RE: "Orlanth Must Be Bound" from Nick Brooke on 2004-03-07 (Whitewall)

From: Nick Brooke <Nick_at_...>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 04:32:25 -0000

Peter wrote:

> But everything previously (Fortunate Succession, Glorantha: intro
> and even Heroquest Voices: Talking to the Moon Woman "he
> resists the Goddess's liberation and suffers because of it, but
> with compassion Sedenya reaches out to him and will prevail.
> We shall free him!") indicates that the Lunars were not planning
> for some time to Kill Orlanth.

I completely agree; and this fits the 'mood music' from Issaries at the time. When I wrote the Lunar Pantheon article for the Glamour booklet we put out back in '97, Greg Stafford got to make *any* changes he wanted, no questions asked. He put through very few edits. One of them was to change the last sentence in this paragraph:

: Orlanth - The Last Enemy
: The only exception is Orlanth, the Last Rebel, eternal enemy of
: peace and stability. Worship of this turbulent and barbaric deity
: is prohibited within the Empire, and its campaigns of conquest
: have been intended to break his power. Former worshippers of the
: Storm God are encouraged to worship tamer, more palatable atmos-
: pheric deities, such as Molanni, a consort of Yelm, or Entekos,
: goddess of Good Weather.

: Orlanth was not chosen by the Red Goddess as her Last Enemy.
: Their hostility is a cosmic process, and inevitable. When Rufelza's
: cyclical revolution replaces Orlanth's turbulent rebellion as the
: motive principle of the Middle Air, then Orlanth will no longer
: have a place in Glorantha. The defeat of this troublesome and
: disobedient god will finalise Rufelza's integration into all
: Glorantha. Vast lands in the East, West, and South will not need
: to be conquered by the Lunar Empire to defeat Orlanth. Their
: ultimate acceptance of the Lunar Way will be inescapable after
: Orlanth is bound.

In my initial draft, the last four words were: "after Orlanth's forthcoming demise"...

http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd7/1999.07/0130.html (at end)

Speaking from a *story* perspective, I like the idea that Dara Happan arrogance and bigotry turn a reasonable Lunar plan (bind enemy god, build new temple) into a megalomaniacal act of deicide. Particularly because your player characters can now BE THERE when this decision is made (Lunar POV); and/or can now take HIDEOUS REVENGE against the guilty men who made it (Heortling POV).

Then again, I liked the TV-movie "Conspiracy" (a dramatisation of the Wannsee Conference, with Kenneth Branagh as Heydrich). Discovering just what you've signed up for can be... interesting.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266425/

So I guess I'm on Peter's side. I prefer the Lunars to be more creative and adaptable; I like the tension between different agendas (on the same side); I like the sense of "escalation" you get when the stakes at Whitewall are gradually "upped" by inspired heroquesting leaders on both sides.

Cheers, Nick