Me>> (Magasta was killed at the battle of Tanian's Victory and not
>>ressurected until the Fireberg Crisis IMO).
> I suppose it is too much to ask the reasoning behind this
>assertion? After all, Magasta is one of the most important gods of
>Glorantha, far more important than Tanian, so I find it highly unlikely
>that merely bringing Tanian into the world could kill Magasta - especially
>as Tanian only affected a relatively small proportion of the oceans.
We are told that in the Magasta Cult Writeup that Wachaza 'sent Magasta to visit Daliath, and ruled in the Throne of the Deep until Magasta returned.' When Magasta returns, Wachaza gets to rule a place with a lot of horrible monsters which sounds like a virtual exile to me. This reads more like a historical magical conflict like the Battle in the Sky between Kargzant and Orlanth or the Twin Stars overcoming Jannisor, both of which have their origins in Mundane conflicts. My suspicions increase when Wachaza's background as a Sea God of the Jrusteli was spelt out in the Wyrms Footprints, they used him to oppose the Waertagi.
If you're worried about the actual killing of the God, I view it as similar as killing Genert: the God is Dead but the sea and physical processes still survives (it's not as they were unmaking the Sea Rune). Magasta is the Lord of the Sea Gods rather than the Actual God of the Seas (that's Manthi who would be a lot harder to kill IMO). If he were killed, then the Seas would lose most of their magic rather then cease to exist. The God Learners prevented this by making Wacahaza the Lord of the Sea Gods.
The real damage was done when they were forced to bring Magasta back and make him Lord of the Sea Gods again. To whit: the Merman Pantheon is gloomy and depressing as the Aztecs. The Waertagi are said to be less amiable than they were in the Old Days (Elder Secrets). We know that the Ludoch revere spirituality and beauty (ES again) in contrast to their 'pessimistic and abysmal' religion which I believe to be a relic of the days when Magasta was a nicer fellow. IMO Magasta's (and the Waertagi's) sojourn in the Seas of the Dead was so horrible that it left a psychic scar that has warped the mermen perception of the Otherworld.
Furthermore his worshippers have to fork over two points of POW every high holy night. Of course we know that it's supposed to maintain the whirlpool at the centre of the world, but what if it were to maintain contact with a Dead God?
I make this a major God Learner abuse of the Cosmos.
Sandy Petersen:
>If anyone was killed at Tanian's Victory, it was Waertag, not Magasta.
Waertag may or may not have died at the Battle. I'm not saying that Magasta was killed by the appearance of Tanian but that the God Learners (IMO) _needed_ to kill Magasta so they could bring Tanian down and create the Sea of Flame. After all, Magasta will exert enormous resistance to such a major mythic change whereas Wachaza being a God Learner plaything could be expected to rubberstamp the whole process.
>In fact, Magasta is _particularly_ difficult to kill, seeing as he
>exists in both Hell and the Overworld at once, as the recycler of
>the dead and the living.
But that's what he is _now_. It doesn't necessarily mean that he was before then. How he got into this situation, I believe was the result of the God Learners.
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