> Let's assume that Western is some form of ideographic script (I favor
> something more like hieroglyphics than Chinese, but maybe old Chinese is
> OK). So when you write down the name of Thunder Brother #1 you really can't
> - -- you have to use the "Storm" and "Child" glyphs. Of course, you partake
> in endless scholarly arguments with your colleagues that "No, this is
> Hedkoranth, not Doburdun." Then it strikes you. They're written the same --
> maybe despite the barbarians not knowing the true name of the god, they are
> the same. After all, the written language is purer. A few quick experiments
> (and a grant to import storm worshippers to Umathela, which is after all
> more pleasant than Dragon Pass and its bitterly cold winters) and you've
> got the beginnings of not just a paper but a major work...
Yes! This ties in with a number of possible God Learner secrets.
The closer the name the closer the god.
The function defines the god.
The Word is the Thing.
> (Note of course that, like Japanese, Western could have both a proper
> ideographic system, and a katakana-like system for representing barbaric
> sounds.)
Hmmm. I like the idea of the God Learners inventing an alphabetic/phonetic system to write down all the different languages they encounter. (Professor Higgins: God Learner!) Perhaps from that would come the artificial language of Tradetalk which (as Everyone Knows) is a God Learner Artifact.
Oliver asks:
> How would they realize something like a soul shortage was occuring?
Oddly I think only a high level civilisation with centralised government like the Lunars would notice the symptoms: a sudden but widely spread pandemic of children born physically healthy but without any consciousness.
Hmm, how about this: the sudden appearance of an investigative party of Kralorelan Mandarins (complete with Path of Immanent Mastery bodyguard) come to central Genertela to discover the source of *their* soul-shortage which they have divined is flying too and fro across the continent....
> Who's counting the souls? Are people killed by the Bat
> "gone" never to return? Is this true for vampires and other soul
> suckers?
> Makes them all the more terrible. (The people I game with always
> thought the description in Call of Cthulhu stating that once your Power
> hit
> zero you were gone as if you'd never been to be one of the most terrible
> things about the game).
I always assume this is so but the number of souls in the world is not necessarily zero-sum. I've always assumed (in all my fantasy campaigns that feature re-incarnation) that new souls come into existence at a slow but measurable rate and that only a few leave by destruction or transcendence.
But the Bat could well be devouring souls faster than they can be naturally replenished.
Actor And Genius
AKA Theophilus Prince Archbishop Of The Far Isles Medieval Society
Arms Purpure An Open Book Proper: On the Dexter Page an Alpha Or
On the Sinister an Omega Or. Motto Nulla Spes Sit in Resistendo
(Resistance is Useless). Ask me about the Far Isles:
Better Living through Pan-Medieval Anachronisms.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #148
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