On 08/01/2012, at 9:49 PM, Benedict Adamson wrote:
> On 06/01/12 01:34, Nick the Nevermet wrote:
>> While I'm sure that subject will make me an easy target for accusations of GL-ism, I'm confused and need some guidance.
The answer, of course, is that most Gloranthans wouldn't, any more than your average medieval person did experiments to verify the four elements theory. Weird people do that sort of thing. And those weird people use the best tools they have - typically sorcery.
And the results of such experiments are not always conclusive - especially when you are performing experiments via the complex and dangerous world of heroquesting - so the weird people further go on to develop more complex theories, about which exact runes are foundational, and what exactly that means, and not, that may or may not be true. Remember, the God Learners tried to settle these questions once and for all - and they had the resources of an enormous Empire, and still got it wrong. If we are to settle questions of metaphysics via the same means as Gloranthans do, we should not that Gloranthans have not settled these questions, despite enormous resources being devoted to the task.
But most people don't think hard about this stuff. They observe the world. Can we prove that runes are foundational by examining the world around us? No more than we are able to prove the foundational nature of atoms by using only our senses. But wiser folk than us, using specialist tools, tell us that it is so, and it seems to work. Much the same for the foundational nature of runes in Glorantha. The wise folk tell us that is so, and the magic they use seems to work.
Cheers
David
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