RE: Re: PEOPLE: Broyan and the Larnsti

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...>
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 20:33:08 +1300


Jeff:

>If you have some grand Larnsti idea or plot that
>you think needs to be incorporated into Glorantha and that we're
>jeopardizing, by all means let us know.

The Larnsti are about Heortland as a whole. They are not in any way special to Broyan and nothing in the source material has ever indicated that.

> But don't insist that they are
>well-developed in the limited source material - because they aren't.

Since where have I said anything like that, Jeff? What I've pointed out over and over again that it's better to have Broyan's Larnsti as *a* heroband and allow them to have more freedom elsewhere.

>Maybe Greg has some big ideas for them, but I doubt it. You might have
>some big ideas for them, but, as far as I can tell, you aren't
>articulating them.

For good reason. This whole forum is about Whitewall and the Volsaxar but not Heortland as a whole.

Broyan has no major impact among the Esvulari and the Andrini Hendreiki before the siege, having been opposed to them both. After Iceland, he performs
one battle and then goes into hiding after problems with Chaos and Wolf Pirates. He then shows up in Esrolia with a "ragged army of outlaws" and causes havoc there while the Lunars are still in control of Heortland. It is only
after the Battle of Pennel that Broyan returns home where "his people" (we now know this to be the Volsaxar) welcomed him. He then marches on north and is slain.

There is nothing here to indicate that he is a hero that impacts on Heortland as a whole beyond the environmental damage caused by the Fimbulwinter. He makes no significant effort in reuniting the divisions of Heortland while any bright future that he might have brought about is destroyed utterly by his one moral failure, the betrayal of the City of Wonders. Broyan is a tragic failure in the Shakespearan sense.

If we hang the Larnsti entirely on Broyan then we rule out any potential they might have in re-uniting the kingdom after Broyan's death. How it will happen, I don't know. But it is better to permit it to exist then to rule out the possibility altogether.

Moreover your suggested motives for Broyan are flawed. He is a Larnsti experimental heroquester and an ultratraditionalist vingkotling at the same time. How can these sides be reconciled at the same time?

> > Read the glossary. The distinction is important and not something
> > that can be fudged to the extent that you do.

>Peter - I suspect that pretty much every HQ game fudges around with this
>stuff.

What I said was "fudged to the extent that you do". Whether or not people fudge the definitions is one thing. The extent of the fudge that you have been suggesting is yet another.

>Whether the Larnsti are a cult, sub-cult, hero
>cult, or whatever is simply not that big of a deal at this point.

Then the lengthy denial that the Larnsti have an existence outside Broyan? I made that reasonable suggestion at the start of this thread and if it weren't a big deal to you as you supposedly claim, that would have been the end of the matter.

>I think that Hendreik provides them access
>to the Free affinity, which has a bunch of feats.

As a guardian or a hero, Hendreik doesn't teach an affinity with feats. Look at Storm Tribe to see the type of powers conferred by Heroes. Moreover the group is called the Larnsti, not the Hendreiki. Hendreik is a Founder and a organizer, he is not the worshipped entity itself as the following passage makes explicit:

         Hendreik's secret lay in that he was a worshipper of Larnste,
         the God of Motion.  By remaining free in thought and deed, no
         one could ever subdue his people.  Although Hendreik embodied
         freedom, the Larnsti were not restricted in the mysteries of the
         God they chose to study.
                         Glorantha: Intro p143.

> I personally think it is awfully darn strange for the
>Volsaxi to have been Vingkotlings for the last century or so.

Why is it strange?

--Peter Metcalfe

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