RE: Re: The Missionaries

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 15:14:19 -0000

> >Hmm, maybe we look at Prax as a parallel? The "losers" who got turned
> >into animals were able to survive on less adequate food. Now, where
> >does the inverse link between intelligence and digestion come from?
>
> Because if you can eat almost anything there is less incentive to
> select for intelligence. But that's a real world explanation which
> may not apply in Glorantha.

I don't think it does, at least not in this case. In Prax as I understand it the various races were all originally intelligent, and some of them sacrificed that intelligence for the ability to eat just about anything. Why that was what they sacrificed is the question - and it may have the same answer as for our pre-missionary root-eaters. Or it may not. How does one decide what the stakes are in a HQ challenge, anyway?

I've always got the impression that Gloranthan evolution was as much Lamarkian as it was Darwinian, in any case. Or more likely, neither - if you want giraffes with long necks, you don't breed for them and you don't stretch them, you do the Longer Neck HeroQuest.