Taking encouragement from Martin/Argrath, once more into the breach, as it were.
Peter Metcalfe, responding to Martin Crim and myself:
>What was there before may have little relation to what
>is there now. A good Gloranthan example is Dorastor. Why is it a Chaos
>Pit? Mark Smylie painted a good picture of the cults that exist within
>the KoW yet he did not know what lay behind the KoW.
Actually, Dorastor strikes me as a bad Gloranthan example; if the birth- and death-place of Nysalor/Gbaji isn't going to wind up a Chaos Pit, then what is? Dorastor is one of the most heavily "explained" pieces of Gloranthan real estate there is, IMO, even if Ralzakark himself and its individual geographic manifestations are largely unexplained. In Dorastor, we have the "big picture," which allows us to make up the details as we go along.
While I appreciate the compliment on my cult suggestions (and the support from others in other posts), it was only _because_ I have a theory of what's behind the KoW that I was able to come up with that list Raaterova-style, as it were; ultimately, it's just a bunch of names, and will probably remain so until the background of the KoW is more firmly gelled.
Peter writes further, re: the Malkioni sect write-ups:
>Um? The Kingdom of War lies _between_ the Dona and Loskalm. So if
>Malkionism reached the Dona then it would have reached the region
>surrounding the Kingdom of War. The portion of the river nearest
>to the Black Forest was historically the County of Perfe which I
>think was part of Junora.
Err; that was precisely my point. Part of the problem here may simply be confusion on my part about the names for the Janube valley region; I was under the impression that Junora was largely confined to the south side of the river along with Perfe. I seem to recall that the name "Arnstor" was the historical name for the westernmost part of the valley, to go with Dona for the middle and Mortasor for the easternmost portion. In Nick & David's write-ups, there are sects which claimed to hold or have held sway over Dona, Jonatela, Junora, and I believe Mortasor, but I don't think I found one that claimed historical influence over "Arnstor" north of the river. If the references to Junora were meant to include the Black Forest, then obviously the problem is solved.
A quick glance at Trollpak seemed to show Borklak's Queendom as somewhat glacier-related, a Queendom of Snow Trolls, as it were; further, the troll population of Fronela seems to have been largely wiped out in the Second Age battle of Nebuchaxa (where was Oral-Ta supposed to have been?), and as Peter points out Xemstown is something altogether different, so personally I don't think the troll population of the Black Forest could have been very large.
>With respect to the Kingdom of War, what it _does_ and how it is doing it
>is the most important thing.
>
>If I were playing the campaign Against the KoW, I would make the Driving
>Force for the KoW _unknown_ to those outside it with several mutally
>contrary schools of thought about what causes it.
For the most part I agree, and I think that most of what I've seen "published" on the KoW follows that perspective -- frex, Martin Crim's "Ban Stories" in Codex v1n2, and the KoW-as-punishment theories of some of the Malkioni sects. However, from a GMs POV, there needs to be a distinction made between Losklami/Fronelan propaganda and the model on which one builds the KoW and constructs a campaign against it. Most true-to-form Orlanthi or Storm Bull characters aren't really going to give a damn whether or not the broo they're fighting is a Thanatari or a Mallian, except to the extent that it affects the way they're going to kill it; those that ascribe to the the-only-good-Lunar-is-a-dead-Lunar school don't particularly care if the Teelo Norists feed gruel to the poor or why. But such things do matter in the broader picture of a campaign and how the GM runs it, IMO.
Personally, what the KoW does and how it does it is intricately bound up with why; I think it makes an enormous difference in how the KoW would operate it, what it would "look" like, depending on whether it's a troll conspiracy, a Chaos Pit, Humakti gone bad, or if Lord Death is actually Prince Snodal being punished for killing the God of the Silver Fleet. All these options directly impact, IMO, how one would go about writing up the KoW's cults and planning a campaign that didn't have the KoW as anything more than colorful background.
Finally, Peter wrote:
>Or if the KoW were a Nidan Decamony Plot to cleanse humanity from Fronela
>and LDoaH worships the War Machine which feeds him information on what to
>do. The PCs find out that the War Machine requires skilled maintanence
>and an endless supply of spare parts. They begin ambushing Nidan Decamony
>supply forces in the hope that the War Machine will start making mistakes...
Hm, sorry if I was unclear; the KoW doesn't really worship the War Machine IMO, it _is_ the War Machine, or at the very least the War Machine made manifest. Personally, I think the emphasis on Lord Death to be the result of Fronelan wishful thinking, a kind of put-all-your-eggs-in-one-basket approach hoping that if you just got rid of Lord Death, your troubles would be over; IMO, killing Lord Death would be a minor glitch for the KoW, maybe causing at most a few days (or maybe hours) pause while the Succession Rites were completed, if even that. They've already got their orders.
Just a few thoughts,
Mark
P.S. to Michael Raaterova: Thanks for the adult/non-adult clarification between the published Voria and your Spring Maiden subcult; temporary confusion cleared.
Powered by hypermail