>> What Simon wants is a book called "Deities of Glorantha" with chapters
>> headed like this: "Storm Age, God kill list #3"
> Sigh, this is becoming a little offensive to Simon, I think. At
>any rate, I have something similar at home; it's called "Cults of Prax".
>A little bit out-of-date I understand, but usefull & interesting to read.
Nothing wrong with cult write-ups but they are subjective as has been proved repeatedly - each cultural view is based on this and so are the cults - this is what makes Glorantha so realistic - even the same faith in different areas is different given the nature of cultural isolation leading to divergence.
> But dieties _are_ world striding beings. The Block is where Storm
>Bull gave the Devil the Big Zot. Waha walked amongst men in the Dark Time
>and taught them how to survive. Oakfed swallowed up all the forests of Prax.
>(Insert your own example here.)
Prove it! You say Storm Bull blasted the Devil at the block - thats just how the locals explain the Block! It happens all the time in the RW - People see a volcanic mountain and say an angry earth god lives there! Or a tall mountain is the home of the Gods or this big Block crushed the Devil because its surrounded by Chaos things so something big must have been splatted under it. As for Waha wandering about - thats a plain a case of a potent hero (small h) saving the people and them deifying him as I've ever heard. Oakfed swallowed up Prax's forests? - how do you know this - cos the Shaman told you - I presume you take everything at face value in the RW too - of course not! Anything passed on by word and ritual is going, by definition, to be unfactual. Prax is Prax because climatically its a chaparral - they just found a myth to explain why it wasn't as verdant as Sartar as the Praxians haven't invented weather experts yet!
> The gods are now in the GodPlane. The gods go for a walk regularly.
>Anyone that wants to, can go see Yelmalio get creamed at the Hill of Gold.
>All it takes is the proper ritual (which might, of course, be dangerous).
>People have been participating in the Godtime events via rituals for a
>looong time.
Of course they can! Because the Godplane is like an amorphous matrix that can be imprinted with sufficient belief and retains a form of its own even without that belief. So if you hold enough rituals you create a visible reality which no doubt the priests are always refining - "ah did not Yelmalio wear the same clothing as we? For he is the precusor of our dress codes is he not?" Then at the next ritual - Yelmalio looks more and more like the priests imagine him to be. Orlanth 1620 looks very different form Orlanthi in the EWF days, fashions change, so do Gods.
> Why aren't the Gods walking around now? The Orlanthi answer (85%
>accurate) is that the world changed and the GodPlane is no longer as closely
>connected to the mundane world as it used to be. Some people talk about
>the Compromise, some people talk about the Dawn. Whatever suits your
>myths (or your Glorantha); nonetheless, the world changed. Just as it did
>at the end of the 2nd age, when the GL's magic suddenly stopped working.
Hmmm, this seems like a bit of a Deux ex machina to me - added to the fact that the Gods didn't walk around in the first age either, there seems to be a hole in this argument. The reason why GL magic stopped working is based on the fact that they's built a kind of superhighway system through the Godplane - this matrix was the source of their powers and was broken in a mythic and physical rebellion that destroyed the ways to access this matrix and destroyed many of the nodes that allowed access to the matrix - so naturally God Learner magic stopped working because the key to it is shattered - course if someone reaccessed it..... The same thing applies to the EWF magic and this is well documented - how the Dragonnewts removed "certain items of power" that were central to the magic being used and assassinated key leaders - all of a sudden - no magic.
This seems far more logical and cogent to me than to say the magic changed without explaining why.
> The remaining 15% is that
>a) the gods are walking around every time a ritual is performed & a priest
> or lord fulfills his patron's role. These people are temporarily avatars
> of the gods (in a limited way).
In a symbolic sense, I don't disagree but those people still have the will that they were born with, not the gods will of which h has none that I can see.
>b) Both Hon-eel & Jar-Eel are avatars of the Red Moon Goddess.
They are focused power, its true. they focused different aspects of the Goddess which is in turn empowered by the worship she recieves and her mythic place in the cycle of Peloria as Rufelza.
>c) The Polar Bear God (or what's left of him) is being dragged all over
> Glorantha by Harreck.
Oh yes, the one that Simons PC killed cos he liked the rug... You are buying into the mythical explanation Gloranthans give. The facts - in reality, the bear was probably a normal bear that the Rathori incarnated the spirits of the polar bear ancestors through to allow them to use their winter fighting powers - Harrek slew the BEAR which was a focus for the powers of the Polar Bear Rituals and then used that focus to access those powers by skinning it and binding it to him. Nasty.
>d) I understand that some of the East Islanders don't think the the mundane
> and spirit realms are all that separate, and go sleeping walking on the
> Godplane on a regular basis (other folks call Dreaming). If I have mis-
> stated this, someone please correct me.
Nothing wrong with this for the reasons I have already mentioned.
> The gods work on the mundane wordl through their tools; which is to
>say, their cults & followers. Direct intervention (of a limited sort) is
>to be seen anytime someone DI's. Why not more active intervention? See the
>part about 'the world changed' above. Now it's not so easy.
Divine Intervention is a short circuit to the power of the rituals created for the God. When a worshipper wants to do something, he summons his Gods power. All rune magic is is a DEFINED route to that power, created out of ritual and practice - originally magic was not a useful. However, DI is a primitive throwing of POW at a problem, which sometimes has startling results but sometimes can be hideously costly - most priests would rather KNOW how their magic will work and thus use Rune Magic whenver possible. I imagine that in the early days of worship, without cult structures, all magic was similar to DI - note how Shamans of spirit cults have magic one use unless they create a ritual group around them to make it reusable - this is a form of DI.
Me:
>> (3). Heroquesting wouldn't work because with an obejctive truth, all you
>> would have to do was find it and you would never, ever be beaten on it.
>> This has all sorts of knock on effects - frex if Humakt IS death then
>> Yanafal Tarnils could never have won his freedom in the first place -
>> mythically and historically it wouldn't be "true".
AJ> I have a couple of problems with this. First, what's wrong with
>finding the objective truth? And who says you can't be beaten on it? Zorak
>Zoran beat up Yelmalio at the Hill of Gold and gained Fire powers. I con-
>sider this to be an Objective Truth, as both Trolls & SunDomers (ancient
>enemies) agree on it. Who says you can't be beaten on it? Beat up the
>troll when you do the HoG heroquest & you get Fire powers (admitedly, that
>is not the end results most HoG'ers want, but it can happen). Somewhere
>out there is a Zorak Zorani cultist who doesn't have Fire powers, is is
>looking for you....
Well yes, but I could go to Dara Happa and find plenty of info on Shargash removing the fire powers of Elmalus in battle - Shargash is the "crippler of Elmalus" after all so that kind of throws that argument a bit. That would shock a Yelmalian to find a bunch of Shargashi watiing for him at the Hill of Gold - its my opinion that Shargash and ZZ are the same aspect of existence worshipped by different cultures, hence the difference in appearance and emphasis but remember that ZZ himself was a composite diety - check the Broken Council - perhaps Stephen Martin would comment on this one? I think mythically you are seeing a myth to explain light without fire which is a big deal to most primitive cultures - those who don't have fire simply say mythically that "big bad god" beat up our god and took the fire powers. What they don't realise is that their myth is partly why they can't access those fire powers in the first place!
So where is your obejective truth to this - its still subjective to culture isn't it?
> You can prove to a Brithini that Orlanth exists. He will look at
>your proof and say, "That's very interesting, I guess there really is a
>whopping big spirit on the spirit plane that responds to the name of Orlanth.
>Unfortunately, you don't seem to understand the difference between a big
>spirit and the Invisible God. Let me explain it to you...."
> The Brithini never denied the existance of the Invisble God, they
>just don't se why such a tremendous being would be interested in us little
>may flies....
Exactly! So who is to say which is right? Was Orlanth and actual guy who was heroworshipped and became a massive spirit representing the wind and kings to the Orlanthi as a Brithini would say or was he a "real" deity striding around the world doing stuff straight out of KoS? This counters your own argument for the existance of gods as real entities as being the "objective truth".
>> Belief in Glorantha makes reality - get used to it.
> If you want to alter this to 'belief in Glorantha can affect reality'
>I agree with you. I can swallow Sir Ethilrist develping a hero cult and be-
>coming immortal. I am trying to swallow Monrough combining a lot of cults
>into a synthesis, sort of like grafting two plants together (though I am
>having trouble digesting this). I won't swallow the Kraloreans believing the
>Sun is green and it suddenly changes color. If Greg Stafford spouted your
>statement above, I would swallow it. But he's too broadminded to do so.
The trouble with the sun going Green is that other folk would not see it as being Green - if everyone in Glorantha suddenly realised that it was Green - then yes, it would be Green - but thats not going to happen for any reason I can think off but the Sun DID stop in the sky - so why? Everyone creates their own myth and many people claim responsibility for it but who is right? I happen to believe that the Dara Happand did it by their participation in th Osentalka ritual but by accident - they focussed their entire energies for a brief moment on creating a deity and they stopped being part of Yelms path - which in turn stopped Yelm. Soon as they saw he'd stopped their understanding of reality started him up again. It was then explained as Yelm stopping to watch the birth of Osentalka and myriad other things by myriad other peoples but the sun was faded in comparison because I think the Dara Happans no longer gave 100% of their thoughts to Yelm, they had a new light to look on. There have at several times been several suns, so the power of belief can create physical effect in Glorantha.
As for Greg, Greg turned Yelmalio arse over tit with the arrival of Elmal. I can see his reasons because he never really liked Yelmalio and had matured considerably in his knowledge of myth, like anyone does as they age and reassess the past - so I think Gregs later writings are truly well thought out mythic and subjective works, as he professes himself, and thats what makes Glorantha fascinating. But watch out becaus he may decide that the sun _is_ green!
Martin Laurie
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