>Me> If you think that the Kalabarites are God Learners, then they are too
> > early. The city is founded in 679 ST which is before the God Learners
> > really got started. I prefer to think of Kalabar as a native
> manifestation
> > forces behind the Empires of the Imperial Age like Errinoru's Elf Empire,
> > the Middle Sea Empire, the EWF and the Eastern Seas Empire.
>Too early how? The God Learners were busy burning Vralos in 654
>[Glorantha Book p.22]
More precisely some of their ancestors were. The Abiding Book was written only a few scant years before. I really think the Umathelan magic was simply a revival or harnessing of the "river gods" of the Lascerdans as they were known to practice slash-and-burn agriculture. This knowledge then gets abused which is why the river gods later drown what they could.
>OK, I grant you that the actual God Learner movement didn't exist in
>654, but then Kalabar didn't have to begin its existence by torturing
>the gods of Pamaltela.
Its foundation by a coven of sorcerers leads me to believe that it was explicitly founded for such a purpose.
>And the western people (whatever you want to
>term them) were certainly going great guns in nearby Vralos in 679.
>It's easy to imagine a bunch of them creating a small settlement in
>the highlands of Fonrit.
Perhaps. I'm just too leery of attributing each and every magical innovation of the Imperial Age to the God Learners as has been done for the EWF (the glorantha book) and others. While the Westerners certainly might attribute the origin of all Empires of the Imperial Age to theft of God Learner Secrets, I look for more native origins.
Besides if the hypothesis about the Lascerdan origin of the burning of the Vralos forests is correct, then it would be hard to transpose this knowledge from the riverine lowlands to the treeless highlands of Fonrit.
--Peter Metcalfe
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End of Glorantha Digest
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