From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) Organization: Lankhor Mhy and Associates To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 11 Dec 1993, part 2 Message-ID:Precedence: junk --------------------- From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen) Subject: re: RQ Daily Message-ID: <9312101908.AA24840@idcube.idsoftware.com> Date: 10 Dec 93 07:08:25 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2612 Andrew Raphael says >No, [gorp's] not an amoeba... They're described in River Of Cradles >as "like a bag of water without the bag". Not even a membrane >holding them together... Perhaps gorp are Chaos elementals? "Chaos Elemental" What a great description! Thanks, Andrew. >Is there a psychopomp for Humakti? ... Speculation: Humakt's >psychopomp is Eurmal. I think Eurmal was acting more like a pander than a guide. I've always felt that Humakt's psychopomp was Humakt himself, perhaps in his guise as the Raven. Brandon Brylawski states: >a Light Son can go on the [Hill of Gold] heroquest with the >intention of defeating the Wind Lord and then the Death Lord and >otherwise changing the myth of Yelmalio for himself, but he takes a >grievous risk in doing so ... he no longer has any guidelines for >what to do or what to expect. The quest becomes a "free heroquest", >wherein the quester may meet unexpected enemies, find unexpected >rewards, and get completely lost. Exactly. DOOM is out! *whew* In celebration, I've decided to write a bit on the major land areas of the Pamaltelan savanna. First, a little note: AGIMORI: technically, this word simply refers to the "negroid" race of Glorantha. Most are ordinary-sized (some are even pygmies), and there are plenty of highly civilized agimori (in Fonrit, frex). They DO descend from Lodril. The only agimori in central and eastern Genertela are the single tribe of Men-and-a-Half in the Wastes, so many folk believe all agimori to be seven-foot giants over-vulnerable to cold. The God Learners believed that the Men-and-a-Half represent the most pure form of the agimori, and that most agimori are descendants of bastardization with other peoples, hence their "degeneration" into ordinary-sized folks. It's hard to say what "other peoples" would have crossbred with the original agimori, though. TARIEN A dry desert-like land. Most of it is not as bad as Prax, but by comparison with the more fertile parts of Pamaltela, it is a wasteland. The life here is primitive and hard, with many dinosaurs and other monsters. The further west you go, the fewer humans you meet, until at last you run out. If you get too far west, dreadful creatures from Hornilio sometimes are encountered. The slarge menace is ever-threatening. Over the last centuries, humanity has gradually been pushed further and further east in this area, as the dinosaurs and slarges press onward. From the south, chaos incursions from the Nargan are becoming more common, but so far are reputedly easily beaten off. The monsters might be growing in number, but not competence. The folk of Tarien are the least friendly of the Doraddi, but they are also the least advanced socially and technologically. Most live in family groups, rather than clans or tribes. This is no doubt because of the dry, coarse land they live in, and the marginal existence they lead. Some of them don't know about the Meeting Contest, and the common usage of lineages are more honored in the breach than the observance. The families are more male-dominated than among other Doraddi, though the new husband still joins his wife's family. Thus, even though men are more important for hunting and fighting, most folks value daughters more than sons (after all, a daughter will bring in a son some day). Marriage customs are generally non-Doraddi JOLAR This is the "classic" Doraddi land, and is a lot like the Pleistocene of East Africa or the American plains. Dinosaurs are still found here, but they are uncommon enough to be considered an interesting encounter, rather than a dire threat. Along the northern part of Jolar, there is danger. Slavers from Fonrit, farmers and ranchers from Laskal, and elves from Mirelos all cause trouble from time to time. The Jolar Doraddi have learned to respond by banding together in large groups to fight off the intruders. This was first done in the ancient days against the evil Six-Legged Empire. Many tribes of Doraddi live here, and their lifestyle is generally like that previously posted by me (around a month ago?) with the full array of Meeting Contests, lineages, oases people, female election of chieftains, etc. Most people consider themselves Arbennan, but there are other groups, such as the Men-and-a-Half (relatives of the Praxian tribe, but less militaristic). The Arbennan Confederation is an organization of tribes, Jmijie vagrants, and families who all agree that the Kresh are a threat to the traditional Doraddi lifestyle, and must be destroyed, or at least rendered no longer a threat. KOTHAR Another "classic" Doraddi land, whose character has been altered by the presence of the growing Kresh "Empire". The Kresh ride in enormous wagons, and are permanently nomadic. Most people here are still ordinary Doraddi, though. Pretty much everyone in Kothar that lives near the Kresh has made the Agreement with the Kresh. Those who opposed the Kresh bounty have moved out. This agreement is different for every single tribe, oasis, or other grouping, but generally boils down to a ritual goods exchange in which the tribal chieftain can make certain demands from any Kresh wagon, and any Kresh wagon can make certain demands from the tribal king, but not at the same time. Hence, the agreement is rather altruistic for any given Kresh wagon, as they are often requested to give up goods to a tribe from which they are receiving nothing at the moment. The system works because the Kresh wagon master knows that some other tribe down the road will be giving up goods for free, having previously gotten a reward from some other wagon. What pulls the wagons? Able-bodied humans! Everyone strong enough pulls the wagon for at least four hours a day. Most wagons support many people, and the bigger the wagon, the more prestige the wagon-master has when he encounters another Kresh master. Sometimes the wagons go in small groups, but single wagons are quite common. The individual wagons are quite enormous, a hundred feet long and forty wide, or even more. Some of the bigger wagons are jointed to enable them to move over rough(er) ground. The Kresh empire is extremely loosely-knit. There is no "emperor", at least not one known to any Doraddi. The origins of the Kresh are a mystery, as is the source of the wood used in their wagons. The Kresh claim to be as hostile to the jungle as any good Doraddi. ZAMOKIL: One of the last strongholds of the blues, those degenerate fragments of the Artmali Empire. Most of the people here in Zamokil are Doraddi, but there is a sizeable minority of blues. They live on oases or along river bottoms, and have a very complex society, mostly mysterious to the Doraddi. They are violent, and frequently engage in deadly feuds and knife-fights (the standard blue weapon is a magic stone knife, and every adult male has one), in which the factions and sides are ever-changing and completely incomprehensible to outsiders. However, they rarely kill outsiders. They are mostly horticulturalists, and to some extent survive on the bounty of the Doraddi, who see them as a responsibility to be shouldered. Zamokil is cursed by remnants of the Godtime (much as is Prax). Several magic roads cross it, ruined Artmali cities are here and there, and hideous beings from Sozganjio sometimes raid. Also, in the last few decades periodic onslaughts of near-mindless chaos monsters have been issuing from the desert. Fortunately, these chaos things seem relatively puny in battle. --------------------- From: Bruce.Baugh@f95.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Bruce Baugh) Subject: King of Sarter/Pointers Message-ID: <30752.2D08CAE0@puddle.fidonet.org> Date: 10 Dec 93 19:01:30 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2613 Hello, all! I'm just now getting around to reading of KING OF SARTER. I feel very very confident that it was not exactly neglected when it first came out. Does anyone have recommendations as to archive sites to look at? (Short form reaction as of p. 60 or so: Ugh. But I'm willing to find that there are things I'm not considering.) (Follow-up question: Will someone _please_ tell me that Jaldon Goldtooth isn't the Zelazny-esque motorcycler he appears to be?) -- uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!95!Bruce.Baugh Internet: Bruce.Baugh@f95.n105.z1.fidonet.org --------------------- From: gadbois@cs.utexas.edu (David Gadbois) Subject: Re: Heroquesting on the Hill of Gold Message-ID: <9312102012.AA08487@peaches.cs.utexas.edu> Date: 10 Dec 93 08:12:46 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2614 From: carlsonp@wdni.com (Carlson, Pam) Date: 8 Dec 93 20:49:00 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2592 As an old time RQ'er new to Glorantha, please excuse my ignorance, but this repeating your god's failures stuff confuses me. Does the Yelmalian in the above example HAVE to lose? Is he possibly capable of defeating the Wind Lord? Does he simply choose to loose? Is it considered bad form to win, thereby succeeding where one's god failed? If he does win, may he keep his weapons and armor and use them against the Death Lord? As I understand it, the heroquest at the Hill of Gold where the quester: (1) gets armed by the Olanthi representative instead of being disarmed; (2) beats up the Zorak Zorani (thus retaining fire instead of losing it); and (3) does the fertility thing with Inora instead of getting the cold shoulder; is an Elmal heroquest. The hypothesis I had last year was that Yelmalio was created (or, at least, linked into the Hill of Gold metamorphosized from something he wasn't "before") by an Sartarite Elmalian hero who purposefully "lost" the quest. This was done in response to the Lunar invasion in order to align themselves with the Solar elements of the the Lunar culture perhaps so as to lessen Lunar aggressiveness. (As you will see in Home of the Bold, the presence of more tractable Solar types in Sartar has allowed the Lunars to seek a diplomatic solution rather than pursuing a scorched-earth policy as they have in the past.) If this indeed the God-Learner explanation of the quest, then it would do well to see what else Yelmalio (formerly an Elven diety, I think) is doing around the Hill of Gold for some clues to what things were like "before." Mind you, this does not explain how the Yelmalians were around several hundred years before Dragon Pass was a gleam in the Red Emperor's eye, but, hey, that's Glorantha for you. The Yelmalian quest being the way it is seems to be central to the nature of the cult. I am not sure if it would be even conceivable for an Yelmalian good enough to be a hero to even try to win the quest. This argument does not hold the other way around -- the Hill of Gold seems fairly minor in Elmalian mythology compared to his role as the servant of Orlanth. So it is presumably easy (and the course of least resistance) for an Elmalian to lose the quest, though perhaps it required some effort to screw up so completely. I also caught a glimpse of some Yelmic references to the Hill of Gold in a draft of Greg's new book (I don't remember the particulars; wish I had paid more attention to that bit), so expect for things to get stirred up even more. --David Gadbois --------------------- From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Subject: Break that Sword! Message-ID: <01H6CMMYYOO291X718@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> Date: 11 Dec 93 21:58:07 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2615 Andrew Raphael writes: >You should kill the sword so you can take it to Hell with you. Otherwise, >Humakt's armourer will give your character new weapons when they arrive. Hell yeah! I like this rationale a lot! Murph has now altered his will - break the sword boys! Kill it good and dead! I see a lot of dramatic possibilities here. Humakti is set upon and killed, by bad guys who steal his sword (its got all sorts of groovy matrixes or some other reason why its very desirable to non-Humakti). The Humakti's comrades get after the bad guys so they can retrieve the sword, break it and stick it in the grave, dead like its owner. Otherwise their slain pal gets a generic sword from Humakt's armourer. Living Humakti would see it as their duty to retrieve lost swords of their fallen comrades, so they can be properly killed. And they would hope that their comrades would do the same for them when they die. Unfortunately, many such swords must be hanging as trophys over the mantlepieces of Lunar generals, or in the treasure room of Zorak Zorani Death Lords. Thanks Andrew, you've given me the germ of a new scenario! ---------------------