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, Mon, 06 Dec 1993, part 3
Message-ID:
Precedence: junk
---------------------
From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: Time and Godtime
Message-ID: <931206074920_100270.337_BHB50-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 6 Dec 93 07:49:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2561
________________
Time and Godtime
There's been a lot of scientific/technical stuff about how the Gods
perceive Time on the Net these days, which isn't really my thing. And
besides, I was away for the weekend. But Colin did say one thing that
caught my attention:
> You could cast a spell before you had sacrificed for it and the god
> wouldn't notice the difference provided you sacrificed later! <;-S
> Help.
Most real-world religions would have no problem with this! (Though I agree,
it isn't so easy to represent via game mechanics...).
> Personally I don't think the god can read your mind unless, perhaps,
> you're communicating with him. eg: If you pray to him he may sense
> your guilt; but if you avoid all interaction then he should be none
> the wiser (unless some other worshipper informs on you).
So what will your god think you're up to if you avoid all interaction with
him, stop praying, never attend the temple, etc? Lapsed, or what? (It's
Spirit of Reprisal time...).
David Cheng wrote:
> I feel a great need to add my 'bah humbugs' to Geoff Gunner's.
> The whole time travel thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Seconded.
And Colin lumped it into a category of:
> [things] best left well alone by sane and sensible people.
Which, perhaps atypically, coincides with my opinion.
BTW, I greatly enjoyed Colin's Gloranthification of the Jolly Green Giant
into a Humakti myth (of sorts). Loads of fun! Making players do seemingly
self-destructive things as part of rituals is a lovely antidote to power-
gaming and time-tripping and the other peculiar stuff they'd get up to,
left to themselves...
____________
Geoff Gunner meanwhile enthused about the benefits of a Gloranthan timeline
to resolve disputes in the history of Our Great World. Hmmm... A lot of the
stuff that would go into such a timeline hasn't yet been published, while a
lot more is conveniently in print already (Glorantha Book; River of
Cradles; old copies of Dragons Past; King of Sartar). My own feeling on
this is that it'd be fun to try collating more material together, but
you're never going to avoid the threat of being "Gregged" (or perhaps of
turning your timeline into a similar brutish, repressive implement,
enforcing campaign conformity on formerly independent groups of players).
It is, perhaps, good that this isn't a deterrent. But the ossifying, "One
True World" attitude sometimes gets me down... especially now, post-King of
Sartar, when we're meant to make up our own minds about a lot of stuff in
the sources.
(Then again, as a walking, talking Gloranthan Encyclopaedia, maybe I'm just
trying to preserve my own unique niche... ;-)
_____________________
David Schubert wrote:
> What is the relationship between Shamans and Orlanthi society?
Intimate, and getting more so the more primitive that society becomes.
> What role do Shamans play in the clan and in the Cult?
That depends entirely on the clan and the cult.
> Do cults have their own shamans?
Shamanic cults do, yes. Where I come from, Umath and Kolat are shamanic
cults; though I am not saying this is the only way of worshipping them.
Orlanth does not have a shamanic component in any of the myths I have read;
then again, the shaman's name for Orlanth may be Umath...
> In the Greydog Inn article in ToTRM #5 a reference is made to the leader
> of the Hillhaven clan, Bofrost, crafty Shaman of Umath.
My uncle-in-law Bofrost (izzat right? Let's see, my sister is married into
the Hillhavens, and presumably he's at least one generation above that... I
can't quite work out how Orlanthi omnirelatedness works across clans, or if
it's meant to) is the Breath Shaman of the Hillhaven Clan, and seems to run
the show up in their place. But they're a very old-fashioned bunch, living
up in the hills. We do things a more modern way down here in Greydog
Valley: we have a Storm Voice, and a Chieftain, and a Lightbringers'
Council. I don't really like to ask what my in-laws get up to... some of
that stuff in the Old Way strikes me as pretty backward. Still, they're
relatives, so I won't pry into their clan ways.
> ... Spirit spells are learned by summoning a cult spell spirit via the
> spellteaching divine spell, as specified by the priests.
A cult spell spirit. Shamans can find you any spell spirit.
^^^^ ^^^
> So what role DO shamans have?
The usual: teaching spells and healing sickness and taking dead peoples'
spirits to wherever they ought to go and seeing off hostile spirits and
maintaining the harmony and balance of wherever it is that they live. You
can find shamans and wise women and village witches and old men of the
hills almost anywhere you go in Glorantha outside of cities and settled
lands: even in the heart of repressive, near-monotheistic Sun County
("Gaumata's Vision"). They have a viable niche in the world, as a shaman by
himself can achieve things that many powerful Rune Priests would have
trouble doing. And it's pretty hard (and dangerous) to try cracking down on
them, even if you wanted to.
> I've always pictured Orlanthi society as having "progressed" beyond
> the shaman stage into a larger institutionalization of religion with
> a bureaucracy, priesthood, etc.
The Orlanthi should NOT have a cult bureaucracy! (IMHO). That's the Lunar
way of doing things, an outgrowth from the rigid, formalised Dara Happan
ritual ways. But then, I'm speaking from my gut feelings, here: I know
there's some funny folk out there who go wandering around from city to city
attending at temples whose priests they don't know and aren't related to.
Maybe those priests do things the Lunar way: after all, they live in
cities, and that's a pretty Lunar kind of thing to do. But old Langrok
Stormcaller? -- call him a bureaucrat, and he'd break your head open with
his Thunder- stone! (If he knew what you meant, that is!).
I like seeing the various Storm Voices of Sartar as like Celtic druids:
every clan and village has its own local Storm Voice, but collectively they
are heirs to a body of lore about which we know nothing. When two Storm
Voices talk, the rest of the clansmen just get on with their everyday
lives, and don't worry ourselves about whatever it is they're going on
about. If they all gather together on the hilltops, normal people stay well
away. (The Asterix parallel may be more helpful than any garbled modern
interpretation of Druidic lore, if you're trying to work out what I'm on
about).
And, at a more communal level, KoS makes it pretty plain that a lot of what
we'd call "priests" in Sartarite society are really part-time stand-ins,
not ordained members of a hierarchy.
Again, to be sure I'm not misinterpreted: I'm talking here about religious
life for the 90%+ of Sartarites who live with their clans up in the hills
and farm sheep and cows like God meant us to. What happens in the stinking
cities, and what those disreputable, footloose 'adventurers' get up to, is
no concern of mine. Maybe their version of the so-called "Orlanth Cult" has
been messed around with by the God Learners: we know that our way wasn't!
(And I trust the Varmandi feel the same!).
_____
Joerg: I like "Ygglinga" a lot!
It looks to me like the Closing worked whenever you went out of sight of
land, *or* sailed along a coast that had always been dangerous to shipping
(and was made far more so by the new sorceries in the air). Otherwise,
traditional coast-hugging sea-borne trade would have continued throughout
the "Closing of the Oceans", the Trader Princes would never have needed to
go overland, etc.
I hate to think with what special effects the Closing and the Ban would
have interacted to prevent communication between Yggs Isles and the
neighbouring Hsunchen peoples on the mainland...
You are probably right about a peaceful Oasis Spirit of the Hidden Greens.
It seems the best answer to this otherwise knotty problem.
____
Thom: Ancient Greeks and Romans had shipping insurance frauds that make my
head spin, so your Elizabethan example isn't how it began, except in modern
times, perhaps. But there's no reason not to throw another method into the
Gloranthan pot: *anything* to avoid the conformity of One True Way!
(The Vadeli offer very reasonably-priced shipping insurance. And ships that
don't pay up tend not to make it back to port...)
====
Nick
====
---------------------
From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell)
Subject: Lots o' Stuff
Message-ID: <9312060805.AA09684@cscgpo>
Date: 7 Dec 93 00:03:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2562
Joerg's Gloranthan Enclclopaedia
>- Can we produce "official" Gloranthan material (need we get Greg
>Stafford's okay for each and any thing, is there "one true way")
I'd expect he'd say no, but equally well I expect he'd ignore
anything he didn't like. Perhaps the best way is to try and work
in the less well defined regions of Glorantha: a lot of the West
and Kralorela seem poorly defined. The areas where we can write
whatever we like is the Blank Lands, but this would never be official.
>- How may we distribute the material on the net, outside the net, and
>what about the copyright problems?
Most companies seem fairly tolerant of "fan fiction": unless we copy
big chunks of printed material I doubt they'd complain. If some topic
is covered in a product that's still in print then the Encyclopaedia
should just give a (very) short summary and the correct references.
Format: Plain ASCII for text. Could anyone suggest a good format for
graphics such as pictures and maps? GIF? Targa? Please not Postscript.
Anything but Postscript. :-)
David Cheng writes:
>When I first heard the theory that perhaps some of the demigod-like beings
>at the battle of Castle Blue were actually heroquesters coming back in time
>to influence the past, I immediately didn't like the whole idea.
Was it the battle of Castle Blue? I thought it was meant to be at the Night
of Horrors.
IMO all "big H" Heroquesting is travelling back in Time. An Orlanthi
heroquester travels back to re-enact the actions of Orlanth. I believe a
Fourth Age hero of Argrath would heroquest to re-enact his battles with
the Evil Empire.
Sandy Petersen writes:
>The Closing generally only took effect if you went out of sight of
>land.
I'm suprised there wasn't more coastal trade along the coasts of
Glorantha and Pameltela then. You can sail a long way without
going out of site of land. Perhaps it was the fear of the sea which
stopped them
Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au
---------------------