[Glorantha] Re: Gloranthan Souls, etc.

[Simon Hibbs]

A long time ago a friend of mine had a theory that his Gloranthan PC
should be able to fix birth defects such as a club foot. The method he
came up with was to first break the foot (presumably using some form
of pain relief), then heal it (using RQ Spirit magic heal spells, as
it happens). The idea being that the foot would heal into it's proper,
healthy shape.

I was doubtful about this then, and I'm even more doubtful about it
now. The problem comes with the terms 'healthy' and 'proper'. It's
arguable that the foot was perfectly healthy before, and was already
it's proper shape, it's just that the proper shape of it happened to
be different to that of other people. Therefore ordinary healing
magic, the sort commonly available to most people, would not be up to
the task.

This belief doesn't come from any Politicaly Correct notions the the
effect that we are all equal rely, differently abled, accept us for
what we are, etc. Rather, I'm wondering what the causes of such 
differences might be in Glorantha (I don't think the real-world causes
of such conditions have any bearing on this discussion whatsoever).
IMHO fixing something like a club foot is not merely a matter of
physical repair but of transformation, which is much more potent
magic.

Similarly, merely using mundane methods such as demonstration and
education on the Great Darkness survivors to persuade them to change
their behaviour would not be sufficient. Their experiences during the
Great Darkness had changed who they were, not merely what they knew,
and it was a close run thing whether or not it had changed what they
were as well. We can argue about the terms we use for the changes they
underwent - Damaged, Twisted, perhaps Devolved would be the most
accurate. Where the Green Age was an era of Evolution, the Great
Darkness was one of Devolution not merely in an abstract sense, but
directly and for every individual that went through it.

I suspect that the Great Darkness wasn't an external event that
changed the world around them, and to which they responded. It was a
change in the nature of the whole world, and since people were a part
of that world, it was a change in people too. The example of the laws
of physics changing so that electricity stops working was on the right
track, but didn't go far enough. If the laws of physics change, then
they change for the workings of our own bodies and minds just as much
as they change for the world outside them. If we consider living
Gloranthans to be complex systems that work according to the 'laws of
Gloranthan reality', when those laws change in the way they did during
the Great Darkness even the very identities and innermost natures of
every being in the cosmos will experience that change in the most
personal and subtle of ways. Recovering from that isn't going to be a
trivial excercise.

There are a whole grab-bag of issues related to this that I just don't
have time to fully consider and theorize on right now. For example the
idea that in some parts of Glorantha the GD is still happening
(Alkoth?), and that some magic can cause localised GD-like effects
(Zombie magic) which imples that the GD is a mode of being as much as
an event so the survivors actualy were still in the GD when (most of)
the rest of the world had moved on. Maybe there still are people out
there trapped in the GD. Imagine a small eyote in a deep ravine that
is perpetualy in the shadow of the surrounding cliffs, so that the sun
has never shone on it. What ancient terrors might lurk there? What
happens if the river dries up?


Simon Hibbs