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, Wed, 31 Aug 1994, part 1
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
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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: DBLIZZARD@delphi.com
Subject: Heroquest Musings
Message-ID: <01HGI75U82W29ZLPQU@delphi.com>
Date: 29 Aug 94 23:17:27 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5941
Whenever major Orlanthi HQ's are mentioned the Lightbringer quest always
is mentioned. However, an important corollary to this quest would be
the contesting with Yelm, culminating in the Death of Yelm. Has anyone
ran this or a similiar quest? I would imagine the consequences would be
bad in general. Neverless it would be useful in areas where Orlanthi
culture & Sun cultures clash. I wonder what effect such a major quest
would have against the Lunar Empire. It could hurt them (a major part of
there forces are Sun worshippers) or help them (by giving them a stronger
hold on there areas by eliminating a competitor). Any thoughts on this?
I've also been thinking about Firshala's DI. In essence if you successfully
DI you become Firshala, sort of an automatic HQ. I wonder if this is partially
how Firshala regains her power on the "real" world. Maybe she Heroquesting as
a hero in her cult (just about any of her worshippers as far as she's concered
I would imagine)?
David A Blizzard
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From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
Subject: Cults, Videos and Names
Message-ID: <9408300943.AA29048@Sun.COM>
Date: 30 Aug 94 09:38:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5942
1) Ian Gorlick can you please send me your cults (Check with Henk but if
you get enough takers they might be appropriate for a Digest).
2) Hans I would love a copy of the Convulsion Video.
3) Correction to Hans' message Jacob Jardine should read Jamie Jardine.
Hans was concentrating on the video rather than remembering names.
Personally I feel inclined to forgive him this minor slip because of all
the good work he has put into recording RQ Con and Convulsion.
Lewis
(Father of Jamie)
P.S> HvH's speculations may be right Jamie will grow u either loving or
hating Glorantha!
---------------------
From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
Subject: Vinga
Message-ID: <9408301125.AA08488@Sun.COM>
Date: 30 Aug 94 11:27:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5943
Hi All
Alison I really liked your Vinga Story from the RQ Con Compendium.
David Cheng recommended it to me at Convulsion and also gave me a copy of the
Compendium (hot off the press, Thanks David). As you will have read here I
am also a fan of Vinga. This is partially because I like the basis of the
character, free-spirit, flying against the views of society, using brains
where brawn would fail her. I view Vinga as strong, but not as strong as
the really tough warlike types ie. SB>Orl>Hum>BG>Elmal>Vinga. I see her as
tough, but not quite as tough as some of the real thugs ie. SB>BG>Orl>Vinga>
Humakt>Elmal. I see her as skilled, but not quite as skilled as the best
warriors ie. Humakt&Orlanth>Elmal>Vinga>BG>SB. I see her as intelligent
but not so intelligent as the scholars ie. LM>Iss>Vinga>Orlanth>....>SB.
I see her as having good *women's* intuition but not as good as the dedicated
female deities ie. Ernalda>CA>Vinga>Orlanth>BG>SB>Humakt (NB. Intuition is
associated with life & fertility therefore Humakt has none! Now I think of it
SB should be placed before Orlanth but my editor won't allow me to go back!)
What I see as as Vinga's special advantage is using common sense,
simple smarts and animal cunning to get were she wants too if her other assets
fail. Vinga refused to give up her heritage of fertility in order to take
the warriors path (unlike BG). She is a REAL woman, who just happens to
want to be a warrior and not get tied down in the role as wife-mother and
hearth keeper. Thus while Vinga would be happy to take a lover, she would
not want to marry for fear of the restrictions that it would cause.
The other reason why I like Vinga is that her mythology is unoffical
and has not yet been codified and fixed. As some of you may know mythology
dies when if it fixed. For most of the world this usually means when it is
written down, but for out purposes I regard it to be when it is made official
and published. So read what I have said and like-it-or-leave it, but don't
try to create a one-true-way version of Vinga. Having said all that ignore
what is written below as it is coming dangerously close to defining what
should be left ill-defined.
I speculate that Vinga's runes should be Mobility, Wind and Earth.
Note that while I view her as an air goddess I think that the stability of
Earth tempers the Stormy nature resulting in a cooler temper, more common
sense and less "Violence is always an option!"
So here's to the concept of Orlanthi ALL (85%)!
1) Gamers are ALL men (15% are women).
2) ALL Orlanthi women worship Ernalda...
3) ALL Lunars are bad.
4) ALL computer types are men (notice the intersection between computer type
and gamer means that only 2 to 3% of the people who subscribe to the digest
will be women, unless there is a correlation between Gamer and Computer Type. Henk would you care to comment?)
5) ALL the above is either TRUE or FALSE!
Cheers
Lewis
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From: SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU (Harald Smith 617 726-2172)
Subject: floods etc
Message-ID: <01HGIIK5S1U2RLZGU9@MR.MGH.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: 30 Aug 94 03:29:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5944
- In response to comments on the great flood
The flood of Anaxial was not due to any cleansing notion that I could
find in GRAY. Instead, it states that his mother, a priestess of
Oslira, sent him her dreams of a flood destroying Dara Happa.
Anaxial, of course, asked Antirius what to do and received the
appropriate instruction (build a covered ark).
What I find interesting is that this parallels the earlier
advance/flood of Oslir/Nestentos through the land when the City of
God/Yelm had to retreat from the 'polluted' world and rose into the
sky. Thus, we have two flood myths. Why?
Two reasons that come to mind.
1) There was only one flood when the waters rose to devour the earth.
The myths are from two different sources within Peloria, but
Plentonius tried to put them into a sequential order. Murharzarm the
son of Yelm fights the water for his father Yelm. He is derived from
the same source as Dendara and is probably the 'Dara Happan' myth.
Anaxial the 'great-grand'son of Yelm fights the water for his 'father'
Antirius. Since he claims not to be Murharzarm, he (and Antirius) are
probably derived from a 'Pelorian' source.
2) The river floods regularly and causes problems. There is a
godtime flood myth, but the recreation of the fight is no longer
successful. Anaxial was not a mythic figure, but a heroquester of
Antirius from the early First Age (pre-Khordavu) with Pelorian
associations. Anaxial quests back to the fight, but doesn't fight.
Instead, he rides out the flood and rebuilds when the flood ends.
Anaxial has redrawn the myth map and Plentonius can only assume both
floods occurred.
Now even assuming that the flood was a cleansing done by Yelm, why use
water as the cleansing agent? Easy - it's the old 'make your enemy
look bad so you look even better' trick. Yelm/Murharzarm conquered
water and thus have power over it. The populace gets unruly, starts
worshipping rebels like Orlanth. So, do we cleanse with fire? No.
That would make us look bad and the fire would have to either burn to
ash (used in the Shargash/Oakfed destructions) or be put out by water
(Orlanth wins). We release the water instead. Then when the people
are suffering, we use our mighty fire powers to dry the land and we
are heroes. Orlanth/Rebellus Terminus is both bad and also clearly
under our thumb.
- Pam Carlson comments on the reality warping feature of the
Heroplane.
I think this is basically true, but my contention is that every person
who goes to the hero plane warps the plane/web in their own image. I
want a sun god who survives because he makes the ultimate sacrifice,
the voluntary loss of a core part of his being, so I generate in
effect the Imtherian sun god Khelmal. You go there and want a
glorious and radiant sun god, so you get Antirius who would rather die
than give up all his fire powers (though he may lose them anyway).
Etc. (Note that this does not mean that Khelmal, Antirius, Elmal,
Yelmalio may not exist as independent entities, just that their
natures are altered to some extent by those who still have free will -
the heroquesters.)
- More on Moons
The Blue Wizard was commenting on what we know of moons in 1621 S.T.
As of Plentonius' day there was obviously no Red Moon. But what of
the Blue Moon? It was not in the sky and I would contend that they
could not see the Blue Streak from Dara Happa (though that is purely
IMO). There is a Blue Moon Plateau, but would the Dara Happans know
it as such? I think they know Annilha as the murdering and mysterious
troll deity, but I don't think they know Annilla as the Blue Moon. I
think the Blue Moon(s) were children of Entekos who were defeated and
fell from the sky. One chunk lands to the north of them (perhaps
crushing Annilha?) and others who knows where (the White Sea? the
Sweet Sea? the Glacier? some other obscure landing spot), but each
chunk could have been a 'moon' for some short interval if you don't
believe in additional unknown moons.
--Harald
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From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 30 Aug 1994
Message-ID: <9408301531.AA00934@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 30 Aug 94 03:32:02 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5945
>Nevertheless, the fact that Yelm knows in advance about the Flood
>AND that it just so happens to destroy all of the impure baddies
>leads me to believe that their was some Yelmic origin.
Note however that the traditional Yelm method of dealing with
severe problems is to maintain one's righteousness, and the force of
your example will cause everything to work out well in the end.
Because Yelm follows Correct Thought, the flood came and destroyed
his enemies. Because Yelm practices Correct Action, Orlanth came to
him, begged forgiveness, and brought him back from Hell.
In essence, the solar/Yelm belief is that if you yourself act
right, you need not worry about the rest of the world. Either you
will be Right alone, or else the world will bend to fit you, but 'tis
better to be Right alone than Wrong with many friends.
Of course, this makes them very stern, tending to see things
in terms of black and white.
Joerg
>Lightning and Thunderbolt are somewhat Storm parallels to Sunspears,
>Sever Spirit is Yanafal Tarnils magic (although one-use), and
>Thunderstones are similar to Selenes in their effect. I was talking
>about mind-affecting spells, something the Lunars dominate.
The point is that a band of Orlanthi magicians are going to
have just as much attack Rune magic as a band of Lunars. The Orlanthi
won't have as many mind-affecting spells, but neither would a band of
Pent nomads or trolls (unless you count Fear). The Lunars have lots
of mental spells. The Orlanthi don't. On the other hand, the Orlanthi
have more effective physical spells (reusable Sever Spirit,
Lightning, Thunderbolt as opposed to most Lunar priests lack any
access to Sunspear) and move like hell on wheels (Flight, carried by
sylphs, Teleport). This makes them different from the Lunars in
combat, which is a Good Thing.
---------------------
From: gbosch@vaxa.weeg.uiowa.edu
Subject: Issaries
Message-ID: <00983B85.C13E6280.13@vaxa.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 94 16:50:11 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5946
Hi all!
First a progress note on my trade material...
ITS FINISHED!!!! (insert joyous noises here)
I sent the things off to Henk a week ago Sunday, so look for them via the
Digest. If anyone who doesn't get the Digest wants this stuff, let me know
and I'll send you the files. My thanks to everyone who sent me things "in
trade", I hope you feel you made a profit once you've seen the material.
On the subject of mules and Issaries: I've always assumed that Issaries
merchants use whatever is most efficient for a given area, be it barges,
wagons, mules, bearers, whatever. I've never been able to figure out what
role the Mastakos cult plays, except for providing Orlanth with a spell, so
I use them as a teamster cult in Orlanthi areas.
On the subject of Tradetalk: In my game, Tradetalk is not really analogous to
any terrestrial language, it is a divine language invented by the God of
Communication. Tradetalk has a constant relationship to all other languages
and literally changes in the mind of its speakers as Glorantha's languages
evolve (although the speakers are unaware of this change). Its meaning is
absolutely conditional on the current status of all languages in Glorantha at
the time of any given speech act. It is, in other words, an exteriorized
meaning of the Communications Rune and is always part of all forms of spoken
communication. Written Tradetalk varies with method of inscription (Issaries
is, after all, the Speaking God, not the Writing God). This is all a sort of
post-structualist nightmare, but we like it!
Gerald Bosch
University of Iowa
Department of History
gbosch@vaxa.weeg.uiowa.edu
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From: loren@hops.wharton.upenn.edu (Loren Miller)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 30 Aug 1994, part 2
Message-ID: <9408301811.AA10700@Sun.COM>
Date: 30 Aug 94 10:11:09 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5947
davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake) writes:
: May I also take this opportunity to lament the lack of a decently
: developed PC thief cult in RQ3?
How about Orlanth Adventurous? It seems to me that this is the most
powerful thief cult in the world, that lots of player characters join
it, and that their status as thieves is understood implicitly by
almost everyone in Genertela, everyone that is other than the
barbarian belt cultures.
Ian Gorlick writes:
: > The recent discussion about Hyaena prompted me to think about what
: >their position is in Prax. The list of large carnivores is very
: >short, and consists of Allosauri (huge!), cliff toads (restricted
: >habitat?), Deinonychi (sight hunters, therefore daytime only) and
: >very occasional tigers and Smilodons in the Zola Fel Valley, plus
: >the hyaenas.
Don't forget the broos. Not only is the broo (feral, most likely) the
dominant carnivore in Sartar, but I feel it also must hold the same
position in the food chain in the nearer parts of Prax, and probably
in all of Prax. Though the nomads do their best to kill broos off
whenver they can, broos reproduce so avidly that they are a constant
menace.
--
Loren Miller
I can tell by your shoes that you are a lover of liberty
---------------------
From: 100102.3001@compuserve.com (Peter J. Whitelaw)
Subject: Jaxarte in Chomoro?
Message-ID: <940830204853_100102.3001_BHJ46-3@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 30 Aug 94 20:48:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5948
Hi MOB (OMB, MBO etc. etc...)
cc RQ Daily.
Has anything been published on Jaxarte ever having gone to Chomoro? I am
writing up some background for a new Lokarnon PC in my campaign and am sniffing
around for some stuff on his hometown.
I had a rifle through my old Tales' but couldn't see anything - although it is
more than conceivable than I missed something, somewhere.
All the best,
Peter
---------------------
From: carlsonp@wdni.com (Carlson, Pam)
Subject: violent moose, hyaenas
Message-ID: <2E63A2E5@emssmtp.msm.weyer.com>
Date: 30 Aug 94 21:11:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5949
Briefly on moose - Sandy writes:
"no one I know has ever had a problem with a moose"....
The only nasty moose I've heard of was the one that surprized sled-dog racer
Susan Butcher
and her team in Alaska a few years ago. The moose attacked and killed some
of her dogs while they were in harness.
(Bad, bad moose!)
I would bet that moose have a pretty well-honed instinct to stomp on
wolf-like things, but they leave
us funny-looking apes alone.
Burros/Mules/Horses
Does anyone know where the story of horses' devolution from birds can be
found?
Critters in the Wastes -
Coyotes (or jackals) would fill a good niche in Prax - as would other small
carnivores: small cats like caracals or jaguarundi,
foxes like fennecs, and ververids like mongeese or meerkats. Interesting
things could be found in meerkat mounds, especially if they like to steal
shiny things from campsites...
>In the Godtime there'd have been lions, too, but they're
>gone. All that is left are humans, morocanth, and hyenas.
Are there any aerial predators, like griffins or really big raptors?
> The hyenas may not be quite as dominant in Prax itself,
>because of the competition from other carnivores, but in the Wastes,
>they're top dog.
Um, top dog/cat, actually:-) Hyaenas are kind of a "missing link" for order
Carnivora.
>Hyaenas must be a dominant carnivore, and the true hunter of the
>night on the plains.
I like the idea of hyaenas as aggressive hunters in Prax.
Earthly hyaena pups regularly attack and kill each other even before their
eyes are open!
> I, too, champion this theory. I think that the Praxians
>absolutely detest the damn things. I also think that almost every
>Praxian clan is followed at a distance of a mile or two by a pack of
>hyenas.
Do hyaenas have get respect from humans due to their association with the
Trickster?
I am running a small campaign of young bison riders. As they are RQ
newbies, I started them
out with an initaition-dream, wantonly copied from DavID Dunham and Jonas
(thanks, guys).
In their dream, they were contacted by a white bison calf, with undefined
magical powers.
This calf had been born to a bison cow captured in a raid, and wanted to be
rescued.
Hyaena/Trickster showed up with clues to the calf's whereabouts, and told
them to Ishinta (an Eritha initiate)
when she won a game of wits with Hyaena.
Braxas, the Waha initate (future khan material, he's certain), had lost his
arm to a spirit-broo. He asked Hyaena how
he could restore it, and Hyaena said to give it to her. Braxas tossed her
his arm, and was horrified when she swallowed it whole
and ran off, laughing hysterically!
After wandering through the wastes and being overtaken by a prairie fire,
(which turned into invading horsemen),
they finally found their shaman's tent. When they woke up, they discovered
that the enemies they had defeated had each
taught them a spell (each enemy had used the spell in the fight - so the
PC's knew how they worked).
Braxas had his arm back, but it was tatooed with ochre-colored hyaena
spots. The shaman told him that
Hyaena had made his arm extra-strong (1 point armoring enchantment), but in
return Braxus must never harm a hyaena, and must
leave Her an offering from every beast he kills.
Braxas' player was thrilled, but I wonder what Hyaena's favor will do for
his dreams of khanhood?
Will other bison riders scorn him?
(Incidentally, the campaign premise is that this calf will switch owners
faster than the PC's can find it-
thus the motivation for their Tour de Prax.
Pam
<^==@
/\ /\
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: An innings and plenty.
Message-ID: <9408310003.AA10539@seram.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 31 Aug 94 00:03:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5950
Imperial Standard David #18 ("Pearton", to the primitives in the audience):
> ps: Alex: I do find you (and all others in Britian) responsible for cricket,
> especially after last week-end's humilation. Indian imports ;>
Anyone witnessing any games, or indeed scores, by the Scotland cricket side
will surely acquit us of any responsibility. Or indeed competence.
The One True Alex.
---------------------
From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: The Trade Secret of the God(TM) Learners(R).
Message-ID: <9408310009.AA10545@seram.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 31 Aug 94 00:09:19 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 5951
Joerg legalises:
> Hmm, with all these ideas above, I'd better add a copyright disclaimer:
> All the ideas above copyrighted by me August 94, and the sources of my
> inspiration.
How many Legal Pedantry Points will I get when I point out that i) this
isn't a legal copyright notice; and ii) you can't copyright ideas?
Alex the Non-Lawyer.