At the risk of dragging the CA veggies and grain/land goddess stuff on (hey,
I've just caught up on a huge backlog of digests), it occurred to me that
nutrition in Glorantha doesn't have to have anything to do with essential amino
acids, vitamins and all that jazz. After all, Gloranthan diseases are caused by
spirits allied to Mallia, not bacteria and viruses.
I propose that if the local provider goddesses (or gods even) are properly
worshipped, then whatever it is that they have provided for their people to eat
will fulfill all dietary requirements. Lets face it, if trolls can get by on
air and rocks should they have to, I don't think we should be applying 20th
century science to the situation. I haven't thought this through to all
possibilities, but it seems to me that if you want areas where people suffer
malnutrition it could be attributed to a) influence of baleful gods or spirits,
b) laxity by the population towards their provider goddess, thus the
malnutrition is a form of Spirit of Retribution, or c) "incorrect" worship of
the provider goddess (Hon-eel's discovery of how to cultivate maize for human
consumption being an example of a HeroQuest correcting such a situation).
Just a thought, anyway.
On a different point, re: the discussion on the gazzam of Dara Happa - check
out a children's book called "Dinotopia", which has some wonderful pictures of
a human/dinosaur society. It's probably a bit idealised, and the dinosaurs are
intelligent (but then so are a lot of Gloranthan ones) but has some nice ideas
on what to do with domesticated dinosaurs, and the consequences of having them
(such as the Copro Cart drivers, who travel round collecting dinosaur poo for
redistribution as fertilizer. They take a great pride in their job).
Finally, would anyone be interested in some notes on ludoch society I compiled
for an underwater adventure I once ran? I don't know if anything has been
published on them before (such as in Tales 10 frex), but I'm sure they are
diverse enough to handle my ideas, and they seem rather ignored.
Simon Lipscomb