Good Malia, Bad Malia from RichardM on 1996-04-14 (Glorantha Digest Vol 02)

From: RichardM <rmelvin_at_esoc.esa.de>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 18:41:21 GMT

>
> But the cult of Malia the Healer as has been described could 'benifit'
> society, could it not? And I loved that 'restrained by Orlanth/
> Orlanthi'. Surely the Lunars could not do a similar thing with Malia?
>

I like the idea of a lunar 'healing' goddess that works by 'immunising' patients against disease - there's lots of potential here. Imagine an Imperial vaccination centers, where lines of patients wait to get their 'Jab'. Lots of conflict with:

- the local healers, who rely on people becoming ill for their livelihood.
- the army/Provincial government, who want to govern who can and can't get treatment.
- Spoken Word agents, who are cooperating with local Malian cultists to flush out the last resistance in the hills.
- fanatics who think immunisation is strengthening the disease godess (think of the opponents of the fouridisation of water).

Sort of like a Gloranthan MASH.

But what exactly does this cult have in common with the Broo/Orlanthi cult of the Disease Master? IMHO, not very much in anything other than a god-learner sense (whatever that means). In particular, I can't believe it would use the name Malia - this seems to be known to the people of the Empire as an evil godess, and so using that name would be about as likely as naming a boy Satan today.

In fact, if I recall correctly, the Lunars already have a godess that fills this role (Queen Deezola?), so I can't see them needing another one.

Of course, some of the fanatics mentioned above would make the equation Queen Deezola == Malia. And if they heroquested successfully, no doubt they could find evidence for this.

Richard