> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> Greg Sez: "How Big Is My God?" (Q from Jonathan O'Dea) -
> http://www.glorantha.com/greg/q-and-a/big-god.html
>
> A: ... Alternately, sometimes collateral worship begins when
> ambitious mortals "create" a god. This created deity is often a
> misunderstanding of a greater entity or a single aspect of the
deity. ...
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> Q(1a): How do mortals "create" a god, aside from whatever it is that
> Heroes of the Red Moon do to make themselves divine?
When you're talking about misunderstandings of greater entities or aspects, the quotes around 'create' are particularly important. Such people are not literally creating a god where none existed before. They are finding a new way to worship an existing god, or discovering an aspect of a god that people were previously unaware of, and giving it a new name.
The key point being that they don't realise that's what they've done, so, from a casual observer's perspective, there's this new god being worshipped (and giving genuine magic) that nobody ever heard of before. But they haven't really created a new god, just a new cult, worshipping something that they *think* is a new god, but is actually an old one being worshipped in a new way.
> Q(1b): Is that
> what some of the God Learners were trying to do, and, if so, which
> particular cult, faction, or heresy of theirs (take your pick of
> terms) wanted to accomplish that?
God Learners were misunderstanding stuff all the time, but deliberately worshipping old gods in new ways was exactly the sort of thing they liked to try. To an extent, they were also doing the opposite quite a lot - trying to prove that two apparently different gods were really the same one.
> Q Number Two: Who were/are "the Dead Gods" whose crowns sometimes
> appear on mountain tops, and can mortals "seize" their divinity?
If a god is really dead dead dead (like, say, Vadrus) then you're pretty much stuffed as far as getting regular magic from them goes. On the other hand, you might find a god that everybody thought was dead, or had just plain forgotten about, and bring the worship of that back. Either way, you can't become that god, although you might be able to gain (much weaker) heroform powers by imitating them, and, if you do eventually advance to godhood yourself, you could end up with much the same 'portfolio' (to use what I gather is a D&D term), if that's the sort of thing you're after.
-- Trotsky Gamer and Skeptic ------------------------------------------------------ Trotsky's RPG website: http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
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