As others have said, it's not _totally_ useless, but it wouldn't have been my first choice for a KL shrine spell, either. I'd guess that so many KL shrines teach it is as it's seen as a "necessary compromise with living in the hurtplace" type thing, rather than an ideal state of affairs. In more favoured places, such as deep inside Dagori Inkarth, other spells are more likely. (Though equally, so are larger temples, so it may tend to be because the more marginal places have the most need for it, and the most shrines.)
> Does anyone have an idea? I would be really interested in an
> inspired myth or explanation that would allow me to avoid directly
> contradicting published sources...
Personally, I don't think all this guff about The Spell Always Taught at Shrines (or the whole standard list of associates and temple size schtick in general) ought to be taken too seriously. I think that the spell taught in a shrine is the one that the group it serves find the most useful (or mythicly necessary), unless other factors intervene such as a temple hierarchy who tell their local franchisees what they dashed well _have_ to teach, what with it being the One True Way. GoG does make this qualification explicit for some cults, but even if it doesn't, I think one should feel free to assume a certain amount of local variation. After all, just how much research do you think the God Learner fiends who compiled GoG did inside the Castle of Lead? I reckon much of the info in cult writeups is a Statistically Sound Survey, based on those of our cultural anthropologists who came back uneaten (or at least, is a generalisation which necessarily ignores a lot of local variation). As a demonstration of the principle, note than anywhere KL is worshipped as an associate in another temple, there will be what's effectively a KL shrine, granting a spell (in general) _other than_ Darksee.
Variagatedly,
Alex.
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #531
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