Bell Digest v940504p1

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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
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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Subject: Sandy, Alex, Agimori, and other primates.
Message-ID: <9405032103.AA01352@annenkov.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 3 May 94 21:03:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3894

Sandy, 3840:
> 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.

For CoT, it seems to be the case that the (historical) Atyar cult
originated in Kralorela, but that the reunification occured elsewhere.
I dunno what the first age spread of Than was, so the reunification is
trickier.

> 	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. 

CoT explains this the other way round: Tien becoming "obsessed" by
destroying Lhankor Mhy.

> >>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.

There should surely be a correlation: in Glorantha, elves are allegedly
descended from Plant and Man, and resemble both.  And decent classification
will reflect this.

> 	Binocular vision/grasping hands/opposable thumb are not the  
> textbook definition of primate.

No, but they feature strongly therein.  (Yes, I know tree shrews are
generally considered primates, and don't have forward-facing eyes:
throw another taxonomic zoologist on the flames, I retort.)

> Non-primate characteristics include (in the classic goat-headed, hooved broo)

You're right that in terms of earthly primates, they're defined in terms
of "lack of non-primate features" as much as (if not moreso than) "presence
of primate features".  But does this translate well to the Big G, where
quite dissimilar thing can interbreed, and share features to a greater
degree than on earth?

> no opposable toes

Hey, neither do I!  Amn't I a primate?  (Rhetorical question, but note
that some pre-Linnaean taxonomies put man in an _Order_ of hir own.)

> non-primate dentition (very important, this)

I'm not sure broo have  dentition: don't they eat meat?

> I just don't think they're primates. I think that a Malkioni Linneus  
> would categorize them as aberrant ungulates. 

Very aberrant.  They show both ungulant and primate features, and one
could argue that the former are more due to the mother/host, rather being
a Troo Broo thing.  One could cop out entirely and say they're trans-Order
Mosaics, which is after all exactly what they look like.

> Promise to keep coming  
> to blows over Dayzatar at your leisure, but I concur that he is from  
> the Yelm side of the family. ;)

My Back-Up Theory is that the Dayzatar cult was historically more separate,
but has historically declined, for all the obvious reasons, and has been
partly assimilated by the Yelm-heads.

> 	However, polygamy is clearly not a natural strategy for the  
> human male. [...]  Anyway, I believe that polygamy is a cultural, not a  
> biological, phenomenon. 

Among primates, there's a sliding scale of physical characteristics
which appear to be correlated to propensity towards polygamy, notably
sexual dimorphism, and size of testes.  (No, really.)  Do any primates
practice polyandry?  Thought not.

One Famous Science Fiction Writer claims that human harem size,
interpolating on the above scale, should be 1.2.  I won't say who in
case it gets back to his SO.

> 	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. 

If this were true, there would surely be many examples of higher animals
exhibiting polyandry, and none that are polygynic.  The reverse appears
to be true.

> Alex Ferguson, speaks on Astronomy. 

Don't mess with me here, I'm actually (slightly) qualified!  ;-)  Well,
moreso than biology, at any rate.

> >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.

This would include Orlanth's Ring, all the other Special Phenomenon,
and the Jumpers, on the face of it.

> 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. 

My understanding that in immediately pre-Copernican europe, the sun and moon
weren't considered planets, since they follow (essentially) regular, great-
circular paths round the sky, unlike the "wandering" planets.  They were
at various pre-pre-Copernican times, certainly.

> >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.

Ah, Object Identity again.  So Chalana has one, and hence her "Rune Lords"
get 1D10 DI, hence another GoG typo? (??)



> >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!

Fairy Nuff, I just aspire hopelessly to the idea that people would make
some of their assumptions a bit more explicit when they're expounding.

It appeared you were saying all Carmanians were bad guys, not just the
higher-ups.  Note this isn't exactly a rare situation in Glorantha:
Heortland, Fonrit, Slon, Dara Happa, the Redlands, Bliss in Ignorance...

> 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. [...]

Is there a general pattern to these rules, or are they just hap-hazard,
being made up by the local Geneological Frustrated Symbolic Logician
Elder when he's stoned?

> 	Hence, the Lineages must be Ranked, to determine which order  
> they take effect in.

This isn't a long-term stable system: if there is a linear ranking, then
after enough generations of intermarriage, everyone ends up in the
"highest" ranked lineage, and the others are exist.  What about circular,
stone-paper-scissors type rules, say?

> 	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.

Hence we have no Left<->Right intermarriage problems.  Sandy, John, kiss
and make up. ;-)

> 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. 

It was I: just when you were on a roll of agreeing with me, too.  ;-)
(I think I said gorillas, for the record.)  I wasn't holding this up as
an example of speciesism (though it obviously is ), but as an example
of the lack of an objective, or even sensical, classificational system.

> 	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.

  I thought my use of the present tense was the key
clue here.  In any event, say, the Australopithicenes are an even more
marked example of the shakiness of this alleged division, as they are
more "ape-like".

> There's even more than one species in  
> the genus Homo (three I can think of off the top of my head). 

This entirely begs the question of whether these other examples merit
these distinctions.  H. erectus could almost certainly have interbred
merrily with H. sapiens, I'm sure.  (Okay, I admit it, I could only
think of one!)

> 	Linneus, who invented the Hominidae, lacked genetic typing to  
> determine relationships.

Linnaeus was a Kewl Dood, don't get me wrong: his classification of man
is certainly better than his predecessors'.  I'm just saying it could
seriously do with being re-examined.  (Currently man and the apes are
in the same sub-Order, to be exact (optionally with the monkeys, depending
on whose sub-Order you like best (I weakened and looked it up )),
so it isn't _quite_ as bad as I'd indicated before.)

> 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.

Hey, I wasn't suggesting setting up Genus with the nearest baboon.
Puh-leaze. ;-)

> 	The 98% genetic similarity is only meaningful when taken in  
> context -- a family is not a "natural" division, but is highly  
> observer-modifiable. 

This was somewhat my point.  I don't suggest, btw, that statistical
similarity of genetic material is a smart idea for classification
either, but it underlines that there's a continuum, and not an easily
divisible heirarchy.  (This is partly reflected by having sub-orders,
super-families and the like in some taxonomies, but this isn't a complete
fix.  I forget if Primates has such sub-structures.)

> 	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.

This is Wrong Thinking, I believe.  By this reasoning, humans are more
related to (non-giant) baboons than to, say, trolls.  This isn't a theory
many Gloranthans would go wild over.

\begin{foghornleghornimpersonation}
That, son, is a baboon.  A baboon, a munkey, an ani-myoole.  Like that
stoopid dawg, yonder.  He ain't even possessed of one of them maan runes.
  Stap fawlin over when ahm tawkin to ya, boay.
\end{foghornleghornimpersonation}

> 	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).

I believe connection to darkness _is_ a taxonomic similarity in Glorantha.
As is "possession of the man rune".  Hence, Gloranthan taxonomy isn't
a hierarchy of any kind, it's more of an (ahem) directed acyclic graph
(roughly, a tree with "joins" as well as "branches"), as divergent descents
(and hence similarities) "merge" in weird ways.

> 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).

Tsk, dodgy Latin pluralisation. ;-)  But the trouble is trolls have lots
of features in common with humans that they don't have in common with
said shrews, say.  (Phew, avoided the tricky business of whether shrews
are primates or not...)

> 	I classify elves as from the Kingdom Plantae. 

Elves are the anvil which most quickly breaks the sword of taxonomic
classification, Glorantha-style.  They have a huge slice of the
qualifications to be hominids (and hence obviously primates, and mammals,
and vertebrates), but are also, apparently metaplantae.  Weird, no?

I believe the "Gloranthominids" (sorry guys ) include all the Elder
Races.  Even the ones in different Orders (I'm half-convinced trolls aren't
mammals), or even Kingdoms (yes, elves are plants).  Yes, this is a
taxonomic nightmare, but isn't inherently inconsistent.

_Not_ the dragonewts, though.

> 	Dwarfs I'm not sure of. I have yet to be convinced that  
> dwarfs suckle their young, frex. 

They wouldn't, even if they could, so this could be hard to determine.
Do they possess the man rune?  I believe someone (Martin?) said not.

Alex.