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, Sat, 20 Aug 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: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake)
Subject: The Great David Switch
Message-ID: <199408190757.PAA26077@cs.uwa.oz.au>
Date: 20 Aug 94 00:09:26 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5771
> I think we should move on to the next step, since our
>experiment has been so successful. It's time to bring about the
>interchange of David Cake with David Hall. This way, we'll get to
>have TotRM published in AMERICA! Unless. er, Mr. Cake lives in
>England (or somewhere worse). I guess I'll have to check up on that
>before we get too carried away.
Sadly, I am antipodean, a native of the absurdly remote Perth,
Western Australia. I sigh with relief, as I am unsure what being switched
would do (perhaps it is my worshippers who should be worried - I'll have to
ask them ...).
But fear not, the Great David Switch can still go ahead - I believe
the appropriate Davids are Hall and Gadbois, both distribute TOTRM, and Mr
Gadbois is the American resident, so the Great David Switch should have no
problem in making him the editor as well.
Of course, the possibility remains that one is just a debased
variant form of the other - the similar names, the similar abilities, its
just Yelmalio/ELmal all over again.
Cheers
DAVID CAKE (an obscure Pamaltelan subcult, I presume. I am
sure my magazine abilities will manifest eventually) (I think one of my
Runes is Disorder :-))
---------------------
From: shillada@gatwick.Geco-Prakla.slb.com
Subject: Beam me up Scotty......
Message-ID: <9408190849.AA07597@icarus.gatwick.Geco-Prakla.slb.com>
Date: 19 Aug 94 08:49:32 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5772
Aye up all.
In X-RQ-ID: 5749, Klaus writes about the limitations of the sorcery spell teleport. The way we got round this was to cast diminsh SIZ on yourself first, then teleport. A siz 1 wizard goes a loooonnng way :-). This could also be used in conjunction with Fly, with the advantage (?) of being able to break the sound barrier.
Cheers,
Neil.
---------------------
From: klaus@diku.dk
Subject: stuff
Message-ID: <199408190913.AA25221@rimfaxe.diku.dk>
Date: 19 Aug 94 13:13:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5773
Elks
""""
Elks are not considered funny here. We don't have elks in
Denmark, but occasionally one will swim to Zealand from
Sweden. This happens once or twice per decade.
BTW why do Americans call the elk "moose"?
ns10005@hermes.cam.ac.uk (N. Smith) writes:
>klaus, X-RQ-ID: 5722
>'But my point was that this is the only way to do it. Due to the
>death of Genert, Bless Crops spells are (is?) a must for farming in
>Genertela. You need an unrealistic number of acolytes to get the fields
>blessed by personal spells."
>Let's quantify this. Quoting in full from RuneQuest Cities (and who am I
>to doubt their facts):-
> 'Based on medieval and Renaissance yields, it takes 12,000-20,000
>square maters of farmed land to feed one person. Usually one-third of the
>farming land was left fallow each season, so five square kilometers of
>farm land supported 80-130 people.'
>Since 5 sq. km. = 1.93 sq. miles = 1235 acres you need between 9.5 and
>15.4 acres of cultivated and fallow land to feed one person!
>With an area of effect of one acre for each spell (see previous posting),
I must have missed that one
>Bless Crops will have little impact on society as a whole and certainly
>should not be seen as a must.
Interesting how you can get two very different conclusions from the
same data. You couldn't possibly get enough Bless Crops as personal
spells. So I say you get them some other way, you say you make do
without.
Are you saying that the spell should work on one acre, rather than
the land a man can plow in a day, or that a man can plow an acre
in a day? In the latter case I find your calculations difficult to
believe. If each person needs 15 acres, 10 of which must be plowed
each year, each person needs 10 days of plowing. Only the large
farms had their own plows, often a whole village would share
one. Their would not be enough days in a year to plow 10 days per
inhabitant.
>Also, from the spell description, Bless Crops will only '...guarantee a
>minimum return of an average year's harvest the following fall.'
>Since Genert is dead, the average year's harvest is low and you are thus
>only guaranteed a minimum of a low yield.
This is a bit strange. I suppose that the spell actually does more than
that, at least in Genertela. The RQ3 spell writeups are very generic.
alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) writes:
>Last I heard, this idea, that Bless Crops is De Rigeur was being touted
>by Joerg, as a Forcing Argument for _his_ pet theories, about how everyone
>in sight should be a pantheon initiate and get a reusable Bless Crops.
In Sun County farmers are not tempted to move the stones marking the
borders of their fields (to steal a bit of land from their neighbours),
since that would dispell their Bless Crops spells. This must mean that
a very large number of fields, probably all, are blessed. It also means
that Yelmalion society is not very trusting of the honesty of farmers.
>Wanna fight to the death for it? ;-)
no.
Klaus O K
---------------------
From: Bob.Luckin@tiuk.ti.com
Subject: Memory like a seive
Message-ID: <9408191112.AA27895@ibrox.tiuk.ti.com>
Date: 19 Aug 94 11:12:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5774
Hi from Bob Luckin !
Issaries rebuilding Genert, hyenas etc. :-
=======================================
Yesterday (X-RQ-ID: 5756) I asked why Issaries was so keen to rebuild Genert
if the the danger that caused him to create Hyena to eat him still exists;
or was it in CoP and I had forgotten it.
I checked when I got home, and of course the myth which purports to explain
this IS in both the CoP and the RoC cult writeups. Garzeen (Issaries'
middlman son) fancied Fenela, daughter of King Froalar, but she didn't fancy
marrying a god, so she set him an impossible task to achieve, namely
rebuilding Genert.
Such is the power of luurve that this master trader and (I therefore presume)
expert at dealing with people apparently was unable to distinguish the real
message in Fenela's request. Instead of giving up on a bad job and looking
elsewhere to plight his troth, he undertook the quest...
And so all Garzeen merchants who come across a piece of Genert's body are
obliged to depart for Genert's Desert within one week to fullfil the ancient
vow. The only way out of this is to die, or to sell the fragment to a
Desert Tracker of the Trader Princes (Goldentongue was the original
Trader Prince).
I still suspect that this myth was constructed by the God Learners when they
meddled with the cult. Someone came up with the bright idea "OK, we can
switch Goddesses, now let's try and rebuild one." And someone else said
"Nah, that'd be too much effort - I don't fancy that." And a third GL said
"Wait, I've got an idea ! Here's how we could do it on the back burner..."
And so they built the myth into the Issaries legends. :-)
Incidentally, if you take the cult writeups at face value, it is only
followers of Garzeen who have to undertake this quest - not Harst or
Goldentoungue merchants. And they only have to do this if they come
across a live hyena, not a dead one. For this reason the other brothers
of Garzeen will try to kill a hyena on sight, hence the cult's dislike of
these creatures.
Also, I suspect not all parts of Genert are in hyenas; this is hinted at,
but not explicit, in the text. So even if your PC Garzeen merchant manages
to avoid hyenas, you might still find another way to dupe them into the
quest.
Dave Cake (X-RQ-ID: 5770) asks Sandy for more gen on hyenas, and especially
on the Desert Tracker Quest. I second this ! He also says :
> I am particularly pleased to here that not every Hyena means a
> potential trip into the Wastes! It must be very difficult for a travelling
> merchant to avoid seeing them!
According to a Sage's note in Johnstown, there is only about a 3% chance of
any merchant finding a piece of Genert each year, so it may not be quite as
difficult as you imagine...
I couldn't find hyenas in the Gloranthan bestiary. In Nomad Gods, the
counter appears to have a man's body and a hyena's head. The description
says that probably as a result of having eaten Genert, the hyena tends to
spend most of its time sitting around telling lewd jokes, which hypnotises
his audience (units in the same stack are disrupted until hyena moves away).
So are Gloranthan hyenas really man-beasts that tell lewd jokes (somehow
this strikes me as more Trickster than Genert), or are they more like the
Earth-bound variety ? How does everyone else see them ?
Wild Healer
===========
Tim asked :-
> On Communal Rune magic and temple spirits etc: OK, so what happens to the
>famous Broo Healer of the Rockwoods? I'm sure he knows Resurrection. I'm also
>sure he doesn't have a real big temple etc! So, how would he go about getting
>the spell cast if it requires a temple spirit?
Hmm. Well, how about using that immortal line : "My body is a Temple" ?
(Sounds very appropriate a healer might be a fitness fanatic.) Then perhaps
he has (or even is) his own wyter, which could be big enough on its own to
allow him to regain the spell. :-)
Sandy suggests various switches
===============================
Nice idea ! But wait until next April before you try the David Hall/Cake
switch (that's when I'm due to transfer to Dallas). You'd also have to
be careful an opposing group didn't try to meddle and substitute another
David, or you could end up, say, switching Cheng with Gadbois instead...
As for switching Scotland and Sartar, I say go for it. I'd love to see
how the Lunars treat the SNP !
Cheers, Bob
--
Bob Luckin voly@tiuk.ti.com "Able was I ere I saw Corflu"
---------------------
From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
Subject: Divine Magic
Message-ID: <9408191129.AA06697@Sun.COM>
Date: 19 Aug 94 11:31:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5775
Hi All
WRT my divine magic idea:
1) (Sandy) It has not been playtested (the original message implied
this) and YOU (ALL) are going to do the play testing!!! (or flaming)
2) (Someone else) I would never have initiates roll to see whether
they regained a point of divine magic if they attended their cults
high holy day ceremony. It entails entirely unnecessary dice rolling
in a completely inappropriate area. The ONLY person who should roll
is the officiating Priest or Acolyte and if he was not a PC I would
determine the result NON-randomly. Remember if he gets it wrong the
congregation will take this as a VERY BAD portent (not to mention
being pissed because they have not got their spells back!). Generally
if the ceremony is successful those who participate achieve a very
close union with their god/dess. This is enough to renew spells AND
also for the god/dess to spot anyone who's heart is not in it...
3) (Yet another person) 3 times rather than twice cost for non-reusable magic --- you've got a point.
4) (Same person) worried about the leathality of Humakti un this system. a) I WOULD allow Humakti to DI for someone's DEATH under the old rules. depending on the amount of POWER lost I would make the attack more or
less leathal: 3 = Sever Spirit, 6 = Non-resurrectable SS, 10 = Bang,
you're dead! Remember Humakt is DEATH!
b) Once this loony fails his POW roll Humakt is going to stop listening to his jabbering for 24 hours (old rules still apply).
c) I suspect that the Humakti would be more leathal using Truesword on
a greatsword than mucking around with SS.
5) I agree with the caveat IF YOUR GOD APPROVES. Also the idea of
substituting another more appropriate spell is OK. Other effects should only be allowed if the roll was lower than that required to DI normally.
Well thats all for now
Lewis
---------------------
From: CHEN190@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty)
Subject: Blessings from the Blue Wizard!
Message-ID: <01HG41HHBPUQED0GGA@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: 20 Aug 94 11:54:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5776
Harald Writes
=============
> While we're talking about rivers and Dara Happa, has anyone done
> anything with the other great Pelorian river, the Arcos? I realized
> recently that there is a basic similarity of names in this region which
> suggests a some strength inherent in this area.
> Z arkos the Plentonius name for the area.
> Arcos the great river from the Elf Sea.
> Dzhar st typically read as Jarst, the northern realm.
> Dzhar sting typically read as Garsting, the southern realm, though
> I give it a soft instead of hard sounding here.
> (and of course there is also BalaZar)
> I might surmise that the original name could be Zarkost. Perhaps a Dara
> Happan invasion transformed the name into Dara Zharkost and that
> degenerated into D'zhar'st or Jarst.
You forget the Pentish name for the Redlands H'har As Jing. Bound to be a
connection in there somewhere.
Sandy Writes in response to Harald concerning Evil Godlearner Plans
===================================================================
>>Harald Smith:
>>Now that we have achieved the switch of Peter Whitelaw for Peter
>>Metcalfe, we should anticipate the imminent demise ofsome aspect of
>>the Daily.
> I think we should move on to the next step, since our
>experiment has been so successful.
Can anybody tell me what were the two lands affected by the goddess switch. I
do not think that Kralorela is one because the False Dragons ring 'stopped being
godlearners'. Alas this leaves me without a land to steal Dendara from (I
don't hink she's worshipped in Teshnos either) and I don't know where Ernalda
was switched from. Is the switch still in effect?
Klaus
=====
>I will end with a somewhat related question: The immortality spell
>requires some interesting components. What would work in
>Glorantha? Several things, I suppose. A Vadeli baby? Sandy said
>some time ago that the Veldang are really Vadeli. Does that mean
>that a Veldang baby would do? Who in Fonrit knows? Or are the
>Vadeli more like the church of immortality?
Veldang are actually Vadeli? Only the Blue ones aka wizards would be. In any
case I thought they were all originally Warearan. Note I call myself the Blue
Wizard because I didn't know what the Vadeli did to the kids when I thought of
the name. I suspect the vadeli actually require one of their own kids for the
ritual...
Cheers
The Blue Wizard aka Peter Metcalfe
---------------------
From: jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se (Jonas Schiott)
Subject: Rune Ruminations and Moose Imitations
Message-ID: <9408191155.AA24017@vinga.hum.gu.se>
Date: 19 Aug 94 15:55:54 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5777
Blue Peter in X-RQ-ID: 5750
>Annilla's runes are Sea, Moon and Darkness. No infinity rune.
OK, but a few other people (not just Joerg, I think) have cited an older
moon deity. And logically speaking, Blue Moon _can't_ be the original
source, 'cause there's a new one (Red Goddess) and Annilla's still around!
Not much, I'll grant you, but all other deities who have 'passed on' their
runes are distinctly dead. That is, unworshippable.
>I admit defeat
>in the case of Daka Fal but Horned Man still remains to be explained.
Yes, that's tricky, especially considering that the RQ3 rules (Intro to
Glorantha) say that he _is_ the original source.
Another one brought up was the Invisible God. He has Law and Infinity, but
RQ3 just lists him as the current origin, claiming the original to be
unknown. This could just be theistic prejudice, of course: Malkioni claim
their God to be identical with the Creator, who naturally should be the
first holder of Law.
BTW, on going through files I've archived on my home computer I found a
longer exposition on this subject from Sandy, where he also says that the
distinction between doubled runes and Infinity-holding is largely
conventional, mentioning the example of Dragons (who have two Beast runes,
but display the powers of Infinity). If our memories had been better, this
discussion might have been a non-starter.:-)
Now what I really want to know is: who or what assigned these runes in the
first place? Yes, yes, Greg and Sandy, I know, I mean _in_Glorantha_.
Surely it's not _wholly_ conventional?
_______
Sandy in X-RQ-ID: 5761
>Mooses look goofy, mooses sound goofy
Well, allright, but you english-speakers have compounded the problem by
giving them a goofy name as well.
>lives
>there a teenage American male who hasn't bellered out the moose
>mating call at least once?
Ah, just as I suspected: it's an American thing. :-)
>I DEMAND Moose Hsunchen in my campaign.
Whoa! Suddenly we're in agreement!
>I just don't want 'em to be the Pralori.
Exactly! I think that's what I was trying to establish in the first place...
( Jonas Schiott )
( Institutionen for Ide- och lardomshistoria )
( Goteborgs Universitet )
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Jonatela Thawing
Message-ID:
Date: 19 Aug 94 12:23:10 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5778
Alex Ferguson ignores his ready access to source material in X-RQ-ID: 5768
> Joerg rationalises feverishly:
feverishly? looking at your current output, that adverb describes _you_
better than me.
> I dunno if there is or isn't a timeline problem (heaven knows, my Riverjoin
> snippet took a liberty or three), but I'm skeptical about the Timms part of
> any fix: wasn't Timms only partially thawed to _Jonatela_ before its borders
> to the outside world thawed, rather than vice versa?
Jonatela embraced its western parts before 1616 (when it opened to the
rest). Timms thawed earlier, in 1597 (induced by the Lunars). I'm not
so sure about Karstall (after all, it lies west of Jonatela), but its
closeness to Riverjoin and Southbank as well as to Junora makes it very
likely.
> For
> example, I tend to imagine that the Sun Burn wasn't carried out by someone
> going round Sun Spearing every tree in the forest individually from 100 paces
> away. (Mutatis mutandis, "Moon Burn", at least if MOB's to be believed.)
Sun Burn in Erigia, Moon Burn at Rist. And damn right they were, after the
Aldryami landgrabbing ventures of the late 560s... (Old grudges die hard
in Glorantha)
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------
From: watson@csd.abdn.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: wizards POW & teleport & fly
Message-ID: <199408191250.NAA22924@pelican.csd.abdn.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Aug 94 14:50:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5780
Klaus rightly points out that wizards need POW as much as the next guy.
A powerful wizard isn't just good at his spells; he also has plenty Free INT
to manipulate his spells effectively. And, as the rules stand, the only way
to improve Free INT is to enchant magic items (or familiars). Hence the need
for POW.
> Then there are some spells that are useful only if you have
> them in manipulated matrixes. One such is teleport. Travelling
> up to 10 m to a predetermined place has only very limited use.
> You might of course send letters or small parcels a long way, but
> to travel you need a matrix with 10 or more points of range
> and/or intensity.
There is the option of casting Diminish SIZ on the travellers before
teleporting them. If you diminish them down to SIZ 1 then you can
launch them a helluva long way without using a tweaked matrix. They might
feel a bit vulnerable until the Diminish wears off tho...
An organised network of teleportation would certainly revolutionise
trade and communications: in many ways it could be superior to that of
the modern Real World.
BTW Diminish SIZ is also useful in combination with Fly:
- You fly faster.
- You're more difficult to hit.
- You take less damage if (/when) you fall.
___
CW.