From: beykema@infonode.ingr.com (Maurice Beyke)
Subject: Re: RQ: Runelords and Heroes question (still LONG)
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:01:22 GMT

In article <19921218045243.2.GADBOIS@CLIO.MCC.COM> gadbois@cs.utexas.edu (David Gadbois) writes:
>
>This example is particularly compelling in light of the recent
>revelations about the cult of Yelmalio.  As I understand it, Yelmalio is
>a fairly recent (insofar as "recent" means anything when you can fiddle
>with History as explained below) mythological creation by heroquestors
>of the Storm-oriented Sun cult of Elmalio (Yelmalio without the "Y," get
>it?)  who wished, for more-or-less political reasons in Sartar, to sever
>their ties to the Storm pantheon and turn towards the Solar pantheon of
>the Pelorians Yelmites, who were busy with the Lunar armies over running
>Sartar at the time.  The means by which they did this was to re-enact
>the Hill of Gold heroquest in such a way as to lose the Storm
>connections.

 Okay, I'll bite.  Where was this "recent revelation" revealed?  This is
 way cool, but I'd like more information, please; was this from private
 conversations with Greg Stafford (so what do you thing, RQ Fans, should
 we take up a collection to pay for someone to follow GS around 24 hours,
 writing down all things Gloranthan he mutters, and mail it out in a monthly
 apa or what?) or has it been published somewhere that I missed?

>
>My guess as to why the questers were able to pull off such a
>mind-boggling alteration of the fabric of History was that,
>mythologically speaking, they were following the path of least
>resistance.  They simply avoided the hard work Elmalio went through to
>associate himself with Storm.  In so doing they lost a lot in terms of
>their power in the cosmos, but they gained a great deal in the mundane
>plane.  One could even argue that they avoided having Sartar suffer the
>fate of the Mad Sultanate by weakening the nation's resistance to the
>Lunar conquest and thereby eliminating the need for such drastic
>measures.

 Next question: did this change the (Y)Elmalio cult's "history", i.e. what
 has happened to it since the beginning of Time (up till now considered
 impossible by all the heroquest experts I'd heard from) or did it just
 change it's mythology, and how it functions from now on?  This is a *very*
 important distinction, and, if the first is correct, changes a great deal
 of what *I* thought I understood about Heroquesting.

>
>There's a good example of the kind of History-munging I have been
>talking about here in the writeup of the cult of Caladra and Aurelion in
>TotRM number seven.  One starts to wonder if all of Gloranthan mythology
>is in some sense artificial.  Perhaps that is the much talked about but
>never divulged Secret of the God Learners.

 But even there, I don't believe anything in *Time* changed.  They made up
 a history for the cult, but there was no one to contradict them, so no
 events in Time necessarily changed.  This is a very different thing we're
 talking about now.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
< Boris Mikey            |"Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive  >
< aka Maurice Beyke      | for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe;     >
< mab@batman.b11.ingr.com| if you wish to be a devotee of truth,             >
< These views are mine,  | then inquire."                                    >
< Ingr. doesn't want them|                                  Nietzsche        >
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