[Glorantha] Gloranthan Souls, etc.

[Greg Stafford]

I want to reinforce some more of the insights that Simon Hibbs has brought up.

> From: Simon Hibbs <simon.hibbs at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Glorantha] Re: Gloranthan Souls, etc.

> 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 would not let this happen in my Glorantha. As Simon said, this is not 
healing,
this is some kind of transformation.

> 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.

Excellent analysis.

> I suspect that the Great Darkness wasn't an external event that

I’d say “the Great Darkness wasn't JUST 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

> 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.

Nor something that can be self-motivated.

> 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?),

Which is why the people from there are so strange and demonic. Or deadish.

> 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.

Vampires too, probably.

> 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?

Excellent examples.

========================
Sincerely,
Greg Stafford

Issaries, Inc.
2140 Shattuck Ave., PMB #2030
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA