The World Is Made of Everything
By Greg Stafford
Hero Wars presents one prevailing opinion of how Glorantha was made. It
says that four separate worlds came together to make the current world.
Several mythologies claim that only their world was original, and that
others grew off it due to errors, ignorance, sins or whatever. For this
discussion, we do not care which of those might be true. Both are derived
from data from the mortal realm, and it is that data that I discuss.
Much of the human realm (the Middle World, the Human World) is common. It
has no inherent magic of its own and will be affected by all outside magics
equally. This includes places, creatures and plants. These parts of the
world are made up of equal portions from all the primeval worlds.
But the distribution isn't really equal. Some parts of the world are
significantly charged with one of the magical powers. In a broad and
general way this is why the west is Malkioni, the center is theist and the
east is mystical.
More specifically, this explains why some features of the terrain are alive
in special ways. It is clear that Kero Fin is a concentration of theist
power, a goddess. The Paps are obviously a center of animist power. The
world has many such sacred mountains, spirit valleys and holy rivers.
Enchanted Aldryami forests combine divine and animist powers, Mostali
tunnels are mixtures of only pure Essence.
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