Re: sandy's maunderings

From: Sandy Petersen <sandyp_at_idpentium.idsoftware.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 95 12:12:38 -0600


Peter Metcalfe:
me> it's way too cold in Peloria for water buffalo.

>Too Cold for the Water Buffalo? I don't believe you. China and
>Vietnam can become very cold in the Winter.

        They don't keep water buffalo in northern China, and Vietnam isn't really all that cold. Ever. It's covered with jungle, you know, and is not far north of the Equator. Peloria is as cold as the interior of any large land mass ever is (think Russia, Mongolia, and South Dakota).

Doug Thayer
>The question in my mind is not whether I can find in my Glorantha a
>place for dinosaurs. The question is, why aren't they more
>widespread?
>I am convinced a trained working dinosaur would be a very valuable
>commodity anywhere where major civilization would be happening.

        One obvious reason is that dinosaurs are (a) not very smart, and thus hard to train and (b) enormous in size, and thus hard to train. Now, we no longer think that dinosaurs are utterly mindless oafs -- a carnosaur was probably at least as smart as a modern crocodile or python, and no one thinks of _those_ as sluggish or dumb, but when it comes to training one -- forget it!

        Even the smartest dinosaurs were only up to bird-brain level. I know you can train a chicken to play tick-tack-toe, but still ...

        The other problem is that they're so damn BIG. If you're trying to teach a dog not to bite, you can just thwack it on the nose each time it tries (note: and this may not work, if your dog is especially stubborn or nervous). If you're trying to teach an allosaur not to bite, you'll need a whole new trainer each time he "forgets". If your horse throws a fit in training, it may take three or four guys pulling on ropes to get it under control and back in the barn. If your triceratops throws a fit, that's the end of the barn, the house, and maybe a good part of town.

        It's a miracle they've domesticated triceratops, which are doubtless relatively calm, bovine animals (except in spring). I can't imagine them working on anything else -- particularly sauropods, which appear to have been migratory animals much like elephants. Elephants are only manageable because they're incredibly smart. A creature that _acted_ like an elephant, was ten times as big, and was _not_ bright, with a _poor_ memory would be a disaster!

David Cake:

> I have suggested that the Zola Fel brontos actually spend most of
>the year in that Redwood forest

        A sensible theory, Not that there's many redwoods left up there. I concur that there is probably only one (1) herd of brontosaurs south of the rockwoods and east of Dragon Pass. And I don't expect it's a very big herd.

Bo Ros0n
> I was wondering if Malkioni may have a concept of humans having two
>souls or spirits.

        I believe that some branches of Malkionism believe that man has two _natures_, one good and one evil, and that the good must be encouraged and the evil denied. There might be a group somewhere that believes in two actual separate souls, but I don't know who.

Alex F.
>Consider the following Official Sentence, of which one S. Petersen
>is the legal co-author:
>>"Goats are considered unclean, and never eaten, nor rarely
>>tolerated."

        When did I say _that_?

>Sandy explains that he's a minority of a minority of a minority.

        Huh? No, no. If you're talking about the LDS thing, I _am_ LDS. This means that I belong to the 95% portion of the Mormon church. The RLDS is 90% of _what's_ _left_, which is to say not much. The loathsome apostate polygamists are much much less than a full percent of all the Mormons in existence. So I'm a majority Mormon, a card-carrying member of the fifth largest church in the U.S.A.

Alex
>I don't think the (very evident) polytheism of Jonatela, the Serpent
>Kings, or the Stygians are part of the same developmental limb at
>all. Jonatela was presumably IGised sometime late on in the
>previous bout of Loskalmi expansionism (the 2nd Age), while the
>Serpents KIngs don't seem to have any plausible claim to be
>orthodox, even by the standards of the day. Carmania I don't know
>about, either way.

        The "developmental limb" being proposed here is no more than a non-knowledge of the Invisible God before the Second Age. Earlier Malkionism was therefore prone to acceptance of other gods. The Jonatings were introduced to Malkionism in the First Age, at the latest during Talor's campaign through Fronela, but probably much earlier. The Stygians base their beliefs on Arkat, which of course pegs them as quintessential First Agers. The Serpent Kings seem unorthodox now, but may have been much much more acceptable back when there was no Invisible God -- other deities, such as Seshna, may have been a regular part of the services. Carmania was driven out of its old territory in the Second Age, but it was a First Age organization.

        Really, the only developmental limb here is that all the churchs which trace their origins back to the God Learners have a common belief in the Invisible God and a tendency to consider all other gods as false and evil. These God Learner derived sects consist of: the modern Rokari, the modern Hrestoli, the Castle Coasters, and the Sedalpists. No others spring to mind. Maybe the Wizard Church of Valkaro in the East Isles.

        You see, my contention is that in the First Age, the so-called "Creator" was only a sort of First Cause -- a non-personalized, "maybe it was the Celestial Court" sort of vague thing that no one really cared about. Actual philosophy was behavior-based, not god-based -- if we behave in the right manner, we'll achieve heaven. Otherwise something else will happen. It's really not that different from the Brithini's belief except that immortality is achieved after death, rather than in life. But no doubt you can utilize the various spirits and gods who inhabit the world. This is of course a gross oversimplification of what was no doubt a wide variety of different beliefs and practices, but you get the idea.

REPUBLIC OF ROME/LUNAR EMPIRE
        Another possibility for use is the rather mighty game of Days of Decision which, in its fifth (newly released) edition has some fine rules suitable for adapting to the Lunar Empire with, admittedly, a lot of work. The secret of Days of Decision is that it is an ideology-based game, in which you attempt to sway various smaller nations into your faction (which is itself subdivided). There are three main ideologies: Fascism, Communism, and Democracy, and all fight over the souls of the smaller countries, not to mention their own. It's probably the best political game of its type I've seen.

Alex says re: NCOs and officers
>The formal distinction is something of a modern thing, anyway.

        No doubt about it.

I said:
> The empire has swarms of phalanxes. It's just that most of them
are local defense units

Alex whines:
>I'd don't think the NFC are exactly phalanxes. In fact, I don't
>think they are remotely, but any stretch of the imagination,
>phalanxes. I'm saying 20 or so phalanxes of Heartland recruited,
>phalanx-like phalanxes. My evidence for this may be questionable,
>but I'm _not_ talking about those eejits in the NFC or the like.

        But the NFC are ignorant near-barbarians, who are naturally enough equipped in barbarian style. Presumably the local defense units of Aggar and Garst are similar, whereas the local defense units of the Pelorian highlands are more phalanx-like, with long straight lines of Lodril-worshiping spearmen.

        I have not as yet determined whether Dara Happa itself actually has a local defense force. At the moment I'm leaning towards the theory that it does not, and instead simply funds the Heartland Corps and Imperial Bodyguard for use elsewhere. The idea being that if an enemy gets to the Heartland, a separate local defense group there won't help much anyway.

        But anyway, since there's tons more folks in the Peloria than barbarian-lunars in the hill country, you can have all the phalanxes you want, fully equipped with hoplite-like soldiery.

Alex:
>I think that in the absence of some specific condition, which would
>not necessarily be reflected by CON, an up to 70% chance of death is
>_greatly_ exaggerated.

        You may think this, but a number of nowadays-living obstetricians don't. I know some and have talked to them about it.

> "Thou Shalt Not Institute Any Piddly Differences".

>>Which Amateur Game Designer do we have to blame for the Stop
>>Bleeding/Act Heroic CON% rule, and ditto for recovering from
>>stunning, POW% for DI, etc?

        You utterly abysmally miss the point -- the idea behind the Bleeding/Act Heroic rule and the POW% DI rule is to _minimize_ differences between characters, so that a crappy character has nearly as good a chance as a good one to do stuff. The idea here isn't to institute a piddly difference, but to place all players on the same rough level with regards to these actions. So there.

        The question can then be raised of "why is it desirable for DI and Heroism to be leveled, and not for birth?" All I can say is that I liked the idea of everyone getting a chance at being a hero, and of some women being soft and fragile, so that giving birth to a kid was a Big Deal for them.

>Come to that the Test of Holiness is obviously woefully
>under-sensitive in this respect. Need I go on?

        Huh? It's just POWx3, right? How is this unsensitive? If you're a righteous-living POW 18 guy, you have a 54% chance. If you're a sodden POW 10, you only get 30%. That's a significantly higher chance, seems to me.

>Now personally, I think a 17% risk is Grave enough to be going on
>with. If I had a 70% chance of copping it, I'd want to know what was
>up with my nether bits

        Yes, well that was exactly my point. I _wanted_ a low CON woman to be concerned and sad that she was "barren".

        NOTE: further discussion on said topic is invited off-line, after which the mutually acclaimed victor will be announced on the Digest.


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