>
>From Cults of Terror:
(Description of the Celestial Court) (Description of Form Runes) (Arkat's Parentage)
These are contradictions that I can live with though, because they are parrelel explanations of the same event/entity.
> >I call it "distortion of our viewpoint". If the myths contradict each
> >other then SOME ARE WRONG.
>
> Yes and? What difference does it make if the myths are wrong?
It matters to me. *I* want to know who is right. I want to know for my own personal interest and if it should come up in a game where it does matter. If an Orlanthi is fighting Lunars with Pentans in the Redlands and needs to refresh his rune magic, what happens if he prays at the West King Wind shrine of his allies?
> >There are about two possibilities [about the validity of myth].
> >No, three.
> >
> > 1)They're all wrong. (My position, FWIW)
> > 2)One is right, the rest are wrong.
> > 3)Some or all are *partly* right, some or all are wrong.
>
> >Which one is your Glorantha?
>
> I suspect three is the correct answer. Why do you have a problem
> with this?
Number three is also what I feel is correct. However, I think that the difference between us is that if you can collect the different myths about a deity you can determine what that deity actually did during the Godtime and what is accretion from culture and misunderstood myth.
(Chicken/Egg time)
Where does the religion come from? When the priest teaches the laity how was the ritual learned? I feel that, "in the Beginning", there was a direct communication between deity and mortal where the god said "You will worship me in this fashion." and the mortal said "You bet." After the Dawn when the Godplane and Mortalplane were separated, or at least when the gods were not around anymore, worship diverged over time from misunderstandings, deliberate changes of ritual for new needs, and interaction from other cultures. As long as the rituals and myths are mostly correct you get what you expect from your deity. If not, you either lose your power or you may inadvertantly start worshipping a different deity. But, what you can do as a "third party" is look a a group of people and say these people worship Entity A, these over here worship Entity B, and this last group thing they are paying homage to B but it is Entity C who answers their prayers.
How does this affect Joe Average in Glorantha? It doesn't. He couldn't care less. But now I know what happens to the Orlanthi's magic mentioned above.
Erich Schmidt
God-Learner
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