I suspect the Praxian way of resurrecting someone is not the Lightbringers' go-to-hell-and-back-again technique, but the find-all-the-bits-and-piece-him-together-again. At least, the proposed resurrections of both Tada and Genert follow this latter pattern. You may still have to go to Hell to find one of the bits (like his soul, frex), but it's a different quest.
The Praxian Hell is, of course, the deep Earth, and isn't as far down as the "real" Gloranthan Hell. There's little Darkness, and no Sun god. There are several layers, corresponding to various earth deities and concepts.
>Are there monkeys or apes in Glorantha? Are there monkey Hsuncheon?
We know for a fact that there are baboons and gorillas and chimpanzees. All have been featured in "official" games run at Chaosium. And some little monkeys have been seen, too, but I don't know what species.
I quail at the thought of monkey Hsunchen, and plead to Heaven that nobody comes up with the damn things.
MONKEYS IN GLORANTHA: We have Baboons living in the Wastes of Genert, both the giant intelligent variety, and a smaller, non-sapient species. Often both types travel together.
There are gorillas and chimps living in Trowjang. Presumably other monkeys, too.
Pamaltela has GOT to have monkeys in the jungle. There are monkeys on the plains, too, but they're rare, possibly transplanted, and I don't think there are any baboons. In general, I think of the Pamaltelan monkey population as being similar to the New World primates, and the Trowjang population as being similar to Old World primates. With one exception -- I believe that Pamaltela is host to a number of prosimians -- lemures, tarsiers, lorises, and so forth.
HOW DO GLORANTHANS VIEW MONKEYS
Probably most of them with the same revulsion that medieval
Europeans felt. If you compare a monkey to a person, it's pretty damn
ugly. And the Old World monkeys, with inflated, bare-skinned, and
brightly colored asses, were even more disgusting.
Here are my guesses for the going theories on monkeys:
KRALORI: monkeys were once humans, but for their sins were punished by transformation. Each breed of monkey was once a different kingdom of mankind. The Kralori therefore treat monkeys with a certain respect. After all, they were once men.
WESTERN: monkeys are the result of Hsunchen miscegenation and degeneration. See, my son, what horrors untrammeled lust leads to? Each species of monkey presumably corresponds to a particular type of hsunchen animal.
DORADDI: monkeys are early experiments, "practice" attempts before humans were finally finished properly. Really, that's what Wererans and Kralori are, too -- early experiments. More advanced than monkeys, but plainly less sophisticated than are we.
FRESHWATER DOLPHINS
I believe I read somewhere that freshwater dolphins of the
Oslir are now extinct (or were made extinct by some hero or other).
This implies their existence elsewhere. Kralorela is a logical place,
as is Trowjang. I would expect to find them in the Elf Sea, too.
>The Xeno gang was written up in Questworld.
This is true, but the Xeno gang was actually _played_ in Glorantha.
T.J. Minas:
>Now a query for Sandy: How many of the above listed major deities
>(i.e., possessors of Runes) (RQ book 5) are:-
>a) Known of in Pamaltela (by wise women etc) OUTSIDE of Umathela
>(Genertela writ small)?
>b) Worshipped (at all) in Pamaltela?
>c) Worshipped on a large scale in Pamaltela?
If you find the right wise woman or elder, you can get info on almost all the deities from far off lands, because of the influence of the Six-legged Empire, if nothing else. The Doraddi are not ignorant of surrounding areas, though their knowledge is somewhat legendary.
The Fonrit folk know and worship a lot of the so-called conventional deities, including Yelm, an Ernalda-equivalent, even Humakt and such. The folk of Elamle-ata and Onlaks worship mainly local gods, but don't disagree that there are primal gods who rule the universe. Their take on this subject is that Orlanth may well be king of the gods, but he is high and mighty and distant, and they get more power out of the local tree god. The Doraddi pretty much don't bother with a lot of those gods, because they feel that their power is subsumed in Pamalt.
Note, however, that many of the gods are worshiped or recognized in shamanistic forms -- Daka Fal, Horned God, Hykim, even Aldrya, are all known, as are the elemental gods.
To sum up, for the Doraddi -- the Form Rune origin gods are well-known and utilized. The Elemental Rune origin gods are reasonably familiar and sometimes accessed shamanistically. The Power Rune origin gods are rare, with a few exceptions like Uleria. Most of the Doraddi will claim that Pamalt contains within his pantheon the contradictions and usefulnesses of most foreign gods, all held together by Pamalt's power.
T.J.Minas
>The Basmoli Berserkers of Prax are about the only real Basmoli in
>Genertela that we know of.
There's also the Basmoli of Ralios. They were an important First Age foe for the Seshnegi.
Alex Ferguson disagrees with David Cake about shamanism in Kralorela, then goes on to say:
>I bet whatever sort of "sorcery" happens in the countryside bears
>little resememblance to the city-dwelling, official variety. The
>generic hick, I reckon, uses a rough'n'ready mix of "low" sorcery
>(of some sort or another), and theistic worship of entities
>doubtless regarded as abstractions by the mystics.
I agree with Alex (be still my heart). I do not think that the commoners in Kralorela use shamanism at all -- shamanism and shamanic cults are the stigmata of the Hsunchen, the Kingdom of Ignorance, and even worse things (like the Pentans and Praxians). Who would want to use such foul magic. Furthermore, I believe that when folks visit from other areas, they have to be circumspect and not use any of their foul spirit magic where it can be seen openly.
The two examples of Kralori cults that I did up for GoG are specifically made to be bizarre -- I don't think that your average Theyalan would even recognize Godunya or the Path of Immanent Mastery as a true "cult". Where are the priests? Where are the initiates? Where is the divine magic? (Well, okay, the Path teaches a sort of divine magic, but it's really more of a draconic transformation than true divine magic. It sure as hell doesn't come from any kind of deity.)
But it's true that the Low magic practiced by peasants in and out of the city is not the same as the high magic done by the mandarins and higher-ups. The two types of sorcery differ enormously.
>I'm not sure "Elder", in the sense of many African tribal societies,
>is a big thing among the Doraddi. The advisory/non-executive
>function seems to fall to the council of women, so what exactly
>would an elder do, other than sit around looking ancestral?
Technically, the Doraddi _do_ have "elders", though the term is used for both men and women. But the elders aren't actually part of the tribe itself, and are theoretically available to any tribe passing through -- folk that have retired to one of the oasis communities are the "elders" of the Pamaltelan savannah, at least in Jolar and much of Kothar.
Powered by hypermail