Re: What Arlaten said

From: Andrew Solovay <asolovay_at_rubberducky.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:11:32 -0800

Mike Dawson <mdawson_at_mac.com> wrote:

>

>>> In the RQ3 'Strangers in Prax' there's
>>> a speech the wizard Arlaten gives if you offer him a Troll recruit to 
>>> his guards, in which he refers to it as a 'Krjalk night demon'.

>
> While he may have been magicologically correct, beware the danger of
> trying to pry objective, factual info from dialog I wrote for any NPC,
> and especially Arlaten.
>
> Arlaten was and is, in my view, highly prejudiced in typical Rokari
> fashion. I don't care for the "softening" attitude Arlaten is described
> as having in the newer Pavis books. I think he is a xenophobic
> westerner, and while on the nose in calling a troll a 'Krjalk night
> demon', he might well use the same term for a morokanth or a telmori.

If memory serves, the RQ2 /Cults of Terror/ says that Westerners refer to both Trolls *and Dragonewts* as "krjalki". (Which doesn't make sense if "krjalki" means "chaos monster", but makes perfect sense if it means "something I consider alien/frightening/Communist".)

So, yeah, I don't think you can take anything said *by a Gloranthan* to be a normative expression of Gloranthan reality. They've all got their own cultural blinders on. (For example, a Lunar who says that Sartarites "never bathe" is ignoring the fact that Orlanthi worship outdoors, and thus can expect to be caught in the rain every once in a while.)

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