>Certainly, nothing has ever suggested that the Lunars have a new way of
>fighting (other than Yara Aranis' dragoons and the Lunar College's massed
>magics, neither of which are Yanafal specialities):
While agreeing with most of his views about Yanafal Tarnils and the Lunar Empire, I will attempt to hijack this thread in favour of one of my pet theories. I am having doubts about the conventional wisdom of the magical armies units beloved of Dragon Pass as being invented by the Lunar Empire.
My feeling is that the magical units are really an ancient magical technique of the Dara Happan Empire. Going from the decription of the Rising of the Brown Dragon in King of Sartar where various priests are said to have imitated the planets, I think that the Lunar procedure looks like this:
A Priest (representing Dayzatar) charges another Priest (representing Polaris) with defending heaven. The Dayzatar Priest then tries to find Lightfore. (I've a feeling that if he did, the ritual ends so the Priest has blinding or befuddle cast on him to make the task more difficult).
The Polaris Priest then names the stations and duties of the other fourty-seven stellar priests ('Eye of the Dragon, Stand Forth!'). Once the stellar priests have been assigned to their places, they then begin performing a ritual to bring the Heavens nearly to the earth.
This results in increased power to the Planetary Priests within the confines of the fourty-eight Priests. They then begin casting whatever magics they have. Any Yelm Priests are able to cast fricking huge Sunspears, Shargashites are spend their time turning the troops into fanatics and so forth.
Obviously I haven't thought out the mechanics for this (and don't intend to do so), but I wish to make it clear that the Priests mentioned above are not your average run-of-the-mills Priests but those who have attained a higher level of magical mastery.
As for the comparisons with Dragon Pass, Most of the Planetary Priests in the LCM are worshippers of the red Moon. thus their attacks appears to be long range spirit combat (ie sending hordes of madness spirits and worse). If the Planetary Priests were Yelm, then the magical attack would appear to be a physical attack similar to Cragspider's Pillar of Fire.
David Cake:
> I would like to see a few sub-cults and herocults of YT. Anyone who
>is up on their Lunar history want to nominate a notable Lunar general or
>champion? (no, not Parg Ilsi - I suspect that would be politically
>incorrect).
Notable Generals? I would make this Pelorian in scope rather than specifically Lunar and make those hero Cults open to any soldier within the Lunar Army. Thus we would get Urvairinus, Kastok (why do I think of Count Belisarius?) and just about any notable in the Elmexdros Rolls, perhaps.
After the rising of the Red Moon the only general, I can think of is Aronius Jaranthir who is worshipped in Carmania. Perhaps Tarsh has a similar cult with Phargentes? It seems to me that nowadays only women are competent in military matters (ie Hwarin Dalthippa, Jar-eel, Hon-eel and Yara Aranis) as the Red Emperor develops an almost insane jealousy against any noble who appears to be a capable general as well. (I know I am assuming that despite Imperial claims of equality of the sexes, the nobles in the military and rank-and-file troops are still largely male. What was Looney tunes consensus on this?)
Alex Ferguson:
>> I maintain that the secrets of Illumination as
>> now understood were spotty and rare during the Second Age.
>I'm sure this is true. The big difference between the Second Age and
>the Lunar (and the Golden) Empire is that the civil and religious
>authorities in the former time are hostile to it, and in the latter
>are friendly.
Not really. Sarenesh instituted an Order of Illumination composed of Eight Schools (not illumination but Nysalorean Cults, IMO). These were allegedly responsible for the three generations of peace but were ultimately blamed for causing the collaspe of Dara Happa to carmania through internal corruption. The change in the ease of achieving Illumination was due to the Red Goddess bringing speaking to Nysalor, IMO.
>The question "Who is the Aldryami sun god?" has not, for me, been
>satisfactorily answered, or really even asked. Maybe Greg has worked
>it all out, but has remembered what happened the last time and isn't
>telling is.
Antirius! Well, that's the God Learner opinion anyway...
Nils Weinander:
>The recent debate on views of homosexuality in Glorantha sent my
>warped mind to work. I think sexual experimentation is one of the
>decadencies of the lunar empire. I.e. people of the 'in crowd' try
>out things like sex with your own gender, not because they really
>are inclined towards it, but because it's 'hip'.
Sexual abberations are not really confined to decadent civilisations. We have all heard of what the Shepherds supposedly do to their flocks by night which provides an interesting light on Voriof rituals, IMO. To provide a gloranthan touch to this train of thought, I provide the following ditty sung about Umathelan barbarians in Fonrit.
There was an Umathi gaucho named Bruno
Who said there's one thing I do kno'
Woman are fine,
and boys divine,
but Llamas are Numero Uno!
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