Re: [ImmoderateHeroQuest] Re: [HeroQuest-RPG] Re: Winter Spirits

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_4d1cH1ggE_w2ewfIywj7m8nALKRcvguL6gAqprhchrp-THwpro9FMNAMUZ9JeP-TmML>
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 13:03:47 +1200


At 09:34 PM 6/25/2005 +0200, you wrote:

> >>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?

>What's wrong with it, is that it was written by God Learners...

The Prosopaedia is not a GL document as it describes many deities that exist after all the God Learners were killed.

>AFAIK the GLs identified these two separate entities with each other,

What evidence is there that they are separate? Why must they be separate giving that the God Learners lived in the area? Where is the textual evidence for the God Learners identifying these two deities with each other?

> >>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.

>I don't know who wrote this, but remember that the GLs were
>Wizards/Sorcerors

The God Learners were the very people that uncovered the three magic world theme ("The God Learners are the ones who organized all Gloranthan magic into three dominant systems." Glorantha Book 1 p24) and so this suggestion that they were witless incompetents doesn't strike me as very satisfactory.

>... plus, it can't be ruled out that individual GLs
>involved in this sorry affair could possibly have had no understanding
>whatsoever of the difference(s) between goddesses, spirits, and demons
>-- hence cosmological confusion.

I note that the Abiding Book, which the God Learners caused to be written, has separate spells and blessings for dealing with Gods and Spirits. Given their access to Symbolic Sight, I find the suggestion that they couldn't tell the difference to be absurd.

>The White Princess is an ancient Generting spirit, with a completely
>separate mythology IMO.

Separate mythology means nothing. Storm Bull and Urox have separate mythologies but they are still the same being. Shargash and Tolat have separate mythologies but mean nothing.

> >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.

>Velhara breaks several ordinary rules, not that I'd go so far as to
>classify her as a Defiant entity.

How do you know? Nothing has been written about her save for the mention of her in KoS and TR/ST.

> >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.

>Maybe, but I can assure you that Inora _is_ a goddess, in HQ terms.

On what grounds and on whose authority?

> >Plain common sense.

>Nonsense.

>Pavis appears in NG, and Pavis is plainly a god, not a spirit.

He appears as a leader, not a spirit.

>There are other exceptions

Such as?

--Peter Metcalfe            

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