>In a military and political sense, perhaps even an economic one, the Lunars
>may well resemble the Roman Empire. However, the Romans did not feed people
>to the Crimson Bat, and did not encourage irresponsible hero-questers to
>pillage the god plane, risking disasters as great as those brought on by
>the God-Learners.
The Crimson Bat is indeed an atrocity. And the Lunars don't pretend otherwise. But it is certainly not the only one in Glorantha.
And as for irresponsible hero-questers wrecking the god plane - excuse me! Time to put on my Lunar propaganist hat! Lunar travel and journey (their term for heroquesting) is nothing like the God Learners at all, as any Red Goddess initiate can tell you. T&Jers always approach the god plane with respect, and any new paths they create are in harmony with the old myths, and new paths are created only because they are better, not for the sake of creation like the god learners. At least thats what they say. The Lunars certainly don't encourage rampant pillaging of the God Plane any more than anybody else. What I know of Lunar T&Jers seems to indicate that they are rather more inspired in the direction of spiritual experience than most heroquesters. The Lunars seek inspiration and enlightenment, where the God Learners sought only power and knowledge.
<propagandist hat mostly off>
I think the God Learner mistake in their attitude to the hero-plane, at least in part, was to reject the internal changes, to believe heroquesting was totally about changing the world, and to reject the changes to the heroquester as much as possible. Perhaps a God Learner secret (probably not THE god learner secret) is 'nothing can make you change if you don't want to' - you can always come out of a heroquest as the same person with a nifty power. The Lunars, IMHO, do not believe anything like this - they want to be changed. They want to be changed as their goddess was changed. I don't think the Orlanthi propagandists would necessarily dispute this, either - the Lunar willingness to accept what they should hate, and to change themselves (in Orlanthi eyes, generally into hideous chaotic monsters) is not in dispute. This is also why the conservative Yelmies resist the Lunar truth - the Yelmites like stability and order and resist change, and especially believe everyone should know their place in the world (usually, beneath them), while the Lunars believe that as everyone should strive to change themselves, it is only natural they should change their place in the world.
The Lunars believe, for example, that there is power that only comes from suffering, or sacrifice, or acceptance of your enemy. They believe in death and rebirth. The Orlanthi hate them in part because their acceptance of such things makes them more likely to inflict them on others as well as themselves.
While the God Learners just wanted to kick butt, experiment, and get some nifty stuff. They didn't want to suffer, they didn't want to get hurt. They want to distance themselves personally from their heroquest actions as much as possible, unless there is a nifty power to be gained.
NB - it should be borne in mind that a lot of my understanding of the Lunar philosphy has come only since RQ CON DU. When I say, for example, that the Lunars believe in sacrifice and suffering, I can say this with some confidence, as I know that Gerra (godess of suffering) and JagaNatha (goddess of sacrifice) are aspects of the Goddess. I really hope some of this can be shared with the Glorantha community more widely, particularly Greg Staffords speech, were he outlined the basic story of the Red Goddess (and there was a lot more of it than you might expect - it begins at the beginning of time, for a start).
And I certainly don't claim to be any sort of authority. I may be misrepresenting them grossly - though no doubt no more than the Orlanthi apologists do!
>
>And by the way, the Lunars have already overwhelmed a viable alternative-
>the civilised Darahappan empire.
>
What, those rigid bores - anyway, they were already conquered by the Carmanians.
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