Peter Metcalfe: The IG never demonstrated any interest in the Cosmos before
the Compromise, and so I never see why he should afterwards. Maybe he
doesn't care? Maybe he is bound by a super-compromise that only the Spider
Woman understands? Maybe he doesn't exist?
God Learner: Invisible God, Creator, Cosmic Dragon, Glorantha, Arachne
Solara--they're all the same.
Peter: How else does your watch know how long a second is?
God Learner: The same way your ruler knows how long a meter is. ;)
Seriously, your watch does not tick _because_ of time; it ticks _because_
you wound it. _Because_ it ticks, you are able to measure time. You have
the causality reversed. Measurement of time is distinct from the existence
of time.
Peter: [W]hy then did Orlanth rely on Mastakos for speed?
God Learner: Speed (distance per unit of Time) is a post-Time concept.
Pre-time, Mastakos stood for movement, which is a different concept.
On a related matter, Oliver Bernuetz criticizes Illumination as the
rationale for how deserters don't get punished. This seems like an effect
of the Compromise. Time was a combination of nature (in the form of Arachne
Solara) and entropy (Kajabor). Perhaps Illumination is another effect. In
Oliver's summary of what the Compromise meant, his primary rule was that the
Gods act according to their natures as revealed before Time. Before Time, a
god would have had to personally notice a desertion and send its spirits of
reprisal. In Time, a god seems to know automatically; perhaps cosmic
balance requires that some way to hide from retribution still remain. In
any case mundane, as opposed to divine, retribution would still result for
"the new guy with the Solar Runes and the Zorak Zoran runes."
David Cake: But I think the God Learners thought the nature of a deity was
entirely dependent on its worshippers (or at least the heroquests and myths
of its worshippers).
God Leaner: I'd say that the heroquests and myths of a set of worshippers
help explain the independent nature of the deity to particular groups of
worshippers. This is why the same god may be called different names and
have somewhat different mythic attributes from cult to cult. Why does no
one perceive the Invisible God and Arachne Solara to be one and the same?
They have entirely different sets of heroquests and myths surrounding them.
Why does virtually everyone recognize that the Yelm of Dara Happa and the
Yelm of Kralorea are the same? They have many shared heroquests and myths;
where they differ, they share themes. This is probably why it was easier to
switch two earth goddesses than anything else. For the most part (excepting
a few like the EarthShaker), they really are all the same. Essentially, the
Lunies' masks analogy is a mask for a GL concept.
I very much liked Loren Miller's succinct description of Mythic Time being
like a wheel rolling along linear mundane Time. Picking some nits, I don't
think Time runs forever backwards. It begins at the compromise/dawn event.
Everything that is logically prior to that event (and I still wonder
exactly which one it was) was segregated onto Loren's wheel; everything
logically subsequent to (i.e. effects of) Time happen on the line. The Web
segregates the two onto physically distinct planes. Given that, I think
Loren's analogy is consistent with both my position on Time and the mythic
explanation of what happened pre-Time (the exploration, imbuing, embodying
or absorption of the world).
A number of people have criticized the God Learner viewpoint on Time as
resulting from GL experience on GL runequests--GLs noted that they were not
experiencing Time, so surmised that Time must have begun upon the separation
of the God Plane from the mundane plane. The criticism appears to be that
the GLs acted according to what they experienced. I think this is better
grounds for a theory than "My legends say so." The GL criticism of blind
reliance on mostly oral tradition is that the resulting stories tell us as
much about the story-teller and his perspective as about the people in the
story. I could repeat a lot about Time in stories about events in pre-Time
being an invention of the story-teller, but it has been said before.
One last thought: the great thing about being a God Learner is that we had
such an influence on everyone's cults that they have a very hard time
figuring out what is their own and what is God Learning. We are fnord
everywhere.
Stepping from GL to GM: I really dislike the all-too-realistic idea that
Orlanth was one or more normal folks way back when and because a God through
the magical effects of worship. One may as well start discussing the
evolution of Dragons from fish.
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #285
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html