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, Fri, 29 Oct 1993, part 1
Precedence: junk
X-RQ-ID: Intro
This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's
world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest
format.
More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found
after the last message in this digest.
---------------------
From: Tom.Zunder@mettav.royle.org (Tom Zunder)
Subject: Nick Brooke's Visions
Message-ID:
Date: 25 Oct 93 20:18:38 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2124
Well I've just stopped laughing at Nick's write up of this adventure.
I have had such amusing cockups, but never so poetically written up.
Of course from the characters point of view "it just had to be done".
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: More Aeolians
Message-ID:
Date: 28 Oct 93 13:39:07 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2126
Graeme Lindsell in X-RQ-ID: 2123
> on Jeorg's Aeolian Heresy
> I once thought of a similar, more Hindu Stygian cult, which worshipped
>The Invisible God Creator, Orlanth the Preserver and Humakt the
>Destroyer. The triangular law rune is very suggestive of a Trinity:
>are we ever told that the Malkionists have a trinity?
Not that I know of. The number three however features in several
aspects of Malkioni legend, e.g. the number of times the Creator
revealed itself: In the beginning in person, to Malkion, and to
Hrestol.
>> Malkionist Saints
> I've always wondered: why didn't you just use the existing rules
>for rune magic when constructing the Saint's? They seem to be
>worshipped much like rune gods, and the costs are similar.
Nope: All POW is burnt off one-use. But that's what the theists tend to
attack the Malkioni for: They burn off their souls!
> Primitive Sorcery: Opinions Wanted!
>(minor spoilers for Shadows on the Borderlands)
> Sounds like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it? I started
>wondering about primitive sorcery when I read SotBl and saw
>the mojos that are used to curse people. These seem to be an
>example of simple sorcery: magic that comes from the caster
>rather than spirits or gods. It seems to me that Enchant is a
>form of sorcery that is available to almost every culture.
>The RQ3 rules say that sorcery only appears in the civilized
>cultures, but I'd like to think that even the other cultures
>have smatterings of the same knowledge, and that it is only
>in civilized cultures that sorcery becomes organized enough
>to supplant the other kinds of magic. A few weeks ago people
>were saying that there are shamans even in civilized cultures,
>should there be sorcerers (albeit poorly trained ones) in
>nomadic cultures.
>Does anyone know much about magic in tribal societies, and
>whether they distinguish between spirit magic and personal
>magic?
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: mmlab!cookec%max.mml.mmc.com@uunet.UU.NET (Kiliki)
Subject: Is it true?
Message-ID: <9310281414.AA22799@relay2.UU.NET>
Date: 28 Oct 93 14:12:29 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2127
I was just given some disturbing news last night...
RQ3 is no longer in print!
IS THIS TRUE?
I recently started a RQ3 campaign and have generated sufficient interest that
some of my players wish to purchase Deluxe Box sets. The Labyrinth, where we
play, tried to order copies through two (2) different distributers and was
given the same information TWICE. These distributers CLAIM that Avalon Hill
no longer has copies for distribution and will NOT be printing more.
Ken, Sandy, everbody - is this right? If not how do I arrange for the shop to
acquire them?
--
| Chris Cooke - cookec@mmlab.UUCP cookec@mml.mmc.com |
|Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug... |
---------------------
From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham , via RadioMail)
Subject: New Names; Agricultural Productivity
Message-ID: <199310281551.AA19013@radiomail.net>
Date: 28 Oct 93 15:51:45 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2128
>From: drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu (David Cheng)
>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."
I don't like most of 'em, nor do I like spelling Jar-eel without the hyphen.
>From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
>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.
I was under the impression that the various fertility spells just balanced
out the death of Genert, and the productivity was about that of Earth (with
similar technology).
And that Pamaltela, where the land god still lives, was so fertile that
nobody had been forced to adopt agriculture in order to handle population
pressures.
Still, your idea of bumper crops does help support the frequent warfare...
David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation
Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net
---------------------
From: brandon@caldonia.nlm.nih.gov (Brandon Brylawski)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 28 Oct 1993, part 4
Message-ID: <9310281629.AA12512@caldonia.nlm.nih.gov>
Date: 28 Oct 93 16:29:15 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2129
Sam Phillips writes:
---
* I am still unsure about Orlanthi worship. The availablity of an
Orlanthi priest for such things as tribal initiation and High Holy
days seems to be a problem. Although not directly touched on in Kos
I got the feeling that priests would be hard to find. Orlanthi
temples have been closed down in all cities apart from Whitewall.
And if the Lunars can close them down I'm sure they would close down
all of the smaller temples they could find. Where would the priests
go? If I was the Lunars I wouldn't let them go free - they would just
set up another temple. Escaping wouldn't be easy either - without
temples where would you teleport to? I could see rouge priests
setting up secret one-off temples and Orlanthi sneaking off on mass
to worship, hoping the Lunars don't find out until it's too late.
___
When Draco was in Northern Tarsh, Dara Happa, and Peloria, I learned several
things about Orlanth worship in hostile places. First, small temples to
Orlanth adventurous
are usually portable ("Two bottles and a Cloth" as Phil put it). Second,
you can sometimes get in touch with an Orlanthi priest by going to the
local big city market and looking for clues (such as the vendor selling
roasted meats on H-shaped skewers, the symbol of Issaries). Third, Orlanthi
ceremonies in hostile places often occur during driving rainstorms, when
visibility and movement are hampered. Fourth, even though Orlanth worship was
banned all over Tarsh and Sartar, there was a big increase in the permitted
worship of Barntar, the plow god. I bet some of those ceremonies went a little
afield(groan), using language that any son of the Storm would recognize
without tipping off spies.
Brandon
---------------------
From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Lunars
Message-ID: <9310281726.AA18899@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 93 17:26:02 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2131
Paul Reilly here. Graeme Willoughby asks:
>Has anyone ever played a successful Lunar or a sorcerer?
I would say the plurality of our campaigns have been with Lunar characters,
and probably most of our playing time. In RQ II there was a delightful
ambiguity concerning who was 'right' - everyone was right by their own
lights and Lunars were viable as characters. RQ3 material (and King of
Sartar) seems to be taking a step backward toward D&D by casting the Lunars
as evil villains for the sake of it. We do not subscribe to this change...
If I get time and there is interest I can describe some of our Lunar
characters and campaigns. Usually they realize that there is much wrong with
the Empire but they see it as the bringer of peace, prosperity, understanding,
civilization, and sophistication and realize that sacrifices have to be made to
achieve these goods. If you have read Poul Anderson's 'Flandry' books you have
some idea of what sort of character might be interested in defending a
decadent and corrupt Empire.
Of course as you say information is lacking on the Lunar Empire and the
Lunar Way and we have been force to make up much of our own stuff. Our
current campaign is centered around an Etyries merchant on the southeast
border of Tarsh and it is amazing how much you have to scrounge for information.
Luckily the hints in various sources can be very useful.
>In a similar vein - has anyone played a successful sorcerer?
Yes. In our Pamaltelan campaign we had a couple of sorcerors, also in our
Fronelan campaign. Again we were forced to make up much of our own stuff and
eventually came up with a new system for sorcery. As you say the sources
are screwed up on this and various scenarios are often inconsistent with the
rules. More information available on request...
Colin Watson writes:
> is it possible to remove the taint of Chaos from a creature?
Of course it is. Lunar philosophers have long known a technique to do so.
It involves teaching the being afflicted by Chaos to live in harmony with
itself and the Universe. This technique has been known since the First Age.
Storm Khans will verify that the taint is gone from one who has accepted
our teachings...
- Paul Reilly
---------------------
From: ngl28@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de
Subject: CITIES
Message-ID: <5489*_S=ngl28_OU=rz_PRMD=uni-kiel_ADMD=dbp_C=de_@MHS>
Date: 28 Oct 93 19:42:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2132
Greg Fried in X-RQ-ID: 2106
>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.
Other unique cities close to Sartar:
Nochet: a metropolis, one out of maybe two dozens on Glorantha
Refuge: something like Sog City in small, Brithini ruling a normal populace
(BTW again: if anybody on this list knows the French magazine article about
Refuge, how much Y (truth) is in it?)
Casino Town: Anyone want to go to Vegas?
(Is this identical with Talar Hold, on the same Island in God Forgot?)
Whitewall: A traditional hillfort developed into a sizable city, probably
with influences from the EWF-time
Karse: a very modern castle-cum-city (the old Midkemia-Press product
rereleased once by Chaosium: taken from the street-plan of Caernarfon,
Gwynedd, Wales), probably built by EWF and GL traders to accommodate
exchange of goods. (In the second age the Dragon River, today known as
Creek-Stream-River, went east of Shadow Plateau; onlz when Belintar slew
the darkness monster the Only Old One sent against him it was redirected
into the Lysos River.)
Jonstown: a small city with a university of far-stretching renown
Last not Least:
Boldhome: Have a look at the Home-of-the-Bold booklet at RQ-Con!
>In Glorantha, nations and tribes adopt gods as their
>'founders' and protectors, but not cities, at least as autonomous
>political units.
You want city-states? Go to Ralios or into the Janube Valley.
Look at the Dara Happan Tripolis for an Attic League (before Alexander, err,
the Red Goddess came).
And show me a city without its city-god! There is a city in Fonrit whose
city-god is ranked higher than Yelm and various other notable deities by
the inhabitants.
>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?
The Janube River Valley cities do fit that bill quite well, IMO. Their
patron deities may get worship elsewhere as well, but then so did Athena
and various other Greek city patron deities.
>Or do I need to read the
>Glorantha book more carefully?
I keep rereading it, and I always find something new to ask, e.g. the
timeline of the Harrek-Box which conflicts with the timeline in the general
description. Any offers for this problem yet?
>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!)
I couldn't help thinking of Mesopotamia when I saw all those Zikkurat-
formed temples (Sun County's Sun Dome Temples, Ivory Plinth (in RQ2-
Companion), the symbol for Horn Gate on the Nomad Gods map). But of course
artists and designers need to fall back to known concepts sooner or later -
I am trying to emulate as much Anglosaxon and Celtic material for my view
of the Orlanthi as possible.
Joerg Baumgartner
ngl28@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de
---------------------
From: jmk@ukc.ac.uk
Subject: Help
Message-ID: <9310281755.AA04544@Sun.COM>
Date: 28 Oct 93 14:19:50 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2133
Greetings, everyone. I've just returned to Glorantha after years out in
the darkness. Problem is, I've only got RQ2 and CoP. Would any kind
soul like to tell me whether RQ3 is worth buying, and which of the
supplements are worth the investment?
Cheers,
James King
---------------------
From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: sorcerers; lay-members etc.
Message-ID: <9310281821.AA00107@condor>
Date: 28 Oct 93 18:21:08 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2134
Wow. Days without a Daily and now 4 come along all at once.
Where do I start...
___________
Nick Brooke writes about resurrection:
>Of course shamans have access to resurrection! Pretty useless, else.
>Loads of shamanic journeys take you to the land of the dead to go searching
>for people and bringing them back to the world of the living.
Yup, makes sense. Of course, such an undertaking would be like trying to
find the proverbial needle in a hazestack. I'm dubious about how easy it
would be to track down a specific spirit on the spirit plane. Summoning might
be easier if you knew the spirit well enough.
>Sticking them
>back in their bodies is a tiny extra chore at the end of all that hassle.
Ain't *that* the truth.
_________________
Graeme Willoughby asked:
>has anyone played a successful sorcerer?
Yes, although not in a strictly Gloranthan campaign: I played a thief who
was a student of sorcery (which was tough going); she subsequently took up
adventuring, learned some martial skills (greatsword 96%:-), and finally after
4 years (real time) of play she became an Apprentice. It was hard sticking with
sorcery all that time but it's very rewarding in the end. She doesn't know many
spells (so she has plenty free INT) but she's darn good at those she does
know. She spends most of her time studying now (all her DEX skills are well
over DEXx3) but once in a while she precasts some spells, dons her armour, gets
out her trusty blade and goes a roamin'. She certainly commands respect.
IMO this is the best way to run a sorcerer in an adventuring environment.
ie. do something else first, and aspire to apprenticeship. I know many people
who have run sorcerers starting straight from apprenticeship and they are
*boring* to play. Sure they can cast a few powerful spells on the party, but
most of the time during an adventure they're not casting spells and they are
crippled by their (rather contrived) DEXx3 limit on most other skills.
My only grouch is this damned arbitrary 7-year requirement before you
can be considered adept. :-(
>As soon as an Hrestoli
>knight becomes a sorcerer he effectively cannot increase his fighting skills
>(presumably already over his DEX x3) so he's limited as a fighter and wont be
>much of a sorcerer for quite some time.
Any kind of non-student sorcerer is quite powerful if he has enough INT.
(Some would say *too* powerful under the RQ3 rules). So long as the Hrestoli
Knight has sufficient combat skill to see him through, things should work ok.
The rules say that the Adept is the standard sorcerer, however in my experience
it's nigh on impossible to achieve that status unless your campaign time passes
really quickly and your GM allows *lots* of training time. I'm happy with
Apprentices being the standard and Adepts being rare. (And any Adept might as
well declare himeself Magus ASAP to give himself more freedom IMHO).
>In the Dorastor Skath & Skanth have sorcery - but...
I'm not familiar with this particular example, but as a general guide Published
NPCs live by different rules than us mere PCs.
In fact, they often cheat like f*ck. ;-)
______________
Sandy Petersen said (on atheism etc):
>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.
Now I think about it, I suppose in a way this *is* atheism: they don't deny the
existance of powerful natural entities; they just don't consider such entities
to be Dieties. (Much like Ken Rolston's excellent ideas for Vivamort cultists).
Mind you, if the "Gods" are supposed to be mindless then how would sorcerers
explain how Divination works so effectively, eh?
>CW>Which is nearest the Truth in your opinion?
>
>Wow. I'm too old a campaigner to be caught that easily.
Heh, just testing. ):^)
_________________
Joerg Baumgartner said:
>CW>And I think the study of magic would ultimately
>CW>lead them [sorcerers] to the truth regarding gods & spirits.
>
>Which truth? The animisic one, or the theistic one?
Yes.
>Why do you stamp down Loren's very sensible suggestions for an Alternate
>Earth background in Outremer? I think that most people on this list think of
>Glorantha as a (very different) Alternate Earth, and compare certain cultures
>on Glorantha with historical cultures of Earth. The Celts didn't have the
>power to call down lightnings, else the Romans would have been roasted.
>Still, most of us are happy to compare them to the Orlanthi culture.
I didn't mean to stamp. I think its very reasonable to base Glorantha on
parts of Earth culture, tech-level, beliefs etc. I was just pointing out
that the effects of holding such beliefs are radically different in Glorantha,
and so the behaviour of believers would be different.
And I think its obvious that an alternate earth (one with RQ-like magic) would
have turned out very different from historical earth. Magic, like religion,
politics & technology would have been exploited to the hilt and we would all
have gone the way of old God Learners (for better or for worse).
Sad but true IMHO.
>One fairly polytheist earthly society were the Vikings and their
>ancestors. I know of several incidences where before a battle one tribe
>swore to accept the other tribe's deity as a patron if they win the
>battle - surely a munchkin approach[...]
Yes, the Vikings strike me as being particularly pragmatic. :-)
>CW>I think the best way to simulate pantheism in RQ is to assume that any
>CW>character initiated into one (or more) cult(s) in a pantheon automatically
>CW>has lay-membership in the other cults of the pantheon.
>
>What benefits does this offer?
I see three benefits to lay-membership, none of which have much to do with
game-mechanics:
1.Peace of Mind.
As in the real world. You pay respect to all the gods who might help you.
You hope they might pull your fat out of the fire in times of need if you
acknowledge them.
In reality, maybe Gods don't give a damn unless you're initiated, but
Gloranthan characters probably won't know that.
Maybe it does help: game-wise, when you call for DI, your "first" god might
have more chance of enlisting the aid of an associated god if you are a
lay member of that cult. eg. An Issaries merchant falls off a cliff. He
calls for DI to Issaries. The merchant god can't do much except call on his
pal Orlanth. If the merchant is an Orlanth Lay-member then maybe Orlanth will
help by cushioning the fall.
In reality, we God-Learner-from-hell-GMs all know that the chance of DI
simply depends on how big yer POW is. But the believer doesn't know this.
(Good evidence though for Ken's wonderful Vivamort idea that initiates actually
control the god when they DI).
2.Social Acceptance.
"Maybe he is a weirdo Issaries initiate, but at least he's a lay-member of
Orlanth."
3.Political Interests.
Priests of other cults might be more willing to deal with you if you're a
lay-member. (I see this particularly in the case of Chalana Arroy: you might
get slightly cheaper healing if you're a lay-member).
________________
Curing Chaos:
Thanks to all who have give suggestions so far. One day I might explain
why I had to ask this, but alas I haven't time right now.
___
CW. (Out of time *again*.)
---------------------
From: henkl@yelm (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 28 Oct 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9310282033.AA28525@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM>
Date: 28 Oct 93 22:33:41 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2135
You all may have noticed that we had some glitches...
The tuesday issue did not get out, and I decided
to incorporate some changes long due. These amount
to a single Intro for every daily, instead of repeating
it in every part, plus opening the possibility of adding
other features...
I'll promise though, that I wont change anything now,
until I'm back at the office. I was not able to login
for two days.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
--
Henk | Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun.
oK[] | My first law of computing: "NEVER make assumptions"
> Date: Thu, 28 Oct 93 07:15:30 +0100
> Message-Id: <9310280615.AA11322@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM>
> 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 1
> Precedence: junk
>
> X-RQ-ID: Intro
>
> This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
> the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's
> world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest
> format.
>
> More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found
> after the last message in this digest.
>