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, Tue, 13 Sep 1994, part 2 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly) Subject: Re: Greetings and Sayings Message-ID: <9409121919.AA06965@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu> Date: 12 Sep 94 19:19:49 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6176 Paul Reilly here. Martin Crim/Argrath)* writes about greetings in various cultures. This inspires me to write down some of what we use. Carmanian knights (Hazari) use a greeting that I translate as "Well met" when dealing with each other or people they perceive to be of like class (respected Heortlander knights on the field of battle, e.g.) Carmanian nobles often address each other as "cousin" if there is any chance that they are distantly related. A term of respect, implying that the person they address is also to be counted among the elite. If one noble is clearly of higher status, that one must use this familiar form of address first, before the one of lower status may. All four Carmanian classes (not counting the "conquered" class) normally address people in their household using titles rather than proper names. For example, Husband, Wife, Son, Nurse, Cook, Teacher, etc. The form of address may vary, for example a woman approaching her husband about the household finances will address him as "Husband", but if talking to him about arranging fosterage for a child, may call him "Poppa" or equivalent. Friends use nicknames with each other, quite often. Major exceptions: Formal and religious occasions use the real names. Parents summoning their children may use the real name. At moments of intimacy, lovers, spouses, or very close friends may use the real name. Also, people who spend a lot of time with non-Carmanians may fall into real name use. Insults: Carmanians enjoy mocking-through-imitation, think this is very funny. Dara Happans are scandalized by this sort of thing, leading to friction between the two richest Lunar subcultures. DARA HAPPA Dara Happan nobles: Don't address menial servants - the servant is supposed to know his job and do it, silently. If communication is absolutlely necessary, statements are typically made to the open air, in a tense equivalent to English passive voice: "My shoes need polishing," etc. Will address each other, often with a title but sometimes with a name. Depends on social setting... for example Daravayush, a noble of Darjiin, may be addressed by his title of "Egret-Marshall" by his social equals if they are seeing him on a tax matter, or as Daravayush at a religious festival. Underlings address people one or two rungs up from them by full title and name, unless invited to shorten these sounds of respect. Body posturings along with this may go from the "Dara Happan Bow*" to a full prostration, depending on the social gulf... Underlings further down the ladder do not address high-class people directly, but instead direct their discourse to one of the High One's underlings, or even a piece of furniture or the floor. All classes: Husbands and wives address each other as "brother" and "sister", often with an endearment such as "beloved". Can be quite confusing to outsiders, actually. Originally a noble custom (it is thought), but now trickled down to the masses by the process of people aping their betters. Thieves use animal aliases, especially nightbirds. LUNAR: More on this later, perhaps. For now, let me mention an expression of great surprise, common to Lunar Army veterans and people who have picked it up from them: "Well, paint me blue and call me an Orlanthi!" ORLANTHI: Agree pretty much with Martin. "Free blows the wind," perhaps? Differences in our campaigns may be attributable to local variation. >Well, I'm not going to ring the changes. Anyone else have some >ideas, especially on challenges and other unfriendly greetings? Mocking insults, perhaps poetical in nature, leading up to challenges. Mock-praise: "It is said that Annstad is so brave that he almost faced up to the vicious Chicken of Bagnot." Uz: Mostly agree with Martin. Note that certain classes of Uz may not speak directly to enlo (a bit like Dara Happa, actually...) A Death Lord may deliberately train his enlo to be uppity (to OTHER uz!) in order to provoke them into a fatal challenge. Note that this would be to provoke males, never females. I have Uz refer to their clan elders as "The Mothers". With a change in tone of voice, this also refers to the mighty Mistress Race of their tribe. I have enlo giving the tug without the whine, usually. "Eat this instead of me" is a very important concept, which gets sublimated in several ways. Territory is important - more on this another time, must go soon. Suffice it to say that even a lowly trollkin may have a particular hole in the ground that he will defend, be it ever so miserable. Concept here is of protective darkness. Uz who do not need a physical or psychological refuge are considered brave or even aberrant. -------------- Oasis people: Offering water or food or salt is used as a friendly greeting. "Tada blesses" or "Tada bless you" (verbs conjugate differently, had to translate exactly.) is used as a farewell. This latter has caught on among the Lunar occupiers, and is spreading among fashionable Lunar society, who usually shorten it to just "Ta". If an Oasis person accomplishes a particular noteworthy feat (a rarity nowadays) he calls on Tada to witness it, using a musical intonation of the God's name: "Ta-daa!" * Someone has to write a story where one of the Argraths, say Argrath of Pavis, uses an alias like "Marten the Grim... --------------------- From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Subject: Introducing new folks Message-ID: <9409122035.AA14817@sonata.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 12 Sep 94 10:35:16 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6177 Okay, I'm going to jump the gun, presuming that Mark ever meant to tell anyone about it, but one of the two RQ campaigns in Ithaca, NY, has re-started, and in a way that is excellent for introducing new people to Glorantha: The PCs all begin as children. Every session introduces the players to some new, central aspect of Glorantha (or I think it is supposed to), and then 2-5 seasons pass between sessions until the youngest PC is around 16 or 18 or so. --------------------- From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Subject: Vinga's spells Message-ID: <9409122045.AA14907@sonata.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 12 Sep 94 10:45:55 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6178 Okay, so Elmal might not give a Sunspear, then how about the Fireblade spirit spell? As for "Remove Penis"--that's a typical Eurmal gift. Who is to say that all gifts from associate cults have to be "useful" in a gaming context? --------------------- From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Subject: Shucks. Message-ID: <9409122100.AA15137@sonata.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 12 Sep 94 11:00:33 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6179 >I am no expert on the Orlanth pantheon or Sartar culture (at elast in >comparison with others on this list!), but I thought your Vinga write-up was >great! Many very nice touches. No criticisms, constructive or otherwise, >but thanks for posting it. I plan to use it, if my campaign even gets to >Sartar! Well, that's nice of you. Anyway, If you have Elmal not have Sunspear to begin with, I suggest that you have Elmal give Vinga flameblade instead. Also, the Catseye from Yelmalio is justified by Vingans as a grudging gift, for which they must pay double. Yelmalions who have a cult lore of less than 90% probably don't believe that Vingans really get the spell. Those with a cult lore of greater than 90% learn a shameful secret of the cult: Yelmalio does have some sort of relationship with Vinga. The nature of the relationship is somewhat shameful--Yelmalio, after all, did succumb to Vinga's evil, wanton wiles on the Hill of Gold. He was weak from his injuries, and a lovely woman ministered to his wounds. Before he knew what had happened, she had had her way with him and run off with one of his golden catseye stones. Such is the sinfulness and wanton lewdness of all Vingan women, such is the lewdness of all improper females. However, Yelmalio did catch up with her later, where she begged him for mercy, like the weak woman she was. His pride demanded vengeance, but his shining justice permitted him to dispense mercy. Vinga could keep her stolen good, but she would have to promise to perform an important and dangerous task for Yelmalio. Until she did this task, she could never know peace from the ill-gotten fire that lived in her loins. It would forever torment her. Then Yelmalio released her. He has still yet to call upon her, so her loins burn, as do the sinful loins of all her women. But she owes Yelmalio--and big-time. --------------------- From: 100270.337@compuserve.com (Nick Brooke) Subject: Q&A Message-ID: <940912210826_100270.337_BHL106-2@CompuServe.COM> Date: 12 Sep 94 21:08:27 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6180 _____ Kuri: In my games, a priest who cast all his rune spells into a Truestone would only be able to regain the use of each spell when the spell had been cast from the Truestone. This is how it happened to Biturian Varosh, it seems. So if a Healer cast her Resurrection spell into a Truestone, she would be unable to regain the use of that Resurrect until the holder of the 'stone used it. She could sacrifice for more uses of the spell, regain them, etc. But regaining the stored one is literally "out of her hands", as long as it remains tied up in the Stone. If using RunePower, I think the precise spell effect stored would have to be specified at the point of casting; the number of points tied up would be lost to the priest until they were cast from the Truestone. ________ Peter M: > What I was suggesting was the case with Antirius/Yelmalio/Elmal! You > must remember that in many cases the RW cults often gained local color > but had some identifiable source (ie the cult of Odin/Wotan etc). Yeah. But your Antirius/Elmal comparison is closer to Wotan/Mercury than Zeus/Jupiter, IMHO. Neither gains much, bar unnecessary confusion. > Blue elves are shown on the Jolar map in ToTRM #11 p13 as being around > in the Nargan. I'm fairly sure that these are not your average blue > elfs and that MOB did not put them 'Sumware Orothere' as a joke. They > seem to be related to the Artmali Empire. Can anybody tell me anything > more? It's a typo. We had a map from Greg that had a scribble which might have read either 'blues' or 'elves' down in that corner; MOB opted for both. I think 'blues' is the correct interpretation. Meaning, "Here Be The Veldang Blue-Skinned Artmali Folk From Zamokil". IMHO, Yelmalions who wanted to *win* at the Hill of Gold would be like Christians who thought the Crucifixion was a bad thing, and HeroQuested/ time travelled back to Judaea with a ladder and a claw-hammer to stop it from happening. The apparent 'wounding' and 'defeat' of Yelmalio are the core facets of his religion, and not seen as irritating and/or embarrassing failures by his followers. They don't think there's anything that needs to be put right: Yelmalio showed the faithful what he was made of by surviving the worst that the Long Night could throw at him. "Don't give up"; "Never say die"; "Stiff upper lip, chaps"; "It's always darkest before the dawn", "It's only a flesh wound, I've had worse". Their whole ideology (Spartan Phalangites / Victorian Public School Heroes) is based on this: survival in the face of adversity, "hanging in there" no matter how bad it gets. Ideal for a Hoplite society. To supplant that, you'd have to reject and remodel your culture's values. Ask MOB what the penalty for that kind of seditious heresy would be in Sun County. ==== Nick ==== --------------------- From: carlsonp@wdni.com (Carlson, Pam) Subject: Sun Dome & Basmoli Father's Tales Message-ID: <2E74D282@emssmtp.msm.weyer.com> Date: 12 Sep 94 22:06:00 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6181 Peter - have faith! There are more of us who would like to see your WMFTM for Sun County - we just can't always reply quickly. Count me in. I agree with you about the fleetingness of other publications. Our little RQ group here was once captured, tied up, and forced to play Shadowrun for five tortuous sessions. Living in Seattle, we thought, "Oh, well, at least we won't have to memorize a new map!" It was little consolation. (OK - apologies in advance to any SR fans out there...) Some other games seem to promote glossy artwork more than believable, coherent worlds. Now we are playing in an occasional Earthdawn game - it runs much better than SR, but the world still seems superficial. The same RQ players who forstall their own training and money-making endeavors to help their neighbors in the Risklands have, in Earthdawn, been reduced to phrases like "Hey - let's kill the villagers, too! More Legend Points!" I think one of the problems is that it takes more time to produce and write for a coherent world than to whip up some new color glossies and inventive ways to roll lots of dice. We're getting our revenge, though. Mr. Shadowrun ref is now a Waha initiate who has to figure out how to convince a band of Basmoli bachlors to give him the white buffalo calf instead of eating it. And based on that information on Basmoli attitudes that folks have sent me, it's not going to be easy... (maniacal laugh). I'll have to be nice, though. We seem to be getting a spate of newbies up here - three last month, and two more this month! Brian - I liked your Basmoli song, but it was so depressing that it nearly ruined my whole day! Pam <^==@ /\ /\ --------------------- From: CHEN190@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty) Subject: 2nd post sans GRAY... Message-ID: <01HH2AUEZ45UFGXDOK@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> Date: 14 Sep 94 00:31:16 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6183 Peter...Metcalfe?...Harald Smith?..WHITELAW! -------------------------------------------- Will be interested in seeing the WMFTM. I add my voice to it being in the daily. Nick Brooke: ------------ AF>>> Couldn't disagree more. The rituals, for most purposes, _are_ the AF>>> religion, not a PR bolt-on. PM>> Hmm, we'll have a lot harder time trying to get regional variation PM>> that way. NB> I don't follow this at all. In the same post you've postulated three local NB> traditions, involving dancing, bull-sacrifice and meditation, to obtain the NB> same spell-effect (I presume). Looks like instant regional variation to me. um, I was disagreeing with Alex's statement that the rituals are the religion, and felt that this precluded the regional variation that exists. This smacked too much to me of a canonical mass (which may be appropiate for Dara Happa but certainly not for most gloranthan cultures). I think that the rituals really are only a magical means of communicating with the divinity and that some social concerns are addressed in the ritual by the presiding priest. (ie a wind voice amplifys the fight against chaos in Orlanthi rituals because the Red Moon is oppressing his folk). Will look at the sources. I only have seen the illustrated version of Frazer and according to Sandy et al. that's nothing compared to the original. --Peter Metcalfe. --------------------- From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham) Subject: Trade; Babeester Gor; Humakt Message-ID: <199409130423.AA25125@radiomail.net> Date: 13 Sep 94 04:23:11 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6184 Whew, just caught up after 12 days on the road (much of it in Prax, er, Wyoming). Gerald Bosch said all sorts of good things about trade. In the Americas, one of the most widespread trade networks was of obsidian. Shells were also traded over great distances, as were (if memory serves) feathers. At one time, cocoa beans were used like money. In my Ralios, the primary trade gods are Doskior (much trade is by canoe or raft) and Argan Argar. Since the tribes of East Ralios are so self-sufficient, Issaries never took on a trading aspect, and remains the Talking God. And no discussion of trade would be complete without mentioning the Amber Route, just because I like the sound of it. David Cowling asks >Are there Babeester Gor in Prax? I play that there are a few, stationed at the Earth temple complex at the Paps. Nick Brooke explains the ritual death of a Sword of Humakt. Thanks! For some reason I thought you folks played that a mere initiate had to sever his kin ties, which seemed extreme. At the rune level, it makes more sense to me. (And it doesn't happen at all in Ralios, where Humakt is an associate of Orlanth...)