RE: Re: SOE: A Moment of Syncronicity

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 11:15:21 +0100


> My fondness for Thrud derives mainly from a weakness for
> genre-hopping humour,

The genres in this case being RQ-Glorantha and HQ-Glorantha, which is always fun :)

> I also have a nagging determination to discover,
> one day, a significant event in the entire Hero Wars that *wasn't*
> concocted by Broyan and his red-headed offsider. :) Or
> Argrath the Book Cleanser, as detailed in the second edition.

In the Sartar arena, I'm afraid it's them plus the PCs. Don't forget the PCs. Rob's game certainly isn't. But don't worry, there are lots of areas of Glorantha, even areas of Dragon Pass, where those two have very little effect on events. Certainly not effects they'd have hoped for. Come on, you know as well as I do how the Far Place feels about Kallyr :)

> I agree with Jeff that Broyan would have been entirely within
> his rights
> to close down Thrud's cattleyard ritual, and I think this is what
> probably happened.

And *then* someone said "actually, that might not be a bad idea, if we did it properly..."

> Like the summoning of the storms that followed, like the
> wounding of the Bat itself, like the entire drawn out, impossible two
> year defence of the city, much of what people 'know' happened
> is simply post-event rationalisation.

Oh, yes. After all "everyone knows that..." means "it's completely untrue that..."

> Organising any city-wide ritual, even
> organising a moderately large one, would have been very
> difficult as the Bat approached.

It takes someone like Broyan to manage it. With or without help from red-headed sidekick.

> I assume that sending the Bat **anywhere** requires careful planning
and
> preparation, so that the plan to send it to Whitewall was decided on
> long before the SOE began. We're talking synchronicity here beyond
> simple cause and effect.

Agreed. And we need a few more reasons for the Bat to be "fitted" in. Could it be perhaps that the Bat was simply due to be fed *somewhere*, and unknown to Tatius he provided the opportunity to give it a welcome snack?

> 2. Run away, risk the still far-from-complete Lunar gauntlet
> about the
> city. For most guerrilla fighters, by far the most sensible
> option.

And we have yet to decide why Broyan and Kallyr didn't do exactly that. Rob's game had one possible answer, but do we need to consider others?

3. Begin a summons of evil *after* the Bat is
> sighted, to increase your magical defences. Whooooo!

I *like* this idea! It fits the later pattern so well. This is unbelievably risky, so let's up the stakes. And again. And again. You know, when I wrote in that bit about Kallyr playing backgammon with excessive use of the doubling cube, I hadn't realised just how appropriate it was.

> Broyan has been fighting a civil war for years, so I believe
> his control
> over the city and his followers is disciplined and strong.

A good point. Though the Colymar mob are perhaps less under his control. And the Kheldon/Vingan contingent are only under his control because Kallyr tells them they are.

> Its the folk
> not in the usual chain of command that are most likely to attempt
> independent strategies. We've previously identified these as
> being the
> Air Temple godar and the the vingans. Both begin to summon storms.

I think if Kallyr's around to keep the Vingans under control, they're not all that independent. If she's wandered off, of course... :(

> The question is, which of these did Bryan and Kallyr give
> their energies
> to, assuming they have much time at all after attempting to limit the
> growing panic and rioting throughout the city.

Well, Kallyr won't be doing much to do with summoning storms, because she's got no Storm powers to do it with. But she does have the leadership ability to control a ritual that uses other people's power. Broyan has both - but I think, as you say, he's going to be fully occupied and more with controlling the city.

Looking at Iceland for comparison, we have Kallyr doing the HQ side and Broyan commanding the mundane troops. Did they perhaps use the same split here? Are there other NPCs we should be taking into consideration? Who is the main Air godi, after all?

> Personally, I think most of the strategic rationalisation
> came *after*
> the Batblat. They were making it up as they went along. This,
> aberrations like Argrath aside, is the Orlanthi way.

Yep!

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