From: George.Harris@launchpad.unc.edu (George Harris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: Runelords and Heroes question (still LONG)
Date: 19 Dec 92 20:25:15 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service

In article <BzHrup.Dow@acsu.buffalo.edu> v124pz9t@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (David Cheng) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.200122.19258@infonode.ingr.com>, beykema@infonode.ingr.com (Maurice Beyke) writes...
>> 
>> 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.
>
>AS I UNDERSTAND THIS REALLY WAY-OUT PHILOSOPHICAL STUFF:
>You should think about this as an "evolutionary" process, not as 
>a "changing history" process. 
>
>When grandpa was a kid, that tribe down south worshipped Elmalio.
>But, during his lifetime, the Elmalio HeroQuesters changed the
>way their god would be perceived, _from that point onward_.
>
>So, for me, I only hear the priests talk about Yelmalio.  
>Grandpa says it was different back in his day, but that doesn't
>matter so much to me, right?  I'm living now, and into the future,
>not back in the past.
>
>Grandpa won't be around to tell my kids about the old Elmalio, 
>and I only remember some of what Grandpa told me, so gradually
>the "story" changes.
>
>To an objective observer, the cult has evolved, including a 
>name change.  The "new" cult has different needs, so it comes
>up with different legends to "teach" (indoctrinate ?) the
>next generation.

	Actually, my understanding of this phenomenon (such as it is) suggests
that the opposite is the case.

	When one goes Heroquesting, one leaves the mundane plane and enters the
Godtime.  This is the time before time, when the relationships among the gods
was still fluid, and the Great Compromise had not sealed the gods off from the
realm of the mortals.  Now, when you are in the Godtime, you are in a place 
where time does not exist.  You are also before time exists, so in a way you
have traveled back into the "past".

	Now, when you are there, if you are *really* powerful, you can change
the way that various gods interacted, by putting yourself in one god's place, 
and taken a different path.  This is of course extraordinarily difficult and 
dangerous.  However, if you are successful, you have changed the way the gods
interacted *before time was created*.  Thus, when you leave the Godtime, you
will enter a mundane plane where the legends *are* and *always were* about the
way the gods interact *after* your interference.  So, no, your grandfather 
would have no knowledge of the stormcult Elmalio, but rather of a somewhat 
weak Sky cult called Yelmalio.

	This is also the way in which the cult of Caladra and Aurelion was 
created by the Godlearners.  It is thought that the Godlearners created and
altered many religions in this way, and that may be why they were destroyed.
But heroquesting in this way, I believe, does alter the way things have always
been.

>-David Cheng
> drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu
--
"If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste more like
prunes than rhubarb does."		-Groucho Marx

George.Harris@launchpad.unc.edu		or, preferably	gharris@jade.tufts.edu
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