First up, what are some RW mythical precedents of wounded and infirm deities? it's a tricky concept, defying easy categorisation. There is Chinnamasta, one of the ten Mahavidyas, an aspect of Kali Mah, who decapitates herself in order to feed her worshippers (http://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/DD44/). There is Christ, the world wide wounded wanderer, who gave his life to free the dead. There is Wotan/Odin who gave his eye for inner wisdom, and hung upon the world tree. Such acts of spontaneous self-sacrifice are also found in the the West's oldest extant story, the Descent of Inanna, which is also the descent of the Red Goddess. (Contra the HQ Bibliography, Gilgamesh is not the 'oldest story'). There is Uranus, castrated by Chronos, who still managed to create children in unusual ways. There is Osirus, hacked into many pieces and reassembled (bar his penis!) by Isis. (This is of course echoed in the Genert story). There is Chiron, the wounded healer maimed by his friend Herakles, there is Lugh of the Silver Hand, The Fisher King, and a whole parade of infirm heroes (in the broadest and best sense) like Homer and O'Carolann.
Each of these are different, and each reflects an aspect of human society and human need as much as anything else.
In Glorantha, wounded gods are of course the source of power crystals, and I suspect that such might well feature prominently in the cults we're discussing.
And the act of self-healing is the prime catalyst for the shamanic journey, and in a broader sense for all heroquest. An individual or community is unwhole, sick, wounded or broken, the emptiness must be confronted and the elixir of wholeness wrested from the eternal story-truth of the Other Side.
Its also worth noting that in hero age societies, the infirm often became either religious specialists or skalds, musicians and storytellers. Those who could not often ended up as beggars and worse. For many, the truth would lie somewhere between the tender care of Mishap House and the dirty gutters of glamour.
Many of the dieties shattered in the Gods War simply went away. Perhaps some still lay lying midst the broken ruins of the cosmos, or buried beneath the hills cast up by the battles of Life against Unlife. To wake, to heal a sleeping god... now there's a campaign challenge!
This is still circling the main issue of course. I think there is a subgroup of Thunder Brothers, best known by a collective name, who were shattered and maimed by the Gods War. Some of them would have fallen in battle or on quest, perhaps rescued by Orlanth, Vinga or Elmal. They then began their own quests of making. But what their collective name is, and who some of these individuals are, I yet have no idea.
Any suggestions?
There goes lunchtime. Damn, must eat...
John
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