Bell Digest v940915p4

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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 15 Sep 1994, part 4
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From: Lynne.Clayton@bhein.rel.co.uk (Clayton, Lynne)
Subject: Truestone; Ralzakark; Ragnaglar; Runic Origins; Cat Fights;
Message-ID: <9408147795.AA779584411@reedel1.bhein.rel.co.uk>
Date: 14 Sep 94 14:13:31 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6210




From: Paul Honigmann, Oxford, UK (part the fourth + last)
================================


   TRUESTONE 
   =========
   (Since writing this I now see others have put similar comments on the 
Daily:-)

   - in RQ2 this was pretty useless, it stored rune magic but you
couldn't regain the spell until it was used from the stone. Now in RQ3 it's
worse than useless, in fact if I were a divine magic user I'd run a mile from
it. On the other hand, as a chaot I'd find a piece of blank truestone an
incredible treasure. Imagine mounting a piece on the edge of a weapon, like a
spear or dagger. Now hit that pesky Wind Priest who's been slaughtering your
mates. Never mind about hurting him, just touch his skin - and remember 
Gloranthan armour isn't full-coverage. Suddenly, he can't cast any more rune
magic. Now run away and hide the truestone somewhere like a deep lake. You
can come back for the priest when his Shield's worn off in a few minutes...
   OK, so it's pretty contrived. But if a truestone arrowhead hit *you,* and
sucked out several points of hard-won spells, you'd be pretty paranoid about
losing that stone... I wonder if you can make Truestone dust? (Simple, *all*
you need is two chunks of Adamantite to grind it between...)



   RALZAKARK
   =========
   Here's a thought for you. The chaos god Krjalk was killed by Zorak Zoran,
but those elves in Dorastor seem to worship him. Note also how Dorastor seems
to have created its own ecology from nothing. Remind you of anything? I wonder
if the true secret of Dorastor is that it's outside Time, actually part of
the Void 'from which all things came', and reforming in the image of the 
original Chaos gods. 
   In which case Ralzakark may not be part of Gbaji, as everyone seems to 
assume, but Ragnaglar - the father of the broo race (? could be wrong there 
but I'll continue anyway). If Ralzakark *was* an avatar of Ragnaglar, it 
would explain his extraordinary ability to unite the broos of the area.



   RAGNAGLAR, THE MAD GOD
   ======================
   Joe Lannon asked for details on the God of Ragtime Jazz in X-RQ-ID-5869.
I had some broo in his cult in my last campaign - some Hero Broo had 
resurrected him, that was going to be the PCs' next quest after they'd duffed
up Delecti. Here you are then, in True RQ2 format. None of the following is 
official, of course:
   Ragnaglar's form is that of a giant, two-headed broo. The two heads often
argue and can be characterised as Beavis and Butthead. Two-headed broos are
considered 'blessed by Ragnaglar' by other goatkin (and Thanatari?).

   SPELLS:
   CULT SPECIAL SPELL: ENHANCE CHAOS:
   As one of the Unholy Trio, Rag has extra control over Chaos (like Thed has
the Rebirth of Chaos spell). He offers a 1-use, 3-point Rune spell which
doubles the effect of any chaos feature, permanently. Thus 12-point skin
becomes 24-point, etc. It can be stacked!!!!!
   SMALL SYLPH - Raggie is a Storm deity. These sylphs have a random chaotic
feature each time they appear.
   STORMSTRENGTH: doubles your strength for 15 minutes, even above species
maximum.
   REVERSE CHAOS (from Thed)
   SUMMON SPIRIT OF CHAOS, POW 3d6+6, random chaos feature
   CAUSE CREEPING CHILLS (from Mallia).
   ALL STANDARD 1 POINT RUNE MAGIC; DISMISS 2,3; EXTENSION 2.
   No special, or forbidden, battle magics.

   Membership: broo automatic lay members; other chaots easily but must be
air breathers.

   Runes: Storm, Beast, Chaos.

   Ragnaglar reserves an especial hatred for his brother Storm Bull. Also
hates Thanatar, who was always after his heads.

   Rag the Lad is the father of the Broo race, and once he returned to 
the world his reborn cult was able to *organise* broo into disciplined 
regiments. The PC's kept coming across hard groups of broo soldiers bearing a 
double-headed broo symbol (like the double-headed eagle of Imperial Germany), 
who fought sensibly and would even run away if necessary. They never did figure 
out what was going on.
   


   WIMMIN
   ======
   I noticed a lot of discussion recently on whether there should be more 
Equal Opportunities for Wimmin in the West. May I stick my oar in & observe -
  
        *...well, actually Paul you may not!                             *
        *...or at least not through this node                            *
        *TRIVIAL NON-PC,BOMBASTIC,CHAUVANISTIC AND UTTERLY BORING SECTION*      
        *DELETED .... for your own good, if you know what I mean....Lynne*



   RUNES
   =====
   Someone brought up the question of where the symbols for the Runes came
from. FGS shed some light on this at Convulsion: when the Godlearners compared
the symbols for Fire, Fire/Sky, Heat, Light, etc from around Glorantha they
noticed certain similarities for similar concepts. From these they formulated
the Basic / Root / Archetypal Runes. But be warned! Different cultures might
use different symbols (runes) for the same thing, or the same rune for
different things or aspects of a thing. The Godlearners semi-unified everyone,
but they've drifted apart again in the last millenium. So don't build huge
structures of deduction on the rather shaky foundations of Runic Shapes; those
in the rulebooks are just an approximation for playability.



   CAT FIGHTS
   ==========
   Another idea. One of the things very different in ancient / medieval
cultures from our own seems to be blood sports. Badger baiting, bear baiting,
Roman gladiatorial combat, cockfighting, dogfights were all subjects for 
gambling and jollity, which I think can be used to good effect to give a 
background of callousness towards others and a darker, more Machiavellian 
(realistic) atmosphere. My next plan for my players is for them to come across 
a Lunar community where they breed huge black cats - for fighting each other! 
How better to put Orlanth in his place?



   SPIRITS POSSESSING DREAM DRAGONS:
   =================================
   I've always thought DD's were too weak. Too easy for a simple tactics to 
kill. I'd rule that, like True Dragons, they were immune to Spirit Combat and
give them some immunity to spells, too - that's one reason the Dragonkill War
was so one-sided. Remember DD's are sentient, often malevolent; they should
EAT anyone trying to control them.



   NICK BROOKE:
   ============
   Thanks muchly for the hints on Kalikos. I'd no idea he was a she.



   BCHUGG:(off the wall?)
   ======= 
   I have noticed your name a lot recently. Haven't heard of you
before but you talk a lot of sense. One small thing though, you seem to be
under a misapprehension; you said the other day that "we Brits" have taken
over the daily, and implied we seem insufferably smug about Tales, Convulsion
and our strong RQ base. The thing is, we never took it over - it was always
ours. RQ is, of course, a British invention, indeed Greg is in fact British.



   WARNING:
   ========
Beware of counterfeit Gregs claiming to be American or Scandinavian.
These are simply heretical offshoots of the One True Church Of Greg (UK).
The Spoken Word is investigating allegations of mythmanagement and heresy in
this regard and will be 're-educating' any who claim otherwise.
   
   All hail the Reaching Tentacle,

       Paul Rivetloose Mann



***********  THE END...NO REALLY IT IS.... GO HOME! GO HOME!  ***************

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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson)
Subject: Elmal, Yelmalio, and friends.
Message-ID: <9409150516.AA15235@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Sep 94 05:16:19 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6218


Me:
> > Asked: "Are these two gods the same", one should respond "What do
> >you mean by "the same"?"; "Who's asking the question?"; "How would one tell?"
> >and the ever-popular, "What's in it for me/you/him?".

Peter M:
> A clarification here.  Of course the worshippers would regard them as being
> different gods.  That is their subjective view.  What I am talking about is
> the objective view which would be useful if say a lost Caladralander Lodril
> priests manages to make his way across the wastes to see the temple of Solf.
> Would he be able to regain his spells there?  Yes.  But if a sage asked the
> Solfties if their god was Lodril, they would say no.

But is there an "objective" view, in any meaningful sense?  I'm not sure
if he would be able to regain said spell, I'm not certain how similar the
cults are.  But in any case, I don't think it's a matter of Object(ive)
Identity, but of similarity of belief and religious practice, and of faith
in the True Equivalence of the particular worshipper.

> >But would a Sartarite Narri [Elmali] clansman

BTW, this is an Alexo; I should have said "Enhyli".

> > and a Praxian Sun Domer
> >agree that they worshipped the same god?  I find it very unlikely.  If we
> >decided they worshipped the "same" god, would this mean the former couldn't
> >DI against the latter, or that the second could Divine information about
> >the first?  Not very satisfactory, in my view.

> DInformation?  Presumably you mean divine intervention.

Hardly, since I just said that.  Divine, verb, as in to perform a divination.

> In any case I do not
> think you could DI against other people so your conundrum does not arise.  DI
> (IMO at least) is only used for enhancing your own situation not diminshing
> various attributes of others.

You can quibble about what you can do to an arbitrary person,
worshipper or not, but there's a clearly stated further restriction
about what you can't do to worshippers of the "same" god.  I don't
think these manifest signs of divine similarity (or lack thereof)
(Divination, DI, spell regaining, etc) will generally, obviously, as a
rule, fly in the face og what the various worshippers _believe_ to be
the case.

> >>[The dissension in the Elmali clans]

> >Their logic isn't too unfathomable.  They know that they worship the sun
> >(the thing I point to when I say "Sun"), and they know that Yelm worshippers
> >(who _obviously_ worship the sun, and there's only one sun, right?) can
> >bring Sunspears, so it must be possible.

> If there is only one sun, then please explain why the Elmali do not get
> Sunspear?

  How many can you see up there?  The Elmali religion is
not the same as the Dara Happan cult of Yelm.  There is only one sun in the
sky.  Slice it any way you like.

If you're asking me this with my Sartarite Elmali hat on, I'd say something
about how Yelm was a false sun god, and that his worshippers were all evil
Illuminants who got their fire powers from chaos demons, or some such.
Yelmalions would counter-explain that Elmal's a lame-no-hoper, who denies
his Yelmic parentage (or simply doesn't have such), and hence is hosed,
Sunspearwise.

> And that Monrogh only came back with a pale shadow of Yelm rather
> than the true Yelm cult?

I was hardly saying that.  I don't think it's useful to agonise about "which"
god he brought back.  It was a god not unlike Elmal, who was the son of
Yelm.  See David Hall's article on a plausible Yelmalion (re)construction
of a story of how It Should Have been Yelmalio All Along, and not Elmal.

> >Of course, the precise route they used to bring this about is to "discover"
> >that Yelmalio is Yelm's son, and hence his associate, therefore getting
> >said Sunspear.

> Hmm, but they worshipped Elmal to start off with, not Yelmalio.  What the
> conservative elmali were complaining about IMO was the Dara Happan nature of
> the 'Antirius' cult.

The Yelmalio cult, please, if you would.  They're arguing about things like
whether (Y)Elmal(io) is the son of Yelm, whether one should have shrines to
Yelm in the temples, etc.  These are ultimately Dara Happan idea, yes, but
hardly require that one has door-to-door salesmen from the Antirius cult.

> >The "dispute" was settled by the two groups being physically separated so's
> >they stop beating each other up (old Sartar), and by the Yelmalions beating
> >up their local Elmali (Farpoint).  

> This is david hall's intepretation.  I haven't seen any sign of the Elmali in
> the Righteous Wind revolt apart from this.  

If you mean that Elmali as such still exist, this is also Greg Stafford's
interpretation.  I'm not clear if you're disagreeing about something else.
I don't think he's about to Greg us all by telling us _where_, since I don't
think he wants to stoke the embers of _that_ argument over much.  (A guess,
not a claim of Insider Information, btw.)  If anyone wants to be Alexed, though,
I think the aforementioned clan of the Coymar are still fairly unadulterated
Elmali.

> If you read back further, I did suggest an origin for Yelmalio.  As for saying
> it hardly solves anything to suppose it has an elvish origin, I do not
> understand.  What is there that needs to be urgently 'solve'd? 

I'm not clear on that myself.  What I'm saying is that I don't see the power,
or the point, of the idea that the cult was adopted from the elves, though
I suspect there is a parallel.  Did the Elmali and aldryami send missionaries
to each other?  How does this relate to the Dara Happan influence?  What,
in short, is the Elven Yelmalio theory _for_?  My own feeling is that the
(changed) name is simply the "original" one, altered to reflect his "true"
parentage by the worshippers themselves, and not actually imported from
elsewhere.

> >Couldn't disagree more.  The rituals, for most purposes, _are_ the religion,
> >not a PR bolt-on.

> Hmm, we'll have a lot harder time trying to get regional variation that way.

Not at all.  We're going to have a hard time getting real regional variation,
if there are hard-and-fast concrete identities between gods in different
areas, in ways which significantly effect their worshippers in obvious ways.

> I must confess my bias and state I
> see the ceremony ritual not as a uniform skill all over Glorantha but as a
> combination of traditions.  Doraddi would do dances whereas the Dara Happans
> might sacrifice bulls and the Kralori meditate.

This is only an obstacle if you think that for some reason they are
ultimately worshipping exactly the same entities, and the differences in
worship must be unimportant.

Alex.

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