I've been told that Issaries has to cut much OUT of the manuscripts it is developing into books, so describing anything as 'padding' is unfair.
When it comes to combat orientated Heortling gods, I tend to be more sympathetic with you. Could Vingkot have been left for a later supplement, I wonder? However, most of the others assuredly don't overlap. Skovara is not at all like Kev, for example. With rules that make playing non-combat characters practical and interesting, we do need various non-combat gods, which would have seemed entirely superfluous in RQ.
> A couple of dozen gods (including subcults
> and all other complications) would make a perfectly playable world
> (or at least culture), and no-one would even notice.
Well, you can have a perfectly playable world with no gods (modern-day or SciFi RPGs). Indeed, you can play with none (be a mystic or animist) or only one (be a sorcerer) in Glorantha, if you want. Its not really the point, is it?
Returning to the start of your message:
> Well, I'm arguing for a game, a work of fiction, a playable system
> that doesn't need a dozen books to buy before we even scratch the
> surface of the endless profusion of unnecessary deities, demigods,
> heroes and assorted space-fillers.
I'm confused. What do you want, exactly? A playable system that does not require a dozen books? HW is already that: many of us were happily playing with only the initial pair of rule books (plus a seldom used Anaxial's Roster) for ages before Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe came out.
Or do you want to do more than scratch the surface of Heortling religion? If so, how do you propose to do this WITHOUT a quantity of writing? Consider the thickness of the Bible. Consider how much more you need to know to understand Christianity. Do you know what the Talmud is? Yep, real and realistic religions have a lot of 'stuff'. Heortling religion is polytheistic, so this 'stuff' tends to consist of a plethora of gods, demi gods and heroes, rather than, say, philosophical gymnastics (e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas).
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