Syncretism in HQ

[Paul Albertella]

Addendum:

I just read something interesting in the Aeolian Church write-up in HQ:

The Aeolian Church is unusual in that it is a common religion even though its members use only wizardry. This is because the Aeolian Church practices misapplied worship.

This clarifies a point that I might not have articulated very well before: that specialised religions can only be specialised if they are focussed on a single otherworld and worship its entities in the 'correct' manner. My interpretation of this is that religions which deviate from this 'pure' model, which would  necessarily include any cross-Otherworld syncretic religion, count as common religion.

Doesn't follow for syncretism within a single magic system, though...

[Mike Holmes]

Paul? The guy from Sam's HQ Trolls game? Good to see you here. :-)

Some of this provides quite the conundrum. That is, specialized religions often do, apparently, have elements that are not from one specific otherworld. The Lunar Way aside, apparently even the Orlanthi have some spirits that fall under the purview of their otherwise Theistic religion. Kolat at least.

In fact, in the vein of what you quoted from Greg, people have also said that "mixed" religions are actually the norm, and one that only pertained to one otherworld would be rare.

This doesn't conflict with the religion definition at all - it could be that spirits and saints and gods can all get along in one religion.

Mike

[Paul Albertella]

Paul? The guy from Sam's HQ Trolls game? Good to see you here.

Yup, that's me (waves cheerily). Sam pointed me in this direction some time ago, and I've found plenty of reasons to come back.

This doesn't conflict with the religion definition at all - it could be that spirits and saints and gods can all get along in one religion.

I agree, and this certainly seems to be the case in the published religions in Glorantha. My point, I guess, was that it's not religions per se that these entities are hung up on when it comes to deciding who can get their magic. The complex web of allegiances that bind or separate the Otherworlds will surely determine whether an entity allows an individual to use their magic alongside that of another entity, but there isn't necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between this and religion. Religions are a human/mortal construct; they almost always reflect the allegiances in the Otherworld realm, certainly, but they frequently reflect their cultural and historical context just as strongly.

Reading Greg's assertion (about entities not allowing their magic to be used by worshippers of entities outside of their religion) again, I think the thing that really matters is whether the entities in question are enemies. The concept of religion can be a fluid thing, in human/mortal cutural terms at least, but when it comes to the Otherworldly allegiances that those religions reflect, the boundaries are a little clearer. Or are they?

Essentially, it seems that a given religion (e.g. the Heortling Storm Pantheon) can borrow entities from neutral rivals (e.g. Ernalda) or even steal them from enemies (e.g. Elmal, Yavor). Does this assimilation always mean that the rival religion loses the entity in question? Look at Ernalda: she's worshipped in the Earth Pantheon and the Storm Pantheon. Do the myths that describe these additions reflect the human/mortal cultural assimilation of these entities? Or is it the other way around? Or both? :-) Hey! We're back to Heroquesting as a syncretic tool again...

It's also worth re-iterating my earlier (and woolier) point about promiscuity: certain entities (e.g. Donandar) seem to be almost completely unfettered by these divisions, and may be present (albeit in the background in some cases) even in mutually exclusive religions (e.g. Solar and Storm pantheons for Donandar). Does this transcendence reflect the unique nature of these entities, or does it instead reveal the arbitrary nature of the divisions that are generally perceived to be 'normal'?

To summarise: the allegiances and animosities that bind and divide gods, spirits and saints are not precisely the same as religions, however much those religions may reflect them. In most cases, this distinction is academic, even nit-picky, but at the boundaries it can be important. The implications of this for syncretism are very interesting, I think: if a pantheon can assimilate an enemy deity, provided there's a mythical pre- and/or post-hoc justification for it, then what are the limits?

[Mike Holmes]

My point, I guess, was that it's not religions per se that these entities are hung up on when it comes to deciding who can get their magic. The complex web of allegiances that bind or separate the Otherworlds will surely determine whether an entity allows an individual to use their magic alongside that of another entity, but there isn't necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between this and religion.

That's an excellent point. The most obvious example of this, are "independent" spirits.

Religions are a human/mortal construct; they almost always reflect the allegiances in the Otherworld realm, certainly, but they frequently reflect their cultural and historical context just as strongly.

I suppose. But the gods apparently are doing what they can to make sure that their alliances are reflected in the human ones. That is, it'll become obvious when an alliance is not favored by the god when your magic runs out. Or when the god simply tells you. Given this, I think that the idea is that, generally, you do have a one to one unity between how the worshippers feel and how the god feels.

Essentially, it seems that a given religion (e.g. the Heortling Storm Pantheon) can borrow entities from neutral rivals (e.g. Ernalda) or even steal them from enemies (e.g. Elmal, Yavor). Does this assimilation always mean that the rival religion loses the entity in question? Look at Ernalda: she's worshipped in the Earth Pantheon and the Storm Pantheon. Do the myths that describe these additions reflect the human/mortal cultural assimilation of these entities? Or is it the other way around? Or both? :-) Hey! We're back to Heroquesting as a syncretic tool again...

On the subject of "borrowing" it seems to me that what might happen is that the religion in question makes a copy of he entity in question, one that fits their world view. The view of dieties as immutable militates against this, however.

Also against that view, is the misapplied worship problem. If they did create a new altered copy, then wouldn't Aeol's Orlanth be a saint (instead of a misworshipped god)? It seems that, perhaps, it could be that the Orlanthi Ernalda is simply incorrect. But the "incorrect" Ernalda worship isn't problematic because it doesn't cross an otherworld line. Or that the Ernalda worshipped by the Orlanthi is an aspect of a greater Ernalda? Note that, of course I'm using this as an example, and it could be the Esrolians who are "wrong" about their worship.

It's also worth re-iterating my earlier (and woolier) point about promiscuity: certain entities (e.g. Donandar) seem to be almost completely unfettered by these divisions, and may be present (albeit in the background in some cases) even in mutually exclusive religions (e.g. Solar and Storm pantheons for Donandar). Does this transcendence reflect the unique nature of these entities, or does it instead reveal the arbitrary nature of the divisions that are generally perceived to be 'normal'?

As Common Magic beings, I think that basically they aren't worth the other dieties "worrying" about them. That's the impression I get. Because if I have it right, a religion, or more likely individual gods, can discriminate against the common magic gods in certain cases.

if a pantheon can assimilate an enemy deity, provided there's a mythical pre- and/or post-hoc justification for it, then what are the limits?

Well, faith, I suppose. It's hard to "assimilate" an entity, precisely because you have to "find" the myths that make it work instead of just reinforcing ones you aready know. While discovering these new myths, you have to believe that they've existed all along, simply uncovered. In some ways, it's a lot like scientific study. You note, "Hey, look how this god's myths are like the stories about the One-Who-Travels-With-Orlanth!" And then proceed to "uncover" that, in fact this god that they have is actually the forgotten god in question. Or the like.

I don't think it's like people sit around and plan to steal each other's gods, and then create the myths that allow them to do it. They have to come to believe that the being in question belongs to their mythic truth.

The Lunar advantage here is that they don't have to "change" the being much at all, just find the myth wherin the being "realizes" that it's been a follower of the Red Moon all along. I like the Carmanian Wizardry idea that I've seen where it turns out that Sedenya is simply actually a prophet, or emblem of the One God. Basically in that case, I think that they heroquested to change some of the saints (not the One God) so that it all makes sense together. Not to mention I wonder how much editing it took of Sendnya's myths to get her to fit the prophet mold there?

Mike

[contracycle]

I don't think it's like people sit around and plan to steal each other's gods, and then create the myths that allow them to do it. They have to come to believe that the being in question belongs to their mythic truth.

I can understand that perspective from a lay worshipper, but I cannot understand in respect of eleveated or initiated members of a specific religion.  Because, what happens to all the myths they have been telling to date?  what I do not understand is how this is carried out - if one group quests to add a god to their pantheon, consciously and deliberately, how does this affect other members of their culture?

If it does, how does that happens?
If it doesn't, how do changes happen?

[Mike Holmes]

I've been sorta dreading this moment, but there's only one way to elucidate the principle, and that's by example. (Apollogies to the Gloranthaphiles, I'm going to make up a bunch of BS to make this point).

Ragnar and Varia, two Orlanthi, are sitting by a tree thinking about the gods.

Ragnar: Lankhor Mhy is a most wise god, is he not?

Varia: I heard the Lunar soldiers talking about their god Buserian and how wise he is the other day.

Ragnar: Bah, what puny Lunar god can compare to the lawspeaker of Orlanth!

Varia: The Lunars tell of a myth where Buserian first recites the laws down for their god Yelm standing in a ring of fire.

Ragnar: Standing in a ring of fire? That's the myth of "He who assists Lhankor Mhy"!

Varia: You don't suppose that Buserian doesn't really exist, and that those stupid Lunars have been worshipping one of Lankhor Mhy's assistants, do you?

Ragnar: I'm sure of it, now that you say it. And what's more, we can prove it. Next time we're in the hall of Orlanth and the priest opens up his hall, we'll ask to venture forth from it, and find the ring where the recitation was made. When we help "He Who Speaks" recite the Orlanthi law, then we will know that Buserian is but an aide of Lankhor Mhy, and the Lunar sages will be forced to admit that they have been worshipping wisdom that descends from Orlanth all this time!



Now, this is a stilted, condensed example. What would more likely happen, is that over time, people would start discovering that the myths overlap (in a world without magic, whats' really going on here is that memory is simply conflating the myths over time), and eventually the quest gets made to "prove" the change. Even the small adjustments in the myths in heroquests previous to this lead up to it.

For example, in the example, the Orlanthi discover that Lhankor Mhy has a sacred ring of fire, previously only attributed to Buserian's myth. And in another they discover a station about the recitation of the law. The myth mutates over time till the "true" version of the myth is discovered (the truth is always being discovered, of course), and Buserian becomes a minor Orlanthi god.


Consider that illustration from the book which has the caption, "A Lhankor Mhy lawspeaker discusses philosophy with a Buserian Sage." The Sage tells the Lawspeaker that Buserian has a great library of books. This impresses the Lawspeaker, who thinks, "My gods are greater than his, Lankhor Mhy must have a library, too!" Sure enough, when he examines the mythic reality, he finds that library there. He just wasn't looking for it before.

As their gods come closer and closer together by processes like this, they become more and more susceptible to being co-opted. Suddenly one day, they go into the otherworld, their god does not answer to the name that they call him by, but by that which has been discovered to be "more true" by the previous questers, that these gods are one and the same. Or related to each other in a mythic way that makes the god a servant of the other pantheon. When they ask the god, he says, "Do you not see? You have been deluded all along seeing my library as a Lunar one. It was never so, it was always an Orlanthi one."

The faithful will, of course reject this as some deception on the part of the Orlanthi, and attempt to "edit" the myth back into order as they remember it. Rather, they attempt to find the truth as they remember it to be, and thus wash away the Orlanthi illusion. Or, they will lose faith due to what they see, and fall into despair, convert, or whathaveyou.

Does that help at all? It's not a game that they're playing, they're simply exploring their mythic reality, and discovering new things about it constantly. The fact that these things tend to match their desires to see their "way" be ascendant, simply to them coincides with their belief that their way is, in fact, superior. To the extent that they can't make these positive discoveries, they realize that their belief is the frailer. Eventually such beliefs dissapear entirely replaced by the newfound truth.

Mike

[contracycle]

No - thats not the question.

Ragnar and Varia have discovered - which is to say, asserted - that Buserian is in fact an assistant of Lhankor Mhy.  How do the rest of the Orlanthi find this out?

If they don't find it out, then the "truth" they have "discovered" - which is to say, a lie they have invented as an apologetic - goes no further.  No OTHER Orlanthi will "know" this "truth".  What happens if a different group of Orlanthi come up with a different rationalisation, and quest to "prove" it?

Worse, how does the Lunar god Buserian get demoted within Lunar culture to the point of being a minor Orlanthi god?  Because of course to the Lunars, the Orlanthi assertion is a) wholly untrue and b) unkown to them.  And if the god is not so demoted in the Lunar pantheon, then what does the statement "Buserian becomes a minor orlanthi god" actually mean?

And with all of this apparent self-deception and ad hoc reasoning, why are we using the misleading terms "prove" and "discover" at all?  These are actually the conceits of the CHARACTERS in Glorantha - why are they relevant to a discussion between real human players?

[Mike Holmes]

No - thats not the question.

Ragnar and Varia have discovered - which is to say, asserted - that Buserian is in fact an assistant of Lhankor Mhy.  How do the rest of the Orlanthi find this out?

If they don't find it out, then the "truth" they have "discovered" - which is to say, a lie they have invented as an apologetic - goes no further.  No OTHER Orlanthi will "know" this "truth".  What happens if a different group of Orlanthi come up with a different rationalisation, and quest to "prove" it?

There are two things at work, it seems to me. First, the people who come back from the otherside spread the word of the truth that they've discovered. Very simply, they tell people, and the word spreads based on how credible people find the people spreading the word. If your name is Paul, or Siddhartha, you're very, very good at this.

Second, when other people go to the mythic otherworld (and this is how the other culture's people likely discover the truth in most cases) they discover that these are the facts when they look at them there.  

Which doesn't mean that you always find what you thought you would. Perhaps you find that Buserian is just Buserian after all. Not hard to buy, since that's what many people are asserting. Your quest might find that the original truth still stands.  

And with all of this apparent self-deception and ad hoc reasoning, why are we using the misleading terms "prove" and "discover" at all?  These are actually the conceits of the CHARACTERS in Glorantha - why are they relevant to a discussion between real human players?

The trouble here is trying to explain to the modern rational mindset how this all works. In some cases, I'm putting things from a rationalist player POV, and in other cases trying to explain the mindset of the character in Glorantha. You have to understand the Glorantha characters mindset to understand how this all works, and for some readers here, I was hoping that it would make sense to explain it in rationalist terms. But I'm sure that I'm just being more confusing.

The first thing to understand here is that in both Glorantha and the real world, there is no way to prove that the either the rationalist or religious POV is correct. There is no evidence in either world that can automatically make one POV right or wrong. I don't think that Glorantha asks you to accept a religious POV in real life, it merely asks you to understand that in Glorantha that nearly everyone thinks this way (much as everyone in the real world did before about the 14th century, with some real world thinkers and the Gloranthan "Godthinkers" as the exception to the rule), and that the reality of Glorantha is similar to ours in that nobody can prove the truth of either POV. Or, put another way, that one does not have to be stupid to believe what Gloranthan's believe.

There is an internally logical POV that one can play their character by, one that, at least for some, can make for a protagonist, in which the character has a religious belief. Here's an attempt to explain what the rationalist sees as "editing" in terms that the Gloranthan would use:

One cannot change the truth by any useful definition of the term. The gods are actually subject only to their own wills. They do not change becasue the Gloranthan goes on a heroquest to change them. Human understanding of the gods is, due to the fact of their being far beyond humans in terms of power and the nature of their existences, quite imperfect. Even the most devoted disciple claims only to know a small fraction of the truth that is the mighty reality of their diety. And they admit that what they know may not be precisely correct. The truth exists, but knowledge of it is not perfect. As such, one of the things that the religious do is to seek deeper understanding.

When somebody quests to find out something that they suspect is true, it's largely a matter of intuition. That is, if you drop something in the forest on a trip, you might think, "Hey, it's probably where I sat down." So you go to look there, hoping to find that this is, in fact, the truth. It may or may not be so. When Ragnar goes to the otherworld looking for the truth of Buserian, he's not causing the otherworld being to change, he's causing the truth to become more visible to all. The mythic landscape clears up so that the truth, there all along, is now known to all who may come by.

Worse, how does the Lunar god Buserian get demoted within Lunar culture to the point of being a minor Orlanthi god?  Because of course to the Lunars, the Orlanthi assertion is a) wholly untrue and b) unkown to them.  And if the god is not so demoted in the Lunar pantheon, then what does the statement "Buserian becomes a minor orlanthi god" actually mean?

When the Lunar comes along in the otherworld, and sees Buserian, now, sitting at Lankhor Mhy's knee scribing for him, he has four choices (Ragnar having cleared the veil to that understanding):

[list=1][*]Decide that people can and do "edit" the mythic planes, and become a godlearner or atheist, etc. This is a possibility, and no doubt how the original godlearners got started. That said, it requires throwing out everything that you've been taught about reality since you were born, and is no more logical than either of the following choices. So it's rare, and has only generated a full blown movement once in history (which ended up with the truth of the gods obliterating the godlearners, FWIW).
[*]Decide that what you are seeing is still only a fraction of the truth, and go about seeing if you can find a deeper meaning still, perhaps one that makes more sense to what you knew previously. "Yes, Buserian seems to be writing for Lankhor Mhy, but in fact he's simply recording the Orlanthi laws as he records everything. In fact, Lankhor Mhy is a servant of Buserian, look!" This will, of course, fail, if it's not the actual Truth.
[*]Decide that the god was deluding you all along not having revealed it's true nature, reject the god as revealed, and go back to the rest of your religion. This may well happen after number 2 has failed.
[*]Decide that your god is still worth worshipping, and convert to the religion revealed as the true religion of the diety. [/list:o]

When the character rolls in a heroquest to see if he succeeds at something, thus "creating" the reality of the myth, what the Gloranthan sees as actually happening is that they're simply finding what their intuition and faith perhaps told them would be there to find. That is, their mundane world virtues do not alter reality in the mythic world, they simply allow truth to be discovered. If a character is a better swordsman, and goes in and "proves" that he was correct about his suspicions with his sword, then what that means is that his knowledge of the sword is simply what tipped him off in the first place about the truth of the otherworld. If he's less skilled, and doesn't succeed, then his incorrect estimate of the truth comes becuase of his lack of understanding about swordsmanship.

This explains why quests have stations that are pertinent to the meaning behind them. And that's why magic works sympathetically as it does. Again, this is all internally logical, and how I think the Gloranthan percieves reality. Yes, the rules can be interpreted both ways, and sometimes we use terminology like "editing" or "rationalization" to make it easier for us to understand what's going on. But it's important to understand how the Gloranthan sees it, too.

Mike

[Hobbitboy]

No - thats not the question.

Ragnar and Varia have discovered - which is to say, asserted - that Buserian is in fact an assistant of Lhankor Mhy.  How do the rest of the Orlanthi find this out?

If they don't find it out, then the "truth" they have "discovered" - which is to say, a lie they have invented as an apologetic - goes no further.  No OTHER Orlanthi will "know" this "truth".  What happens if a different group of Orlanthi come up with a different rationalisation, and quest to "prove" it?

...

Human understanding of the gods is, due to the fact of their being far beyond humans in terms of power and the nature of their existences, quite imperfect. Even the most devoted disciple claims only to know a small fraction of the truth that is the mighty reality of their diety. And they admit that what they know may not be precisely correct. The truth exists, but knowledge of it is not perfect. As such, one of the things that the religious do is to seek deeper understanding.

When somebody quests to find out something that they suspect is true, it's largely a matter of intuition. That is, if you drop something in the forest on a trip, you might think, "Hey, it's probably where I sat down." So you go to look there, hoping to find that this is, in fact, the truth. It may or may not be so. When Ragnar goes to the otherworld looking for the truth of Buserian, he's not causing the otherworld being to change, he's causing the truth to become more visible to all. The mythic landscape clears up so that the truth, there all along, is now known to all who may come by.

Worse, how does the Lunar god Buserian get demoted within Lunar culture to the point of being a minor Orlanthi god?  Because of course to the Lunars, the Orlanthi assertion is a) wholly untrue and b) unkown to them.  And if the god is not so demoted in the Lunar pantheon, then what does the statement "Buserian becomes a minor orlanthi god" actually mean?

When the Lunar comes along in the otherworld, and sees Buserian, now, sitting at Lankhor Mhy's knee scribing for him, he has four choices (Ragnar having cleared the veil to that understanding)

You mention causing the truth becomming visible to all and then later talk about a non-Orlanthi 'seeing' the 'new' version, but how often does this actually happen?

It seems to me that different communities (let alone different cultures) have different myths, or at least differ on significant details, and it is those differences which determine the stations of the various hero quests that any one group of people know about. Specifically, no single group of people know all the myths about a god and in most cases they probably only know a small fraction of what that god may have done before time began.

I would be surprised if the Darra Happans (from whom the Lunars would have got the myths about Buserian) had ANY myths about Lhankor Mhy but even if they did the chances are almost infinitesimal that they would include the same one that the Orlanthi know about. Therefore any 'changes' that Ragnar uncovered would only spread among his fellow Orlanthi since no Lunars would know about that particular station to be able to visit it let alone observe anything found there. The Lunars (and Darra Happans, and anyone sharing the same set of myths) are all off following their own hero quests about Buserian.

So the Orlanthi can reduce their understanding of Buserian to just being one of Lhankor Mhy's scribes without having any effect on how the Lunars view Buserian at all.

Well, that's how it seems to me.

[lightcastle]

Greg once commented (on Misapplied Worship): "I almost wish that we'd called it Mixed Worship and made it the standard type of religion everywhere in the world".

So do I. The more I think about it, the more it seems that this would have helped conceptually.

As for the Buserian/LM example, it would (firstly) have to take place on the God Plane itself for it to change reality on a large scale. This from Greg and co on the digest. On the hero plane, you can change it for yourself and for some people you know. (Thus maybe gaining some Buserian powers for your LM worshipper or some such.)

On the higher level, it would, in fact, be changed to the extent that trips into the god relam by other worshippers would also see this, from what I understand. This ends up close to whay Mike was talking about, confronted with this new truth, you have to decide what it means. (This stemming in many ways from the Gods being too huge to be fully comprehensible.)

[James Holloway]

Worse, how does the Lunar god Buserian get demoted within Lunar culture to the point of being a minor Orlanthi god?  Because of course to the Lunars, the Orlanthi assertion is a) wholly untrue and b) unkown to them.  And if the god is not so demoted in the Lunar pantheon, then what does the statement "Buserian becomes a minor orlanthi god" actually mean?

It would  probably only mean that Buserian can now appear in certain LM quests -- it wouldn't make a big difference to the Lunars.

For an example, look at the way the Solar culture traditionally viewed "Orlanatum" and "Walindum" -- Orlanth and Valind, as depicted on the Gods Wall. They're shown as these funny midget gods: ha ha, here come wacky Orlanatum and Walindum again with their antics.

It's not so funny when Valind encases your city in a glacier (as has happened) or Orlanth's worshippers show up to burn it to the ground (as has also happened). So the Gods Wall images are there, but Solars (and now Lunars) on the sharp end know that Orlanth and Valind are very tough, and worth taking seriously. Orlanatum and Walindum are like statements of intent -- given total Solar-cult control over the world, this is what it would be like, with rebellion and unpredictability confined to a couple of buffoons.

Now, the Lunar vision is a little different, but it's also closer to being put into practice. Right now, Orlanthi under Lunar control are in some cases beginning to worship Doburdun or other storm gods. But that doesn't mean Orlanth really *is* Doburdun. Making that true is going to require real huge-scale efforts, not one or two mimsy-pimsy heroquests. It's going to take, oh, I don't know, a massive military campaign lasting more than one person's lifetime, coupled with a huge program of temple building and tactical heroquesting.

So what happens when the Lunars pull it off and kill Orlanth and replace him with Doburdun and so forth? Well, all hell breaks loose. Chaos, anarchy, cats living with dogs. But eventually things calm down and the Orlanthi myths get forgotten, and the Storm Pantheon weakens and begins to fade.

It seems that, perhaps, it could be that the Orlanthi Ernalda is simply incorrect.

What's incorrect about it? That it differs from the way she's worshipped in Esrolia? Are there really such big differences?

[contracycle]

The trouble here is trying to explain to the modern rational mindset how this all works. In some cases, I'm putting things from a rationalist player POV, and in other cases trying to explain the mindset of the character in Glorantha. You have to understand the Glorantha characters mindset to understand how this all works, and for some readers here, I was hoping that it would make sense to explain it in rationalist terms. But I'm sure that I'm just being more confusing.

The thing is, I am quite willing to see it from the characters point of view - the problem is that I cannot, unless I assume that Gloranthans suffer some mental ailment that prevents really simple rational thought.  Because this whole proposed process requires a kind of Orwellian doublethink, in that:

- I know my god does X
- which really means I have chosen my god to do X
- and I can go exploring on the hero plane
- which really means I am defining and changing the hero plane
- and I can go to change and define the hero plane
- which I then report as "discovery"

.. and yet, apparently, not a single human being in Glorantha notices the slightest difficulty in these impossible propositions.

The first thing to understand here is that in both Glorantha and the real world, there is no way to prove that the either the rationalist or religious POV is correct. There is no evidence in either world that can automatically make one POV right or wrong.

But again, I'm afraid that is not true.  We have developed a method to resolve such disputes - independant verifiability.  This argument is not legitimate; the alleged subjectivity of Glorantha is different from, not the same as, the real world, even in ancient epochs.  The Greeks figured out the world was round using a ruler and a bit of string.

When the Lunar comes along in the otherworld, and sees Buserian, now, sitting at Lankhor Mhy's knee scribing for him, he has four choices (Ragnar having cleared the veil to that understanding):

Except there is a problem.  I'm going to cite some of James Holloways post in this regard, although it addresses the same issue: how changes are perceived by others.

Now, the Lunar vision is a little different, but it's also closer to being put into practice. Right now, Orlanthi under Lunar control are in some cases beginning to worship Doburdun or other storm gods. But that doesn't mean Orlanth really *is* Doburdun. Making that true is going to require real huge-scale efforts, not one or two mimsy-pimsy heroquests. It's going to take, oh, I don't know, a massive military campaign lasting more than one person's lifetime, coupled with a huge program of temple building and tactical heroquesting.

The problem with the case of Orlanth is that right at the start of Game Time - i.e., the first date in the current published documents, the Dragon Pass period - the Lunars have already succesfully Proven that Orlanth is Doburden.  They did so in Tarsh.  Furthermore, the Lunars know for absolute certain that Sedenya is the dominant power in the Middle Air - the very some domain to which Orlanth lays claim.

So this presents two problems:
1) manifestly, the Lunar quests that "proved" that Orlanth was Doburden in Tarsh had no effect whatsoever on Orlanthi belief in Orlanth, and

2) The Lunar quests that "proved" that Sedenya was the Lord of the Middle Air also had no effect whatsoever on Orlanthi faith, or on Orlanths power in the Middle Air.

This strongly implies that Culture A does not "see" the same Otherworld as culture B.  Because if that were true, then in either case, "whoever got there first" would determine what was "seen" by any new 'quester.


And it seems to me to get worse from there, because as I see it, Jame's proposed massive military campaign, occurring as it does on the material, not the hero, plane, should have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the existance of Orlanth or his dominance of the Middle Air.  What principle would govern changes in the physical plane imposing changes in the hero plane?

Now, it might make sense that there is a constant war of changes, and that thus a military campaign succeeds by killing any potential counter-questers.  However, that should only take place after the victory is pretty thoroughly complete, while in the canon development, inasmuch as I understand it, Orlanth is bumped off in the early stages of the conquest.  So, even this "kill 'em all" solution does not appear supported by canon.

When the character rolls in a heroquest to see if he succeeds at something, thus "creating" the reality of the myth, what the Gloranthan sees as actually happening is that they're simply finding what their intuition and faith perhaps told them would be there to find.

Yes - confirmation bias.  Thats not the problem - the problem is how two people look at the hero plane and they both have their expectations verified, despite them being mutually contradictory, such as who is dominant in the middle air.

James says:

It would probably only mean that Buserian can now appear in certain LM quests -- it wouldn't make a big difference to the Lunars.

But the question is, why not?  Buserian has now been Proven to be a subordinate of Lhankor Mhy.  Does this not cause some consternation and religious uncertainty among the Lunars?  Hitherto, they have been believing a falsehood - don't any of them find them find that worrying?

Either that OR the changes to the hero plane had absolutely no impact at all, and when Lunar Buserian-worshippers enters the hero plane, they see what they always saw.

But if that were true, how was conversion accomplished in Tarsh?  Because surely Orlanth worshippers would have been as unmoved by Lunar claims about Orlanth as Lunars are said to be about Buserian.

--

So, I'm afraid I still don't understand how syncretism or conversion happen in Glorantha.

[James Holloway]

But if that were true, how was conversion accomplished in Tarsh?  Because surely Orlanth worshippers would have been as unmoved by Lunar claims about Orlanth as Lunars are said to be about Buserian.

--

So, I'm afraid I still don't understand how syncretism or conversion happen in Glorantha.

Hi Gareth,

you raised a couple of different points and if it's OK by you (well, even if it isn't, I guess) I'm going to take them one by one. Right now I want to talk about "how X happens."

Here's the thing: as far as I know, no one has suggested that Orlanth is Doburdun. I could be wrong about this. But my understanding is that they have replaced Orlanth with Doburdun because it does minimal damage to the mythology -- Doburdun is also married to Ernalda, Doburdun is the god of the storm, etc. In some highly technical metaphysical sense, Doburdun may "be" Orlanth, like they both embody the Storm Rune or something, but for practical purposes they are different cults AFAIK.

Here's how conversion happened in Tarsh, in a very rough summary.

Tarsh used to be your basic rough-and-tumble Orlanthi society, more or less similar to Sartar (although there was no Sartar at the time), although its people are descended from the Alakoring Orlanthi rather than Heortlanders, which gives them a few differences -- they tend to live in villages, for instance, and most administration occurs at the tribal level rather than at the clan level. But for the most part, they were your basic Orlanthi.

Tarsh is a prosperous agrarian nation, very tied to the earth. The kings of Tarsh who were King of Dragon Pass expressed this -- note the difference from the Kings of Sartar who did so in terms of who they were sacrally married to.

Centralized, increasingly urbanized, increasingly wealthy, Tarsh has had a long period of contact with the Lunar provinces to the north, like Saird and Holay, which were once Orlanthi but are now Lunarish, with worship of "harmless" Heortling deities like Voriof and whatnot.

A social split begins to develop between lowland farmers, who increasingly see the rumbustious Orlanthi way as a pain in the ass (a view actually contained in Orlanthi mythology in the myth about the death of Barntar) and the highland tribes, who don't feel any real kinship with the urbanized, civilised (well, compared to them) Lunar provinces to the north. This cooks off in a succession crisis when king whoever-it-was is sacrificed by his Lunar wife and she takes over the regency. Sacrilege!

There is a war and the traditionalist Orlanthi get beat. This is a long drawn-out process involving the throne changing hands, blah blah blah, but eventually the unreconstructed Tarshites are stomped flat (along with their allies from Sartar and the Grazelands) by the Lunars at the Battle of Grizzly Peak and forced to withdraw into the area surrounding Mount Kero Fin.

OK, so here's the breakdown:

1) the conversion was a very long, brutal, violent process. It took decades and is still not complete. The Lunar army subjugated Sartar while there was still a pocket of Tarshite resistance in the Kerospine hills. Many many people were killed instead of converting, many left to become mercenaries or bandits, etc. Whole tribes were uprooted or destroyed.

2) the conversion preyed on an existing dysjunction between the Tarshite way of life and the Tarshite religion. Wealthy, agrarian Tarsh is a very different place from Sartar, where the pastoral economy keeps things similar to the conditions under which the Orlanthi religion developed. People were looking for a new way, because they felt the gap between the way their religion told them to live and the way they actually lived.

3) the conversion is made up of hundreds of personal events. It could be as simple as having a distant cousin in Saird and one day you say "so OK, what's the deal with the whole Red Moon thing? And how can you guys stand to be around dogs all the time?" and then he tells you.

But a lot of the time it's like this: the royal officials and some Lunar troops turn up at your stead and say "as of now, worship of Orlanth is banned. You can still worship Barntar if you like, and you ladies can go on worshipping Ernalda (although some missionaries will be coming around to tell you how she's really She Who Waits) but no more Orlanth."

So the local Orlanth priest puts up a fight and they kill him, and maybe half a dozen other die-hards, say all the men in the village who were Devotee level. And now the Lunar officer is looking at you and saying "how about you, pal? Are you ready to join the Provincial Church?" And you're looking at him and all his troops and thinking well, I could go out in a blaze of glory, it wouldn't be so bad, I hear Kalurinoran is pretty nice. But then you look over at your son. He's only a few years old, he doesn't understand this stuff. Do you want him to grow up without a father?

All right, you bastards, goddamn it, I'll join your Mickey Mouse religion. Just don't hurt my family.

And you hate it -- you felt the presence of the god leave you when you were initiated, that presence that's been with you since you got your first tattoos when you became a man. And this new religion is pretty crappy -- they teach you spells for Pete's sake and everybody knows only sissies use spells.

But the services are compulsory, and you go every full moon, and after a while -- say a couple of years -- you think, you know, this isn't so bad. I'm still pissed about how they made me initiate at spear point, but it's not that poor priest's fault. Listen to him, the earnest goob, he means well. And the harvests do seem to be good. This "wine" stuff is pretty nice, too. I do kind of miss the big Orlanth festivals, the way the kites would snap in the wind, but this, you know, it's not so bad. I can live with this.

And then another couple of years and you're attending your son's initiation into Yanafal Tarnils. My boy an officer! Going off to see the world and serve the Emperor. Maybe not what I would have chosen for him, but he seems okay with it. Would he have got there with Finovan? Probably not. Of course, he never had a chance to get to know Orlanth.

Oh well. Roads less traveled, eh?

[James Holloway]

OK. So there's conversion for you -- let's talk about syncretism.

I think that the example Mike picked, integrating Buserian into Lankor Mhy, is actually kind of a dodgy one, because it's talking about an area where there are two gods with similar briefs -- god of scholars -- but very different ideas about what it means to be god of scholars (or maybe not; I don't really know enough about Buserian).

Let's look at the Storm Tribe in a bit more detail, specifically the Making of the Storm Tribe heroquest. In this quest, Orlanth does two things -- he exemplifies the clan/tribe structure of Heortling society and he explains what deities from other pantheons (clans) are doing in his religion (tribe). There is a basic formula for bringing a clan into a tribe, a tribe into a confederation, etc., and Orlanth says "I can do this with gods too, which is why Ernalda can be in my tribe even though she's not from my pantheon."

Elmal is the other obvious option -- a deity clearly from the Solar Pantheon, his name even shows the vestige of the word "Yelm." He's married to a local girl, though, Redalda, and he demonstrates, in the myth "Elmal Guards the Stead," that he shares important Heortling virtues, but in kind of a Solar way, ie he's kind of a stiffnecked, self-righteous so-and-so.

What has all this got to do with syncretism? Well, lessee.

OK, let's say that some Helering sailors got blown off course a long time ago and wound up on an uncharted desert isle. The locals are theists, and of course they have their own pantheon of gods. The Helerings stick to their old religion, but their priests really have to ransack their brains to come up with the right myths -- they didn't pay too much attention about Orlanth's journeys and whether he might ever have come here. They tell some stories that are right and some others that are wrong (ie some where the Heroquests work and some where they don't).

Now, the natives worship, I don't know, Jim-Bob, the god of taro root cultivation. The Storm Pantheon has no god of taro root cultivation, for obvious reasons. How can we learn to worship Jim-Bob so that we can grow delicious taro roots for ourselves and stop having to trade our shoes to the islanders for them?

So the top Helering god-talker and the top Islander god-talker get their heads together and have a long, rambling theological discussion, trying to establish a common ground, and the Helerings get the islanders drunk and get them into a storytelling contest.

Now things happen on two levels:

1) the Orlanthi are trying to learn how to worship Jim-Bob correctly. To make this easier, they need to fit him into their cultural framework, which means learning his myths and seeing how they can express them within the cultural framework of the Storm Tribe. They know that the Storm Tribe is the biggest and the best pantheon, and they know it's multicultural, so they're pretty sure that this Jim-Bob must be related to Heler or Quivin or Vestkarthen or somebody. They're looking for how Jim-Bob fits into their pantheon, which already has it as an important principle that it's possible to fit other gods in.

2) on the God Plane, there are possible connections between the gods here -- Orlanth is a weather god, Heler is a weather god, Heler comes from the Water Tribe, presumably this taro guy does the same -- or maybe he's an Earth Deity, like Asrelia. Whatever. The possible connection exists -- has always existed because of the spread-out nature of the Storm Tibe -- but has just never been put into play before.

They learn the myths, they try an islander heroquest, and either

a) they fuck it up. Sorry, guys, Orlanth never passed this way. See if you can use your existing magic to grow taro roots or something. You're not worshipping Jim-Bob.

or

b) they pull it off. Turns out Jim-Bob is the son of so-and-so, which makes him Heler's first cousin and therefore willing to grant them his blessings if they make the appropriate sacrifices, etc., etc.

Note that some religions are better at this than others. The Lunar religion is awesomely good at it: "We Are All Us" is made for syncretism. Both Storm Tribe and Earth Tribe have ways of doing it too. More isolated religions, maybe not so much.

The other thing is that it's very hard to incorporate deities who don't fit your general theme into your pantheon. This is why Donandar and Desemborth/Lanbril/etc. are so widespread -- everyone likes to steal things and everyone likes to dance. But not everyone likes to submit to authority. So the Lunars can incorporate most deities "god of bears? Sure, Bears Are Us. We Are All Us!" But they have a hell of a time incorporating Orlanth, because he's not us. He's "Me, and Fuck Your Us."

So instead they kill him and replace him with Doburdun. Doburdun is Us all right.

[Mike Holmes]

First, when you travel to the god plane or the Hero Plane, you are traveling to where the gods are. So the question of how the lunars know about the Buserian change is that they go to see him in the otherworld, and he's different.

Also, he might stop letting them use his magic. When they go to the otherworld to ask what's the matter, he says, "Well, see, I was only pretending to be a lunar god, I'm really an Orlanthi god." Or something less pedestrian to that effect.

Note, I haven't read James' posts, so apollogies if we cover some of the same things.

- I know my god does X
- which really means I have chosen my god to do X

Why would they think the second? They don't believe that, they believe that the god is subject only to it's own will.

- and I can go exploring on the hero plane
- which really means I am defining and changing the hero plane

But, as I've explained, they don't believe that. They believe that they are exploring, and nothing else.

- and I can go to change and define the hero plane
- which I then report as "discovery"

No, they don't believe that hey change it, only that they discover new myths.

Your argument seems to be that if they think that they are changing the heroplane and think that these things are immutable, then they're crazy. Well, the problem with the argument is that they don't think that they're changing the heroplane. Rather, they're not changing it. It's just your perspective that they are.

But again, I'm afraid that is not true.  We have developed a method to resolve such disputes - independant verifiability.  This argument is not legitimate; the alleged subjectivity of Glorantha is different from, not the same as, the real world, even in ancient epochs.  The Greeks figured out the world was round using a ruler and a bit of string.

Again, this is your belief in rationality as the only source of truth. As long as you maintain that, and don't realize that many people, including allmost all of them in Glorantha, don't feel that way, then you'll never understand their mindset.

It's like you're saying that before people knew that the world was round, that they were crazy for thinking that it was flat. Worse, you haven't proven in the analogy that the world isn't flat.

When the Lunar comes along in the otherworld, and sees Buserian, now, sitting at Lankhor Mhy's knee scribing for him, he has four choices (Ragnar having cleared the veil to that understanding):

So this presents two problems:
1) manifestly, the Lunar quests that "proved" that Orlanth was Doburden in Tarsh had no effect whatsoever on Orlanthi belief in Orlanth, and

2) The Lunar quests that "proved" that Sedenya was the Lord of the Middle Air also had no effect whatsoever on Orlanthi faith, or on Orlanths power in the Middle Air.

This strongly implies that Culture A does not "see" the same Otherworld as culture B.  Because if that were true, then in either case, "whoever got there first" would determine what was "seen" by any new 'quester.

Quite incorrect. Again, you assume that faith is based on "seeing" which it simply is not. Not even seeing the otherworld. In fact, the Orlanthi in question have seen the "proof" and simply do not believe it to be true (except for the ones that do). Hey, so what if Orlanth is dead? He's been dead before. That won't stop good old Orlanth. The Lunars pretending that he's Doburdun are just not seeing the ruse that old Orlanth is pulling on them. Once we go into the otherworld to look around, I'm sure we'll find out that it's just not true.

And it seems to me to get worse from there, because as I see it, Jame's proposed massive military campaign, occurring as it does on the material, not the hero, plane, should have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the existance of Orlanth or his dominance of the Middle Air.  What principle would govern changes in the physical plane imposing changes in the hero plane?

I didn't think that it did. At least they don't think that it does. That is, the Lunars don't conquer in the mundane world to alter myths. They conquer because their gods say that they should.

Yes - confirmation bias.  Thats not the problem - the problem is how two people look at the hero plane and they both have their expectations verified, despite them being mutually contradictory, such as who is dominant in the middle air.

They don't. They see the same things. Whether or not they choose to accept what they're seeing is a different matter.

"Orlanth is gone, it must be that we were weak and he no longer wants us. The way to bring us back into his sight is to prove our worthiness in battle. When we have done so, we will go before Orlanth and he will reveal the truth that he has not gone at all."

But the question is, why not?  Buserian has now been Proven to be a subordinate of Lhankor Mhy.  Does this not cause some consternation and religious uncertainty among the Lunars?  Hitherto, they have been believing a falsehood - don't any of them find them find that worrying?

Of course they do. They have to process this new information. In the examples I gave, it might completely change their faith. Or it might not.

Now, all this said, there's an added level of complexity to all of this. The gods can really only be seen in their true forms on the God Plane. If you are questing in the Hero Plane, it's sorta like practice. In fact, if many people do "practice" heroquests on the mundane plane, expecting that it won't have any effect, other than to prepare oneself. When they go to the hero plane, they can see all sorts of different things, because it's all just "shadows" of the truth. Which means, however, that you can only be affected yourself. You don't change things in the hero plane, you get changed yourself. Any change to a myth is, in fact, just a change in your understanding of it.

To actually find a deeper truth about a god, you'd have to go to the god plane to do it. Making it way tougher to do. I mean you practically have to be a god yourself to do it. Only superhumans like JarEel or huge organizations working together can have any chance of learning deeper truths on the god plane.

Mike