Bell Digest v940902p2

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, Fri, 02 Sep 1994, part 2
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
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From: 71163.1655@compuserve.com (Erich A. Schmidt)
Subject: Ping.
Message-ID: <940901181713_71163.1655_DHQ38-2@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 1 Sep 94 18:17:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6000

I am currently writing (well, rewriting actually) a tournament scenario
for RQ introduction for Dragon-Con '95.  The rewriting bit is that
originally it was for my own RQ plane and I am currently changing it to a
Gloranthan melliu while in the process of changing states.  The main
character is a wronged farmer who it seems would be a priest of Barntar. 
So, as people are mulling over the status of Vinga's cult does anyone have
suggestions for Barntar?  I figure that he should give Bless Crops,
Command Oxen, and Sanctify Brewing Kit or other appropriatly named spell.
(Summon Brruuupt?)  Command Oxen would work on one ox, or a properly yoked
team.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Would the gentleman with the Vivamort/Thanatar cults (Ian?) please send me
a copy.

Herr Cheng, I will be asking for one of your Compendiums when I return to
my NY address.

It is so pleasurable to read Gibson with Vivaldi playing in the
background.

We've done enough with switching Peters and Davids, I think that we should
make our own Greg....

Erich A. Schmidt



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From: Akira19893@aol.com
Subject: Resubscribe
Message-ID: <9409011422.tn132947@aol.com>
Date: 1 Sep 94 18:22:57 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6001

SUBSCRIBE list akira19893@aol.com 


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From: pheasant@cix.compulink.co.uk (Nick Eden)
Subject: Molani
Message-ID: 
Date: 1 Sep 94 19:54:44 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6002

In-Reply-To: <9409010716.AA11519@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM>
For the next issue of my fanzine I'm developing a Molani cult. 
The central idea is that she is a wonderful noble self sacrificing 
goddess who sacrificed her chastity to Yelm, her people's enemy, so that 
Yelm and Orlanth would have something in common.
Naturally Yelm, being noble, recognises that she is a worthwhile member 
of the Storm gods and takes her as his wife instead of his concuibine.
When her son is born Daga is a wonderful god, combining sun and clam air 
to make a harvest god, a corn king if you like.
Orlanth, not being noble, is bitterly jeleous (if he hadn't been so 
arrogant he could have been the corn king himself) and steals all of 
Daga's fertility powers and gave them to Barntar and Heler, and finally 
locks his nephew up in a box and uses him as a bogey man.

Naturally this isn't the way the story is traditionally told in Dragon 
Pass. This is the Molani that the Lunar missionaries tell the people 
about in captured lands.

Up to the foundation of this cult, about 100-200 years ago, as a means of 
annoying the Orlanthi that the Lunars were competing with to the south, I 
don't think that Molani would have been worshiped in any way. Originally 
she's only a metaphor, but the nature of Glorantha is that metaphors 
sometimes acheive a live of their own.


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From: igorlick@bnr.ca (ian i. gorlick)
Subject: Vinga, Bless Earth, Hyenas
Message-ID: <_7707_Thu_Sep__1_18:28:28_1994_@bnr.ca>
Date: 1 Sep 94 14:28:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6003

THIS IS ALISON PLACE, NOT IAN GORLICK.

Vinga:
To Lewis Jardine (5943):
Thank you for the compliments on Cloak of Snakes.  I was petrified 
giving it, let me tell you!

Although I agree with most of what you write about Vinga, I would 
picture her in a somewhat different light, of course.  For instance, I 
don't think that Vinga would be scared to marry if she met a man who 
pleased her sufficiently.  He would just have to take her as she is, 
with a propensity for independence, self-reliance and doing what she 
thinks fit for her.  

I am not sure what you think intuition is.  I consider it to be a 
subconscious summation of cues that lead one to a sudden conclusion 
without puzzling out the intermediate steps.  It can be overwhelmingly 
wrong, but it isn't connected with any ability to have offspring.  Are 
you picturing fertility as including a fertile mind, one that brims over 
with ideas?  If so, that is novel, and I shall have to think about it.

To Bryan Maloney (5953):
I don't know of any evidence that Vinga is Orlanth's daughter, and for 
you to play her as his sister sounds great.  When I was trying to come 
up with an Orlanthi myth, I was using King of Sartar to give me ideas, 
and there was Kallyr Starbrow, a follower of Vinga.  I knew that Kallyr 
tried the Lightbringer's Quest, which meant to me that Vinga had to be 
closely related to Orlanth. There were three other references to Vinga, 
all of them vague.   This left me with a goddess who was undefined, 
except that she was followed by women who wished for a warrior's life, 
and therefore I tried a coming-of-age story about her.    Now that I 
have started thinking of her in this way, I probably shan't stop, but 
unless someone else with more information than either of us can point to 
something in print, neither of us is wrong.  If you do have anything 
more on her than that, or you have written stuff, I would very much like 
an e-mail on it.  Likewise to Lewis.

Bless Earth 
To Bryan again:
Also, you play a more bitter Genertela than I do.  I don't know where it 
is written that crops in Genertela will fail without this spell.  If it 
is official, and not just the assumption of various subscribers that 
Genert's death doomed the whole of Genertela, could you please cite the 
reference?  We play that Prax and the Wastes, where Genert's Garden used 
to be, may have been that badly affected, but not the rest of the 
continent.  While I agree that crops fail often there because it is a 
marginal land, I don't think that they are doomed to failure without 
Bless Crops.  I think of this spell as a prudent insurance policy.  

The given area is quite generous, considering that it is calculated in 
time.  A day-long rune spell is quite something, as I think that the 
spell implies that it can only be cast while doing the day's plowing (or 
something similar).  No, I'm not trying to force anyone to figure out 
all the stuff that I mentioned in that posting (5909), but anyone who is 
curious, (and many people were discussing it) might actually like to 
know one place to check some of this out.  As for being anally retentive 
(I think that I was included in that), you should see the habitual state 
of my house!  A pedantic and didactic hairsplitter, yes (like many on 
this daily), but not a neat freak!  My mother still lives in hope, 
though.

To reply to Alex Ferguson (5956), our festival ended up on Aldrya's day 
in a roundabout way.  Ian mixed up Bless Crops, or Bless Earth, or 
whatever it's called, with Sunripen, which must be cast on that day.  I 
think that I'd still keep it there, if possible, because Voria=virginity 
as well as spring, and that just isn't what we want from our crops and 
flocks!  I'm sure that there is another festival for Voria, too, but 
much less lewd.

Hyaenas:  in reply to Loren Miller (5947) and Pam Carlson (5949)
Actually, Loren, it was Alison Place who wrote.  My husband put a more 
definite disclaimer than usual on that message, because he didn't want 
anyone to think that he has strange dreams like that!  However, your 
point about broo is well taken.  I have thought of them more as a 
bastard tribe of Prax because they are sentient (they are occasionally 
hired or sought as allies in the intertribal strife), but many are 
probably closer to fixed-INT animals, and they are definitely way above 
the nuisance level.

Concerning other, smaller, carnivores, I assume that there are plenty, 
including all the ones you mention, Pam.  I particularly like meerkats, 
myself, since I've seen them on TV and watched them in the zoo.  Hyaenas 
are actually viverroids, themselves.  Your comment about their evolution 
sent me to one of my favourite references, Mammal Evolution:  An 
Illustrated Guide, by Savage and Long (honestly!).  It seems that among 
the carnivores the canids are on one branch, along with bears, raccoons 
and eared seals, while hyaenas, civets and mongooses, and the cats come 
off another, with Viverridae being the sister group to Hyaenidae.  Sorry 
about the pedantry, but taxonomy is something that really interests me.

As for really big raptors, I don't think so.  There are the condors of 
Condor Crag, which are large enough to bear a human, but they aren't 
predatory.  One of the Borderlands scenarios involved climbing one of 
the crags to grab some eggs.  It seems that one of the tribal rulers in 
Balazar was jealous of his Yelmalion neighbour's huge hawks.  These he 
had found while heroquesting, so I don't think that they are available 
anywhere else.

I like the sound of your white bison trek.  By the time your fellows 
find AND free him, will they all be greybeards?  It sounds as if you 
could spin this out forever.

bye, Alison


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From: gadbois@cs.utexas.edu (David Gadbois)
Subject: The Dara Happan Monomyth
Message-ID: <19940901222952.1.GADBOIS@CLIO.MCC.COM>
Date: 1 Sep 94 12:29:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6004

    From: SMITHH@A1.MGH.HARVARD.EDU (Harald Smith 617 726-2172)
    Date: 31 Aug 94 05:28:00 GMT
    X-RQ-ID: 5973

    But if the tripolis had a unified mythos already, why would this be
    needed?  So...my thought is that the tripolis did not have a unified
    mythos, that each city and its surrounding area had its own unique
    mythos that Plentonius merged together.

Wow, that makes a lot of sense.  It's just the sort of trick Greg would
pull, too.  Another piece of possibly supporting evidence:  Each of the
Ten Tests apparently came from one of the original ten Dara Happan
cities, indicating a much more federated empire than one is led to
believe by Plentonius.  It would also go a long way to explain the
multiple flood myths and the confusion over which sun god is in the sky
when.

On the other hand, the Seshnegi at the Dawn did recognize Yelm as the
Sun, which leads me to think that maybe Plentonius' multiplicity of suns
is a ReAscent deconstruction to explain the lack of the sovereign aspect
in post-Dawn Dara Happa.

--David Gadbois

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From: Argrath@aol.com
Subject: Mostly Morokanth
Message-ID: <9409012205.tn163372@aol.com>
Date: 2 Sep 94 02:05:39 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6005

Re: Morokanth
Thanks to all who replied on the subject of "How come the
Morokanth aren't extinct?"  I'd elaborate on a couple
suggestions:

Terrain.  Prairie Dog warrens might prove a resort if better
terrain is not available.  I agree with Sandy that bogs and
cliffs are good for the Morokanth & herdmen, even though they
have to fight broos in the former and cliff toads and the
occasional Ostrich Rider in the latter.  Ian pointed out the
advantages of rocky ground and prepared positions.  I would hope
that broken or rocky ground would be fairly common in Prax, so as
to provide an amount of area which befits one of the Five Great
Tribes.

Shields.  I think I'll save this for circumstances where the
Morokanth expect to be in smooth terrain, such as with the slaver
party several people seem to have encountered.  Not all Morokanth
can afford a bronze or even wooden shield, getting by with just a
hide shield (rhino is best, but has to be bought) or a tanned
herdman skin and bone shield (gives new meaning to "skin and
bones," doesn't it?).  A herdman normally carries this, and may
even deploy it in battle.

Limitations on Missiles.  Sandy mentioned the historical facts
from Western warfare, though a better analogy would be Mongol
hordes or Plains Indians (who, in the movies, used a lot of
arrows).  Joerg mentioned the time & rarity factors in making
arrows, both very valid points.

Fear of Becoming a Herdman.  Pam Carlson makes this very valid
point.

Digging.  I would add to the suggestions of others that
Morokanth, given no better options, dig trenches.  They're fairly
well equipped for that, and the herdmen might be trained to help. 
This provides cover from arrows and (equally important) obstacles
for charging lancers.  Dig a couple rows of trenches close
together, plus a few little pits for stumbling into, and you
deter charging foes.  

I found the ecological basis which Sandy Petersen provided
convincing and fun.  
                            ---===---
Re: Praxian animals
     Another large predator is the lionbird, which I think I
already uploaded to this forum.  If not, let me know, and I'll
send it.  Or if I did, and anybody missed it, I'll send it by
email.
     I vote for coyotes as the canids of the plains, partly
because they're smart and fast-breeding and partly because they
provide another trickster spirit (see below).
     Speaking of coyotes, I'd bet that Praxians like to have a
few High Llamas around in their herds to protect the other
animals--especially the impala and sable deer, which are prey for
coyotes even when full-grown.  As has been mentioned in various
magazine and newspaper articles I've seen, llamas have no fear of
coyotes (or wild dogs or bears, for that matter) and happily take
charge of herds of sheep to protect them.
                            ---===---
Re: native Praxian tricksters
     Jonas asks if there are any Trickster worshippers in Prax. 
Aside from Raven cultists, there are Hyena folks.  I'd vote for a
native Trickster tradition, simply on the basis of Maximum
Gloranthan Fun and some (admittedly vague) idea of historical
analogues.  On the other hand, if one of the "trickster"
traditions is of the backwards warriors--watch out!
                            ---===---
Harald--
Bravo on your "heresy."  Yelm is a composite, and his Glorious
ReAscent is really the rise of a self-ruled Dara Happa with a
unified mythos (most likely as a result of a unified cult). 
[Comment about a certain famous god of our world who is a
composite from different traditions deleted in the interests of
A) not getting flamed and B) not offending people.]

--Martin


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From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham)
Subject: Hsunchen
Message-ID: <199409020700.AA27122@radiomail.net>
Date: 2 Sep 94 07:00:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6006

ian i. gorlick said
>Moose hsunchen should be regarded as somewhat more excitable than Storm 
>Bull berserkers with even less concern for personal safety. 

This raises the question of whether hsunchen are just like their totems. I
think not. They do bear many resemblences, but they are first and foremost
people, and secondly omnivorous hunter-gatherers. Moose are neither.