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, 30 Jun 1994, part 3
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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Dead, but not forgotten.
Message-ID: <9406291937.AA29515@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Jun 94 19:37:17 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4919
Devin Cutler quibbles with my maintenance of the "Past seven days, no
ressurrection rule (of thumb):
> "But not from Glorantha. In any case, RQ3 uses a different mechanism with
> much the same upshot. 7D3 loss to each of four characteristics will
> generally ruin your whole week, really."
> Hmmm, how do you determine this...that is, what was dropped in RQ3 but not
> from Glorantha?
For example, Greg's continuing espousal of the Theyalan belief that the path
to the Courts of Silence (in Hell) takes seven days to walk. I can't give
you a general solution to the problem, but can only caution not to take
things with "Alternate Earth" stamped all over them as definitive references
for the One True Glorantha.
> In any case, in RQ3, one usually cannot survive even 5 days dead.
Close enough. The exact figure was irrelevant to what we were discussing.
(Or if anything, "shorter" is "better" for what I was arguing.)
> "Probably partially true, but in many cases the Spirit of Reprisal will be
> summonned/invoked by a high priest, rather than dreaming it up all by itself,
> or doing so under direct orders from God HQ."
> I could actually see it happening both ways.
I could have sworn I just said that.
> "So if I perform the rituals correctly, I am, by definition, devout? This
> merely leaves the question of how hard it is in practice to be Cynically
> Devout."
> Maybe a better way to phrase this (so as to reflect what I am saying) is that
> if I am devout, I will perform the rituals correctly, not vice versa.
This doesn't preclude _not_ being devout, then, and still performing them
correctly. Please check the direction of that implication arrow carefully.
> Scott writes about the availability of Resurrection.
> [...] Add a Teelo Norri Priestess in Pavis
> to take care of Lunars and you're up to 8-9.
Deezola is the source of the Lunars' healing, not Teelo Norri. CA is still
their only source of reusable resurrection, though.
> Regarding how many Resurrections that Priestess would have, if a Chalanna
> Arroy Priestess is ordained at age 30, then she will get to make 6 POW gain
> rolls (5 seasonal and 1 Sacred Time) per year. Assume she makes 2 of them.
Why would we assume this, if one follows the RQ2 pattern of priests having
~18m POW? This would mean less than one POW per year. At this rate of
sacrifice, you'll be lucky to _be_ a High Healer at 30.
> This means that if she expends only half of her POW on Resurrections
"Only" half of her POW? What about all the other "easy magical healing"
she's supposed to be doing?
> I would hate to think of how
> many such spells an old 60-70 year old Priestess would have, but it would
> probably number around 20!!!!
At 1/2 of her spells, and 1 POW per year, 5 uses at age 60.
> Is this right? NO!!!!
You said it.
> I would love to see this reduced, so that death doesn't become a joke.
Even though it was all caused by Eurmal?
> In any case, I wonder if your analysis of 1% of the population being Healers
> and only 3% of those Healers being Priestesses stacks up with what has been
> presented.
I agree. The 3% is conspicuously high.
> However, I note that it may be that your death rate for Gloranthans is a bit
> low...what with the current state of instant Spirit Magic healing and easily
> curable diseases.
And chaos, spirits of disease, and everyone chibbing everyone else up to
limber up for the Hero Wars? I don't think Gloranthan disease is exactly
"easily" healable: note that characteristic loss to disease (or otherwise)
can obly be healed with one-use rune magic. And death by characteristic
loss is not reversable.
Colin Watson:
> >> Even in the event of success; if *any* other Humakti priests found out about
> >> it, these "new worshippers" would be excommunicated so fast it would make
> >> their heads spin clean orf. And they would be right back at square one.
> >I disagree with this particular bit: one should only be able to excomm.,
> >or sic spirits of reprisal on, cultists from the same "hierarchy".
> Indeed, but the way I see it, these chaps *are* effectively in the same
> hierarchy.
As the people who initiated them, perhaps, depending on how variant a route
they ended up following on their initiation path. But not of other temples,
as you originally suggested, I don't believe, since each temple has it's
own High Priest, and no real overlying power structures.
> My view is: because the Cacodaemonists learned the rituals by rote from
> the priest it is effectively as if he had initiated them himself and therefore
> he knows full-well how to excommunicate them.
Agree. But they just killed him, no? (And ate him in secret, I shouldn't
wonder.)
> And so would any other priest who worships Humakt in the same way.
Disagree. What's "the same way", in any case?
> Hence a priest from one area may be incapable of Excommunicating
> an initiate from another area.
To say the least. In my view, it should only be possible on a per-temple
basis, or at the most, by those who form part of a cultic super-structure,
should one exist.
Alex.
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Time n'the sun.
Message-ID: <9406291943.AA29903@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Jun 94 19:43:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4920
Graeme Lindsell:
> Alex Ferguson answering Martin Crim
> >I'm agnostic on this point. I suspect that much (and maybe all) elf
> >Elmal/Yelmalio/whoever worship is picked up on from friendly humans, and
> >from there spreads to mildly malcontent elves. If there is a "native"
> >elven winter sun cult, it may not be much like Yelmalio at all.
> I tend to put the matter the other way round, and say that the human
> religion is an adaption of an elvish one.
A familiar theory, but if true, why did anyone ever need to bother with all
this Monrogh HeroQuest business? One could argue this HQ merely rediscovered
the Elven god, but this is not the same as it being a social adoption from
one to the other.
> Alex Ferguson replies
> >To wit, the Compromise. But why is Time, Time, if there's no difference
> >in the causality "before" and "after"?
> There is the general theme of cyclic time in Glorantha. It's possible
> that each cycle sees itself as essentially the same, with the gods being
> the inhabitants of the previous cycle (or even earlier).
But why Time? The Orlanthi believe that their clans are tribes date back
to before the Dawn, for example, so it's not simply that this period is
entirely beyond their understanding as "history".
> KoS even shows us the next cycle, where Argrath has replaced Orlanth.
And this certainly seems to correspond to a major change in the (perceived)
nature of Glorantha (though not time, as such). I don't disagree that
the Dawn/Compromise is some semi-fuzzy "When Gods walked the earth" pseudo-
rationale, but I don't see why people would believe it to be "not time",
unless they have some reason to. For example, knowing that myths are often
contradictory, and seemingly "acausal", or from the nature of the Godplane
as it exists (?) currently, or from a myth _about_ the beginning of Time
(begging the question), or whatever.
> >These chaps (the various Arkati factions) don't have (notably) different
> >views on what the "historical" Arkat did, or was.
> I wouldn't be entirely sure of that...
I'm not entirely sure of it, but it doesn't mean they'd all be right.
> Personally, my opinion is that if you want to resurrect someone, go
> and reenact the Lightbringers Quest. Should work.
Except that it would limit resurrectees to those linked to the Fire rune,
and extend to (possibly only) those who'd been dead for more than seven
days.
Alex
---------------------
From: elias_kadri1@cl_63smtp_gw.chinalake.navy.mil (Elias Kadri)
Subject: Gods as paths, & Scamming B
Message-ID: <9406292001.AA04967@Sun.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 94 04:57:29 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4921
Subject:Gods as paths, & Scamming Babeester Gor
Greetings, all.
Colin Watson, commenting on Barron Chugg's Runepaths:
> There was a time when the gods walked their paths for the
> First Time. At that time the gods could be thought of as
>"independant" of their paths. But today the gods *are* the paths.
I think this is too exclusive. I think that, as Barron suggests,
beliefs _do_ have power in Glorantha. The fact that the
worshipers of a god believe that their deity is a person makes it
so, even though the god may be in essence a natural force, or
whatever. I find it especially hard to believe that a living hero
is going to meekly turn into an abstract construct of rituals as
the price of apotheosis.
> God, Cult and Path are somewhat unified.
I agree with this, but I would place considerably more emphasis
on the "God" portion than you seem to.
> A certain amount of mental discipline may be required, but I
> don't think that the participants have to hold any particular
> beliefs (other than, perhaps, the belief that the magic
> will work).
Perhaps this goes along with the above. If we say that a god is a
collection of rituals, then performing those rituals is sufficient
to attain his power. However, if we say that a god is in some
sense a "person", then I would say that someone who wishes to
be at one with the god enough to wield his powers, must share
the god's "state of mind" to some degree, including believing
what the god believes.
____________
Barron Chugg:
Well Said! I agree with almost everything you have been saying,
except spelling "path" with an "e" ;-)
____________
David Cake, on the non-devout learning rune magic:
I think my comments to Colin also apply here. IMO, you can't
learn Axe Trance, without intending to use it in defense of the
Earth. It doesn't matter whether the cult members know who
you are or not (except that of course the cult is not going to
let someone who is known to be an enemy of their beliefs
participate in their ceremony).
I haven't thought too much about Illuminates, but I would
suspect that they have the inner balance to understand and to
truly "believe" in the manner required by the spell they wish
to learn.
Elias
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Glorantha vs. Keynesian deities.
Message-ID: <9406292025.AA02703@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Jun 94 20:25:55 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4922
Devin Cutler comes to praise Glorantha, not to bury it:
> To my mind, the devotion of Gloranthans to their gods and the tensions that
> follow make for a great gaming world.
Except that when we get a nice, _juicy_ source of tension like the Elmal/
Yelmalio schism, certain parties Whine Incessantly about it. (No names,
no pack drill. (What does that _mean_, anyway?))
> If a god is merely a distanced, impassive, knee-jerk entity, then DI becomes
> much harder to explain.
Other than as a POW-fuelled knee-jerk, to use your own (faulty) model?
> Never said pre-Renaissance Terrans were not devoted or whatever. Merely
> postulating that Gloranthans are even MORE devoted because of certain factors
> like life after death, magic, manifesting deities, etc.
To the point where we should have One True Cults (or at any rate, only
Devin-Approved Variations, a distinction I'm somewhat hazy on), robotically
devoted worshippers, and Thought Police deities, seemingly.
> I still find it hard to believe that in a world so different from ours (and
> c'mon, admit it, the presence of actual gods and actual magic is a pretty
> basic difference) that you guys seem to be arguing that there is NO effect on
> the philosophies and beliefs of the inhabitants, but rather it will come out
> exactly as on earth.
I'm arguing that since most historic earth cultures _believed_ they had
"actual gods and actual magic", your differences seem to be predicated on
your conviction that ancient earth was remarkably like the present day, only
with less well developed NNTP facilities. Not the kind of place where
hardened pragmatist nations of warriors would wait a couple of weeks for the
correct phase of the moon before marching to the aid of their allies at
a crucial moment of a war, or spend thousands of man-years of effort on
raising mausolea to the dead, or conducting human sacrifice, or going to
war about which holy book to use, or anything so senselessly devout as
that. How the hell much more devoted do you _want_?
I wonder why about half of Gloranthan history doesn't give Devin hives:
fancy all those Devout worshippers wanting to do such Naughty Things, and
fancy their gods _letting_ them.
> Alex writes:
> "I'm saying that _if_ Orlanthi magic didn't work, or if it did, we'd not
> know the difference from KoS. Think of the RQ rules as a crutch in playing
> their characters accurately, to aid modern, cynical players, who couldn't
> "correctly" interpret "mere chance events" and "unsubstantiated, unrepeatable
> occurrences" as the Miracles and Efficacious Magic that a devout Orlanthi
> certainly would."
> I refuse to believe that any Sartarite Orlanthi considers
> Divine Magic to be a sham, coincidence, or miracle.
Are you listening, at all? Didn't I just say "in playing their characters
_accurately_"? _Obviously_ the Orlanthi believe in their magic; this isn't
contingent on it being any "truer" than any historical earthly belief.
> KoS however, is more concerned with meta events (i.e. heroic actions and
> large scale things. Thus, personal magics like spirit magic are unlikely to
> come into mention.
We're talking about the reality of magic in general, aren't we? Does the
description seem much different from the description of magic in "historical"
myths?
> It happens too regularly and with too much precision to be anything other
> than magic.
I was trying to wean you away from the attitude of "Magic Works, Look, the
Rules Say So. Let's Reverse Engineer A Suitable Culture." Hopeless task,
evidently. Does the culture described in KoS sound like one which is only
consistent with mechanistic magic, and divine edict at every turn?
> 2) Proveable elements in Glorantha which tend to deal with death and what
> lies beyond still make for a greater certainty:
> a) Eternal Battle
What about the Eternal Battle?
> d) Trolls having come from Hell
To wit, a big hole in the ground which had, to that point, had two dead
people in it. This, according your previous reasoning, is not a Hard Fact,
but an Easily Discountable Myth, in any case. Your point?
> b) Ghosts and undead
> c) Ancestors
> e) Spirits (at least proving that living beings have a spirit/soul which is
> capable of independent existence from the body
To wit, spirit-plane manifestations of dead folks. From the point of view
of _theists_, this is somewhere between cold comfort, and a Dire Warning.
> And I cannot see anyone being accepted as a priest without a Divination being
> performed first to determine if the god is pleased.
Guess someone was Slacking when Faltikus was appointed, non?
Alex.
---------------------
From: cookec@max.mml.mmc.com (Chris Cooke)
Subject: source material
Message-ID: <9406292107.AA21545@Sun.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 94 21:10:04 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4923
I'm looking for Solo Quest modules 2 & 3. Can anyone suggest where I might
find them for either _Review&Return_ or purchase? Has anyone tried their hand
at writing similar adventures?
Also, is it just me or did my posting on the resolution of the Urox/CA
confilct not make it to the digest? They chopped my UUCP connection in favor
of "full" internet services and the transition to DNS has not been as smooth
as it might have been.
If there is any interest, I can post the background and history of the 7 core
PC's along with a campaign update.
--
/> Chris Cooke
//
(//////[O]>====================================-
\\
\> cookec@mml.mmc.com
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Mr. pro-Hrestoli, I presume?
Message-ID: <9406292113.AA03777@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 29 Jun 94 21:13:15 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4924
Sandy, Mr. pro-Hrestoli, opines again:
> There have been a number of arguments in favor of the Rokari being
> highly sexist. If this is agreed upon, I suggest that the Hrestoli
> NOT be so sexist.
Why? Rokarism isn't all that long-ago an "offshoot" of Hrestolism. Now,
I don't say there couldn't be some variation, and on top of this, there
could simply be regional, as opposed to theological, variation between
Loskalm and Seshnela.
> Second, the
> Rokari, with their stay-in-yer-caste attitude, sound more like sexist
> stay-in-yer-kitchen chauvinists, while the Hrestoli be-all-you-can-be
> can clearly be applied to women, letting them also rise within the
> ranks, whatever those ranks might be.
If the Rokari caste system applies to women (I think it does), then presumably
they get at least a slice of the corresponding status, n'stuff, even if
they don't act as "proper" members of said caste. Women getting Uppity
isn't much of a threat with no social mobility.
Women rising in the Hrestoli class structure, independantly of their men,
certainly is threatening to a patriarchal society, and positively messy
when the details start of ooze out.
> >I liked it better when this [Hunger] was the Undeath rune.
> It IS still the Undeath Rune.
Sadly not: are Krarsh[thingies] Undead?
> May this is why so few Gloranthan cultures bother to be
> effective vs. horses -- comparatively simple magic does the trick.
That "artillery-like" magics are effective against very-close-order
formations like infantry squares makes sense. (It was, after all, an
anti-cavalry technique.) However, it's going to be less effective against
lines of heavy infantry, even less against open formations, and rather
useless aginst cavalry. (To generalise woefully.)
> No offense Dave, but I
> suspect you are broad-minded and experimental compared to most
> gamers.
Is this considered a dire insult in Texas/Utah/SCal? ;-)
> >> I don't mind having a separate classification for women (if, in
> >> the end, they can do everything a man can do)
> >Even in, say, Arolanit?
> Sure. Why not?
Check the boxed section on the Brithini in G:G, about the "so evident"
iniquities.
> Now looky here, Alex: having men and women have different
> society roles does Not Necessarily deprive the women of all cultural
> import.
Hence if you think the above is a role of "great import", it disposes
neatly of the argumentum ad Greg you present that we should have female
knights, wizards, and rulers, Left, Right, and Loskalm.
Alex.
---------------------
From: Akira19893@aol.com
Subject: Mr. Man & Scimitars
Message-ID: <9406291749.tn177333@aol.com>
Date: 29 Jun 94 21:49:50 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 4925
Greetings!
Re: Sandy Petersen's Mr. Man
I loved the write-up, fantastic stuff! Cosmopolitan party indeed, I'd like
to know what the rest of the party was like if it included a troll _and_ a
duck. Also, could you expound a little bit on the Meeting Contest? Sounds
interesting.
Re: Scimitars and their Gloranthan Origins
I was going through one of my Osprey Military History Series books (Romes
Enemies; Gallic and British Celts - great illustrations IMHO) the other day
and noticed that in one of the color plates (G) there is a depiction of two
Roman Gallic cavalrymen and one of them is holding what appears to be a
scimitar. The text doesn't say where this originated from but perhaps it is
celtic in origin which in turn could mean that it is an old Orlanthi type
weapon perhaps, no longer used?
TTFN
Jim Catel