> Is Lanbril worshipped outside of Pavis and Adari (and all the Zola Fel
> area)?
I imagine so. Pavis and the Valley seem a rather poky place to evolve the=
ir
own thief cult mythos.
> When Guillaume Fournier designed an adaptation of Refuge, in Tatou #4, =
he
> mentioned Lanbril in his description. Later (in the fanzine Broos #5), =
he
> wrote that Greg Stafford explicitly said there were actually no Lanbril=
i
> in Kethaela and that Lanbril was only a regional cult.
I imagine Greg was overreacting to the notion that "Lanbril is the world-=
wide cult of Thieves". IMO, Lanbril can quite reasonably be the thief cul=
t
you'd find throughout Kethaela. It doesn't follow from that that you'd fi=
nd
him everywhere else in the world.
> I would like a Refuge Thief God
I would use Lanbril until proven otherwise.
Remember that one of the great things about Lanbril is that he's the
Faceless
Man. You can't pin his crimes on someone you can't identify. What does th=
is
mean for the ubiquity of the cult? Simple: a good Lanbrili "knows" that a=
ny
other thief cult he comes across is just his master working undercover, i=
n
disguise, fooling his own worshippers as well as the populace at large.
(That
Doesn't Mean It's So!).
I see no need to reinvent the wheel, and come up with some spurious new
name
for the Thief God, if you are happy calling him "Lanbril". Just don't giv=
e
him a vast and complex temple hierarchy, regular worship services attende=
d
by
hundreds of pious thieves, etc. etc. And don't give any regular
inter-temple
links: Lanbrili in different cities have very few reasons to cooperate.
> I have just had a mail from a Mr Bjorn Nilberg! He had come across the
> Glorantha archives and wondered what his namesakes were. Out of interes=
t,
> does anyone know who came up with the idea for them and how they picked=
the
> name.
I assume he hit on "Nilmerg", not "Nilberg". The former is "Gremlin"
spelled
backwards. Gremlins are destructive little creatures that inhabit machine=
s
in
order to wreck them, which are sent out by the Mostali to make inventors
feel
dim by comparison. Nilmergs are helpful little creatures with wheelbarrow=
s
and shovels, who tighten screws and unblock pipes and generally keep
Mostali
complexes running along smoothly: "gremlins in reverse!" We now know that=
the
Gremlins are "broken" Nilmergs.
AFAIK, "gremlins" arose in WW2 fighter-piloting mythology. I am ready to =
be
corrected, however. The inspiration for nilmergs may be the notorious
nilbog,
a monster from an early issue of White Dwarf that looks just like a gobli=
n,
but gains hit points when you damage it. You have to kill them with heali=
ng
magic, IIRC...
Maybe a previous poster called one "Nilberg" by mistake, hence our Bjorn'=
s
search-engine hit?
::::
Nick
::::
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