[Glorantha] Re: Changing (or not) reality via heroquests

A great summary of the situation from Graham, that certainly represents my possition more succinctly than I did myself!

> Some dissent over :
>
> 1. Creating a new god, as a variant of something existing. e.g. The Red
> Goddess. Did she exist in exactly her modern form, and was discovered by
> the Seven Mothers (what I think Simon Hibbs believes) or did the Seven
> Mothers sort through some existing myths, decide what they wanted, and
> created that through powerful and dangerous heroquesting (what I believe).
> In most games, I suspect the difference between the two positions is
> vanishingly small...

I think there is scope for reasonable dissent on this one, even though I'm right ;)

>From ILH2 it's pretty clear that the Seven Mothers realy didn't have a
detailed idea of what they were going to get, and each faced serious challenges in themselves becoming Lunars, challenges that they hadn't anticipated and which changed them. Of al of them I think perhaps Jakaleel was the only one who had any idea how things might turn out.

For example, none of the Seven Mothers knew that the goddess would turn out to be an incarnation of Lesila, Natha, Orogeria, etc. These were discoveries made by the goddess herself in heroquests.

Note that the Lunars didn't actualy create a new goddess at all. All of her actual worshipable incarnations that provide magic already existed, with the one exception of Rufelza which is both chaotic on the one hand, and about to be destroyed on the other anyway. Seddenya herself is not directly worshipable and provides no useful magic (I could argue the latter is true of Rufelza too). It's only the immortaliozed Lunars who became gods themselves that actualy provide magic and function as gods, not the goddess herself. She provides/is the philosophical/magical framework in which they operate.

> Simon seems to place the line a bit higher - that the gods have some de
> facto existence, but that their cults, magic, and to an extent associations
> are more fluid.

Yes, I think the runes are too abstract - the material world isn't an entirely abstract place, neither is the heroplane or even the godplane. The divine powers have consistent attributes and behaviours that characterise them, and this, along with a touch of anthropomorphization is what the gods are.

I think that if only the Runic Powers themselves were truly real, that mortals would be unable to interact with them meaningfully. It's only because there are real correspondences between the runic powers and mortal affairs that magic is possible. Those real correspondences manifested in the form of the gods, which are the bridges between the runic abstractions and their physical, ethical, social and psychological manifestations. By gods here, I also mean Saints, Great Spirits, etc. They are universaly potent (worshipable) across Glorantha, and exist throughout history and in myth. How much more real need they be?

Simon Hibbs Received on Fri 04 Aug 2006 - 14:44:34 EEST