A FAR POINT CALENDAR Here is a slightly expanded version of my FP calendar, which has come up again in discussions recently. It comes from my essay on the flora and fauna of Far Point, which Loren has kindly placed on the archives (Thanks, Loren).
If you want to read the full essay, e-mail
majordomo_at_hops.wharton.upenn.edu
with "get glorantha-digest hughes.sartar.flora.fauna" in the body of the message.
The calendar gives representative dates for the *beginning* of important events in the Far Point year. Obviously, actual dates will vary from year to year according to the weather. Some activities, such as harvest, will continue over several weeks.
Far Point is colder and wetter than Sartar and Tarsh, but most events in those neighbouring lands will still occur within a week or two of the dates given here.
Many activities, such as hunting, weaving, charcoal-burning etc are carried on all year, and are not mentioned in this table. (I would like to expand it to include times for different types of hunting, trapping and fishing. Michael Raaterova is preparing a list of feasts and festivals to add. Other additions will be gratefully received.)
I have a strong distrust of the day/week/season Gloranthan calendar, except as a tool of the unrepresentative literate (and as a RQ gaming construct). Most historical agricultural societies used a mixture of holy days and 'times' (e.g. Whitsun, Easter) to mark out their year. I've included my own (Far Point) names for such times.
SEA SEASON
The time of new life and new beginnings, of romance and marriage-
negotiations.
'Narmen Tame' (Naming Time)
DISORDER: Planting of potherbs and vegetable gardens; Ulerian Festival.
HARMONY: Major sowing; tending of vineyards (south & Sartar only).
DEATH: Draining, ditching and clodding; last frosts.
'OpenTame' or 'FlamalTame'
FERTILITY: Release of domestic stock from byrnes to forage in forest and pasture; first ploughing of fallow fields; fowling and egging in bird nesting grounds; Flamal Festival - stickdancing! bad poetry! gowkhunting*!
(A gowk is a cuckoo. To 'hunt a gowk' is to be a fool, or in this context, an 'April Fool'.)
STASIS: Lambing, harvest of winter crops. Otter hunting begins.
'SalmonTame' or 'TrimilTame' (Time of three milkings per day)
MOVEMENT: Egg collecting from marshlands; cows pastured; cheesemaking begins; wagon and sled repairs, timber cutting; salmon runs, smoking and drying of catch.
ILLUSION: Silage; perfume making; first batching of year's sticklepick.
TRUTH: farm repairs - in effect, little work done; collective water-bird hunting in marshes with nets and bird-lime; inter-clan cattle-raiding (see Alda Chur Festival post).
FIRE SEASON
The prime season for both war and cattle raiding.
'ElmalCalm' or 'YelmaTame'
DISORDER: Haymaking, cutting, tossing and cocking.
HARMONY: Annual bath time, whether you need it or not!; sheep shearing.
DEATH: Hay carting and tossing; berry harvest, slaughter of excess birds (geese, teal).
'Weyden Tame' (Time of Much Weeding)
FERTILITY: Weeding; second ploughing of fallow land.
STASIS: Wool-spinning; early harvests.
'MeadoTame' or 'Harvest Tame'
MOVEMENT: Sheep and cattle market at Ironspike; Tribal Thing.
ILLUSION: Main Harvest begins.
TRUTH: Elmal Harvest Rite (Fireday).
EARTH SEASON
Harvest Time, and hunting to prepare for the coming Dark.
'GorsTame' (Forest i.e. Hunting Time) or 'Goddess Tame'
DISORDER: wheat sowing; hemp-making. Stag hunting begins.
HARMONY: End of harvest season; 'stickpicking' - collection of wood, rush, & thatch from gors; stead repairs (equivalent of 'spring cleaning'); cider making and ale brewing!
DEATH: Elemental Covenant - The Good Hunt; Odayla High Holy Day (Godday); fruit picking; nut gathering; first slaughter of excess animals, or cattle-drive to Alda Chur market.
'CiderTame' (hic!)
FERTILITY: Alda Chur Fertility Flame Festival (HarvestHome) - covered in earlier post.
STASIS: Honey gathered; fruit trees set; rye sowing; Cider Sup; charcoal burning; herds must not be milked after this date.
'HeortTame' - time for clan business, for making decisions and for
ending feuds.
MOVEMENT: Muck spreading; final ploughing of fallow fields; ploughing; sowing of winter crops (wheat or rye); apple harvest.
ILLUSION: Turf, heather and peat gathering; candle and torch making. Hind hunting begins.
TRUTH: Indoor threshing of grain (not oats); 'Dark Slaughter' and salting of excess animals, hedge-trimming, bonfires.
DARK SEASON
The bitter season of snow and darkness. In Dark Season, most animals
are kept in byrnes and hand-fed.
'Hearth Tame'
DISORDER: Corn grinding.
HARMONY: Carting (or sledging) of wood and peat stockpiles to steads.
DEATH: First snow - animals stabled; final slaughter and salting of winter meat; final sale of excess animals.
'LongDark' or 'Canis Tame' (Frigid Time)
FERTILITY: Good Hope Festival (Windsday); darkblooms appear; the Dark Hunt.
STASIS: Threshing of oats (indoors); repair, carving and building of farm and domestic implements.
'Wolfun Tame' (Wolf Time)
MOVEMENT: Uz trading, The Wild Market.
ILLUSION: TRUTH: First ploughing (if possible)
STORM SEASON
Life and Darkness battle throughout the wilderness. Violent storms
wrack the land. Many spirits are abroad.
'Ghost Tame'
DISORDER: StormBloom of first hardy sun-plants with 'armoured' shoots.
HARMONY: Food shortages become increasingly common.
DEATH: SnowMelt; fencing and hedging of ploughed fields against grazing animals.
'LongStorm'
FERTILITY: First major ploughing; earliest date for release of stock from byrnes.
STASIS: Composting of fields.
'Cole Tame' (Cabbage (soup) Time)
MOVEMENT: Orlanth High Holy Day - Dominion Rites (feasting food kept especially); sowing of early crops - barley, oats, peas, beans, vetches; harrowing of fields.
ILLUSION: Pruning of fruit trees.
TRUTH: First Sowing.
SACRED TIME
The Great Hunt, The Welcoming, The Lightbringer's Rite. Rejoice, and
sow the mythic seeds for another year. Turn back the Dark!
TRIVIA I've resisted responding to the Trivia question for a long time. The reason... well for the last three years I've been pretty seriously ill, including a couple of months in hospital, and at least half of it I've been flat on my back with none of the defining work or study pursuits that contribute so much to our identity. I'm back on my feet at last, working again, and hoping to resume my scholarship sometime this year. So here goes...
I'm slowly pushing my way through a Ph.D. in anthropology, working at the moment doing desktop publishing and computer contracts. My anthropological interest is in states of consciousness and ways of thinking, with some practical work done on religious 'conversion' and NRMs (sociological jargon for 'New Religious Movements').
My serious involvement in roleplaying began in 1981, just after I first discovered Glorantha. Philippa (my wife and sometime co-writer) and I stumbled upon what turned out to be the world's second freeform (LARP), held at a national games convention here in Canbera. (The first was a dry run 3 months before.) We were hooked. Over the next several years we were part of a team writing and running freeforms for up to 250 people. (Sheer madness, but great fun. Such numbers, thankfully, are gone forever).
In 1987 I formed The Wyrm's Footprint, a design team that in various
incarnations has been running RQ and systemless modules at Oz
conventions ever since. I met MOB soon after. In recent years, I've
concentrated on organising roleplaying conventions and on exploring and
developing roleplaying styles that in Australia go under the rubric of
'systemless' roleplaying, or 'multiforming': essentially intense, adultoriented
freeforms for five or six people performed 'in the round', as if
on stage.
My interests, (apart from roleplaying!) centre upon myth, poetry (esp. ancient poetry - the best insight into daily life in ancient times), Celtic music, and the life and works of Arthur Machen, an obscure turn-of-the- century Welsh author and mystic. Machen is perhaps best known in roleplaying circles as a literary influence upon Lovecraft.
I've always loved Runequest, and especially Glorantha. I love its depth, its richness, its quirky California- and Stafford- isms, and its refusal to follow the rules. I love Greg's insistence that we do some of the work, that we make Glorantha a personal place that we have cocreated. A large part of my continued interest stems from the Daily itself, a unique forum and a damned fine bunch of people.
Recently I've been playing less and writing more, but with my health returning, my Far Point campaign is poised to begin again. 1630... LongStorm, the fall of Harvar Ironfist. I'm also writing and playtesting a HQ variant based on human personality archetypes: you should see some of it in a future TOTRM. As usual, the result of this campaign will be a convention module, this time at RQ Con Down Under.
RQ CON GOSS - DON'T KEEP US IN THE DARK! So what happened? What did you play? What has Greg changed his mind about THIS time? How about a few titbits for those of us who didn't make it!
Cheers folks,
John
"I had in my hands a substantial fragment of the complete history of an unknown planet,with its architecture and its playing cards, its mythological terrors and the sounds of its dialects, its emperors and its oceans, its minerals, its birds and its fishes, its algebra and its fire, its theological and metaphysical arguments..." Jorge Luis Borges "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
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