From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
Date: Tue 13 Jul 1993 - 20:53:44 EEST
Paul R. here. Just a couple of quick things today.
Reply to David Cheng:
> Summary: The Open Seas spell has nothing to do with
>'sorcery,' except that it is learned like any other skill (like
I tend to disagree. The curse of Zzabur closed the seas, using sorcery (so the Open Seas spell must have _something_ to do with sorcery) which exploits the natural laws of Glorantha in an orderly pattern. Finding a procedure which fools the curse could easily be sorcery (drawing on the same store of knowledge which was used to design the curse.) Perhaps the spell 'tricks' the curse into categorizing the ship as a 'natural' object and thus avoids triggering it?
Thus (for example), EVERY act of sex, every conception of new life, etc. is performed through the power of Uleria. Each such act is magical in itself but people are so used to it that they have become jaded. Similarly, each wind is caused by an air god, Flamal causes all plants to grow, etc., but because they are bound to set patterns of exerting these powers we grow used to the miracles around us and call them 'mundane'. The gods may not interfere directly in mortal affairs but instead use proxies like Rune Priests, who exchange some of their own power to allow a bit of their god's power into the world.
This is, I think, a common model among the more sophisticated (barbarian and civilized) theistic cultures. The gods are elevated to the status of the prime movers of the world.
>look at the different versions of gods scattered
>around Generatela
In model (2) this is explained by saying that gods have many aspects and are bound by the compromise to not interfere in the Inner World unless invited by mortals, so the aspect known locally to the mortals colors how the god acts in that region.
More later,
Paul
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