Re: On the GLs' secret from Robert McArthur on 1997-04-25 (Glorantha Digest Vol 04)

From: Robert McArthur <mcarthur_at_fit.qut.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 12:20:05 +1000 (EST)

>
> >From Telmori (Thomas Gottschall)
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> << Maybe the God Learners' "secret" was that they were Illuminated, or
> perhaps even found a level beyond Illumination. >>
>
> I would agree that they were illuminated. So they couldn't be harmed easily
> by the gods. But the secret of the GL could be a technique of looking at the
> world. They saw every thing as a mix of different powers (perhaps the runes).
> And they could make thing like they wanted. E.g. everyone knows the water
> consists of Oxigene and Hydrogene. If you link them in the right way you will
> get water. The GL may had a way of saying : well, Bladesharp 6 Enchantment
> needs a bit of this anmd a bit of that and after this process, here you have
> your Enchantment. Perhaps this could be done even with gods (Godess Switch).
> I think the best proof for this is Machine City. If they could even do this
> without using the Power or by having a massive source of power the would be
> superior to any of the other nation.

Well, you don't have to be suprahuman to shrug off the normal sendings of a God if you have some help - many of the spirits of retribution are only 20-30 POW. Spirit shields or variants would succeed quite well, as well as friends to help smash the spirit up. Since they did not actually worship the God, and with a bit of GL secret knowledge, the spirit is visible and smashable by any friends.

I think (2c worth) that one of the "secrets" of the GL was that it took the Gods so $_at_#^& long to realise what was happening and to do something about it! The Gods were so harnessed by firstly the compromise (can't break that!) and then the actions of the GLs being able to obfuscate and hide, that it must have been quite a sight. They didn't realise at first that they *could* actually do something about these non-god-worshipping scum, then by the time they did realise it was too late due to a) the power of the GL by then, and b) the confusion of remembering who you really were as a God, and what you 'stood' for (things had been changed so much).

What was happening on the GodPlane et al, was, as I said above, quite a sight. Due to the use, initially, of scrying devices to see onto the planes, it was initially known as RQ Sight-seeing and then shortened to RQ Sight.

Robert
and just to make sure they come and get me, Gift Carriers of the ^%#$ Gods sounds about as euphamistic as fighting for peace!

End of Glorantha Digest V4 #361

WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html