> You also write that "we know" that Humakt was a cult created by Arkat,
> which was originally Humath of Ralios. Um, I didn't know that. Is
> this really confirmed, or one of the perfidious net-theories that
> sometimes seem to spring up?
I'm going to have to take Carl's side on this one; I have never heard this 'tale' before. At the very least, this idea collides with the Fronelan 'False Gods' Humct (sp?) and Worlanth; is Arkat supposed to have carried Humath back to Fronela from Ralios? he was pretty busy going the other direction...
BTW, somebody said recently that Yelm only came into being as a composite of older myths around 100ST. I haven't heard this before either, though I'm willing to listen to a logical argument on the matter. Same for a composite Orlanth.
Carl goes on to say
> Clearly I'm not getting through: In my Glorantha, heroquesting CANNOT
> CHANGE myth in the sense of changing Godtime events. It can change
> the nature of reality, as for instance the wounding of Korasting, but
> it can't go back into the past and change what already happened.
This time Carl is a off the center; whatever he desires to be true in _his_ Glorantha is so. But Eric is entirely correct in stating that the past is mutable in Greg Stafford's Glorantha, which is the one most of us are trying to emulate. Greg made this quite clear at RQ Con 2. The example he used when explaining is Zorak Zoran attacking Yelmalio at the Hill of Gold. If a Lightson makes a lot of preparations & goes heroquesting, he can re-inact the battle and potentially win, winning back (for himself) fire powers! Somewhere out there, there will be a ZZ'er without fire powers (if he even survived). If enough Lightsons do this often enough, eventually, the outcome of the Hill of Gold will be changed! The reason this doesn't happen, is that for every Light Son rooting for Yelmalio, there is a counterpart ZZer rooting for ZZ. The more powerfull the god, the more deeply rooted he is into the Great Compromise, and the harder it is to change Godtime events. However, if the tables _were_ turned in favor of Yelmalio, what next? His friendship with King Elf will probably not have developed, and then...., and then.... etc. This is the problem with changing the past; it has repercusions spreading like waves across the Godplane. This is a major part of what wiped out the God Learners; they looked at the GodPlane as a place to loot, if you were carefully of the really big spirits that lived there. They made lots of big waves, and eventually the backlash hit them. Heroquesting is dangerous! You can wipe out your entire family for several preceding generations! Time exists to keep people from running into themselves, the way Kargan Tor did in the Godtime; not to make bookkeeping easier for mortals.
Andrew
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