I think what Greg is saying here is that the mechanics and problems are the same but that the solutions will be different depending on the culture. That's culture rather than magic system, but the magic systems are in Glorantha associated with particular cultures.
>To put it somewhat like Bryan did, when I'm looking for inspiration
>for theistic myths (and what might be in stations of heroquests that
>represent them), I look at real world theistic societies like the
>Norse, Greeks, Chineese or Egyptians. When I'm looking for inspiration
>on what sort of elements to put into animist myths, I look to the myths
>of Earth's animist cultures of which I'm admittedly less familiar, but
>which nevertheless still gives me certain ideas.
>
>So my thought was to look at western monotheistic myths to figure out
>what a wizardry myth might be like. The myths that occur to me are
>things like Archangel Michael tosses Lucifer, St. George Slays the
>Dragon, The Holy Grail, the myth of the Golem, etc.
Another source would be lives of various saints, particularly the early ones before the church started getting particular about modern standards of proof. Personally I think a lot of western HQing is done by clergy either separately or with knights and wizards in support.
>I find that though,
>yes, the quests of all of these forms involve the same human issues
>(as Prof. Campbell would point out avidly), there is still an aesthetic
>that's unique to each, and even themes that tend to be more prominent
>in one than the other.
That's what I mean about cultural differences. Which may in practice be linked to type of magic in Glorantha but don't have to be.
For example we have the Aroka HQ where Orlanth solves the problem of drought in a typically Orlanthi way by slaying a dragon. There is probably a monotheist version where some knight does the same. However there will also be a saint who rises up to the clouds and discovers they have been prevented from releasing their water and he frees the water. Equally you could have a theistic quest doing something similar performed by someone like Heler.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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