Re: Theism in Glorantha

From: TTrotsky_at_aol.com
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 15:04:41 EDT


Sergio:

<<And what I want to know is whether I should look at gods as unpersonal and
natural or as personalities.>>

     Yes, that's exactly how you should look at them ;-)

<<I (meaning Sergio, not my PC) want to know if Orlanth exists>>

     Yes, he does.

<<or if it is only a social representation of a natural phenomenom.>>

     Yes, it is.

 <<I'm not saying that there must be a one true answer. I live happily with polysemic (does it exist as an English word?) words.>>

     Almost. Its 'polysemous'.

<< We may apply the word god to two realities, nothing against it. But I want
to know they're different, and how.>>

    To the Orlanthi, Dara Happans, etc. a god is a powerful supernatural being with a distinct personality, who is able to influence specific aspects of the world indirectly (by getting wind spirits to make the weather, or whatever) but cannot physically appear within it. A god may grant powers to its worshippers in exchange for worship.

    In RQ game terms, a god is any personified being which can grant more than one divine spell to those sacrificing POW to it - if you can only give one you're in the grey area between gods and spirits occupied by Hero cults and Great Spirits. I don't know enough about Hero Wars yet to attempt a game-terms definition in that system.

    If you're a mainstream Malkioni, God is the sole supreme being, the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent Creator of the universe. This God does not normally grant magical powers to its worshippers. To the Malkioni, the 'gods' of the Orlanthi aren't 'real' gods, since by definition there can be only one supreme omnipotent being. They are instead, impersonal representations of natural phenomena, or else powerful spirits setting themselves up as gods so that they can acquire worship and magical energy from their deluded followers.

    In game terms, (the Invisible) God does not grant divine magic, and his followers use sorcery. The terms become grey again when we consider the henotheists, who combine the use of divine magic and sorcery.

    So in game terms, divine magic is the dividing line between theist gods and the monotheist God, although this isn't really a perfect delination (Arroin, frex, doesn't grant any divine magic, but he's still a god). But the real difference lies in how they are perceived and interacted with by their worshippers, which isn't a matter of game rules and can, IMHO, quite happily sit as an inherent contradiction within Glorantha without any problems. It doesn't matter whether Orlanth is a personal being or a mass delusion - he's both, depending on which culture you're talking about - since the game rules apply in the same way to both.

<<Notwithstanding the different cultural explanations of blood, there is a
single basic blood mechanism. Most cultural explanations may be wrong, and some may be close to the truth. IMO, magic in Glorantha should be like this>>

     I disagree. So long as we have rules that work to cover it, we don't need to know which of the four basic approaches (if any) is the truth, and which isn't. Aside from mysticism, we already do have rules for this, and we should get mysticism with Hero Wars if I understand correctly. For the sake of argument, if I were to say that the Malkioni were right, and the Orlanthi wrong, what difference would it make to your game?

<<What's a mystic in the real world?>>

    A person who uses contemplative prayer and spirituality aimed at acheiving direct intuitive understanding of the divine (sez my dictionary). As opposed to one who uses ritual and dogma, presumably - theists, animists and sorcerors all do the latter to some extent or another. I don't know if that actually gets us anywhere though! Oh, and hang on, my dictionary adds 'obscure or confused belief or thought'. Which might explain why we don't understand it ;-)

<<I simply expect to be able to understand why should I choose a mystic as a
PLC. Why he is different from a shaman, a sorceror or a priest.>>

     He's different in that he doesn't use divine magic, spirit magic or sorcery and that he probably gets his magic by sitting on top of a mountain for a decade contemplating the lotus blossum or some such. Instead of going to a temple, shrine or library like any sensible person :-). In fact, he probably doesn't use much magic at all, since he basically wants to escape the world rather than modify or interact with it. I'm not convinced that he actually makes a very good player character.

Forward the glorious Red Army!

    Trotsky


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