Ok, to be honest I had never heard that it had been established that gods do NOT have free will. In fact, I kinda that that was one of the problems-it being ambiguous.
Anyhow, since I now think correctly about it, and like that quote above by somebody who's name I kinda cut off, I'm starting to understand. :-)
One question though, suppose a group of heroes hops onto the Godplane, and finds Orlanth, and says "hi". Is this even a possible situation? Or are they morelikely to discover, "Well, that wasn't REALLY Orlanth, he's not a person you know..." Would they encounter a hero or Avatar of Orlanth? Does that make sense? That there might be some temporary manifestations of gods that can interact on the Godplane or via divination? Or is that just nonsense too? Should it just not be possible for that kind of encounter to happen?
However, as much as we say that the gods don't have free will, they're not people, etc, would Gloranthans believe this? Or would the majority of Gloranthans personify gods daily? Would the understanding that "Orlanth is not a person" be part of an initiation secret, or something revealed to acolytes/priest. Hm, now that I think about it, if that knowledge was given to the priesthood, it could avoid stupid divination questions like, "Orlanth, how are you related to Elmals.." etc etc etc. (Questions that have no "right" answer.)
Re: Stereotypes of the Lunars
I like to convince my players that the Lunar empire is this great evil bloated monstrosity. But, they have this great propganda machine which talks about how enlightened and civilized they are. Mind you, most of the officials are corrupt, decadent, evil chaos lovers who don't care about that kind of thing. Then, of course, they run into nice, honest, trustworthy Lunars. The kind that run orphanges, help out the needy, etc etc. The best part was getting the Humakti to agree to be the bodyguard for the Lunar Governer of Carse. (Fighting off Orlanthi Fanatics, etc. heh heh)
Anyhow, the best part of painting the world in black and white is having things to contrast against it.
Oh, and since somebody asked:
I got into Glorantha and RQ about the same time. What I mean, is that a guy had two RQ games, one in Glorantha, one in another world. I played in both for awhile, but when I decided to run a non StarWars RPG campaign, I decided on Glorantha. Because it's an all around great world.
Rich Ohlson
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