragon King”—is the Lord of all Waters in four forms (the Azure, Red, Black, and White Dragons of China).  These are not convenient monsters for a knight errant to prove their mettle against, they embody deeper forces, universal things.  If they are fought they are fought by gods, because their power and status is like unto divinity.

A subset of the mythological Dragon deserves special attention.  In myths found from India to Scandinavia the story is oft repeated of a Dragon—or serpent—and a Tree.  Usually there is also a Woman, or Women, involved as well.  This is a story about consciousness, or more specifically, about transforming consciousness.  In it, the Hero comes to the Dragon and the Tree to be changed from one state of being to the next.

In northern Europe it is Odin.  The Tree is Yggdrasil, the Women are the Norns, the Dragon is Níðhöggr.  Odin hangs himself on the Tree for nine days and nights to gain possession of the Runes.  In Greece it is Jason.  The Tree is in Colchis, and holds in its branches the Golden Fleece (χρυσόμαλλον δέρας).  The Women is Medea.  The Dragon guards the Tree.  Jason enlists Medea’s aid to bewitch the Dragon and steal the Fleece, an act which transforms him into a King.  Also in Greece we find Herakles, who goes to the Garden of the Hesperides where stands a Tree holding the apples of immortality.  Here the Dragon guarding it is Ladon, and the Women are the Nymphs to whom the garden belongs (Ladon, interestingly, is the Greek name for the Canaanite Dragon Lotan, whom the Hebrews called Leviathan).

There are scores of other versions, but the one most familiar to us is related in the Book of Genesis.  It is also the most unusual.  While the other versions of the tale have the Hero claiming victory and ascending to a higher state, Adam comes to the Tree and the Dragon (here a serpent) and is seduced by the Woman into descending and losing his immortality.  The reasons for this reversal are unclear, except perhaps to underscore the fact that the Hebrew God alone dispenses life, death, and immortality.  It cannot be won, only given.  

There is more to be said on stories of this type, but we are here to discuss Glorantha, not terrestrial mythology.  Those interested should look here for a fuller discussion of the Dragon and the Tree.  For our purposes here, we need only sum up the following points;

1. Dragons can be divided roughly into folkloric and mythic varieties.  The former are local phenomena, while the latter are cosmic in scope.  
2. The cosmic variety of Dragons are often associated with transformative myths, in which those approaching them find their consciousness and/or state of being altered in some way.         

THE DRAGONS OF GLORANTHA

GLORANTHA CONTAINS both categories of dragon mentioned above--as well as a third we will arrive at shortly.  It calls the dragon of folklore a "Dream Dragon," and the mythic Dragon a "True Dragon,” and connects the two in a fascinating new way.  The True Dragon is a titanic thing, several kilometers in length.  Equal in power to a god, they remain unbound by the Compromise that prevents Glorantha’s deities from operating freely in the mortal world.  They are, however, completely disinterested in the world.  Most True Dragons have left Glorantha, passing beyond the mortal world and the Gods Age, into the Void.  Those who remain seem to do so solely to keep an eye on their egg nests, where new dragons are bred.  They sleep, time passing all around them, eventually becoming part of the landscape.  Yet while they sleep...they dream.

The dreams of Dragons can be terrible things.  The negative aspects they have transcended—avarice, hunger, rage, greed—manifest as physical entities.  These are more the kind of dragons we think of...hoarding treasures, burning villages, kidnapping maidens.  They are far smaller than True Dragons, and infinitely less powerful, but still among the most dangerous entities a Gloranthan might encounter.  Because the sleep of True Dragons can last millennia, these Dream Dragons can ravage for centuries.  

The word “transcended” in the previous paragraph brings us to the third type of dragon in Glorantha.  We are speaking now of the immature dragons, dragons that have not yet attained True Dragon status.  They form a race called Dragonewts.

Dragonewts “hatch” from carefully guarded egg nests.  Once the occupant leaves the egg, the empty vessel then “heals” and waits to be used again.  For Dragonewts enjoy a form of serial immortality; if the egg’s former occupant is killed or dies, its spirit returns to the same egg and is reborn again.  This happens countless times, as the immature Dragon evolves through four stages or forms.  The first three are roughly humanoid, in both size and shape.  The fourth stage less so.  By adhering to codes of “Right Action,” and practicing increased detachment from the world, the Dragonewt may eventually evolve though these stages into True Dragon form.  Having been liberated from the world, it then leaves it for the Void.  To the Dragons, the material world is an Illusion to be Liberated from.  Born into the Web of Time, they spend countless lifetimes trying to disentangle themselves from it.

While the Dragons do not seem the embrace the first Noble Truth of duḥkha (“life is suffering”), they do seem remarkably “Buddhist.”  They reincarnate endlessly and seek liberation from this cycle of rebirth; attaining True Dragon status (buddhahood) they leave the world for the Void (nirvana).  Some remain behind to help others (boddhisatvas).  They practice detachment and the concept of Right Action.  I could continue—and will later—but for now it is enough to draw the reader’s attention to the parallels.  

Now, the Draconic quest for “liberation,” and the change in consciousness and state that it brings, closely mirrors Illumination.  In fact, speaking with True Dragons can induce a “transformative mental and spiritual state called draconic consciousness” in other species—such as humans—as well (HeroQuest Glorantha, p. 206) that is for all intents and purposes identical to Nysalorean Illumination and the Sevening path taught by the Red Goddess.  In Kralorela—a human nation ruled by a True Dragon—draconic mysticism is an established and widely practiced path to enlightenment, and the Lunar Empire and Kralorela mirror each other in intriguing ways.  Both have a wide variety of religions and spiritual paths, but with the overlay of a mysticism endorsed and embodied in the Imperial personage above all of these.  

And yet, there is a crucial distinction between Illumination (Nysalorean or Red Goddess) and Draconic Consciousness, and a puzzle that we need to address before we can claim to understand the relationship between the two.  The heart of it is this; in Illumination there is the “taint” of Chaos, and further, an imbalance that seems to necessitate the rise of a counterbalance.  Nysalor’s presence in the world necessitated the appearance of Arkat.  The Red Goddess’s appearance in the world necessitated the rise of Argrath.  Yet Chaos does not seem to cling to Draconic Mysticism in the same way, nor does the presence of a True Dragon (such as the Kralorelan Emperor Godunya) seem to trigger the rise of a counterbalance to fight it.  Illumination and Draconic Consciousness seem fundamentally the same, and yet the former demonstrates and instability that doesn’t plague the latter.  We need to ask ourselves “why?”

The answer, appropriately, lies in a question.  Why do True Dragons leave the world?

DRACONIC MYSTICISM

IN OUR discussion of Illumination, we referenced the Four Worlds system present in terrestrial mystical schools like Kabbalah.  A fuller discussion is there in the previous essay, but to summarize, this model has existence originate from Nothingness through a series of descending levels.  

The highest level is simultaneously Nothing and thus potentially Everything.  Imagine a blank sheet of paper.  “Nothing” is on it.  And yet that means it could become a love letter, a suicide note, a laundry list, a sermon, math homework, a drawing, or just doodles.  In that emptiness is contained infinite possibility.  In Glorantha this is Primal Chaos.

From this emerges basic and fundamental principles, like numbers or letters of an alphabet.  In Gloranthan terms, the Runes.

These fundamental principles then combine and interact in infinite combinations.  Think of using the letters of the alphabet to write with, or numbers to perform calculations.  This level in Glorantha is the Gods Age.

The final result—the written story, the solved calculation—is the material world, or in Glorantha the mortal world inside of Time.

Now, there is a stunning uniformity in the myth structures of Glorantha that we do not necessarily find in those of our world.  This might be the result of God Learner meddling, or Stafford’s own sense of symmetry.  In the model above, the Runes emerge from Chaos, the Runes combine and interact, and the world is created.  But the Dragons mirror this in their own Mysticism.

Their system begins with Ouroboros, who is essentially the embodiment of the Void, as it contains every possibility within it.  Again, I urge the reader to consider the concept of Zero (which seems apt here as Ouroboros like Zero is a circle).  Zero is simultaneously Nothing and Infinity, as all numbers and their opposites are contained within it (0 = n + -n).

From this highest level emerge the Cosmic and Ancestral Dragons, with occupy a position in Draconic teachings not unlike the Runes. Below them are the True Dragons, who like the occupants of the Gods Age remain timeless, followed by the Dream Dragons which exist in, and are bound by, Time.  Again we see here a pattern of the Infinite becoming the Cosmic, the Cosmic becoming the Local, and the Local becoming the Individual.

Yet a striking difference in the two models stands out here.  In the broader Gloranthan myth cycle, the pattern is separation.  The Runes separate from Chaos, in some cases violently.  Darkness, for example, said by many to be the first Rune to emerge, is renowned for its Chaos-fighting powers primarily because it was the first to fight its way free.  This pattern of separation echoes again and again in the Gods Age, as deity turns against deity and eventually against Chaos.  The ultimate separation occurs between the Gods Age and the mortal world of Time.  The assumption here is that the four levels of reality we outlined really exist and are distinct from each other; Orlanth has the Air, Movement, and Mastery Runes, but he is a distinct entity from them.  A follower of Orlanth can embrace his powers, but he is not identical with Orlanth.

The Draconic model is entirely different.  There is a chain of descent into the world, but never a separation.  At each level of reality there is a Dragon, a single race that forms a continuity back to the Infinite.  In a sense, every Dragonewt is already a True Dragon and already Ouroboros.  Any appearance otherwise is the result of Illusion.  Indeed, all of reality is itself an Illusion, because there is really only Ouroboros, only the Void.  All of the levels below Ouroboros are essentially “unreal.”  Thus while the Illuminate achieves a higher state of consciousness by uniting opposing forces in herself, the Draconic mystic dismisses the very existence of those opposing forces.  There is no separation and never was. The Illuminate performs an operation that looks like n + -n = 0 to get back to Primordial reality, while the Draconic mystic realizes that nothing on the left side of the equal sign was ever real and we never left Primordial reality.

Stafford intentionally or accidentally (I suspect the former) mirrored in Illumination and Draconic Mysticism the terrestrial differences between liberation in the Hindu tradition (specifically Advaita Vedanta) and in the Buddhist tradition (specifically the older Theravada tradition).  

Advaita means “non dual” (and is a classic demonstration of Indo-European languages at work; “a” being a common prefix for “not” in English—atypical, asymmetrical—and “dva” looking suspiciously like the English “two” or “duo”).  Originated by one of the Indian subcontinent’s most famous religious philosophers, Shankara (788-820 CE), it has its roots in the much older Upanishads (rooted in the late Bronze Age).  Basically, in a gross over-simplification, the goal of Advaita is to overcome duality and realize that individual consciousness (atman) is the same as Cosmic Consciousness (Brahman).  The individual moves from “I am myself” to simply “I am.”  All of reality becomes a part of him. 

The Theravada tradition takes a much different approach.  Instead of identifying oneself with the All, it instead tasks the practitioner with embracing the concept of “I am not.”  It’s not embracing Oneness, but rather Nothingness.  Advaita wants you to realize that your individuality is an Illusion; you are in fact the Supreme Self.    Your consciousness is identical with the Consciousness from which the universe originates.  Theravada, on the other hand, pushes things further; it wants you to understand that Self is an Illusion as well.  From Therevada’s point of view, the Self cannot be “Supreme” on the simple grounds that if Self exists, it logically suggests a co-equal and opposite Not Self exists.  “I am this” automatically implies “I am not that.”  Clinging to the notion of a Self is a form of attachment.  Liberation means letting go of everything.      

Here we reach the dilemma both Nysalor and the Red Goddess faced.  Both tried to become the All.  They believed they could reach the highest level of reality by embracing everything, including Chaos.  Yet despite preaching a doctrine of liberation, neither was able to “let go” of the world. Both ruled governments and attempted to expand their hold over more and more of the world.  Both proselytized.  Both involved themselves in politics.  Both had enemies.  The Red Goddess, a particularly egregious offender, had the audacity to think she could be both Life and Death, Chaos and Order, and that cyclicity was some sort of solution to the problem of containing contradictions.  Yet in her, these polar forces remain polar.  She cannot possibly reconcile the opposites within her so long as she continues to acknowledge their individual essence.  So long as Life is Life and Death is Death, they always remain opposites.  You have failed to unite them.

The Dragons, by contrast, let go of everything.  Reaching the highest levels of consciousness, they depart Glorantha altogether for the Void.  To their minds, you cannot free yourself from the world by grasping it harder and harder.  And you cannot reach a timeless and perfect state by cycling Life and Death in yourself.  You need to recognize that cycles, and Life, and Death...are delusions.  They do not exist.  To be free of the world you must leave it behind.

Nysalor and the Red Goddess, by contrast, reaching up into ultimate reality, got right back down into the muck.

It is this contradiction, this paradox, that doomed both the Red Goddess and Nysalor.  You cannot remain “in” the world and still be Nothing.  Unable to overcome the most basic classification of subject and object, their presence in Glorantha necessitates the existence of an opposite to balance the equation (everything must be Zero, so if you insist on being n there has to be a -n.  They created Arkat and Argrath, for the same reasons that the Gods War happened.  The minute minute you become an action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction.

Which is why, of course, True Dragons leave the world.  If you want to attain the highest level of existence, you cannot cling to the lowest.

I suspect it also explains the existence of Dream Dragons.  Those few True Dragons who stay in the world seem to do as little as possible.  Most simply sleep.  Again, they are minimizing the counterbalancing forces their presence causes by remaining uninvolved.  Yet such a presence cannot be ignored completely, and the sleeping True Dragons create their own opposites, the Dream Dragons that embody all of the qualities the True Dragon has purged from itself.  Yet Dream Dragons do not trouble True Dragons the same way Arkat troubled Nyslaor because the sleeping True Dragon remains detached from the world.  The world does not push back against the True Dragon, because the True Dragon is barely pushing at all.  This is not simply very Buddhist, it is very Taoist as well.  

CONCLUSIONS 

SO WHERE does this leave us, fellow travelers?

For starters, I think we need to recognize Illumination as an inferior form of Draconic Consciousness.  Sneaking off a draft of this essay to Jeff Richard he shared with me his thoughts on Argrath as an Illuminate who in the end achieves Draconic Consciousness, which I have to agree with.  Argrath exists in opposition his entire life; he is defined by his antagonism to the Red Moon and her manifestations.  Yet in his travels and trials he becomes more.  He reaches Zero by defeating the object of his hate and changing the world in the process.  The end of the Third Age comes when n and -n cancel each other out…just as the First Age did.

If you are running Illuminated characters at your table, you might wish to consider this.  Is their Illumination Nysalorean?  Lunar?  If so, feel free to give them a counterbalance, and make it stronger the more they pervert their Illumination to interfere in the mundane world.  If their Illumination is Draconic…they should not wish to interfere in the world.  Power, empires, proselytizing…these have no meaning to them.  If you have truly been liberated, you have no need to remain in the mud of the world.

Jeff also pointed out to me that from the Draconic point of view, Truth and Illusion are the same.  He is right, of course…but Life and Death are also the same, as well as Disorder and Harmony, Luck and Fate, etc.  The Draconic embrace of Zero necessitates this, as does in a sense simple logic.  Hot and Cold are both temperature.  Up and Down are both direction.  They seem opposite but are in fact Yin and Yang.  Categories of the same thing.

Hopefully this has given you something to chew on.  Let me know your thoughts.