[Glorantha] Re: Changing (or not) reality via heroquests

[Simon Hibbs]

Graham Robinson:

>>The issue is, can
>>you just 'make up' a convenient religious 'truth' such as Seddenya and make it
>>so through heroquesting?
>
>If not, how do you explain something as convenient as Orlanth Dragonfriend?
>Let alone the God Learners proving that all worlds are one world?

The existence of Orlanth is not mutualy exclusive with that of
Dragons, and I don't see any reason why some dragons can't have a
stormy side to their nature, so to me there's nothing surprising about
it. This is exactly the sort of thing that 'creative' heroquesters can
do - identify spiritual beings or principles that may clash sometimes
but are not completely inimical, and find ways for them to engage with
each other beneficialy. If it's possible, then you can heroquest it,
prove it and get useful magic from it.

It's possible for a being in the middle world to visit any and all of
the various worlds. They are therefore obviously interlinked at some
level. indeed the middle world is a mixture of all of them, so the
extent to which they are 'seperate worlds' is just a matter of
categorisation. Glroantha is one world.

Why should either of these 'revelations' be at all surprising?


Donald R. Oddy:

>I'd say it is theorectically possible to create a complete truth but
>in practice so impossibly difficult it doesn't happen. That's because
>you have to make the truth consistant with what already exists on
>the Godplane.

If it's consistent with what already exists, then it can probably be
devived or deduced. In which case you're not realy creating anything
new at all, you're merely discovering it.

How would one 'create' a new god, or a new form of magic? Where would
it come from? What would you make it out of? What would such a
heroquest be like?


Benedict Adamson:

>Would you agree that you can bend, shape and join what is present? And
>that it is harder the more you must bend, shape and join?

Yes of course. There is scope for interpretation within a personal and
cultural context. I think most 'bending' and such is just
re-interpreting in a different cultural or environmental context.
You're not changing it, you're simply using or accessing it in a
different way. if anything is changing it's you and your culture, not
the nature of the spiritual truth.


>The cynical explanation for Sedenya (who, as you remind us, provides no
>magic and therefore, by one operational definition, does not exist at
>all)......is that she has been cobbled together by claiming a set of actually
>unrelated goddesses were all avatars.

The same way that Orlanth is just cobbled together from the minor
Thuder Brother cults, a bit of Heler worship and some appeasment
worship of the more destructive winds.  After all, who actualy
worships Orlanth qua Orlanth? It's all handled through sub-cults and
aspects. If you ask me it's all just made up, with the more powerful
gods given the title of Orlanth-X or Orlanth-Y so that the barbarians
can pretend to have a real religion, instead of just a bunch of
primitive sects (leg pull).


Simon Hibbs