Spirit Plane, Shaman Clarifications

From: Greg Stafford <greg_at_glorantha.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 08:40:26 -0700


At 05:39 AM 7/19/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_yahoo.com>
>Greg sez:
>> Shamans' speciality is to go to the Otherworld.
>. . .
>> As stated someplace (uh,maybe in the
>> unpublished HQ rules?) the Spirit World
>> has no sections or barriers between
>> parts, and normal, Great and Majestic
>> spirits all wander around at random.
>> That's the big danger to anyone
>> but a shaman going there.
>
>So, would it be fair to make the following statements?
>- A Shaman can usually navigate in the Spirit World.
Correct.

>- Other people usually cannot, even if they can get
>there.

Correct.

>- "Directions" in the Spirit World are generally incomprehensible to or
impossible to >apply by non-Shamans. e.g., those at: ww.glorantha.com/new/prax_spirit_tradition.html Directions do not exist in the Spirit World. The demense of the animist tradition is its own entity/space in the spirit plane. It has no relationship whatsoever with any other demense in the spirit plane. There is no permanence way to travel from one demense to another.

>- "Sure, the Shaman said to get to the Outlands Passage by heading from
the Home Camp towards the Spike, but where's the Spike?" The Spirit world has no Spike.

Are you still confusing the Hero Planes, where HeroQuesting takes place, with the Spirit World, where very little HeroQuesting takes place?

>From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
>Jerome Blondel:
>> >> But why _should_ an animistic (not Shamanic) hero need a shaman?
>
>Greg:
>> They don't.
>> But if they want a decent chance to survive, they do.
>
>Sounds about right for the likes of the Praxians. Isn't it less true
>of some traditions, though, especially the hsunchen?
No, not at all.

>If I'm a non-shaman
>Rathor (say), but am Amazingly Well-Integrated(TM) with my Bear self
Integration no longer exists as a Shamanic or Animist power. They are the very people who would most loath exterminating the individual spirits by using the old HW form of Integration.

>(sp. unimportant here...) -- say with totem animal Talents all in the W4's
> -- amn't I a perfectly viable proposition in (the appropriate parts of)
>the spirit world, as is?

Even if Integration was still in use, this statement would not be true.

>Or is it more correct to look at it as, in order to _become_ that
>advanced a Rathori magician, it's necessary to be a shaman, or their
>equivalent of that status? (With the totem-spirit as "fetch"?)
No, not at all.
A shaman is a person who can travel in the Spirit World because he has a fetch.
Practitioners do not have fetches, can only go to their own home demense in the Spirit World.

>From: Jerome Blondel <bwbfc_at_yahoo.fr>
>> I'm a bit leery of whether the firemaking motif will still remain.
>> Greg's already used it prominently in the non-Shamanic Yelm
>> religion and it seems a bit careless to recycle it unchanged for
>> the Doraddi.

Actually, the fire myth is essential to the animist way of life too. Forgive me if you must for my carelessness, but fire is essential to human beings being human beings. It is (perhaps) the ONLY thing that sets human beings apart from other animals.



Greg Stafford, greg_at_glorantha.com
Issaries, Inc. 900 Murmansk St., Suite 5; Oakland, CA 94607 Phone: (510) 452 1648 Fax: (510) 302 0385 Publisher of Hero Wars, Roleplaying in Glorantha See our site at: <www.glorantha.com>

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