>>> I realy like Hsunchen, you
>>>can learn a lot about Glorantha from them, they're like a living
>>>cultural fossil from waaaaaaaay back.
>>
>>True, but only to a point. Frex, I believe the East Ralian hsunchen didn't
>>know spirit magic until they were contacted by the Theyalan missionaries
>>(they dealt with totem spirits and spirit friends;
>
>This actualy supports my possition. The currently accepted three forms of
>magic (Spirit/Divine/Sorcery) are artificial God Learner constructs. Before
>their mythological re-engineering and classification programmes things
>were much more open ended. I very much doubt the East Ralian hsunchen
>ever had any contact with the GLs and so would have had a primeval magical
>tradition. One which has been supplanted by the more efficient GL influenced
>Theyalan system.
You're confusing your history. The Theyalan missionaries were from the First Age Council. God Learners are Second Age. And I'm sure the poor Ralios Hsunchen had lots of God Learner contact in the Second Age.
The totem spirit stuff was important in my Bemuri game, but the Bemuri all became Orlanthi, probably by Arkat's time.
BTW, I think Sandy or Greg once said that one of the things the God Learners did was to break the RQ rules and use all 3 types of magic. This makes it sound like the three distinctions have nothing to do with the God Learners.
Nils complains
>If the myths
>of gods and ancient heroes are just backward extrapolations, Glorantha
>would become more mundane and loose some of its luster.
But you get to change mythology in Glorantha. So by making the proper backward extrapolations, you can change what happened in God Time.
However, the lesson of the God Learners is that while this is true, it's not all that's true -- there are still cosmological constants which you can't change. So mythology is real but reflects the mundane, and the mundane reflects real mythical events.
>OK, GRoY says that Rebellus Terminus killed Yelm's son Murharzarm and that
>Yelm disintegrated out of shock and disgust, but that doesn't contradict
>what I said, does it?
No, but it doesn't support your statement that Storm killed Sun.
>Umath/Storm, Emperor/Yelm/Sun isn't too far fetched
Of course not, which is why when the cultures came into contact, the myths were altered to fit.
>I think both myths refer to the same mythical/prehistoric event. Then they
>diverged and were finally merged again by the Council
This could well be, though it's odd that such major details as who were the Emperor or Rebellus Terminus were forgotten.
>I'd prefer to say that a hsunchen
>'initiate' (adult) may transform into his totem animal once a year. A shaman
>may do it more often if he seeks out a totem spirit on the spirit plane
>and bribes it to possess him.
I could go with this, tho I like the concept of half-transformed hsunchen. Maybe they made only some of their virtue rolls?
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