Are Gloranthan Human?

From: Greg Stafford <greg_at_glorantha.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 08:30:27 -0800


At 05:44 AM 12/27/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>>Especially where people can recognize that the "gods" are not just
>>oversized and oversexed humans, sometimes with funny heads.
>>
>Sure; gods need not be physical in anything like the sense that human
>are, although I suspect most cultures at least thought they could
>manifest in such forms.

Or at least that some could do so, and some often did so.

>>The archetypes are as living today and have the same kind of impact on many
>>people. If we remember that feelings of desire, awe, fear, respect are all
>>sources of spiritual insight then we can remember that we are spiritual
>>beings. Just because those were "taken away" from the gods by science
>>
>There are many theistic scientists, both today and historically, so I'm
>not sure I'd agree with characterisation.

I am distinguishing between scientists who are spiritual, and the idealized non spiritual Science here. Also, I am distinguishing here between Science and scientism.

>Philosophies such as
>rationalism and (obviously) atheism are more the sort of thing that
>'takes one away' from the gods, and while they may be associated with
>science they aren't identical with it. Drawing it back to Glorantha, we
>have the example of the Mostali who use reasonably scientific methods,
>while still contacting the divine through Mostal.

Agreed. To address Gianfranco's astronaut with the Mostali example: won't he be surprised to discover that Gloranthan gun powder is not made of sulpher, salt peter and carbon because those element do not exist in Glorantha!

>Now, admittedly Mostal
>may not be the sort of spiritual entity humans could identify with, but
>IMO he's something more than 21st century atheism is likely to accept,
>and does give dwarves a spiritual context. /The God Forgotten might be a

Oh, maybe, until they discover that Mostal = mathematics. :)

>good example of a Gloranthan culture that really has abandoned its
>spirituality, however.

The HeroQuest God Forgot "cults" will throw some light on this too.

>From: donald_at_grove.demon.co.uk (Donald R. Oddy)

>As far as humanity is concerned, Homo Sapiens is pretty much unchanged
>both physically and mentally since our ancestors were hunting mammoth
>with wood and flint spears. What's changed has been the social structure
>in which humans operate and the rules of those societies. Individuals
>who move from one society to another or have to adapt often struggle
>but subsequent generations generally manage well. So I would definitely
>regard Gloranthans as human to the extent of having identical or almost
>identical DNA but having social structures which have developed in the
>way they did because magic works.

If they do, indeed, have DNA.

>At the same time I can imagine
>the Lunar Colleges of magic deliberately experimenting in a systematic
>way to improve quests. That is unusual, not because of anything
>inherent in magic, but because only the Lunar empire has the resources
>to do such experiments and also recover from the inevitable mistakes.

I think this is so too, which is one of the reason that they are so scary to most people.



Greg Stafford, greg_at_glorantha.com
Issaries, Inc.
P.O. Box 272914 Concord, CA 94527 (510) 524-7619 Publisher of HeroQuest, Roleplaying in Glorantha See our site at: <www.glorantha.com>

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