This almost seems to be arguing that Roman Catholics should worship the Pope and not God, after all the Pope seems to make all the decisions, decide who gets excommunicated, etc. These people are worshippers. They don't want their god to go changing on them, they are quite happy for him to keep doing what he has done. And the priests don't just wield magic - they wield their gods magic, control their gods spirits of reprisals - they can't just toss it around for purposes that they don't believe in (except the illuminates), because they are worshippers too, every bit as subject to the religious laws.
Think about religions not gods. Think about earthly religions, except their magic is more reliable. Don't think about Gods as tough guys with a horde of followers - the followers are the religion. Orlanthi do Orlanthi things, follow the Orlanthi way, use Orlanthi magics, try to be good Orlanthi. They don't need Orlanth to come down and blow people up to do that - Orlanth can sit in heaven doing whatever he does, and the Orlanthi will continue trying to be good Orlanthi. Of course, the priests do exercise some control, and they are afraid of the spirits of reprisal - but the priests and the spirits of reprisal are trying to be good Orlanthi as well. Orlanth only essential contribution is to keep all the magic working. And the magic, for that matter, keeps on working the way it used to - unless some heroquester starts trying to upset the status quo.
>Check the back covers of River of Cradles, Dorastor and Sun County: "[In
>Glorantha] the gods and heroes ward and guide their followers, sharing
>divine magics while pursuing their own enigmatic ends." Does that sound
>more interesting than "Orlanth never does anything on the mundane plane at
>all." Glorantha is a game world.
Here is a deep and subtle point which you have missed - lacking free will is not the same as lack of power and action. The gods have power. The gods can act. Indeed, they have to.
IMG the Gods HAVE to ward and guide their followers, sharing divine magics, encouraging them to follow the laws of their religions. IMG Orlanth CAN'T suddenly decide to start kicking people he doesn't like, start denying divine magics to people who follow the proper religious path but that he just doesn't like, come down to earth and charge about for a holiday just because hes bored, or start changing the laws of his religion himself.
A good Orlanthi who follows Orlanths way with average piety will get Orlanths magics, even if the other Orlanthi he is fighting are a bit more pious and give better sacrifices and if Orlanth could take sides he really would.... Orlanth can't decide what is heresy and deserves killing for himself, either, as long as the 'heretics' are following a hero path that works for them. Orlanth can't excommunicate people. He can't see your sins and cast you out. You can know you have done something wrong and make yourself inactive by doing so, though. If 'Orlanth' knows you've done something wrong, why can't he just excommunicate you himself? Because he is just as bound by the forms of religion as the worshippers are - if they do the right things, they get the spells.
But the gods act on the world all the time. They grant their followers the ability to cast great magics, they have servants who do their bidding, they make the world the way it is. Just because they don't act with independently from their worshippers and their magic doesn't mean a gods influence is not great. And they act through their heroes, who go to the heroplane and if they measure up to it gain more powers from the god and a consciousness more like the gods, and the hero goes and does his gods bidding because he must.
Now, when you are heroquesting you aren't really on the material world either. On most heroquests, the gods are still bound to their paths, just as much as in the material world. But the deeper into the heroplane you go, the more you get a glimpse of the real gods.
>IMG the gods have
>the same freedom of will as any individual but have placed voluntary
>restrictions on their freedom of action.
If you really want to insist that Orlanth could suddenly start running around the world himself, changing the rules of his own religion and so forth, but simply chooses not to do so ever, well, its kind of undifferentiable from what I am saying in practice.
I say the gods always act as if they have no free will because they haven't got it, only the gods that are behind the gods, deep in the Godplane, have it. You say they have got it, and choose not to use it, and will only act with true free will where the Compromise does not hold, deep in the Godplane. I'm a Lunar, I think we are both right, its just your way of seeing is a little clouded. Its really two ways of saying the same thing. Gods who cannot act in new and unexpected ways are indistinguishable from Gods that never act in new and unexpected ways.
>Why not instead start with the assumption that the Compromise is real
Because I am not an Orlanthi. What is this 'Compromise' you speak off?
Seriously, the Compromise is NOT the explanation. Because I refuse
to say that every other culture in the world must be wrong, just because
you think the Orlanthi are obviously right. But that doesn't mean it
doesn't have some truth - just stop presuming that it is the literal and
absolute truth. The gods certainly don't go around breaking the
Compromise, at least not often enough for the Orlanthi to be obviously
wrong. But that doesn't mean the Orlanthi explanation for these observed
facts is correct in all respects.
NB while I've been using Lunar terminology (masks, etc.) I don't think that the Lunars are 'right', they are just a little more sophisticated. I think Orlanthi heroes come to much the same conclusions as to how the world works (or Yelmic, Pamaltelan, etc.), its just the Lunars think about these things more. I think Harmast, for example, knew that Orlanth could not distinguish between Lokaymadonism and 'true' Orlanth worship, and that Orlanth was not going to strike down the bad guys himself, even though to him it was obvious who was wrong. Its not even a question of the Compromise - Orlanth can not even withdraw his magic from the heretics, choose NOT to act. Harmast needed to go onto the heroplane and prove that he was right, because Orlanth was not going to act by himself.
NB 2 - I also think that this all starts to break down a little at the end of the third age. The Orlanthi no doubt say this is because the Compromise starts to break down, and a new Gods War beckons. I think other cultures say its because the heroplane is closer to the mundane world, and reality is starting to unravel. I think they are both correct. The Orlanthi say the gods talk to their worshippers more directly, others say that worshippers can perceive deeper secrets of the gods path. Much the same.
NB 3 - I hate having to be so long winded about all this. But its just damn difficult to explain. Perhaps I'll try thinking of a few different parables or something.
Cheers
David
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