It's Not 1981 anymore - Gloranthan Otherworlds

[soltakss]

In another thread:

The Three Otherworlds is the way Glorantha is. Some flolks will just have to get used to the fact that this is not 1981 anymore. :roll:
Jeff

OK, then, since I clearly don't get why the new visualisation of the Gloranthan Otherworlds is a good idea, perhaps someone could explain them to me and help me understand these newfangled ideas.

I'm asking here and not on the Gloranthan Digest or World of Glorantha because (a) I don't want to look sillier than I already do and (b) I don't want it to get bogged down in the "But you said" and "What you mean is" arguments.

So, if anyone could help me, I'd appreciate it. I might even be able to move into the 21st century.

 

[Quire]

Have you already seen this, Simon?

http://www.glorantha.com/new/notes_structure.html

- Q

 

[soltakss]

Yes, and it is one of the reasons why I am left cold about the whole idea. It's a nice diagram which links the worlds together and briefly describes the worlds, but what does it actually mean?

 

[Voriof]

Have you already seen this, Simon?

http://www.glorantha.com/new/notes_structure.html

- Q

Excellent choice! That was both the diagram that I wanted to quote (and a diagram that I thought should have been in Cults). As you can see, there's been a lot of changes from 1981 and even from 1983 RQIII.

However, Greg has said that Glorantha arose from the collision of several other worlds for some time now (certainly since the late 80s). With HeroQuest, we finally had a system that could differentiate them adequately.

Jeff

 

[Voriof]

Yes, and it is one of the reasons why I am left cold about the whole idea. It's a nice diagram which links the worlds together and briefly describes the worlds, but what does it actually mean?

Seems relatively obvious to me upon reading it over. It's how the worlds are connected/not connected, what eras in the Hero Wars are available to visit and so forth.

Jeff

 

[soltakss]

It's like giving someone a map of the London Underground when they don't know what a train is.

OK, the links between the planes/worlds are fairly obvious.

But, what about the worlds themselves?

Why have you got the split between Essential Nature, Theistic Nature and Animist Nature?

What about the early myths where deities from the three different worlds interacted?

When did the worlds collide?

As I said earlier, I just don't understand and I'd dearly like to.

 

[Voriof]

It's like giving someone a map of the London Underground when they don't know what a train is.

OK, the links between the planes/worlds are fairly obvious.

But, what about the worlds themselves?

Each is its own set of rules/laws. We saw this with the Spirit Realm being differentiated from the Hero Plane in RQ III. The Hero Planes serve as the interface between these non-connected worlds. Its the active surface of collision. No, I don't really understand the Hero Planes much either.

Why have you got the split between Essential Nature, Theistic Nature and Animist Nature?

These are pieces of the Otherworld that have blended into the mundane world but retained some of their original nature. They do have their own rules and natures. Worshipppers of the other magic sytems are impared when they enter them. A place like this might be Tarndisi's Grove in Dragon Pass which is animist or the Stream which is pure Essence water. The River is God-Waters flowing straight from the God World.

The Underworlds is where these also meet but are damnaged/dead/wierd in some way. The Underworld may be an Otherworld in its own right however.

What about the early myths where deities from the three different worlds interacted?

They interact on the Hero Plane. And in some case, these early published myths may not be the case as we learn more about Glorantha. However, these ancient tales are often ones of self-awareness and awakeneng as people suddenly discover they are gods, mortals, spirits, or dead. The Green Age is always the end of innocence and the begnining of wisdom (and mortality).

When did the worlds collide?

Depends on the world. Animist/Theist worlds started to merge during the Solar Age. The Theist/Sorcery worlds started to collide in the late Storm Age. The Mystic world started to collide late Great Darkness and has not fully intergated itself yet - which explains why some of the distant East is so damned odd.

As I said earlier, I just don't understand and I'd dearly like to.

Hopefully this helps. There's a fair bit on the otherworlds in the HeroQuest core books and I belive I talked about them at some length in Cults. Greg may have more essays on the Glorantha website and he certainly talks about it in Revealed Mythologies.

Jeff

 

[richaje]

I think Simon is asking a more basic question - why the Three Worlds (Spirit, God, and Essence)? The short answer is because that they are hardwired into Greg's Gloranthan Cosmology (and have been since at least the days of Cults of Terror - and probably longer).

Here's a longer answer. Although there is Gloranthan magic that derives from the Everything World (the Mundane World) - for example Common Magic or Talents in Heroquest, Rune Magic in MRQ - the really powerful stuff comes from an Otherworld. The "mythic structure" of Glorantha are ultimately found in an Otherworld. So we've got Spirit Magic, Divine Magic and Sorcery - each derived from a distinct and separate Otherworld, which in turn represents a distinct theological world view.

These Otherworlds are in conflict and are mutually hostile - with some weird exceptions, frex Kolat is Orlanth's Spirit ally and his outpost in the Spirit World, Urox exists in both the God Plane and the Spirit Plane, and some entities like Kyger Litor exist in all three worlds simultaneously (because the Underworld exists in all three worlds). But these are exceptions that prove the rule.

The conflict between the Otherworlds ultimately caused the Gods War and will also ultimately cause the Hero Wars.

Does this help at all?

Jeff

 

[simonh]

The multiple-worlds model is nowhere near as big a change as some people made out. Everything that is written in the older myths is still valid, it's just now we can be more specific about whether it happened in the Underworld, Hero Plane, Middle World or one of the 'higher' worlds such as the Godplane, Spirit Plane or Essence Plane.

Basically, the vast majority of it happened in the Heroplane. The 'higher' worlds were previously believed to be contiguous with, or just extensions of what we now know of as the Heroplane, but it turns out they aren't and they have some special rules of their own.

That's the change. It's a conceptual shift, but really not that much of a big deal.