Myth-maps.

Greg:
> RE: A "whole map" of the Ages
> In the discussion of the Ages I noticed someone had said something like,
> "We'd need complete maps of the ages to see where they overlap."

May have been my comment, that. At least it rings a faint bell...

> Please note that NO ONE has such maps in Glorantha. Sure the GL have
> cobbled together maps (which serve as the source of the maps online) but in
> normal practice no one goes wandering around the Hero Planes to map it out.
> The myths which are HeroQuests are a story of what happened. The placement
> of different stories on one map gives a general picture of the Age, but is
> not to be considered a map in the modern sense.

That was pretty much my own take on the situation. Of course, just because no-one has them in Glorantha doesn't mean we can't have them in our games (or variations, approximations, or refinements of the GL versions). But my strong suspicion is that that's pretty much infeasible too, on any level that would even remotely be "exhaustive" of the possible interactions.

> Did Thrinbarri Fields and
> Howling Shore exist together? No, they are in different myths. Can a player
> hero go on one of those quests, depart from the path and find the other
> place? Yes, but not always in the same way, same place or with the same
> entities. In fact, they may be the entity responsible for making" that
> event by their travels.

I suppose that when a Quester does this by intent, then one can pretty much throw it back at them, and ask them to give a myth-narrative account of _why_ this connection exists (or ought to exist); what the new, joinedup  myth "really means", basically. OTOH, more often I'm looking as a narrator either for a way to make a myth less predictably linear, while still keeping the same basic "moral", or I'm trying to deal with unexpected player-quester actions, and still have it be "mythicly right". (And runaway interactions between the two...)

I doubt, as I say, that any detailed map of these is likely to be forthcoming; my hopes would be pitched someplace between that, at the upper end, and on the lower "you're on your own, just busk it", though. (The bumper book of experimental heroquesting and half-baked GL correspondance theories, perhaps...)

Cheers,
Alex.

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