Bell Digest v941016p1

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, Sun, 16 Oct 1994, part 1
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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

6614: joe = (Joerg Baumgartner)
 - Re: Oh woe is me! or: Shakespeare strikes again
6615: KFC01067 = (Takehiro OHYA)
 - Healers' Vow and Arroin
6616: vladt = (Kevin Rose)
 - Vessels, Etc.

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From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Re: Oh woe is me! or: Shakespeare strikes again
Message-ID: 
Date: 15 Oct 94 16:42:52 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6614

David laments the final acts of the great Tarshite soap opera we're 
composing. Strange, I tought a denizen of the land of Shakespeare 
would appreciate a story told to its end...

I asked:
> >How happy, and how long is "ever after" in a land that will be torn 
> >by civil and external warfare only a couple of years in the future? 
> >Fazzur is mentioned as the commander of the Tarshite force in 1625, 

and gentle David quoth:
> Damn you! Why spoil it all! Fazzur and the Queen had a chance of happiness, 
> and now you've smashed those hopes to pieces on the rock of your despicable 
> logic. I weep for them.

Will you accept my condolations?

> It is now obvious to me. Why do we hear nothing of Fazzur after 1625, and 
> only hear of his son Onjur after 1631? It is clear now that Fazzur was by 
> 1631 dead, along with his second wife, both brutally murdered at the hands 
> of his son, Onjur, in vengeance for the death of Onjur's foul and shrewish 
> mother. The swine! The cad! 

I can see the scene before me: It is Freezeday of Sea Season, as Fazzur 
returns frorm the morning service to the Seven Mothers in Furthest. While 
he usually spends his time at home, dividing his time between the loving 
attentions of his wife, his books, his estates, and his students, pressing 
clan affairs had brought him to Furthest once again. Stepping out of the 
temple, already half-way down, suddenly a group of his senior students step 
forth from the shadows between the columns, the hoods of their cloaks 
hiding their counenances, led by Onjur. However, Fazzur recognizes them 
already from their motions, after all he had trained every single one 
of them in the arts of battle and strategy. Neither Fazzur nor his 
students wear armour, although Fazzur is belted with his steel 
scimitar. Without suspicion Fazzur greets the 15 young men, as suddenly he 
feels the cold chill of an upcoming ambush. And lo, as he turns around, 
some armed and armoured members of the Phargantites leave the temple gate. 
Suspecting them to be the source of his alarm, Fazzur turns round and 
reaches for his sword, as the daggers of Onjur and his friends hit him in 
his back. His last breath is "You, my son?"

The Phargantites rush forward, to lay their hands on the assassins, 
when they realize that the man staggering in a pool of his own blood 
is Fazzur, their chief rival and opponent. Nonchalantly they walk by, 
assuming that Imperial agents are hidden beneath those hoods.

Onjur leads his companions to the parental stead. They sweep through 
the villas, until they find Queen Hendira in her bath, her ever 
present sacred snake pressed firmly to her bosom. Startled and bereft 
of his revenge, Onjur lets the silken garrotte drop when he perceives 
the fading image of a crimson scimitar rising through the ceiling - 
despite their haste, Fazzur's allied spirit had delivered the message 
of the general's death just before Onjur could fulfil the other half 
of his vow to take the life of his mother's murderers.


What happened before?

When Onjur's hapless mother had been disposed off, Fazzur had taken 
the opportunity when an assassin sent by the Phargantite had penetrated 
his estates' outer defences. The assassin had been slain by Horatio 
Hostilius below the window to the chambers of Fazzur's wife, a mere 
week after Fazzur's return from Esrolia. Queen Hendira still resided as 
a guest of state with the local earth temple. Before anyone learned of 
the incident, Fazzur activated a magical trinket he had exchanged with 
his beloved, and informed her of this strike of fortune. Via this piece 
of jewelry the decided to strangle Fazzur's wife, and blame the deed on 
the slain assassin.

The scheme was carried out, and several years Onjur pursued the 
Phargantite conspirators who had sent the asassin to fulfil the vow 
he had given on his mother's funeral. However, when he and his companions 
finally had removed the last of the conspirators from this life, his 
vow (and geas) still weren't fulfilled. Puzzled, Onjur fell back to 
divination, and found out the bitter truth that to fulfil his vow, he 
had to slay his own father!

Thus the scene on the 15th day of Sea Season resulted, after Onjur 
had the trinket which connected the lovers stolen from his father.


> Joerg! Why couldn't you let it rest? Why did you have to delve deeper? Why? 
> Why? Why? Now my hero is dead and I don't know if I can go on... 

> You murdered him Joerg!! Your merciless logic cut his heart out - and with 
> it my hopes and dreams of a pure and happy Glorantha. 

> I'm sorry, I have to go now...

This is a true tragedy, with all elements of greatness and loss you can 
wish for in a world gone mad. If this tragedy moved you, the poet can 
retire, we can find solace in the cautionary tale told by the chorus after 
a grief-stricken Onjur, finally released from his vow of vengeance, 
lightens the bier or his father.

-- 
--  Joerg Baumgartner   joe@sartar.toppoint.de

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From: KFC01067@niftyserve.or.jp (Takehiro OHYA)
Subject: Healers' Vow and Arroin
Message-ID: <199410151750.CAA06395@inetnif.niftyserve.or.jp>
Date: 16 Oct 94 11:49:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6615

Hello to all,

Richard Ohlson: X-RQ-ID: 6575
>A friend mentioned a CA subcult representing her son.  In this subcult men
>are allowed to become High Healers.  (The only way for men to become priest
s)
>What do people know about him?

Wait a minute, there isn't any difficulty for men to become
priests (High Healers) of Chalana Arroy, judging from the cult
write-up in "River of Cradles."  "Female members are usually
called White Women" says that there are other members who aren't
called "White Women," I suppose.

>Challana Arroys are sworn not hurt anything that is not chaotic.  I have
>allways wondered how they are supposed to tell.  Why isn't there a spell
>to detect Chaos?

I think they've never sworn such an oath. Quoting from RoC, "An
initiate must take an oath never to harm an intelligent creature
or needlessly cause pain to any living thing." Thus, CA
initiates mustn't kill or harm (phisically) Broos, Ogres,
Scorpion Man, Jack O'Bear, and so on.

Chaotic creatures are exceptions of only there oath of
protecting her captives. When a broo attacks a CA initiates who
travels alone, she probably uses her Sleep spell to him. And if
he is defeated by the spell, she must run away as fast as she
can, because she cannot harm this thug.

Luckily enough, there comes a Storm Bull cultists. She can tell
him where the broo sleeps and that he isn't under her protection
(This is the exception!), and even ask him to kill, but she can
never attack the broo at all even if he is a obvious chaotic
creature.

(If CA cultists can harm broos, there is no room for the famous
Wild Healer of the Rockwoods.)

So, the most useful skill for CA cultists is not Sense Chaos, I
think, but Beast Training by which they can tell intelligent
creatures from animals.... OK, please don't flame to me on this
point. It's Joke.

-----
Takehiro OHYA    KFC01067@niftyserve.or.jp
College of Arts and Sciences The University of TOKYO

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From: vladt@interaccess.com (Kevin Rose)
Subject: Vessels, Etc.
Message-ID: 
Date: 15 Oct 94 13:26:04 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 6616

Paul:

I'll have to look at your concepts again, they seemed to make sense more 
than before.  

Soda has (as of last month) the playtest list through Febuary.  I have 
June-August.

Kevin

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