re: help

From: Graham Robinson <graham_at_albionsoft.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:48:24 +0100

>Ok, everyone mentions this pseudo-cosmic egg. What is that? Where can I
>read more about it?

The Pseudo-Cosmis Egg is a mysterious device of great power that was discovered in Dorastor just after the dawn. That's pretty much all there is. Even those who found and used it seem to have known little more - I think they treated it as a source of raw power that they could have used for just about anything.

>Ok, but the gods aren't stupid... they must know there are other deities
>around. Nonetheless, what I am hearing is that the gods each live in
>their own plane of existence and don't really have a mechanism for
>communicating across those planes, yes?

The communication method is their worshippers. As I said, Malkion (a prophet rather than a god) is aware of Orlanth, or at least the evil sorceror Worlath, and can give his worshippers instructions based on his views. Malkion and Orlanth can't get together and chat.

> > >Is there a detailed epic of the Lightbringer quest published
>anywhere?
> >
> > Best version to date is in King of Sartar, if you can find a copy.
>
>Yeah, I have it. Too ritualized a version, and not enough meat.
>
> > HeroQuests&HeroQuesting (not to be confused with HeroQuest...) will
>have
> > more details, but won't be out for some time...
>
>Hmmm, not familiar with that... need to go and look at glorantha.com, I
>guess.

If King of Sartar's version is "too ritualised" I doubt HQ&HQing will help you much. The LBQ is far too big for anyone to ever publish a fully detailed, non-ritualised version. It would run to hundreds of pages for starters...

> > Of course, there are other ways to make a god. If you're a boy god and
>you
> > know a friendly goddess, you can always make new gods the
>old-fashioned
> > way.
>Wait, could they still do this? Or would it break the Compromise?

No. It would break the Compromise.

> > Take a good look at much of the supposedly sentient
> > human race, and be very depressed.
>
>Heh, yeah, but we can assume the gods are better than that... or maybe
>not, given that Gloranthan gods seem to have every human fallibility,
>and then some.

Gods are no better than humans. In many cases they are far worse.

> > The EWF didn't make Gods - they made Dragons.
>How did they do that?

By discovering the underlying draconic secret lurking in all beings, even gods. At the core of the EWF is a belief that the cosmos was created in an act of dismemberment by the cosmic dragon. All things are therefore dragons, even if they have since forgotten.

> > Yes. They fossilized their own existence within the Cosmos to
>preserve
> > it and themselves. They can only react to unusual change (i.e. that
>not
> > decreed by the Compromise - such as the Sun rising and setting) and
> > not initiate it.
>
>And how can they react?

Essentially in two ways. They can destroy the intrusion, restoring the compromise, or they can change the compromise, including the intrusion into the net. At castle blue they attempted the former, but Rufelza was too powerful, so they had to settle for the latter.

>Because all gods in a pantheon live in the same cosmic plane? And if so,
>what about gods that cross pantheons? Are Orlanth and Yelm considered to
>be in the same pantheon?

I think that you are distracting yourself with the talk of "cosmic planes". It is the relationship that matters. Humakt is Orlanth's Champion. Therefore they communicate. Yelm is Orlanth's enemy. Therefore they don't. Gods in multiple pantheons have multiple relationships. From the point of view of the worshipper it makes little difference. A Heortling Humakti can't get secrets of the Carmanian battle plans just because his god is also worshipped in Carmania.

>Well, forgive me for being OOC for a sec, but given we are talking about
>an invented mythology here, and everyone involved in the creation is
>still alive, there should be some clear answers available. Unless no one
>knows and it is all just a bunch of technobable (or in this case
>mythobable)

No. No. No. Greg Stafford is deliberately creating a cosmos in which there are no clear answers to many questions. Did Arkat or Gbaji win the final battle? No one knows. In some places they believe one thing, in others they believe another. But a clear answer? As far as I'm aware not even Greg knows - **because it isn't a relevant question**.

You appear to want to know answers from a point of view outside Glorantha. That viewpoint doesn't exist. Glorantha has always been developed from the inside only. We, as outsiders, may know more than any Gloranthan *does* but we don't have any answers that a Gloranthan *couldn't* know.

>As many point out, time doesn't happen for them, and 'all day' has
>little meaning - yes, I realize, I was just being anthropomorphistic,
>which is reasonable given how 'human' these gods are.

Sure they're human. They're human myths.

A final point. Maybe this analogy will help. Maybe not. Try to picture the myths as a big box of videotapes. When you worship or heroquest, you watch one of those tapes. The gods go through the actions they did last time. Perhaps the tapes come in a different order. Perhaps you watch a slightly different tape than you thought you were going to. But everything you see is on the tapes. Slight difference - you can interact with and change the tapes. In a worship ceremony only a little, in a heroquest potentially a lot. When your friend watches the same tapes later, he gets the different version. Maybe he notices you hanging around in the crowd scenes. Maybe he can see Orlanth's Draconic soul too.

The gods are like the characters in a video. They have desires, plans, opinions. But only when you're watching. Or your friend is.

This is wrong in every single detail, but might be a way to get closer to how a god can be both timeless and non-static.

Cheers,
Graham

-- 
Graham Robinson
graham_at_albionsoft.com

Albion Software Engineering Ltd.



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