Re: Balazar

From: Roland <rmv1_at_...>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 14:18:25 -0000

In regard to Balazar, I've also been toying around with Oliver Berneutz' excellent Balazaring Keyword article on glorantha.com. It's great, but it's also geared to Hero Wars and the understanding of magic that we had then. HQ has tons of new(ish) options for animists that I'd like to include, so I've been thinking about how some things should be converted.

For instance, what should the primary Tradition of Balazar be? Votank? Is he really a Great Spirit (I don't believe so)? If he isn't the focus of the Tradition, there are few others who could qualify. One might be the Wild Mother, but she seems much more like a Land Guardian than a focus of worship. I could see Rigtaina being the source of some common magic in the region, and Foundchild and Hearth-Mother are obvious choices for Core Practices for the Tradition (for men and women respectively). I keep flip-flopping on Tharkantus: either he's still worshipped as a theistic cult (which locks his devotees out of the rest of the region's magic, but plays better with some of the NPC reactions in Griffin Mountain) or he's (mistakenly) worshipped as a spirit (which allows for some of the NPCs in Griffin Mountain to be translated exactly). If Tharkantus is worshipped as a spirit (which I usually tend towards) then Balazar is also worshipped as a spirit, even though he was most certainly devoted and most probably resides in the God World. Plenty of misapplied worship going on in this region, then...

Sorry for the rapid-fire questions, but I've gotten into some of the metaphysical considerations of the game here, and it's a lot of fun to consider...

Roland