>[list of various moon entities deleted...] It's *like* God
>Learning (proving that "all Storm Kings are Orlanth; all Sun Emperors are
>Yelm"), except that, crudely speaking, the Lunars work *inclusively* rather
than
>*exclusively*: they are building up the story of their goddess, rather than
>whittling down an established figure to see what's at its core.
So would you agree that the Lunars would accept paradoxes where the Jrusteli would (attempt to) solve them? Is this the influence of Illumination, or just of Deception? (Remember: the Red Goddess found Gbaji, certain Ralian questers in a hypothetical Ralios found Nysalor.)
>Having found the links, paths, connections between myths, by educating their
>students in the mythologies of the different peoples of the Empire and the
Lunar
>Sphere so that they can navigate the Hero Plane on their own travels and
>journeys between these newly-defined markers, the untravelled paths become
>beaten tracks, and eventually highways on the Hero Plane. More and more
interest
>and worship is lavished on the places, beings and things of importance (whether
>you measure this in Magic Points, POW, sacrifices or Passions). In parallel
with
>this, the Lunar Powers become greater and greater, and the mortal heroquesters
>associated with them rise to become cult founders, demigods and deities.
Reading it like this, you describe an Arkati HQing attitude, regardless of illumination status. Where do the Lunars diverge from them? Can it really be blamed on their acceptance of Chaos?
(Or, in reverse construction: how did the Arkati manage to graft the local Ralian deities into their Stygianism? Or is this the God Learner Secret, which they aquired, then lost?)
This reminds me how much we lack a compendium of (not primarily Lunar) cults in the Lunar Empire. There is a large religion covering at least one Sultanate/Satrapy (Darjiin), headed by Surensliba the Heron Goddess, which we know precious little about, Greg's frog story in Questlines being perhaps the best source apart from an appearance on the Gods Wall and a few by-clauses about some Moonson participating and (not) perishing in the Heron Dance.
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