I'd qualify that some. There is some evidence that is somewhat amnbiguous as to whether it is in-world or not. For example, I think your example below is fairly representative:
> Orlanth, Praxian, and Troll pantheons
> -- goddess of mountaintop winter
>
> Inora is the goddess of winter
> mountain tops. Her cool beauty
> descends to the lowlands, and
> in Prax sometimes brings water
> to the most arid regions. Her
> calm beauty shrouds an icy wrath
> which brings silent devastation
>
> http://www.glorantha.com/library/prosopaedia/i.html
So, first off, this is the Prosopeadia, which equates lots of things. I think of this as either an external viewpoint or a God Learner view point. I could be wrong, but I thought there were other instances in which the Prosopaedia lumped together things we now believe (or have been told) are different. I could be wrong.
(I should also say that I tend towards the viewpoint that they are the same entity. But I am open to the counter-argument and recognize that it is a predicate to the question of whether she is a goddess or a spirit.)
Second problem is that this passage illustrates is goes to the second question I posed. Assuming that they are the same, is she goddess or spirit? This says goddess. Again, we get back to the problem that not every reference to her being a godd4ess or a spirit can be meaningful if Inora and White Process are the same entity. (I.e., either we discount the references to her being a goddess or those to her being a spirit.)
> Look up the reference to the Winter Palace in
> Drastic: Prax. The Winter Spirits were imprisoned
> there during the Golden Age whereas the Greatlands
> do not have problems with the Outside until
> the start of the Storm Age.
>
> If that is the myth you were referring to, then it's
> actually part of the olde unpublished Praxpak
> materials.
It is the one I was referring to. It does term her as a spirit (but there are conflicting textual references to her as a goddess elsewhere). And I take your point that the story adequately explains the lack of winter without her being an Outlander. My only point was that, if you have to invalidate either the stories asserting that she is a goddess or the stories asserting that she is a spirit, you could do so without grotesque violence to the Praxian stories by adding the partially explanatory assertion that she was an outsider.
> But she is a spirit because she is contactable
> by Praxian Shamans.
I don't think the fact that shamans can contact her proves she is a spirit. Shamans can contact Orlanth as Rain Man and Humakt as Sword Man. The HQ rules are pretty express that shamans can actually go to an otherworld (I can't recall whether it is the god plane or the hero plane, but logically, it must be the god plane) and have a "safe zone" created by the god that they worship with ecstatic rites as if it was a spirit.
This is not proof that she is a goddess -- it just is non-proof that she is a spirit. Maybe you skipped a step in your proof that I did not catch?
> She wouldn't be able to appear on the map as
> a spirit if her cult was misapplied worship
> (like the Sword brothers are).
This was the point where I think I did not understand your proof. Could you try again for the slow and stupid amongst us (namely, me)? (Do you literally mean the Nomad Gods map?)
>From another strand on this thread:
> The Praxian Yelmalio is a spirit called Sun Hawk.
Is there a textual reference for this?
Chris Lemens
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