secrets of the universe

From: David Cake <davidc_at_cs.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 15:58:11 +0800


> My impression was that the outermost sky dome was impermeable
>prior to the destruction of the Spike, which blew a hole upwards through the
>dome (thus causing the hole that the Blue Moon falls through) and downwards
>through the earth, sea, and darkness (thus causing the hole that Magasta
>attempts to fill).

        Stars are holes in the sky, AFAIK, and they existed before the destruction of the Spike.

        The Pole Star is the particular whole created by the destruction of the Spike.

>Thankfully, Lewis Jardine reminds us that Chalana Arroy met Kajabor in Hell,
>not Wakboth, so ignore my previous explanation (although it should still be
>theoretically valid).

        I think if you ever fall into the idea that the Gods were literal beings that wandered about in a form much like a human being except for its general super-duperness, you will always have paradoxes. The gods are anthropomorphisations of myths. The fact that they are real beings who you can meet and converse with does not make that false. They are not super-heroes who happen to be worshipped (or if they are, in some cases, that is only one lesser aspect of their mythic existence), but cosmological powers that are occasionally take on human form.

>Fortunately, all the evidence comes from people who
>weren't there, so I can insist that they are just reflecting the fact that
>their minds are so accustomed to the existence of Time that they are unable
>to communicate or conceive of existence without Time.

        The Wendarian sources from the Entekosiad are from a period that would be well before the Great Darkness, and are from Valare Addi who visited there in a heroquest. Maybe that doesn't count. But much of the Entekosiad stuff is of similar antiquity, and was at least compiled directly from ancient sources.

>But Creating
>a monomyth out of the vast and confusing landscape that is the GodPlane
>is obviously a very bad Idea.

        Well, not necessarily. Such a monomyth is useful for all sorts of purposes. It helps us, as GMs and other creators, get some idea of patterns to draw on to create myths. It helps throw the big cultural issues into some perspective. It helps us contruct a relatively universal metaphysics of magic (which is something that has to be done to really get a real heroquest system going).

        But its very bad to construct such a monomyth and then assume that a) that tells you all you need to know. You don't use an atlas to tell you which areas of town are trouble on a Saturday night, or where the good restaurants are. Or even to find the best way between two cities. The monomyth is an atlas of the heroplane.
b) you can fiddle with the heroplane on that basis. Its a guide to whats there, not a guide on how to change things. Think of the monomyth as the basic theory - but it doesn't cover everything.

        The theory of how earth goddesses fit into the cosmology might be the same everywhere. But the theory of internal combustion engines is much the same for all of them, but it doesn't mean you can swap parts between them. And much the same with Earth goddesses and cosmologies. The theory might be the same, but they tried the Goddess Switch and worked out that the details do matter.

        Remember, the monomyth worked for the God Learners for a long time. Its only when they started to seriously fiddle with the heroplane that they ran into problems.

        Cheers

                David




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