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, 03 Dec 1993, part 1
Message-ID:
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: ABEAN@GEEL.DWT.CSIRO.AU (Andrew Bean)
Subject: Godtime & Realtime
Message-ID: <931202231236.21402385@GEEL.DWT.CSIRO.AU>
Date: 3 Dec 93 10:12:36 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2511
Geoff Gunner said:
> re: Colin Watson's model of God-time as perpendicular planes - Not So !
> If your model was true, then you could only enter god-time at one point.
> But you can enter it on any point. So the model only holds if there is 'time'
> in god-time. Which there ain't. So god-time is more like the page that you've
> drawn your vector of time on. No matter how long the vector, still only one
> page. Anyway, you can't compare the two as they aren't of similar qualities.
I liked Colin's idea. I understood the situation as being that the actual
ritual performed at each heroquest determines at which point you enter
God-time. The ritual sets the mythic framework and delivers you into the
God-time situation you wish to influence. You then complete the Heroquest
and exit back to your current time. Unless a major accident happens, that
doesn't just kill you (or even worse destroy you forever), and instead in
a very few cases hurls you through time forwards or backwards out of
control. Probably never to be heard of again.
People can be trained to Heroquest systematically as did the Godlearners or
just learn it by accident (Arkat, Harmast and the dude with the white bear
skin who leads the wolf pirates )
I don't understand the model that Geoff proposes up above.
I think of Godtime as being similar to the Australian Aboriginal dreamtime.
It occurred for a long time (Kralori records suggest 10s of thousands of
years) and had a couple of major events occurred that can be used to delineate
it into sections (the Green age, ..., the Yelmic Empire which was followed by
the death of Yelm which brought on the Lesser Darkness which ended with
the birth of the Devil and thus began the Greater Darkness, this
timeline is not complete but you get the picture). However I feel that within
each section the events are fluid and exist in a dreamtime situation so
that they can be experienced in different orders by different heroquesters
trying to achieve different things and thus coming from different mythic
frameworks.
Everybody is right when they see it differently because they
will only see what they expect to see. You will never get them all in the
same room for a whole heroquest so paradox never occurs. Their paths
might cross but they never actually coexist except when sharing the same
"reality". If they see a situation differently then the other person will
not be present to contradict it. They might recount different outcomes to
each other, but didn't Arkat meet himself whilst heroquesting once and look
what happened to the Godlearners when they started straining reality
too hard. It rebelled and they ceased to exist .
May the red moon's light illuminate your quest for truth always.
Andrew
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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Ygg's Vikings
Message-ID:
Date: 2 Dec 93 12:25:21 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2512
Carl Fink in X-RQ-ID: 2500
> Have you seen the _Vikings_ pack? In some ways it's the best RPG
>supplement for starting new players I've ever read. Note that the Ygg's
>Isles were added to Glorantha specifically to let people play the
>Vikings scenarios.
Does anyone on this list have specific details about the Islands other
than those in Tales 10? Or more specifically, does any existing
information contradict my parallels between historical northern Norway
and Ygg's Islands?
Aside: Just like other people on this list, I'm interested in expanding
"official" Glorantha via this medium. I am in the lucky position to
have access to an organization which has the specific aim to further
RuneQuestand related matters (Glorantha) which can be used for further
distribution of this stuff. So I'll ask some FAQs again:
- Can we produce "official" Gloranthan material (need we get Greg
Stafford's okay for each and any thing, is there "one true way")
- How may we distribute the material on the net, outside the net, and
what about the copyright problems?
- Who would participate in collecting a "complete" encyclopaedia for
Glorantha. (I've started collecting the printed material and
reorganizing it for personal use. I quote literally, and I give the
full bibliographical data for the sources, as is fine with scientific
publications. How about copyright regulations for FRP material? Do I
infringe any with occasional literal quotes, or with a massed
accumulation of these?) How would one distribute this? I have thought
about Windows Help-textfiles. I don't use a Windows-system, but I
realize that it is most universally available and would be a sound
basis. A UNIX-version would be fine too, I'd personally like to see a
version for Atari ST, and Mac and AMIGA-users for their own system, but
with Windows we can reach the greatest number, I'd expect. This file
might be sold like other software, and the holders of the copyrights
might get their share out of that. Regular updates ought to be
available. Any takers for this project? I'm volunteering as one of the
editors and writers, in fact I've done quite a bit already.
Aside off.
A question to everyone out there: I'm curently planning to do a Vikings
issue in Free INT 7 and still haven't got enough material (except I
write all of it myself). Would some kind souls out there share their
experiences with me via email?
I still am convinced that RuneQuest-Glorantha and RuneQuest-Aternate
Earth can go hand in hand, if we apply the right twists to the
Alternate Earth setting and pronounce the similarities between
Glorantha and Earth correctly. The Wolf Pirates at Three Step Islands
remind me strongly of the Great Army the Vikings had gathered in the
southern North Sea around 880-890. With or without Harrek as leader,
they wreak havoc all along the Rozgali Sea coast from Nolos to Corflu.
Yggs Islands: several questions
The Wolf Pirates article in TotRM 10 made clear several facts about the
islanders, but led me to new questions.
Ygg's Islands and the Closing:
It is quite clear that sea traffic to Loskalm was interrupted by this,
whereas boat traffic between the islands was still possible. If the
settlements there resemble the Haalogaland Vikings (e.g. those on the
Lofot Islands, in Troms, and at the coasts of Finnmark) just a little
bit, being cut off the import of grain must have been a hard blow to
the islands' economy. I'd imagine that before the closing, they
exported timber (from Winterwood), fish, seal fur, whale oil, and furs
traded from Uncoling and Pralori Hsunchen along the rims of Winterwood
and Valinds Glacier.
From the Map in Genertela Book, p.16, it is apparent that travel
between Ygg's Islands and Winterwood wasn't necessarily closed, since
the Islands marked off an inner body of water. This might have reached
well into the bay north of Agria, which would still have allowed
shipments of goods. Without military importance for a fleet, timber
might have become less asked for in Loskalm, though.
The area seems to have been enclosed in one piece during the 83 years
of the Ban (1500-1583). Thus, trade with the Hsunchen hunter had become
impossible, but the Winterwood shores settled by the Ygglinga still was
intact.
NB: "Ygglinga" sounds much more Viking to me than "Yggites", and I'd
propose this as national noun for themselves. Means "people of Ygg" in
old Norse, and sounds quite close to "Ynglinga", the originally swedish
descendants of Yng (=Freyr) who became the Norwegian royal dynasty.
My experiences with living in Haalogaland (which I did 1991-1992 for a
year) and my reading of local history and archaeology of that area
convince me of the necessity of Ygglinga and certain Hsunchen tribes
coexisting on the Islands. The Ygglinga are mostly farmer-fishermen (as
per the Vikings occupation) or farmers, while the Hsunchen inhabitants
take the role of the coastal "Fins" (actually Laps, or in their own
language, Sami), which are either of Uncoling (reindeer), Pralori (elk,
indicating hunting and fishing) or Rathori (bear, heavy emphasis on
hunting) stock. These Hsunchen would be fairly civilized (similar to
the Rathori of Rathorela or the people of Thrice Blessed), keeping
herds of domestic beasts (reindeer, traded sheep or cattle, perhaps
even some domestic elk), and speializing in a lot of crafts, such as
boat building (the "Fins" were renowned in Norway for their fast and
durable longships), clothmaking (the colourful local dresses), tanning,
rope-making (from whale- and seal-hide), fur-curing, bone-, horn- and
woodcutting, and of course for their shamanic magic. The Ygglinga would
control all trade with the outside (at least before the Loskalmi
ventures after 1583) and tax the Hsunchen settlements as well. The
Hsunchen on their part thrived with their way of life, subsided with
traded agricultural produce from the Ygglinga (and further south), and
as middle-men to their inland brethren who traded only via them.
An additional factor would be the Vronkali (green elves) from
Winterwood, who seem to be fairly friendly to the Hsunchen and Ygglinga
on their northern and western borders (where they help keeping the
trolls off), and the trolls on Valind's glacier in the north. The elves
could take a similar role as the Fins in Norway, only that they sit in
a position of power and cannot be taxed. The trolls could replace the
Skraelings (Eskimos) encountered in the Greenland settlements as well
as the (few but in story-telling important) berserk troops described as
troll-descendants, either a danger to cope with, or another primitive
clans-people to trade and war with.
Harrek's easy acceptance among the Ygglinga could be seen as a sign of
the Ygglingas' familiarity with Hsunchen, although this argument is not
too strong in light of Harrek's civilization encounters (Timms, Lunar
Empire, see below).
I'm going to write an article for Free INT describing the coexistence
of Haalogaland "Vikings" and Fins (in German, though), and I'll include
a section how this might be played out in Glorantha, Ygg' Islands and
Wnterwood. I might try to translate that into Germish (heavily German
accented English) and present it here, although I'd prefer some native
speaker to translate it. The Gloranthized version might be interesting
for the Tales or RQ Adventures?
Harrek the Wolf Pirate:
I found a solution for the seeming discrepancy between Harrek's
timeline (he served in Jonatela before 1616) and the general Fronelan
timeline: Timms was freed along with the Janubian city-states, but was
a former part of Jonatela. Thus the berserk's time in "Jonatela" might
sactualy have been in Timms, where the Lunar nobility also is more
likely to take notice of exceptional characters for their dart
competitions.
Enough ramblings. Reactions, please!
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
Subject: Insurance
Message-ID: <9312021233.AA21420@Sun.COM>
Date: 2 Dec 93 12:31:03 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2513
>From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
>___________________
>Colin Watson asked:
>> Do the Lunars have shipping insurance? I can see it being mighty popular.
>Last spring, Paul Reilly mooted that the decadent mercantile Carmanian
>nobility of the West Reaches had developed insurance as an outgrowth of
>gambling -- "ten to one against your ship sinking before it reaches shore."
>I quite liked this, though Lunar Carmania is outside my remit. So I'd say,
>yes. Plenty of ancient and modern insurance frauds to add to the deceit and
>corruption of the Evil Empire.
I seem to remember that insurance started somewhat differently on Earth. In
Elizabethan times you would leave money with the insurer if you went on a
dangerous journey. If you came back you would get four of five times your
money. This would be more lucrative than insurance if travel was dangerous
enough. (My source was Shakespeare's The Tempest).
Thom
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Time Travel and Horses in Prax
Message-ID:
Date: 2 Dec 93 12:48:02 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2514
Sandy says that although everyone is drifting into the future, he
doesn't regard this as forward time travel. Well, how about these
incidents:
The Rathori bear people of Fronela went to sleep in 1499 (when the Ban
struck), and awoke in (up to now) three waves (beginning in 1594, when
among others Harrek awoke).
Snodal went to Altinela in 1443, and returned five years later in 1483.
(sic!)
The Golden Horse Tribe went into the Black Net after the Battle of
Alavan Argay (1250 ST, KoS 192f), whence one half of them were drawn by
Derik Pol Joni in 1420 (Kos 120, 131f).
This latter incident leads to some questions:
Goran Tar, leader of the united Bison, Sable and Impala forces, a Bison
Rider, granted the Golden Horse People one night to make their
decision, and placed them "under the Black Net". Is this an Artifact? A
ritual spell (somehow connected to Arachne Solara?)?
On KoS 120 it is stated that Derik Pol Joni traveled the Horse Path (a
heroquest path, I assume) "until he discovered and brought back the
Black Net. With it he pulled in his followers from the dream". If these
were indeed the remnants of the Paxian Golden Horse Tribe, how did
Derik convert one of the most strongly Traditionalist Pentan horse
tribes into accepting cattle as herd beasts?
The easy answer might be that he didn't, and that the Pol Joni consist
of two groups united by their leaders only: Theyalan mounted cattle
herders, and Pure Horse tribesmen tolerating the cattle herders, maybe
over the years slowly merging with these.
There is another tribe in Prax which descended from the Pure Horse
people: The Zebra riders whch were founded by Joraz Kyrem after his
victory against the nomads and Thog in 877. In the Pavis Common
Knowledge booklet on p.13 is described how Joraz created the War Zebras
using the finest stallions and mares of his horse rider followers to
magically crossbreed them with the zebras of the plains. (This is
"blamed" in part to EWF magic and upbringing of Joraz, and his
inspiration through Issaries' creation of mules.)
It might be significant that the remnant of the Zebra people lived
among the Pol Joni whence Dorasar the Founder called them back to
Pavis.
Only after their chieftain Olgkarth had taken over Zebra Fort inside
the Rubble, the Zebra Riders revived their Issaries traditions and
began acting as neutral emissaries between the tribes. "No message is
all black or all white", remember?
Does anybody know more about the Zebras and Pol Joni than these sources
tell us?
Re horses in Prax:
John Medway asked whether horse riders were attacked by Praxians on
sight, ad somebody proposed that they did, if chances were right. '
like to point at the last episode of the Borderlands Campaign, Into
Giantland, where the travelling party riddes horses through vulture
country into the Hidden Greens, and has to win a greeting contest to be
admitted as one of several groups camping at that oasis, the rest being
Praxians. Although the Praxians cheat the newcomers in their choice of
contests (such as a head butting contest between the mounts, proposed
by a Bison rider), they don't attack outrightly. Having a five to one
superiority, this indicates their hatred doesn't go that far. Otherwise
they'd simply bar them entry, and watch them die of thirst.
(Or does each oasis have its guardian spirit which gets annoyed when
its blessings are deneid to outsiders without giving them a chance to
earn them?)
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Sacrificial divine magic, non-Glorantha RuneQuest
Message-ID:
Date: 2 Dec 93 12:48:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2515
Carl Fink in X-RQ-ID: 2500
>markg@engrg.uwo.ca (Mark Gagnon) writes:
>>Subject: Receiving Divine Magic from "human sacrifice"
>>I'm curious if anyone has considered the implications of sacrifice:
>>followers of the non-chaotic deities receive spells through sacrifice
>>of personal life force [POW]; I have read nothing indicating that
>>chaotic and evil deities would grant divine magic through the sacrifice
>>of a non-worshipper's life (and POW). Any comments on this idea? I
>>would think that a chaotic or evil deity would demand that sort of
>>sacrifice...
> I've done that in a non-Gloranthan game. There is one such effect
>in _GOG_, although I can't remember which deity it is that grants the
>arrival of one chaos monster, its strength dependent on the power of
>the sacrifice.
I have toyed with using the Stormbringer demonic magic for two nations
of particularly nasty ogres and humans (not mingling) for my Alternate
Glorantha/Alternate Earth/generic fantasy RuneQuest-setting. Rather than
basing the number of points to spend on the demon's ability (as in
Stormbringer 4, or sorcerers of Pan Tang) on the caster's sum of ability
points, I wanted to base the number on the POW points of the
sacrifice(s). Yes, this is grisly, but my players have already
encountered these guys, and managed to cope withthem.
My idea was a variant of divine magic. The demonist (to give the magic a
name) would have to sacrifice POW to gain the ability to (reusably)
summon a certain breed of demon. To regain the use of the ability he
would have to do some ceremony, including more sacrifices (but probably
less powerful, thus less grisly). The summons would be a matter of few
hours, less than the regular RQ summoning times. Each different
summoning would have to be learned as a separate skill. A summoning
within minutes would be possible, too, if the demonist uses a parallel
to the Axis Mundi spell (reusable divine magic, reuse gained much the
same way as the summnoings), or expends permanent POW.
With the appearance of Elric! and its introduction of MP-depedant
summoning of tailored demons this might have become a bit outdated, but
I like the implication of the necessity of sacrifices to uphold the
caster's abilities. The Demon Needs in Elric! do something similar, but
only for the demon.
I'm not so sorry to introduce non-Glorantha RuneQuest proposals into
this list. I'd like to see more, such as RuneQuest in Harn, Lankhmar, or
Tekumel - all of these have been mentioned on rec.games.rpg.misc. If
anybody has any conversion, please post them! (That's you, Loren, for
EPT.) Also Alternate earth conversions, cults, etc. I like Glorantha
very much, but RuneQuest _is_ excellent in other settings, too. Why
confine it to one setting, thereby cutting off a large market of
potential buyers? Chaosium's Thieves World pack showed the the way to
go. We ought to be able to do so here. By staying Public Domain, we
might attract players from these other settings into helping AH sell
RuneQuest, and thereby increasing the output of official Glorantha
material.
I volunteer to email the information of my non-Glorantha campaign
setting to anybody who wants it in German language. The maps are
available as Atari monochrome bitmaps, too. Email me personally, if
you're interested. The stuff is still quite disorganizd, but I'll gladly
discuss the finer points of it via email.
Anyone else?
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de