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, 09 Jun 1994, part 3
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk
---------------------
From: henkl@aft-ms (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
Subject: Re: Cat Juggling...er, Breeding
Message-ID: <9406080820.AA19530@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 94 09:20:35 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4436
SYS_RSH%PV0A@hobbes.cca.rockwell.com (Scott Haney, aka The Lotus Jukebox):
>Probably not. It's much more difficult to breed traits into cats
>than it is for dogs. Dog chromosomes are a lot more...hmm, pliable
>than cat (or just about any other animal) chromosomes. Also, dogs
>aren't as far removed from wolves as we like to think (although
>breeding has changed them greatly).
The simplest explanation I've ever heard about the difference
between dogs and wolves is that dogs have been bred 'not to grow
up'. A full-grown dog behaves like a wolf pup throughout all of
its life.
>It *is* possible to train a cat, if you have a lot of patience and an
>agreeable kitty (I've done it), so I wouoldn't rule out all training
>of cats.
I did that, and trained our cat to jump through an embroidery hoop,
amongst other things. This was pure necessity, as he was a single
cat, who needed lots of attention. He was one smart cat.
He wasn't easy, but I miss him. He must have fled from the house on
the night of 1 Sep 1992, as we missed him the next morning. He never
returned, and we later heard a rumor that he was killed by a neighbour's
dogs.
--
Henk | Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun.
oK[] | My first law of computing: "NEVER make assumptions"
---------------------
From: MAB@SAVAX750.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK (Mystic Musk Ox)
Subject: more notes from Paul Honigmann
Message-ID: <9406080941.AA00145@Sun.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 94 09:35:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4437
Hi, Paul Honigmann asked me to upload some more of his stuff.
As usual I will pass on comments etc...
cheers,
Mark Buckley
**********
From: Paul Honigmann, Oxford, UK
Date: 6-6-94
Subjects: Pent, Charg, Vampyres, Demonology, Jakaleel & Madness
THOUGHTS ON THE PENTAN BARBARIANS
I always knew that some barbarians called the Goths had invaded and
overrun the Roman Empire. The other day, reading Gibbon, I found out why. It
seems that another group of barbarians, the Huns, lived near China and
caused the Chinese great woe for many years. Finally, a Chinese Emperor
developed strategies which drove the Huns away. The Huns moved Westwards
across Russia, etc gathering power each generation. When they encountered the
Goths, they displaced them and the Goths fled towards the Empire. The Romans
suffered increasing trouble from the Goths who attacked them simply because
there were too many of them crammed into the area next to the Empire's
border. Finally, the Huns marched on the Goths and the Goths fled en masse
into the Empire. (They only got in because of the local Roman Governer's
incompetence andcorruption, but that's another story.) Once inside they caused
trouble because the Romans treated them like slaves, but I digress.
What struck me was that Roman Empire was affected by the success of the
Chinese, generations before and thousands of miles away. Neither empire knew
where the Huns went / came from. It struck me that if you were running a
Kralorelan, Pentan or Redlands based campaign you could use this as background
politics driving the nomads to invade the Redlands.
(Since writing that I've been told that Gibbon's explanation is now
considered less likely, but it's still a neat idea).
DOCTOR De'ATH
Perhaps vampires masquerading as humans in cities, could pretend to
be doctors. They don't need to worry about disease, after all. It would give
them plenty of opportunities to get bodies for necromancy and zombiefaction.
No-one would think it odd if they had a skeleton in their office. Lots of
helpless victims would pass through their hands; if some die, it's only to be
expected. Others might be comatose and not realise they were being drained of
MP and blood. You can imagine a visit to the doctor:
"A cold? There's only one efficacious remedy - leeches!"
'Fattened' leeches could be a delicacy among vampires. Or favoured pets.
Perhaps they could be used as familiars.
This theme can be developed a long way - the night shift or mortuary
attendants may be in the Vivamort cult; there's something more sinister than
you realise about the bodysnatching for 'medical research'; rather more a
CofC plot perhaps.
CHARG
Ever wondered why Count Kaufan Destrino is building all those castles
along the Charg border? Sure, everyone knows he's paranoid about nasties
behind the Ban. The thing is, he's probably got reason to be. After the Blood
Kings' Wars, the Lunars couldn't have exterminated all the Karmanians (I tend
to spell it Karmania when referring to the pre-Lunar Karmanos worshipping
empire, and Carmania for post-Lunar times). In our campaign, the hard core
Karmanos-worshipping fanatics withdrew to Rathorela and Charg from whence
they waged guerilla war until the Ban cut them off. Recently, the players
came across a Rathorelan tribe called the Blackarm or Black Karma Tribe:
descendents of the 'Black Karmanian' regiment's rebels / loyalists. The
question is, do they still intend liberating Carmania (now solidly pro-Lunar)?
They're certainly doing some intensive spying on it, contacting the remnants
of the now underground Karmanos cult etc. But there's only a few of them and
the Count isn't seriously worried. Now, if the Charg Ban went down and
revealed a land settled and subjugated by the highly civilised Karmanians,
who taught the Lunars all they know about sorcery remember and took a hundred
years to defeat the first time, people might think he had in fact been rather
imprudent to build only a dozen castles.
I'm assuming that the Karmanian remnants would be the nobles, knights
and wizards who had the most reason to fear the Lunars and flee rather than
accept defeat. And having lost most, they'd have the most reason to hate the
Goddess. The Count's military records would show they fled to Charg. And if
Charg turns out to be harmless, well, he's always got a handy army trained to
a higher standard than any other in Carmania to turn against Yolanela, and all
built up with a good excuse.
MADNESS AND THE CULT OF JALAKEEL
We've experimented with Sanity rules in our campaigns (don't bother -
there are too many unsettling things in RQ, PC's end up unplayable in short
order) and the last time one went bonkers again it struck me that madness is
probably valued in the Empire. Kind of an Insane Insight I guess. So NPC's
began referring to the player as Moonstruck, Lunar priests came round to
marvel at this person with a direct line to the goddess, and eventually a
priest of Jakaleel came along and did a ritual, sucking a red glowing mass
out of the PC and crystalling the Lune into a piece of Moonstone which he
saved for the next time he needs to summon one. A side effect: the PC was
cured and regained SAN. A cop out I admit, but I liked the symmetry of it.
Perhaps Jakaleel priests scour the land for lunatics for various Unspeakable
Rituals. And what better use for prisoners of war than to drive several mad
with one Lune, then 'breed' more from the victims?
One side effect of the Red Goddess showing up at the First
Battle of Chaos with the Bat, which drove enemies insane, may have been to
create the first Lunes.
SYSTEMATIC DEMONISM (SAN loss from reading this section: d100)
A monograph on the motives of Demonists and Demons.
You may have come across the concept of the world around us being a
thin layer of reality floating on the surface of a sea of probabilities. I
first came acrosss this in a book called The Fall of Chronopolis by Barrington
Bayley: a pulp writer, but brimming with ideas. What we perceive around us,
goes the argument, are things which can exist in the framework of 'rules'
around us. Sometimes things are created - spell effects,
exotic subatomic particles, the curry I had last night - which whilst
slightly improbable, are not ruled out by the laws of nature of our universe.
These were always potential event / objects, and just needed a little help to
appear. Some might even appear spontaneously sometimes: a breeze, quantum
fluctuations in a vacuum, mice from sacks of grain. Some folk actually believe
that the *real* world is a 'sum of probabilities', a concept invented by a
physicist called Feynman to explain quantum behaviour. (He never suggested it
was really what happened, merely that it was a neat way to predict particles'
paths which actually worked, whereas common-sense maths didn't; but lots of
people think he 'proved' the existence of multiple universes.)
Returning to fantasy, then: but deep, deep down in the ocean of
possibilities, or Void in RQ terms, there are Things which lurk and wish to
Exist, to climb to the surface and remake the world in their chosen framework.
Given the opportunity they will force their way to the surface and wreak havoc
in order to establish themselves. Some fools are only too willing to create
the right conditions to summon these Things in the real world: rituals echoing
the 'ecological niche' of many unwholesome Things can be created. The basic
ritual Summoning is tailored by skilful users, for example: a Lamia could be
created by a pseudo-tantric orgy / cannibilism rite in a summoning pentacle,
resulting in the transmogrification of the focal female. The other
participants may not even realise they are in a ritual if it's organised right
. But this could be done to summon (create) an angel, too.
Don't let your players have access to these reality-altering rituals, they're
a tad powerful: remember the archetype of them all, when the Unholy Trio had a
bit of a party.
A Primal Chaos priest might describe this doctrine using a tenet
similar to the Buddhist 'Emptiness'. "All possible demons / events exist, but
only in Emptiness, without form or reality until they are connected to other
things, *observed*, part of a collective matrix of events perceived as a self-
sustaining reality created through feedback. We are all Nothing on our own. It
is only by accepting Emptiness that we can understand the world and our place
in and part of it."
Another way of looking at the Ocean is not as the Void, but the Godtime:
where all things are possible. This dualist concept of the Lawful gods' realm
being the same as the chaotic realm of unreason at heart strikes me as a
wonderfully blasphemous Kralorelan-illuminant-mystic kind of insight to shock
devout Lawful PC's with.
It has long been accepted in RQ that gods, or spirits summoned and
worshipped by shamen are hungry for worship. It increases their Power, their
foothold in the world, their Existence. You can see too that the Designer
Demons will be anxious to protect and expand their worshipper base, or even
just their Believer base. But the trouble with being a minor demideity is,
the real Powers that Be don't want their reality being upset by some upstart
from outside the Compromise - fair game for stomping! So most minor chaos
demons keep their heads down and try to accumulate as many links to the real
world as possible, until they can force their way into the Compromise.
(This may be the reason so many people are being kidnapped & raped by aliens
these days: once enough alien babies have been generated they will
collectively Believe in a flat earth and their parents will land and take over
the far side, then drill through to invade our side.)
Even the standard chaos cults don't want really exotic critters showing up.
Vivamort cultists might summon an avatar of Himself, but not a fire demon...
Well, that's enough ideas to kick about. I'll sit back and wait
for the abuse now. I'll leave you with a couple of Aldryami phrases to throw
at elf PC's: "Mulch you!" or "Sawdust brain!", insults; and "You're thick as
two short planks", a compliment, meaning a healthy, solid fellow and an All
Right Bloke. See you at Convulsion.
Next missive: Do Dwarves get turned on by a complexion like pebbledash?
Is it true that the touch of FGS can cure scurvy?
- Paul Honigmann
Replies care of Mark Buckley (thanks Mark).
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Riverjoin
Message-ID: <9406081015.AA09578@carcass.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 8 Jun 94 10:15:16 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4438
I was strolling through the Wilmskirk market the other day, and it being
an Elmlsdag, Handreocus the Huckster was there. We exchanged gossip,
insults, and the latest casualty figures from Boleholm for a while, then
he pressed the following slender pamphlet into my hands, and bargained
me up to 20 Lunars for it. I must have been still half-asleep, I suppose.
However, I remembered your curiosity about these Lunar accounts of places
far-away (or as in this case, probably pipe-induced), so I've translated
the more entertainingly inventive sections for you.
May your follicles never wither,
Trickster Sage.
-----
Rough Guide to the West: Volume III, part 1: Riverjoin.
Getting there.
==============
Travel to Riverjoin and the intervening cities of the New West is by boat
across the Sweet Sea, increasingly many of the reputable freight companies
of the Western Reaches now being prepared to offer passage across this
substantial body, and if compensated commensurately for the added adventure
of landfall on the western shores by adequate pecuniary provision.
Extreme care must be taken to make landfall at only the designated site,
as the northern woods are much too dense for travel by a civilised party,
and there is great risk of accostation of the discommodious kind by any
number of large bears, many of whom are found abroad at all weeks of
the winter, savage primitives who know no speech, weapons beyond flint
axes, nor mercy towards innocent travels. As in all untamed woodlands,
the danger of treacherous attack by aldryami is not to be discounted.
Since the time of your humble scribe's journey, the lands north of this
section of the river have become susceptible to ingress, and it is also
unnecessary to employ the magics to gain passage of the river itself our
expedition found to be required. Nevertheless, at least until such time
as reports are received on this area (Volume V is expected in x/xx), the
prudent traveller will avoid unwarranted landfall until the civilised
section of the north bank is sighted.
At Galastar, passage for the rest of the river may easily be obtained.
Travellers are cautioned against the age-old river boatsman's ruse of
asking for similar coin for the downstream journey as would be payable
for that against the current.
At Southbank, many of the amenities of home are available, nor is the
region as debased as many in its religion. Inductees of many of the
cults of Heaven may find some religious fellowship here.
The local temple of Yelm is evidently of recent construction, though natives
are sensitive if too great stress is laid upon this fact. However, it is
at least not of that offensively barbarous construction employed by the
benighted Southerners, in their blasphemous reverence for the so-called
"Yelmalio", but instead show a clearer early Dara Happan influence. The
basic form of their temple resembles that of the Altar of the Planets in
Yuthuppa, much more than the so-called "Sun Domes" found in the lands of
the hill barbarians.
Of great concern, however, is the proximity of the Kingdom of the savage
Jonatings. Only the mitigating influence of their overlords, who have
some measure of Western schooling, is said to prevent the willful excesses
of the degenerate storm-worshipping primitives of this land, lying within
two days river travel. The publishers rejoice to be able to report,
however, that Lunar Missionaries are being dispatched at once to Southbank,
where will be formed a Pastoral Temple to the civilising ways of Our
Beneficent Goddess, which in conjunction with the natives will bring the
soft crimson light to these troubled spirits. Great Praise Be to Her!
City attractions.
=================
The so-called New Town is in fact the oldest part of the city, lying
entirely within the remnants of the first fortified area to be constructed
here. Mainly now a residence to the mercantile and artisan classes, and
containing some of their places of industry, this area formerly contained the
keep of the old town fortifications, some of which can still be entered
from tunnels into the face of the small crag which had borne them. Now
that some commerce occurs along the river, enterprising locals have begun
to offer guided tours of some of the more accessible and colourful parts
of these works.
A large artificial hillock sits just outside the original city walls, upon
which is constructed a considerable strongpoint, including the residence
of the Lord Mayor, the official who heads the ruling city council. This
dignitary is drawn from one of a number of local noble families, but his
office is not a hereditary one, but rather he is held to Emerge as the
city's leader, an evidently convoluted process involving behind-the-scene
negotiations with politically powerful local factions, secret balloting of
the heads of the city guilds, and subtle canvassing of those commanding
the loyalties of the martial groupings of the region.
As local wags explain, "We built the new town on the Old Castle, and the
new castle on the Old Town. Goddit?"
Local trade.
============
In 1479, Riverjoin entered a period of disastrous economic ruin, which was
later blamed on a cult of Tricksters infiltrating the City Treasury and
Tax Office. History of the events are scanty, but hint at rife property
scams, bizarre and meaningless fiscal edicts issuing forth from city hall,
an explosion in unsound money-lending, and the introduction of "credit
letters", also known as "notes d'banque", which seem to have been some
form of coin-substitute.
None of the chaos and hardship of this time are evident in the modern
city, except that their lowest denomination coin is a small copper called
a "Half Wheel" by locals. (Its official value is 100 schillings.)
Newcomers to the city are commonly alarmed at seeing prices for a good
sword quoted as a quarter of a million schillings, but exchange rates
to the outside world are actually at an appropriate rate. (The Riverjoin
treasury did, at the height of the economic crisis, issue coins of an usual
copper/aluminium alloy of purely token, rather than metallurgical, value,
which are now very rare, and highly prized by numismatists.)
Religion.
=========
Acceptance of the Lunar pantheon is surprisingly thoroughgoing here. May
Her Light be so readily Reflected elsewhere! A substantial temple, called
a "church" by the locals, contains shrines to the Sacred Seven, the beatific
countenance of Her Holiness Hwarin Dalthippa, the Creator, known to both
we and the Westerners, and to several Saints, some of whom would be familiar
to scholars of the Old West, and to the local St. Janus, who is honoured as
founder and father of the city. This last worthy is depicted as a strong-
thewed man of middle years, who stands amid a double-prowed form of a local
river boat, bearing a stout oar with two blades. Naturally, the centre of
worship is the Glorious Manifest Oneness of Our Heavenly Empress. A wonderful
uplifting sight after travelling so long through less happy lands. Praise
Truly Be to the Reaching Moon!
Other sites of worship of the true religion are found elsewhere in Riverjoin
and province, most conspicuously the opulent Temple of Etyries in the City
Guild and Chamber of Commerce building. The design of both building and
altar are quite unlike that familiar from our own, but the liturgy and ritual
are familiar enough, although adapted to Western custom and language, and
perhaps a little quaint in form. Almost all mercantile activity in the
city is overseen by the cult, either here or in adjoining facilities such as
the Wheat Exchange, or the nearby City Market.
At least one noble house maintains a Chapel of Duke Yanafal, though
regretably this is a private establishment, and we were denied access,
despite our assurances that our group were laity in impeccable standing in
the home cult.
A number of more traditionalist churches pay variousless less reverence to
the mysteries of the Goddess, but none forthrightly challenge the Truth
of the Lunar Way, and religious goodwill and harmony prevail.
Surrounding Area.
=================
Progress further downstream is rapidly curtailed by the magics which have
plagued all this land until so recently. The locals have been unable to
contact those regions for several generations, but could inform me that
one hundred leagues of river lay beyond, upon which lie the pastoral county
of Perfe, and at the mighty river's mouth, the ancient city of Sogoloth. A
great kingdom was said to have existed on the coastal lands, but to have
been destroyed by the catastrophe they themselves instigated in their haste
and folly to thwart an unknown invasion.