Time & Gods from ANDOVER_at_delphi.com on 1996-11-13 (Glorantha Digest Vol 03)

From: ANDOVER_at_delphi.com
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 18:17:46 -0500 (EST)

I've been busy in the "real world" (if you consider American elections real) for the past few weeks, so I haven't had time to keep up with all the twists & turns of the Time debate, or its natural slopping over into the "nature of the Gods" question.
In my campaigns, the definition of Time is that given by Gollum in the Hobbit: "This thing all things devours:

   Birds, beasts, treese, flowers;
   Gnaws iron, bites steel;
   Grinds hard stones to meal;
   Slays king, ruins town,
   And beats high mountain down."

Time is the child born after Arachne Solara consumes the God of Entropy, Kajabor. "Before time" means "before entropy." It does not mean that there was not cause-and-effect, nor chronology. The Compromise froze the Gods in the patterns that existed "before Time" which left them immune to the "great Fear" of total annihilation but also prevented them from acting any more. Freedom from the destruction of entropy could only be achieved by giving up freedom altogether -- they chose preservation over change.

There's a price for this -- paid not only by the Gods but also by all Gloranthans -- the "snap-back" against every attempt to change Glorantha, whether by Nysalor, the God Learners, the EWF or the Lunars is a re-enactment of the choice of Law (or Stasis) over Chaos (or change).

PFbE[ME