Eight Arms and the Mask

Our Goddess set forth her virile Moonson to be her representative on Earth, and he was obliged by responsibility to accept the offer of co-rule with Yelmgatha, and then to pass the Ten Tests and prove himself Emperor of Dara Happa. As the Sun on the Earth, the incarnation of bright Yelm, it is thus the case that any child of Moonson is in their own right a descendant of Yelm twice over- firstly, they are a first-generation child of Yelm via Moonson himself, incarnate as Emperor, and secondly, they are also descended from Yelm, a great-grandchild of the Sun through the Red Goddess and her own son. As this is so, it is therefore simple and inevitable and factual that these children are not merely noble in their own right, but also more noble, possessed of greater purity, than the majority of Dara Happan nobles.  Thus, it is only right and true that the Imperial Families should have precedent over all but the absolute purest of old nobles. When this was understood, there was much outc...

The Lunar Army had, for the majority of its existence, precisely two advantages over its opposition. Firstly, it had the Lunar Way and the ability to combine magicians of assorted types into consolidated magical units, which enabled the Lunar Army to consistently pull magical surprises out of its back pocket, even when (as was often the case) the raw power of its opposition was somewhat greater. Examples of this are well-known in the specialist literature. The ability of the magicians during the Second Invasion of Prax to use their Lodril priests to suppress the summoned Oakfed Lowfire stands in for the type.  Secondly, however, the Lunar Army spread this consolidation somewhat into the conventional units, allowing them to create heterogeneous tactical and operational forces, where existing armies fought with homogeneous subunits that operated separately from one another. This consolidation proceeded only fitfully and in very limited quantities. It was as often a hindrance as a ben...

I burst forth from my body in a flare of wings, flapping and spinning in circles around myself for a while. It has been too long since I have come here. I whistle and sing at my fetch, which settles herself on my body, brooding over it, ready to defend me against whatever threats may encroach on my little alcove of repose. She sings back, telling me that I am a fool. I am well aware, I tell her, after all, how long did it take for me to recognize you? We part, and I flap for altitude, grateful for the calm updrafts the Right Air gives a sanctuary to, allowing me to gain height over the world, leaving behind the flat land for the middle of the air, where the proper birds can gather. There are a great many of us today, flocking and forming parliaments and assemblies in the skies, declaiming and practicing our rhetoric. When I returned to the the deepest illusion, what we call the Middle World, freshly awoken and split, I will admit to being disappointed. I had, in many ways, started ...

After a decade of civil war and strife, where figure after figure emerged and attempted to claim dominion over Peloria, where at last in disgust Deneskerva and Jar-Eel attempted to raise up a prosthetic Red Emperor, the true Red Emperor returned. Previously, when the Red Emperor had died and suffered a lengthy absence, he had returned in a Carmanian Mask, Magnificus. This time, he returned in a Mask from the Provinces, from Tarsh, stalwart loyal Tarsh, conquered by Argrath and then delivered into the deathly grip of Mularik Ironeye, liberated by feuding between the two "heroes" over a toll, then delivered at last into the hand of Annstad of Dunstop, a lover of Jar-Eel and of Argrath, who managed to play both sides against one another and satisfy all parties. Phargentes the Younger, though, was said to be a member of the old Tarshite royal family, a son conceived by Moirades at the moment of his liberation from the world by Jar-Eel, and thus Phargentes was said to be Jar-...

The White Moon is a key part of the Lunar Way. Where the current Red Moon with the shadow that sweeps across Her face is the Mask of Natha, the White Moon will be the Mask of Zaytenera, the Seventh Mask of Sedenya, representing completion and fulfillment. The White Moon is thus an eschatological phenomenon in the popular Lunar Way- the White Moon of Peace. The current orthodoxy of the Empire holds that the Red Moon will turn White when the Lunar Way has been spread to every corner of Glorantha. The current orthodoxy also holds that the Lunar Way includes the Lunar Empire necessarily, and that the Empire will wither away only after the White Moon rises. There have been dissenters from this position ever since the Red Moon rose. The number of positions they take on the White Moon have been manifold, all of them agreeing at first only on one point- the current orthodoxy is in error. However, popular eschatological fervor has begun to grow in the Empire and in the Heartlands, not least...

This is a fairly intriguing bit of popular proselytizing for the White Moon Movement, in an effort to win converts within the Provinces. The irreverence of the author certainly helped keep it in circulation well outside the boundaries of the Fiscal Anarchists who promulgated the pamphlet.  Formal bans of politically suspicious material were often more honored in the breach than in the respecting, of course. Despite the best results of the Spoken Word and the Examiners, these ideas proved difficult to quarantine and contain. It is, however, a blessing that they preserved and maintained so much of this subversive literature. We would be much poorer today if not for their taxidermist instincts.  Preface It is with some trepidation that I record and bind the following document. Firstly, neither I nor any of the other scholars here can be assured that it is truly authoritative, as the means of publication used for this pamphlet are such that the number of errors, interpolation...

1.“Rashorana, to live is to suffer, but to suffer is not to live.” It was by these words that the Red Goddess illuminated Herself. What do they mean? In their simplest form, it is a straightforward statement. Life, within the unhealed world, is full of suffering. No one can pass through it and go unscarred, unwounded, unhurt. But we fall victim to occlusion. We conclude that because suffering is inevitable that it is in fact an ineffable truth. And so we are told this- to live is to suffer, but to suffer is not to live. Life extends beyond suffering. Isn’t it about time you opened your eyes all the way and found out what it is? But in a more rarefied form, you must understand that this is how the Red Goddess first showed the Lunar Way to Irippi Ontor, the logician. Within the secret laws of logic, there is a notion called an equality. If two things are equal, then they are in some sense the same and can be transformed into one another with ease. The opposite of the equality is ...

This story is one that is fairly traditional among those members of the Etyries cult engaged in missionary activity. This particular form, possibly the original, may have been written by a traditionalist, but I, for one, suspect a healthy dose of irony. I copied this out from the library beneath the Grand Auditorium in Torang. A much less entertaining place than its name would suggest. The Goddess's truest followers have always been the lowly of the world. Bandits, street girls, disgraced scholars, queens without regalia, followers of the Wasp God too waspish for Carmanians, madwomen who barter with spirits, slaves. Etyries was a merchant, and who expects much from someone who leads jackasses around by the nose for a living? And yet when she came before the Goddess, in those days when the Victory was fresher than morning dew, she started and nearly fainted, it is said, and the Goddess pulled her out from the line and said, "Here, she is a Natural!" She did faint, ...