SM>>> Do you think the God Learners viewed the Loper
>>>People as Blue Vadeli? Surely not.
Me>>The issue is their origin, not who they are. The God Learners seek
>>to explain all origins in terms of their own mythology because they
>>know that is true and not the half-baked folk lore of rank barbarians
>>and the ignorant supersition of fuzzie-wuzzies.
>Um, this does not sound like the God Learners at all -- it sounds like
>the Brithini. The God Learners studied all of Glorantha's mythologies
>(well, most of them anyways), and then created the Monomoyth to fit as
>much of most of them together as possible. How is the Monomyth evidence
>of a God Learner belief that only their [Western] "myths" are true?
As you are probably aware, the God Learners had extreme difficulty in fitting in the origins of humanity into their monomyth. They didn't accept the solution that humanity had several origins so they must have decided that myths of people's origins were wrong save for one group. And that of course is the relevations of Malkion which every God Learner _knows_ is right!
Me>>Thus I don't think that any differences between Sarro's
>>Orlanth and the Genertelan Orlanth would be any greater than the
>>differences between the various forms of Orlanth in Genertela.
>Except that the humans of Dragon Pass and Ralios are all of the wareran
>"sub-race" of humanity, and are all Theyalans to boot. The possible
>Orlanth worshipers of Fonrit are doraddi -- though they are long-removed
>from the plains, their culture and worldview are wildly different. This
>would lead to much greater differences than in Genertela, IMO.
10% of Fonrit is white and is of Umathelan origin. Thus the 'Orlanth' IMO comes from there for it to be recognized as Orlanth by the outsiders. The Doraddi do recognize Orlanth but I think that the awareness was brought into Jolar by the Six-legged Empire.
Besides, I don't think the Fonritan Agimori were originally Doraddi. IMO they are more akin to the Ia Rawthi of Dolorofrey and have been sedentary people for a long time. The languages of the Doraddi and the Fonritan Agimori are in seperate language families and thus I think the two are as akin as Heortlings and Pelorians.
Me>>BTW what
>>don't you like about idea of the Artmali worshipping Jraktal?
>Other than that "Jraktal" is being used far too many ways and places for
>it.
Like where? The only mentions of Jraktal besides ToTRM#8 occurs in Drastic: Chaos and Lords of Terror. None of these preclude a first age Fonritan origin for Jraktal. The only geographical mention of Jraktal places him in Pamaltela.
Seconly since Jraktal is associated with the Chaos Invasion of the South, he must have entered the God Learner lexicon _before_ 719 ST when the Pithdarians would have told everyone that the Invader of the South was Vovisibor. Since the God Learners reached Pamaltela by the middle of the sixth century, it seems probable that they got the identification of Jraktal from the Coastal Pamaltelans.
>Also, I find it difficult to believe that Dawn Age Fonrit was
>dominated by worship of chaos deities.
>Jraktal is the God of Tap, which
>is (ultimately) what a large part of Sorcery is about. It is not just the
>spell called Tap, it is the concept that powering your sorcery spell
>steals mana from the surrounding environment, even if you don't
>specifically "Tap" someone or something.
I fail to grok what is meant here. If you mean that all sorcery has its origins in the God Jraktal then I must disagree - Malkion is the inventor of Sorcery in the Western Canon. If you mean that sorcery is somehow chaotic in origin then I must disagree. The origins of sorcery IMO stem from an attempt to understand the world _intellectually_ rather than through spiritual understanding. The sorcerer does not 'steal' from the environment, he imposes his mental order upon the Otherworld to make it do what he wants. A spirit magician on the other hand attempts to influence the Otherworld through her spiritual understanding. Neither approach is wrong, they are just different and natural.
>That is sort of what I read into Jraktal, at least in its earliest
>concept -- as a chaos deity, it is the embodiment of the spell Tap, true.
I'm a trifle bemused by this statement considering that when I quoted the ToTRM#8 reference, you attempted to explain it away in V5 #274 as:
The prophecy in Tales #8 was taken from unpublished sources
which had sat at Chaosium unused since around the time of
publication of RQ3. No need (in this case) to take them
literally, I say.
But now you seem to want the 'earliest concept' in presumably unpublished material has having preeminence!
In any case, I think that the concept of gods as being embodiments of pure ideas has had its day and that we must look for cultural explanations of how a god became to be associated with his attributes. To take an (admittedly extreme) example, I do not think that the Blood Sun cult took to worshipping the God of Terminal Heart Surgery but rather in Bliss of Ignorance, the Sun became associated with Blood.
>And, given the great power and extent of the God Learners, throughout all
>of Glorantha, I just find it difficult to believe that they were not
>present in fairly great numbers in Fonrit, where they would have thrived.
Looking at the population distribution mentioned in the Fonrit cult writeup, it mentions that 'the pale folk were always a minority, though an increasingly larger one towards the west.' and that the current proportion of whites is 10%. Assuming that the proportion of whites has been within the same magnitude since the second age colonizations, we have an upper limit on the level of God Learner control. This balances out the whites who may be simple Orlanthi with the Agimori who may have converted to the God Learner faith.
Looking at the ratio for Umathela, we see that the ratio of Orlanthi to Malkioni is 1.25 to 1. In Fonrit, the locals would outnumber the God Learners by 10 to 1. Thus I do not believe that the God Learners had the domestic strength to impose their will on Fonrit. An appropiate parallel to the situation in Fonrit would thus be the present of God Learners in Nochet City or Brithos - influential yes, but dominant? No.
Since I have already given ample reasons previously as to why the God Learners may not have completely taken over Fonrit and in the lack of explicit evidence stating the Kalabarans were God Learners or that the God Learners conquered Fonrit, my opinion remains unchanged.
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