Re: [WorldofGlorantha] The God Learners Secret

From: Greg Stafford <Greg_at_5skJR9dJf2wey_r6aJmDPFKoucQLJEkA_YjnchGebse5T9R4si11fqI7N6qhspxkWLUfeN-TSl>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:58:53 -0800

Sorry to have taken so long to reply here. My router seems to have burned out or something, and my presence online has been extremely sporadic. Furthermore, I will be gone to DunDraCon this Presidents' Day weekend, and won't be available to reply for the next few days either.

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YGWV Quoting Jeff Richard <richaje_at_GYWoxYae_dgwLtWMiJFfk26s0gq-GErvBM_fFFOOrQ87sv_-YebnoXBJmnuw2pkMzqqfBb1pj4w.yahoo.invalid>:

> Recently on the Mongoose Digest there was a little discussion about
> the "God Learners' Secret" - with one fellow recalling the little
> blurb in Tales that the Secret is "it's just a game".

While this is an amusing little snippet, the God Learner secret is not "It's just a game."

> I thought this might be a good
> opportunity for you to explain your thoughts about how the God
> Learners' heroquested and looted (and changed) the Hero Plane.

I have laid out the general outline of this in _The Middle Sea Empire_, pages 40-44. Those pages illustrate the sorcerous method of HeroQuesting to the Gods War.

_Glorantha, The Second Age_ by Robin Laws states the God Learner secret on page 13. Hasn't everyone who is interested in the secret bought that book to find it?

I want to talk first about one aspect of the GL: the application of their methodology. I start with a more-or-less accurate synopsis of the differences between the magical systems:

"Sorcery is something you DO, Animism is something you HAVE, and Theism is something you ARE."

One of the ways to understand what the GL did was to understand that the GL went to the Gods War to learn magic that they could bring back with them and reproduce through spells kept in grimoires or other magical items. So many of their secrets revolved around being in a theist myth and capturing a method of doing magic hat was external to themselves, rather than internal as it would have been for theists. This corrupted the magic, though the GL did not understand that.

So one of the other GL secrets was, "We can make your magic."

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Sincerely,
Greg Stafford

Issaries, Inc.
c/o Greg Stafford
1942 Channing Ave, #204
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA             Received on Fri 16 Feb 2007 - 06:59:41 EET