>What I don't like is stuff like, "Are Elmal and Yelmalio the same diety?"
>Either they are, or they're not. I don't care if the Orlanthi call
>Yelmalio "Bob". It's either the same diety, or it's not. A rose is a
>rose, so to speak. Invariably, the campaigns I've been involved with
>solve this issue by throwing Elmal out the door.
But is a god a mere physical object, like a rose? I don't think it's a given that divine nature is easily comprehensible, and therefore definable in the kind of terms you would preffer. You can cut out chunks of Glorantha because you find convenient in your campaign, but please don't try to pretend that it's the same Glorantha that Greg writes about and that I love so much.
Have you ever considered that perhaps Glorantha is intended to contain paradoxes? Eastern orthodox mystics (such as Basil) accept the paradoxes inherent in the trinity, for example. They do not believe the mystery is solvable by human reason and contemplate it in order to acheive a state of transcendence. To them, paradox and incomprehensibility are merely proof that the divine world is not explainable through rational analysis.
I draw a distinction between this Glorantha, and the world my RQ players adventure in. By necessity there are some differences, but that's only relevent in the context of my campaign, not this digest. But to surgicaly excise the mystery and cultural diversity in Glorantha in order to fit an arbitrary rationalist agenda, seems somewhat extreme.
Carl Fink :
>Well, to clarify, I said that we need either consistent myths, OR to dump
>heroquesting and Divination. I don't find them compatible. And, once
>again, I was using hyperbole and trying to be witty, and clearly failing.
But surely the main reason many myths from different cultures contradict each other is because they have been changed over time by heroquesting. Thus heroquesting is largely responsible for the myths conflicting. Surely, heroquesting is actualy incompatible with having consistent myths between cultures. Surely the choice is between having (consistent myths and no heroquesting to screw them up) and having (inconsistent, dynamic myths with rampant heroquesting). I think it's quite evident that the latter is the case in the published Glorantha.
AF>>4. What do you mean by a myth being "wrong"? Do you mean that:
>> a) It's not correct "history";
>Yes.
But how can a myth be expected to be historicaly accurate, when we know thay can be altered by heroquesting, unless you want to resurect the heroquesting/time travell debate?
Please note : I am not simply claiming that all inconsistencies between myths are due to heroquesting.
V.S. Greene :
> Makes good sense to me. Answers for Divinations for pretty much anything
>beyond the utterly trivial really should be in the form of directions to
>the truth (paths, puzzles, ect.) not straight forward clear answers. If
>nothing else, it's good Adventure Starter Stuff.
Absolutely. Also, any anmswer to a divination will necesserily be phrased in a way that would be meaningfull (if obscure) to the diviner. An answer to a divination might lead the diviner to believe that frex, Shargash and Tolat are the same. Proving it would require a major heroquest leading to a divine revelation far beyond the scope of a spell list.
Frederic Ferro :
>The only successful revolutionaries seem to be Arkat (but he betrayed so
>many cults that he strengthened Krjalk) and Hrestol.
And Orlanth, of course. And Malkion too, come to think of it.
>the innovative revolutionaries are always wrong and pawns of Chaos or
>self-destruction (Nysalorians, God-Learners, Wyrm Friends, Lunars).
Who says Nysalor was wrong? Ok, he got beaten up by the traitor Arkat, but his supreme sacrifice still brought the blessing on Illumination to the world.
Alex Ferguson :
>Simon (D.) Hibbs attempts to duck the tar-brush:
>> I don't even consider myself to be 'subjectivist' in the sense the
>> term has been used in this discussion. My own possition is that
>> the nature of divinity and the true workings of the divine world
>> are beyond mortal comprehension.
>
>For my money that makes you _precisely_ either a Subjectivist, or a
>Hidden Variable Objectivist, Simon. (A HVO is a Subjectivist with an
>invisible hypothetical security blanket.) ;-)
Hmmm, maybe. Deffinitely not a HVO though.
I'd like to see the objectivists build chaos into their super-rational 'kingdom of logic' style Glorantha. If anything proves the futility of such an aproach, it's the history of the Brithini.
Simon Hibbs
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