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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 03 Nov 1994, part 3
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From: M.Hitchens@st.nepean.uws.edu.au (Michael Hitchens)
Subject: Re: The Nature of Gods, Myths and Heroquests
Message-ID:
Date: 3 Nov 94 23:40:28 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6834
On Wed, 2 Nov 1994, David Gadbois wrote:
> From: M.Hitchens@st.nepean.uws.edu.au (Michael Hitchens)
> Date: 3 Nov 94 04:53:58 GMT
> X-RQ-ID: 6822
>
> Lots of good questions, and in a convenient true/false format, too.
> Note that there are no definite answers, just a lot of opinions. I look
> forward to tallying the responses in tomorrow's Daily. Me, I'll give my
> usual post-positivist spiel.
Thanks for the reply. I know their are no real answers.
But the people on the digest know Glorantha and my hope is, by looking at
all the replies, to see what comes and maybe improve my own understanding.
Reading back through my original post I realise I confused two
fundamentally different concepts, to wit
Myths
The Godplane
Myths should be used for the stories told in the mundane world, I should
not have used it for the state of the god plane, becuase that is not the
same thing.
Well, I've learnt something already.
> Could anyone who believes [Elmal and Yelmalio are different] tell me
> if worshippers who switched from Elmal to Yelmalio were visited by
> Elmal's spirits of retribution?
>
> I don't think so, or at at least not en masse, since the spirits are
> controlled at least partially by the priesthood, and I think the priests
> were the ones leading the conversion.
OK, try this line:
Did those who converted from Elmal to Yelmalio have to spend a point
of POW to set up a link with Yelmalio (ie become initiates of his)?
If Elmal and Yelmalio were not different entities then the
worshippers would not have to do this. If they were different, then
the worshippers should have.
> Some people try to say the question can not be answered. To those I
> ask, why can not a Yelmalio Priest use divination to find out if the
> Elmal worshippers are worshipping the same god? [...]
>
> Why would they ask such a thing? The Elmali brutes obviously worship a
> different god. Divination is for important stuff, like how many Luxites
> can dance on the head of a pin.
They probably would not. A Gloranthan can make a lot of assumptions becuase
that is how the world works, just as we make a lot of assumtpions because
that is how our world works. But as a GM of the fictional world
Glorantha there are things for which I do not know the correct
assumptions. The question was phrased that way to show that it could be
asked and answered within Glorantha. As to why it might be asked, how
about so the priest could work out what those brtuish Elmali were up to?
> Some people say the question should not be asked. To them I ask
> again, if we do not understand the gods, how can we understand
> Glorantha?
>
> We can ask them, but the Gloranthans have better things to do. Except
> for the God Learners, and look what happend to them. Seriously, I don't
> think there are complete and consistent answers to all your questions --
> that's why all this stuff is still interesting.
I agree, but to GM successfull I feel I need to ask them and get what
answers I can.
> Just how useful is divination?
>
> Quite useful, but remember that Gloranthans for the most part would not
> even consider asking the kind of questions that you are asking here. If
> they inadvertantly did, they would interpret the answers in a way
> consistent with their beliefs.
For the most part, yes that's true. But there is bound to be some deviants
who would ask the questions. And what happens if the answer goes against
their beliefs? More importantly, can an answer to a divination acutally
go against the questioner's beliefs? And there is still the qeustion of the
Yelm priest who has heard about this Yelmalio cult and has an open mind
(rare amongst Dara Happans, I know, but not impossible). Why wouldn't he
ask his god? And, having no firm beliefs about the question, what answer
does he get?
> Glorantha's myths are continually being acted out on the Godplane.
> (YES/NO)
>
> No. To be pedantic: The Godplane is the events and their
> interconnections that the myths talk about. I guess you could say that
> the events are being continually acted out, in the sense that they are
> just there and don't change by themselves.
Here is one result of my mis-use of the term "myth". The Godplane is
continually acting itself out (if you see what I mean). Most myths
correspond (at least roughly) to the state of the godplane). Those that
don't either mean trouble for their worshippers or a heroquest to change
the godplane is in the offing.
How about that?
> These myths can be altered (via heroquesting) so what was the state
> of the GodPlane yesterday may not be true today. (YES/NO)
>
> No, but: The events and their connections can be altered via
> heroquesting; the myths may follow.
Again, my ill-use of the term.The question should have started
The state of the godplane can be altered...
And I think you'd then say yes?
> For example, even if, for arguments sake, Elmal and Yelmalio were
> originally different entities, could sufficient successful
> heroquesting could "prove" that they were the same? (YES/NO)
>
> I think the answer to this is no, and, in any case, only a God Learner
> would want to do that. All the examples we have are of attributes being
> transferred around and (in one famous case) entities being swapped
> wholesale. So there appears to be a sort of "object identity" -- there
> is a core identity to each deity that cannot be altered. The GLs tried
> to find these core identities, but it didn't really work since the
> attributes of the deities are generally more important than the deities
> themselves.
So there are limite to what Heroquesting can achieve? Theoretical ones.
That's an interesting viewpoint. I think everyone knows there are
practical limits, but I don't recall the idea of a theoretical limit before.
I don't know whether I agree with that or not. Let's wait and see what
others have to say.
> Another example: everyone knows that Magasta led the seas into
> jumping into the hole formed when the Spike exploded. [...] Could
> I [...] prove that Humakt commanded and lead the fight of the water
> spirits. Magasta may have been the chief of the water spirits, but
> Humakt was the leader, Magasta just his lieutenant. (YES/NO)
>
> Yes, but it would be very hard to do. Note there are easier ways to
> acheive a similar effect: Emphasizing a particular aspect of the event
> over others (I bet this is how it is for the Humakti anyway),
> acceptance of false myths, etc. In this case, it is not entirely clear
> that the Godplane does not already support your interpretation -- we
> just don't know enough about the content of the events the myths talk
> about except from the myths themselves.
I know it would be hard, I deliberately picked pretty extreme examples. And
given that the state of the godplane and the myths are not the same,
maybe it is the case already. But my question was, given that the state
is not that, could I make it so? And I think we both agree the answer is
yes?
> Can the myths (ie the state of the godplane) be altered other than
> by heroquesting? (YES/NO)
>
> The myths can be altered in any number of ways, since they are stories
> and not that which the stories are about. Altering the Godplane is
> heroquesting by definition. Though I suppose the void could be let in
> and gobble things up, and also the Godplane seems to be heading towards
> a heatdeath in the Fourth Age anyway.
That's only if you believe KoS. Greg told me that he intended to write
a very different future history for his Lunar book. That was in 1992, so
he may have changed his mind. But the intent was to provide two very
different extreme futures so the GM could plot a course anywhere in between
(ie not be fixed to the one true future). I think the future in KoS
shows that Argrath winning completely is a bad thing. Does the future of
Glorantha sound all that wonderful to you? My betting is that the Lunars
winning completely will produce a just As bad (but different) future.
What's the most important even in Gloranthan myth and history? The Cosmic
*COMPROMISE*.
> Eg, if enough normal people believe, does it change? (it being the
> mythical "truth" as represented by the god plane). (YES/NO)
>
> Yes: that's part of the feedback relationship. A form of
> heroquesting.
That's an interesting one. But rare I would think, getting "enough"
(whatever that is) people to believe in something which was not reflected
on the godplane would have to be pretty hard.
> As I understand it, there seem to be two vitally different forms of
> heroquesting, one where the participant simply re-enacts the actions
> of the god, thereby reinforcing the current state. The other form
> is a conscious attempt to *change* the state of the godplane. The
> second form is much harder. Am I correct on these two points?
>
> Yes. There are also the unintentional heroquests that sadistic GMs like
> to inflict upon their players.
And all sorts of minor major variations thereof.
Thanks again
Michael
--------------------------------------
Michael Hitchens
Lecturer, Dept. of Computing
University of Western Sydney Nepean
PO BOX 10 Kingswood NSW 2747
Australia
michael@st.nepean.uws.edu.au
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All that we do or seem
Is but a dream within a dream
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