Re: sandy's maunderings

From: owner-glorantha_at_hops.wharton.upenn.edu
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 95 14:37:56 -0600


>A better Gorgorma would be the woman who played Danny DeVito's
>mother in "Throw Momma from the Train".

        How about the gal who played the evil old woman in "Satan Met a Lady?" Anyone seen that old wheeze but me?

Graybeard:
>I guess that I felt a little odd about some of your comments.

        I didn't intend them to offend anyone.

>The Doraddi are said to be ambivalent about gays but say "Blech".
>Why?

        They say "blech" to the actions, not to the gays. If a person enjoyed eating raw liver, most folks would say "blech", but not prevent the eaters from doing it, or oppress them because of it. Most Doraddi are straight, and in fact highly sexed. Unlike the ancient Greeks, the Doraddi are not commonly bisexual, so few of them see much interest in their own sex.

>I can understand that gay men would have a weaker time of it but
>since lesbians in a patriarchal society are ignored and expected to
>conform, gay men in such a society may well have to do the same.
>Society may then view it as "just something innocent that lads do".

        Your view on gay men is certainly a possible one for the Doraddi to possess. I can only remark that it is not the view I believe the majority of them to possess.

>In a matriarchal society lesbianism may be either an elitist option
>or reviled as threatening the social order.

        I don't think the Doraddi see it as either of these possibilities. A lesbian is a misfortune for the mother of the lesbian, because it limits the opportunities for her daughter to marry and raise a family. Yes I know lesbians are perfectly able to marry and raise families, but 'tis still true that they (a) marry less often, (b) divorce more often, and present a greater emotional and financial burden upon the husband. Emotional because the husband knows that the wife doesn't enjoy sex with him. Only a sexually unhealthy husband will not be oppressed by such knowledge. Financial because the wife, unless she completely suppressed her lesbian urges, or is willing to confine them to random visitations, will want to have a lesbian lover living in the household, too. The husband can't very well prevent this (after all, it's not _his_ household), but he'll have to support the extra wife with his hunting. Though this might be mitigated by the extra support and income coming from the lover. In thinking it over, I guess I'll withdraw my comment about the financial burden.

        Anyway, because of these factors, lesbianism is doubtless regarded as a flaw in a daughter. Not as big a flaw as a crippled foot, but a bigger flaw than a facial birthmark. Some mothers probably nag their daughters mercilessly about their sexual predelictions. Others no doubt are calm and accepting.

>To use magic to cure someone's homosexuality is very odd to me, if
>culture required gay people to marry, conform and bear children they
>will. No gay person is prevented from having sex, sex does not have
>to be the result of lust at all.

        Spare me. The Doraddi Faranar spell to create sexual love in a marriage isn't intended to _permit_ sex between husband and wife, only to make it enjoyable. If a gay man and a lesbian wife decide to have sex, even if only for the purpose of having kids, it's certainly better if it's fun while they're doing it.

        Anyway, as I said, it's not a "cure" for homosexuality, only a derailment. Presumably the spell could be used to cause two straight men (or women) who lived together to fall sexually in love with one another, too, only the modern Doraddi culture has no need for this application. In that case the spell would be "curing" heterosexuality instead.

>Hence your East Isles island with all gay people can have children
>easily, they have inter-gender sex to make babies.

        True enough, but their birth rate is lower, for obvious reasons. Most folks in Glorantha do not have a steadily increasing rate of population growth -- all the sex between straight couples is barely enough to overmatch the huge death rate. The lesser incidence of sex between batches of gay folks will probably not be sufficient to stave off eventual extinction.

Alex Ferguson's comments on Mastakos in 129.

        I won't quote him, because it violates rule #1 of the Digest. I agree with you, Alex. Almost wholeheartedly. Except that we might possibly differ on just how obscure Mastakos is, it's obvious we're on the same wavelength.

>I think the killing of the Bear by Harrek was certainly a hostile
>act

        Harrek's killing of the Bear was, and is, considered hostile by the Rathori. Harrek was NOT a Polar Bear Hsunchen. Remember that There Are No Polar Bears in Glorantha.

>I'd be surprised if these [Second Age] Nysalor cults were entirely
>devoid of Illuminants

        Well, you're probably right. I'm sure there were illuminants in most of these cults. But I betcha there was at least one important Nysalor cult without any illuminants at all.

>the idea that Kralori thought inclines to see the god as mystical
>abstractions, rather than big guys sitting around on clouds.
>Perhaps the perceived difference between the "theistic" countryside
>and the "sorcerous/mystical" cities of the Kralori is a question of
>degree of inclination to this viewpoint; the townies see the
>abstraction as being greater, so the "megical effect" being created
>is even less anthropomorphised as a "god", and hence tends to look
>like sorcery to outsiders.

        In addition, the countryside tends to be a bit more materialistic. A rural Kralori would see Kra Li as the land itself, the actual dirt, stones, plants, etc. And he'd see the Rice Mother as the actual rice plants. So when the Rice Mother is worshiped, her body (the plants) are stronger and healthier. But an urban Kralori would probably interpret the Rice Mother as a sort of mystical "health" for all rice plants everywhere. Of course, both interpretations are alien to a western Theist.

>Surely the logical conclusion is that they _do_ think she would be
>weakened if they stopped worshipping her?

        It probably depends on which Kralori you talk to. A rural farmer would probably agree with you. A mandarin would probably say, "No, she would retain all her strength, but her ability to communicate with you and the land would be lessened, because communication must be mutual or it is Not. Therefore, if you ceased in uxorious loyalty to Den Xi, the land would cease to yield, not because she has failed, but because _you_ have."

        It comes to much the same in the end. No worship = no god.

Peter Metcalfe perceptively spots the ancestral source of Shang-Hsa
>Chi'in Huang-Ti. He also enacted a book burning program

        I don't think we should carry the parallelism between Shang-Hsa and Huang-Ti too far.

>I think Shang-Hsa passed on at the Sun-stop

        This is utterly convincing. When else? Why else would the Kralori have prayed so fervently for "a new stage of enlightenment"?

>I am thinking that the False Emperor was a Horse Nomad worshipping a

>Sun Cult created by the New Dragons Ring.

        I concur. This is an excellent idea.

Everything Sandy knows about ...
SHANG-HSA MAY-HIS-NAME-BE-CURSED
        I do not know who came before Shang-Hsa. There may well have been a number of emperors between Vayobi and Shang-Hsa.

        When Shang-Hsa took office, he proclaimed, "All mankind is unhappy and wrought with cares. All mankind is beset with toil, poverty, sorrow, death. These are the Four Pains of life.

        "The poor toil to please the rich. The rich toil to avoid having to toil.

        "The poor wish they had more, so they dwell in poverty. The rich can always see a richer, so they, too, dwell in poverty.

        "The poor are sorrowful, because they have naught. The rich are sorrowful, because they fear losing what they have.

        "The poor grieve for the death of those they love. The rich are no different.

        "I alone know how to save all mankind from the Four Pains and now can enact this power. Always we have rejected and despised the temptations of the Flesh [1] and of Darkness [2]. And all previous emperors were right to do so, for the Flesh and Darkness are bad, singly. But I have seen beyond the Two Threats, and know how they can be merged into a harmonious whole. Consider the Four Pains.

        "The beasts do not toil, because they seek only pleasure. The ignorant do not strive to please others, because they do not know that harm will come of their idleness. Thus, they are happy.

        "The beasts see only what they have. The ignorant do not lust for more, because they know not it can exist. Thus, they are happy.

        "The beasts simply use what is at hand, seeking no more. The ignorant need nothing more, because they have all they can possibly use anyway. [3] Thus, they are happy.

        "The beasts do not grieve for the death of loved ones, because they forget them at once. The ignorant do not fear their own death, for they do not know it will happen. Thus, they are happy."

        After this famous speech, Shang-Hsa began his program. First, he burned the books. This enabled all mankind to move a vast step towards ignorance and lack of knowledge. Then he slew the rulers of the people [4], for they led the common folk in the paths of wisdom. Then he destroyed all the calendars, lest folk use them to look ahead.

        Yet was Shang-Hsa discontent. The land was unhappy. Famine and plague ravaged it. The armies of Ignorance and the beasts invaded and were not driven back. [5] He realized that the Two Sins were insufficient for happiness, and that he would need to uncover a Third Sin, like unto the beasts and ignorance. So he meditated, and commanded all the world [6] to pray with him.

        At the Sunstop, his prayer was answered. He was enlightened, and Passed On.

[1] the Hsunchen, also referred to as the Beasts [2} The KoI, of course, at this time still troll-controlled.

[3} The implication is that a man from the KoI could not use, say, a plow, because it requires skill and wisdom to do so. So he is happy with his little gardening trowel, laboring away on his skimpy crop. [4} Presumably whatever the First Age had as equivalents for Mandarins or Exarchs.

[5} This is widely recorded as having greatly upset Shang-Hsa. He had believed that by emulating the Beasts and Ignorance, he would reach harmonious balance with them, and they might even join his happy empire as a first step towards blanketing the world.

        It was nearly as great a betrayal as Shang-Hsa's attempt to eliminate crime by providing wrongdoers with a government stipend. [6} i.e., Kralorela.

        I don't know who Shang Hsa's replacement was. I do NOT think it was Yanoor.

        I believe that Godunya's exceedingly long reign is dissimilar to previous emperors, and that typical imperial reigns in the First and Second Age were no more than a century or two at the most. This may be a sign that the nature of the Empire has utterly changed, and/or it may be because the Empire needs more effort from this emperor to recover from the ravages of the False Dragon Ring.

Nils:

        I really like the idea that the wildest degenerates in the Lunar Empire preferentially engage in orgies with Broos.

Andrew Joelson re: dissolving of the old RL/RP dichotomy NOTE: despite Ralf's heartfelt plea to take this off-net, I'm leaving it on for now, because I believe in the dialogue below there are features which may interest other RQers.

> I don't see the sense of this from the game-mechanics angle.
> Lords anf Priests had different advantages in the areas of Divine
> Intervention & re-usable Rune Magic.

        Okay, as one of the instigators of this alteration, I feel there were Powerful Reasons for it. There was too little difference between the two, and many cults really had no use for one or the other aspect. Come one, do you _really_ think Issaries has a crying need for Rune Lords?

        Zorak Zoran, Humakt, and Storm Bull, among others, no longer have a RP equivalent. Instead, their RLs have access to reusable magic. This is the way it is.

>Getting a character's POW up to 18 is easier than getting 5/6 skills
>to 90%. Isn't this one of the reasons some players opt for priest
>instead of lord?

        Probably. Why should this affect the ecology of Glorantha? Just getting a POW of 18 should not qualify you for priesthood in any religion. For one thing, RQ III upped the ante for priesthood by requiring a number of other skills at 50%. For another, even in old RQ II, there was supposed to be "an opening" in the priesthood. The fact is, these openings are mighty few and far between.

>CoP says that Humakt priests all aspire to become Swords as well,
>what's wrong with using the priesthood as a milestone along the way?

  1. it weakens the awe-inspiring might of the Swords, by having another rank as a rival to it.
  2. It acts as a distraction which should _not_ exist in a single-minded cult like Humakt.
  3. By letting the Swords have reusable divine magic, there's no longer any use for a priest whatsoever. Why have one? f
  4. It's dull, and spreads a false dichotomy of RL/RP. I prefer a Glorantha in which the cult structure is _different_ from cult to cult.

>Nick puts forward the idea that in an army of such cultural
>diversity, a unifying element is needed, and that the common thread
> is having all the officers be YT. Unfortunately the idea is not
>really feasible. [numerous examples and arguments deleted]

        Except that, of course, it is. The Lunar army is not a mass army of conscripts. It is a relatively small elite group of carefully-picked men. Hans Delbruck has shown that ancient imperial armies were invariably _small_, from the Persians to the Romans to Charlemagne. (If someone wants to start an argument with me over the size of the Persian army at Marathon, frex, do it separately and for God's sake read Delbruck first.)

        Of course, "relatively small" still makes it larger than any potential rival, because of the vast population of the Empire. Note that officers are even more carefully selected and elite. Remember my earlier comment (a couple Digests ago) that the Lunar Army doesn't have officers in the modern sense. It doesn't. It couldn't. There aren't Lieutenants over every 40 men. There isn't any equivalent to a modern staff (sure, any general has a band of other commanders and servants along with him, but it's not the same thing as a general staff, trust me). And, as Nick has tellingly pointed out, the officers don't normally rise from the ranks in any ancient (or for that matter, any modern) army.

The Empire could _easily_ make YT membership a requirement for all the officers in the army without impacting their army's quality at all. Your arguments are invalid for the period and the culture. The Romans would certainly never have permitted a Druid or some godawful religion to be a Centurion. The Indian Mutiny had a lot of causes beyond the type of fat used in the new cartridge round, and they weren't all religious.

>Nick gives an example of a Char-un hetman (sp?) who brings in his
> levy, and is forced to pay lip service to Yanafal Tarnils. Baaad
>idea. First, you can't honestly claim that this guy is a follower of
>YT. Second, what are you going to do with the hetman if he says no?

        First, sure you can. He's an ostensible YT if he sacrifices to him openly before the regiment. That's good enough for him to get along with the other regiments in the army.

        Second, you'll replace him as hetman. That's what you'll do. Ah, what if the levy rebels, you ask? You punish them. The Red Army doubtless is as heavily disciplined as the Roman, and you didn't mess with their rules.

>Think quick, 'cause you can be absolutely certain the Light Son
>leading in a Yelmic regiment from Alkoth is going to refuse
>outright.

        Really? A high-ranking citizen of the Lunar Empire, born and bred, in one of the Empire's most prosperous cities, who wants to be in charge of one of the lunar army's regiments under the divine guidance of the Red Emperor is going to refuse to become an initiate of Yanafal Tarnils, the Empire's chief war god?

        Maybe he'd better resign his commission then, don't you think? As a protest, if not a confession of his incompetence. How'd he get command of his regiment, anyway?

All this said, I now admit that the "every officer a YT" rule probably only applies to the permanent army, and not to the provincial units or allies. The Cavalry Corps, for instance, is probably free of this rule, as would be the Native Furthest Corps, and of course the Thunder Delta Slingers. Though of course YT would have significant social and bureaucratic advantages over non-YT even in these groups.

        Basically, if your Yelm Son from Alkoth is trying to command a Lunar Heartland Corps unit, he probably can't make it without an initiateship in YT. If he's in command of the Alkoth city militia, he probably can do it with no problem at all.

>What would be the implication for a Humakti who during a battle with
>undead, when totally out numbered, recieved a DI from one of his
>other cults and chose the option of being teleported out of danger,
>leaving other Humakti to fight to the death.

        The fact you ask this question implies you already have an answer in mind, and I bet it's the right one. I don't think Humakt woudl send a spirit of retribution, but I'll bet he'd get a passel of challenges to single combat from any survivors or their friends, and I also wager that unless he kept it quite secret, he would gain a bad (i.e., coward's) reputation among others.

Frank Bauroth
> Most of the celebs are interesting, but Leslie Neilson as
>Orlanth??!!? You insult us (or at least this former) Orlanthi. Try
>something with authority to go with the mercurial and sometimes
>whimsical nature.

        How about Rutger Hauer or Toshiro Mifune? Both have a good comedic sense of timing. Both are tough. And neither are ever dull emotionless killers. Especially Toshiro Mifune.

Nick B.
>If Yanafal Tarnils is a common soldier's god then many Lunar
>soldiers are decent, honourable, clean-living, gifted/geased, etc.
>This seems unlikely to most of us

        Come now, Nick. You know better than that. Just because their cult urges them to be decent, etc., has nothing to do with whether they _are_ or not. I'm sure that the Lunar soldiery is supposed to be clean-living, and that they are expected to admire soldiers that are. So? If it's more a mass cult than Humakt, one would expect the soldiery to be that much laxer than Humakt in keeping the commandments.

        Orlanthi are supposed to be honorable. Are they?

        Issaries aren't supposed to cheat people. Don't they?

        Yelm rulers are expected to be just. Hmm.

        You get the point. You, above all, Nick, should get the point. After all, you're one of the promulgators of the (IMO, correct) contention that not all members of a cult obey all its rigidest strictures to the extreme described in COP. Yes, Yelmalio Light Lords are supposed to be strong and brave vs. Darkness. But any campaign which didn't have an occasional LL run like a bunny would be remiss, IMO.

        One of my favorite characters of all time, Corvus Ghoulbane (one of my first RQ characters), after years of kicking chaos ass in the Big Rubble and Sartar, and even some heroquesting, eventually decided to go to the fabled land of Dorastor (this was one of the very early playtests of the material) and see what _real_ chaos was like. At first, it was wonderful. There was heaps and heaps of neat chaos to kill. But as they penetrated deeper into the blasted earth, he started to lose some of his cool.

        First there was the centaur that was accompanying them, Summer Wind In Trees. In a fight against some nasty ghouls, SWIT was bitten badly and paralyzed. They lugged the still-living body around with them for some time, but in the end couldn't wait for the several-weeks time it would take for SWIT to heal. So they killed their comrade. Despite his long service as a Storm Khan, Corvus had never before been forced to kill a friends. Always there'd been healing of some sort available -- an alchemist, a CA, something. But not here, not now. So Summer Wind died.

        Shortly afterwards the party encountered a large herd of grayskins. They looked at the hapless, almost helpless band of mutated grass-eating humans, and it was clear, even to Corvus' hard heart, that these creatures were no threat to anybody. Eventually they girded up their loins, attacked the grayskins from ambush without provocation, and killed them all, every last one. Not out of righteous wrath, but out of pity. Corvus & co. just couldn't stand to see the wretched things live and breath.

        Soon Corvus had effectively given over control of the expedition to a younger, more ambitious berserk. Corvus was just going through the motions. He'd fight when there was a fight, and occasionally he'd be stimulated to some of the old fire, but generally he was morose and quite. He was also pretty old by this time (57 years old! Not bad for a Storm Khan.), and the events and unrelenting horrors of Dorastor had started him thinking about his own mortality.

        In the end, the young, ambitious khan led them all up to the top of Demon's Plateau, and there they encountered what amounted to a black widow spider 40 meters across. At the height of the fight, the monster bit Corvus, filling him full of physical, spiritual, and moral poison. Corvus, terrified, and seeing his leg blacken before his eyes, panicked and teleported home to Sartar (via a traded-for Guided Teleport -- even in his terror, Corvus knew that the Bull wouldn't permit a DI to escape chaos). He survived the physical effects of the poison, but was a ruined man. He's still alive and living in Sartar. He doesn't dare go home to his old haunts in Pavis. Worst of all, he's heard that the expeditioneers to Dorastor survived and have returned home to Sartar, and he dreads greatly meeting them. He hasn't attended a Storm Bull temple ceremony since Dorastor.

        Probably he's illuminated, but doesn't "know" it, if you get my meaning. He's certainly not at peace with himself. But now he's a much more interesting character (to me) than he was in his earlier incarnations. If I'd played him straight, with his heroic fighting and dying vs. the spider, or worse yet, using a DI to purge him of the poison and fight on (it occurred to him at the time, but I decided that Corvus just couldn't bear the thought of fighting any more.)

        One of the good effects of this was that the story of Corvus was noised around, and Dorastor became even more terrifying to everyone. "A Storm Khan lost his faith? Wow."


End of Glorantha Digest V1 #145


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