Just recently subscribed to this list. I haven't received a Gloranth =
digest
since the days when Andrew Bell or Loren Miller was hosting this, and
decided the time had come to get Glorantha e-mails again.
As a preface to my question let me state that I consider myself to be a
person of above average intelligence, and have read most, if not all, of =
the
publicly published Glorantha material up to and including King of =
Sartar. I
have not bought/read/skimmed/etc the new Hero Wars stuff.
So. now for my question - the religions of Glorantha, the interaction between men and gods, HeroQuesting, God Learners, etc. I don't get it, someone please help.
Ok, that isn't so much a question as a statement. The question is "How =
does
it all work?". If that has been written up sometime in the last 20 =
years,
just tell me where to go look.
Problem 1:
Let's start off with the oft repeated comment in many Glorantha articles
that the various myths we have don't necessarily fall into a =
chronological
order, nor do they describe what actually happened, and that they are =
all
subjective to the worshipper/cult/culture/whatever. Furthermore, the
"Celestial Court" may not even have been a real thing; rather, it may be =
a
conceptual construct for puny mortals to wrap the limited brains around =
a
concept beyond human comprehension.
In the 'real world', by this I mean the planet Earth, circa 2003, where =
we
have no real way of proving whether a god or several gods exist and all =
we
have are theories, beliefs and what have you, I have no problem with the
idea of a subjective mythos whereby every culture claims to have the =
Truth,
and outright rejects other religions, or as in the Christianity / =
Judaism /
Islam case - they share a common core, but each one has their own spin - =
the
Greek / Roman mythos also falls into this case, and there are plenty of
examples there as well.=20
In Glorantha, however, we "know" there are gods. We know who they are. =
Yelm
exists. Orlanth exists. I have no problem with Yelm worshippers having =
one
spin on how Yelm was killed and Orlanthi having another spin, but either
Yelm was killed or he wasn't, and there is a "true" version of events =
that
led up that killing. There is even a "true" set of motivations that led =
to
the event, although outside of Yelm and Orlanth going thru deep
psychoanalysis, we can't really know what their motivations were, we can
just watch the slow-motion instant replay, and try and guess.
So, problem one is - there is somewhere a single, true accounting of =
what
happened. Mortals may not know it. The gods themselves may not know all =
of
it, but it exists. What is it? Where can I find it?
Problem 2:
What is HeroQuesting? How does it work?=20
I have my own theory on what it is which isn't original and I am sure =
has
been heavily influenced by things I have read on the various lists and =
from
non-gaming sources. Have no clue how it works though.
Regardless of the true reality that I posit truly happened above in =
Problem
#1, somehow there is a mechanism that allows people to basically go back =
in
time and change things. This doesn't quite do a "Back to the Future" =
thing
whereby reality is completely changed, rather, it creates some kind of
shadow, or gravity well that pulls things somewhat in a different =
direction,
so that we do now actually have two versions of the truth. We have the =
real
true story, and the slightly modified story. Because of the slightly
modified story whatever mechanism that allows mortals to interact with =
the
gods gets altered. All of a sudden there is a tremor in the force, and
Orlanth is a little less powerful, or all of a sudden has access to a =
new
set of abilities to pass on to worshippers. I assume that gods somehow =
can
perceive these effects and understand that causes and can thus guide =
their
worshippers on doing various heroquests to strengthen the god's =
position,
weaken an enemy god, etc.
Basically, HeroQuesting becomes this complicated strategy of going back =
in
time and tweaking and counter-tweaking things to alter the balance of =
power.
Whatever god has more worshippers capable of heroquesting and/or can
heroquest better (meaning make better tweaks - minimal force for maximal
results) basically gets a serious upper hand, and is in a better =
position to
respond to HeroQuest attacks.=20
Besides altering the nature of reality, the HeroQuesters themselves can =
get
seriously altered in this way.
This all posits that a single HeroQuest can not cause a god to just =
vanish -
but it does show that a series of HeroQuests could - assuming the god's
worshipers never succeed in counter-questing.
So - is that how other people see it? Way off base? Close?
Problem #3:
Assuming #2 is valid, I guess that is what the God Learners were doing,
right? They were basically codifying their own version of celestial =
history
and embarking on HeroQuests to rearrange the universe in a manner =
pleasing
to them. Clearly, they managed to seriously piss off enough gods that =
the
gods decided it was time to get rid of them.
I have plenty more questions, but before I go there, lets see if anyone responds to this one ;)
Thanks,
Michael
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