>Peter:
> > > On the first, there is plenty of evidence
> > > that -- outside of Glorantha -- people
> > > believed they were the same entity.
> >
> > And in Prax as well.
>
>I'd qualify that some. There is some evidence that is
>somewhat amnbiguous as to whether it is in-world or
>not.
Tales #14 isn't written in an in-world style and neither is the prosopeadia.
>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.
Such as? And if the Prosopaedia is a God Learner viewpoint, how do you explain that the God Learners were active in Prax and Heortland would make the silly mistake as confusing a god with a spirit?
>Assuming that
>they are the same, is she goddess or spirit? This
>says goddess.
And it says Waha is a God and Oakfed is a God and all that. Likewise for me to take this argument seriously would require me to entertain that all the spirits in "Nomad Gods" are actually Gods because of the game title.
> 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,
I'm not invalidating any stories asserting that she is a goddess. There is only slim textual reference in TR and ST which make the same category mistake with respect to Kolat, Malia and Velhara.
>you could do so
>without grotesque violence to the Praxian stories by
>adding the partially explanatory assertion that she
>was an outsider.
I'm not doing violence to any Praxian Stories. Urox is worshipped in both Dragon Pass and Prax without anybody suggesting that he's an outsider yet both people acknowledge that he's the same. Ditto with Gagarth.
> > 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.
Does either god appear as a Spirit in Nomad Gods? No.
>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.
The HQ rules are not as explicit as that. Firstly worship is conducted through worshipping of a divinity in the wrong way which creates a "false home" and a Shaman is not required. The "false home" appears on the plane of the relevant ritual, not the original plane. Lastly a shaman is not required to initiate such worship.
--Peter Metcalfe
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