> Just how do non-Sun/Fire worshippers get the use of fire, mythically?
> Not major fire powers, just the ability to cook and to work metal. Is
> there a Prometheus-equivalent in Orlanthi mythology?
The Firebringing Trickster, Eurmal, did this as part of his contribution to the Lightbringers Quest. You can find the story of how he liberated the Lowfires
from captivity in Argan Argar's Obsidian Palace in "Gods of Fire and Light", one of the articles in "Wyrms Footprints" (an "in-print" supplement!), and you can find the rune spell he used to do it in "Questlines" (full Trickster cultwriteup) or "Gods of Glorantha" (shortform).
There are probably other myths, similar and dissimilar, elsewhere in the world: this is how the Orlanthi tell it. I'd guess that in Prax, Raven stole fire from the Sun, was burnt black, and is pursued by Sun Hawk ever after for his temerity. Lightning Boy's defection may also have something to do with it. The Wenelians got fire (and also their culture hero, Wendel) from the lightning-struck oak tree. Etc.
Looking at the Broken Council mythically, weren't the trolls trying to "abort" the God Project? But they succeeded only in bringing Nysalor into the world prematurely, stunted in growth and lacking some of the fullness of his powers (i.e. after the withdrawal of Darkness at a late stage in his gestation). Viewed in this light, the Curse of Kin is a *wonderfully* apposite punishment: I'd not thought of that before.
> The concept I was trying to get across was that the Lunar Way is
> a synthetic religion rather than a rediscovery of a suppressed
> religion ... The Lunars are creating a new religion using the
> symbols of the old.
Yep, I can buy that. But let's not imagine for a moment that "synthetic" means "fake" ("He's got no clothes on: they're all synthetic!"). There is a genuine revelation and genuine divine power behind the Lunar Way, which is now recognised by all the gods to be included in the Great Compromise.
The Lunar T&Jers claim they're "rediscovering" things everybody had forgotten, or links nobody had ever known before: there were moons before the Red Moon, various and obscure, and the Lunars are trying to work out how to include them among their panoply of powers. Remember: the Lunar Way explicitly progresses, develops and improves over Time, unlike all of the Old Gods who reject the notion outright.
The "ancient" Pelorian myths in the Entekosiad sound like New Age feminist mumbo-jumbo *because* that's what they are in Glorantha: myths written with a definite contemporary political/religious slant, adopting local traditions and doctrines within and outside the Empire for present-day ideological ends.
> Anyway, what's a false note in the Lunar Doctrine where the Ministry
> Of Truth is housed in the Temple of Glamour (runes Illusion and Harmony)?
I stand corrected. The Ministry of Truth is, of course, one of the official outlets for Imperial Propaganda. (Anyone wanting to hear anti-Papist ranting should ask me where the modern sense of the word "propaganda" comes from...).
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