[Glorantha] Re: [HeroQuest-RPG] Theyalan Missionaries

[Orlanth Umathi]

Jane,
This is my second attempt to interceed in this argument, but  I guess 
just saying "It doesent matter how they survived the darkness" was a bit 
obtuse so I will try to expain more explicity why this is my answer.

JANE:
> But then to find ripe fruit, already knowing what
> it looked like and that it was safe, they apparently needed magic. I queried
> whether this didn't perhaps suggest that something odd was going on, since
> most of us can do this without needing magic. And since then, you've
> confirmed that yes, something odd was going on, there was indeed something
> wrong with their mental capacity, in fact even worse than I'd thought.

I think this statement most clearly explains your "question", and 
following is an answer of sorts.

The pretheyalans are broken in a simple but fundamental way, they have 
become culturally impoverished. Everything that they believed in before 
the darkness has been challenged.

To explain myself I have to take the conversation down an intellectual 
route. I am most comfortable with Levi-Strauss's definition of culture 
as "a system of symbolic communication". (Mythologists please note I am 
not a Levi-Stauss fan when it comes to myth.) In the pretheyalan context 
the total destruction of their pre-existing culture has lead to a social 
group completely unable to communicate with the new world around them or 
the people in it. Cultural adaptation is fast but it needs some form of 
catalyst. I would argue that the cultural change in Greg's example is 
extremely rapid, within a few years they are recognisably Orlanthi (you 
could argue that they had never been ‘Orlanthi’ before as the Theyalan 
Culture is a new one).

Food gathering is just one example of the cultural change required. If 
your entire food culture is built around gathering roots and tubers then 
they become more than just food sources they would impact medicine, 
wealth, decoration, relationships, courtship, magic, in-fact just about 
everything.

When the missionaries arrive, their goal is to bring these people into 
the new world complete with a culture that will equip them for it. This 
is a form of cultural colonialism (in a positive evangelistic manner) 
and as such is inherently tied up with magic. They are not just teaching 
them about food, they are changing their whole world view. And in 
Glorantha and indeed in many real world societies this is the realm of 
myth and magic.

So to return to your point, yes they need to use magic; yes something 
odd is going on. But to return to my original point, it doesn’t really 
matter in the historic context how these people survived the darkness, 
at the end of the missionary process there is very little of the "roots 
and tubers" culture still in existence - probably relegated to Asrelia 
cult secrets.

Jamie