Ancestor Worship among Theists

[Rurik]

Many Theists incorporate some form of ancestor worship.

First off, in a gloranthan metaphysical sense, do the 'spirits' of dead theists go to the god plane, and so are they more technically daimones, or are they in fact spirits from the spirit plane?

Secondly, in game terms, if theist ancestors are daimones, could the Ancestor Worship spirit practice rules be used with them, or should there be divine spells for interacting with them?

I am a bit hazy on the relationship between spirit plane and god plane among some of the crossover cults (by that I mean the hybrid divine/spirit cults). Can in some instances spirit magic actually be the worship of beings from the God plane?

I'll leave sorcery out this (for the moment at least).

 

[simonh]

First off, in a gloranthan metaphysical sense, do the 'spirits' of dead theists go to the god plane, and so are they more technically daimones, or are they in fact spirits from the spirit plane?

They go to the Underworld, which is a mixed world in a similar way to the middle world. From there they, or part of them, will normally reincarnate into the middle world at some point.

I think the only ancestors you will find in the God Plane will be ones that achieved immortality, so heroes and the like and yes I think they'd technically be daimones now.


Simon Hibbs

 

[Voriof]

Many Theists incorporate some form of ancestor worship.

First off, in a gloranthan metaphysical sense, do the 'spirits' of dead theists go to the god plane, and so are they more technically daimones, or are they in fact spirits from the spirit plane?

Very weak daimones. Eventually they reincarnate. Only those who have achieved some measure of worship and imortality retain their individuality over long periods.

Secondly, in game terms, if theist ancestors are daimones, could the Ancestor Worship spirit practice rules be used with them, or should there be divine spells for interacting with them?

Might allow the rune spells. Might make up divine spell equivalents. I would go with someting a bit higher powered because of the cost... remember, divine magic IS supposed to be more powerful due to the up-front costs and the lack of reusability (i.e. you can't keep casting it as long as your magic points hold out)

I am a bit hazy on the relationship between spirit plane and god plane among some of the crossover cults (by that I mean the hybrid divine/spirit cults). Can in some instances spirit magic actually be the worship of beings from the God plane?

All the various Otherworlds are completely indepenent of each other. They only 'touch' at the Hero Plane and the Underworld. There are no 'magic doorways' between them that do not pass through these along the way.

I'll leave sorcery out this (for the moment at least).

Similar rules apply. But someone absorbed into Solace cannot be contacted (or do they just cease to exist, since sorcerers have no souls as the Orlanthi claim)

Jeff

 

[Rurik]

So while in the underworld then are the 'spirits' of the deceased already spirits/daimones or are they something else (i.e. just dead souls)?

Does Ancestor Worship contact the underworld or the spirit plane or either?

Orlanthi revere their ancestors, is there a cult or sub cult specifically for communication with a clan or bloodline's ancestors? I kind of picture it as a sort of shamanic tradition particular to that clan or bloodline - but could be very off there. Has this ever been covered?

Though I have some of the HeroWars/Quest books I never really played the game and so am not as up on the Gloranthan otherworlds as I could be.

 

[StephenT]

Summarising the explanation of Orlanthi belief from 'Thunder Rebels':

When you die, you travel through the Underworld to the Court of Silence. The journey takes 7 days, during which time you gradually lose your individual memories and personality. (This is why Chalana Arroy's resurrection magic has a 7-day time limit).

In the Court of Silence you are judged by Havan Vor, who was once Grandfather Mortal. If you were a loyal worshipper of your god, he will speak in your defence before the judge. Havan Vor will then determine which afterlife to send you to.

Assuming you're judged worthy of going to the afterlife with your god, you become one of his followers - essentially, a very minor daimon. A heroquestor visiting Orlanth's mead-hall would recognise a group of his ancestors sitting on the benches singing, eating and drinking, and generally having a good time - but he wouldn't be able to pick out specific people, because they lost their individual identities in the Underworld. He'd just know that they were family. Worship and sacrifices given to the god also help to strengthen the ancestors.

Secondly, most Orlanthi clans and bloodlines also keep a small shrine to their ancestors, and make sacrifices to them. This isn't really an organised cult, it's just something 'everybody' does. On special occasions, the ancestors may manifest to offer warnings or advice (or complain about how ungrateful youngsters are these days, and how they never listen to their elders, and how things were so much better when they were alive).

After an indeterminate period of reward in the afterlife, the soul reincarnates into a new body. I assume that souls who are found wanting by Havan Vor, and don't go to the Godplane, instead wander miserably about the Underworld until they too reincarnate - unless they're captured by some evil god for torment.

 

[simonh]

After an indeterminate period of reward in the afterlife, the soul reincarnates into a new body. I assume that souls who are found wanting by Havan Vor, and don't go to the Godplane, instead wander miserably about the Underworld until they too reincarnate - unless they're captured by some evil god for torment.

All excellent stuff, except that I don't think even virtuous souls actually go to the God Plane to await reincarnation, they go to areas of the Underworld appropriate to their religion. They are still part of the cycle of life and death and have not escaped it to the immortal, eternal lands of the gods on the God Plane. Well, IMHO.

Simon Hibbs

 

[soltakss]

In my opinion, there are two types of Ancestor Worship. First, there is the worship of "The Ancestors" which is a generalised thing where you honour all the ancestors of your clan and which is done by many different people and is the source of the Praxian Ancestor Units of Nomad Gods or the clouds of ancestors summoned by Sheng Seeleris when he trashes the Lunars in the Hero Wars. The second type of Ancestor Worship is the worship of specific ancestors and this allows the summoning of specific named ancestors using Daka Fal-type spells, this happens more rarely and is done by ancestor worshipping people.

I asked a question on the Gloranthan Digest about ancestor worship and basically, people who worship their ancestors in the second way do so in a specific ancestor worship cult that may differ from place to place or even family to family. So, Yelmic Dara Happans worship their ancestors in a Hero Subcult of Yelm that provides access to their ancestors in a divine cult way, Praxians worship through Daka Fal, Baboons through Grandfather Baboon, Orlanthi through Grandfather Mortal or through specialised Family cults, trolls access their ancestors through Kyger Litor as prime ancestor and so on.

I wouldn't get too hung up over Theistic/Animist ancestors as those are game conventions, in my opinion. When you die in Glorantha, you go to the Halls of the Dead where you are judged by the Judges, which mnost cultures believe to be Daka Fal, but others are involved as well. Then you go to the Paradise/Hell of your particular religion. So, good trolls go to Wonderhome where they have all they can eat, bad trolls go to a Purning Place in the Sky where they burn forever. Humakti go to Sword Hall in Hell, Babeester Gori go to Axe Hall, I think, in Hell and so on.

You pull ancestors back to the normal world via ancestor summoning spells. They may be Theistic Divine Spells or they may be Animistic Runemagic, but they have the same effect. A spirit is summoned and can be asked to help. The old Daka Fal writeups gave spells to summon ancestors for a while, spells to gift ancestors with spells or POW, spells to learn spells from ancestors and spells to keep ancestors present permanently. Other ancestor cults might have different spells.

As to what spells they retain, I am now of the opinion that unless you worship particular specific ancestors, they tend to blur into the mass of ancestors, effectively becoming indistinguishable from the other ancestors and losing their sense of identity. Only once they have done this can they be reincarnated into another form, for those cultures/cults that support reincarnation. If you worship those individual ancestors and name them each time you worship them, you force them to retain their identity, skills and spells, and stop them from being reincarnated. So, you might have a shrine to your ancestors and have a Book of Our Clan that has a list of ancestors that are read out in every worship ceremony, or you might recite your ancestors from memory or might pick up small idols or figures representing each ancestor "Who is this?" "That's your Uncle Bob who fought the Trolls." This keeps them fresh and available as summonable ancestors.

I don't think all cultures have reincarnation. Trolls certainly do, Earth Cults do, as do Aldryami and Praxians. Pentians might, Dara Happans probably don't and I don't know about Orlanthi/Heortlings/Whatever they are called these days.

Some other points, ancestor worship doesn't just apply to direct ancestors, but to your extended family that might includes aunts and uncles, cousins and even neices and nephews, going back for generations. Each clan has its own way of ensuring that the dead can be included as ancestors. Some cultures cremate their dead and put some ash into a pot, others keep certain body parts as fetishes, others have a cult of the dead where they keep the corpses in necropolises, others simply have tokens that they keep or can write the names of the dead in a Book of the Dead. It may be that if some body part is not recovered or the correct funeral rites are not completed then the deceased does not get included in the group of ancestors that can be summoned.

Anyway, that's all in my opinion and may well not be the case in other people's games.

 

[Rurik]

Thanks for the replies.

Having been an almost exclusive RQ'er I am not as up on the latest developments in Gloranthan Otherworlds. When last I played heavily spirits were pretty much just spirits all around. Ghosts and ancestors and the like were all just spirits.

What then are souls in the underworld before they go to their respective otherword? When a ghost is summoned (or manifests) for example does it always come from the spirit plane, or could it in fact come from the god plane? What are say Orlanthi Ancestors that manifest in the mundane world?

Thanks again.

 

[Rurik]

In Barbarian Adventures Orlanthi ancestors actually manifest of their own accord and provide direction to the present clan members. This seems to contradict the Thunder Rebels bit about losing their identity after 7 days.

 

[soltakss]

Having been an almost exclusive RQ'er I am not as up on the latest developments in Gloranthan Otherworlds. When last I played heavily spirits were pretty much just spirits all around. Ghosts and ancestors and the like were all just spirits.

In RQ2/3 you had the Normal (Mundane Plane), Spirit Plane and GodPlane. Spirits were disembodied creatures that (a) once lived but died, (b) never lived but were devolved from some elemental or runic force, or (c) live but in a disembodied form.

So, ghosts and ancestors were the spirits of those who had died and they could be summoned from the Spirit Plane. The Spirit Plane co-existed with the GodPlane and the Otherworld, which were the things in the Mundane Plane that were outside normal existence, such as the Underworld, Sky World, Lands of Dawn and Dusk, Valind's Glacier and so on.

HeroWars/HeroQuest (HW) changed this quite substantially. It describes the Theistic World, Animistic World and Sorcery World that collided forming the Mundane World. People had Theistic, Animistic or Essential (I can't remmeber the term and my HeroQuest book is more than a couple of feet away) souls and they were quite distinct. So, you had Animistic and Theistic people whose souls went to Animistic or Theistic Otherwordls on the Animistic or Theistic Planes. The Underworld was treated differently as it is a Mixed World, the source of the Planes. The Moon is also treated differently as a Mixed World. So, you start to go through hoops trying to explain why things are different, you have different spells relating to different types of souls and so on. It really is a mess, in my opinion.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the different worlds. Just keep it simple.

What then are souls in the underworld before they go to their respective otherword? When a ghost is summoned (or manifests) for example does it always come from the spirit plane, or could it in fact come from the god plane? What are say Orlanthi Ancestors that manifest in the mundane world?

To paraphrase a bit of Mormon Theology, a soul is a combination of a spirit and a body, think of it as a hand in the glove, the glove being the Body, the hand being the Spirit, the hand in the glove being the soul. The hand moves the glove, without the hand the glove is just an inanimate thing. The hand without the glove is a spirit and that is the things that departs and goes off to another world.

When the spirit leaves the body, it goes off to another place. Personally, I would keep the term "Spirit Plane" and say that the spirit lives in the Spirit Plane, pure and simple. The Spirit Plane can co-exist with the Mundane Plane, God Plane and Hero Planes, so a spiirt can be both in the Spirit and God Plane, or Spirit and Hero Plane or Spirit and Mundane Plane. A dead Huamikti goes to Sword Hall that is a place in Hell, so it goes to the Spirit Plane that co-exists with Sword Hall. When he is summoned back, he exists in the Spirit Plane that co-exists with the Mundane Plane. If you summon a spirit that was alive and died in the Godtime, then it could well have come from the part of the Spirit Plane that co-exists with the God Plane.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it too much. You have spells that allow you to summon spirits, no matter where they are they appear in front of you.

Now, shamans can travel on the Spirit Plane and can travel to different places. Clearly, in HW they travel to the Spirit World and may have to go to the Theist World, which is where Otherworld Penalties and other nonsense start to apply. I'd keep it simple and say that a Shaman travels through the Spirit Plane. If he needs to go to Sword Hall, he goes to the Spirit Plane that co-exists with Sword Hall and meets a lot of angry Humakti. If he wants to go to the Trollish Otherworld, he goes to the Spirit Plane that co-exists with Wonderhome and meets a lot of troll spirits. No messing about with Otherworld Penalties and no hoop-jumping to rationalise where he is.

Keep it simple.

Somehow, though, I doubt if the RQM supplements that deal with the Spirit Plane will be simple at all. They'll probably reference the Otherworld Schema from HW and be incredibly complex. Such is Progress.

 

[soltakss]

In Barbarian Adventures Orlanthi ancestors actually manifest of their own accord and provide direction to the present clan members. This seems to contradict the Thunder Rebels bit about losing their identity after 7 days.

There has always been a bit of a problem about that. If you were resurrected in RQ2, you lost skills and spells depending on how long you stayed dead. In RQ3, you lost physical stats as your body rotted, but kept skills and spells.

I'd interpret it as follows:
1. The Seven Day Limit reflects the time it takes to travel to the Underworld and be judged by the Judges of the Dead.
2. Until you are judged, magic can pull you back and resurrect you, restoring you to your rightful and proper place in the world.
3. After you are judged, you are sent to your Otherworld, which is now your Rightful and Proper Place, so Resurrection spells won't work and you need something very special to get you back.
4. Once you are in your Otherworld, spells such as Summon Ancestor work by temporarily pulling you back to the Mundane World, but you come back as a ghost/ancestral spirit.
5. If you are bound in place, you become a ghost, if you return to the Otherworld, you are an ancestral spirit, although they are just different terminologies rather than different states of being.

There is a magical item in Plunder that means that a deceased person will stay near his body for a longer period, thus allowing for resurrection after the seven day limit. This item simply slows your journey so that it takes longer to be judged.

One of my ideas is that you gradually lose your sense of identity once dead and blur into a formless mob. If your memory is kept alive through worship, rituals or storytelling, then you retain your identity better.

Perhaps the ancestors were named in worship rituals, perhaps they were acting as a group/mob of personality-less ancestors. I'd say they lose their identities completely if they are reborn/reincarnated or whatever, but things get a bit hazy before then as they start to lose their identities.

 

[simonh]

Having been an almost exclusive RQ'er I am not as up on the latest developments in Gloranthan Otherworlds. When last I played heavily spirits were pretty much just spirits all around. Ghosts and ancestors and the like were all just spirits.

Things were simpler back then, but were also a bit wooly and unsatisfactory. The new scheme is much more consistent and sensible once you get to grips with it.

What then are souls in the underworld before they go to their respective otherword? When a ghost is summoned (or manifests) for example does it always come from the spirit plane, or could it in fact come from the god plane? What are say Orlanthi Ancestors that manifest in the mundane world?

They are mixed, just as living mortals are mixed. I don't think it's strictly accurate nowadays to refer to ghosts as being spirits. Only immortals have purified themselves sufficiently to become permanent residents of the God Plane, or Spirit World.

The old RQ2 era approach was simpler, but was also messy and unsatisfactory - theists dead were spirits, but didn't live on the spirit plane. Animist gods had special areas of the spirit plane which was kind of part of the underworld in ways that weren't discussed, but were different from theist gods in undefined ways that were just not talked about. It never really made much sense, although it was pretty simple from a game point of view to just gloss over all the details.


Simon Hibbs

 

[StephenT]

In Barbarian Adventures Orlanthi ancestors actually manifest of their own accord and provide direction to the present clan members. This seems to contradict the Thunder Rebels bit about losing their identity after 7 days.

Not really. They manifest as "the ancestors", not specifically as "great-uncle Bob and grandmother Mary".

As others have said, the only way ancestors keep their individual identity is if they have mortal worshippers - either as part of a formal ancestor worship cult, or because they were a great hero of a god and that god's cult has built a shrine to them, or because they learned some great secret and can now give that power to their mortal descendants in return for worship.

 

[Rurik]

In Barbarian Adventures Orlanthi ancestors actually manifest of their own accord and provide direction to the present clan members. This seems to contradict the Thunder Rebels bit about losing their identity after 7 days.

Not really. They manifest as "the ancestors", not specifically as "great-uncle Bob and grandmother Mary".

As others have said, the only way ancestors keep their individual identity is if they have mortal worshippers - either as part of a formal ancestor worship cult, or because they were a great hero of a god and that god's cult has built a shrine to them, or because they learned some great secret and can now give that power to their mortal descendants in return for worship.

Perhaps, though intervening in the current events of their clan indicates that they have some semblance of identity. They 'know' they are tied to the clan and that there is a situation in the mundane world they feel strongly about the direction the clan should take.

They might not 'know' they are great uncle Bob and Grandpa Joe, but they obviously have retained some of their identity - if not as individuals then as clan members.

One possibility is that they are not acting of their own accord but sent by a more defined divine being to provide guidance to the clan - similar to how an angel might be sent to provide guidance to a person or group in the Christ cult.

EDIT: I'm not trying to be contrarian or argumentive here - I am just looking at a lot of sources at once and trying to reconcile my RQ2/3, HW/HQ, and MRQ source info onto something that makes sense for my current Glorantha 'reality'.

 

[telsor]

Not sure how true it is in MRQ, but for theistic ancestor worship you can't go past the Great KL. After all, she's the Mother of Trolls, and many of her daughters have their own (tribal) subcults.

 

[indrodar]

Problem is Kyger Litor isn't really a theistic being. Because she's from the Underworld she's of "mixed" nature and her children are spirits and gods (and essences?).

If you don't already have a copy, get hold of the Uz book from Unspoken Word. HQ rather than RQ but lots of great new trollish stuff to rob...

 

[soltakss]

Problem is Kyger Litor isn't really a theistic being. Because she's from the Underworld she's of "mixed" nature and her children are spirits and gods (and essences?).

Aaaarrgh!

That's the problem with introducing extra levels of complexity.

1. People die
2. Their relatives belong to an ancestor-worshipping cult
3. Their relatives can summon them with the right spells/rituals

It doesn't matter if they are theist, animist or whateverist, those are just game mechanic terms.

Now, reincarnation poses a problem as a reincarnated ancestor is not available for summoning, but that isn't a theist/animist issue.

Solace poses another problem, in that souls that go to Solace can't be summoned, but again that is cultural, nothing really to do with Essences.

Theist ancestor worhippers get theistic spells, animist ancestor woshippers get animist spells, I suppose that wizardric ancestor worshippers would get spells from the Book of the Dead or its equivalent. But, the basic mechanism should be the same regardless of species or origin.

 

[soltakss]

Not sure how true it is in MRQ, but for theistic ancestor worship you can't go past the Great KL. After all, she's the Mother of Trolls, and many of her daughters have their own (tribal) subcults.

For trolls, yes. She mated with Grandfather Mortal/took on the Man Rune and that's where it stops.

Each culture has its own version of the Primal Ancestor and it is normally impossible to go back further than that.

So, Dara Happans go back to various sons of Yelm, Pentians to sons of Kargzant, Praxians to the Founders (sons of Storm Bull) and so on.

The ancestors of the Founders are actually not contactable because they are from a different tribe/clan and so are not strictly your own relatives. You might have to HeroQuest to prove that they are.

All in my opinion, of course.

 

[simonh]

It doesn't matter if they are theist, animist or whateverist, those are just game mechanic terms.

Not at all, they refer to real Gloranthan differences. The Theist, Animist and Materialist otherworlds are distinct, different places in Glorantha.

Now, reincarnation poses a problem as a reincarnated ancestor is not available for summoning, but that isn't a theist/animist issue.

This is only a problem if you don't listen to Greg. If you do listen to him, and do understand that dead mortals lose their individual dientity and so can't be summoned individualy, and go to the Underworld which is a mixed world, then it isn't a problem.

If you strike out on your own and decide that some of the things Greg says are wrong, and end up with all sorts of contradictions and awkward inconsistencies, don't blame Greg. He's got plenty of inconsistencies of his own to handle without being blamed for everyone else's as well.

Solace poses another problem, in that souls that go to Solace can't be summoned, but again that is cultural, nothing really to do with Essences.

I don't see how a cultural difference could account for this. The fact is that it's proven magicaly impossible to contact the souls of dead Malkioni. That seems to be more than cultural.

Theist ancestor worhippers get theistic spells, animist ancestor woshippers get animist spells, I suppose that wizardric ancestor worshippers would get spells from the Book of the Dead or its equivalent. But, the basic mechanism should be the same regardless of species or origin.

I agree here, an animist summoning spell and a theist summoning spell are still just summonings. I don't see much benefit to varying the mechanics any more than is implicit in the different magic systems.

 

[Exubae]

Does an ancestor require devoted worship to maintain their individuality, Elevating them to minor daemon status?

Can the Ancestoral collective express an approximation of an individual through the expectations of the descendants; or put this another way could you summon Uncle Bob, but you don't get the real uncle bob just an expression through the ancestral collective of how the clan remembers him....
...that sounds a bit like bovine excrement... but I'm trying to think of a way of side stepping the loss of individuality of the ancestors, allowing a temporary indivduality imposed by the descendents...
...not sure if that makes sense though.