Replies, part 2 of 2

From: Argrath_at_aol.com
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 15:39:34 -0500


The irreplaceable John Hughes points out why SAN is not a good stat for RQ. I couldn't have said it better. And one great LOL line:
>searching for your essence, cause you were about to lose it.

Great .sig, John. What's it from?

Nick again:
>I'd imagine there were many "Return to Self-Righteousness"
>expeditions in search of various Lost Arks, Temples of Doom and
>the like... looking for the evidence to support their
>conclusions.

Speaking of which, I saw an example of what I'd call "aggressive archeology" on the news the other night. Seems there's this guy digging outside the Alamo to prove his contention that the defenders against Santa Anna were fighting for something more than Texan sovereignty--they were fighting for a cache of gold. This effort is part and parcel of the attempt to debunk the Alamo defenders and reduce them from being freedom-loving martyrs to being slave-owning, Mexican-hating, racist pig-dogs. (This despite the fact that several of the defenders who died were Tejanos and therefore Hispanic or Mestizo.) "My social construct is better than yours, and I'll prove it even if I have to dig up graves and speak ill of the dead to do it!" 

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Hey, the reason I haven't said much about Nick's Malkioni posts is that I have been digesting them. I generally agree. Major points of disagreement include:

  1. These ecumenical conferences. I doubt you'd get many people to attend at some many conferences held over so many centuries. Only in the 20th century have we seen many ecumenical conferences in Christianity, which is only one branch of eurasian monotheism. The 7th Malkioni conference, at least, would be like bringing together Chinese Nestorians, Cuban Santerians, C of E bishops, Filipino Catholics, American Mormons, Scientologists, Falasha Jews from Ethiopia, Mandeans from Iraq, various syncretists from Africa, Sufis, Black Muslims, Wahhabis (Unitarians) from Arabia, the other Unitarians from New England, ... you get the picture. They would never come together, and if they were all teleported to the same place, you'd have to hold guns to many heads to get them to stay (and even then, some would prefer you shot them). I don't see Glorantha as being different in that respect. I think the ecumenical conferences are clearly game-constructs for the purpose of having a fun LARP.
  2. The martyrdom at Sogolotha. For all the reasons Mike mentioned in his seminar (see the transcript in the upcoming post-Con book), and for others, I don't like this. 
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On the lethargy of Teshnos, from the transcript of the Convulsion Lore Auction. Hope nobody minds the copyright violation (hey, it's *advertising*! Really!)--

David Cheng: What causes the lethargy which afflicts Teshnos?

Greg Stafford: It's a cultural thing. They have everything they need, and they're content. Why bother?

DC: So it's not a magical curse, it's a--

Sandy Petersen: Like southern California.

DC: So there's this one prince guy who feels that he wants to break out of that, and he's personally motivating people to--

GS: And he's kicked out of the country for it.

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