From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
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Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 06 Apr 1994, part 2
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From: SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU (Harald Smith 617 726-2172)
Subject: sports/games
Message-ID: <01HAT4JLMX4GPXYBSD@MR.MGH.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: 5 Apr 94 02:37:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3517
Re: Sandy's comments about my sports/games points
My point was not that you would not have sports/games in a
village (and I quite agree with you that several villages getting
together would naturally have some sort of contests together),
but that in your average village of say 60 folk there typically
would not be enough children of particular ages to play sports
requiring large numbers on each side. In said average village,
you might have 1/5 of the population under 10 (12 total) and
another 1/5 between 10 and 20 (another 12). For small children's
games then you might have 6-8 available. For rougher games, I
picture some segregation of boys and girls aged 10 and up which
leaves you with about 6 boys for your game of soccer or whatever.
Yes, you can play soccer with 3 on a side, but I think the
villagers would develop something more in tune with available
village materials and traditions.
And that's the other part of my point--since towns develop from
villages and not the other way around, games and sports in an
area should reflect the nature of the village life and be
developed from that. Personally, I would prefer to see people
come up with interesting and unique Gloranthan games than
transposing earth games to it, though obviously some games or
types of games have a certain universality whether you're dealing
with Glorantha or earth.
--Harald Smith
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From: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com
Subject: The Invisible God being a Scam
Message-ID: <__5-Apr-94_14:30:45_+1_.*.Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.Xerox.com>
Date: 5 Apr 94 13:30:45 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3518
Although I can by no means claim to be originator of this angle I did
suggest it independently to the playtest list a while back.
All the Invisible Gods offers is a social order where the general
populace is placed under the rule of Sorcerer-Priests. Very
sinister indeed ...
The Gods which are attended to by cults at least have a voice and
an inter-related culture in common with most of Glorantha. Although
this could have been woven together by HeroQuesting it still gets
my vote as being more authentic.
Although the Cults do seem to rake in quite a significant spiritual
profit for their associated Dieties at least the members of the cult
do benefit from their involvement. On the other hand this could
merely be an attempt to use the cult members as a system for the
reproduction of magical resources for the Diety.
At least corruption of the Cult hierarchies is more difficult as a
routine Divination can reveal the Dieties displeasure. Although
the issue of whether Dieties actually think in any kind of way
that can be described as mortal is a mute point at least they have
a voice and can use this to subdue or overthrow those that seek to
abuse power in their names.
But prehaps if you maintain a steady flow of worship MPs and
sacrificial POW they simply do not care what you do ...
Regards
-- Guy Robinson --
---------------------
From: USERHKW9@um.cc.umich.edu
Subject: (Y)Elmalian Fighting
Message-ID: <33652011@um.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 94 13:48:38 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3519
Joerg wrote on Elmal patrols and field tactics;
Yelmalians field two of the most powerful forces on the ancient
battle field, organized pikes and horse archers, even with the addition
of Gloranthan factors (Magic,Elementals, Trolls etc...) they are still
powerful.
I figure that Yelmalians would be divided into two groups, those who
are rich or lucky enough to be cavalry (preferable archers, but also
mounted spears) and the average hopolite style templar. There may be
some crossover, but the simple hassel of studying both sets of weapons
and carrying all of them (especially well trying to ride) creates
specialization. The peltasts might be those to weak, poor or crazy to
fit into one of the other groups.
Horse Archers, on an open battlefield there is no need for a horse
archer to get down, they can just ride around at a good range and pour
arrows onto their foes. A powerful, and unfair, tactic, an archer can
stay out of range of all missiles and spells, except bows,runemagic and
sorcery and still attack perfectly well. They are mounted, fast enough
to get away from anyone who rushes them and to pursue fleeing foes. A
horse archer might carry a shortsword or shortspear if they must come
into close combat.
In hill country these tactics suffer, the rider must be cunning to
keep their advantages. Moving quickly from hill crest to hill crest
and staying uphill of thier targets. The best way is to let the peltasts
and the infantry cripple them then ride in and finish them off or pursue
a routed foe.
Light Sons and Sun Lords are encouraged to learn horse archery skills
because they are the flagship forces of a Solar field army.
Ulp, a dangerous thing to say. Josh Wright
---------------------
From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: stuff
Message-ID: <9404051743.AA06460@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 5 Apr 94 04:27:28 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3520
> In RoC p.31 "Broos are predominatly male (only 15% female), with
>fairly common mutation (05% of population) of hermaphroditism
>among them."
I'm not sure I buy this statement. After all, in KoS, p. 77,
it says, "A horrible race of monsters, the broos, who are like their
father, and have no sisters." Early on I recognized the lack of
females among broos. While I hesitate to ban females from among them,
simply because of chaos mutation, I'm not sure there'd be as many as
15%. And I am certain that broos never (well, hardly ever) breed
among themselves.
PAMALT STUFF
The great strength of the Pamalt pantheon has always been its
widely-networked association of cults. Every important cult has a
LARGE number of associates. Pamalt, for instance, has 13 that I know
of (if we count all the Land Goddesses together as 1).
************************
PAMALT'S ASSOCIATE CULTS
Aleshmara
Pamalt's mother-in-law provides Create Food.
CREATE FOOD
2 points
ranged, instant, non-stackable, reusable
This spell must be cast upon a pile of food. It increases the
total amount of food in the pile by 10%. A given bit of food can be
affected by this spell only once, ever. If a heap of food has both
previously-affected food and new food within it, the spell only
increases the amount of the new food. The spell does not affect the
foods' containers, and if the containers are already full, the excess
food will spill out.
Chalana Arroy
Provides Heal Body.
Cronisper the Wise
Pamalt's advisor provides Know Spirit Magic.
KNOW SPIRIT MAGIC
1 point
ranged, instant, non-stackable, reusable
The caster is immediately informed of the names and size (for
variable spells) of every single spirit spell known by the target,
should he fail to resist.
Faranar
Pamalt's wife provides the spell of Helper.
HELPER
1 point
ranged, instant
This spell must be boosted with one or more magic points. The
target receives all the boosted magic points immediately added to his
own. An unwilling target can attempt to resist. Countermagic or
Shield will block Helper, unless sufficient boosted magic points are
present to penetrate the defenses.
A target unconscious from MP loss does not automatically
regain consciousness upon receiving new MPs, and he must be awakened
with First Aid or some similar technique. A target cannot gain more
MPs than twice his POW. Excess MPs simply vanish.
Helper can be cast upon oneself, using MPs from a crystal or
spirit.
Jmijie
The God Without a Home provides the possibly dangerous spell
of Great Leap.
GREAT LEAP
1 point
touch, temporal until invoked, stackable, reusable
This spell allows the target to make an enormous jump, up to
100m vertically or horizontally. The spell lasts until the target
decides to make the leap, when the spell ends. Each additional point
in the spell adds 100m to the possible distance. If the jump is
difficult in some way (a tree must be cleared, there is only barely
sufficient headroom, or the leaper must land on a narrow ledge), a
Jump roll must succeed at the same time, or the leaper misses his
intended landing, which may lead to more-or-less serious
consequences.
Keraun
Pamalt's friend and lover gives Mist Cloud.
MIST CLOUD
1 point
ranged, temporal, stackable, reusable
This spell creates a bubble of natural-looking mist 2m in
diameter for every point expended. Visibility in or through the mist
is limited to 1 meter. The cloud can be formed so as to encircle and
thus blind an opponent.
Land Goddesses
In each region of Pamaltela, there is a different Land
Goddess. All of them are children of Pamalt, even hapless Vrala and
Enklosa, conquered and enslaved by cruel gods from the far north.
They provide Pamalt with Regrow Limb.
Noruma
The Shaman of the Gods gives Pamalt the spell of Stop Magic.
STOP MAGIC
1 point
ranged, temporal, stackable, reusable
If the target is overcome, he is prevented from casting any
spells for the remainder of that round. On subsequent melee rounds,
during the bookkeeping phase, the target must try to roll his POWx5
or less on 1d100. If he fails, he cannot cast any spells during that
round either. This continues until the victim succeeds in his POWx5%
roll. Countermagic and similar spells cannot block this attack after
the first melee round, but the Stop Magic can be Dispelled.
Each additional point stacked in this spell reduces the
target's POWx5 roll by 25 percentiles (to a minimum 5% chance of
success). If a victim had POW 18, and was affected by a Stop Magic 3,
he would have to roll 40 or less to resist the spell's effect.
Nyanka
Mother of life and birth. She is also goddess of oases, and
provides an exceedingly useful spell for the trackless savannah;
Pathway.
PATHWAY
1 point
temporal, self, stackable, reusable
Allows the user to determine the direction to the nearest
oasis. If two points are stacked, then the closest and second-closest
oases are known, with each additional point increasing the number of
oases known. The spell tells only direction and distance magnitude,
not the actual distance.
Lodril
Provides Summon Lodril.
Rasout
He brings Pamalt a beast every meal. For Pamalt's priests, he
gives Sureshot.
Vangono
The Warrior god provides Firespear.
Yanmorla
The Old God, Grandmother Earth, gives Earthpower.
************************
Here follows a brief and wholly inadequate summary of the most
important gods in the Pamaltic pantheon.
Aleshmara: an Old Woman's cult. She is oft-worshiped in the oases,
but is also worshiped by older women in the tribes.
Bolongo: the local trickster sect. He only provides a very few
spells, and his worshipers are pitied, but not necessarily tolerated.
Cronisper the Wise: an Old Man cult, and the only major one, in
contrast to the multiplicity of important Old Woman cults.
Duala (Voria): the daughter of Faranar and Pamalt. She is born every
year and makes the good rain come (as opposed to the bad rain).
Faranar: the major god for women. Only unmarried men can worship her,
and they cannot become acolytes. Women can also worship Pamalt, and
many do -- Faranar is their special cult, though.
Hondori Mal (Babeester Gor): Her cult is recognized here, with
remarkably few changes. Her ancient tasks of sacred avenger and
guardian of the earth are needed as much in Pamaltela as anywhere.
Jmijie: a god for wanderers who belong to no tribe. He has lots of
mobility spells and might actually be some sort of advanced form of
the Mastakos sect, an obscure rarely-worshiped god of Genertela.
Keraun: her worshipers are also called Weather Witches, and sit in
their wattle huts, accumulating power to alter the weather in any way
they see fit. The Pamalt Chieftains often ask them to fix the weather
for special occasions.
Kuangoa (Asrelia): another Old Woman cult, worshiped almost
exclusively in the oases.
Lodril: the ancestor and creator. He's not worshiped too much, tho.
Lokomal (Maran Gor): The Six Legged Empire's God Learners recognized
Lokomal as Maran Gor, but the parallel only goes so far. She is more
worshiped here for her spawn, the dinosaurs, than for her supposed
earthshaking abilities.
Noruma: the god of shamans and magic. Most shamans at least toy with
this cult.
Nyanka: a fertility goddess, esp. of childbirth. She is another
woman's cult, like Faranar.
Pamalt: the main god. Probably more people worship him than any other
god (in Pamaltela).
Plant Brothers: a shamanistic sect, involved with ancestor worship,
lineages, and magic herbs.
Rasout: the most common hunter god. He's like hunter gods everywhere.
Sikkanos: The Six Legged Empire claimed this to be Gagarth, but the
cult structure and spells are entirely different. Some scholars
claimed that Sikkanos is Vadrus himself. More conservative Theyelan
philosophers simply claime Sikkanos as one of Vadrus's kids.
Though Sikkanos is regarded as a wholly evil sect, and only
bad folk worship him, yet a Sikkanos bandit shows up every Sacred
Time to ask the local Pamalt Chieftain what his yearly request might
be. The Chieftain may then ask the Sikkanos folk for one favor. If
the Sikkanos folk cannot provide the favor, then they must, instead,
refrain from harming anyone in that Chieftain's tribe or anyone in
any oasis in his domain for the rest of that year. Most Chieftains
ask the Sikkanos bandits for the traditional impossible "rock from
Enmal", thus ensuring safety for another year.
Sikasso (Ty Kora Tek): Yet another Old Woman cult.
Vangono: A wargod. The "default" wargod of Pamaltela. Most warriors
don't worship Vangono, but stick to Pamalt, Rasout, or whatever their
traditional gods are. The numerous war gods in Genertela would leave
the average Doraddi puzzled and awed.
Yanmorla: AKA Grandmother Earth, another semi-generic Old Woman cult.
Old women in Pamaltela have more power than probably any other
society in the world, with the possible exception of trollkind.
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Subject: Yelmed Again.
Message-ID: <9404051832.AA18008@pebble.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Apr 94 18:32:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3521
Got GRAY, at last.
pico-review: Take the description `for Glorantha nuts only' seriously.
Firstly, notice that it is indeed pretty obscure stuff, and you only get
86 pp for your $25/L20. Also, what wasn't previously clear (to me, anyway)
was that this material _will_ (eventually) be republished in a more
`conventional' form. (After the Lunar book, though, so don't hold your
breath.) So if you're the patient type, you'll be able to get twice the
material for half the price, when it comes out For Real. Naturally, I
don't practise what I preach. ;-)
An initial thoughtlet or two:
Who are the Three Planets at the ReAscent? There are many more than three
candidates, it would seem. And what happens to Antirus at the ReAscent?
Does Yelm basically `reintegrate'?
It amazes me how little press the Theyalan `Dawn' gets here. (Although
it does correspond to the start of an Age.)
I find the similarities, and differences, between Shargash and A Certain
Air God intruiging. Don't ask me what to make on them, though.
> Nick Brooke in X-RQ-ID: 3432
> > I can't go on about this -- I'm the Man Who Knows Too Much. But try Yelm,
> > Murharzarm and Arraz for starters. Just my opinions, nothing official.
Joerg:
> Now that you say so, this makes more sense if the sitting Emperor (GW 1)
> is Murharzarm, the middle figure beind the throne Yelm (Lord of the Middle
> Fire)
The staff this figure is holding is interesting: I would say it looked
more like a strange version of the Arraz symbol/rune than the Yelm one,
but who knows. (Perhaps the horzontal lines are ten solar rays?)
> and the first figure in the upper Row of 25 Arraz, the king of servants.
This chap would certainly have the wrong `Rune' to be Arraz. Nor is it
Murharzarm's rune, of course. Conceivably it could be Yelm, preceding
his Celestial Sons (sun + planets). At a large push, Yelm could be
GW (Court) 0, but this is much more likely to be Ezltaythingumijig.
The key question is indeed "Whose enthronement is this?" At a push, it
could be any of 'em.
> The other figures are most likely the attendants
> from the Four Directions. So deities in row 1 come from the north, deities
> in row 2 from the east, in row 3 from the south, and in row four from
> the west.
What about the miscelleanously-directioned planetary children in row I,
and all the Lodrili in row II?
> GW I-18 looks suspiciously like a certain Air god wielding lightnings.
It certainly does. I can't think why it should be Antirius, but it can't
really be Shargash (wrong place in the lineup, he should be (and is) in the
Celestial Sons lineup), and Lanatum/Oralantus would surely be with the
other `rebels'.
> What bugs me most is the absence of the names Alkor and Yuthu in the
> text. These deities are presented in Genertela Book as the Gods of Alkoth
> and Yuthuppa in Time. Both names are connected to the city names, and make
> sense that way.
The fact that these deities are stated to have been born in time would
suggest that either worship of them as City Gods was only begun after the
resettlement, following the existing name; or that the `history' in GRAY
is mostly ficticious, and that the city was actually only founded within
time.
> If Plentonius knew other names for the city deities, why
> didn't he know other names for the cities as well?
Not all cities are named for their City Gods, just as not all lands are
named for their Land Goddess. (Boldhome, frinst.)
> Kargzant is almost as enigmatic. Plentonius makes him the Solar
> ruler who reigned before the Dawn.
Martin Crim:
> Kargzant the Rider is the name of a Yelmic cult or sub-cult,
> according to Stephen Martin's essay "The Cold Sun" in the RQ Con
> program guide. He makes the identification of several Yelmic
> cults with the stages of the Yelm cult as published in WW:
> Kargzant=Rider, Shargash=Warrior, Buserian=Priest/Elder,
> Murharzarm=Emperor.
This doesn't sound a likely cult structure to me, combining as it does
specifically Dara Happan and specifically Nomad deities. This essay sounds
interesting, though, any chance of a reprint of this along with the
Lore Auction stuff, RQ-Con Ghods?
Alex.
---------------------
From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Re: Dances, Ungulates
Message-ID: <9404051949.AA22624@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 94 19:49:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3522
Paul here.
Nick writes:
>I asked Her, and She told me that some sects of Lunar Dervishes dance in a
>wildly whirling spiral dance. This is the path on which the Goddess Herself
Yes.
Hon-Eel dances include a much slower spiral, in a variant pattern, with lots
of clapping and singing. Could show you how it goes - it is hard to describe
the hand motions.
There are many 'mime' dances in various cultures, imitating various aspects of
life.
>Goats are Chaos Sheep!
JACOBS are Chaos sheep. A variable number of horns, pointing every which
way. Of course Annelinde the White says that her Jacobs are Disorder Sheep,
not Chaos Sheep.
---------------------
From: hmangold@muselab.ac.runet.edu
Subject: A possibly inappropriate posting...
Message-ID: <9404060000.AA21198@muselab.ac.runet.edu>
Date: 6 Apr 94 00:00:43 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3523
I'm not sure if this message is appropriate or not, so if it offends, I
grovel on the ground in writhing apologetic agony. I'm auctioning off a
duplicate copy of the _RQ Companion_ (Chaosium, 1983 72 pages) that I have
come into possesion of. If any of you all are interested in this sucker,
please reply to me by private email. Updates on the auctions progress will
be posted in rec.games.frp.marketplace, and unless there are objections,
here as well. Once again, if this is inapproprite PLEASE TELL ME. I don't
want to make any enemies here, just sell a supplement.
By the way,I don't post to this list much, but I am constantly
amazed by the really cool discussions that go on here. May be if I can get
my procrastinating ass into gear I can contribute something usefull to the
conversations.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hal Mangold >> hmangold@muselab.ac.runet.edu >>"Patience is like bread
Savage Henry >> Radford University,Radford Va.>> they say,I ran out of
SvgeHenry@aol.com >> Apathy capitol of the USA >> that yesterday....
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Geek code under construction.