>Lots of Japanese don't eat meat instead they eat fish.
In the first place, there are plenty of Japanese monastics who don't eat even fish. Ditto for China. In the second place, I only brought up Japan in the first place because someone mistakenly said (who has since recanted) that you couldn't be a vegetarian in a cold climate. In the third place, the question isn't what the Japanese do, it's what the CA do.
I say that the CA are vegetarians, though they are permitted to eat cheese, drink milk, and eat unfertilized eggs. They're also allowed to eat honeycomb, if all the bee-grubs are picked out first. There's probably other things they're allowed to eat (but usually don't), such as (cooked) afterbirth. Since they're also not allowed to harm sentient beings, they can't eat elves. I suppose if they came across an elf who'd died of natural causes, they could technically eat him, but I doubt many would.
>it is very hard to be a vegetarian as the local flora must be able
>to support vegetarism
Sorry, but this is bunk. It's not difficult at all to be a vegetarian, and you can be one in most environments. Meat-eating folks (such as myself) tend to exaggerate the difficulties, but it's just not all that hard. You can get all the vitamins and minerals imaginable from plants, and if you're willing to combine legumes of some sort with a grain dish you have complete proteins as well. You don't need a complex "local flora". Europe before the discovery of the U.S. didn't have potatoes, but millet and broadbeans are plenty.
Since CA is, by popular acclaim, permitted cheese, they don't even have to worry about the bean/grain connection -- cheese and milk and sour cream and all that stuff is plenty for their biological needs.
>the lack of certain parts of the diet could be fatal. Examples
>Beri-Beri (in India) due to polished rice, rakahitis (sp?) due to
>lack of fruits on boats etc.
Spare me. These are diseases you get from _not_ eating enough plants, not from being a vegetarian. Scurvy, in particular was the prey of men who PRIMARILY ate meat!! You mention "rakahitis", by which you presumably mean rickets, aka rachitis. But this isn't the not-enough-fruit-on-a-boat sickness, which was scurvy. Rickets is lack of calcium while you're growing up.
Yes, you can get beri-beri from eating only polished rice, and pellegra from failing to get another vitamin (I forget which one). But I doubt the CA healers ever get any of these diseases, especially in Sartar or uplands Peloria, which I picture as an area tending to grow lots of different crops; melons, apples, wheat, barley, beans, dairy cattle, etc. It's unlikely you'd get the dietetic diseases among the Orlanthi peoples except as a result of a local famine or a dietary craze (such as the medieval doctors' opinion that fruit was bad for children).
Maybe in Dara Happa, where there's probably more of a monoculture, this may be a problem. There I picture the CA healers as fighting against the problem, encouraging the populace to a more varied diet, urging them to eat fish and meat (while the CAs get by on milk and cheese).
>Sandy remarks that this is how the Roman Empire held back the
>Germans. And that reminds me that they didn't. Not in the long run.
>In the long run the political and economic strain of maintaining the
>border armies proved too much.
It wasn't the strain of maintaining the border armies that destroyed the Romans. It was the combination of rot from within and Romanizing of the barbarians. The Barbarians who finally conquered Rome were uncivilized by Roman standards, but they were light-years ahead of the guys who fought off the Romans in the Teutoburgerwald. Note that the Roman Empire, in all reality, did not fall to the barbarians -- only the western half did so. The eastern half, today called the Byzantines, kept the Roman Empire going until finally beaten up by the Turks, who were just as advanced socially.
>It has always struck me as odd that there is no Malkioni sect that
>takes the obvious route out of this dilemma: the opening of all
>castes and occupations to qualified persons at adolesence.
Who's qualified for _anything_ at adolescence? The problem with this is that everyone would (of course) opt for Lord, which means you'll need some way to winnow out those best-qualified for the various tasks. An aptitude test?
Nonetheless, someone's bound to use this technique, I agree.
Rich Staats:
>First question, I've never understood how the gods/desses were
>corrupted by Chaos. These celestial beings must see the destructive
>nature of Chaos. Why would they willingly turn to it?
Power is not the same as Wisdom. Also, the gods have other motivations: the destructive nature of chaos has its attractions. To
wit: Hate (if I join Chaos, I can smite my foes); Ragnaglar Fear (if I join Chaos, it won't utterly destroy me); Gark Greed (if I join Chaos, I get keen new powers); Bagog Despair (what does it matter, the world's fucked anyway); Vivamort Loyalty (my lord has joined Chaos, I must follow) Thanatar Necessity (argh! Chaos has grabbed and tainted me against my will); Thed Nature (I came from Outside, and was always Chaos); Krarsht You get the picture.
>Consider Mallia, why would she choose the path of Chaos? (I
>understand that she is less ``affected'' than say Vivamort or
>Than-Atyar, but still, why would she accept it at all?)
Well, in Malia's case she _did_ back out as soon as she realized what the other two were up to. And look what it did to her!
>Second question, under what circumstances do you feel that a Chaos
>taint could be removed?
Sadly, I'm one of the "never" advocates. However, I've since slightly modified my beliefs, and now classify chaos taints into three categories:
>there seems to be an underlying notion of a unity of
>magic-matter-spirit at some ``higher level.'' (Analogous to the
>matter-energy & space-time relations.) How does Chaos fit into this
>schema?
It is neither magic, matter, nor spirit, though magic, matter, and spirit can all have a trace of chaos within them. "Pure" chaos is probably not met with anywhere in Glorantha anymore except the underside of the chaosium at the bottom of the universe.
>Fourth question, what is the Humakti version of the creation story?
Same as the Orlanthi, no doubt, but with more emphasis on the Well of Life and Well of Death and Grandfather Mortal, etc.
Joerg:
>I am still not too happy about the term "Grain Goddesses" as defined
>in GoG (and expanded in the Dorasta write-up). "Land Goddesses"
>captures their function better, IMO, that they have a favourite
>grain seems like a by-effect.
That's as may be, but certainly the "by-effect" is what most of their worshipers pray to them for. And not just the one "favored" grain -- the Grain Goddess is goddess of all the grains, and for that matter all the fruitful growing things. Serve her!
End of Glorantha Digest V1 #151
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