From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Date: Tue 31 May 1994 - 22:46:55 EEST
> Devin Cutler here:
> Does anyone have any secret info on True Dragons (like Stats)?
gamesystem: __true_dragon_#stats (not expressible in RQ3); core dumped.
> No one is saying the Scholarly stuff should go. The attitude that game-stuff
> is worthless is what should go!
Who has said that? I see no hostility to "game stuff", myself. The best I can think of is that perhaps someone has posted something as "hardware", and been taken aback by having it dissected as "scholarship", and being put off by this (not that I recall any instances of this). Not what I'd consider to be hostility, as such.
> Alex writes:
> "The trouble with a One True Glorantha is that many people may not like it.
> If there is inconsistency, it may annoy some people, but if Glorantha
> was a rigid orthodoxy, then anyone who happened to dislike it would be
> considerably more disadvantaged. "
> When did I espouse rigid orthodoxy? I am saying that there should be a
> balance....not the current trend towards rampant inconsistency.
You appear to be critisising every example of of an "inconsistency" you can lay your hands on, including at least one which I wouldn't perceive as such.
> I am asking "why does everything have to be inconsistent?"
I don't think this is an accurate description of the current state of Gloranthan affairs. That there are now three gods of the winter sun hardly means that "everything is inconsistent". That Nick and Joerg think there are four or more merely proves there was excessive toking going on at DeutcheRQcon. ;-) Elmal and Yelmalio even have broadly similar cults, I'm told, and Antirius is a completely "new" god; no reference to worship of Yelmalio that I'm aware of is "really" a reference to Antirius.
> " And if such did exist, determining which
> Age it was built in would require rather a lot of archeological expertise
> on the part of the characters, I think."
> Really? I have very little archaelogical expertise, and I can tell the
> difference between the ruins of a 16th century castle and a 4th century
> fortress.
Doubtless. You have a basis for comparison. On an incidental note, though, it is challenging to tell the difference between the ruins of a 4th century fortress, and an undiffentiated ditch and mound or two, in my experience.
Since this particular point appears to be doubly hypothetical, let's consider the issue in general: could there exist physical evidence to indicate either that an entity was, or was not, created or modified by the God Learners? Theoretically, yes. So if you actually _want_ there to be, feel free. But bear in mind that pre-GLers artifacts are about a millenium plus old; could have been eliminated or faked by the GLers themselves; could have been altered by the "backwash" of a GL HeroQuest on the mundane plane; could have been obliterated by the God Learners' Dire Fate; or could have had one of any number of things happen to them since the second age.
> In any event, as we delve deeper into Heroquest rationalizations, I start to
> wonder why I should have to go through such mental and logical gyrations
> anyways.
I agree that it's not desirable to frantically explain away every rule or background change, or good old fashioned error, by the magic phrase "It got HQ'd that way." But in the case of our two running examples, the creation of Yelmalio by the Elmali, and the alleged creation of Kolat by the GLers, this was done _by_ HeroQuest, so explaining the change in such terms is wholly reasonable. (One could debate how much of the material is resolvable by such means, and which should be excised as fundementally incompatible.)
> It seems that, in general, no one is willing to admit that there is even a
> PERCEIVED problem out there on this issue, despite the fact that others agree
> with me, so it seems the status quo shall reign.
If this helps, I'll assert that there _would_ be a problem, if someone were to go through all the published myths, and decide which of them were "true" or not on a mass basis. Whatever that means, anyway. That their truth is allowed to remain open to interpretation should spare us most worries on this front. It would seem to me not to be desirable to seek an en masse guarantee that the heroplane and people's myths are, in the third age, exactly as they were at the Dawn: they weren't. Hence if you assume this, don't be surprised if other people, officially or not, suggest otherwise.
Alex.
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