And for me the title Prophet does not sit well with talk of Logic. However logical Malkion may have been, for me to qualify for the title of Prophet one must have had a Revalation, a sudden blinding flash of absolute Knowledge that transcends mere workaday deduction. At some stage the IG/Creator or whatever must have reached down into Glorantha and said: "Hoy, you! Malkion! Yes, you! Write this down..." System follows from the moment of Revalation. It does not lead to it.
(I wish, in passing, to note that I am sick of hearing people dismiss the bits of Glorantha they don't like, or that don't fit into their personal scheme of things as 'mere God-Learner constructs'. But I am not sanguine about their stopping since whatever the Truth is about the God-Learners it is very close to the central Mystery About Glorantha that we're not supposed to learn about...)
And on another topic: if people are seriously thinking about the East Isles I'd like to mention a minor mystery of Glorantha which I've long been interested in. In the East Isles there dwells the race of Keets. These are physically (but not spiritually) identical to the ducks (durulz) of Maniria.
Now the mystery of the durulz for me is: why they don't have a god of their own. They worship the air gods of the surrounding Theyalyan cultures and apparantly have done since the Dawn (or before). They are also bitter and twisted about the fact that they can no longer fly and are smaller and stupider looking than just about everybody else.
The Keets in contrast are serene in the belief (not held by their human neighbours) that they gave up their wings 'for the good of the world'. They practice sorcery (I personally believe that this is a legacy of Valkaro the Good Sorcerer.) And they have an Ancestor Cult: they have contact with the primordial Duck Deity (Mother Duck?) unlike their western counterparts.
Now, I'd like to know if anyone has developed the details of Keet culture. I'm running a game whose climax should be the delivery of the Last Egg of Mother Duck to the East Isles. In my opinion it should indeed turn out to be true that the world was saved, in part, because of these ridiculous but noble creatures.
I've always liked the Ducks. And I've always hated the write-ups they've been
given. In my opinion unless you take them seriously, they will never be truely
funny. (Do people see what I mean?)
- --
Mike Cule
End of Glorantha Digest V1 #165
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