Re: The Glorantha Digest V8 #503

From: Blatt Barry <bazblatt_at_cwcom.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:32:01 +0100

Sez me:

And then the game was up as far as the
theists
>were concerned because Humct wasn't any kind of deity they could
recognise,
>but a peice of sorcerous nonsense that had been foisted on them for
who
>knows what reasons.

Sez Simon:

>Have you any reason to believe that any theists have ever had Humct
foisted
>on them? Humct is a western explanation for theist religious beliefs,
not
>an attempt to manipulate those beliefs.

I thought the GL were trying to manipulate theist beleifs. The idea (as I understood it) of their taking such an interest in the myths and legends of the barbarians of the various Thelayan cultures was initially knowledge for it's own sake, later used to try and pacify them under the rule of the Middle Sea Empire. I have seen references to the worship of a St Humct in Ralios, and the doomed attempt to analyse tricksters in Slontos to create/understand the god Errml. Then there were the False Gods - why did they do it? And the write up of Hsunchen on the Issaries site says that the GL influence made their religions a little more standardised, though whether this was done deliberately or accidentally as a result of introducing them to each other it doesn't say. Then there is the False Dragon Ring and the School of Immanent Mastery in Kralorea, deifinitely an attempt to synthesise a manipulable version of local beleifs to control the subject peoples, and the cult of Caladra and Aurelion was made for a reason. Just an experiment? Or an attempt to pacify the warlike Caladralanders? Humct may not be part of this, but why St Humct in Ralios? As a henotheist area it should be St Humakt surely?

On the other hand Worlath is described by Western sources as pre Dawn wizard who tried to corner the powers of Storm, and they say nothing about trying to introduce him to the barbarians as a potential deity. And places in western Maniria are desribed as having a Makioni aristocracy and a theist peasantry whose beleifs are ignored and considered irrelevant.

I would speculate that the sprawling Middle Sea Empire tried various approaches and had no unified unbeleiver policy.

1. Just trade and ignore the local idiocies. Self interest as being part of a global trade network is enough to get cooperation of local power brokers, GLs and like scholars may go and study and may try and persuade local magicians to participate in their experiments, with little subsequent effect, though sorcerous schools may persist. Teshnos an example?
2. Rule with an Iron Fist. Let the plebs believe what they like, as long as they cough up taxes on time and do their farmwork with the minimum of fuss and bother. Wenelia? Janube Valley? Heortland?
3. Convert them to Malkionism. Send in the missionaries, show these poor ignorant folk the spiritual benefits of being part of the great bortherhood of peoples under the One True God. Slontos? The follow up phases of the Return to Rightness Crusade?
4. Create a manipulable theist/mystical religion under Imperial control. Possibly combined with the above, the missionary message being that 'we all believe in the same things really...' Very similar to modern attempts by the Lunars to suppress the Orlanthi using Pelorian storm gods, but with a more deliberately synthetic element. Caladraland? Kralorela?

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