Eight Arms and the Mask

 The Man of Quality A man dressed in white robes with two golden stripes stepped into the GHQ pavilion one day in the Zeroth. He spake, saying, "As you are antinomians, tell me. My brother's uke disrespected our family, by eating at the same table as his wife. Shall I then transgress the old laws, and kill him?"   Deneskerva began, "That's not what-"  The Living Goddess rose from her chair. "I've got this, honey," she said. "You can keep working on the grain dole with sweetcheeks here." And she did lightly smack Etyries upon her ziggurat of repose. Teelo Estara faced the man of quality, and plucked some cherries from a bowl. "You can do whatever you feel like in life," she said, eating them. She smiled, teeth stained red with their juices. "Such have I said, but it is a simple truth. I suppose a man of quality like you understands the necessity of one speech for the lowly and another for the mediocre orders and still a...

ARGRATH DRAGONSPEAR AND THE EROTICIZED BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND Numerous studies have been performed on residents of the Mindblast recovery wards, Madness critical cases, washouts from the Cult of the Bat, etc, placing trained Argrath impersonators in a position to whisper as if making a suggestion from across the rickety corpus callosum, simulating a variety of scenarios, e.g. intrusive vandalization urges, children’s rhymes, obscene variations on stereotypical divine messages, repetitions of monomythological mythemes, prolonged snickering and chuckling (fantasies of brutalizing the Prince of Sartar emerged almost instantaneously from this initial stimulus, subjects spontaneously conceptualizing lockers, flush toilets, wallets, lunch money, etc. and fixating on them). Powerful erotic fantasies of a green-on-green type interpenetrated all response curves to Argrath.  Subjects were required to construct a representational vision of Argrath’s social positioning, placing a litt...

 "Prince Argrath is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever met in my life."  -Harmast Fumblefingers, reformed Lunar, ten seconds after someone mentioned Argrath's name.  "They're putting phytoesrolians in the water that're turning the frickin' frogs gay!" -Iskandar Jonesius, of the Prince's household, commenting on Newtling marriage. "Don't you worry, Prince Argrath, these Seven Mothers hippie pinkos, faggots, and girldykes are incapable of knocking over a food cart, and we've got five thousand of the stormiest bullyboys ready to pound 'em into the gravel if they so much as think about a drum circle." -Iason Edgarios Hooveron, Director of Sartar Internal Security  "To all our wayward daughters: The day is arriving when we shall rise up and LIBERATE Dragon Pass from this Argrath Dragontooth! Remember Kallyr! Remember Aldachur! Gather, my daughters, outside of Dunstop. Assemble and await ...

This blog has, up until now, had a fairly standard format- diegetic documents with varying degrees of editorial commentary that exists in a liminal state between the diegesis and external reality. But while this is fun, enjoyable, and playful, it’s also a bit limiting. As such, going forward I plan to mix in essays and other such non-diegetic documents, where I put forward ideas without wrapping them in various imagined containers and using complicated webs of references. This first one is about comparing Glorantha’s Red Goddess with three religious entities from the real world. In the process of writing, it has grown enough to demand being split into multiple parts, which should follow shortly after one another in sequence.    So. Before I begin, I’m going to put some reminders and indications of content for the benefit of the reader. First of all, none of this is an attempt to arrive at the “truth of Sedenya” or proselytize the previously determined truth to you, the audienc...

This is the face of the waters which the interpretatio ugaritica hath presented to us. Prince Yamm, Judge Nahar, the sea, the rivers, the god of the waters of the earth, is a beast and a tyrant, who would slay Prince Hadad, the rider upon the clouds, who directs the rain and the dew. Among those who he sent forth from the depths of the seas to torment Hadad, Hadad’s sworn sister Anat, and their friend Athtartu was a great serpent with many heads, Lotan, the river and its delta made horribly manifest. Aarne-Thompson-Uther index type 934K speaks of a folktale that has spread across certain parts of Europe, mostly in the broad Germanic-speaking areas of diffusion and their immediate contact. It tells us of the waters, a lake or a stream, which are hungry for human life. Once per year, perhaps, or perhaps less consistently. They set forth a hue and cry, “The hour cometh but not the man!” until their chosen victim runs into the water to be taken and devoured. Or perhaps they simply strike ...