Usually rendered Beti by Greg (ie KOS pg 211).
> She
>used an arbolest, wore plate mail and so on.
Sure, and this isn't an argument for Greg to maintain compatibility with his house campaign from the 1970s. Greg cheerfully discarded or adapted many bits of his campaign back then when translating it into his own writings.
> The character in KoS has
>relatively little to do with the Betty Ballista character.
Apart from, for example, the Ballista epithet. This IS an argument for Greg to maintain compatibility with his own writing in the 1990s. He'd had at least 15 years to reconsider the character ofLeika Ballista. Suddenly, what little we have is discarded on a whim. Bollocks to that.
> > (not saying that learning new facts and writing them in isn't
>> good - there are plenty of characters that don't have 25 years of
>> established history to mess with instead)
>
>Honestly, there really isn't that much established history for Queen
>Leika. Or for King Kangarl for that matter. There's bits and pieces
>from Dragons Past, but a lot of that got trumped by KoS. And later
>pieces.
Sure. But as far as the details in question go, they were eithernot trumped by KOS (which frankly didn't have much about her either) or they were actually confirmed.
>
>> Where is she even mentioned in a published source?
>
>Beneva Chan is in Wyrms Footprints.
Thanks.
> > (and just in case you haven't got this point yet - fewer
>> people would be objecting to the treatment of Vinga if it wasn't for
>> the big retcon that made her the only path for female storm powers
>> and Orlanth cult membership - you don't get to have it both ways, and
>> airily dismiss Vinga as historically unimportant while aggressively
>> cheering the very changes that made her so important now)
>
>She isn't that important a goddess. Few Heortling women want to leave
>Ernalda to get Orlanth storm powers. Few Heortling men want to leave
>Orlanth to get Ernalda earth or harmony powers. Cults exist that
>allow just that, but they aren't very important. They are just
>accepted exceptions to the basic rule.
Yes, but the same argument can be made that few people choose to embrace a miserable god of death like Humakt, or a god for rage filled psychos like Urox, or a specialist god for scholarly nerds like Lhankor Mhy - or just about any deity that isn't Orlanth or Ernalda.
The argument becomes essentially 'why are these cults considered important for players? They are worshipped only by extraordinary and unusual people.' Which, I hope you can see, from the perspective of someone interested in making player characters for gaming, is transparently idiotic. Its pretty much the same from the point of view of anyone writing fiction in Glorantha too, which makes it hard for me to believe you really believe it.
The argument that the only measure of deities importance is the number of people who worship them comes across as disingenous or obtuse. Or, to put it the low tone the list requires, you know this argument is crap, why are you trying to feed it to us?
Cheers
David
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