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, 14 Oct 1994, part 2 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Arkati and Illumination Message-ID: <9410132040.AA04525@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 13 Oct 94 20:40:46 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6592 I bring dire tidings to Jonas: > >This assumes that the Arkati regard themselves as Illuminates, which > >Greg assures (nay, chastens) me is not the case. > Ho-hum. Gregged again. CoP (our reference for all this) says that Arkati > consider themselves the epitome of the Light Side. I'd forgotten about this line (CoT, to be picky), though I knew I'd received that impression from _somewhere_; I should have thrown that back at Greg. ;-) > If we want to salvage > that old description, then we can assume that at least _one_ Arkat movement > (perhaps a really underground one that hasn't been written about yet) > preserves the original secret of Arkat's Illumination and encourages it > among its members. What Greg seems to think is that the cults of the Dark Empire, and perhaps some of the latter-day Arkat cults, had their own "system of information" which was like Illumination in some ways (such as ability to detect Illuminates, I'm tempted to guess), but not equivalent to it, or thought of as at all similar. Asking him for much detail on this may be fruitless, as he seems to be rethinking Pelorian idea on illumination, pouring scorn on all existing and any possible future rules for illumination (et al), and is being very quiet about Arkat cults in the 3rd age. In any case, given the theories, which, whether "true" or not, might certainly plausibly be expounded in Glorantha, such as Arkat and Nysalor becoming ultimately indistingishable or interchanged, it's clearly possible for a (probably Pelorian, perhaps Ralian) cult to espouse both worship of Arkat and Illumination. > >Given the freedom Illuminates have to act however they wish, neither the > >"Light" or "Dark" side is so much as mould, as a handy label. > Yes, we know: that's our point. The passage you're citing is an attempt to > discredit the dualism. As I thought I'd made clear with my closing remarks. You seemed to be saying, rather, that "some Illuminates might not be either Dark-siders or Light-siders". What I'm suggesting is that it's basically a philosophical distinction, and trying to classify individuals by it is a bit pointless. Though doubtless some people do so, based mainly on their own personal morals, ethics, and axes. Alex. --------------------- From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu Subject: Re: FAZZUR THE GREAT Message-ID: <9410132051.AA27951@venus.phyast.pitt.edu.phyast.pitt.edu> Date: 13 Oct 94 20:51:38 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6593 Paul Reilly replying to David Hall (X-RQ-ID: 6563) BRILLIANT. Fazzur is My Hero, possibly my favorite Gloranthan, and I was deeply puzzled. Kudos to David and Joerg for this wonderful, and insightful, discovery. -Paul >The real reason to take heads is to _use_ them. No, not in the Thanatari Celts used to lime up heads and throw them at the kinfolk of the head. I adapted this for the older, more shamanic Orlanthi (those Kolatings up in the hills, y'know) and gave them a ritual like this. The ghost of the beheaded person engages kinfolk in spirit combat if you hit one with the limed-up head. Lots of fun. Remember ghosts are most dangerous to kinfolk of the deceased anyway, in most cultures. We play taking the head pretty well prevents resurrection - it's hard anyway. Orlanthi do this, for example, to other Orlanthi who go over to the Lunars. If they can... (Remember, the Lunars have Resurrection) I have some other stuff to say about this but just discovered that Ian Gorlick said most of it already (6573)... Harald Smith (6572) writes: >the Sun is ABOVE the >moon and the light would be on top, not the side (unless you come up >with some convoluted theory about light bending downward). Umm. The Moon is way north of Magasta's Pool, center of the Middle World, and the Sunpath is mostly in the southern half of the Skydome. Pretty side-on lighting by my reckoning. Second: Make a little drawing. Light curving UP would be hitting the south face of the Moon - Light curving DOWN would be more on the top. ANd the Clement Longhair theory (promulgated by me and quoted by Greg) is that light, like Fire, tend to rise toward its natural home, the Sky World. Thus, Light curves UP and Moon is sunlit on its southern face, not on top. Even with straight light rays (pshaw) the southern face of the Moon is lit. Draw a side view of Glorantha and convince yourself. Joerg wrote (6754): >Alex and I agreed that getting a divine spell, be it common or special >to the religion, requires a ceremony, if not a little Hero- or >RuneQuest, which involves the action the spell is supposed to perform. This is the way I play it also, with some additions. A big, established, old, civilized temple will have very formalized quests with little real danger. They have worked out the bugs and you can "just buy the spell", not even acting out the quest on a PLAYER level (although of course the character does) because it is so foreordained. A small, backward, or primitive temple will support only a few quests (maybe none!) in this way. YOU CAN STILL QUEST FOR THE SPELL. However, it may be more expensive in Power, it may be more dangerous, and you may not get quite the result you planned! Very primivite areas that are just starting up on this whole "cult" thing, e.g., the Harangvats around the Sweet Sea, may have NO formal temples at all, but people can STILL quest as in the previous paragraph - it's just more free form. You have to be guided by your folktales in this case. No priests, just informal leadership of older people who have accomplished some quests in the past. (This can evolve into formalized religion eventually, with the priests controlling the knowledge of how to quest and access to the sacred sites) Oh, I wrote some of this up for Trickster some years ago. It should be archived at soda.berkeley.edu... >why shouldn't a shaman undergo the same quests? Or make up her own. That's what we do... >the shaman has only himself and his fetch to work with. Ahh. We play this a bit differently. The shaman's friends & loved ones (husbands and lovers usually for our female shaman) stand by and guard the body while the shaman quests (she is a catatonic trance shaman, lies there and then tells about it later, as much as she remembers. SOme shamans are psychodrama shamans and describe their quest in realtime) Anyway, the events on the mundane plane reflect what is going on in the spirit world. For example, when Wolverine (the Totem) was trying to seduce her into a false path in the spirit world, a physical wolverine attacked and was beaten off by her husband and a friend. Their success or failures influenced the spiritual battle, and vice-versa. It would be VERY HARD to write rules for this stuff, if someone can I will be pleased and impressed. _Paul Richard Ohlson writes about Sense Chaos: >why do the Uroxi keep such a useful skill secret? My answer: they don't The skill comes about because of their link to their god, through Initiation. It can't be taught. Only by partaking of the blood of the Bull can you learn his secrets... To me, Initiation is a PROFOUND step, which can bring mental, spiritual, and physical changes to the Initiate. You are mixing your soul with that of a God! For example: Urox: Sense Chaos, a new sense. Painful and useful. Humakt: CAN'T BE RESURRECTED. Big change, no? Uleria: Whoa boy! Valind and Himile Initiates can't freeze to death. Oh, they can freeze solid, but it won't kill them. Kyger Litor initiates change species! The reason we don't think about the changes induced by the Big Cults like Orlanth is that they are the defining cults for their society, and the immense changes they brought became "just normal". Example: I don't think that people were free-willed and conscious before Umath came. ------------------------- Paul Reilly here. Is the RQ4 list archived somewhere? I want proof of priority for the Vessel concept. I am unable to comment on Bruce Mason's sorcery system until I calm down. -Paul --------------------- From: ppofandt@ozemail.com.au (PAUL POFANDT) Subject: Wanted : Collected Grisalda Message-ID: <1994OCT14.747@ozemail.com.au> Date: 14 Oct 94 21:08:56 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6594 G'day Does anyone know where I can get my hands on a copy of the Collected Grisalda. The local distributers here in Aust. (MOB) have unfortunately run out. Even a second-hand copy would be appreciated, Drop me a line on ppofandt@ozemail.com.au Ta. Paul. Another side issue. Does anyone have any suggestions as to reverting Griffin Island supplement back to the Balazar area. What differences are there between Griffen Is. and Griffen Mountain? Anything significant? Paul. --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: In da ahmy now. Message-ID: <9410140157.AA14417@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 14 Oct 94 01:57:10 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6595 Sandy P: > As John Keegan and > others have pointed out, for basically unknown reasons (though _lots_ > of theories are bruited about) it is exceedingly rare, with only the > most trifling exceptions, for women to go to battle. Sandy makes it sounds like one of the Mysteries of Life, but I think the basic reasons are fairly evident, it's just a matter of haggling over the exact overlying cultural details making it exactly as uncommon as it's been. > [Side non-Gloranthan note: this does not seem > to apply to individualized one-on-one combats, such as fighter > pilots. I predict the future will see air force personnel moving > closely to the 50-50 ratio, with the army and navy never ever > reaching near it.] In fact, an awful lot of the jobs in modern armies and navies require no more physical strength or aggression than driving an F14, so one could make much the same argument. Of course, this neglects to consider the social and organisation resistance to ideas like women pointing MLRS's or 18" guns at people. Many are still struggling with the concept of employing anyone who's had a kid or sleeps with persons of the "wrong" gender in any military capacity whatsoever, so I'm not holding my breath in regards projected gender equalisation. > While Glorantha is not earth, and there are plenty of female > warriors, I don't think, for instance, that the Sartar City Militia > has anything _near_ 15% women among its ranks. Perhaps not, since despite the name, this is probably effectively a standing military unit. Small-town militias, and emergency-levied troops such as those including the much-batted-about Red Hair Lodge could have something approaching the 15% figure. > Anyway, my point was that I think that the nepotism and > desire for control on the part of Esrolia's female leaders would > ensure that most of the high military leaders would all be women, but > few of the ordinary soldiers. I reckon it's probably about 50/50 myself (depending on what is meant by "high", mind you). This is an easily shocking enough ratio to help maintain the "ruled by women" stereotype. > I don't think that this is why their army is so incompetent, tho. I think the main reason is simply their (relatively) pastoral and peaceful lifestyle for most of recent centuries, but a secondary effect is that "male" religions (which include the most common warrior functions -- battalions of Babs Gori or Yelornans seem unlikely) have been "leashed". If overtly-macho pursuits are a devalued and dead-end-preferment-wise occupation, it's not going to do much for the general quality, though there may also be some reaction to this, like the notorious last-chance- saloon Esrolian Humakti with Very Large Swords. > Pester Guy, not me. Guy, consider all those pesters hereby Reflected at you! Alex. --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Extrahealing Message-ID: <9410140338.AA16266@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 14 Oct 94 03:38:46 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6596 Nick Brooke argumentum ad authoratatum's: > I thought Greg's views on the rarity of healing magic in Glorantha (i.e. > "There's about 1/10th as much Healing in the world as you'd assume from > playing RuneQuest") were well known by now. That, however, may be a comment on the gaming MGF syndrome in general, rather than a specific criticism of RQ in particular. Though personally I'll start a polite ripple if he recants of "Heal Wound" being a Common spell. The main practical effect is the "No one leaves this town until half the party has Heal 4" self-prevervation instinct, which is pretty much in GM hands. Alex. --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Compress those maps! Smaller! Message-ID: <9410140410.AA16849@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 14 Oct 94 04:10:59 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6597 Nils Weinander haggles with Wayne Gaudin over graphics formats: > uuencoded real graphics is better. GIF or TIFF is preferable over PS since > they are easier to convert if they don't suit you. Best for many, and certainly for bandwidth, would be JPEG. Maps can generally stand having the lossiness cranked up a fair bit, unless they contain small, hard to read text. (Hi Greg!) I anticipate objections from the Technologically Inferior here, but this would be an order of magnitude less spammy. Alex. --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Orlanth Rex et al. Message-ID: <9410140427.AA17093@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 14 Oct 94 04:27:32 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6598 David Dunham: > They probably didn't, or only did so rarely. There are a lot of Orlanthi > that can't effectively do so now. [Organise into tribes] I suspect the O. Rex cult corresponds more to the development of kingdoms, rather than tribes. After all, if you have a single tribe as the top level of social organisation, then there's only one guy who'd necessarily be an Orlanth Rex cultist, the tribal king. (Clan chiefs and others can be, but don't have to be, I think.) Since a cult with one initiate isn't too interesting, I think there's only really much impetus for a cult of kingship when you've added yet another level of social organisation, the federation of tribes, or capital-K Kingdom. As the Rex subcult was the one to established partially enclosed temples, I suspect it corresponded to a move into larger cities, and a general increase in "civilisation". As to the Victorious subcult, I reckon this may be basically a patriotically-rebadged Lightbringer, particularly given the Sartar altar of respectivelty that name, and that ritual function. I'll know marginally more about what the L. cult is itself like after I beat a Heroes #4 out of Sam "Pint of G&T, please" Phillips, but I reckon it's most worshipped in civilised areas, as are the Lightbringers in general, with Thunderous and the Brother's Ring being more important in rural and "backward" areas. Alex. --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Resurrect Message-ID: <9410140434.AA17222@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 14 Oct 94 04:34:04 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6599 Nick B. fumes: > As for Shamans only getting Resurrect from "spirit cults", this is IMHO a > grotesque God Learnerisation. The shaman is dealing with a "Great Spirit", > but because the God Learners have decreed that this is in fact a "God" it > doesn't count as bona fide Shamanism?? Eh? Someone seems to be forgetting that "spirit cults" are GLishly classified under _Horned Man: the Great Shaman_. How bona fide do you want? What was being argued about, I thought, was whether some arbitrary shaman, whatever his local belief system, should be able to "mechanically" plug spirits back into dead bodies. > Typical semantic twaddle. In your titanic struggle with the Nysalors of this list, Nick, perhaps it'd be wise to bear in mind (at least one of) the (purported) fate(s) of Arkat. > The ethical question is over > whether an Evil Sorcerer could cast exactly the same spell by performing > the same ritual. There are real-world arguments which suggest he could do > so, incidentally: but nobody was interested last time I brought these up. I assumed we all just quietly agreed with you. I did, for one. In particular, I think it's "impossible" to test the moral stature, or "initiatory status" of someone in a Western religion, much more so than in a theist cult. So yes, I think that if an Evil Wizard dupes a congregation into participating in his WIG spell, it would be generally held to have "worked" in the sense that it wouldn't invalidate the discharging of religious obligations by the plebs, or any consecrations or ordinations carried out under his auspices. Naturally, the original offender will still [verb] in Hell, but that's all beyond mortal Kenneth. > Joerg writes extremely well in English, and I have told him so often. He do indeed. Even were it the case that Joerg's TradeTalk were below that magical publishable 50% barrier, the amount of further work to make it so would be fairly modest. More so then some native scrawlers it'd be libellous to name. And personally, I'd settle for considerably worse yet in the cause of getting my paws on anything other than German in my paws. Mind you, if his protestations are just a ruse to avoid the tedium of enenglishing, my lethargic side can only empathise. ;-) > His > only problem is that after receiving a corrected idiomatic text for one of > his articles, he bins it and continues to work from the old version... Joerg's unidiomatic idioms are rather growing on me: as much as I'd like to be a zealot of linguistic purity, I think I turned up precisely 900 years too late to do English much good. Slainte, Alai. --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Humakt geasa: supplemental. Message-ID: <9410140442.AA17375@hawaii.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 14 Oct 94 04:42:05 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6600 Just to wind up Nick, and to answer my own question of Sandy, here's some (fairly off the cuff) ideas about the "missing" geases from the RQ3 Humakt, as well as what strikes me as more likely geas/gift combos. Where these overlap unduly with each other, or official gifts, rationalise as by-temple or by-region variants, if liked. Zilch playtesting, so beware. Alex. Geas/Gift Addenda: Mistrust all [species] / Bless a specific weapon to do +2 damage against [species] Mistrust all non-Humakti / Increase Detect Assassin skill by 20%. Never eat from a dish; eat no meat on Death week; (etc) / +1 to effective CON against poison. Use no shield / Increase points of a given piece of armour by 50%. Ride no animals / Recover fatigue at double normal rate Use no non-cult spirit magic / Recover magic points at double normal rate Remain silent Death week and each Freezeday, Dark season / Detect Undead at no mp cost Remain silent Truth week each season / Initiate: gain a Detect Truth spell, reusable as per Swords Sword: Detect Truth as per the spell once per day --------------------- From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham) Subject: Healers Vows Message-ID: <199410140621.AA23483@radiomail.net> Date: 14 Oct 94 06:21:34 GMT X-RQ-ID: 6601 Ian Gorlick presented some very fine reasons why the Orlanthi take heads, which I'm appropriating for my East Ralios campaign. Neat how you combine Celtic trophy heads and the Viking prohibition against secret murder. Richard Ohlson wonders >Challana Arroys are sworn not hurt anything that is not chaotic. I have >allways wondered how they are supposed to tell. Presumably they can't, and have to live like those Jews who keep radically kosher, just in case. So they don't harm anything except what is obviously chaotic. >the BG cultists made a deal with the Orlanth temple and talked >them into trading some buckets of Woad Note that almost all Babeester Gor worshippers are _culturally_ Orlanthi...