> Yes, but why only shamans? They are lonely and never write anything
> down, so they are unlikely to do so unless they belong to the same cult.
Shamans often share information between master and apprentice or between shamans of the same cult or even when exchanging skills. Certainly, I see no problem with a shaman telling another the name of a Spell Spirit which knows Heal 8 in exchange for one which knows Bladesharp 8, or whatever. That is one way that shamans can gain power without dangerous trips on the Spirit Plane.
Why do shamans never write anything down - Kyger Litor Priestesses would, as would Aldryami shamans etc. Not all shamanic cultures in Glorantha are illiterate.
V.S. Greene gives some good arguments for the Monomyth.
This is one of the points that I am fully in favour of - having the Monomyth which is the objective events of Godtime. These things happened at some stage. Maybe they only happened a few years ago, due to HeroQuests, but once they have happened then they are part of the God Time. One of the strengths of Glorantha, in my opinion, is the cohesiveness of Myth across cultures because:
Thus, we get troll myths which refer to deities from Human pantheons or Elven pantheons, not as some "borrowed" myth but actually as part of their own myth structure. This is something that is generally missing from RW mythologies - where a deity from another culture is referred to it is either as a conquered deity or as a deity borrowed in. You don't get Hindus talking about how their deities went to Greece and helped Zeus fight the Titans, or whatever.
Glorantha is different because it is a fantasy game and all the deities are real.
Denise Calaway asks:
>Have any of you tried playing with multiple GMS-taking
>turns GMing and playing?
Sure have. We had a campaign which lasted from 1982 - 1988 with multiple GMs, before I took over as the single GM. A great time was had by all. We has around 6-10 players, depending on which year it was and who was working/had exams or just got bored, of whom around 5 regularly GMd and 2-3 only GMd when they were forced into it ("You never run anything, do something for next month or else") or were banned from GMing ("Right, we've looked in your bag at your list of computer-generated Chaos Demons and you can't run ever again"). We had a fairly consistent rules set, although each GM had his own peculiarites so not everything always worked (didn't much matter as we always tried to pull the rules apart anyway). The campaign background was very consistent, although once again there were a few peculiarities when using common sources. Basically, each GM had his favourite places for running scenarios or his favourite NPC foes, so I often ran things in Dorastor or against the Lunars, others liked Pavis or liked to stitch the party up, we each had our favourite NPCs (Ady - the Multi-Coloured Dragon of Antioch; Paul - Behemoths (Biamats), me - Spirit Warriors, Vampires, Chaos in general) and so on. If anyone ran too gross or too destructive a scenario, we soon let him know - being quite a vocal group, and often threatened his characters with retribution in kind, so that stopped people from destroying campaigns.
Still, it is a great idea to have multiple GMs simply because you may only need to prepare a scenario once every 4 or 5 sessions, rather than every session. For anyone who has GMd before, this is a huge saving in time.
Colin Phillips:
> I disgaree, in my games if a character becomes a humakti, his family view
> him as dead and hold a funeral feast. Showing everybody within their clan
> that so and so is dead. The fact there is someone walking around who looks
> a lot like the deceased is immmaterial.
So, in your game, Humakti are those dead who are walking around. Hmm, sounds as though they are Undead.
V.S. Greene asks if Ikadz is Chaotic - certainly not. He is the purifier who purges evil-doers of their impurities and releases them when they are pure. As far as I know, the trolls believe that Ikadz tortures Bad Trolls, the Lunars certainly have Ikadz as one of their underwold demons and Chaos cultures embrace him as a hurting god. I have a vague feeling that Orlanthi think of Ikadz as a torturer for their evil-ones as well, but I am on shaky memory here.
Have to go
If it has stats it can be killed.
If it is in the rules it can be abused.
If it is mentioned it can be targetted.
People can change the world and screw up the Timeline.
Restrictions are for NPCs, not for PCs.
Taking Power Gaming to new extremes (in a sensitive, role-playing way, of course)
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