Re: DP: Kjartan's Pool and the Pelaskans

From: Graeme P. Bell <mac_logo_at_...>
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 17:40:58 -0000

• In HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com, "Moah, platypus powaaa!" <MOAH_at_m...> wrote:
  > Graeme P. Bell wrote:
  >
  > > wrote:
  > >
  > >>I believe Professor Tolkien purposefully left in such anomalies
  > >> and ambiguities in his writing.
  > >>
  > >>Rob
  >
  > > Tom Bombadil.
  >
  > > Graeme
  >
  > What? Tolkien wrote about Tom Bombadil for HeroQuest? Where?
  >
  > Moah, platypus powaaa!
  Ok, I will rise to this one. :) Tom Bombadil, as written in LotR, either lies to the Hobbits about his nature, or breaks Tolkien's unitary cosmology. He claims to have existed in Middle-earth before the Valar arrived, but Illuvatar didn't create any beings like Bombadil in Middle-earth. At least that's what is claimed. So Bombadil is either ambiguous or anomalous, with an option on both. There's a letter somewhere that says this was deliberate on Tolkien's part.

In Glorantha/HeroQuest, we do not have a unitary cosmology, so we get a world *full* of these things that don't fit into the locally accepted cosmology. Bits of the wrong myth, pantheon and even otherworld can sit smack in the middle of our happy little tula.

The world is made of everything, whether the priests like it or not. It's nice to see that reflected in Dragon Pass quite so clearly, even if by fortune rather than planning :)

It would be quite easy to fit a sudden appearance of a Bombadilian (?) character/demigod in Glorantha. A hero/saint/spirit (whatever is locally *unacceptable*) of safe passage through a localised, hostile (elf) woodland. Sprinkle with a bit a mythology, add a small heroquest about "Songs To Appease Aldrya's Singers" (and some very bad rhyming couplets). Hey presto!

Graeme