It seems to me that Gloranthans are basically like humans, if only to allow players to have some sort of handle on their characters. Obviously, there are some differences:
Gloranthans live in the ancient world, more or less; the "world" of a vast majority of Gloranthans will consist of a circle a few miles radius from their homes. Even the cosmopolitan Lunars would seem amazingly provincial and uninformed by our standards. The rest of the world is fable; unlike our world, of course, many of those fables turn out to be true.
A second major difference between most of the people on this list and the Gloranthans is that we subscribe to humanist morality -- we do things (or refrain from them) because of laws or largely non-religious (despite their origins) codes of conduct. Gloranthans obey cultural norms because straying outside them can cost the favor (or incur the wrath) of the gods, spirits, etc. Many philosophical questions can be answered "because the gods say so," and that's the end of it. Obviously, Glorantha has a lot of room for heresy (if only for the drama), but the bulk of people are extremely conservative (and with good reason -- Lokamayadon and the EWF are two great examples of what happens when you buck the trend) -- the Lunars are a glaring exception.
I agree with Peter Metcalfe -- the gods (and to a lesser degree, heroes) are highly "refined" people -- they exaggerate various qualities to extremes and discard all other qualities that don't enhance their "areas of interest." This refining goes on all the time.
Take a Heortling boy. When born, he is "made of everything." Maybe he has a predisposition toward Storm Tribe Theism, because the blood of Heort runs (thinly) through him, but he could be anything. When he initiates, he refines himself* -- he is part of the Storm Tribe, more theist than anything else. When he initiates to Humakt, he has refined himself further. Later, he decides to focus on Theist Magic completely, he is no longer "made of everything," he is completely theist. When he devotes himself to Humakt, he refines himself to the point where he views the world from not only theist and Storm Tribe views, but the views of one god. As he begins to Quest, his trials enhance what is Humakt in him and cut away what isn't. Perhaps he loses his Fertility to enhance Death. He enhances Truth and loses the ability to lie or even engage in social nicities. He gains the ability to split Truth and Illusion but his understanding of how people lie to themselves to make grief bearable fades away. He becomes a Hero -- maybe he isn't a sociopath or serial killer, but Death and Truth fill him up. At some point, he can't turn back (without epic effort) because there isn't enough of him that isn't Humakt-like to sustain a person. He dies and is worshipped; he becomes a daimon. He is locked into whatever he was unless someone quests to bring him some new understanding.
So I think it's a continuum of sorts, but with some fairly sharp "steps." Most people never enter the mysteries far enough to lose any of their "personhood." Of the initiates and devotees that do, few dedicate themselves so fully as to risk divinity and all its limitations.
Peter Larsen
*I talk about the example "refining himself." It would be at least as accurate to say that he submits himself to higher forces, and those forces cut away what is inappropriate to them.
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