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, Tue, 14 Dec 1993, part 2
Message-ID:
Precedence: junk
---------------------
From: pmichaels@aol.com
Subject: Passion Spirits
Message-ID: <9312131337.tn03909@aol.com>
Date: 13 Dec 93 18:37:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2627
The description of passion spirits given on page 36 of the RQ Creatures Book
suggests that there are a variety of such spirits, and lists the fear,
madness, and pain spirits only as examples. I expected that in later
publications further types of passion spirits would be described, as has been
the case with the various forms of gorp. Since not even _Dorastor_ expanded
on the types of passion spirits, I decided to come up with a few new types
myself. Here are my suggestions for new types of passion spirits. Please
let me know if you feel these creatures are too weak or too powerful, or if
you have a thought for how to better implement their particular
mental/emotional curse more effectively. Also, please feel free to share any
other types of passion spirits you think of.
_____
Anger: An anger spirit appears as an
angry red ghost which claws at its victim.
If the spirit is successful in posessing its victim, the victim becomes
subject to fits of uncontrollable rage. In any stress situation, and at
least once a day in any case, the spirit matches its magic points against the
victim's magic points. If the spirit overcomes the victim, the victim
attacks the object or person causing the stress (and is effected as per the
spirit magic spell Fanaticism.) If there is no specific stressor, the victim
attacks the nearest person. If no person is available, they attack a random
object. The victim may roll his POWx5 each
round to attempt to regain control of himself.
Some cults, such as Zorak Zoran, consider posession by this spirit a form of
blessing.
Greed: A greed spirit manifests as an ugly green glow in th
e air. In the center of the glow is a face which focuses hungrily on its
target.
Once posessed by a greed spirit, a person becomes a miser and must make a
resistance roll with his INT against the spirit's POW whenever he seeks to
barter goods, share information, or spend money. This it true even for
necessities such as food, water, and shelter. If the person fails, then they
suffer the consequences and may not attempt the same action for 1d6 hours.
Confusion: Confusion spirits look like a bizarre jumble of
swirling colors in the air.
If a confusion spirit covertly posesses a host, that host becomes
permanently Befuddled (as per the spirit spell) until the spirit is
exorcised.
Lazyness: A lazyness spirit appears as an amorphous blob which hangs in
space. Inside the blob, two half-closed eyes, which slowly blink
occasionally, peer dully out. The blob consists of very slowly moving shades
of black and
grey.
If posessed by a lazyness spirit, a person acts as if their maximum fatigue
points are halved.
Ignorance: Ignorance spirits appear as a small (10cm) hole in the air. The
hole looks as if it is continually closing.
If an ignorance spirit posesses a person, their knowledge skills are all
decreased by a number equal to the spirit's POW.
______
Peace, Peter
---------------------
From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
Subject: Slarges, Lunars, and puppy-dog tails
Message-ID: <199312131932.AA13616@panix.com>
Date: 13 Dec 93 09:32:44 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2628
pearton@unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za (Dave Pearton) writes in part:
>1) What are Slarges? I've heard references to them as bitter
>enemies of the Dorradi, but I've never seen a description of them,
>their society or their capabilities.
Get _Elder Secrets_ from Avalon Hill.
>2) Are the elves and humans in Pamaltela all enemies? Or are
>there some societies that get along with them?
Get _Glorantha: The World_ from Avalon Hill. Folks, if nobody
buys this stuff, AH won't have any motivation to publish more.
No, by the way. There's Elamle, where men are friendly to and
subject to elves.
>3) Getting there. I've always wanted to know more about the
>Vadeli? Why are they universally hated? They are atheist like
>the Brithini and I seem to remember that they are also immortal -
>what are the differences/similarities?
This, too, is in _Glorantha_. They're like the Brithini except
that their Noble class was exterminated, and without their
restraint the Wizard and other classes are even less bound by
morals than the Brithini. Their great enemy is/was Zzabur.
(Secret: Zzabur's "Blue Book", which Snodal peeked at, is blue
because it's bound in the skin of a blue Vadeli.)
cjl@carmenta.se (Carl-Johan Lundell) writes:
>I have been running Gloranthan RQ games for several years and
>always had PCs with Sartar/Prax background. Now I am planning to
>start up some new player groups and thought I might try to have a
>group of Lunar PCs. I think some of you guys have some experience
>of Lunar PCs and I would like to ask for some advice:
>Where should the group start? (Prax, Sartar, in the Empire, ?)
>What would be suitable character backgrounds? (Soldiers, settlers,
>?) Scenario ideas? Would any of the published scenario packs
>provide a good start? Should the players be new to or familiar
>with Glorantha?
I had a lot fun playing a Lunar once. Backgrounds would largely
depend on what kind of campaign you like to run -- for instance,
you could use the Dorastor campaign pack quite easily, or Sun
County, but they'd need totally different characters to make sense.
The question about players confuses me: are there really so many
RQ players near you that you get to pick which ones play in your
game?
The thing to remember about "Lunars" is that only a fraction of
them are actually dedicated to Lunar ways, religions, and
practices. Most people living in the Lunar Empire remain loyal to
their traditional gods and nation, and superimpose a token Lunar
worship and rulership on top of it. Thus "Lunars" could include
Yelm worshippers from Dara Happa, Orlanthi from Tarsh, Malkioni
from Carmania, and so on.
--Carl
---------------------
From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Invisible Orlanth
Message-ID: <9312132200.AA08524@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 93 22:00:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2630
Hi there, Paul Reilly here.
SInce the subject of the Invisible Orlanth has come up, let me quote from a
letter I sent to Nick Brooke this past June.
It starts with a quote from Nick:
>A fanatical Invisible Orlanthi would say they were all
>Deceived by illumination, and that the whole established Carmanian Church
>had been corrupted by the influence of the Father of Lies -- that only
>their god was still pure and free.
[ Warning : I have a splitting sinus headache, may sound cranky! I don't
intend to be but am genuinely curious about your picture of the Inv. Orlanthi.]
Your view of the Invisible Orlanth cult is certainly different from mine!
You seem to see them as a sort of fanatical holdout of anti-Lunar True
Orlanthi. It seems to me that there are enough of those about without
adding in the syncretic Invisible Orlanth cult.
My view is different. Reasons:
1. True Orlanthi say of the Malkioni something like:
"Barren-souled truthseekers, boast of great magics,
Work tawdry wonders in Malkion's name.
(something I forget)
Their empty spirits fall slowly to hell.
I just don't see these guys (True Orlanthi) as promulgating a religion
that combines the Invisble God and Orlanth. What would Sartarite Orlanthi
think of Invisible Orlanthi, given the above? Seems to me Argrath's
opinion of them is not too high, since he commits genocide on them
along with the rest of Carmania and much of Peloria.
2. Moralatap and Kaufan don't seem like fanatical anti-Lunars and
they supposedly support the cult because of the protection it will give
the Empire. Do you see them as dupes or traitors, if so who are they betraying,the Invisible Orlanthi they claim to support or the Empire they are sworn
to?
3. The Invisible Orlanth cult must be (at least on the surface and probably
to fairly deep penetration by spies) acceptable to the Lunar authorities for
some reason. They shut down all the (major, at least) Orlanth temples in
Sartar, they could have nipped Invisible Orlanth in the bud if the religion
preached sedition. We know the Lunars can be pretty ruthless.
4. We know that the Lunar religion is syncretic and borrows freely. The
Carmanian religion also appears to have been syncretic, accepting "brute gods"
as valid objects of worship. And the name "Invisible Orlanth implies a
union of the Invisible God and Orlanth.
We
also know that they view many of the greater Gods as unhealed portions of the
Creator, and that the Lunar Goddess is trying to "Heal" those portions and
will become his bride. (Read Me First! from the GoG box.) In particular
Orlanth is the breath of the Creator (stale and wheezing). We know from other
sources (Dragon Pass, maybe the Genertela Book?) that the Red Goddess wants
to "marry" Orlanth - to me this implies that the Orlanth she marries is
in fact the 'healed' Orlanth : the breath of the Creator.
My theory: at least on the surface (and possibly much deeper), Invisible
Orlanth doctrine is that they worship that portion of Orlanth that has
been successfully "healed" by the Red Goddess and is reunited with the
Creator as his breath. Note that His Breath could be viewed as the aspect
of the Creator which carried His Words to Malkion, Hrestol, and other prophets
and thus be a major Emanation, worthy of worship. This seems in keeping
with Carmanian and Lunar religions to me and keeps the Spoken Word of
the backs of the Invisible Orlanthi. Moralatap and Kaufan can return to
their status as honorable and intelligent leaders. The True Orlanthi can
have yet another reason (although they don't really need reasons for anything)
to hate the Lunars - they corrupt even our own religion!
There may be Illuminates at the core of the I.O. movement, or a fanatical
group of True Orlanthi, or both. Illumination does not corrupt (look at Oddi)
in itself.
(I think Illumination is far more common in the Empire than was recently
bandied about on the Net. More Galvosti sorcerers than Illuminates? I doubt
it, according to the Orlanthi it is pretty common and it is a Good Thing
(and also a heavy responsibility) in Lunar philosophy)
---------------
If Nick agrees and there is interest I can quote much more discussion on
this subject and perhaps add a few things....
- Paul
---------------------
From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Re: Chaos
Message-ID: <9312132339.AA09001@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 93 23:39:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2631
Paul Reilly here. A few quick comments today.
Nature of Chaos: I started to write something about this a while ago.
In our campaign Glorantha is a bubble of Order within the Void of Chaos.
In Chaos ALL things are possible - flying half-men half coke-cans, things
which are simultaneously single and multiple, etc. Worlds (like Glorantha)
are made out of Chaos by the EXCLUSION of many of these possibilities.
My old response started:
>And for the stupid question of the day, why is chaos so wrong and what makes
>it so different(better? worse?) from pure evil?
This is actually one of the Great Questions of Glorantha and not stupid at
all. According to an Arkati philosopher of the Argan Argar Chain:
"The World is a piece of Darkness wedged in a sea of Chaos. This is not
a physical lodging; instead the world is a place where rules apply and
contradictory things cannot be true at once. In the Void of Chaos, all
things coexist together: Light, Darkness, flying elephants, half-men,
and most especially, vast inchoate formless half-stuff with no logic or
continuity. Thus the Void contains _all_ possibilities, but by containing
all, there is no way to differentiate between one thing and another, hence
no true existence.
Pure Darkness, on the other hand, is the _exclusion_ of all possible things.
We believe that in the beginning Glorantha was formed as a bubble of pure
Darkness within the Void. They began to interact; the Darkness _excluded_
most of the possibilities of the Void, leaving a world where _single_
things could be true."
---------------------
Building on this, we see that the other Elements may have arisen through
the interaction of Darkness and Chaos. As Chaos seeped into the original
Darkness, they mutually interacted leaving _more_ possibilities and _less_
structure.
For a long 'time' the world worked in a 'perfect' machine-like fashion,
with Yelm, Artmal, and that crowd as 'rulers'. The Mostali were happy.
We view this as a period with Intelligence but no free will and perhaps not
even consciousness. This is the period we sometimes call the 'Old World'.
Then another dose of Chaos came in with Umath. The old Laws were
overturned and many were destroyed. New things, regarded as 'chaotic' (defying
accepted natural laws) came in - Death, Freedom, etc. Eventually these got
integrated into the Gloranthan structure and gave us new (less restrictive)
laws.
So we see that Glorantha reacts against Chaos incursions. Another example
of this is when Glorantha 'cloaks' a 'naked' chaos hole with a piece of
Gloranthan reality - typically a Chaos creature. We see this in Thed's
spell to summon the Void. More on this in another post - running out of
time today.
In fact, I'd better go now. Apologies if the above seems disconnected,
I will try to write a better article another time.
- Paul
---------------------
From: ROBERTSON@delphi.intel.com (Roderick Robertson, SC1-5, x52936)
Subject: Slarges
Message-ID: <7844816B40007B12@delphi.intel.com>
Date: 14 Dec 93 03:39:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2632
pearton@unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za (Dave Pearton) asks:
>1) What are Slarges? I've heard references to them as bitter
>enemies of the Dorradi, but I've never seen a description of
>them, their society or their capabilities.
Slarges are large intelligent bipedal reptilians, and stats can be found
in:
Glorantha Bestiary p39
Griffen Island p 8 (Dobynski picture, P9)
See Also
Elder Secrets, Secrets Book p8
Elder Secrets, Elder Races p90
Glorantha - Genertela, Glorantha Book p35
>3) Getting there. I've always wanted to know more about the
>Vadeli? Why are they universally hated? They are atheist like
>the Brithini and I seem to remember that they are also immortal
>- what are the differences/similarities?
Vadeli can be found in
Glorantha - Genertela, Glorantha Book p27, 28, 35
Glorantha - Genertela, Genertela Book p11
Hey, a use for all those hours spent on the Index!
Roderick Robertson
Robertson@Delphi.intel.com
---------------------