>> I don't think it works like that. Lunars return with many things >> (mostly knowledge but one heroine returned with a stick goddess) but >> nothing so big and dramatic as the Bat.
> I didn't mean that the hero returns with the *Bat*, as such. But the
> hero (or on a 7M quest, the Goddess, as found by the hero) returns
> with Big Powerful Chaotic Aberrent Mind-Damaging Magic, surely.
Why? The Goddess is not about Chaos, mind damage or power. What she is about is cosmic freedom.
> When Jar-Eel returned from her quest (she must have done this, right?)
> she probably brought back something (or someone?) not much less powerful > than the Bat. (Or so I speculate.)
JarEel's quest is ongoing for it isn't complete yet. Furthermore the quests of HonEel and Hwarin are online at
http://www.glorantha.com/library/history/hle-2wane.html
http://www.glorantha.com/library/history/hle-5wane.html
Although both do dramatic things, there is little sign of the horrors you describe.
>> Lunars heroquest into the age of mythology like other people as >> their goddess existed in the past eras (although nobody then knew >> that she was the Goddess).
> ...but there must be *some* way of re-enacting the (Re-)Creation of the
> Goddess by the Seven Mothers, and her Godquest, yes? Those are (as I
> understood it) the two central myths of the Lunars, and both take place
> partly in history.
The creation of the goddess and the Godquest are both facets of the same thing: the Seven Steps to Liberation which is at the bottom of:
http://www.glorantha.com/library/history/hle-0wane.html
Secondly although both quests took place within history, the real action took place on the otherside.
The Seven Mothers :
::In searching the planes and worlds of the spirits, they had ::located the shattered pieces of an obscure, long-broken goddess. ::Inside the wall of time they managed to reconstruct her into a ::living entity.
The Goddess:
::In 0/8, after the Holy Time at the end of the year, the Goddess left ::the mortal realms upon adventures which carried her beyond the lands ::of her followers.
> Do the quests only enact those parts of the myths that
> took place in the Godworld?
Quests are themselves ventures onto the realms of myth and legend, regardless of when they occured.
>> The Lunar Way is not about the Bat. The Bat is only the Steed of >> the Goddess, not the Mystery itself.
> I phrased it badly. I meant that the God-quest as a whole is what
> revealed the Lunar Way, so re-enacting the God-quest would be a way
> to be enlightened in any particular aspect of the Lunar way (e.g.
> learning your cult's Secret).
I don't think it works like that considering that Orlanthi heroes do not have to repeat the Lightbringers quest (the Heortling equivalent) to learn the secret of their gods.
>> Why? This is somebody touched by the Goddess. Getting him out >> of town makes it sound like something bad has happened to him.
> Well, the Lunars are a practical people.
They are?
> On the one hand, someone driven mad
> by the Godquest is holy and precious and touched by the goddess. On the
> other hand, he's killing people and setting fire to the governor's
> mansion.
Madness is much more than killing people and arsonry. The average insane lunar is much less destructive than the average humakti disciple or the average Uroxi. The only known Lunar that's both destructive and insane is the Mad Sultan and his dementia arose because he tried to deny that the Bat could be included within Us. Despite his heresy, the Lunars apparently did nothing to restrain him and it was only an Imperial Foe that trapped him in Tork.
> This could be another manifestation of that old tension between
> Lunars-as-enlightened-mystics and Lunars-as-ruthless-and-cynical-empire.
Perhaps. I do think the cynical empire model can be overdone and prefer to work with what Simon Schama called "the Empire of Good Intentions": Decent people make well-intentioned decisions based on their imperfect knowledge which backfire spectacularly, horribly and comically.
--Peter Metcalfe
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