In a discussion about Temporal Paradoxes and Time travelling in glorantha, Simon brought up the example of a Hero who dies and then returns to life and ends up with two bodies. I pointed out that this was not a temporal paradox before resolving it.
>I did not say it was a temporal paradox, just that heroquests can
>cause paradoxes in general.
I checked over the actual paragraph and Simon did say that it was an apparent paradox. However merely because apparent paradoxes can happen does not mean that temporal paradoxes will happen in glorantha as a result of heroquesting.
>The problem is we don't have a sufficiently good understanding of time
>in Glorantha. It certainly is not the same as real world time. I think
>to understand time in Glorantha, we need to understand the godtime. We
>also need to know what the relationship is between one age and another,
>what happens when one age ends and another begins.
But we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Exotic time concepts will be far too difficult to humble PCs to play in. What's wrong with the simple thesis that the mythical world and history are two different things and that when you heroquest 'back into time' - - you visit some portion of the godplane which corresponds to how people lived then.
>I think of the Great Compromise that created time as like an insurance
>policy.
Did the Great Compromise create time? The Dara Happans have no knowlege of it and they record linear events well before the great compromise (which IMO is a glorified foundation myth of the World Council writ Large). Moreover some gods appear to be acting in a cosmic compromise like fashion.
>Take Death as an example. Suppose that Orlanth had used Death
>on Aldrya instead of Yelm. Suddenly all the forests in the world
>would die, Aldrya and all her works would be consigned to Hell. Ok,
I fail to understand the point of this. This did happen in Glorantha after Flamal was killed. The key event that happened before the Dawn was that the World was brought back to Life not that the gods swore to preserve each others existance.
>As another example though, suppose Waha was cut down before the Dawn,
>the entire Nomad way of life would go down with him. Because the godtime
>is not linear, if you are dead it is almost as though you never existed.
I don't think this is true. Genert was cut down before the Dawn and everybody knows he existed. You can even go back and find some places where he is still alive.
Nils Weinander:
Me>>But [the Yelm Cult] can only _rule_ if it has sufficient people to
>>make its presence felt. If the cult is small (1% of the population),
>>then it runs the risk of being exterminated after a major setback.
>There is a mythical reason why Yelm is still there in spite of a small
>cult: he is the Sun, the old emperor of the universe. This will reflect
>on his worshippers and the people around them.
You mistake the nature of my objection. Yelm the Cult is a seperate entity from Yelm the Sun. The urban people of Dara Happa have always worshipped the Sun in some fashion or another because it is *their* God, not because he is the ruler. Look at the other ruling gods. Orlanth rules because he is the King of the Gods. Pamalt rules because he is the Chieftain. Waha rules because he is the Khan. Ompalam rules because he is the master. Kyger Litor rules because she is the Great Mother. Aldrya rules because she is the Spirit of the Woods. Yet all those gods are worshipped by a significant portion of the population and have done so despite numerous setbacks. If Yelm was worshipped by only a small minority, then some other god will displaced him and _be_ the definer of the social order.
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