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, Tue, 16 Nov 1993, part 2
Message-ID:
Precedence: junk
---------------------
From: carlsonp@wdni.com (Carlson, Pam)
Subject: Sunspear
Message-ID: <2CE7AE14@itlab.wtc.weyer.com>
Date: 15 Nov 93 15:51:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2320
Howdy, all.
We've been wondering about how effective defensive magic is vs Sunspear.
The line in RQ 3 reads "magic is ineffective, including spells that act as
armor." Does this mean ALL magic, not just Protection and Shield? Does it
ignore Reflection/Cast Back, Absorption, Countermagic, Damage Resistance,
and Spell Resistance?
Also, does "thinnest armor counts" mean the most lightly armored location?
Inquiring solar minds want to know.
Pam
---------------------
From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway)
Subject: Fazzur in the Holy Country
Message-ID: <9311151627.AA22880@hp0.zycor.lgc.com>
Date: 15 Nov 93 16:27:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2321
>> From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
>> Subject: The Dragon Pass Renaissance
>>
>> Now with all these figures, let me contemplate the Building Wall battle:
>>
>> The Lunar leader could be Fazzur Wideread, not featured in the Dragon Pass
>> ...
>> incident, but since we know that Fazzur was punished for a previous
>> failure, this might have been it.
Nope. I just looked his bio up ( WF #12, pp. 16-17 ).
"Fazzur was in command of the regiment which invaded in a feint through
the Hendreiki lands in 1605. At the same time the main Lunar Army attacked
Esrolia and was defeated by the Building Wall of the Pharaoh. Fazzur pushed
aside the defenders and laid waste to the land but was recalled when the
main army was defeated. He was heard to complain, afterwards, that he could
have marched all the way to Karse is he had been allowed."
Maybe Fazzur should have been there! He might have pulled it off.
I thought that his fall was connected with:
1) The siege of Whitewall dragging on too long, and
2) The Cradle "Incident"
We need someone else to get mopped up by the Esrolians.
David, was that you?
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| john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 |
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From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Runes
Message-ID: <9311151517.AA27189@condor>
Date: 15 Nov 93 15:17:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2322
_______________
Steven E Barnes wrote about Rune Sorcery:
>Actually, I think you are taking the wrong approach to the
>task. If you want Sorcery to be based on runes, it might help
>if you start with the runes, and derive spells from them, rather
>than the reverse.
This is an admirable intention, but I thought it would be nice to keep the
existing spells for backward compatibility. They also make a good basis
to work from.
>Also, being a RQ2 person, I find the old style
>runic groupings to be usefull concepts. For the RQ2 impaired,
>here they are:
>
>Elements (obvious)
This becomes less obvious with RQ3, where a Light rune seems to have crept in
alongside the RQ2 elements: Air, Earth, Fire(Sky), Water, Darkness, Moon(Lunar)
(not to mention Shadow, Cold & Sea).
>Forms (Plant, Beast, Man, Dragonewt, Spirit, Chaos)
>Conditions (Mastery, Magic, Infinity)
>Powers (Harmony, Disorder, Fertility, Death, Stasis, Movement,
> Truth, Illusion, Luck, Fate)
Other runes which I've noticed:
Communication (one of Issaries' runes)
Shadow ("Darkness without the Cold") - a Darkenss Rune with a horizontal stroke
through it. From one of the Troll gods?
Cold - Himile? is the source of the Cold rune I think?
Sea - Also mentioned in Troll gods. Is this just the Water Rune by a different
name?
Is there a definitive list of Runes & meanings & symbols?
Should there be?
I myself am not too happy about seeing new runes popping up all over the place.
It all smacks of the way AD&D went with the quasi-pseudo-demi-meta-elemental
plane of warm-shadowy-gunk-stuff...
___
CW.
---------------------
From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Runes again
Message-ID: <9311151526.AA27779@condor>
Date: 15 Nov 93 15:26:44 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2323
Oh, and I forgot the Law rune, which wasn't in the original RQ2 listing
unless I'm much mistaken. Shouldn't Law and Chaos be powers rather than
forms?
___
CW.
---------------------
From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 15 Nov 1993, part 2
Message-ID: <9311151651.AA00222@condor>
Date: 15 Nov 93 16:51:05 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2324
_____________
Newton Hughes wrote:
>I don't know the technical vocabulary for these things, lacking
>RQ2 as I do (sigh), but if you take the runes for the weeks of the
>season (the 8-week season, sorry Greg), pair up opposites, and match
>the pairs to 4 unopposed runes, then those runes in turn corresp. to
>the four sorcery skills, like so:
>
>rune pairs encompassing rune sorcery skill
>---------- ----------------- -------------
>Disorder, Harmony Mastery Multispell
>Truth, Illusion Magic Range
>Fertility, Death Law Intensity
>Statis, Movement Infinity Duration
My mind boggled at this at first, but it's an interesting idea. I think if
we're going to assign runes to sorcery skills then it *is* a good idea
to attribute more than one Rune to each skill.
However, my way of skinning the cat differs from yours: I might assign the
runes as follows:
rune pairs encompassing rune sorcery skill
---------- ----------------- -------------
Disorder, Harmony Mastery Multispell
Stasis, Movement Communication Range
Fertility, Death Magic Intensity
Luck, Fate Infinity Duration
- Communication occurs over distance, therefore it governs Range; covering
distance whilst you remain static, hence Movement/Stasis.
- Intensity controls the level-of-effect of Magic.
- Luck & Fate are two ways of looking at the future toward temporal Infinity;
hence they govern Duration.
I'm slightly unhappy about Fertility/Death for Intensity, but can't think of
anything better...
___
CW.
---------------------
From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried)
Subject: Hoplites
Message-ID:
Date: 15 Nov 93 18:37:34 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2325
Greg Fried here.
Since there still seems to be some interest in the topic of parallels between
Glorantha and ancient Greece, I thought I'd tell you all about a very
interesting book I got out of the library recently: _Hoplites: The Classical
Greek Battle Experience_, ed. Victor Davis Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991
[ISBN 0-415-04148-1]). This is, as the title indicates, a collection of
essays on the use of hoplites in Greek warfare. THe three essays most
interesting for RQers ate "Hoplite Weapons and Offensive Arms," "Hoplite
Technology in Phalanx Battle," and "The Killing Zone." "The General as
Hoplite" is also illuminating for an account of just how you might imagine a
Lunar or Yelmalion commander functioning with his troops.
A few things I learned:
- Once combat was engaged, it was VERY difficult to perform any maneuvers
with a hoplite phalanx. The general's role and skill would come into play
only before the troops met toe to toe.
- Pushing was very important. (And so those shield push games among the
Yelmalions are very apposite.) The idea seems to be that the first rank
tries to wound and/or knock over the opponents, allowing the whole phalanx to
rush forward. It is then the job of the back ranks to finish off the downed
foes. A very specific technology evolved for this purpose: the butt-spike.
The butt of the spear was fitted with a relatively blunt, bronze point.
The rear ranks would carry their spears vertically, and anyone lying on the
ground could easily be dealt a powerful downward blow with this butt,
piercing most chest or head armor. Also, if the spear shaft broke, the
butt-spike allowd the spear itself to be wielded as a secondary
weapon. Swords were basically useless in the phalanx: long ones,
because they require too much room to swing; short ones, because you'd
have to stoop over to finish off a downed foe (although short swords
were the preferred secondary weapons, since if you had to resort to
it, at least you would not disrupt the ranks -- and so the shortsword
superceded the longer sword of the more aristocratic period of
warfare).
- Hoplite warfare is by its nature anti-aristocratic. Individual
skill counts for nothing; there is no breaking ranks to make
individual, heroic challenges. Skill must the skill of the whole
troop, and this demands the common training of a class of citizens
able to afford the armor and the time to train. This is why full
citizenship was granted often only to the hoplite class. BUt even
Socrates, the son of a stone worker, was wealthy enough to serve as a
hoplite in his younger days.
What all this implies for RQ, I'm not sure, except that the rules
developed for individual combat must become irrelevant in certain
massed combat situations -- realism would not be served by having
every member of a phalanx roll his Attack and Parry %. Also, a really
well trained hoplite force implies a degree of political
enfranchisement that is perhaps not in keeping with Yelmalion culture.
But I'm not entirely sure on this one.
GF out.
---------------------
From: WALLMAN@VAX2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (Personal friend of Little Elvis)
Subject: Re: Mostly Illumination
Message-ID: <01H5CGH31CC20006D1@VAX2.Winona.MSUS.EDU>
Date: 15 Nov 93 08:15:22 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2327
>From: allan@tcrystal.gla.ac.uk (Allan Henderson)
>While non-chaos benifits from illumination by a removal of fear
>the real benefit to the Lunar Empire would be the illumination
>and integration into the army of more managable chaos troops, but
>how do you take illumination to feral broos, or scorpion men.
>Writing slogans on walls will not work here, nor will walking up
>and saying "Hi we really like you chaos scorpion men" and then
>trying to engage them in intelligent debate. Even sending out
>other broo with messages about harmony and peace will probably
>not work. I don't have an answer to this one, can anyone help?
I think the only way an outsider can make "friends" with a chaotic is to
kick its butt. Everything I've read says that chaotics base their culture
on who is toughest. If some tough illuminate shows up (and I picture them
as having some sort of inner strength due to their knowledge) and takes
over, the underlings will begin on the path of illumination (?).
I also don't see illumination creating the desire to be friendly to
chaotics. I think most illuminates would still like to get rid of
troublesome chaos around their town. The difference I see is that instead
of killing and destroying all chaos stuff, illuminates would investigate,
kill, then steal the chaos' neat stuff. The Lunar expeditionary unit
in Shadows on the Borderlands comes to mind.
Ed Wallman@vax2.winona.msus.edu
---------------------
From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: scenarios
Message-ID: <9311151814.AA01508@condor>
Date: 15 Nov 93 18:14:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2328
_________________
Joerg Baumgartner asked:
>How far would you go to call a scenario context-free?
The extreme case would be to exclude mention of anything Gloranthan. I don't
think that this would be very popular, and I don't think it's really necessary.
(Although it *is* possible: I enjoyed "Watchers of the Sacred Flame" which, to
my knowledge, is a non-Gloranthan scenario). What I had in mind were
context-free scenarios which are still set (somewhere) in Glorantha.
ie. scenarios which work in a variety of locations with enough flexibility
to allow a variety of player characters.
>You allow the
>opponents' cults to be defined. If you want to avoid the (almost
>stereotypical) chaos- or God Learner-bash, you either have to provide
>introductions for all kinds of characters (a way we try to follow in
>the Free INT scenarios), or keep the cult business out of the story.
A lot of the time it's not necessary to mention cult affiliations for minor
NPCs. A list of Spells in their stats will usually give a good indication of
the type of god they worship, and any GM should be able to pick a cult
which suits his needs: picking an allied cult if the NPC is meant to be
friendly with the PCs; or an enemy cult if the NPC is opposed to the party.
As I've said before, there's more to character motivation than simple cult
stereotypes.
This approach could even be adopted for major NPCs; sometimes explicit cult
ties are an integral part of the story; but often they are not. Not all battles
have to be fought along cult lines.
One general-purpose rule for making a scenario context-free is to make
the bad-guys sorcerers. Unaligned sorcerers can turn up almost anywhere and
can be involved in almost any plot.
(I'm toying with a scenario idea based on "The Island of Dr Moreau": in some
remote location a Sorcerer is carrying out magical experiments to give Ducks &
Baboons more humanity.... or is he? "That is the Law; are we not Men?")
Ogres & Lycanthropes make interesting bad-guys for mystery plots - where the
PCs have to track down the murderer or whatever. Possession by spirits can
be good for this kind of story too - the murderer is actually the innocent
victim of an evil ghost.
Setting an adventure on board ship is a good way of localising the action
and cutting out external influences eg: a dodgy sorcerer is secretly
transporting a Dominated vampire in the hold of the ship; the sorcerer falls
ill/dies; the Dominate spell wears off; the vampire stirs from it's slumber...
(Any monster could be substituted. Use a cockatrice for a short scenario;-)
etc. etc. and so forth...
>E.g. Free INT magazine. I am still looking for material about Vikings
>for issue 7. But Gloranthan stuff about Ygg's islands or the Manirian
>Wolf Pirates would be welcome, too - I want to show that one can
>combine Glorantha and non-Glorantha in one breath.
Hmm, how do I get hold of this publication?
___
CW.
---------------------
From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: Some real history...
Message-ID: <931115203343_100270.337_BHB23-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 15 Nov 93 20:33:43 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2329
____________________
David Dunham writes:
> I too have always been bothered about the Greek shift from what looks
> like bronze to linen: "In the middle of the 6th century [BC], the bell
> cuirass [this is far less crude looking than the Mycenean "tube"] was
> abandoned in favor of the linen cuirass."
> [Peter Connolly, _The Greek Armies_]
Is this perhaps due to a delayed reaction to the shift from aristocratic
battles between mounted champions towards (poorer) citizen militias, or
because of the wider territories claimed by city-states in the late Archaic
and early Classical periods (meaning the army needs to march further, thus
carry less weight)? From Victor Davis Hanson:
: In their appreciating this unusual Greek contribution and in being
: dazzled by its unique durability and beauty, both ancient and modern
: authors have been reluctant to discuss the disadvantages of hoplite
: arms and armour, but they were many. Heavy, uncomfortable, unbearably
: hot, the panoply was especially poorly suited for the Mediterranean
: summer; it restricted even simple movement, and in general must have
: made life miserable for the men who were expected to wear it. Most
: modern estimates of the weight of hoplite equipment range from fifty
: to seventy pounds for the panoply of greaves, shield, breastplate,
: helmet, spear, and sword -- an incredible burden to endure for the
: ancient infantryman, who himself probably weighed no more than some
: 150 pounds. Whatever the advantages this equipment offered in face-to-
: face battle, the Greek hoplite knew well that he was not really envied
: by his lighter-clad adversary.
_____________________
Sandy Petersen wrote:
> "The Art of Battle" is fascinating stuff for anyone who really intends
> to find out what ancient combat was really like, and why one army won
> while another lost.
Thanks for the recommendation: I'll check it out.
If you want a great example of ancient casualties, take a look at Sulla's
battle against Mithridates at Chaeronea (88 BC). From one of my fave books
on ancient warfare ("Warfare in the Classical World", by John Warry):
: Superior numbers, perhaps, as well as the imposing display of flashing
: gold and silver arms and armour, at first daunted the Romans.
: At Chaeronea, Sulla took up a defensive position and set his men to
: digging protective entrenchments on their flanks. As he had intended,
: they soon grew tired of the digging and showed willingness to fight.
: In the battle which followed, the Pontic phalangists appear to have
: been poorly trained, and the scythe-wheeled chariots were a complete
: fiasco, provoking the Romans to open laughter and ironical applause.
: Casualty figures are derived from Sulla's own record and seem very
: unconvincing. He reported 100,000 enemy dead, whereas Roman losses were
: confined to 14 missing, of whom two were found next day...
Why "unconvincing", I wonder?... Obviously, Mithridates rolled a "1" on the
CRT, then Sulla rolled a "6" for his defensive counterattack at double CF.
Of course, if you believe their version, the Athenians were the first to
run across the field of Marathon -- a patriotic myth of Hoplites charging
into battle that has bedevilled wargame rules-writers ever since.
>> How tall is the Block?
> Several miles. In my campaign, I always claimed 5 miles, but if
> someone is able to make calculations proving that I'm an oaf, I'll
> back down at once.
No problems. The Romans, armed with Greek mathematical science and their
own practical genius for surveying and engineering, "knew" that the Alps
were ten miles tall. So I'll believe any ludicrous measurement you give for
any part of Glorantha -- and take it with an appropriately-sized pinch of
salt.
________________________
Joerg Baumgartner asked:
> Could someone (re)post the underlying cyclical scheme for Lunar
> development in wanes, and the reason for the (otherwise arbitrary)
> 52 years interval?
The 54-year duration of a Wane is twice the length of the mundane
recognised existence of the Red Goddess. The Seven Mothers' Ritual in the
year 1220 ST seems to have "awakened" the consciousness of the Red Goddess
within Teelo Norri, an orphan of Torang. In the year 1247 ST, she wrapped a
large chunk of central Peloria around her "like a cloak or a cuirass" and
ascended to hang, rotating, in the Middle Air as the Red Moon. That time is
now known as the Zero Wane, and is regarded as a period of Lunar ascent to
greatness.
A pattern has since emerged, whereby each Wane can be assigned to a phase
of the Moon, and can be seen to come in two parts: 27 years of relative
decline followed by 27 years of resurgence. Thus the Third and Fourth Wanes
were the Wanes of the Dying and Black Moons, during which Sheng Seleris and
the nomad hordes of Pent overran the Pelorian Bowl. The Seventh Wane is
called the Full Moon Wane. Generally, things are supposed to go worse for
the Lunars in the middle of a Wane, and better at the beginning and end --
though the catastrophic "Nights of Horror" at the end of the Fifth Wane,
and the upcoming Brown Dragon at the start of the Eighth, look set to knock
this theory for six.
My own theory is that the dating for events of Argrath's reign is
hopelessly screwed. The "Eighth Wane" will be a 27-year period of decline,
ending when the Red Moon is torn down in 1652 ST. Allows PCs to live
through the Hero Wars, and take part in one of the greatest events of
Gloranthan history...
====
Nick
====
---------------------
From: mcarthur@fit.qut.edu.au (Mr Robert McArthur)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 15 Nov 1993, part 4
Message-ID: <199311160037.KAA00451@fitmail.fit.qut.edu.au>
Date: 16 Nov 93 15:37:51 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2330
I wrote:
> Re: Joerg's and Sandy's comment on troop strengths in DP et al
>
> In the scenarios in DP, it states that over half of the *entire* Lunar army
> was wiped out by the dragon at Old Wind; and that it took many wanes (ie. 100+
> years) to restore the troop numbers. This tends to imply that
Error was, of course, here. Trusting to my memory, I wrote wanes instead of
cycles. Now a cycle is only a week so what it really meant was 100+ weeks - ie.
2+ years. A much more reasonable time frame!
...
> The section about the
> restoration of the numbers dosen't help as, if the words are true, didn't
> Argrath dismember the empire before that long (100+ years)?
which should now be disregarded...
Robert
---------------------
From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham , via RadioMail)
Subject: scenarios; shield shape; Block
Message-ID: <199311160041.AA15925@radiomail.net>
Date: 16 Nov 93 00:41:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2331
>staats@MIT.EDU (Richard C. Staats)
>If you are running a session with five or more people, you can
>only have "so many" complex social intrigue type plots that can get them
>all totally involved whereas in combat, almost all characters can be
>involved
An excellent point. Though in those legendary (i.e. not my own) campaigns
where everyone's from the same cult and/or culture, it's probably easier.
>From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
>BTW, Peltasts largely for (a) the historical correctness of having them
>with Hoplites; (b) the *perfect* shape of their shields, for the Lunar
>army.
The Scythians had moon-shaped shields, too. If Grazers == Scythians, maybe
that's one reason the Lunars are more or less leaving them alone?
>From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
>> How tall is the Block?
>Several miles. In my campaign, I always claimed 5 miles, but if
>someone is able to make calculations proving that I'm an oaf, I'll
>back down at once.
Then I think the Block would definitely be visible in Sartar -- that's
vastly taller than any Earthly object -- and probably further, especially
when atmospheric conditions are right. Pperhaps with Orlanth "suppressed"
by the Lunars, the Block is more frequently visible in the Empire,
providing an ominous foreshadowing of what can happen to Chaos?
(My distance was based on the RQ2 map.) Again, "I've seen Mt Rainier (14410
ft) from Othello, WA, a distance of around 168 mi (270 km)."