The Word campaign was designed to be an earth-shaking campaign. My goal was to determine whether a story-book type heroic fantasy epic could be run in Runequest, a game that heretofore primarily focused upon small scale actions and events.
The basic premise of the campaign was that Glorantha was a plane of existence like many others in the multiverse. Some of the others planes that were close to Glorantha include the world of Melnibone (home to Elric), the world of Elfquest, the world of Sanctuary (aka Thieves' World), our own world (but as presented in Call of Cthulhu), the world of Questworld, and the world of Gateway (a series of RQ modules set outside of Glorantha). Each plane and its worlds and inhabitants were created as a byproduct of the violent clash between the primal forces of Law and Chaos. All reality essentially involves the merger of these two forces. However, even though the creative process was born of such a clash, it could also be destroyed by the same conflict, should the conflict get out of hand or, even more importantly, should one side or the other prevail.
Think about it. What would a plane given over entirely to the forces of Law be like? It would be absolutely static and unchanging. There would be no growth. It would be as alive as a photograph or a stone sculpture, peaceful but essentially dead. Such a plane would never be conducive to life.
And what would a plane given over entirely to the forces of Chaos be like? It would be roiling and bubbling with change; change so rapid and unpredictable that nothing could take hold of anything and flourish. Continents would arise and turn to mush in minutes. Planets would turn into popsicles. Anything could and would happen. In such an environment, life could not flourish.
And that is the inherent dilemma of planes in the multiverse. In order for a plane to become vital, it has to walk that razor thin line of balance between Law and Chaos, for both are necessary to give birth to life and to sustain it. But should either actually prevail, all is lost. In fact, there is, to those inhabiting a given plane, absolutely no difference between a Law victory or a Chaos victory...the price is utter annihiliation.
The problem is, how does a plane, once born of the clash of Law and Chaos, preserve itself? After all, given that both Law and Chaos continue to clash, and given that with essentially an eternal amount of time in which to wage war it is utterly inevitable that eventually, one day, one side will gain enough of the upper hand to defeat the other, the doom of each plane seems inevitable. Is every plane in the multiverse condemned to be destroyed by the very forces that gave it life?
No. There is a way for a plane to stabilize itself. Essentially, this process is subtle and divine and involves, for all intents and purposes, a plane fully and completely internalizing both the concepts of Law and Chaos into its very being. Once a plane has done this successfully, it no longer relies on the existence of external forces of Law and Chaos for its continued existence (i.e. the Gods) and, in casting off the mantle of the Gods altogether, it elminates the danger of an ultimate victory between Law and Chaos. In other words, the battle moves on to other planes.
Elric did this. A close reading of Michael Moorcock's books shows how Elric ultimately worked for forces called the Cosmic Balance. He was shown what the world would be like should his master Arioch and his cohorts win the day. He was also shown what would happen if Donblas and his Lawgivers won. Elric liked the thought of neither, and sensing that he was far too powerful a weapon and that one day he might be coerced or duped into using his power to give one side or the other victory, he chose the only way out...to kill himself.
I took the Elric story a step further. What if in Elric's final act of self-sacrifice, he gave a cosmic example to the rest of the plane that served to mystically infuse and reconcile the forces of Law and Chaos into the very being of the plane? In other words, Elric's realization that neither Law nor Chaos should win taught a mystic lesson to the entire plane of Melnibone. Almost Christ-like, he sacrificed himself so that the plane and all of its inhabitants could see that the gods of Law and Chaos were destructors and that they should be worhsipped no more.
This concept seemed to lend itself to Glorantha as well. Like Melnibone, Glorantha revolves primarily around a great conflict between Law and Chaos. In addition, Glorantha has already in place a mechanism for its inhabitants to essentially internalize and reconcile the precepts of Law and Chaos. This is called Illumination. What if, I thought, Illumination in Glorantha is essentially a step in stabilizing the plane? What if the way to stabilize Glorantha were to, in effect, Illuminate the entire plane? Not just every person in Glorantha, but every spirit, every rock, every tree, every molecule of air...everything.
The question is, how would this be accomplished? First I posited that Arachne Solara was essentially the embodiment of the collective consciousness of the plane of Glorantha. In other words, she was Glorantha. This concept is in line with Gloranthan doctrine anyways. Second, I posited that the way Arachne Solara would Illuminate the plane (i.e. in a sense herself) would be to teach it a cosmic lesson of such immense profundity, that it would serve as a giant revelation, a sort of massive Nysalor enlightenment. What would this cosmic lesson be? Quite simply that which Elric learned...that ultimate victory by Law or Chaos means ultimate annihilation. In other words, the struggle between law and Chaos is ultimately pointless because it can never be resolved, because in so resolving, it would wipe out existence. It's kind of like conquering an enemy nation by nuking it into oblivion. Ok, you now take their land, but given it has been turned into a radioactive slag, who needs it?
How then, Arachne Solara puzzled, to teach this cosmic lesson? The lesson must be mystical and profound enough to resonate not only on the material plane, but in the spirit plane, the god plane, and the hero realms as well. It must also be one of such undeniability that there would be no doubt of the lesson taught. This is what Arachne Solara came up with:
A mortal being (called the Chosen) must be given power. Ultimate power. Power enough so that there is no doubt whatsoever that such power could, if wielded, scour the plane of all Law or Chaos; power enough so that even the Gods would be struck down by it. In a sense, this mortal would be given the power to decide once and for all whether Law or Chaos would win the struggle. The plane would essentially be taken to the brink of annihiliation. And then, if Arachne Solara played it right, meaning that the being who got this power had been taught well his own private lesson that neither Law nor Chaos can be allowed to win, the being would realize that the only course of action would be to take a weapon as powerful and dangerous as himself out of the hands of either Law or Chaos and, like Elric, he would kill himself. In doing so, like Elric, he would have taught the ultimate lesson to the entire plane of Glorantha. Here was a being capable for certain of giving Law or Chaos victory. He had victory in his grasp, and he saw that victory meant annihiliation, and so he chose to instead slay himself.
In doing so, he would Illuminate the entire plane of Glorantha. So Illuminated, gods would no longer be necessary or welcomed in Glorantha. Deprived of worship, the gods would eventually leave or die off. As the gods left, so too would go magic and so too would go many of the beings too closely tied to gods and magic. What would be left, over the course of millenia, is a Glorantha without gods and magic and monsters. In other words, a Glorantha that looked much like our own Earth. In fact, my campaign posits that Earth essentially went through the same lesson and Illumination at some time in its distant past (I never specified the actual Earth event(s) that caused this as it was never necessary).
So, that is Arachne Solara's plan in a nutshell. How she was to accomplish this is another complex undertaking altogether.
In Gloranthan history, Chaos and Law fought a great battle. Basically, the Lawful gods quarreled, and in their quarrels, Orlanth the God of Storms slew Yelm, the God of the Sun. Yelm went to Hell and in the Darkness that followed, the structure of Law was weakened enough that Chaos was able to invade the world. Chaos ravaged and the very existence of Glorantha was threatened, either because Chaos might have won the final battle, or because the battle would be so fiercely fought that the plane would simply be destroyed as a result of the cosmic energies being flung around.
So Arachne Solara, desperate to save her plane, drew Orlanth into the Underworld and there forged a pact between Yelm and Orlanth. On the strength of this pact, she was able to bind the other gods of Law as well. When Wakboth the Devil was slain, he too was bound into the pact. As part of the pact, Arachne Solara received some of the essence of every single god, Law and Chaos, that was bound into the pact, called the Compromise. From that essence she impregnated herself and gave birth to a child called Time. Time was a very powerful godling. It essentially imposed order and framework to the universe, introducing cause and effect and in many ways limiting the powers of the gods, who could no longer take actions regardless of the constraints of cause and effect. In one sense, Time created an arena for the gods to fight in, much as a demolition derby is held in a stadium so that innocent bystanders are not hurt by colliding automobiles. In addition, Time shunted the gods out of the realms of mortals and bound them to the god plane. Because gods are beyond time and space, they cannot exist easily in a place ruled by Time.
The birth of Time, then, blunted the gods' ability to affect the plane directly, thereby assuring that the gods would have to fight their battles with proxies instead of directly and assuring that the energies wielded would not be enough to rip the fabric of Glorantha assunder.
However, Arachne Solara did more than this. She also birthed a twin to Time, called Resolution. Resolution she birthed in shadows, while Time was bathed in light during its birth. Resolution was quickly bound into dark webs by Arachne Solara and sent to hidden places in Hell.
Resolution was a special god, for it was not really a being unto its own, but was a sort of tabula rasa of raw power. In fact, it was invested with all of the power of the entire plane of Glorantha...enough power to defeat any entity, and even the gods themselves.
Arachne Solara's plan was to subtly and slowly leak the existence of Resolution to the mortal world. The god Resolution would be set forth as a sort of Messiah...a being of immense power whose task it was to fight on behalf of whichever side of the struggle between Law and Chaos proved more worthy. Even the god's name, Resolution, lends to this false belief. The myth goes something like this:
What is Time unless it is contained within the framework of a beginning and an ending? You cannot grasp a thing that is infinite. You can only grasp a thing that has a beginning and an end. Time has a beginning; it began with the Great Compromise. But does not Time also need an ending to validate its existence? Was not Time birthed to contain the great struggle between Law and Chaos? To what purpose would a struggle be contained and formalized if there be no ultimate victory? To what purpose is a struggle to begin with if there is no ultimate outcome? Thus it was that Arachne Solara birthed, in addition to Time, its twin sibling Resolution. And Resolution is a powerful god, capable of bringing about a complete victory to one side or the other. And Arachne Solara, being neutral in the struggle of Law and Chaos has hidden Resolution and has proclaimed that whosoever finds Resolution first shall be deemed worthy to win the struggle and shall control the godling and shall command it to his will. And Arahcne Solara in her wisdom has caused this thing to be so that the sturggle between Law and Chaos can be decided without a general war of gods and without the massive destruction and misery such a war would cause.
Arachne Solara chooses two champions (sometimes more), one of Law and one of Chaos. These champions are often given some special insight or riddle to help jump start them on the road to searching for Resolution (in the case of the Word Campaign it was the bestowment of a Word of Power which only the champion could utter, this word being the word Resoltuion in the tongue of the Gods). She then slowly feeds these champions the false myth of Resolution in order to tempt them to search for the god. She throws challenges and quests their way to strengthen them and to weed out the unworthy and to perpetuate the myth that Resolution is a "prize" in the contest between the two champions. She also hones each champion's hatred of the other side, often in fact pitting the two champions against each other. This is necessary because Arachne Solara's entire plan calls for the eventual Chosen one to be completely dedicated to winning the final battle for his side until the last possible moment. In other words, the Illuminating lesson is most effective if the Chosen is dead set on ultimate victory for his side and is about to rush headlong into that course, and then only comes to realization at the last possible moment. After all, a homicidal maniac who suddenly becomes an altruistic saint is far more poignant than a man who has been nice all of his life.
As Arachne Solara breeds this rivalry and hatred for the other side into her champions, and as she grooms her champions for herodom, she also has to take great pains to begin to plant the seeds of Illumination in the minds of the champions. After all, it does her no good if the champion becomes the Chosen, takes up the power, and decides in the end to wage the ultimate victory and destroy the plane! That is the tricky part of Arachne Solara's plan. She must drive the champion's hatred of the opposition to a fury, but also plant enough seeds of doubt so that he will pull back at the brink of destruction. Obviously, that is not an easy task. One way to help accomplish this is to first stoke up the hatred and fanaticism, and then to begin the process of Illuminating the champions. An illuminated champion, while still capable of acting upon its impetus to defeat the opposing side, at least begins to have the insight necessary to come to the final realization.
In addition, it is important for Arachne Solara to dole out information about Resolution subtly. This is important for several reasons. First, because it is imperative that the champions not realize that they are being manipulated so. People tend to resent being manipulated and that might cause them to work counter to the goals of Solara. In addition, subtly teasing the champions towards Resolution and making them think they found it on their own would help spur them on towards their goal.
When the champion finds Resolution, much to his surprise, there is no god that springs forth from the web-like cocoon that swadled the godling. Rather, from the webs comes a raw power that infuses itself into the champion. In other words, he himself becomes the God Resolution. He himself has the ultimate power of the universe. It is then that Arachne Solara herself, with help from the spirit of Elric, would try to get the Chosen to slay himself and save the plane.
As you can see, Arachne Solara's plan is complex and subtle, and involves wheels within wheels and deception within deception.
A timeline of her plan would go something like this:
Past champions of Arachne Solara either veered off course or destroyed themselves before progressing far enough to find Resolution. Nysalor and Arkat are actually two champions that Arachne Solara chose, but rather than be guided to eventually searching for Resolution, they fought and annihilated each other.
Many things that took place in the campaign were a part of Arachne Solara's plan. Most especially, every Illuminated person was overtly or inadvertantly working for her aims. This included Gonn Orta, Arkat, and Cragspider, who were closely allied to Arachne Solara. The Lunar Empire itself was basically Arachne Solara's tool for precipitating the crisis that would ultimately bring things to a head. The Lunars first of all were instrumental in spreading the doctrine of Illumination. In addition, Solara knew that when the Glowline eventually reached the Block, the Block would begin to weaken and Wakboth would begin to stir and be set free. As the beginnings of the final battle between Wakboth and Law began to take shape, Solara hoped her champions would complete their quest. Once the Lunars had cracked the Block, their essential purpose was served and Solara needed the Empire to contract so that in the vacuum Chaos could begin to arise. This is why Gonn Orta sent the Cradle down the River. Gonn Orta worked a deal with Argrath, who wanted to free Sartar. Argrath realized that the only way to truly free Sartar was to slay the Red Emperor permanently, and the only way to do that was to imprison his soul forever. But where to find an entity capable of doing such a thing? Only a god has such power, but they were outside of time...except there was one god who had been bound by a mortal inside time. This was Rathor the Bear God, who had been bound into a cloak made from his own fur by Harrek the Superhero.
When Harrek and Jareel the Razoress killed each other in combat during the first Sartar-Lunar War, Harrek's cloak travelled with his spirit into Hell. Argrath needed Harrek's cloak. He wanted to get the cloak close to the Red Emperor and then free Rathor to possess the Red Emperor and imprison his spirit for all time. The problem with Agrath's plan was 1) how to get into Hell to get the cloak and then get back out again, and 2) how to get Rathor to agree to cooperate.
Problem #1 was solved first by using the Cradle to gain entry into Hell. Further, Argrath realized that Belintar the Pharoah had been slain by Lunar assassins and was currently in Hell. While Argrath knew Hell would never let a living mortal enter Hell and then return alive, he also knew that somehow the Pharoah had always been able to escape from Hell and rebirth his spirit in a suitable body (usually the Pharoah accomplished this through the grand contest called the Masters of Luck and Death...whosoever won that deadly contest would win the honour of being possessed by the spirit of the Pharoah...it seemed the Pharoah preferred to be reborn into the best and most powerful bodies). So Argrath offered the Pharoah the use of his own body, which was surely one of the strongest and most powerful bodies ever. Pharoah agreed to this, that if Argrath would surrender his body to the Pharoah so that the Pharoah may be reborn, the Pharoah would in exchange agree to pose as Argrath and follow Argrath's plan to free Sartar from the Lunars.
Problem #2 was solved when Argrath found Harrek's cloak in Hell and bargained with Rathor. Rathor wished to be free, both from Hell and from the cloak he had been bound into. However, Rathor needed a body for his spirit to possess. What's more, he needed a really special body to inhabit, because a god's spirit is so powerful that even the body of a hero like Argrath's could not contain it. However, there was a body out there that was powerful enough to contain Rathor's spirit. Conveniently, it belonged to the Red Emperor. The only other obstacle was that Harrek's cloak had to be ripped in order to free Rathor from it. But the fur of a god is not easily torn. That was taken care of by the adamantium spike that was recovered from Balazar. So Argrath made a bargain with Rathor. If Rathor would agree to possess the Red Emperor at the proper time and to keep the Red Emperor's spirit imprisoned for all time, then Belintar would take the cloak to the surface world and get it close to the Red Emperor and then rip the cloak. Rathor quickly agreed to this plan, as he had everything to gain and nothing to lose.
The Word Campaign had gotten fairly far along in Arachne Solara's process. Various champions had been chosen. Voskal the Vampire Elf was clearly the champion of Chaos. The champions of Law included Sunray, a Yelmalian who eventually went insane with the knowledge flooding into his psyche and abandoned the quest, Kiri Windstorm, who gave up his championship to found a kingdom, Terrus, who was slain while in possession of the Word, Danar, who refused to choose sides, and Talonspear, who actually began the transformation into hero and was illuminated just before the campaign ended. The player characters knew they were in a race to find Resolution before Voskal did, and they bought the entire false myth hook-line-and-sinker. In addition, so many beloved player characters and well-liked NPCs had fallen to Chaos and the minions of Voskal that he and Chaos were so hated and I have little doubt that the player characters would be slavering to fight and win the ultimate battle right up until the final encounter with Arachne Solara and Elric. How the player(s) would have chosen in the end is up for speculation, though I like to think they would have chosen rightly in the end.
I am truly regretful that I did not get to play out that final scene.
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