Bell Digest v931028p2

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 28 Oct 1993, part 2
Precedence: junk


---------------------

From: s.phillips@gla.ac.uk
Subject: Sartar'n'Sturff
Message-ID: <25_Oct_93_15:47:03_A10475@UK.AC.GLA.VME>
Date: 25 Oct 93 14:47:03 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2104

Hi from Sam
-----------
 
Well, the continuing saga of setting up a campaign in Sartar..
* After posting my last message I returned home to look at maps of Sartar.
  Myself and Harry stayed up late a couple of nights ago, reading all our
  ancient RQ stuff. I found old letters from Greg Stafford. I had forgotten
  we ever wrote to him! He mentioned the number 4033 in respect to where
  the next Lunar temple was going to be set up. (At least I think it was
  4033, or is that my CashCard number..?). So out came the Dragon Pass 
  board map to look for it. It appears to be Brown Dragon. Anyway, while
  looking at *this* map of Sartar I found a large valley marked on it which
  I assume must also be Ormthane Vale. Gregged again! This valley has a
  road running right through it and a fort at the north end (Tworidge). Bang
  goes my cut off clan...
 
* I have just been looking at the *new* Trollpak. Now this map is even 
  better! It is almost worth buying the pack to get it. But we already
  have the old version. Is there much else new in this? (I only got a
  quick peep - Virgin Megastores seal up all there gameing stuff - boo!).
 
* Sartarian forts: What do you think these are like? I had an Idea that 
  the post Sartar forts are probably smaller and, rather than being stone
  built, they are wooden. I had a flirt with designing a Wind Rune shaped
  fort. It looked rather good. As long as the wall didn't come right
  into the middle. Would the Lunars take over *every* Sartarian fort?
  Do the Lunars, in fact, interfere in everyday Sartarian life or do they
  run the major settlements and leave the hillsfolk to themselves? They
  obviously can't be everywhere at once. Do they collect taxes from the 
  hillfolk? Do the Lunars have a building program in Sartar? if so they
  could drastically change Sartarian settlements. Bathhouses, latrines,
  Aquaducts, Forums, large shopping malls (sorry - markets). Are they
  sending settlers? (This is probably in KoS. I'm just thinking out loud).
 
* I also had a quick peep at Dorastor. I'm not allowed to read this as I 
  am still a player in Harry's campaign and I think he wants to use it.
  The Orlanthi buildings were interesting. Are they Sartarian? I noticed
  an Orlanthi temple with a large opening in the roof. Not round though.
 
* Ahah! the elusive Sartar-Pack. Greg mentioned *this* in his 1986 letter
  we discovered the other night. I had asked a few questions about Sartar
  and he chose to answer with '- see the forthcoming Sartar Pack out very
  soon!'. So it must have been near completion then! Mind you, the letter
  we received from him was 6 pages long - No wonder other projects didn't
  get finished... what a nice man though.
 
* Something else I just remembered. I sent an International money order
  to the Chaosium, 5yrs back, to get a copy of their 'so-you-want-to-write
  -for-Chaosium' booklet (or whatever it was). I never got anything. I was
  just curious rather than serious. I wonder what happened to my cash?
 
Anyone want a random names generator. It is part of my runequest character
generator (A *non-random* tool to help with RQ experienced characters - 
currently unfinished (well i've only been at it for a weekend)). It so far
does Lunar, Sartarian, Praxian and Troll names. About 80% are useable and
10% or so are brilliant.. Its a Macintosh application written in 'C'.
 
Cheers! Sam. x
Not Scotland but Sartar.

---------------------

From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham  , via RadioMail)
Subject: Golden Bow; Humakt; Temple sizes; Urox berserks
Message-ID: <199310251635.AA01312@radiomail.net>
Date: 25 Oct 93 16:35:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2105

>From: nrobinso@sirius.UVic.CA (Neil Robinson)

Greg told me Jardan=Golden Bow.

>Prior to this battle, the Pure Horse
>people also suffered a loss to the Trolls, where their War God (Golden
>Bow) was crushed (KoS 193).  RoC also mentions this.
>
>Does this mean they worship a Dead God?

I don't think so. There are Golden Bow counters in the Dragon Pass game. I
don't interpret "crushed" to mean killed; it's a crushing military loss,
which mirrors a humiliating defeat for their war god.

>From: 100116.2616@CompuServe.COM (David Hall)
>when someone joins the Temple of Indrodar (a local Lismelder 
>sub-cult of Humakt). When Corwen (from Tales #6) joined up we had a full 
>clan funeral for him  - everybody was there mourning his death. The funeral 
>pyre could be seen for miles around. Though I did feel sorry for his widow 
>and kids. 

I think you're overdoing this -- wife is _not_ his kin. And one could argue
that Humakt only cut himself off from his kin, not his descendents (isn't
there a Humaktsson floating around [is this an Arkat title?]). Still, the
funeral is a neat touch.

>Humakti in the tribe:
>This is also a place where Humakti can operate.

This is also where they best operate among the Grazers...

>on Humakt's High 
>Holy Day (Indrodar's Deathday) anyone in the tribe can sacrifice for 
>Indrodari spells - though only 1 point ones. This doesn't mean that they 
>only worship him on that day - all tribesmen and women worship him every 
>Orlanthi holy day - or at least think of him, or appease him. 
>
>This is something that the clunky mechanics of RQ can't cope with. I say 
>that Indrodar's Temple is a large Humakti temple. But RQ says that because 
>there are only some 50 - 80 Swordbrothers it's not even a minor one. This 
>is tosh. It means that for some deities, i.e. Minlister, Heler, Donander, 
>Issaries & Indrodar, you will never get enough worshippers together (1,500 
>- which is three Sartari clans, or one small city) to have access all the 
>gods magics. 
>
>The only way around this is to count worshippers per pantheon of deities, 
>and not per god. So, in Lismelder lands Indrodar is, by definition, 
>worshipped by everyone who worships the Orlanth pantheon. The tribe is 
>4,000 strong which give me a Great Temple - if I want to define it as being 
>that big.

You beat me to it -- I've been meaning to write something similar.

Unfortunately, while the problem is real, I think your solution is too
broad. Every tribe _doesn't_ have a Great Temple. And your answer that you
decide it isn't is hardly a useful guideline!

>However, the emphasis on Storm Bulls in Sartar seems to be away from 
>chaos-killing and toward the drunken berserkers of Viking Saga's. In this 
>case Storm Bulls would be far easier to fit within a clan and tribal 
>structure.

I don't think the prevalence of berserks in the sagas has anything to do
with their prevalence in the culture -- they just did stuff that made them
more memorable. If I remember right, Egil spent most of his life farming,
but most of his saga is devoted to the exciting stuff.

>I do like the idea of Storm Bull being different in Sartar as compared to 
>Prax (it has to be as the two places are so different)

I agree, but want to see your alternate spells before I take any away...

>From: timp@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Tim Posney)
>There are good copies of most of the utitlities you need available for
>public use. If there is enough interest I'll post them to soda.., but they
>are all ftpable from simtel etc.

Don't bother -- not only do I use a Macintosh, I have only email access to
Internet.


---------------------

From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried)
Subject: CrackQuest
Message-ID: 
Date: 25 Oct 93 17:27:09 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2106

Greg Fried here.

Sam:
Do pass on the ISBN numbers.  And thanks.
---
Sandy:
You write,
"Is it just me, or have the RQ bulletins gotten significantly smaller over
the last week?"
So, you're an addict after just a few weeks?  Pass the methadone!
---
Nick:
In your brutal rendition of Gaumata's Vision, you refer to the Sun Domers as
the Spartans of the Desert (or something to that effect).  

Now, I have just been teaching Plutarch's 'Life of Lycurgus,' the Spartan
Lawgiver, in my ancient political philosophy class.  This is a magnificent
source (there's a good edition of Plutarch from Modern Library, available in
any good used bookstore!) for RQ!  

There are indeed many interesting parallels with the Sun Domers.  The
SDs have those cumbersome Wheels.  Lycurgus ordained that Spartan
money be minted in iron treated with vinegar -- about as useful as
bolgs.  The 'Life of Lycurgus' offers many insights into what the
regimen of a SD soldier might look like, and why they are so damn
ornery, and, well, laconic (and occasionally pederastic!).  An
important difference.  The leisure the Spartans required for their
intensive militiary training required the services of a huge slave
class, the Helots, who were owned as property of the city (not the
individual Spartans to whom the slaves were allocated).  I take it,
however, that Sun Domer economy is dependant on yeoman farming, and
that SD pikemen are an expert militia.  I think then that a Spartan
phalanx will beat a SD double file (baring rune magic!), as even more
of their time is devoted to the craft of war.  (And I wonder what role
slaves do fulfill in SD society -- isn't large scale slavery as much
of a threat to the Sun Domer farmer as Southern slavery was to the
Northern free farmer in the pre- Civlil War US?  Is Yelm an abolishonist?)

But what is striking about the Spartan founding is the almost total
absence of the gods.  There is no priestly caste with extraordinary
political perogatives.  The CITY, not the gods, is the truly the
greatest object of worship to the Spartans. This seems to be the great
difference between classical Earth and putatively Bronze Age RQ: in
RQ, the gods (for some fairly obvious reasons) have a much more
profound impact on the political dispensation.  

This makes me wonder: why aren't there more cities in Glorantha with
the same meaningful status as, say, a Sparta or an Athens?  Pavis
comes to mind, but it is an anomaly, and pretty much decadent at this
point.  In Glorantha, nations and tribes adopt gods as their
'founders' and protectors, but not cities, at least as autonomous
political units.  Where are the parallels to the classical model of
the city as THE most important thing in life, with temples devoted to
the gods of the city (the Parthenon!), and the duties of citizenship
including military service, voting in the Assembly, serving in the
Council of Elders or Magistracy or Juries?  Or do I need to read the
Glorantha book more carefully?  In any case, despite the illustations
in RQ2 and RuneMasters and other Chaosium/AH products, Prax is NOTHING like
ancient Greece. (Though I will always have an abiding affection for
those Luise Perrene illos!)

Pedantic rant over!  GF.

---------------------

From: drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu (David Cheng)
Subject: Minor Peeve - Translation
Message-ID: 
Date: 25 Oct 93 17:51:26 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2107

Just something I'd like to rant about.  Please humour me:

I'd like to hear your opinions about the new 'names' appearing in _King of
Sartar_.  I'm specifically thinking about such things as "Sartari" and
"Grazers."  

Here's my take:
Please keep in mind that all the documents in KoS are translations, done
after an age where all literacy was lost (supposedly).

It seems easy for me to conclude that since the natives of Sartar
(the Sartarites) frequently refer to themselves as "Orlanthi," the
translation of "Sartarites" could be perverted to "Sartari."

A similar, but not parallel, example could be drawn from such Lunar weapons
as "Bombardiers" and "Knock Down Machine."  The future scholars have no
frame of reference to lead them to translate these things correctly, as 
"Crater Makers" (does not a bombardment make craters?) and "Cannon Cult."

My point, and my peeve, is that in Sartar, 1622 ST, people don't say
"Sartari" or "Grazers."  They say "Sartarite" and "Grazelanders."

What do y'all think?  I guess we could ask Stafford, but that just seems
too easy... ;-)

Bottom line - I think 'Sartari' and 'Grazers' just sound silly.

-DC

*David Cheng     drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu / d.cheng@genie.geis.com
 Ask me about RuneQuest-Con!         (212) 472-7752 [before midnight]

---------------------

From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: re: RQ Daily
Message-ID: <9310251758.AA04455@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 25 Oct 93 07:58:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2108

Graeme Lindsell says

with reference to the Humakti "we both die" ceremony.
> This sounds very much like an assassination ritual to me 


The Humakti would rather compare it to a blood feud, and point out  
that they killed the enemy in open combat, rampaging through  
Temertain's castle like the 47 ronin. Of course, the end result was  
much the same as if they'd planned an assassination. 


> they also mean TRUTH, and there are those Swords who would 

> emphasize that part over death.

As I understand  it, the way most Humakti would put it is as follows:  
"The only truth is death."

Neil Robinson says...

> Now the grazelanders are apparently the remains of the Pure Horse 

> People who were all but defeated just outside of Pavis by a 

> combined force of praxian nomads (the Battle of Alavan Argay).  

> Prior to this battle, the Pure Horse people also suffered a loss to 

> the Trolls, where their War God (Golden Bow) was crushed

"all but defeated" is a little kind. They were defeated, no doubt  
about it. They also lost to the trolls, and their elite warriors, the  
Golden Boy boys, were slaughtered (possibly to cover their retreat).  
But this doesn't mean that Golden Bow as a god was destroyed. Mighty  
few gods have been killed since the Godtime. Golden Bow is alive and  
kicking and an associate cult of Yelm. He offers Sureshot and  
Pureshot, among other Rune spells. The Golden Bow warriors are still  
a major part of the Grazeland's society, though there is no doubt  
they worship Pole Star, too, at least via shamanistic worship. 


Colin Watson sez: 


> I find it hard to believe that anyone in Glorantha could be a true 

> atheist.

Well, you have a point. Naturally the so-called atheists in Glorantha  
don't deny the existence of powerful supernatural beings. They simply  
believe it is just as stupid to worship Orlanth as it is to worship  
any other gigantic sylph. They deny the truth of many of the God-Time  
myths, and see the gods much more as mindless natural forces than  
intelligent beings. They point out that Storm Season isn't any milder  
in Orlanth's domain, so what good is he? The storm priests claim to  
call on Orlanth's power. The atheists say the storm priests are  
actually controlling Orlanth, without even realizing it.

The atheists know that there is such a thing as resurrection. They  
view this as an argument AGAINST an afterlife -- if there were an  
afterlife for good worshipers, wouldn't their spirits go there right  
away, and not be available for resurrection? The existence of a real  
afterlife is completely denied by these guys. Sure, the theists talk  
about reincarnation, or Orlanth's Longhouse, or stuff like that, but  
who's ever seen evidence of it? Darn few. So-called Heroquesters come  
back claiming to have seen the afterlife, but everyone knows that the  
Hero Plane is completely subjective anyway and besides the atheist  
Heroquesters see other stuff. 


> You mention the three different views of the way 

> Death/spirits/resurrection works (ie sorcerers', priests', shamans'
> viewpoints). Which is nearest the Truth in your opinion?

Wow. I'm too old a campaigner to be caught that easily.

> is it possible to remove the taint of Chaos from a creature?

The traditional line in my own and Greg's campaign is No. Once  
chaotic, always chaotic. Your afterlife (if any :-)) is down the  
tubes and you can't be cured. However, I would say that it's up to  
each person's individual campaign. I know of at least one gamemaster  
who permitted divine intervention to heal a chaos taint, if the taint  
hadn't progressed too far (i.e., it wouldn't heal a broo, but maybe a  
man who'd acquired a chaos feature) and the person wanted to be  
healed. I think the Chalana Arroy theory is different from temple to  
temple. She knows that Chaos is bad, and if she belongs to an  
Orlanthi culture, a healer will try to get warriors to kill a chaos  
thing. On the other hand, if the CA is from the Lunar Empire, she  
would be wary of a chaos thing, but would probably judge it by its  
actions rather than wantonly trying to have it exterminated. Remember  
that creatures of chaos can actually JOIN CA (though this is pretty  
hard to do in Dragon Pass). There's a whole temple of chaos CA in  
Dorastor, not all of them illuminated. 


Jim Rogers sez: 


> I almost choked on your statement "All city-dwellers are 

> effectively non-producers. The Orlanthi of Sartar are not a 

> subsistence economy."  What are you, some kind of primitive 

> agrarian socialist!

Hmm. My politics are only the business of myself and the House  
UnAmerican Activities Committee. What I meant was that the city  
dwellers produce no food for export, and most of the stuff they make  
is non-essential. Stuff like metal plows and riding horses and other  
necessities are all available in the rural hinterlands. But I digress  
-- I agree, let's not go into economics and civilization too far. I  
agree that the "non-essential" luxury goods produced by cities are  
worthwhile and in fact I owe my existence and livelihood to catering  
to non-essential luxury desires. Still, farmers, ranchers, and  
fishers are more essential than even the computer entertainment  
industry. And yes, by saying that the Orlanthi are not a subsistence  
economy I meant that they produce a significant surplus. Picture  
Northern Europe during the bad old days. They had plenty of food and  
famines were quite uncommon. Now, Sartar's soil may not be quite as  
fertile as Northern Europe (the God's Age took its toll), but the  
worship of Heler, Uleria, Ernalda, and Flamal's daughters makes up  
for that, so the result is bumper crops most of the time. 


Well, Jim, what would you like to know about Pamaltela?

David Hall sez lot's o' stuff about Humakti:

Good essay, Dave. I liked it a lot. I agree that there are no doubt  
Humakti organizations that consider themselves cut off from kith and  
kin, I just think that this is not a necessary part of becoming a  
Humakti.

Sartar's cities are technically independent of the tribes, and I  
believe that most of them have a small professional army, especially  
in an area as war-torn as Sartar. Think of German city-states during  
the chaos of the late middle ages. Most of them had a standing guard  
-- composed of mercenaries, it is true, but they had one nonetheless.  
And nothing says the Humakti have to be from the city they guard. 


> I really have problems with the idea that every city in RQ has 

> a temple to Orlanth, Humakti, Storm Bull, Chalana Arroy, etc.

Well, obviously this is to some extent a game conceit for the benefit  
of running a smooth campaign. But in the same way that almost every  
big city in the U.S.A. has a Buddhist, Russian Orthodox, Moslem, and  
Spiritualist chapel, you're likelier to find obscure cults in a town  
than out in the countryside. I suspect that many of the cults will be  
found only as parts of their associated cults. For instance, a town  
might have a Great temple to Orlanth, and inside it have shrines or  
minor temples to Lhankor Mhy, Issaries, CA, etc. The Lhankor Mhy  
shrine would be considered part of the greater Orlanth whole, and  
might not even have a full-time priest.I like your idea of an old  
broken-down Humakti temple with a senile Sword, and militia members  
who join up only when war looms on the horizon. I expect this is a  
common occurrence in places like Esrolia, which were clearly not  
prepared for war. 


> for some deities, i.e. Minlister, Heler, you will never get enough 

> worshippers together (1,500) to have access to all the gods magics

Lay membership is the key to supporting obscure temples in outlying  
areas. Everyone in town might be a lay member of Minlister, Earlier  
someone wrote that "quality, not quantity, is the key. Ten fanatical  
followers are worth 100 lackadaisical ones" (I'm paraphrasing this  
unnamed genius whom I can't find the name of.) Lay members should  
count for at least part of the worth of an initiate. If "clunky  
mechanics" were desired, I'd propose the old RQ rule that initiates  
sacrifice all their MPs during worship, while lay members spend 1,  
which would mean that a lay member would normally be worth around  
1/10 as much as an initiate. Some obscure cults have other techniques  
of boosting support. The Spare Grain subcult of Issaries, frex, is no  
more than a scam to get farmers to join up so that the Issaries  
priest can get enough worshipers together to have a temple. The Daka  
Fal cult counts dead ancestors as worshipers for their services,  
which greatly boosts attendance. The Krarsht cult uses Krarshtkids  
and Krarshtides in addition to human initiates, so only a very human  
humans in an area can have access to a great number of spells.