is it possible to create or change a god ? (apotheosis excluded)

[French Desperate WindChild]

there is something i don't know about the impact of heroquesting in the world

 

we know that with heroquesting you can bring some magic/relic from the gods plan, we know that you can "experiment" something different than what was teached in the temple

 

but... is there a possibility that an experience is impossible to live?

is the myth (aka what was done before time) frozen, and everything you can do during your heroquest was done during the myth ?

or is it possible to change the myth, to transform the "before time" ? when I say change the myth, I don't say "change what the cult teach, but really what happened ages ago"

 

Not sure my words are clear so let's go on a simple example^^

 

a community, powerful enough to do anything possible (the question is "what is possible"), decides to explore the hill of gold but wants yelmalio to keep his fire power. So day after day the heroquestors try to defeat ZZ.

 

then there are few possibilities :

1) you cannot change your god (not what you believe, but really your god).

if a lucky heroquestor succeed to defeat ZZ, that means that unvolontary (or not) the questor "merged" or "changed" yelmalio with another fire deity, keeping for him the fire (summon fire elemantal...) or for his community (fireblade...)

OR there is an aspect of Yelmalio's myth where Yelmalio was able to defeat ZZ and kept his fire. We, gloranthan, forgot it but a powerful heroquestor may discover this aspect of the myth, teach it and "update" the cult

in both cases the god and the myth don't change, it is your knowledge which changes

 

2) you can change / create your god : never Yelmalio did it in the myth, no aspects, no forgotten story, nothing: If you meet LM he will tell you "no that did not happen"

but if enough heroquestors succeed (by experimental heroquest), they change the gods plan /and a new yelmalio (not the same) is created, may be the new one doesn't replace the old one and two gods exist now... Are heroquestors able to "create" gods ?

 

not really successfull with the goddesses switch, but did the god learners "roll" a fumble (2 = they could succeed ) or just tried something impossible (1 = they had 0% chance to succeed) ?

 

from a play perspective, in all cases pc may gain some specific powers their gods don't have, unvolontary or volontary (arkatism or thing like that) and it can be explained by a "confusion" of deities more than an aspect of the deity the pc "played". So the point is not really what power a pc may gain,

but more to understand what is god plane/ heroquest

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

15 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

if a lucky heroquestor succeed to defeat ZZ, that means that unvolontary (or not) the questor "merged" or "changed" yelmalio with another fire deity, keeping for him the fire (summon fire elemantal...) or for his community (fireblade...)

Changing myths is a step too far. If it's even possible, then it is extremely dangerous. Yelmalio's defeat by ZZ is fundamental to his nature, and much magic will be derived from his ability to take a kicking and come back from it. All that magic would be lost if he didn't suffer defeat by ZZ.

When a Yelmalion questor goes to the Hill of Gold, he goes there to be defeated by ZZ. Being defeated is victory. Accidentally winning is a catastrophe!

You can "discover new myths", but discovering that existing ones are false is a perilous path. At the very least you will find resistance from those who have a vested interest in things being the way they were.

Edited November 10, 2022 by PhilHibbs

[French Desperate WindChild]

6 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Changing myths is a step too far. If it's even possible, then it is extremely dangerous. Yelmalio's defeat by ZZ is fundamental to his nature, and much magic will be derived from his ability to take a kicking and come back from it. All that magic would be lost if he didn't suffer defeat by ZZ.

When a Yelmalion questor goes to the Hill of Gold, he goes there to be defeated by ZZ. Being defeated is victory. Accidentally winning is a catastrophe!

You can "discover new myths", but discovering that existing ones are false is a perilous path. At the very least you will find resistance from those who have a vested interest in things being the way they were.

yep for sure my example was about something "impossible", about the deep nature of god etc..

 

the issue I have with "discover new myths" is exactly my question 🙂  (with my words...)

to discover = to find something not new but never found or forgotten

so it is not possible, with my understanding or logic, "to discover a new myth", you can create a new myth (change the god plane) or you can discover an unknown myth (the god plane doesn't change, only you)

[PhilHibbs]

34 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yelmalio's defeat by ZZ is fundamental to his nature, and much magic will be derived from his ability to take a kicking and come back from it. All that magic would be lost if he didn't suffer defeat by ZZ.

 

Although that has me thinking now... what magic does Yelmalio get from that? Where is his "survive taking an absolute drubbing" spell?

Seems that that myth is one of the ones that you have to go experience yourself in full, to gain immortality, rather than one that gives a lesser benefit to the whole community. So if you weaken it, you threaten the immortality of all those that did it.

Edited November 10, 2022 by PhilHibbs

[PhilHibbs]

25 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

so it is not possible, with my understanding or logic, "to discover a new myth", you can create a new myth (change the god plane) or you can discover an unknown myth (the god plane doesn't change, only you)

Another thing to bear in mind is the difference between what the adventurers do, and what the players do. The players might be inventing a new myth, but the adventurers are "discovering that it was true all along".

[JRE]

For me it is like time travel (because that is what it is) with paradoxes solved by forking the deities and the myths.

So if you have a bunch of people going to the Hill of Gold and winning (with some variants, as you may win only against ZZ, or you may beat Orlanth first, and your interaction with Inora will change too), they will end up with a different deity, another son of Yelm, one that went to the Hill of Gold and won, and who has access to Yelm's Fire. However there will be a drawback, as only Yelmalio survived the Darkness, so there will be some GM defined drawback, probably associated to one of the other sons, or even Antirius. You can now heroquest to make him survive, but inmediately obstacles appear, Orlanthi quest against you, Zorak Zorani quest against you, etc.

I would propose that is what Darvedeshkorgos did to recover the Orb from the Hill of Gold, in order to allow Khordavu to pass one of the ten tests, change the myth and possibly discover Daysenerus. Which is on one hand a new god, but in the other another mask of whatever deity is Lightfore. As people stop doing the victory myth, Daysenerus is forgotten, but his phalanx magic is recovered as Tharkantus to fight the EWF. As a variant of Yelmalio in the Sun Domes, it is likely the myth had returned to being defeated to get benefits in endurance and survival.

I would play that you can use the "normal" Hill of Gold for community benefit. The community will stick together and be more resilient, less affected by cold, hunger and other trials. That is one of the secret benefits that allowed the Sun County to survive in Prax, that even robbed of food and timber by the nomads, they still stick together and survived with almost no food or fuel.

In fact, my own take is that Yelmalio lost his fire in the Darkness, but there were different myths about the Cruel god that crippled him. It was Arkat who identified the Cruel God with ZZ, and so the god of male troll teenage rebellion became a terrible war god, and darkness with power over fire. In the process Arkat crippled also Daysenerus worshippers, taking out their fire powers and making mythically correct that they always lost against Zorak Zoran, just when he faced a Dorastor army whose strength were the Daysenerus phalanxes with his ZZ berserkers. 

Daysenerus, Tharkantus and even Yelmalio are, IMG, gods created within time, masks of whatever unknowable deity was represented by the Yellow planet, Lightfore and who kept light, even if weak, in the Greater Darkness. Yelmalio absorbing Elmal is another example of this heroquest style, in this case making a god disappear by identifying it with a stronger myth, and if you are succesful Elmal's myths will be harder and harder to find in the God plane.

[Eff]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

there is something i don't know about the impact of heroquesting in the world

 

we know that with heroquesting you can bring some magic/relic from the gods plan, we know that you can "experiment" something different than what was teached in the temple

 

but... is there a possibility that an experience is impossible to live?

is the myth (aka what was done before time) frozen, and everything you can do during your heroquest was done during the myth ?

or is it possible to change the myth, to transform the "before time" ? when I say change the myth, I don't say "change what the cult teach, but really what happened ages ago"

 

Not sure my words are clear so let's go on a simple example^^

 

a community, powerful enough to do anything possible (the question is "what is possible"), decides to explore the hill of gold but wants yelmalio to keep his fire power. So day after day the heroquestors try to defeat ZZ.

 

then there are few possibilities :

1) you cannot change your god (not what you believe, but really your god).

if a lucky heroquestor succeed to defeat ZZ, that means that unvolontary (or not) the questor "merged" or "changed" yelmalio with another fire deity, keeping for him the fire (summon fire elemantal...) or for his community (fireblade...)

OR there is an aspect of Yelmalio's myth where Yelmalio was able to defeat ZZ and kept his fire. We, gloranthan, forgot it but a powerful heroquestor may discover this aspect of the myth, teach it and "update" the cult

in both cases the god and the myth don't change, it is your knowledge which changes

 

2) you can change / create your god : never Yelmalio did it in the myth, no aspects, no forgotten story, nothing: If you meet LM he will tell you "no that did not happen"

but if enough heroquestors succeed (by experimental heroquest), they change the gods plan /and a new yelmalio (not the same) is created, may be the new one doesn't replace the old one and two gods exist now... Are heroquestors able to "create" gods ?

 

not really successfull with the goddesses switch, but did the god learners "roll" a fumble (2 = they could succeed ) or just tried something impossible (1 = they had 0% chance to succeed) ?

 

from a play perspective, in all cases pc may gain some specific powers their gods don't have, unvolontary or volontary (arkatism or thing like that) and it can be explained by a "confusion" of deities more than an aspect of the deity the pc "played". So the point is not really what power a pc may gain,

but more to understand what is god plane/ heroquest

 

 

Here's how I interpret it, which is very much not how most people interpret it. This is not just non-canon, but arguably non-fanon as well: 

The gods are people and have the capacity and willingness to act. When you heroquest, you're not really replacing your god, you're following in their footsteps and doing what they once did to get a similar kind of outcome or benefit from it. Now, you're temporarily inhabiting their "space", you're doing the early stages of what Elder Scrolls calls "mantling", so there's a connection there, and that connection is why you can benefit, but there's still a distinction between you and the god you're following. 

So you could climb the Hill of Gold fifty or a hundred times and kick Zorak Zoran's butt each time, but that wouldn't change Yelmalio all by itself. It would probably push you further and further away from Yelmalio, because you're not getting the lesson Yelmalio's teaching. You would have to do more than that- you'd have to either bring vast quantities of force to bear to reshape Yelmalio the way you want him to be, which does well at getting people to stay quiescent (Nysalor) or lose parts of themselves (Kyger Litor), but not so well at getting people to actively do things, or you'd have to talk the god or gods in question into accepting this redefinition of themselves. I'd put the Goddess Switch into the latter category- the God Learners talked/browbeat the two goddesses into agreeing they were basically interchangeable, they swapped places, but then it turned out they weren't, and that they had different interests and thus offered different magic, and things went to hell. 

Or to put it another way, to get a god to change how they act (such as by granting new powers to people) you need to get their consent to keep doing it, just like with a person. And if you make use of abusive violence to extract or coerce their consent, then, like with a person, there are other forces which will object to this and take action against you. 

And to bring it back around to Yelmalio... the insight that Yelmalio had atop the Hill of Gold is a pretty important one to him, I think. Trying to get him to reject it would be like trying to get people to reject a core belief they hold about themselves. Not impossible, not very practical, either via humane or inhumane means. 

[Nick Brooke]

I once wrote about a time-travelling Christianist heading back to Golgotha with a side-arm, a step-ladder and a claw-hammer to "fix" what went wrong with Christianity. That's the sort of person who'd heroquest for Yelmalio "to not be such a loser." Don't be that guy!

[Ali the Helering]

15 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

I once wrote about a time-travelling Christianist heading back to Golgotha with a side-arm, a step-ladder and a claw-hammer to "fix" what went wrong with Christianity. That's the sort of person who'd heroquest for Yelmalio "to not be such a loser." Don't be that guy!

For another time travel take on it, try Gary Kilworth's "Let's go to Golgotha", which is googleable.

[Nick Brooke]

Yes, but the point I'm making is that you have to be a really weird sort of Yelmalian to think: "If only my God hadn't suffered on the Hill of Gold in the Great Darkness! He's such a LOSER! Let's see if I can fix it by heroquesting to tell a Big Lie, so he never has to undergo the transformative experience that made him my personal saviour..."

[JRE]

Most of that "creative" heroquesting will be done by illuminates, which is why it still happens in Glorantha. Players, unlike Gloranthan characters, surely count as illuminated as well, which is why even non-illuminated characters will be pushed by their players into illuminated behaviour. Few people do these heroquests, but their influence is huge in Glorantha.

Also some of these heroquests may be "hostile takeovers", without illumination as a necessary requirement, where a stronger cult tries to absorb a weaker one. That was widespread in the first age with the theyalan deities, and recently by Monrogh's Yelmalio on Elmal.

My view of gods and godtime is just the opposite of Eff, as I see them as patterns of energy without free will, modified by the actions of free willed humans within time. Changing the pattern, burning new ones or erasing others. Most cult activity is reinforcing their desired pattern, which is why change is so hard in Glorantha.

[mfbrandi]

If I had my quirky way (never going to happen), I would drive a wedge between:

1. experimental heroquesting where we time-travel back — sideways? — to godtime to break reality/indulge in a spot of change war;
2. ordinary religion where we take a load of psychedelics and ritually re-enact our gods’ myths.

Gloranthans will — for the most part — not grasp the distinction.

Experimental heroquesting is some heavy shit: “You want to go up against Zorak Zoran for real, rash mortal? Good luck with that. Don’t tell him I know you.” If players insist, consider having them time-travel into someone else’s past, so any effects of the quest are on another branch of history — see, for example, The Female Man for ways to do this without it being a totally futile exercise.

I am not saying never indulge in proper change war, but do think about the power differential between the PCs and the gods in your Glorantha (I imagine this varies quite a bit). If you do pull off the edit, it will have always been that way, so don’t expect any thanks from a grateful community when you return — if your community is even there when you return: you may have edited your own parents out of history. Change warriors don’t make good community champions, but they are great deracinated depressives.

On the other hand, I would have most or all of a cult’s magic depend on ordinary religion. Monrogh’s “proofs” are in effect a con trick on a bunch of heads, but that’s OK because their magic is essentially faith-powered, not god-powered. The faithful won’t see it that way, of course, but then they are usually several peyote buttons detached from reality.

[French Desperate WindChild]

6 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Yes, but the point I'm making is that you have to be a really weird sort of Yelmalian to think: "If only my God hadn't suffered on the Hill of Gold in the Great Darkness! He's such a LOSER! Let's see if I can fix it by heroquesting to tell a Big Lie, so he never has to undergo the transformative experience that made him my personal saviour..."

don't focus on my example, I choose Yelmalio example as the myth seems very stable (the defeat), so changing it should have a big impact in the world.

My point is the impact of the world (if there is), not how to change the cold sun into someone else  🙂

 

41 minutes ago, Eff said:

Here's how I interpret it, which is very much not how most people interpret it.

(...)

When you heroquest, you're not really replacing your god, you're following in their footsteps and doing what they once did to get a similar kind of outcome or benefit from it. Now, you're temporarily inhabiting their "space"

in fact... we are not so far from my idea  (as maybe non canonical and may forks my inital post I "spoil it" 😛 ) :
 

Spoiler

1) the gods are not machines, but there is (are ?) something behind them , call it universe law , invisible god, ouroboros, the Machine, etc... something not reachable, not understandable by mortals (if something is sentient, which is not sure)

2) with the same causes, the universe responds with the same consequences (or about), so if you do exactly like the god, you obtain exactly what the god obtained. Of course any variation even a very little (roll 63 when the god rolled 62 on d100...) changes more or less the result.

3) the mundane people when they are heroquesting know they are mundane, know they are not in their right place, and this knowledge is not acceptable by their soul/mind/....  and let them to be expulsed from the plane they are visiting because they are the strangers

4) so the answer to help them is "no that is not you in this plane, that is you as your god, so you are not the stranger, you are allowed to be there". all the challenge then is to trust you are at the right place, if you doubt, you will have more difficulties, if you doubt too much, you will be expulsed or worst

 

however the question is the same with other words : does universal laws allow you to do anything or, if you are on this hill, if you were defeating by the wind  and now meet Darkness, is there any possibility to keep the fire in you or because the previous results (wind defeated you) and new causes (darkness will fight you) you cannot defeat the Darkness without loosing something else or without  creating chaos (chaos may be then an answer of universe laws

 

2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

The players might be inventing a new myth, but the adventurers are "discovering that it was true all along".

yep I agree. My point is not to challenge players who propose something "new" or to say them "no",

  I want to understand if the characters discover something or create something.  because depending on this answer, it could trigger different scenario (social with the cult, or with the gods, or ...)

 

1 hour ago, JRE said:

For me it is like time travel

yes I tried to avoid to use these words as we are discussing about thing "before time" but I agree 😛

your post is interesting too , does this model fit with your answer ?

we can define gods at different level (not level of power, more level of "identity")

level 0 : mortal becoming gods (apotheosis)

level 1: aspect of the gods (subcult in rqg)

level 2: named gods (cult in rqg)

level 3: unknowable deity (a root of different named gods, maybe the celestial court ?)

level 4: the runes

level 5: unity if it means something

merge it with the invisible god and now, we know that Orlanth Invisible is not Orlanth at all : Orlanth is a level 2 god, when Orlanth Invisible = unknowable = unreachable) is level 3 god !

 

14 minutes ago, JRE said:

Most of that "creative" heroquesting will be done by illuminates

 

even if we seems to be at the opposite * way about gods (machine or not) this point fits a lot. Considering my universe laws option, illumination helps you to accept that you are yourself in the gods plane and even if you are a stranger you can stay here

* and that's the point : with one more abstraction level, there is no opposition if you consider "your machine" are the universe laws and "my gods" are the first being who explored a path and guide the others (their worshippers) to the path (sharing their power = rune spells or showing how to get your own power = heroic spell)

 

[metcalph]

Orlanth Dragonfriend. 

[EricW]

It certainly is possible - the red moon was created by people. And the Lunars also tampered with myths in “Orlanth is Dead”, along with the God Learners before them.

Or take the Empire of the Wyrms Friends - Orlanth is a dragon!

Arkat notably conducted experimental heroquests to obtain the power to defeat - aha - a god created my mortals.

And Sartar created Orlanth Rex cult from memory.

Most of the time this kind of tinkering ends badly. I’m sure people try this a lot, most of the time they end up lost forever on the hero plane, or meet a huge monster with lots of tentacles. Or if they “succeed”, the world spends the next few centuries cleaning up the mess.

Edited November 10, 2022 by EricW

[French Desperate WindChild]

5 minutes ago, metcalph said:

Orlanth Dragonfriend. 

 

4 minutes ago, EricW said:

It certainly is possible - the red moon was created by people. And the Lunars also tampered with myths in “Orlanth is Dead”, along with the God Learners before them.

Or take the Empire of the Wyrms Friends - Orlanth is a dragon!

Arkat notably conducted experimental heroquests to obtain the power to defeat - aha - a god created my mortals.

And Sartar created Orlanth Rex cult from memory.

Most of the time this kind of tinkering ends badly. I’m sure people try this a lot, most of the time they end up lost forever on the hero plane, or meet a huge monster with lots of tentacles. Or if they “succeed”, the world spends the next few centuries cleaning up the mess.

 

but what you both describe are discovered myths , aren't they ? or did they build from scratch new myths ?

[EricW]

1 minute ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

 

 

but what you both describe are discovered myths , aren't they ? or did they build from scratch new myths ?

Was Orlanth ever a dragon? I would suggest the line between “discovered” myths and new myths is a little blurred.

[svensson]

Well, the Seven Mothers did it... sort of.

They reassembled the scattered parts of Sedenya and then gave birth to her avatar. Mary Shelley would be so proud...

[metcalph]

11 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

but what you both describe are discovered myths , aren't they ? or did they build from scratch new myths ?

Who can tell the difference?  To give an example, there is a myth (Tales Sea Special) about Magasta about how he was once deposed by Wachaza and later returned to power.  When did it take place?  Mythically most likely the Storm Age.  HeroQuesters can visit the events and confirm them for themselves.

But...

...Wachaza was the war god of the God Learners and Magasta the chief god of their early foes the Waertagi.  This deposition and return happened within history.

Before the God Learners, was there ever a myth about Magasta being deposed by Wachaza?  No.  But after the God Learners, the myth is as real as all the other myths about Magasta and Wachaza.  We can only distinguish it from the others because of our knowledge of history.  But that is irrelevant to the mythic world.  

[Eff]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

Was Orlanth ever a dragon? I would suggest the line between “discovered” myths and new myths is a little blurred.

There's at least one myth which, disconnected from obvious EWF influence, suggests that yes, he was at one point. What that says to me is that you can't just arbitrarily conjure things out of nowhere and nothing- the changes encounter inertia or resistance- because we don't really have an example of an entirely ex nihilo alteration like this. The closest might be Zistor and Zazistor, who... had to be constructed in the material world rather than via pure mythological manipulation. 

[EricW]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

There's at least one myth which, disconnected from obvious EWF influence, suggests that yes, he was at one point. What that says to me is that you can't just arbitrarily conjure things out of nowhere and nothing- the changes encounter inertia or resistance- because we don't really have an example of an entirely ex nihilo alteration like this. The closest might be Zistor and Zazistor, who... had to be constructed in the material world rather than via pure mythological manipulation. 

But in Subere’s realm in the underworld anything can be found, including impossible paths to Lunar hell. Or someone could visit one of the infinity of other worlds, and bring something back.

My point is probably something has to be found rather than created, but there is an infinite range of myths and items to be found, which is functionally equivalent to being able to invent something entirely new.

Of course if you wanted to say bring proof Orlanth is part of the Lunar pantheon back to the mundane plane, expect a rough ride on your return journey.

Edited November 10, 2022 by EricW

[mfbrandi]

16 minutes ago, EricW said:

Of course if you wanted to say bring proof Orlanth is part of the Lunar pantheon back to the mundane plane, expect a rough ride on your return journey.

Oh, I don’t know, though: from the perspective of Yelm, one rebel looks much like another. Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

For another time travel take on it, try Gary Kilworth's "Let's go to Golgotha", which is googleable.

Or Gore Vidal's "Live from Golgotha".  And it does change the outcome!

7 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Yes, but the point I'm making is that you have to be a really weird sort of Yelmalian to think: "If only my God hadn't suffered on the Hill of Gold in the Great Darkness! He's such a LOSER! Let's see if I can fix it by heroquesting to tell a Big Lie, so he never has to undergo the transformative experience that made him my personal saviour..."

Agree.  Your Light lives on instead of seeing your Fire die out... why would one want to go back and change it?  

6 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

so changing it should have a big impact in the world.

When one person quests to change the myth, perhaps for their village or clan or shrine, then you expect a very local effect: that individual gained a HeroQuest power (and likely gave up something to do so).  They have Fire magic now.  But I think there's likely two consequences: 1) they are more vulnerable to something that Yelmalio (in this example) survived - maybe when Inora comes they can't resist her, and the fire goes on, and she turns them into an ice mummy; and 2) they don't gain the same end reward that the original myth provided - they can cast Fire magics now, but cannot see in the dark or their soul is now condemned to the Halls of the Underworld, etc.

When a whole community, perhaps one of the Sun Dome Temples, collectively pursues this, then the community gains the reward.  And the community gets the consequences.  Maybe they aren't bound to Truth in the same way or don't gain gifts or receives geases.  Maybe the whole temple is vulnerable, and readily succumbs when the Chaos parasites come.  Think of how Manalarvus' Dome collapsed after Antirius returned to the Hill of Gold, and effectively succumbed.

For an even larger community, the change should have ripple effects such as when the 7 Mothers resurrected the Red Goddess.  The cosmos fought the change.  And that seems increasingly likely.  The Raging Hate of ZZ is dark, cold, and hidden - secret murders abound.  Men are readily seduced and enslaved by cold-hearted women - a gift of the Snow Queen (Narnia under the White Witch?).  The elves had no guardian of the Light and chose to side with Chaos in order to keep their forests protected....

 

[EricW]

Of course there is always the sliver of a possibility of enhancing divine power, like that trickster who brings back the secret of the stink spot, a surprisingly soft and squishy holy relic whose secret, concealed in the bag which must remain tied, redoubles the power of trickster’s magic within it’s smelly aura.

[Jeff]

12 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

there is something i don't know about the impact of heroquesting in the world

 

we know that with heroquesting you can bring some magic/relic from the gods plan, we know that you can "experiment" something different than what was teached in the temple

 

but... is there a possibility that an experience is impossible to live?

is the myth (aka what was done before time) frozen, and everything you can do during your heroquest was done during the myth ?

or is it possible to change the myth, to transform the "before time" ? when I say change the myth, I don't say "change what the cult teach, but really what happened ages ago"

 

Not sure my words are clear so let's go on a simple example^^

 

a community, powerful enough to do anything possible (the question is "what is possible"), decides to explore the hill of gold but wants yelmalio to keep his fire power. So day after day the heroquestors try to defeat ZZ.

 

then there are few possibilities :

1) you cannot change your god (not what you believe, but really your god).

if a lucky heroquestor succeed to defeat ZZ, that means that unvolontary (or not) the questor "merged" or "changed" yelmalio with another fire deity, keeping for him the fire (summon fire elemantal...) or for his community (fireblade...)

OR there is an aspect of Yelmalio's myth where Yelmalio was able to defeat ZZ and kept his fire. We, gloranthan, forgot it but a powerful heroquestor may discover this aspect of the myth, teach it and "update" the cult

in both cases the god and the myth don't change, it is your knowledge which changes

 

2) you can change / create your god : never Yelmalio did it in the myth, no aspects, no forgotten story, nothing: If you meet LM he will tell you "no that did not happen"

but if enough heroquestors succeed (by experimental heroquest), they change the gods plan /and a new yelmalio (not the same) is created, may be the new one doesn't replace the old one and two gods exist now... Are heroquestors able to "create" gods ?

 

not really successfull with the goddesses switch, but did the god learners "roll" a fumble (2 = they could succeed ) or just tried something impossible (1 = they had 0% chance to succeed) ?

 

from a play perspective, in all cases pc may gain some specific powers their gods don't have, unvolontary or volontary (arkatism or thing like that) and it can be explained by a "confusion" of deities more than an aspect of the deity the pc "played". So the point is not really what power a pc may gain,

but more to understand what is god plane/ heroquest

 

 

The archetypes and patterns of the God Time are eternal and fixed. But what we in Time experience of the God Time, what we call things, what we offer magic points to and draw upon when we use magic - that changes as we mortals do. "Myths" are the stories we tell about the God Time - we can see the God Time in our rites, our ceremonies, and when the Gods World is close to us. Sometimes we can even interact ourself with the archetypes and patterns of the God Time - that's what we call Heroquesting.

Yelmalio - Little Sun - is a title. We apply it to the Light in the Darkness, the light remained when the Sun was killed and the light that refused to go out in the Darkness. We have places where we can meeting the Little Sun, where he is so close you can reach out to touch him. We can walk in his path and ascend to the Hill of Gold and try to fight against the Darkness, but we know that our god was defeated by Orlanth and robbed by Zorak Zoran - that's part of his definition. If we do not experience that, we do not follow in his path. Like a Jesus who is not crucified.

But perhaps something we thought was the Little Sun - his Golden Spear perhaps - is something that we can draw power from directly. We can worship the Golden Spear as a god, separate (but associated) with Yelmalio. Or perhaps we see the time that Yelmalio worked with Orlanth and decide to focus only upon that, and call that subset of Yelmalio with the name Elmal. Or perhaps we experience Yelmalio as merely the light that emanates from Yelm, and worship Yelmalio merely as an attribute of Yelm.

Perhaps on a heroquest, we follow Yelmalio's path, are extinguished but rekindle ourself with our purity. We bring this back to our temple with a new Rune Spell of one-use Resurrection or maybe just Restart Fire.  Perhaps we gain a new gift, not on the list, or take a new geas, not previously seen. In this way, cults may change.