From: David Scott (David@snail.demon.co.uk)
Date: Thu 15 Sep 1994 - 13:08:02 EEST
Peter said;
>True, but in Glorantha, there are numinous beings in the otherworld known as
>gods. If you worship them *correctly* you will gain benefits from them. The
>religious beliefs of a culture are an attempt to worship a god or pantheon in
>such a way that it maximises the benefit that culture recieves.
I think you have to be a bit careful here as different peoples worshipping the same god may well have different ideas about what exactly is correct. From their view, what they are doing is correct and so any feedback they
get from their god will be correct. I don't think that cultures would actively try to minimax their gods, as it's a bit to godlearnerish. If new ideas enter in to their worship, they don't have to be positive benefits asthat assumes that worshippers alway get it right. Is'nt this is part of how religions change.
I think what we have here is just a difference of opinion, I think that the majority (95%+) of individuals who undergo initiation in Glorantha have a direct experience related to the core being of their god(s). So Yelmalians will have the crap beaten out of them on the Hill of Gold, Orlanthi will get thrown into pits designed to kill them, etc. The participation in this event is part of the shock that takes them into adulthood. After this event anyone can rationalise these facts and realise that it could all be very different, but I feel that the direct experience will always overide these facts in the vast majority of people. Direct experience vs. theorised fact which is truer, well of course i'll say direct experience :-)
> One aspiring
>hero may decide to 'bring justice to the cold sun' and goes on the Hills
>of Gold
>quest in an attempt to wrest the lightning spear of Orlanth.
Fine, this guy/gal isn't in the vast majority but he would have to get the support of his clan for such an endevour and this maybe the hardest thing to do. If he doesn't he risks a very difficult quest which may cause a small group of supporters to split off...
Any thought as to how all this may arise in a clan with say 100 adults. Can anyone think up a story around this. Along the lines of One day Big Ugh was listening to the story of How Yelmalio was badly treated at the Hill of Gold, he though that's not fair and starts a discussion about it with his friends. Most promptly say that's not for the likes of us to talk about and the rest ignore him anyway sure in the knowledge that what Yelmalio suffered was for their good...
What Nick said
>>IMHO, Yelmalions who wanted to *win* at the Hill of Gold would be like
>>Christians who thought the Crucifixion was a bad thing, and HeroQuested/
>>time travelled back to Judaea with a ladder and a claw-hammer to stop it
>>from happening.
I must agree here as well. We have a very good example of this in the UK right at this moment. A retired polititian/schoolar has just retranslated some bits of the bible and come up with the startling fact that Jesus was in fact stoned by the Jews. However nobody seems to have taken the slightest bit of notice (as far as I can tell). I don't think he will try to re-enact his new findings as some sort of passion play and even if he did people would still think that he is some kind of doddering old fool. This seems to be the sort of thing that Gloranthan heroes are up against.
Sandy said about Nick's quote
> Spot on. In the heroquest as I have written it, while it is
>possible to "win" and thus retain your fire powers, this _does_ have
>the alarming side effect of NOT being able to gain immortality.
>Fireblade -- immortality. You be the judge.
Any chance of seeing your quest on the digest? Perhaps it would give us pointers as to how easy it is to change myth in a gaming environment.
BTW Sandy, I liked the plains animal info - any more?
David
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