I picked it up from an old (two weeks ago) thread.
This sentence reminds me of a book I have recently read about ancient greek heroes. Since I like the way RW mythology works, I wonder if the same mechanism is viable for Glorantha or not at all.
I explain myself: ancient greek heroes were historically and geographically
widespread. Not * religiously * widespread. You don't know whether Achylles
or Heracles or Dyomedes really worshipped Jupiter or Mars or Felix the Cat.
You just know that a lot of contradictory myths tell their feats, largely
because any city in a particular age or in a particular area (for example
the adriatic sea for Dyomedes) claim to have been visited/blessed/founded by
the famous hero XY.
So you can find the same hero worshipping different cults, making war to a
people and allying with another or viceversa, being killed by a monster or
conquering it.
If the same applies to Glorantha (and this attitude reminds me of Arkat or Harrek to say the least), then we should find shrines to the same hero in many different cultures in the same area and in many different, even *enemy* cults!
Heroes and myths were also political tools in the hands of the rulers, because they appealed to the simple and the ignorant more than the complexities of philosophy or theology. Therefore known tyrants, like Dyogene of Syracuse, used hero-cults and hero-myths, artificially manipulated, to support their claims and justify their greed: "I am the heir of Dyomedes, so my claim to rule over the adriatic sea is just!". And simple people were so impressed by the heroism of Dyomedes that they accepted the rulership of Dyogenes ("panem et circenses", said eventually the Romans...).
Are these ideas alien to the Gloranthan mythologies and politics?
ciao
Gian
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