> > Odayla as the Bear is not great because Bears are not a
> > cosmic force. In the Lego blocks of the Cosmos, there
> > is no primal rune marked Bear. Thus there cannot be
> > a Great Bear God. No matter how much the Sylilans exalt
> > him to the skies, he is not going to become Great.
>I didn't _say_ "Odayla as the Bear", I'm talking about Odalya as
>the cultural god of the Sylilans.
Odayla is still a bear god. While he is more prominent among the Sylilans than among the Heortlings, he is incapable of being a Great God anymore than Yelmalio is.
>For the Sylilans, he's quite evidently more than that.
He is more than the god presented in Storm Tribe but he cannot replace Orlanth. Furthermore the Sylilans are not Odaylings, they also worship the Iron Ram and a number of other gods.
>What really bugs me about the above, however, is how shamelessly
>top-down it is. We don't have to know thing one about the Sylilans
>to make statements about their gods, we can deduce it all from cosmic
>first principles.
I didn't deduce it from cosmic first principles, I simply took the most effective way of refuting your notion that Odayla was a great god among the Sylilans. That you don't like how it is done is simply tough luck.
>(For those troubled by the cosmic implication, the "real answer"
>is of course is that Odalya is "related to", or even part-identified
>with, Orlanth.)
Orlanth worship in the Lunar Empire? I doubt it very much. I don't think the Lunars are stupid enough to allow the worship of Orlanth-as-Odayla within the Empire and I do know from the example of shared cults, that gloranthans have a pretty good idea of who they are worshipping.
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