> >But if so, why are there myths that can ONLY be learned at special
> >places (like, specifically, some Eurmali feats, and others in RQ
> >writeups, which may or may not still be valid)? Are these exceptions,
> >where the place IS significant?
There could be several reasons for this. Being an oral culture without central religious organisations or fixed sacred texts, continuity of cultic knowledge among the Heortlings depends more on individual lords/disciples/godar and their followers that the game books suggest - only Gamla Saved-By-Bears knows the ancient Winterwake feat of Odayla, and she's somewhere in the wilderness surrounding Three Feat Mountain. (Gonna be damn handy that Winterwake, if what our Kev saw in the coals comes true, but it hasn't been that useful since the Dawn, so few have bothered remembering the myth). If only a few people know the inner workings of a myth or ritual or feat (they're all identical at one level) they're likely to be found at only one locale.
Entry to particular myths/quests may be dependent on historical artefacts of power that cannot be duplicated - the sacred buzz-cut tooth-on-a-wheel that Arki HorseBladder stole from the Diamond Mostali - or sacred or magical plants or other items that are only found in particular localities. (This is a big thing in my game Glorantha, just about every valley has unique plants or animals gifted by some grateful or merely bored deity in TGB.)
A third reason - at higher (devotee +) levels, I believe that the distinction between myth and ritual - the *telling* of a myth and the *doing* it, becomes blurred - many quests and perhaps feats require rituals that are linked to specific locations and can only be enacted there - "three times windershins round the Crooked Peak, calling down rain as you go; then three hundred and seven steps east to the Blessing Tree, casting seeds behind you at every step". That sort of thing.
John
nysalor_at_... John HughesQuestlines: http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/questlines/
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