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, 15 Sep 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.
X-RQ-ID: index
6197: =
- Truestones
6198: =
- Truestone Revisited.
6199: =
- Blue Elves are Somewhere Orother
6200: =
- missing dailies...
6201: =
- HeroStuff & OTE
6202: =
- Convulsion '94; Lunars; Soldiers of the Red Moon
6203: =
- Lunar cults cont'd; Dart Wars; Vampires; Rune Points
6204: =
- Land goddesses and grain goddesses
6205: =
- Praxians selling herd-beasts
6206: =
- Re: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 14 Sep 1994
6207: =
- unsub list fulgrin@aol.com
6208: =
- Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 06 ...
6209: =
- Yelorna
6210: =
- Truestone; Ralzakark; Ragnaglar; Runic Origins; Cat Fights;
6211: =
- white buffalo
6212: =
- Animal husbandry 101
6213: =
- And now for something completely blue...
6214: =
- Vinga and boredom.
6215: =
- Nilses and Wind Childs.
6216: =
- Them pesky gods, 'gain.
6217: =
- Karandoli, and other Samly stuff.
6218: =
- Elmal, Yelmalio, and friends.
6220: =
- Re: missing dailies...
---------------------
From: DBLIZZARD@delphi.com
Subject: Truestones
Message-ID: <01HH39AJIQK6A8EOSK@delphi.com>
Date: 14 Sep 94 01:11:02 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6197
I like Sandy's rules on truestones, although I find them a bit
limiting. Why throw a reusable spell into a blank truestone? It becomes
one-use, the use from the truestone. The only use is to give the spell
to a person who normally couldn't use the spell, and at what cost? You
lose both a valuable piece of Godtime plus the use of your spell.
However, this does help get rid of those obnoxious truestones like
the one in the Sun Dome Temple in Sun County. I've always hated that one
even though the creation made sense if you didn't lose the spell. Now
only a very safe & peaceful temple would have them (like a Chanala Arroy
temple). Now the creation of such a truestone would drain the temple
of almost all it's magical resources. How would you like your entire
priesthood of a temple to have all it's reusable spells made one-use until
they can resacrifice for them. Gee, the High Priest has been building up
his reusable spells for 25 years, it will now take him another 25 years
to regain them (not likely).
Also, once cast these spells have a similiar cost to replace. The
purpose of such stone is for defense, these spells will rarely if ever be
cast. Therefore the replacer is unlikely to regain the spell anytime soon
Under Sandy's structure the only use of these is as a device to
give the players a spell they normally wouldn't be able to cast. Perhaps
more of a middle ground could be sought. I like the idea about losing
the spell when setting the truestone (avoids those powergaming truestones,
"lets get the entire Red Moon's cults magic in one truestone). However,
I would let priests regain their spells put in an already set truestone.
That way a temple would reasonably be willing to put a percentage of it's
resources into creating a "temple" truestone (a rare item anyway). A few
of it's priests would lose some of their magic, but the temple gains a
powerful bid of defense or bargaining ability (we don't want to go on that
quest, but we'll loan you this stone for it, as were obiligated by cult
ties to help). Plus once cast replacing the spells won't have quite the
same onus on the caster.
David A Blizzard
---------------------
From: jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se (Jonas Schiott)
Subject: Truestone Revisited.
Message-ID: <9409141257.AA03815@vinga.hum.gu.se>
Date: 14 Sep 94 16:57:36 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6198
Michael C. Morrison in X-RQ-ID: 6191
>Kuri writes:
>K> I have a question about Blank Truestone.
>K>
>K> A priest who cast all his rune spells into the trunestone
>K> (A) cannot regain them and he must resacrifice to the spell.
>K> or
>K> (B) can regain them when he pray in his temple as usual.
>K>
>K> which is true?
>
> As I understand it, neither. A priest casts his/r Rune Magic
> into Truestone (blank or simply empty); the priest/ess cannot
> regain the use of those spells until they are cast from the
> Truestone. Once they are cast from the Truestone, the priest/ess
> can regain the spells in the usual way (if they were reusable).
>
> The Truestone merely makes the spells portable, it does not count
> as having actually cast them -- that's why the priest/ess can't
> use or regain the spells until they are cast from the Truestone.
This is the rule from Cults of Prax; I think the reason for the question
was that Elder Secrets doesn't go into the subject in detail.
My own posting on this subject gave a different answer, but I forgot to add
an "IMO". Sorry to anyone who thought I was quoting official rules. The
reason for my suggested ruling is that the existance of Divine Spell
Matrixes in RQ3 makes CoP Truestone somewhat less than awe-inspiring.
> I think this also differs from Rune Magic matrices in that the
> matrix holds the spell (or the ability to cast it) and the
> priest/ess can regain the spell in the usual way -- and the
> matrix is reusable. Truestone is not; it is refillable, but
> not reusable.
Ummm, I don't really see the difference: according to RQ3, you need a
ceremony in a temple to recharge a rune matrix, but the spell is not
reusable for the creator of the matrix.
( Jonas Schiott )
( Institutionen for Ide- och lardomshistoria )
( Goteborgs Universitet )
---------------------
From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Subject: Blue Elves are Somewhere Orother
Message-ID: <01HH4CKYTVLY9KMBH7@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 15 Sep 94 09:40:39 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6199
G'day all,
Henk: contents listing is appreciated!
Sandy: despite my growing weariness with the moose/elk debate, I found your
notes on various other sorts of herdbeasts very valuable. Wanna have a go
at Herd Men in the same vein?
__________
Blue Elves
Nick:
>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".
Me too. They are not meant to be elves.
Nick:
>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.
Excellent summary Nick. I agree with you wholeheartedly. It is possible to
reject and remodel such values, but if you try it openly in Sun County
(Prax) you're likely to find yourself charged with the extremely serious
crime of heresy. At the very least, you will find yourself sent out to
Pent Ridge in Vulture's Country to dig salt for a decade or two (the
Count having recently embraced the concept of penal servitude following
the reopening of the mines). Indeed, it is rumoured that Daystar, one of
the Sun Dome Temple's priests, was sent there five years ago for mouthing
such views openly - more about him in the new Sun County scenarios I
am preparing! Other penalties might involve mutilation or death in various
creative ways depending on the heretic's rank, sex and willingness to recant.
Cheers
MOB
---------------------
From: henkl@aft-ms (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
Subject: missing dailies...
Message-ID: <9409141352.AA03068@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM>
Date: 14 Sep 94 17:52:18 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6200
If you received last friday's Daily complete,
please drop me a line...
---------------------
From: yfcw29@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk
Subject: HeroStuff & OTE
Message-ID: <9409141531.aa12153@uk.ac.ed.castle>
Date: 14 Sep 94 14:31:33 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6201
Peter Metcalfe Says :
> One aspiring
>hero may decide to 'bring justice to the cold sun' and goes on the Hills of Gold
>quest in an attempt to wrest the lightning spear of Orlanth. He succeeds and
>has the bonus not only that he and his people can cast lightning and the
>Orlanthi cultists can't but he also gets fiery powers because he was able to
>beat off Zorak with the lightning spear.
>
>When his priest performs the HHD ceremony, the myth is changed to what the hero>did (we assume the hero did it for the tribe). Of course now he has to cope
>with the changed values of the people he represents (like Nick said) as well
>as the loss of some of Yelmalios truths.
If he did it for his tribe, he must have the full backing and support of the
tribe when he goes on the heroquest. He can't just sneak off on his own, do
the quest and surprise everyone next HHD. That won't work. I agree with your
sentiments though. Geting back the fire powers sounds great, but it runs much
deeper than that. Sandy's point about a quester who gains the fire powers not
getting immortality is well made. Every heroquest has a price.
I can also imagine secret mystery cults and gnostic heresies, with
their own variants of mainstream cult myths and knowledge of secret quest
paths. These are likely to be very dangerous, though and may have all sorts
of unforseen consequences.
BTW when Sandy clarified the point that a warior of humakt must be defeated to
enter the heroplane, it made me think. What better duty for an aged Humakti,
it reminds me also of The Long Walk taken by aged Judges (2000AD). The
grizzled old warrior would just wait in limbo, challenging allcomers utill
he is bested.
I had an idea about Humakt a few weeks ago. What was a wind god doing poking
about in hell, let alone within the darkness that is Subere. I was also
wondering how the trolls worship Humakt (eg the Troll Humakti in the Sazdorf
clan). Then it struck me. Humakt must have been the moaning winds of doom
that howl through the caverns of the underworld. Might the trolls still
worship him in theis aspect? He may even have been a troll god from before
his discovery of Death. Humans only worship him on the surface world and so
are totaly unaware of this other aspect.
Nick Eden talks about OTE/Glorantha and Ralios :
>If people are interested I could upload some notes.
If you don't post them, please E-Mail me. I would like to run a Galastar game
with a similar feel. Also, I have been toying with a realy simple game system
for introducing people to roleplaying. It has some similarities with OTE by
the sounds of it. My aim is for a one-page game system.
Simon Hibbs
yfcw29@castle.ed.ac.uk
---------------------
From: Lynne.Clayton@bhein.rel.co.uk (Clayton, Lynne)
Subject: Lunar cults cont'd; Dart Wars; Vampires; Rune Points
Message-ID: <9408147795.AA779582552@reedel1.bhein.rel.co.uk>
Date: 14 Sep 94 13:42:32 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6203
Continued From: Paul Honigmann, Oxford, UK
===========================================
GLORANTHAN HINTS from Sandy Petersen, cont'd:
================
What can you tell us of the Cult of the Red Emperor?
WARNING: Henk tells me this differs greatly from Greg Stafford's version:
SP: he isn't worshipped directly. He gets power passed on through other
deities. If there is a cult, it isn't really one a PC would ever have a chance
to join, or want to for that matter. PC's are unlikely to ever come across it.
...She Who Waits?
SP: No-one really knows anything about her. In ceremonies, her part is
taken by someone wearing a mask.
...the White Moon?
SP/FGS: Who knows?
...Invisible Orlanth?
SP: This is a minor cult in Carmania and he thinks it's actually
suppressed by the Lunars, ie they don't turn a blind eye to it but are
actively opposed to it. Whether it's anything to do with Orlanth he doesn't
know. Trouble is, Carmanians (especially the nobles) just love joining
secret societies because of the intense intrigue of the area, so any power
group you can join might give you an advantage. Also, it's probably a bit of
an esoteric Mystery cult which appeals to degenerate nobles, having an exotic
and decadent sound to it, so it's very difficult to stamp out. The Lunars have
better things to do in the area than chase down members of a crackpot group
when others are involved in much more serious conspiracies.
DART WARS
=========
I collared FGS and SP on this one and they both broadly agreed: the
Emperor turns a blind eye to these ostensibly illegal activities because it
keeps the nobles on their toes and stops them stagnating. It's one of the
great tragedies of the Empire that several great families have been wiped
out in this fashion, but (like the issue of oppressive regimes mentioned
before, under 'Tax Demons') it's just one of those things to the Emperor.
The wars started out as duels, then they were fought by champions, then
teams of champions... simultaneously the scope of the targets widened from
one person to their entire family and then clan, like a vendetta.
Anything goes in a Dart War. There are stories of an agent being
infiltrated into a noble household and 'sleeping' for years until an
opportunity came up to poison their target. Subtlety is preferred over
brute force. I asked FGS: are bystanders, servants etc illegal targets? For
example, can you burn the target's house (incidentally immolating dozens of
servants)? 'Oh, absolutely,' he said, 'that's very very bad. Unless you win,
of course... :->'
VAMPIRES
========
I can't remember where I picked the following fact up, but it was either
here on the Daily or from FGS direct, about 2 years ago at a previous
Convulsion -
Background for readers without access to the RQ2 Cults of Terror: vampires
were originally not weedy monsters 'created by sorcerers' but extremely
powerful NPC's who had achieved rune level in the chaos cult of Vivamort.
Cults of Terror was one of the most tightly-plotted, well-thought-out bits of
RQ2 and Vivamort was one of the best bits of it, though I suppose it'll be
gelded in the RQ3 version as usual. One of a vampire's powers was the ability
to drain rune magic from an enemy by using their MP Draining Touch to leach
a victim down to 3 or less MP. At that point, the vampire gained the last
rune spell the victim sacrificed for, one-use, and the victim lost it -
permanently. It didn't matter if the victim had it as a reusable or one-use
spell; it was gone forever, and the vampire had it until it was used.
This, incidentally, meant that vampires were tricky customers because they
might have any spell you ever heard of, and more.
My question was: what happens when a vampire drains a sorcerer down to
<=3MP?
Answer: the sorcerer loses the last Blessing he sacrificed for!
Well, just thought I'd share that with you. Sweet dreams, all you
Malkioni players...
RUNE POINTS
===========
I notice that David Cheng and others have been advocating a system of
uncomitted Rune Power Points recently. IMO, these are a Bad Idea, for 3
reasons:
1. I always find that half the fun of Rune Magic is agonising over what to
sacrifice for with *this* year's hard-won 2 spare POW points, and
rejoicing / cursing later when you find you have spells appropriate, or
not, to a problem. A pool of programmable magic would be too easy.
2. If everyone could fire whatever spells they wanted whenever they wished,
- assuming they have recharged their pool - then EVERY Orlanthi will use
almost EXACTLY the same spells in a given situation. Ie: commit everything
to a huge Shield, Thunderbolt or Teleport out of there. The same goes for
all other cults. Result: you can predict almost exactly what a rune magic
user will do in combat, as long as you know his approximate age so you
can guess what his Rune Magic budget is likely to be, and cult.
3. It's powergaming.
*************** yet more to follow ! *********************
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Land goddesses and grain goddesses
Message-ID:
Date: 14 Sep 94 15:04:35 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6204
David Dunham in X-RQ-ID: 6195
> How do people run the Land Goddesses? Dorasta, frex, is a Land Goddess, as
> well as a Grain Goddess. Her health and the health of the land appear to be
> somewhat connected.
Hmm. My God Learner self says that the land goddesses are daughters of
Genert and the locally prevalent Earth Mother, whereas the grain
goddesses are Genert's daughters by Aldrya. This distinction doesn't
really help when you assume that both are one, as several earth cult
societies do; however the Orlanthi might view the grain goddesses as
handmaiden of the land goddess, who in turn is a daughter or handmaiden
of Ernalda.
Less male oriented cultures (like Esrolia) make all earth-connected
deities aspects of the one mother earth goddess and don't give a damn
for generations or individual ancestry.
_My_ Orlanthi (or semi-Orlanthi Aeolians) view the land goddess and the
grain goddesses as different entities, with different tasks. The tribal
land goddess is the one married by the tribal king - this explains why
Sartar has about 20 tribal kings, but why the rulers were only princes:
To become Prince of Sartar (i.e. high priest of the Ancestor worship of
Sartar as a subcult of the founding deity Sartar) one has to be a
direct descendant of the Founder, to become King of a tribe, one has to
marry the land. (Although this makes me wonder what the tribal queens
do to ensure the claim of sovereignty of their tribe - name a
champion?)
The grain goddess is directly related to the fertility, but has nothing
to do with sovereignty. To ensure her good will, out of the local
youths (and in some cases outside contestors as well, as in Garhound)
the best is chosen in a contest, is married to her representative for a
year, and mock-sacrificed afterwards.
(Around Wintertop they still do the real thing, and in Esrolia too -
the Pharaoh has stood in for this rite until late in 1616, since then I
guess they take ordinary youths again. Ask Nick Brooke for details.)
In matriarchally dominated societies like Wintertop or Esrolia, the
distinction between sovereignty and fertility is not made, and the male
rulers are sacrificed.
In any case, if a healthy handmaiden grain goddess serves an unhealthy
sovereign land goddess in male-dominated Orlanthi lands, the land and
its fertily suffers, but less so compared to societies where both
offices are one.
Having said this, all of the above applies to my vision of Dragon Pass
and Heortland, and might be totally different in Ralios or southwest
Peloria.
> In King of Sartar, the Feathered [Horse] Queen represents the "inherent
> sovereignty of the land, based on the consciousness of working with the
> goddess within it." I've been giving Ralia this power -- to become king of
> the tribe, you need to ritually marry a Ralia priestess (exactly what this
> means for female kings I haven't worked out).
IMO the Sartarite tribal kings work the same way. Kallyr as queen of
the Kheldon, Leika Ballista as queen of the Colymar and Yrsa Nightbeam
as queen of the Torkani are the only living tribal queens I know of,
and in the history of the Colymar only one other queen appears
(Umathkar Orldagsdotter, 1565-1573).
In the case of the Kyger Litor worshipping Torkani the Orlanthi method
of assigning sovereignty might have slanted towards the matriarchy of
the trolls.
The Colymar (IMO and according to CHDP) originally come from (the North
Marches of) Esrolia, and always had an earth priestess as their queen.
They might have had times when the queen embodied both earth and storm
powers, although Leika Ballista is reported as "pure" Vingan rather
than as Ernalda initiate/acolyte/whatever. She and Kallyr might be
outgrowths of the legendary egalitarianism of the Quivini Orlanthi.
> It seems clear that there is the concept of sovereignty of the land, though
> it's far from clear that it's in the Grain Goddess (Esrola), but rather in
> other Earth goddesses.
Under the Grazer domination the separation between the sovereignty
aspect and the fertility aspect is logical - the horse-riding overlords
cannot tolerate any connections between farmers' fertility rites and
their sovereignty rites. I think the same applies everywhere where
sovereignty is executed by different people than fertility (farming).
Such as in early 2nd Age Heortland, where the Hendreiki became
overlords of all the southern tribes, and while accepting the
sovereignty did not take upon themselves all of the fertility rites, or
in Peloria, where the native populace was handed from one conquerer to
the next, even though sometimes forces connected to native
Pelorian/Pelandan creed (like the Spolites in the early 2nd Age, or the
Lodrilites of Doblian and Darjiin in the later Hero Wars) came to
power.
> BTW, we've been wondering what Dorasta's grain is. Maize, same as her
> mother Pelora?
Hardly. Pelora received Maize only from Hon-eel's marriage with the
obscure elf god, as described in the history of the fifth wane. The
Pelorian Vendref in the Grazelands have Pela (the grain goddess aspect
of Pelora) as wheat goddess. (the Quivini acknowledge her, too.)
Since the cult of Dorasta was separated from that of Pelora in 450, I
doubt that she has anything to do with maize within history and Time. I
cannot say whether the Feldichi had maize or not.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de