First, two Gloranthan facts. If you are going to skip most of this message, these are the important bits.
The Gods do not have free will. Mentioned every time Greg talks about heroquesting, and has always been. Sure, the Orlanthi think this might be true. But its not.
The Gods are not always distinct. What is one god one place is sometimes two some other places. The Pelandan cult of Entekos includes both the Dara Happan cults of Dendara and Entekos. The Goddesses involved in the Goddess Switch are both almost interchangeable, and not quite.
Understand this - A God is not a Person.
Lecture over - the important points made clear, now I'll talk about Chris's comments in detail.
>When you talk about the Moon in Peloria, you ARE talking about the Moon
>in Glorantha.
I apologise for my lack of clarity. I was using moon to mean the big thing in the sky, Moon to be the magical Lunar elemental power, the power of the Moon Rune if you want. Everyone believes in the moon - its a big red thing in the sky. Not everyone believes that Moon is an element, though, and certainly not everyone belives the big red thing in the sky used to be a woman from Torang.
Similarly, a storm is not something that varies culturally - it is still a deluge of water, a lot of wind, etc. Storm, however, does vary considerably.
> Again, I suppose this depends on whom's Myths you accept as Truth. My
>personal loyalties lie with Central Genertelan/Dragon Pass Myth, since
>it seems the most broad and all-encompassing - For example, it seems
>that Yelm is accepted and believed in by the inhabitants of Sartar and
>the Holy Country, although not acknowledged as ruler.
I don't accept anyones as Truth. As soon as you do, you restrict yourself to only understanding a very small part of Glorantha. If you accept Orlanthi myth as truth, you will never understand the Pelorians properly. And you will never understand the Doraddi at all. Never. I'm not willing to make that sacrifice just to avoid grappling with the difficult issues.
>I'm confused by this. How can Orlanth be 'well disposed' to the Red
>Goddess for doing one thing, and still be at odds for her actions in
>annother case?
Because Gods are Not People. In Sartar, the people of the Red Goddess do bad things to thepeople of Orlanth. So she is an enemy of Orlanth. In Saird, the people of the Red Goddess rule well over the people of Orlanth, and so they are not enemies. Some priests in Saird no doubt where able to prove that they were enemies. They died, and those who listened to them died - or in any case left the temples of Saird. Some priestesses of the Red Goddess are able to prove that she aided Orlanth. So she must be an ally.
Ask a god 'what do you think?' is the same as asking a god to express Free Will. They do not have Free Will. At best, you get your question back like a mirror.
'Is Shepelkirt a vile stain on existence?' Yes 'Is the Red Goddess who tamed Gagarth and his Sky Bears a usefulally of Orlanth?' Yes.
(PS sneaky question - what about the Red Goddess, does she have free will? Sneaky answer - she does when she is incarnated as a mortal. She did have during her mortal life - and probably does not anymore. Which explains how she 'violated the Compromise' in Orlanthi terms.)
>> Its a political question as much as a religious one. <Snip>
>
>However, one fundamental fact overrides all other considerations in
>Glorantha... RELIGION IS REALITY. Therefore, Religion and Politics, for
>example, are utterly inseperable.
You are quite correct in this in general terms (not always in specifics, as Alex pointed out) - however you have it backwards, in this case. The politics determines that the Lunar Empire is the aggressor to the Sartarite Orlanthi, so to the Sartarite Orlanthi, Moon is the aggressor to Storm. To other Orlanthi, both the politics and the religion is pretty different.
> Gods are
>not constructs, they have free will and directly involve themselves in
>the lives of their worshippers.
Precisely wrong. That Gods do not have free will has been said many times, by Greg and others. It has been the foundation mechanic of just about every HeroQuest draft, for starters (though sometimes in rather hamfisted way). The Orlanthi say its the Compromise (and claim the gods really do have free will just never use it - which amounts to exactly the same thing). Other cultures have other explanations. But nonetheless the truth is that the gods do not have free will.
It is also true that they are not 'constructs' - they are personifications of universal truths, not mere manifestations of their worshippers beliefs.
>But Molanni and Entekos are Solar Air deities... Deities who have been
>subsumed and tamed by Solar Power (and later, Lunar Power.)
Actually, Entekos predates both the Solar and Lunar religions. Its in the Entekosiad. But the version of Entekos worshipped in Dara Happa is certainly subsumed and tamed. This is just casual pedantry, not an actual disagreement.
> As stated
>in GoG, CoP, and other sources, Moon seeks to engulf and conquer (or
>Heal, if you're Lunar) the entire Cosmos, absorbing the pliant Earth and
>Solar Deities, first, then setting herself against Storm.
Its more they seek to incorporate more deities into the Lunar Way, rather than actually engulf them into the Moon. Other religions are fitted into Lunar cosmology, and politically accomodated. Its not usually conquering.
And think about it, even in your own terms - do you think the Lunar conquest of Storm would happen all at once? Of course not, so there are areas where Storm is hostile to Moon and areas where it is not. Just don't fall into the trap of thinking that Storm hostile to Moon is synonymous with 'Orlanth', and Moon friendly to Storm is always one of those wimpy Pelorian Air goddesses.
>Remember, in all the cases I know of, Moon is the *aggressor* against
>Storm.
Some people will believe anything! Remember, the hostile act the Red Goddess committed that caused theCastle Blue altercation, according to the Orlanthi, was existence. Only the most fanatic Orlanthi would think that was 'aggression'. Read the GRoY and Entekosiad and you will find numerous cases of Storm aggression to Moon.
Certainly they are being aggressors in regards to Sartar, though. And so its quite reasonable that the Sartarite Orlanthi characterise them as aggressors, always.
>This is because in Central Peloria, Storm is not a problem. The masses
>have been placated and everything is peaceful. However, IMO, the Red
>Goddess is certainly concerned about Storm and the threats it poses to
>her conquests.
Actually, I think in Central Peloria, they simply wouldn't consider the beloved deities of the Air as having anything to do with gods like Walindum or Rebellus Terminus. Nothing at all. The concept of 'Storm', including all the elemental air gods is not Pelorian thinking at all. Those out on the provinces might think like that, but not the central Pelorians.
Walindum is a more worrying Storm deity to Central Pelorians, Orlanth is a funny god on the frontiers that they barely understand. And the historical opposition of the Pelorians to Walindum (Valind) comes not because of a historical antipathy to Storm - they don't have that concept. Its because he makes everything unpleasant and cold and makes the crops die of frost.
> Orlanth and his ilk are the one group of deities who do
>not fall easily to the splendor and glamour of the Lunar Way.
Who is the other great enemy of the Lunars? The nomads. Who do they worship? Kargzant, who can pretty much be considered a variant of Yelm in game terms (certainly in modern times). Yet Yelm is the great ruling god of the Dara Happan Empire, and Kargzant its greatest enemy. Think about that, and whether your arguments about Moon always opposing Storm hold up when the ruler god of most of the Lunar Empire and its greatest enemy god are not only both gods of Sky, but are functionally the same (the God Learners certainly believed the nomads worshipped Yelm).
>> "Something went badly wrong. The Sun disappeared, and everything got cold
>> and starved. Then the bad things came, including trolls and hideous chaotic
>> monsters. We managed to survive, though many others didn't, and then we did
>> great magical things to put the world right, and eventually the sun came
>> back."
>
> IMO, this belief is universal because it did indeed actually happen,
>but everyone interprets it differently not only due to local pressures,
>but also due to the enormity of the Myth and Magical act of the I Fought
>We Won itself.
Absolutely it did really happen. The world really did get damn cold. In most places, Chaos did rampage. Many peoples really died.
There is a question about whether I Fought We Won was really one single event, or the same mythic pattern repeated all over the world. I don't think that question can be answered, and to attempt to do so would be leaping into mysticism. But I don't think it really historically occurred in the same way that it is talked about in Cults of Terror.
Cheers
David
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