> Anyone know anything about canonisation in
> Malkioni Churches BTW? How does it work?
Personally, I think that Malkioni have to HeroQuest to become Saints, although their HeroQuests would perhaps differ from theist HeroQuests (see Nick Brooke's ideas on Western HeroQuesting). Once the prospective Saint had achieved Sainthood through his Quests, he could then help others attain Solace. Before he achieved Sainthood, he may well be able to perform miracles etc. as by-products of the Quests, after all what is a miracle but a magical event, exactly the kind of thing found on HeroQuests.
> Could a dead Wizard be elevated to the
> Sainthood, for instance, by his old buddies,
> in exchange for future miracles in their favour?
No, I believe that achieving Sainthood is a personal act. Of course, someone who has achieved Sainthood may well NOT be accepted as a Saint by certain sects, in which case more HeroQuests/Proofs would need to be performed in order to gain acceptance. Arkat is not accepted by many Hrestoli sects, nor is Rokar. People need to have achieved Sainthood in order to be revered as Saints. Don't forget that in Glorantha, the world is magical so things like Sainthood are real in a different way than in the Real World.
> What magical (Blasphemy! Um; I meant Miraculous)
> processes are involved?=
HeroQuests to become Saints. I cannot think of any examples where people are elevated to Sainthood after death without having done the work beforehand. Even Xemela (? Hrestol's Mother) cured a terrible plague, presumably through some Quest, and could then transfer the benefits learned to others after she had died.
Having said that, Malkion himself was never a Saint in the true sense because I do not think that Saints existed before Hrestol showed his new Way. Therefore, Malkion was revered as a Saint without having made himself one. However, since he was a Prophet of the Invisible God, he would have had Quests of his own and would probably have been a Saint in Waiting. All IMO, of course.
Richard Develyn:
> What if something nasty happened to Waha worshippers and something
> brilliant happened to the Basmoli, so that the Basmoli were
> considerably more numerous and powerful than Waha followers. Could
> the Basmoli then HQ into the myth and change it in this way (i.e.
> pretty fundamentally)?
In my opinion, the God Plane can be described in this way:
Each HeroQuest made in the God Plane has an effect on the God Plane.
Think of the God Plane as a flat surface and each HeroQuest as making
a mark on the God Plane, inscribing a pattern in the surface.
Powerful HeroQuests make deeper and wider gouges. God Quests make
huge canyons in the God Plane surface.
Now imagine HeroQuest A having a certain effect. This marks out a
pattern A which people can now follow. Imagine a HeroQuestor making a
modification to this path, creating HeroQuest B. This also makes a
pattern in the God Plane. If these are weak HeroQuests then pattern A
will be about as deep as pattern B and people will generally be able
to follow either Quest.
Imagine the case when Pattern A is like a Grand Canyon. Pattern B
needs to be very deep and wide, otherwise it is overwhelmed by
Pattern A. Repeating HeroQuests strengthen them and tend to make the
Pattern deeper and stronger.
In the case of the Tada/Basmol quest, the Quest where Tada kills Basmol is very deep. Any new Quest would be virtually insignificant. The new Quest would be strengthened by Questing, but each time the new Quest failed, it would strengthen the Tada kills Basmol Quest.
This is why it is very hard to change established deeds by major deities in the God Time. It is also why changing minor deeds by demigods or spirits is relatively easy and why the God Learners were useful - they made small changes to demigods at first, only afterwards trying to make larger changes.
There is a paradox in this in that when two conflicting Quests exist, EACH ARE TRUE, although the truth of the stronger Quest is self evident through Questing.
Therefore, I would say that answer 3 is the most correct - it is very
difficult to change the mythic nature of this particular God Time
sequence.
> 3) Question isn't valid. While the myth continues in its current
> form, Basmol worshippers can _never_ get the upper hand on Waha
> worshippers.
Simon Hibbs:
> The Basmoli
> know this happened. They may want to try and bring Basmol back, but
> how can they put their full, unconditional, committed support behind
> somehting they _know_ is a lie? It's doomed to failiure from the
> start.
I certainly wouldn't go that far. It is possible, just extremely difficult.
> In theyalan terms, it's a violation of the compromise.
Not at all. I am not sure whether Waha and Basmol are powerful enough to be part of the Compromise. After all, Waha was walking around fighting Pavis in Prax during the Second Age.
> The
> whole of Basmoli culture and history since Basmol's death would
> unravell and lose it's cohesion.
Not at all. If the Quest succeeded and Basmol was proven not to have been killed, the future generations of Basmoli would look back at their ancestors and say "It is a shame that our ancestors spent their lives thinking that Basmol had been killed. We are lucky that we found out that he was not killed and that he is with us." In the far future, they may well forget that Basmol was ever thought to have been killed. If the Basmol escapes Tada Quest became super-dominant then people would be amazed that anyone tried to perform the Tada kills Basmol Quest as it was doomed to failure so why bother.
Simon Phipp
Powered by hypermail