Re: Vinga; myths

From: David Dunham <dunham_at_pensee.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 14:44:26 -0800


Jane Williams is quick to defend Vinga:

> > she's a pretty minor goddess and can't really support a full cult

> Pardon? 15% of women choose the warrior path, or thereabouts.

While your argument is good (you can clearly support a cult with a fraction of the population), I think 15% of women choose not to be Ernalda. This still lets them decide between Humakt, Babeester Gor, and Vinga (as warriors) and of course all the other deities normally worshipped by reasonable Orlanthi. (If they're unreasonable Orlanthi they become a shaman or a Chaotic, I suppose.)

So I think Vingans represent far less than 5% of the adult population.

OK, a couple people have taken me to task on my argument that you can't rely on the number of published myths to indicate a deity's importance. I will attempt (once) to clarify.

There are essentially no complete myths where most of the important Orlanthi deities appear as the main character. Only The First Ring can really count as a Chalana Arroy myth. (There are a fair number of references to myths, for example in cult writeups, but these aren't complete enough to heroquest.) Therefore, lack of a complete myth about any deity can't prove they're not important. There are simply too few myths out there. Even Ernalda doesn't appear in her own myth (with the possible exception of something once posted to the Issaries web site), though we know she must have bazillions.

David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein


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