> Immortality, or least the revivification of the soul, seem to be
> important themes in Lunar religion. This seems to be because of
> an obvious influence from the Yelmic experience.
On the other hand, the Lunars would plausibly claim that two of their primal Lunar Goddesses, Verithurusa and Lesilla, descended into Hell =
and came forth again *before* Yelm ever did. The Lunars obviously had an influence on the Yelmic experience... :-)
In your structure, the Only Old One might literally be the Pharaoh's "shadow". But reducing all of Glorantha's mythic diversity to a limited set of common themes ("The ruler must have a Shadow", etc.) would be a shame.
> I could not help but think that the Red Goddess (or more precisely,
> mortal Rufelza), was a God Learner (in intention, anyway) or con-
> structed herself using God Learner techniques. In short, the Goddess
> is a God Learner construct (???).
Plausible, but what does it gain us? There do appear to have be preexisting Lunar Goddesses in Peloria; mortal Rufelza (at least at first) was embodied in a young girl, Teelo Norri, one of the "Mothers"; it's well known that Pelorian myth was "virgin territory", untouched by the God Learners to any significant extent; and that the ritual of the Seven Mothers was a dire magical conspiracy.
Chris Gidlow's "Seleric Verses" (in Tales #16) may be to your taste. A parallel we've used is that, "The 'Seleric Verses' are as much about turning a woman into the Moon, as 'Dune' was about turning a man into a Sandworm". Your ideas are well worth contemplating, but I'd rather do so on their own terms instead of labelling things "God Learner constructs".
FWIW, part of the thinking behind the Seleric Verses is the heretical notion that the later Red Emperor, Doskalos, was present in the Year Zero, as Doskalos, who assisted the Seven Mothers, became the lover of Teelo Norri / Rufelza, and was subsequently the first terrestrial ruler of the First Blessed sultanate ("some lover of the goddess, we can't be bothered to name him", according to the official history). If so, he could not literally have been the son of the Goddess. This is why the Seleric Heresy had to be purged after Sheng, when the new Emperor Magnificus (who *obviously* wasn't Takenegi) couldn't risk having his right to rule questioned by such suggestions...
> Why would anyone want to participate in the Masters of Luck and
> Death tourney? The big prize is that the Pharaoh gets to take over
> your body... I guess there are promises of spiritual rewards, but
> it sounds like a con game to me.
The winner's soul is liberated to a fully angelic existence of bliss, IIRC. This being Glorantha, I'd imagine the Cult of the Man-God can prove this to its members. Though of course the Brithini would be as unimpressed as ever. If you're not a pious follower of the Pharaoh, why on earth would you want to participate? (That is, it's as much a "con game" as Storm Bull's promise to rescue his worshippers' souls from Chaos after they're dead: the cult of the Bull is convinced that this happens, even if they'd have a hard time proving it to anyone).
> What happens to the losers? Since the contest has "Death" in its
> title, I would assume the penalty for failure is harsh...
Not proven. The contest is presumably risky, but I doubt it's always fatal for non-winners. If we think about its original incarnation as a multi-player boardgame, it's unlikely the victory conditions force the winner to kill off all the losers: more likely the winner is the first one to the central hex of the City of Wonders (or whatever).
I'm quite fond of the idea that contestants in previous tournaments might attempt to participate again, or alternatively (if this isn't allowed) coach or train their successors to do better than they did. But I don't recall any sources touching on this matter. It would be a shame if a failed Tournament (like the ones held after the spiritual dismemberment of Belintar) resulted in the virtual decapitation of the Holy Country's most powerful and able leaders, too... and a real campaign-fucker if all but one of your toughest NPC leaders had to be retired whenever Pharaoh shuffles off his present mortal coil. (Remember: hosting Belintar's spirit ages bodies unnaturally. Those tournaments could be unpleasantly frequent).
It looks like MGF demands that, while contestants *can* die in a Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death, or kill each other off, normally the losers would expect to survive -- whether or not they are ever eligible to participate again. I can't see anything else "working" for a Holy Country based campaign: the turnover of tough heroquesters would be too high.
>> He does want the movements of Lightfore through the constell- >> ations to "spell out" nightly myths, and is probably upset >> that, "scientifically" speaking (i.e. using an Ephemeris), >> this doesn't happen very obviously.
> Doesn't it? I thought this happened using your model in a way =
> he was pretty keen on. After all, Lightfore _does_ go through
> different constellations on different nights, with Polaris being
> the only fixed point.
Correction. Greg would like to be able to say which constellations Lightfore passes through, and in which order, on certain mythically important nights of the year. Having a fixed model which can show him this (and which would require tedious re-calibration to produce a different, perhaps more desirable or more mythically-appropriate result) doesn't seem to have thrilled him much. Though I agree, he liked the way that the nightly path of Lightfore can be shown onscreen using my model.
The Southpath presented even more problems...
Anyone wondering what we're waffling about can download the freeware Gloranthan Ephemeris, a Visual Basic program for Windows PC's, from my homepage.
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Nick <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Nick_Brooke/>
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