Bell Digest v940523p1

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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 23 May 1994, part 1
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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: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: The Aeolian Church, or at least my misunderstandings thereof.
Message-ID: <9405222159.AA07792@keppel.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 22 May 94 21:59:08 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4104


Joerg:
> >> Not in the God Learner sense of "theistic".

> Now it's my time to say: Why do you argue, I agreed.

You appeared to be agreeing with faint damns.  ("'s, GLism...)

> > Wizardry is sorcery with a funny hat, to anyone else but the Westerners.
> > There is no objective way. or even one most people agree on, to tell the
> > difference between a sorceror and a wizard. 

> The RQ:AiG set of spells did change this to some degree: There are 
> a number of ritual spells useful only for religious purposes, called 
> Banishment (a funeral rite), Blessing (e.g. at weddings etc.) and its 
> reversed (which needn't be by The Power Of The Invisible God, but can be), 
> and Solace, a spell for the dying moment of the caster, preparing his way 
> to Solace. I doubt these work for any but true followers of the IG, so 
> there you are.

If that's the intent behind these spells, it's quite mistaken, I believe.
When did the IG become immanent?  Since he isn't, how does he get to decide
who's a true follower?  If he were, how soon could we expect the first
divinations to clear up minor details such as the Hrestol/Rokar split?
(While I disagree with those that think having a manifest god handy
eliminates theological and factional disputes, it might just keep it down
to a dull roar, which the Malkioni could only envy.)

BTW, since, Gregged or not, AiG apparently refuses to die, can one still
get one's paws an a draft, so that one might (gasp at its wonderfullness|
give Greg a standing ovation for punting it)?

> > "Wizardry" is really only
> > well-defined to mean "sorcery [in the RQ sense] which we approve of".
> > Even "follows the commandments of the IG" is something which is open to
> > interpretation, manipulation, and downright fraud, and isn't much like
> > the (enforcible) requirements to belong to theistic cults.

> I'd say that the requirements of the Rokari church are as easily 
> enforcible as those of say Chalana Arroy. Or do you mean that the 
> spells don't become one-use? Neither does cult spirit magic, and I find 
> this a rules nit anyway.

Only enforcable by mundane means, not divine ones.  If a theist commits
a sacrilegious act, various consequences ensue, _without_ any human
intervention.  (To wit, becoming an Inactive initiate (which has more than
just "rules nit" consequences, and/or spirits of reprisal.)  Excommunication
needs human action, but will generally follow from the foregoing, and has
tangible affects.  ("My Son, why have you Gone Inactive, and why are those
Flint Slingers banging away at your noggin?    Consider yourself
an ex-initiate.")

If a Rokari flouts his religions strictures, nothing much happens, unless
he's caught with his hand in the poor box, or some other part of his
anatomy in a local peasant wench/sheep/chaos monster.  Even then, it's
a matter for the vagarities of human sanctions.

Where a manifest (deity|saint) is worshipped too, your kilometrage may
clearly vary.  ("No, really, I left the monks of St. Gerlant Flamesword
for, errrr, personal reasons.")

> > The "most important" spell is likely to be one taught
> > at (ordinary shrines).

> Like all those useless Cloud Call shrines dotting Sartar?

Cloud Call is a _spectacularly_ useful spell: not only is it the duty
of every Orlanth priest to pray daily for rain ("Here, cloudy-cloudy!"),
but also it might just make the difference to whether or not you can cast
Thunderbolt.

> > At the moment, it could be argued "heroquest" is a polite
> > term for "no-one knows how this works".

> I have a "working" system, mainly by ignoring any rule change, but by 
> changing the world aspects.

I agree that it's probably fairly impossible to nail down, but trying
to HeroQuest under bog-standard RQ is like trying to do microsurgery
wearing boxing gloves, and with no scalpel.  Blindfold optional.

> I think any attempt to quantify heroquest 
> effects will end up with a non-Arkati, God Learner view of the 
> participants, and be detrimental.

See my previous anti-Arkat flame for my views on the slenderness of this
distinction.  Would that we understood HQing well enough that all we had
to worry about was quantifying the effects.

> >> (Sartar is sorcery-user friendly [...])

> > I think
> > most Sartarites would be very unhappy with Aeolians they happen to bump into,
> > chucking around sorcery willy-nill, and saying wildly heretical things
> > about _their_ god in the same breath as stuff about this ficticious
> > deity the Westerners worship.

> What is heretical in saying that Orlanth is supreme King of Gods, and 
> has the most noble ancestry of all Elements?

The juxtaposition, for one thing.  The chances of taking two quite distinct
theologies and combining them in a way acceptable to both is very slim
("either" would be a struggle); religious people tend to be touchy about
these things, for some strange reason.

I've heard Sikhism described as a "combination" of Islam and Hinduism;
result: all three putting bombs under the cars of the remaining two.
(Yes, both ancedent and conclusion are grossly oversimplified here for
purposes of snappy rhetoric.)

> These guys speak a bit 
> funnily about the deities, using some outlandish (western) prefix for 
> the cults.

This is more than a little too glib.  You've given examples of characters
who're essentially pure sorcerors, with a veneer of Theyalan "saint"
worship, and then claimed that when sighted by Orlanth cultists, they
rush together for a brotherly hug?  Perhaps the ones you've mentioned
aren't typical, or perhaps they just keep very quiet about the s*rc*ry...

> I doubt the average Gloranthan will notice the difference between a 
> somewhat outlandish casting of a spirit spell and a sorcery spell.

If the cult advertises the fact, and it is practically bound to in this
case, given the explicit role of the IG in their theology, and the presence
about Whitewall of twenty foot signs saying "Wizard's Guild, apply within",
I think he might.  I'd give him an INTx5% roll, perhaps.

> The Aeolians are far more off-Malkioni than off-Theyalan. This is, their 
> Malkionism is far more compromised than Irish Christianity ever was.

That the proposed religion oozes with sorcery, has the Invisible God
as the first deity of its Trinity, and reduces every other deity in sight
to the status of "saint" suggests to me that it's Malkionised enough to
have the typical tribesman sharpening a stake or twelve.

Okay, I exagerate: after all, the two religions aren't _particularly_
hostile to each other, relatively speaking.  However, they are a long
way from being co-religionists, and have the added gulf of a different
"mode" of worship to overcome.

> I hope to scare the living daylight out of the other bishops at HtWWW 
> with my Theyalan convictions, and expect a quite fiery end if I can't 
> rally the Stygians.

Personally, I think different Stygian sects get on about as well as...
well, not at all well, really.  Perhaps a case of "My Sworn Enemy for
Clause 4 is my Eternal Brother in the matter of Clause 6."

> I have little personal experience with catholicism, but I bow to the 
> inside knowledge of Greg Stafford, who has been quoted to say it was 
> a polytheistic religion.

If Greg's an unbiased observer, I'm an enthusiastic proponent of
pantheonistic initiation.  At any rate, if there's ever been more than
Three gods (more like two and a bit) in Christianity, there's been a strict
pecking order, and the intent has been subversion, not incorporation.

> I don't use the usual, 20th century definition of Saint. Intentionally so. 
> I try to use the Irish and Anglosaxon definition of Saints, as far as my 
> knowledge permits. Ever compared St. Brennan to Manannan McLir?

That some saints are pagan co-optees isn't in doubt.  But how many
Wotanists think Christianity is a great religion because of all the
pagan trappings, not to say name, of Easter?

Certainly the "true" saints of the West seem to be regarded very
differently from gods, so I don't think you can entirely escape the
"20th century" connotations I suggest.

I suspect that the Ralian Henotheistic Church doesn't use the term saint
for "actual" deities, but that other Malkioni (heretical) cults, who
consider the manifest deities less important, do.

> The Western definitions for False Gods and Saints aren't too different. 
> Mortal Saints are what you would call Cult Heroes in theist cults, Divine 
> Saints are individuals who attained their divinity either in Godtime 
> (Malkion, the Orlanthi deities) or through apotheosis in Time (Dormal, 
> Arkat, Belintar).

Bit of a fine distinction, then.  At any rate, what I was suggesting was
that if a god receives active, fairly "traditional" worship in an area,
having a bunch of Wizards swan along and downrate him to Saint Thingy
isn't likely to cause them to whoop for joy.  On the other hand, if they
do this to someone in the "hero" (approximate) category, it sounds as if
it could be a promotion, maybe.  Using the same term for obscure heroes
and major deities doesn't really inspire confidence in claims that this
_isn't_ a questioning of the importance of the latter, though.

> > I meant, is he being initiated _to_ something in particular, but that
> > question doesn't translate well across the boundaries of our different
> > views on theistic initiation.

> He is initiated to the cult and its secrets. He will form his special 
> link to a patron, or remain with the mainstream Orlanth Miscellaneous 
> cultists.

That's just a vague concept, not a "something".  Since, in my opinion,
this identification, this "link" is whole _point_ of initiation, the loss
of this is where all my troubles with pantheon initiation start.  Now,
if the Aeolian church is principally a theistic one, as Joerg currently
suggests (can you tell I'm confused?), this is liable to rearise, though
perhaps to a lesser extent.

> > Ahem, I never said it wasn't important to the _cultist_.  I'm saying that
> > I think the _truth_ of what a cult claims about the afterlife it offers is
> > a matter beyond discussion of cult structure, GLish "proof", 'n'stuff.
> > Whether it's beyond HQ is a thorny issue.

> It isn't. The Jonstown Compendium in RQC has someone visiting King 
> Heort's halls (within the Halls of Orlanth, I think) and witness this 
> hero's afterlife.

And what does that "prove"?  That all the claims of the Orlanthi afterlife
are true, because you can HQ there and check if your great-uncle made it?
I doubt it, and would find it rather boringly deterministic if you could.
That Heort turns up in heroquests to Heort's Hall isn't a shocker, but
apotheosis, afterlife, the heroplane and the spirit world are distinctions
which could be split all day long.  One might also argue that it's the
act of heroquesting that "puts" Heort in his hall, not that he was "really
there" all along.

> > After all, if it were a matter of GLish cult comparisons, it would be
> > hard to see how you could "get to" the same afterlife by Aeolian and
> > Sartarite Orlanthi worship.

> You go to Solace in Orlanth's Halls. Easy, isn't it?

Facile, even.  If you subscribe to this idea of cultic afterlife
determinism, how does a religious life dominated by wizardry and tacking
on active Orlanth worship as an optional extra "earn" you a place there?
Much as you approve of "true" afterlives, I think this'd work better as
a false one.

> In X-RQ-ID: 4048, Alex actually backs my position of Malkioni Saints 
> (outside of the Aeolian church). What did I do wrong?

Actually, I have very few objections to the Aeolian Church, apart from where
you've put it.  BTW, where does the name come from?

Alex.

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From: 100102.3001@CompuServe.COM (Peter J. Whitelaw)
Subject: Scholars and Gamers
Message-ID: <940521160144_100102.3001_BHJ46-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 21 May 94 16:01:45 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4095

Hello all,

A fair amount of material has been posted following Devin's Gamers/Scholars
posting and, not being a shy sort, I thought I would have my say.

Nick points out:
>Claims of gaming primacy, special pleading and the "historic debt" we all owe
to >RuneQuest fall down on this simple point.

Well yes Nick, they do but I thought that this was the _RQ_Digest. ;-)

Nils says:
>Nothing wrong with that. The problem is when someone wants to
>discuss damage bonuses or some other rules issue and get a number
>of harsh replies branding the stuff as GodLearnerRQ2-ism. My point
>is that both kinds of discussion have an equal value and that we all
>should refrain from treating the stuff we are less interested in
>in a condescending manner. I don't mind a scholarly discussion and
>I won't call names over it, but I will probably not contribute to
>it either.

I concur.  As I did with much of Devin's original posting.  I am personally in
favour of regional variations in cultic practices and priorities.  As Nick says,
to have otherwise might seem a tad boring.

Baring my soul:

I am a relative newcomer to the RQ Digest.  My initial feelings were of
disappointment.  Where were all the cults, encounter groups, cultural notes etc?
I had expected a sort of daily TOTRM/Codex, I guess.  Naive, I know.  I usually
find something worth printing out though.

I am a RuneQuester rather than a Gloranthophile.  Although I am currently
running a campaign there I do accept everything in print as gospel - I use what
most suits our group (as Eric demonstated that he does).  I think that the
'scholars' are simply those who have had the time, at some point, to be able to
become extremely familiar with the available material.  I wish I were one but I
am not.  However, I do not resent the postings of those who are.  I do, however,
reserve the right to scroll very quickly through some postings because it seems
to me that some people do enjoy arguing the toss over some point of 'real-world'
parallelism.  Let's face it,  Glorantha is a world in which there is a bloody
great big lump of fossilized law pinning the devil beneath a desert that _may_
have been named after something read in a Dr. Seuss story.  Earth this ain't.
There are a whole different set of socio-political and religious dynamics at
work here.  I am in favour of Earth being used only as a springboard for the
imagination, not as a justification for what may or may not be so in the
lozenge.

Like I say, I haven't had the time to become an expert.  Much of what I have
read was years ago and has long since been forgotten.  I buy the published
scenarios and packs not because I have a faulty imagination (when I was a
student I ran a very long and successful [non-Gloranthan] campaign) but because
I no longer have the leisure time available to spend writing and researching my
campaign (sob, sob).  To be able to play any more regularly than once a month I
need supplementary material from whatever sources are available to me (except
Eldarad ) and I have been overjoyed by the sheer excellence of much of what
has constituted the RQ Renaissance led by TOTRM and MOB's Sun County.

This is why I am disconcerted by KOS and the line that the creative process
seems to be taking.  This, and GRAY are source material (and very good it is
too) but it is not material which could be used (excepting the Report on the
Orlanthi) without some fair amount of further work.  I rather suspect,
therefore, that they would appeal to a narrower audience.  And if Glorantha is
to be sustained (i.e. writers can expect a resonable return on their creative
efforts) is it not most likely to be through the medium of RQ?

None of the above is intended to cause any offense to posters.  They are simply
my own thoughts on a contentious issue.  After all, whether we like what has
been posted or not at least those that contribute have made the effort.

Now, as I mentioned a week or so ago, a friend of mine has been developing part
of his campaign world and I have most of his notes on disk.  He is happy for
some of these to be posted to the Digest. The author of these notes, Jon Drake,
is keen to receive any feedback on them whilst giving others the chance to use
the material for their own campaigns if they so desire.  Perhaps this may even
start a discussion or exchange of ideas that GM's have had but been unable to
fit into their Gloranthan campaigns and which might be continued, informally, at
Convulsion when we aren't determining just how the west was won.  Thing is, does
anyone want to see non-Gloranthan material posted?  

Let me know.

All the best,

Peter :-%
(found the right smiley at last)




---------------------

From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: howdy y'all
Message-ID: <9405211917.AA13160@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 21 May 94 07:17:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4096

I decree:
> But having hostile locals covering as huge a swath of the world as
> all the West is too much for me.

Nick responds:
>members of monotheist churches are usually far more concerned about  
>heresies (which are often infectious and can spread inside their own 

>church) than about paganism
	I can only point out that in this very Daily that folks have  
claimed that the Malkioni dislike and hate all the theists.  
Regardless of the point, even if the Rokari "only" pillory Hrestoli  
and other non-Rokari Malkioni, this tends to limit the available fun  
area to play in. After all, if your PCs roll up a bunch o' Hrestoli,  
and they decide to travel, one of the likely spots to visit is Ralios  
and Seshnela. 


>I wholly sympathise with the desire for easier long-distance travel;  
>but ... extrapolating from game-convenience conventions to  
>generalise about their societies makes Glorantha less  
>vivid/plausible.
	Without a game structure to enable us to visit Glorantha and  
play there, what's the point? If the only purpose of Glorantha is to  
serve as a common imaginary world-base to conjecture about, I'd much  
rather conjecture about Earth. 


My own interest in Glorantha is two-fold: I _do_ enjoy the  
participation in the group fantasy. But more important is that  
Glorantha makes a realistic and three-dimensional game world to run  
campaigns in. Why not make up my own world? I've been asked this many  
a time. On occasion, the asker has even made it sound as if I was  
somehow morally repugnant for not having the guts to make up my _own_  
gaming world, instead of using someone else's. 

	Now, I've created plenty of my own game worlds. Probably most  
of us have. I use Glorantha for the simple reason that I have a  
finite amount of time to expend on my roleplaying activities. The use  
of Glorantha enables me to spend that finite time on working up  
scenarios and adventures, rather than background. In addition,  
Glorantha at its best stimulates me to think of new and exciting  
adventures in which to place my characters. 

	What kind of campaign are you currently running, Nick? I  
don't mean this as a challenge. I'm curious if you prefer to put the  
players into a small local area (like Pavis or the Grazelands, say)  
and have them caught up in the politics and activities of that tiny  
microcosm. 

	My players are ensconced deeply within Loskalm, Noloswal, and  
Seshnela. They're all tied up with the Ouori, and sooner or later are  
going to get mixed up with the Vadeli, the Arrolian city states, and  
other local weirdos. Naturally my prejudices re: the cultures in this  
area are going to be slanted towards my current needs. Hence, I  
advise anyone who detects the axe I'm grinding on this matter to  
ignore everything I say, just as I happily ignore Greg when his needs  
(for his mytho-fiction) conflict with mine own. 

	Of course, I like to ignore the general rules, too. As a  
current example, one of the characters in my campaign is Valgrim, a  
Storm Bull from Ygg's Isles. (He joined the Bull during a visit to  
Fronela.) So far, he's attempted Divine Intervention twice (no other  
players have tried it, to my memory). Both times he succeeded(!). So  
now he's named Valgrim Bull-Answers-Twice. Suddenly it became clear  
to me that he was Favored of Urox, and that he is _certain_ to always  
succeed whenever he DIs. So I told the player of this. Of course, if  
he asks the Bull for something that I think is inappropriate, I'll go  
back on my word (I'm nothing if not inconsistent). 


MOB mentions:
>I suspect that children's taste buds must be keener than adults.
	They have both more taste buds total, and more per square  
inch (of course). Among cultures that normally eat very spicy food,  
the children react to the hot flavors much as any other outsider.  
It's not until the age of 5 or so that they are able to learn to  
enjoy and appreciate the hot flavorings. 

	I've read that the more keen taste buds available to kids  
also explains their dislike of things like spinach, which is only  
mildly bitter to most adults.