> I tend to think that the Godplane is the 'deeper' part of the
>heroplane, and the spirit plane is more or less visiting the heroplane in
>spirit only.
Sure, there is no immutable barrier between the planes (at least, not always). They run into each other in such a way that you can't realy say they are clearly seperate. However, they do represent extremes or ideals. It is like arguing that there is no distinction between yellow and green, to invoke the recent colour perception argument. Sometimes it is usefull to distinguish between the hero plane and the god plane, and sometimes the `otherworld' is quite sufficient.
Peter Metcalfe :
>So I repeat. What can I do *now* that I couldn't do *then*? And
>why does this require the _complete_ absense of time? Why couldn't
>it merely be a change in the nature of the Otherworld?
A very good question. Ask Greg this at the next Lore Auction!
Perhaps in the godtime there was no distinction between the planes. Everything everyone did was automaticaly a heroquest of some kind, so no special magical effort was required. Time spearated the Mortal and Immortal worlds so that only those with special mystical knowledge and power could heroquest. Before then, anyone could walk up to Humakt and say :
"Hey, Humakt! How's it hangin! Nice Power you've got there, what's it called? Death? Mind if I give it a go? Nice ballance! Hey Bert, come over here a second. Stand still . . . . <Schlock> . . . Kewl!"
Ignore the time travel debate for a second. Everything that happened in the godtime is part of myth. Therefore it can be worked into a heroquest.
Also, individual heroquesters are not prevented from carrying out any quests regardless of their sequence in godtime. Therefore, so far as third age gloranthans are concerned, they can go to the godtime and participate in the myths without having to wory about minor details like long term causality. To them, the godtime is 'timeless'. On the other hand, a third age gloranthan cannot just go back to last week to harvest the fields before they got ruined by that freak rainstorm over the weekend.
It is as though the compromise drew a line in the sand dividing the godtime from the rest of history. Maybe things were not realy that different back then for most gloranthans, but they are now (if you see what I mean).
Stranger : "Tell me, how long have the Orlanthi lived according to the laws of Orlanth?"
Lawspeaker : "We Orlanthi have always lived this way."
Stranger : "But surely, things must have been different before Orlanth taught his laws to your forefathers?"
Lawspeaker : "Orlanth was the first Thane and the first Chief, since before the begining of Time."
Stranger : "But surely your people must have existed during the Godtime. How else did they live? What did Orlanth change your way of life from
Lawspeaker : "Orlanth was the first Thane and the first Chief, since before the begining of Time."
Stranger : "But surely your people must have existed during the Godtime. How else did they live? What did Orlanth change your way of life from to make it the way it is now?"
Lawspeaker : "Orlanth showed us a way to live when life was nolonger possible, so therefore there was no 'other' way of life. We are Orlanthi, we have always been Orlanthi. If we were not Orlanthi, we would not be us. So you see, we Orlanthi have always lived like this."
Stranger : "And you accuse Riddlers of being perverse!"
You would get similar answers from a Praxian shaman. He would say that his people have always lived on the plains and always herded Eiritha's beasts. He would look forward to his time in Waha's Tribe in the otherworld when he dies, but the plains that Waha rules are also part of Prax. Prax extends into the otherworld and is endless and eternal, it has always been like that, and always will be.
Me:
>I'm afraid I have no time(!) for the pseudo-relativistic 4-to-3
>dimensional mumbo jumbo theories.
Oliver D. Bernuetz :
> Though I must say that some people take these discussions too seriously
>and seem to have forgotten how intelligent, adult discourse is supposed
>to go.
Oops, I certainly did not mean to put anyone's back up.
Reading the rest of your post, I can see we agree on a lot more than we disagree.
>>Want to know what a Godlearner cult writeup looks like? Open any
>>Gloranthan RQ supplement that describes a cult.
danny bourne :
>I think he means what would the Cult of God Learners be like written up.
Same answer, I think.
The GLs wrote up the cult descriptions (or something similar) as manuals on how to infiltrate interesting or usefull religions. The GLs did worship gods and engineered the cults so that they better suited their purposes. It was possible to be a Malkioni, Goldentongue, Humakti, or member of any other 'doctored' cult and still be a God Learner.
Simon
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