Syncretism in HQ

[James Holloway]

Quite. Basically nobody I've ever seen play the game gives a damn about any of this.

Well, actually, to be fair, I do. I love the idea of heroquesting, and I do like trying to get it straight in my head. But I agree that in most instances of play, a lot of the stuff I've been talking about here would be irrelevant.

[Donald]

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.

This is a totally unacceptable response.  

First of all, I have said nothing about sources of truth in the real world.  All I want is a clear understand of THIS GAMING PRODUCT.  I do feel it is incumbent for a producer of a product sold for commercial sale to explain it, its ointernal logic, and how I the end-user am to actually use the product I have purchased.

It is NOT good enough to make spurious allegations about my thinking, or allege there is something I "just don't get".  This product does not come with a warning sticker that indicates it can only be played by those with academic training in anthropology.

You are demanding that the author subscribes to your view of the world or at least explains it in the terms you understand - those of the rational modern real world. Greg is a shaman and as far as I can tell doesn't even consider they are a complete truth about to the real world. It is hardly surprising that his creation doesn't follow those rules of logic. There are two ways of handling this, either immerse yourself in and explore the concept that myth creates reality and reality creates myth, or treat Glorantha as a fantasy world which doesn't have an internal logic. Either will work as a gaming product.

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.

No its not like that at all.  Concluding the world is flat is fairly reasonable from casual observation.  But Glorantha goes further and says that NOBODY in the entirety of Glorarantha ever uses rational thought for anything - they act exculsively through the denial of their own motivations and its transposition into religious mumbo-jumbo.

Not true, few people in Glorantha think in modern rational terms because they aren't part of modern RW cultures. Belief and personal experience weigh far more heavily than scientific proof, which is a concept alien to most of Glorantha (and much of the real world). I suggest reading medieval theology sometime, you will find perfectly logical arguments which prove things I expect you will find absurd. The error occurs not in the logic but in the assumptions made, assumptions which went unchallenged because they were obviously true in the belief system of the time. The same thing occurs today with Hollywood's version of historical events, however implausible, being accepted as the truth by large numbers of people.

[contracycle]

I disagree. I think that's just an incorrect POV. This is where the problems begin and end. If you take your POV, then you're correct, the Gloranthan's are all silly fools. If you take my POV then it's all internally consistent.

No, it is a correct point of view, at least according to multiple statements made on the topic.  If you WANT to add another gofds powers to your Pantheon, you heroquest to achieve this.

Further, changes to stations can be introduced in order to facilitate the completion of the tests at those stations.

Thus, the question is, what precisely is your point of view?  If your point of view resolves all these contradictions, then lets hear it.

That's silly. I'm don't have such academic training, and I don't find it hard at all. It's only your insistence on certain axioms that start this argument that make these things problematic.

WHAT AXIOMS?  I have insisted on NO axioms whatsoever - I have merely pointed out what I percieve to be contradictory statements in the texts.  I have limited myself purely to statements about the officially published content of Gorantha.  The only time I stray outside that realm is when people argue falsely that Glorantha is just like primitive earth, when it is very different indeed.

Which is fine. I don't see why the product needs to cater to you specifically. Let's say that there was a game about sewing quilts, and you found it boring, but others liked it. Would that make the game flawed? Then every game is flawed this way.

again, a straw man set up to be knocked down.  In point of fact, as I often remark, I am *very* interested indeed in tyhe topics that Glorantha allegedly tackles, and my frustration arises from the fact the Glorantha tackels them poorly, inconsistently, and illogically.

You'd have to argue that every player will have problems in understanding these issues. Odd thing is that you seem to be one of the only people I know who have this issue. So if HQ has a flaw of not appealing to everyone because of these issues, then it's not a very large one. In fact, I'd say that most games have much worse issues of this sort.

Ad populum fallacy - the popularity of a position is not an indicator of its truth.  Please argue your case, not fallacies such as this.

Furthermore, it seems abundantly clear to me that nobody does understand this issue - becuase nobody is ever able to give a cogent explanation.  What we get instead is handwaving.

Like James Randi, I think it would be entirely reasonable to offer a reward - say £50 - for anyone who can construct a cogent and non-contradictory model of Gloranthan metaphysics in the full confidence it would never be claimed.

Except for those that do use rational thought. I've given you the example of the people that do.

Do you mean the god-learners?  Otherwise, I am not aware of any such proposition.  the god learners should really not be broght into this discussion IMO.

Again, putting it all off as religious mumbo-jumbo indicates to me that this is simply not the game for you. It's about faith and religion, and will probably appeal most to people who think it's interesting to look at issues from that side of the fence.

But its NOT about Faith and religion, because Gloranthans easily give up their gods for other gods.  Its not a faith issue at all.  And as for religion, the entire question is about how the games articulation of religion is supposed to work.

No, thats the central QUESTION: Do gloranthans act on faith, or do they act on knowledge?

I'd say that they do both. Which I find very reasonable, and realistic. [/quote]

You are avoiding the question.  Do Gloranthans have faith in their gods, or knowledge of their gods?  You cannot siply say "both".

This is a non-sequitur. Why don't they matter? I think that they certainly matter to the characters.

Becuase everything is decided by who has the biggest army. (although this itself is not much of an explanation, see later).

Can you substantiate that with some evidence? Why clearly? Just because that's how you see it, doesn't mean that everyone does, nor that this is how it's intended to be seen.

Yes - the whole map of the lunar empire is covered by the glowline, a magical forcefield which is emanated by the reaching moon temples.  Building such temples ius said to be a basic mechanism of the expansion of the empire, and the effect of the glowline is to induce a "permanent full moon" effect for Lunar magic.  Attacking such temples is a serious blow to Lunar power.

I think that this might be the source of the trouble.

The rules are for the players, not for the characters. It's all metagame. We as players don't actually know the myths of Glorantha most times. Oh, we might know a few that somebody has written down, but when it comes to play, we have to make them up. Yes, the HQ rules allow the players to alter the myths. The players. Not the characters. The character only discovers the "deeper truth" that was always there.

... until I play another character, who wants to find a different deeper truth, and quests to "find" it, which is to say impose it.

But I cannot see how the myths are metagame.  It is repeatedly stated that the nyths of the embiment of Gloranthan culture - without the myths there is virtually nothing in Glorantha but bad chaos monsters.  The myths are presented as important data; knowing myths is a key skill in understanding Glorantha, I have been repeatedly told.  I mean there are whole volumes of myths in prints.  Why, if they are merely irrelevant to my play?  Characters go on missions to find the truths opf particular myths.

GLorantyhan myths are so iobjective and authoritative that the King of DragonPass game used a multiple choice system to test the players knowledge of myths in order to achieve progress in the game.

Ironically, Fang Langford's name for this sort of play is "No Myth." That is, nothing is real in the game world at all, until we discover it as players. That doesn't mean that the characters feel that way. When you say, "we go left at the fork" and you find a temple, the characters assume it's been there forever. The players know that the GM just put it there, or may as well have. It was a fiction created by somebody at some point, and entered into the SIS when somebody thought to do it.

Can you point me to a discussion of this in the text?

Where did I concede this?

when you pointed out that Gloranthans don't think they are changing myths, when in fact they are doing so.  That was your proposed solution.

Yes, the hero plane itself is simply local to the individual. But they understand this, and don't expect the personal understanding of the truth to match others much. On the God Plane (or Spirit Plane, etc) it's different.

But is it?  So can you then tell me who is the lord of the middle air - is it Sedenya or Orlanth, in the God Plane?

The player knows that they can "edit" the reality of Glorantha. That they can have thier character search out certain truths.

This is a non sequitur.  Exploration is not creation.  Searching out is not editing.

Yes, this is how the player has some control over the truth of Glorantha. They become a mini-GM using their character as a tool with which to alter things. The in-game desription of which is that these things existed all the time, and that the characters are just finding them.

No that simply cannot be true - becuase the in-game descriptions contradict one another.  That is why it cannot be assumed that these things always existed, and the characters just find them, unless I the player am simply expected to ignore the contradictions.

It's like the game Donjon - the player rolls his "find secret door" and, if successful, the player creates one. The character doesn't think that he's created a secret door out of thin air, he thinks it was there all along. In his reality, it was there all along.

Can you point me to a discussion of this argument in the text?  At the moment I feel it is wholly unsupported.

[contracycle]

You are demanding that the author subscribes to your view of the world or at least explains it in the terms you understand - those of the rational modern real world.

Which is entirely reasonable given that I am buying a physical product in the real world.  It is not too much to ask that its use and operational principles be explained.  I am buying this stuff in an entirely orthodox game store, not Mysteries or some other occult materials place.  I have a reasonable expectation that I am buying a GAME.

Greg is a shaman and as far as I can tell doesn't even consider they are a complete truth about to the real world.

Greg is not a shaman; he merely claims to be one.

It is hardly surprising that his creation doesn't follow those rules of logic.

Then its hardly surprising it can be seen as a poor product, if you concede at the outset that it need not be logical.

There are two ways of handling this, either immerse yourself in and explore the concept that myth creates reality and reality creates myth, or treat Glorantha as a fantasy world which doesn't have an internal logic. Either will work as a gaming product.

No, neither work.  I have, for example, played Mage quite succesfully, and that gave me a subjectivist metaphysic that I could understand and which I could reproduce in a short paragraph.  I do NOT have a problem of any kind with subjectivist metaphysics in games, but Glorantha keeps asserting it is NOT subjectivist, that the gods really do exist, and that the myths are true.

Second, if Glorantha has to be treated as a "fantasy world that has no internal logic", then my central allegation is correct - Gloranthan metaphysics are indeed contradictory and nonsensical, and we the buying public are simply expected to ignore the editorial oversight.  

It's also the case that if "fantasy has no logic" is the premise, then this is nothing at all like real life early societies, which were certainly based on some misunderstandings about the real world but were still as rational as we are - they, like us, are homo sapiens after all.  Therefore, appeals to ancient mindsets, my alleged commitment to raiotnality, or Gregs alleged shamanic insight are all irrelevant.

Not true, few people in Glorantha think in modern rational terms because they aren't part of modern RW cultures.

Well that's extremely patronising and dismissive of pre-modern humans, in my opinion.  Archeology has repeatedly shown that rationality is not the special province of modernoity, and that for example even making a stone axe requires a high intellect with the capacity to analyse cause and effect and construct goals out of opportunities.

Belief and personal experience weigh far more heavily than scientific proof, which is a concept alien to most of Glorantha (and much of the real world).

I'm well aware of this, but it is the Gloranthan game texts that keep appealing to the provability of myths, not I.

I suggest reading medieval theology sometime, you will find perfectly logical arguments which prove things I expect you will find absurd. The error occurs not in the logic but in the assumptions made, assumptions which went unchallenged because they were obviously true in the belief system of the time.

But this is not the problem.  Again there are other games that do this perfectly well without resorting to double-speak.  For example, Ars Magica established, purely by declaration, that no mortal magicians powers could affect the moon, because the moon was outside the terrestrial sphere and thus not subject to human intervention of any kind.

Of course I as a real person do not accept the existance of these spheres, and we have been to the moon.  Thats not the point.  The game works, because the game does not contradict itself.  I am quite willing and able to work within the limits of a belief system I do not personally share as long as that belief system is articulated to me.  The problem with Glorantha is that the beliefe SYSTEM is not being artiiculated - only individual and contradictory beliefs.

[contracycle]

The truth of the myth doesn't change when you convert. Orlanthi who know the myth of Yelmalio and the Hill of Gold don't doubt that it happened. They just don't venerate Yelmalio. Orlanthi who decide to worship Yelmalio, like Monrogh, don't think that Elmal never Guarded the Stead. They just consider Yelmalio to be the greater god, the more worthy of veneration.

This does not appear possible to me, for as I understand it, the claims to soveriegnty advanced by both Yelm and Orlanth depend on whose view you think is correct, of their shared myth.  I am admittedly shaky on the details, but once again this apepars to be a matter that thousands of people are willing to fight over.

The thing is that the hero plane and the god plane are mutable, a bit. So there's certainly a sense in which the heroquester alters them when he quests. There's an amount of "play" in the myths.

OK.  Why - that is, whats the explanation for that?  Is it something metaphysical, or merely in the class of "plot device"?  Is it something known to the players, or the characters?

When you reenacted the myth, therefore, you didn't get it quite right, but it works anyway, because it's close enough. You got the gist of it.

Who and/or what decides that it was, or was not, "close enough"?  Becuase there are dire warnings about the dangers of heroquesting without knowing exactly what you are doing.

So there we see some flexibility in the system. As long as you respect the  point of the myth, which is really about something rather different, you can futz around with the details a bit and nobody will mind.

This is contrary to the idea of myths being valuable secrets, or grudgingly shared, or in any sense an historical account  of the past, magical or mundane.  Again, what is the metaphysical basis for the myths being malleable?

That's fine, but what about totally new heroquests? Well, there also there is a little bit of play in the system. The Helerings in the Jim-Bob example can't just make up a totally new myth from scratch. That stuff doesn't fly.

Why not?  According to whom?  Where do myths come from initially, then?

What they have to do is find a myth they can use: "How Jim Bob Taught People to Grow Taro" or whatever. Now, Jim Bob really did teach these people to grow taro. That's not at issue. The play in the system is, are these guys eligible to learn the secret? They're using the argument "well, Jim Bob, we think you're related to our pantheon and therefore we can worship you" to try and argue that they are.

I follow this, but is this an explanation of the players mindset, or the characters?

That is, I have proposed that Gloranthans do themselves concsiously engage in "constructive heroquesting", but this has been resisted on the grounds that while that may be what actually happens, they THINK they are discovering.  So, which do you think this is an example of?

To do this they're using the Storm Pantheon's powers of weather and fertility and its connection with the deep in the person of Heler, the Blue God, who is (as Helerings) their personal patron. The connection is real, Jim Bob is real, and though no Helering has ever acted out the myth before, it is close enough to what Helerings do to work in principle.

But, is Jim-Bob real?  Becuase the precdent of military conversion suggests the gods do not have objective existance, but are created as cultural expressions.

Now, here's the thing. A sufficiently superhumanly powerful badass can use heroquesting on the God Plane to, you betcha, change the fabric of reality. With powerful magic and lots of community support (lots, like God Project lots) you can, in fact, go into the God Plane and say "hey Urox! Yeah, you, you pussy! I'm here to tame you and stop you being so wild!" And in the absurdly unlikely event that you calm Urox (because you have eight million masteries in Make People Think  Tranquil Thoughts or whatever) you will change the nature of the deity, change the nature of his heroquests, change the nature of his affinities and feats. There will be a lot of styrmen with big axes and helpful new Look at the Pretty Flowers feats.

But again we return to the central question - does that happen?  Does a change on the magical plan actually cause this effect in the mundane plane, so that Uroxi stop getting magic?

There are statements that imply this effect should happen - such as the claims that the Lunar ways dominion over the Middle Air has improved the weather where its writ runs.  On the other hand, it is also explicit that this writ does not run as far as dragon pass, where there are strong rival arir gods.  So the Lunar dominance of the middle air appears to be only local, and to not impinge on the wind-related powers of Orlanthi.

If it were changes to the magical planes that had this effect, why are they not universal in regards the mundane plane?

This is because, once you're in the god plane, all bets are off. Remember, Urox isn't all - powerful, he's just really, really powerful. You can change his nature if you're tough enough, not because his nature is inherently subjective or mutable or anything like that, but because you went in there and whupped on him until it changed. It was definitely like this and now it is definitely like that. Obviously, most people don't even bother thinking about this because it happens so rarely, but it can and does happen.

Umm, but previous discussion of the tarot-root example implied that the detail of gods and their myths were not fixed, but that their "core essence" was.  Hence the statements about getting the right 'sense' in the tarot-root quest.  But here you say that the nature of gods is indeed changeable, subject to sufficient force.

In which case, sufficiently powerful tarot-root questors would not be obliged to consider the "essence" of Jim-Bob at all, if it is in their power to change what Jim-Bobs essential nature is.

[contracycle]

On the other hand, the power of the Lunar army comes at least partially from the Red Goddess.

Indeed.  In fact, considering the Chaos Bat, the Glowline temples, and the Lunar College of Magic, a huge proportion of the power of the Lunar military machine is magical.

Which implies that the magical powers and planes have objective existance such that they impose on the material plane.  And that these powers can be imposed on the Orlanthi despite their opposition.

And this is in accordance with the view that gods can be worshipped in an objectively wrong manner, such that systematic penalties are imposed on those worshippers who use the wrong technique.

But that analysis is still contradicted by the existance of contradictory claims - such as that to the lordship of the middle air - and that apparent geographic delimitation of any cultures theology, such as the multiple gods of henotheism and the singular god of malkioni monotheism.  After all they assert that: "There is only the Invisible God, and Malkion is his prophet."

Thus we end up going around the loop again.  The magical dominance of the gods is brought about by the converting power of human armies, but the converting power of human armies - their capacity to conquor - is dependant on the magical powers of the gods.

Something that I keep stressing is that the existence of the gods, their verifiable existence, is not the decisive, magic-bullet argument here. The relationship with Orlanth can be anything from "he's like a very good friend" for an initiate to "he's like my father and mother, but so much more" for a disciple. But Sedenya is real too, and she's tempting.

Well for the purpose of MY question, its very close to a magic bullet argument.  I can fully get behind a model in which the gods are ontologically valid persons in their own right, with whom individual worshippers have a relationship (although ironically, this mode of worship would be best described as veneration, surely).

But then, why are the magical planes, and the myths, mutable?

Surely if Pete and Bob each have a relationship with Jim-Bob, Jim-Bob appears - face to face, as you say - much the same to either of them.  Presumably, Jim-Bob would reveal the same sorts of knowledge to both.

And yet, according to the Glorantha web site:

The breadth of the Orlanth cult's spread is extensive, and it is understandable that such diversity would spawn some differences of worship depending upon the local customs. In general, three forms of the god are recognized. Orlanth Adventurous is the most widespread, for his god-form appeals to those who wander and adventure. Orlanth Thunderous is the weather god aspect and is worshipped where people commune with the violent storms of nature. Orlanth Rex is the King of the Gods, and is worshipped by chieftains and nobles and poets

My emphasis.

Now, how do we reconcile the "local cultural differences" element with the objectively existing Orlanth in the magical planes with whom worshippers have a personal experience?

If they are having a personal relationship, a face to face meeting perhaps during the sacred time rituals, then why do they get different ideas about who Orlanth is and what he wants?  What relevance does local culture have to an objectively extant god?


Footnote: I previously attributed the reaching moon temples to Yanafal Tarnils when I mean Yara Aranis.

[soru]

But, is Jim-Bob real?  Becuase the precdent of military conversion suggests the gods do not have objective existance, but are created as cultural expressions.

You seem to be confusing Glorantha with a world where belief defines reality. Sociological factors affect belief, belief affects worship, worship affects magic, magic affects who wins in a fight, who wins in a fight affects sociological factors. Nowhere does a change in belief ever effect reality, except in the same sense that, say, the loss of belief in communism affected the Soviet union post-1989.

The laws of economics did not change when the berlin wall fell.

In which case, sufficiently powerful tarot-root questors would not be obliged to consider the "essence" of Jim-Bob at all, if it is in their power to change what Jim-Bobs essential nature is.

Yes, for a defintion of 'sufficiently powerful' that allows you to say 'hey Jim-bob, get thee to God school and go learn that new stuff, or I will smite thee'.

A sufficient level of power would allow reshaping the world from flat to spherical, that does not make it ambiguous whether it is flat or spherical.

soru

[James Holloway]

This does not appear possible to me, for as I understand it, the claims to soveriegnty advanced by both Yelm and Orlanth depend on whose view you think is correct, of their shared myth.  I am admittedly shaky on the details, but once again this apepars to be a matter that thousands of people are willing to fight over.

Yelm and Orlanth don't, as far as I know, make competing claims to sovereignty. Their myths recount broadly the same events (Orlanth killed Yelm, Yelm then returned from the dead) but differ in their interpretations of a) precisely what happened and b) what that means to us. It's the b) part that really gets the fighting going.

OK.  Why - that is, whats the explanation for that?  Is it something metaphysical, or merely in the class of "plot device"?  Is it something known to the players, or the characters?

It's metaphysical. Godtime was a time (well, a non-time) that operated by a set of rules different from the ones that applied following the Compromise. In the hero plane and the god/spirit/essence planes, those rules still apply to a greater or lesser degree. When you're in those worlds you can manipulate them the way that gods and people who lived in Godtime did, allowing you to do things not necessarily possible in the material world. However, because you're from the material world, this is not easy because it's so different from the way you normally think about cause and effect.

Who and/or what decides that it was, or was not, "close enough"?  Becuase there are dire warnings about the dangers of heroquesting without knowing exactly what you are doing.

No one is quite sure who "decides." If I had to choose, I'd say that no one really decides -- it's just the way things are. As to the dire warnings, yup. But the alternative is no yummy taro for you, so you have to take your chances.

This is contrary to the idea of myths being valuable secrets, or grudgingly shared, or in any sense an historical account  of the past, magical or mundane.  Again, what is the metaphysical basis for the myths being malleable?

Myths remain valuable secrets, grudgingly shared (well, big ones anyway) because they're powerful. This is what I was hinting at by suggesting the Helerings have to get the islanders drunk before learning their stories -- the ability to learn the Fertilize Taro feat is worth something and shouldn't be just given away, particularly to people who would abuse it. There are also levels of secrecy -- everyone knows the basics of the Lightbringer's Quest, some people know the details, but there are closely guarded secrets. The Humakti rite that precedes the quest, for example, is carefully concealed. As to myths being a historical account of the past, they are a little bit but not completely. The myth of Elmal Guards the Stead teaches a historical lesson: "in the Darkness it was Elmal who protected us." The fact that he may not have fought Eater of Flesh and Author of Sores in that particular order doesn't change the basic point.

Why not?  According to whom?  Where do myths come from initially, then?

They come from things that happened, usually in Godtime. It's the resonance of these events in the eternal now of Godtime that gives them their power -- things that happened after are (usually) not really powerful enough to make an impression.

I follow this, but is this an explanation of the players mindset, or the characters?

That is, I have proposed that Gloranthans do themselves concsiously engage in "constructive heroquesting", but this has been resisted on the grounds that while that may be what actually happens, they THINK they are discovering.  So, which do you think this is an example of?

Gloranthans engage in constructive heroquesting within limits. So these guys know that they are not re-enacting the quest exactly the way that the islanders would do it, and that the changes they are making to it are to their own advantage (eg they are trying to gain access to the taro feat). But they are not creating the reality -- they're trying to use it to their own advantage, but they're not making it up on the spot. This is what I mean by "play" or "wiggle room." The nature of heroquesting is such that it's OK to change some details, although it makes the quest a little more difficult.

But, is Jim-Bob real?  Becuase the precdent of military conversion suggests the gods do not have objective existance, but are created as cultural expressions.

Of course Jim-Bob is real. I don't understand how you get from military conversion to "the gods aren't real." Let's return briefly to that topic.

Orlanth is real. When I initiated into manhood, I flew above the clouds to Kalurinoran, and there I saw the heroes and Thunder Brothers drinking in his great hall, Kalurinoran. We all saw it, although we all saw slightly different parts of it, maybe. That day I initiated into Orstan, and ever since I've used a little bit of the god's power to guide my hand as I carve, to make the best work I can.

Then the Lunars came, and they said I couldn't worship Orlanth any more. They tore down the temple, and the priests ran off, and no one celebrates the festivals any more. I know Orlanth is still real, but I can no longer worship him (in game terms, can't maintain my time commitment). In the end I initiated into Barntar, who is also real.

The idea you seem to have is that if the gods were real, everyone would act like a total fanatic all the time. This is not the case. There certainly are a lot of fanatics, and they're currently all hanging around Kero Fin and the Shaker Temple waiting for some Lunar ass to kick. But most people, although they know their gods are real, are just Initiates. The gods are real, but are they worth dying for? To some people yes, but to most people no.

This is particularly true when you consider the philosophical mismatch you got in pre-Lunar Tarsh, where your Orlanth worshipper was sometimes a literate, town-dwelling absentee landlord. This guy could clearly recognize that his life didn't match the cattle-raiding, party-hearty ethos of the Storm Tribe, and that his religion was no longer providing guidance in important matters, because its behavioral code was formulated for a society very different from the one he actually lived in.

But again we return to the central question - does that happen?  Does a change on the magical plan actually cause this effect in the mundane plane, so that Uroxi stop getting magic?

There are statements that imply this effect should happen - such as the claims that the Lunar ways dominion over the Middle Air has improved the weather where its writ runs.  On the other hand, it is also explicit that this writ does not run as far as dragon pass, where there are strong rival arir gods.  So the Lunar dominance of the middle air appears to be only local, and to not impinge on the wind-related powers of Orlanthi.

If it were changes to the magical planes that had this effect, why are they not universal in regards the mundane plane?

The magical planes aren't a single, universal "backstage" of the material world. Changes made there do happen in the material world, but there are competing factors. Sedenya made herself Lord of the Middle Air, and she has the air powers to prove it. But Orlanth, despite maybe not being Lord of the Middle Air as such, has a lot of wind powers. It is not possible to strip these from him and his followers without somehow overcoming Orlanth in a contest, in the same way that it would not be possible for me to strip Urox of his blinding rage without pounding Urox down somehow. So in order to stop Orlanth's wind, you have to actually overcome Orlanth, which means going up against a guy who has a base resistance of something like 10W12, plus all the backup you could ever hope for.

Calming the weather in Peloria is one thing, even reducing the ferocity of Valind's storms (but note just reducing them, not ending them), but Dragon Pass is uniquely stormy. You can't soothe Orlanth by proxy.

Umm, but previous discussion of the tarot-root example implied that the detail of gods and their myths were not fixed, but that their "core essence" was.  Hence the statements about getting the right 'sense' in the tarot-root quest.  But here you say that the nature of gods is indeed changeable, subject to sufficient force.

Different things. One is just a regular old heroquest, the other is going into the god plane.

In which case, sufficiently powerful tarot-root questors would not be obliged to consider the "essence" of Jim-Bob at all, if it is in their power to change what Jim-Bobs essential nature is.

Very true. This has happened in the past, resulting (as I mentioned) in catastrophe. In the case of, say, turning Jim-Bob into a cruel swine who hates humans and would never give them taro, all it would probably cause is a taro famine, since I imagine Jim Bob is a pretty minor god. But be careful that you don't upset the complex web of relationships that connect Jim Bob to the Island Pantheon, or all kinds of shit could come unstuck.

And of course, "sufficiently powerful" means "godlike power."

[James Holloway]

Now, how do we reconcile the "local cultural differences" element with the objectively existing Orlanth in the magical planes with whom worshippers have a personal experience?

If they are having a personal relationship, a face to face meeting perhaps during the sacred time rituals, then why do they get different ideas about who Orlanth is and what he wants?  What relevance does local culture have to an objectively extant god?

Orlanth is all these things, including the contradictory ones. He is both Niskis, the rowdy lover who has a "Pull on Trousers Fast" feat and Orlanthdovar, the most faithful of lovers who would not betray Ernalda although she tempted him in disguise. He is both Orlanth Rex, the mighty king of the storm, and Orlanthcarl, the humble farmer.

But humans have a hard time with this. To use a somewhat worn-out phrase, Orlanth is just too big to worship in his majestic entirety. People see only a part of him at a time. And I have a sneaking suspicion that they see a part of him that reflects themselves. Orlanth Rex is seen by the ambitious, Finovan by the aggressive, Drogarsi by the creative -- but all are Orlanth. It's the seeing eye that renders them different.

However, once again, I want to stress that this is within limits. Orlanth is many things, but he is not all things. He will never be Yelm, or even Yelmalio.

[James Holloway]

A sufficient level of power would allow reshaping the world from flat to spherical, that does not make it ambiguous whether it is flat or spherical.

soru

Very good, exactly. Much better than my analogy.

[James Holloway]

GLorantyhan myths are so iobjective and authoritative that the King of DragonPass game used a multiple choice system to test the players knowledge of myths in order to achieve progress in the game.

I just want to pop in here with a side point relating to King of Dragon Pass:

1) success in heroquests in KoDP frequently involves diverging from the learnt mythological material, as I mentioned in the example of the "Orlanth and Aroka" heroquest, which is the first quest you do in the game. You have to pick an option which is different from what Orlanth actually did, but which makes sense in the context of the cosmology generally. Similarly, you can do exactly what the myth says and wind up dead. For some reason, in my case it's the Uralda's Blessing hq. I don't know what I'm doing wrong -- could be my Uralda worshippers are just too weak. So I'm not sure that that really reinforces the idea that myths are objective and authoritative.

2) KoDP makes a number of changes to things in order to facilitate gameplay and provide an easier in to Glorantha. For instance, "real" (ie Storm-Tribe-and-Thunder-Rebels) Sartarite clans are not chock full of Lankor Mhy initiates and Humakti and Chalana Arroy initiates and so on like they are in KoDP. Those guys were just put in to make separating clan ring member functions a little easier. Similarly, the heroquesting system is necessarily simplified in order to be playable as a computer game (shades of the RPG Open thread!) and therefore eliminates some options. It's still a good game and a good introduction to Dragon Pass, but it's a computer strategy game.

[contracycle]

You seem to be confusing Glorantha with a world where belief defines reality. Sociological factors affect belief, belief affects worship, worship affects magic, magic affects who wins in a fight, who wins in a fight affects sociological factors. Nowhere does a change in belief ever effect reality, except in the same sense that, say, the loss of belief in communism affected the Soviet union post-1989.

Umm right, so belief affects worship, worship affects maghic, magic affects who wins a fight.

Thus, the outcome of the fight - and therefore, reality - is at least in part determined by beliefs, mediated through magic.

Where does magic come from?  The gods, or from Gloranthans?

Edit: I am aware that there is no statement to my knowledge that Gloranthan reality is as subjectivist as that in Mage, say.

The laws of economics did not change when the berlin wall fell.

Quite correct, and the Labour theory of Value will yet have its day.  Can we stick to the topic please.

Yes, for a defintion of 'sufficiently powerful' that allows you to say 'hey Jim-bob, get thee to God school and go learn that new stuff, or I will smite thee'.

OK.  So cutting to the chase, the gods can be controlled by humans, right?

Are the gods artifacts of human creation?

Where does magic come from?

A sufficient level of power would allow reshaping the world from flat to spherical, that does not make it ambiguous whether it is flat or spherical.

Correct.  The questions is which state it is IN, and thus answering "we could change it" is irrelevant.

[James Holloway]

OK.  So cutting to the chase, the gods can be controlled by humans, right?

Are the gods artifacts of human creation?

Where does magic come from?

Well, humans can be controlled by humans, but are not themselves artifacts of human creation (well, except possibly in some involved philosophical sense). So the gods, although they can be controlled by humans through force, persuasion, trickery etc. in very extreme cases, are not therefore creations of humans.

Where does magic come from? Magic comes from the interaction of the planes -- "magic" in the material plane just means "stuff working on the material plane sometimes like it does in the spirit/essence/god plane all the time."

[soru]

Where does magic come from?  The gods, or from Gloranthans?

Where does oil come from, underground reserves or oil wells?

All oil in human hands came from a well. Almost all magic in human hands was learnt in a temple (or equivalent).

The difference betwene this analogy and Glorantha is that building your own personal oil well is very slightly more feasible there than here.

soru

[GB Steve]

So cutting to the chase, the gods can be controlled by humans, right?

Not exactly. The Gods are in the Godplane which is outside time as such. The Gods cannot act directly inside the mortal realm. Humans can change things in the mortal realm by changing the myths.

Are the gods artifacts of human creation?

No. The gods created the humans in the godtime before time started. Then the world was almost destroyed by chaos and the gods agreed a pact of non-intervention and created time. The world is only 1400 or so years old and many creatures still alive remember the start of time.

I think the structure works quite well and the access to myths and the godplane allows people to change the myth structure of the world, usually only to a lesser degree.

There always some ambiguity over whether it was a failure in an annual heroquest against the icespirits or just bad weather that caused the harvest to fail, much as there is with prayer and religious observance in the real world.