Riddle: What is the difference between a child's prank
and a Trickster's prank?
Answer: Purpose!
Commentary: A Story:
A True Account of the Making of the World
In the beginning was the One. The One was everything and nothing.
The One knew everything and nothing. The One knew things about itself.
Among the things it knew was that it could separate things within
itself, create things. It had never actually done this so it did not
yet know what this was like. In order to add this knowledge the One
created something. It was just something simple, the simplest thing
possible, Darkness, but even creating this simple thing made part of
the One into something new, the Creator.
The One was happy with its creation and with getting to know it.
However, Darkness being so simple, it was known very soon. The One
grew bored with Darkness and did away with it. In this way another part
of the One came to be, the Destroyer.
After Darkness, the One wanted to try again and created Water. Water
was pleasing for a while, but the One grew bored again and destroyed it.
By now, unnoticed so far, yet another new thing had come into being,
Change. It did very well at staying unnoticed, afraid as it was of the
One's habit of removing things it didn't like.
The One went on experimenting. It created Earth and destroyed it.
It created Fire and destroyed it. It created Air and destroyed it.
All the while, Change grew stronger.
Then the One got bored with the idea of creation itself and stopped
creating altogether. Change did not like this one bit. After the One
gave up trying new things, Change felt itself fading away. There was
only one way out.
Change contacted the One and convinced him Creation could be
interesting after all. All that was needed was a bit more variety. Why
not try keeping all elements around at the same time? The One tried, was
interested for a while and grew bored again. Come on, Change said, why
not place them in relation to each other? The One tried, was interested
for a while and grew bored again. Well, Change said, why not add some
powers? And so the interaction went on and on. Gods were created. Plants
and creatures were created. Change proposed all kinds of things, from
Golden Empires to Chaos Wars.
And now Change must come up with new ideas all the time, just to keep
the One from getting bored and destroying the World. And we try to help,
be it by making somebody who is sad laugh or by making somebody who is
happy cry. Anything to keep things interesting. So just remember, next
time you see one of us do something, even to yourself, you shouldn't
call us Dirty Tricksters, but rather Valiant Protectors of the World.
And one for meta-Gloranthans (i.e. us):
There is undoubtedly Chaos in Glorantha. Orlanthi believe Chaos is Bad for Glorantha. Lunars believe Chaos is not necessarily Bad for Glorantha. Glorantha is a WYBIWYG world (What You Believe Is What You Get). Does it follow that we should hope the Lunars win?
Think about it (and report any subsequent levitations), Hans van Halteren
Powered by hypermail