Why is this preferable? [pull out soapbox and stand atop] It means the players get to pretend to be surprised, instead of being surprised for real. Get with the program, Alex. My goal in RPing is not to train my players in interactive theatre but to entertain them and be entertained by them. [put soapbox away]
me
> Just because the West believes in the Invisible God doesn't mean
> they don't recognize that the world is built out of Runes.
he
>No it doesn't, granted, but I certainly don't think that they do,
>anyway.
Well, if we're going to go purely on personal bias here (and why not), I'll give forth my own opinions on the Runes.
In the First Age, Runes among the Theyalan cultures were almost unknown, at least publicly. Each deity had his own Runes, and only the high priests and certain initiates were allowed to behold and know of their existence as Inner Secrets. Thus, if you were an Orlanth person, you knew of only three (3) Runes in all the world, and probably had no idea that other cults had Runes, too. Obviously Arkat, with his cross-cult lore, learned otherwise, and this started the leak in the dam of knowledge.
At this same time, Runes were in widespread use among the sorcerers of the West, as tools of spell-using. No doubt educated Theyalans noticed that, say, the Western symbol for Air had a certain resemblance to the secret Storm Rune.
When the God-Learners began to spread their knowledge world-wide, the Runes became even better-known. Today, the Runes are known far and wide, even used for decoration.
Alex
>So I hereby scoff at the rune-labelled Saints adorning the cover
>of the late, lamented Tales #13.
Hah! I view well-drawn images of Glorantha as _evidence_ in favor of one argument or another, myself. As pictures shape Glorantha in my mind and those of my players. Because the Block is drawn as sky-blue on the cover of the Pavis box, it has become sky-blue in Glorantha.
Peter M.
>I'm sure there is some reason for the Trolls of Ralios to maintain
a >cult of Arkat the Illuminate, but I'm still searching for one
that >meshs in with their psychology
I don't think that illumination is meaningful within troll culture and philosophy. I'm sure that a heavily human-influenced troll can achieve a mental state that a Lunar examiner would recognize as "illumination", but identical externals are not the same as identical internals, and "internal" is what illumination is about.
If the trolls of Ralios maintain a cult of Arkat the Illuminated, I predict they do so solely in order to maintain some sort of advantage over the humans all around them. No doubt illumination vitiates the most magic and powerful humans around, and thus enhances the trolls' competition with those pesky Homo sapiens.
Actually, I'm not sure illumination is meaningful for any of the elder races. How would an illuminated elf behave differently? And an illuminated dwarf is ludicrous. "I just realized that existence is pointless!"
I concur with Graydon's statement that the God Learner techniques will no longer work -- their _approach_ to mythology might be possible to utilize, but their actual magic and techniques are no longer valid.
David Cake
>I can think of no evidence at all that God Learner techniques no
>longer work.
There is, of course, the evidence copiously written down by the God Learners themselves, when the world changed, and none of their magic would work any more. The God Learners didn't fail to stop the Gift Bringers because the Gift Bringers were so incredibly tough, they failed to stop them because their own magic was no longer viable. The laws of the cosmos are now different than in their day.
Peter M. infers that Jakaleel is a Subere initiate because she is a
former priestess of Zorak Zoran and ...
>To be a Subere initiate, one has to be an initiate of a darkness
>cult if one is not a troll.
My own inference is, and has always been, that Jakaleel is not a human, but a troll. Witches are more common among trolls than humans anyway.
Dragonewts and Elemental Magic
Dragonewts can't use elemental magic because they use the Left-Handed path to magic. Elemental is the Right-Handed path. For a dragonewt to use elemental magic is like watching a male human give birth.
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