>Whilst I don't know if this passage is still considered to represent
>the current thinking on Gloranthan marketplaces, the episode of the
>Travels of Biturian Varosh (in Cults of Prax) that was set in Corflu
>suggested that priests who managed markets were ritually obliged to
>allow other merchants a pitch in the market, but that priests who
>didn't like the cut of a new arrival's jib, could do the bare
>minimum and give the unwelcome new arrival a bad pitch (e.g. in a
>corner near the latrines, like Biturian's pitch in Corflu).
The Priest was acting under the conditions imposed by the Lunars when
they awarded the
founder of Corflu trading rights (P&BR p10)
>Yet the priest in charge of the market was a Lunar Issaries cultist,
>(because he is a Lunar, but he has to become a desert tracker when
>he gets the piece of Genert's skin, which presumably an Etyries
>cultist would not have to do).
Koronius Falabdur was an Etyries cultist (P&BR p10) and his "heir"
was the recipient
of the Hyena skin (personally the time between the founding of Corflu
and the death
of the heir is far too short for my liking). Why an Etyries cultist
should be susceptible
to the curse is an interesting question.
>Can one itake this a step further, and infer from this that some or
>all of Glorantha has a "lex mercatoria" (system of commercial law
>independent of any city or state used by merchants to regulate
>their own affairs), and which crosses national (or cult?) lines?
There was a lex mercatoria during the God Learner Empire (Cults Compendium
p145) and this would have been active in Feroda (the God Learner
ruins near Corflu).
If you like, Falabdur could have been trying to tap into the magic of the lex
mercatoria and in doing so become susceptible to the Hyena curse.
>Do similar principles of mercantile neutrality work in relation to
>the powerful Seshnelan merchant families (the Tumerins and Capratis)
>who operate in (far-from Malkioni) Nochet? Does such tolerance even
>extend to the brown Vadeli, and if so where?
The Seshnegi aren't neutral but biased towards themselves. They are
tolerated because
they have the habit of handing out large sums of money to the people
that matter. The
Brown Vadeli are tolerated only in Malkioni cities (and barely)
because they are
Malkioni. Elsewhere they have to gain entrance due to lies,
corruption and extortion.
--Peter Metcalfe
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