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, Fri, 29 Apr 1994, part 1 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk X-RQ-ID: Intro This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest format. More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found after the last message in this digest. --------------------- From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen) Subject: I'm baack Message-ID: <9404282127.AA04904@idcube.idsoftware.com> Date: 28 Apr 94 09:27:28 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3840 Lewis said, long ago: >Broo; impregnate or parasitize? I am not sure that the marking >theory For the marking theory take the example of the rumoured >allosaurus broo. I can't believe that this broo's mother was very >frightened by the broo. No, but maybe the broo was frightened by the allosaur. Jim DeGon asks: >Who killed Tien? Was it Hrothmir, son of Storm Bull or was it the >Black Sun? My money's on the Black Sun killing Tien and sending him to Hell, then on Hrothmir chasing him to Hell and being slain there by Tien's headless corpse. >It seems that there are two versions of the story of Tien's >severing and the defeat of his chaos army after they devoured >Genert. Welcome to Glorantha. >Also, why would either of these forces be stronger than Genert and >his followers? They aren't. Remember, that Genert had to fight the Devil himself, while the Black Sun only combatted Tien, a MUCH weaker foe. In my opinion, the cult of Thanatar is primarily an Eastern phenomenon, and the (exceedingly) rare occurrences of his cultists outside Kralorela or Teshnos are generally either far-traveling hunters or transplants. I don't think there's a Thanatar temple in Dorastor, for instance. I know that there IS a great big temple in the Tunneled Hills. I see the pre-Union cult of Atyar being popular among the the civilized areas of Kralorela, with Than being known among the monsters of the mountains and also probably in the wilderness of the KoI. I submit that the special Kralori chaos monsters, the Huan To, have some connection with the cult of Thanatar. Maybe they originated the sect of Atyar. This leads to the question of why Thanatar is specially anti-Lhankor Mhy. IMO, he's not -- he's anti-all knowledge gods, Lhankor Mhy being the best known such god among the Orlanthi. MOB: in April 22, what a GREAT Pamaltela publication list. Thanx. Jim DeGon: >How is Bliss in Ignorance affected by Godunya's empire? It is a >hardship post for one of the Exarches, who supposedly receives >benefits from community worship like in other places. Note that the exarchs generally are drawn from the local population. Also note that the exarch of the KoI is mad as a hatter. From GLORANTHA: Can Shu the Glory of Ignorance: the current reigning exarch of the KoI, Can Shu reportedly believes that he will conquer the world by exporting black lotus dust and eventually selling a large dose to the Sun God. I think that Godunya figures it's better to have a madman in charge there -- he might actually be able to understand the population. Plus sending one of his GOOD exarchs there would probably result in his going mad -- I suspect the exarchs are not unaffected by their acceptance of life-force from their community. Alex Ferguson asks re: going to the Place Beyond Vithela in the Kralori afterlife: >What, not even a Become-the-Emperor-and-Die HQ? I suppose that would work. But I bet you can't get back. Also it would probably cause all the spirits in Vithela to Pass On with you, so the Emperor and his exarchs would doubtless strive to prevent the successful completion of your quest. Might be cool to try. >>Broos aren't primates. >I'm not sure `primate' is a useful concept in Glorantha, but note >that most Broo have binocular vision and grasping forelimbs.(Indeed, >most have an opposible thumb.) "Primate" is still a useful term -- I'm not talking evolutionary relationship here, you understand. Remember that when Linneus invented the taxonomic system, HE didn't believe in evolution, he was just showing physical resemblances between creatures -- showing the Mind of God, as it were. I think that taxonomic differences can still be useful classifications in Glorantha, even if the creatures aren't always related by descent. Binocular vision/grasping hands/opposable thumb are not the textbook definition of primate. Non-primate characteristics include (in the classic goat-headed, hooved broo), no opposable toes, non-primate dentition (very important, this), lack of a complete bony ring around the eye socket, possess horns or antlers, IMO a fibrous, rather than vascular male organ, and I suspect other differences. I just don't think they're primates. I think that a Malkioni Linneus would categorize them as aberrant ungulates. >Personally I think Aether smacks very suspiciously of being a >construct to `explain' the relationship of Yelm and Lodril, which >show every sign of having arisen separately. (This doesn't seem to >be true of Dayzatar, which sounds a lot like a Yelmic mythic add-on. >Perhaps why Sandy and I come to blows about his cult now and then.) Your argument here makes sense to me. Promise to keep coming to blows over Dayzatar at your leisure, but I concur that he is from the Yelm side of the family. ;) [I said] >> I like gritty, hungry, violent trolls that make no apologies for >>the fact that they ENJOY eating sentient life. [Alex said] >I don't think this is the case for most trolls, though I'd grant it >in the case of Zorak Zorani and some of the Fun Chaps hanging out in >the KoI. But most, I reckon, as simply indifferent to the sentience >of their food I wholly agree, and slightly misspake my case -- what I meant was not so much that Sentients are Fun Food, but that Certain Sentients Taste Good. I.e., a troll really likes dwarf and elf, frex. >Trolls are likely to find humans willingness to slaughter sentients >in droves, then fussily refuse to eat them as morally questionable. Concur. If a troll ethical philosopher exists (???), I'm sure he'd argue this way, and probably make a good point. "You should eat what you kill, or you're just a murderer." Martin: You make a good point on April 22 about Malkionism being as much like Islam as Christianity. At one point you're unsure about Malkioni dietary prohibitions. I think there should be some. The only one I'm sure of at this moment is that Rokari Wizard castelings are supposed to be vegetarian. Maybe they can eat fish? Maybe not. Martin says: >Initiates have contact with the divine, and this undeniable >religious experience anchors their belief in the rightness of their >beliefs. Malkioni only have the second-hand revelation of the Law >and the New Rites, except when they participate in the veneration of >the saints and/or visible gods. That's why the Brithini and Vadeli, >without any religious experiences, are amoral. A good summary, on which I will now expound. I suggest that the Malkioni have close contact with their deity's immanence. The Mystic Fervor tendency among many Christians (q.v. St. Francis or St. Anthony) and Muslims (q.v. Dervishes) is, of course, opposed by the anti-mystic Logicians such as Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, but the tendency is a hard one to stamp out. I suggest that the Malkioni have similar battling currents in their religion, but that many of them, especially the common folk, feel as close to their deity, or one of the saints, as any theist. At least, in the less statist regions of their sect. The Brithini and Vadeli are amoral, as you state, and in the end, selfish to the point of solipsism. Martin makes some comments about the biology of monogamy. As a biologist, I'd like to comment. >Individuals in all kinds of animal species (including our own) >practice monogamy for its economic benefit. Correct. >However, both partners can improve their reproductive success by >a little judicious adultery with a partner who is more desirable >than their mate. This is true on occasion. For instance, a female goose who has failed to find a mate, will often try to "seduce" a gander wandering near her area. Though the gander usually won't switch mates to the new female, he may well mate with her, and father a batch of eggs. Obviously the single mother has a low reproductive chance with its eggs, because she has no mate to assist her. But she has a better chance than if she'd forgone mating entirely! Still, this act of "infidelity" is clearly a major threat to the gander's real spouse, for if the gander ends up leaving her, she loses a LOT of reproductive success. >Now to polygamy: if a woman is pretty sure that her husband >won't stop supporting her economically when he takes another >wife, she won't strongly object to it. However, polygamy is clearly not a natural strategy for the human male. (Note: before I'm bashed by pro-polygamists, let me state that I come from a polygamous culture -- Mormons. Hence know whereof I speak. My wife's great-grandfather had three wives.) Even among the few cultures that permit polygamy, normally less than 3% of the males practice it. Anyway, I believe that polygamy is a cultural, not a biological, phenomenon. Note also that EVEN if a husband doesn't stop supporting her economically when he takes another wife, her proportion of her husband's support is halved! This is a serious reduction, and her children are thus compromised. I submit that in a female-dominant culture, polyandry would be more common, and would support the females, rather than the normal polygamy (a result of male-dominated cultures). >But the mirror-image situation rarely occurs. A man who let >his wife take another husband, even if there were no societal >cost to doing so, would lose reproductive success. The mirror-image situation does occur, because in the real world, reproductive success is measured by live children, not by total number of (possibly non-surviving) children. In very difficult climates, polyandry is a viable solution. Polyandry thrives in areas in which the greater size and strength of the male is needed to gather food, and which are very harsh. Usually one of two events stimulates the polyandry -- among the Eskimos infanticide (generally of females) is practiced -- to enhance total food for the family and eliminate excess children that would die anyway. An alternative is Tibet, where the problem is based on the fact that inheritance is normally divided equally among the heirs -- hence, after a generation or two, each heir has too small a piece of property to survive, and all are impoverished. Anyway, the rarity of polyandry is more based on the scarcity of humans these marginal lands than it is anti-biology. The overall reproductive success of the fathers is HELPED by having multiple men in the family raising the comparatively few children, because those children have a much better chance of surviving to adulthood. In more equable lands, a single dad is plenty to ensure survival, so polyandry is not so great. Note also that in MOST polyandrous cultures, the most common form of marriage is for a group of brothers to marry one wife -- in this way, even if the kid's not yours, he's kin, and thus carries your genes. To summarize my belief: polygamy is cultural, based on a male dominance. Monogamy is biological. Polyandry is biological, unless it's culturally based on a female dominance. Alex Ferguson, speaks on Astronomy. >Perhaps in Glorantha, "planets" are things with follow the route of >the sun, and "moons" are other objects with visible disks. Hence, >"Southpath planets" are borderline between being planets, and >`not-planets', to wit, moons. Actually, Glorantha defines Planet in the pre-Copernicus fashion -- a "Planet" is any object that wanders across the sky instead of following the Pole Star's dance. The "Moons" are a sub-category of Planet, though perhaps only pedants would know this. On pre-Copernicus Earth, the Moon was technically a Planet. I think the Sun, too, but I'm not sure on this. Sandy: >> I think there's no doubt that imaginary cults can be created >> with greater facility among theists than new Invisible God >> heresies can be formed. Alex F. >I have to disagree with this. All a new heresy takes is a crackpot >bishop (or an ultra-zealous superior). I am convinced. Further arguments are supranumerary. >Sandy has referred to Secret Powers before, and I was uninformed >then too. What are they, apart from things which grant Rune Lords >1d10 DI? A deity's Secret Power is something that makes it unique and irreplacable. It is different for every deity. Sometimes a Secret Power can be wrested from one deity and given to another. Deities with Secret Powers, no matter how reviled, tend to pop up again and again in mythologies -- like Gorgorma. Deities without Secret Powers seem to come and go from nowhere, often sinking back into well-deserved obscurity -- like Sog. >It's very confusing to hear these sweeping statements about Carmania >("Exactly like Persia." "Nazi-level morality.") on the basis of so >little published info. I'm basing it on the fine discussions re: Carmania here on the Net! My own treatment of Carmania in mine own campaign is going to be directly taken from the net discussions, in which it's been well-argued that the Carmanians represent a foreign oppressor sitting atop native peasants with no possibility for advancement. Certainly there's plenty of other Gloranthan cultures as unpraiseworthy as the Carmanians, but I wasn't talking comparative sociology here, just the fact that I believe the average stereotypic Carmanian ruling-type to be arrogant and sneering, while the average stereotypic Orlanthi (say) might be chauvinistically proud, but considers arrogance a bad thing. Sandy said: >> The Lineages are complicated, but dominate all courting and sexual >> relationships. You replied >And is matrilineal? No. They're NOT matrilineal, but are based on both parents' Lineages, though the mother's is sometimes weighted more heavily. Each combination of two lineages has one result that comes from it, often modified by the exact sex of the parents and location born into. For instance, if your Dad was Bluewood, and Mom was Puffberry, you are also Puffberry. But if your Dad is Puffberry, and your Mom Bluewood, you must be Sweetgrass instead. This can Sometimes also be affected by other relatives. If your Dad is Puffberry, and your Mom Bluewood, normally you'd be Sweetgrass, but if your maternal grandfather is Strawseed, then you must be Strawseed, too. Hence, the Lineages must be Ranked, to determine which order they take effect in. For instance, if your maternal grandfather is Strawseed, you are always supposed to be Strawseed. Except that if your Mom was Greenberry, then you are always supposed to be Greenberry. But if you are born at Marbush Oasis, you are supposed to be Marbush. So the oasis wise men long ago agreed that Marbush takes precedence over Strawseed which takes precedence over Greenberry in this case. When a new case of Lineage intermingling comes up, the oasis folk are supposed to determine the result. The Doraddi don't assign outsiders into lineages. This means that most outsiders are able to marry any Lineage (most Lineages are marriage restrictions, not enforcements), which makes them popular among unpopular Lineages. However, the children of an outsider and a Doraddi are assigned specific lineages. Alex F. says, IMO correctly: >The Lunar spoutings about the Creator are clearly intended to make >Lunar thinking more acceptable to Malkioni, not less ... Clearly no >Malkioni sect is mad keen on _any_ bunch of pagans; but >on the >other hand, why should they be ... upset at pagans who >acknowledge >the truth of their own beliefs ? I think the main objection of the Malkioni to the Lunars is the Lunar acceptance of Chaos, which the Malkioni oppose with all the vehemence of any Orlanthi. And, of course, the Orlanthi "filter" of Lunar beliefs emphasizes Lunar Chaos above the Lunar Creator-philosophy. I suspect that there is a caste-difference between how different Malkioni would view the Lunar beliefs if properly presented to them. I think that the Farmers and Knights would dislike the Chaos aspect so strongly that they'd hate the lunars, whereas the Wizards and maybe Lords would perceive the underlying philosophical similarities and be more friendly and willing to ally. >If a theist met an "integrated" Wizard, he would still regard him >highly suspiciously, though. Not just because of the bad rep of his >renegage pals, but also because he would have no prima facie >guarantee even that he obeys the commandments of the Invisible God. >With a theist priest, one at least (generally) knows where they >stand, as it were. I think this is true for most theists, esp. those who don't meet many wizards. On the other hand, I think most Malkioni peasants know little enough about the theists that upon meeting one of their priests he wonders what weird cultic fanaticism lurks in the priest's subconscious. "Does he practice human sacrifice every Wild Day? Does he summon evil spirits?" Who knows? "Why does that Orlanthi keep spouting ritual poetry? Is he mad?" In the same way that many folk who have never met a Mormon figure they must be fanatic cultists, most Malkioni doubtless think of theists as radicals. And of course, because theists are probably VERY defensive in their conversation when visiting Malkioni lands, not to mention hostile towards wizards, they help confirm these speculations. RQ WOMEN: In my campaign, I play that women have a STR of 2d6+2 and a SIZ of 2d6+3. I regard this as justified by sexual dimorphism in the human species, in which males generally have more muscle mass both absolutely and proportionally. All other differences (higher DEX, higher CON, etc.) I regard as unproven. I admit that women live marginally longer than men in the 20th-century culture and have a lower incidence of inherited disease, but I don't think it's enough to be worth a point of CON. Compared to most mammals, the dimorphism in humans is EXTREMELY minor. Just the fact that the Best females are better than the bulk of the male population indicates a low rate of such dimorphism. You don't find any overlap among sea lions, for instance, and mighty little among the great apes (except gibbons). HOWEVER, I also play that anyone playing a female character who wants to use the same SIZ and STR rolls as a male is permitted to do so. It's only a game, after all. Most players choose to accept the lessened STR and SIZ, I suspect because the advantages of smaller SIZ are far-reaching, if not huge. I'll admit that when playing women warriors, they choose the stereotype of the fast, wiry fighter, rather than the hulking brawny fighter. One more biology note which has mildly rankled. Someone a while ago mentioned that the Great Apes are a separate family (Pongidae) from the human species (Hominidae), and went on to bewail this because humans share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, so clearly this was Species-ism, putting just one species in our family. I'd like to defend the taxonomists responsible. In the first place, there's more than one species in the Hominidae -- it's just that all but one are extinct. There's even more than one species in the genus Homo (three I can think of off the top of my head). Linneus, who invented the Hominidae, lacked genetic typing to determine relationships. Humans look real different from the apes -- no body pelt, large nose, no opposable big toes, walk fully erect, jaws and teeth different (important taxonomically!), etc. There's heaps of differences that any unprejudiced observer can easily detect. I'm not saying that the Pongids deserve to be in a separate family from the Hominids, but there are clearly major differences that need to be taken into consideration. The 98% genetic similarity is only meaningful when taken in context -- a family is not a "natural" division, but is highly observer-modifiable. Now to relate the above argument to Glorantha. Er, In my opinion, The Veldang, Doraddi, Wareran, and Kralori are all the same species. It is possible (but I'm not sure) that the Brithini and Vadeli are a different species from Homo sapiens. I can't think of any other species in the genus Homo in Glorantha. Dwarfs, elves, and trolls are not even primates, in my opinion. I classify trolls as a separate order within the mammals, the Styganthropa (yes, I know they're Things of Darkness, but we're not talking evolutionary descent here, but rather taxonomic similarity). Trolls give milk, have body hair, etc. They're obviously mammals. I think the nearest order to trolls are the shrews (also the nearest relatives to the Primata). Shrews are nocturnal, ravenous, mean beasties, and it seems to me that the trolls may not have "evolved" as far from their roots as have humans. I classify elves as from the Kingdom Plantae. Dwarfs I'm not sure of. I have yet to be convinced that dwarfs suckle their young, frex. Sandy P.