>For example, in
>Dragon Pass, some ancient Heortling had a great idea and invented the
>wheel, right?
IMO the ancient Heortling had contact with the Gold Wheel Dancers and learned the secrets of wheels from them.
>This ancient Heortling's struggle to create the wheel would involve a quest
>to help move his people, who needed to escape a threat of somekind or
>another, and where the Hero quested to Mastakos to gain the secrets of the
>Mobility Rune!
Apart from the ready different source of inspiration, I'm inclined to say both yea and nay.
Entekosiad has a nice section about competetive inventions in the struggle between men and women for utility which has contemplative and magical phases, but these aren't too different from the mad scientist burying himself in his lab for a week only to emerge with an Eureka.
GRoY describes how Anaxial received divine inspiration to have his ship Yuthuppa built (by Ostevius), but it also describes how Suvar and Bethegus copy the designs and the magic.
I have no idea who first discovered the principle of wind and cloth present in sail, kite, and windmill, but I know that it has spread far and wide over Glorantha.
>I think that in Glorantha, even what would we would
>consider 'mundane' is actually the result of actual mythic processes, much
>the way tribal peoples on earth today may explain childbirth, weather or
>other processes of their world. This, candles are not invented by some sod
>who stuck a length of twine into wax...candles are the result of Gustbran
>the crafter god giving a fire spirit a safe place to hide (a wick) as well
>as food to eat (the wax) during the Greater Darkness.
This is certainly one way to look at it, and it will be one available mythic reality. It won't be exclusive in any way.
If you take the Orlanthi culture, then note that Orlanth himself displayed inventive qualities like the time he tamed Storm Bull with a lariat and a sharp stick. Who is to stop his people emulating their god's cleverness?
The materialist view of the world supports deduction of natural principles in engineering and crafts, and it is present in lesser prominence in all cultures, as much as a mystic's view.
And there is always Leonardo the Scientist.
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