>I had been looking for in-world evidence that people
>in Glorantha knew that Inora was White Princess.
What's wrong with standard textual evidence?
> > Tales #14 isn't written in an in-world style and
> > neither is the prosopeadia.
>OK. With that take, it is no evidence of what
>Gloranthans believe.
So what? There are two references stating that Inora is the white princess which is sufficient for me.
> > > 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?
>How about Lodril and Bab-u-Ladra, just as an example?
No such being as Bab-U-Ladra.
>Or the sky/fire gods of the Empire and those of
>Teshnos?
The references in the Genertela Book is still true. Somash is Yelm, Zitro Argon is Dayzatar and Solf is Lodril.
>IIRC, the Prosopaedia tells us they are the
>same, but Gloranthans don't know this.
Yes they do. When the God Learners came to Teshnos, they made the identifications. Hence could we cease and desist with the pointless hypercriticism?
>A fine point. Presumably, if they were genuinely
>different entities, the God Learners would have known
>that one was a spirit and the other a goddess. That
>said, when the Prosopaedia was written, the difference
>between divine and spirit entities were not so
>significant in gaming terms.
Why the need to invalidate the prosopeadia then? I haven't seen anything to necessitate Inora being a separate deity from the White Princess given that Inora's so minor she didn't even receive a write-up in Storm Tribe. She can still be worshipped by the Orlanthi if she was a helper practice in the Kolati tradition.
> > 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.
>You are putting words in my mouth that I already
>disclaimed. This was not an argument that because one
>particular source says she is a goddess, she must be.
We already know that. Why bother bringing it up again since I had made that very point near the beginning of this thread?
> > 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.
>A few points here. First, I should have said "textual
>references" rather than stories. There are extremely
>few stories about Inora. Second, at least TR and ST
>balances the references to other spirits as "gods" by
>expressly stating elsewhere that they are spirits. It
>fails to do so for Inora.
And fails to do so for Velhara but we know that she's worshipped by the Animist Grazers. So this needless textual exposition isn't really doing anything useful.
>Third, there are enough
>other textual references to Inora as a goddess that
>deciding she is a spirit invalidates at least some.
No, there isn't. The description of Inora or Pamalt as a Great Spirit in HQ terms does not invalidate any prior textual reference whatsoever because the other references were _not_ _using_ the HQ definitions.
>In this particular case, the textual reference that
>makes no sense if Inora is a spirit is TR 135 (very
>bottom of the page) that asserts that Inora's House is
>in the God World.
Is that the same page which also mentions Kolat's Cave of Winds?
> >> 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.
>I didn't say you were.
Who was "you" meant to refer to then?
> > Does either god appear as a Spirit in Nomad Gods?
> > No.
>So, your rule is that any entity appearing in Nomad
>Gods is a spirit?
Yes.
>What is your rationale for that rule?
Plain common sense. I've already pointed out the statement in Pavis and Big Rubble which draws a distinction between the spirits of prax and the rune gods.
> > > 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.
>
>See Heroquest page 110.
Nothing about a Shaman there nor the need to travel to the other side.
> > Firstly worship is conducted through worshipping
> > of a divinity in the wrong way which creates a
> > "false home" and a Shaman is not required.
>Yes, true, but the heroes will need something like
>Spirit World Travel or Oper Spirit World to leave the
>natural world.
They don't need to leave the natural world to conduct animist worship. Summoning spirits here is animist worship. Being possessed by spooks is animist worship. When Bituarian Varosch witnesses a Daka Fal ceremony, he is not travelling to the Spirit World.
--Peter Metcalfe
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