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, Thu, 03 Feb 1994, part 4 Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: udb@cs.utexas.edu (User Database Administrator) Subject: Expired account, mail returned to sender Message-ID: <9402020823.AA22508@cs.utexas.edu> Date: 1 Feb 94 20:23:54 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2979 [This mail has been automatically returned to you.] Your mail message was directed to a user account "mckinney" which has expired and which has been deactivated pending final deletion from our systems. We regret that we are unable to provide additional handling of this message. Your message as we received it follows: ============================================================================== From henkl@Holland.Sun.COM Wed Feb 2 02:23:49 1994 Received: from Sun.COM by cs.utexas.edu (5.64/1.22/mx-relay) with SMTP id AA22495; Wed, 2 Feb 94 02:23:49 -0600 Received: from snail.Sun.COM (snail.Corp.Sun.COM) by Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA20355; Wed, 2 Feb 94 00:19:14 PST Received: from Holland.Sun.COM (isunnl) by snail.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA12933; Wed, 2 Feb 94 00:19:01 PST Received: from glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM by Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1e) id AA26012; Wed, 2 Feb 94 09:18:51 +0100 Received: by glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14067; Wed, 2 Feb 94 09:16:34 +0100 Date: Wed, 2 Feb 94 09:16:34 +0100 Message-Id: <9402020816.AA14067@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM> 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, Wed, 02 Feb 1994, part 4 Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: gadbois@cs.utexas.edu (David Gadbois) Subject: Lunar Intelligence Message-ID: <9402011648.AA10301@peaches.cs.utexas.edu> Date: 1 Feb 94 04:48:46 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2978 From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) Subject: Lunar and Solar thoughts. Date: 1 Feb 94 03:25:12 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2956 Anyway, all this leads me to the conclusion that the DX cult is the backbone of Imperial Intelligence. Lunar Balance (and Paradox) dictate that the worst evil-doers who tried to tear down Imperial society become its most ardent protectors. These guys believe that the end justifies the means, and that the Lunar Way is the last best hope to keep Glorantha from dissolving back into the Void or becoming a fossilized and lifeless husk - thus ANYTHING AT ALL is justified to protect the Empire and the Way. (But some may believe the Way outweighs the Empire). There must be a number of security-related organizations within the Empire. In general, intrigue is rampant and there are no independent sources of information, so every cult, political faction, military unit, provincial government, city council, and Imperial ministry and department devotes some of its resources to covert activities and intelligence. Some groups span these boundaries. Here are some of the ones I have found: The Red Claw. A fanatical bunch of Danfive Xaron and Yanafal Tarnils cowboys whose monomaniacal goal is to further their own twisted vision of what is good for the Empire. (Think of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and its worst excesses in Latin America and Indochina. Multiply that by 10, and give them the support of a government that has no need to apologize for their atrocities.) The agents are technically under the control of the Red Emperor (and his cultists fill the group's upper echelons,) but the agents have considerable autonomy. The agents' actions are no end of trouble for other security groups. They often ruin carefully laid schemes and break long-standing intelligence networks. They are also experts at shifting the blame when they really screw things up. The Cult of the Red Goddess. The cult acts as an information clearinghouse for the Goddess (after all, they talk to her every week.) The members who came up through the cult of Jakaleel the Witch run the permanent spy networks (composed of ordinary Jakaleel cultists) at an executive level. The Jakaleel cultists also act as the secret police. Also, most Etyries cultists report to a Red Goddess agent. The Red Guard. Young Lunar fanatics from a variety of cults. Think of the Communist Youth. Their main tasks are to cheerlead for the Empire and to spy on Lunar citizens for signs of ideological impurity. They are frightening to the average Lunar citizen but not very effective, except when a mob of them gets together to lynch a heretic. The Cult of the White Moon. Think of the US Peace Corps. The cult is thoroughly infiltrated by every other intelligence group. The Emperor's Spoken Word. See TotRM. The New-Moon Reconnaissance Office. A group of Red Goddess cultists stationed on the Red Moon itself. They provide gather intelligence simply by looking down on Gloranthan. There is a special, somewhat sacrilegious, spell that they use to see through the red haze. They are always in the market for old God Learner teleoptical devices. Due to political and ideological infighting between the Society for the Ascendency of the Red Moon and the Red Army faction, the info they have is not quite the military boon one might think; requests for troop movement intelligence, for example, can take weeks to process. The meteorological data they collect is invaluable for the groups fighting Valind, and some of it also filters down to the Earth cults. Ministry of Earthly Information. Actually, these guys just provide agricultural support services. (Their duties are similar to those of extension agents in the US.) They really hate it when they are mistaken for spies. The Shooters' Club. An illegal extortionist group that provides information the dart competitions to worried and unwilling participants. In reality, this group reports to the Jakaleel cult; their real purpose is to keep the old Carmanian and Dara Happan nobility busy with their decadent games and to prevent the mess from spilling over into the business of the Empire. They are not often effective at either task. The New School in Alkoth. A group of crazed philosophers who maintain the Empire's military and government communication lines. They create the magical parchment used for secret messages as well as deciphering and analyzing enemy communications. The Cult of the Blue Moon. Provides "insertion and removal" services; I don't know much else about them. The Imperial Revenue Service. The tax collectors know more about what is going on in the Empire than anyone else and are not adverse to calling out the Red Guard in cases of ideological impurity (assuming, of course, that the action will be revenue-neutral.) The Sun Network. They mostly provide military intelligence for the Solar regiments but also serve as political spies for the Old Sun Party. The Daughter's Eye. A Hwarin Dalthippa subcult that collects and provides most of the useful military intelligence for the Imperial Army. The cult of the Great Sister must also have some widespread intelligence and covert functions, but those guys are more secretive than the Blue Moon Trolls. --David Gadbois ---------------------