Rather than seeing discussions of how this might be handled, I'd love to see some budding author to just write us up a scenario for Lunar investigators to discover and prove which raccoon story is more real, or what their actual (not theoretical) pre-divergent origins might be.
>If one were to take RW biology seriously though (always a dangerous
>thing to do... <g>,
Please, let us first start with that observation: this isn't earth biology.
>I'd have thought horses would be a good deal more
>"surprising" in this regard. There's only one (modern) species of
>horse, and I don't think the "breeds" of horse have much in the way
>of significant genetic diversity.
This is my understanding of earth horses too. Their are so genetically
similar in fact that I had read some speculation that they were down to a
single herd.
>OTOH I believe there are several
>different species of raccoon...
These facts about dividing up animals (species) are utterly irrelevant to
Glorantha.
>I'm frankly still entirely at a loss as to Greg's thinking, and indeed
>his meaning here.
I'll try to make my intentions clear here. I'm not trying to imitate earth
biology at all. I don't care how many species exist on earth for various
animals (though I am quite familiar with them). These are not taxonomy:
they are a bunch of entertaining stories that your characters can play in.
Meaning? Well, since mythology is the art of meaning, and your game is
going to be a meaningful one, YOU get to make up the meaning here. Meaning
is only found in action: your game.
>If the "different" animals don't have to be separate
>species (whatever that means (esp. in Glorantha),
The "species" idea is not in Glorantha. A key in that idea is around
breeding together. We have seen that in ancient times, and in key cases
today, interbreeding is possible between plants and animals, rocks and
animals and other such matings.
Nonetheless, in modern Glorantha that breeding rule still applies all (85%)
of the time. It is recognized, and exceptions to it are duly noted.
>can evidently
>interbreed enthusiastically,
The world is made of everything. Most of the horses that are alive today
are of the "mixed horse" types. They are just horses that respond equally
to most kinds of magic, and are non magical in themselves. A few of the
pure breeds exist, the Goldeneye being notable. The modern breeds can be
traced to specific types, but are mixed as well. Most, whatever breed they
are, are just horses.
>then I can't see how it can be anything
>other than a defeasible, if not outright infeasible, assumption that
>origins in different otherworlds must maintain some sort of strictly
>separate identity.
They do have separate identity, of course.
>Even setting aside the earlier question of their
>"convergence" to similar but doggedly separate entities.
Your selection of modern scientific terms is acceptable in a GL way, but
you need to remember that the similarity of raccoons isn't a problem for
anyone in Glorantha.
>It seems to me that of course, in some cases there will be entirely
>different, mythically valid accounts for similar-but-different things.
Yes of course, but it is difficult to talk in just the abstract. So I will
try to agree with an example: Why does the sun go down? One raccoon says
"Wolves ate it," and the other says, "they stole it." Correct.
>But equally, it's the nature of myth that there will be entirely
>different, mythically valid accounts of the _same_ thing, in some
>cases. (Be it a species of animal, the sun, etc.)
Yes, of course there is. But one can be wrong, and remember that in a Test
Challenge one can be proved to be wrong and the knowledge wiped out forever.
>If there this
>were not so in Glorantha, I don't see how this can help but make it
>a less interesting place mythically than it otherwise would be -- and
>indeed hitherto appeared to be. After all, animals, like humans,
>are creature of the inner world; it's not as if they _have_ to be
>irrevocably wedded to one and only one other world.
Which is part of the Big Picture to understand this stuff.
Most animals are Made of Everything. The exceptions are not. Hence you
might run into an actual wolf spirit or spirit wolf, hence Hrognar.
The God War Cast
In HeroQuest most heroquesting occurs in the God Wars period. The leading
political and magical beings of that period are the ancestral gods and
spirits of these animals.
The original animals exist there, when Ertelenari and Rathor were alive.
Those blue foxes, giant falcons and pure spirit Galanini are the NPCs and
treasure of HeroQuesting.
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