Re: sandy's maunderings

From: Sandy Petersen <sandyp_at_idpentium.idsoftware.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 95 15:24:54 -0600


Aden Steinke
>Historically it seems that availability of armour and weapons varied
>greatly across cultures.

        But it was costly and rare everywhere. Even those cultures where armor was the cheapest and commonest considered it an expensive luxury. Full armor for an Athenian hoplite cost so much that each wealthy extended family normally fielded only a single hoplite. Less rich families restricted themselves to providing peltasts, or incompletely-armored hoplites.

>The Swedish Dalarna levy of the middle ages is an example of a
>peasant (though possiblely yeoman is the better term) levy well
>armed and armoured, as they had access/ownership of iron mines.
>Likewise in earlier viking times armour and weapons were relatively
>common in the posession of non 'Soldiers' as the stock increased
>over time

        But it was costly everywhere. I know little about the Dalarna levy, but I suspect it was much like the German equivalent -- in which one (1) man in each village was required to maintain a full set of arms and armor. That's maybe one person for each 50-100. Almost all of these guys were mustered for the Battle of Tannenberg, which upset the social structure in Germany -- the thousands of dead German squires meant that villages all over Prussia had lost their head man.

        The Vikings were in effect a warrior class inflicting themselves upon a large peasant population. Even among the Vikings at home, armor was not particularly common, and the men who went a-viking a mere fraction of the total.

>What the 'civilised' countries had was the ability to create armies
>worth of equipment in a short period of time by mobilising their
>economies

        This is simply false, as even a brief look at the enormous difficulties civilized nations faced in creating their armed forces will show. The advantage that civilized nations held was that they could maintain their carefully-constructed armies for a long term by utilizing their economies to tax the population and keep the armies paid. In the early Dark Ages, the monetary system had gone all to hell, and it was a barter economy, which is hard to tax, hard to control, and nigh-impossible to maintain a standing army on. Instead, the vassal system was used.

>in the ancient world arms were a commodity to keep, not melted down

        Absolutely true. In one of my sources, it mentions that for almost the entire medieval period, there was very little iron mining done, though this was common during the ancient times. Instead, practically all the iron used up until 1200 or so was simply reworked from older iron (dating back to the Romans). This is one reason there's so few Roman items left -- all the swords, pila, armor, etc. were reforged into plows and chainmail.

>Armour that takes months of blacksmithing to make (or many man
>years) is a historical rarity

        It's the norm. What armor _doesn't_ take an enormous long time to make? Chainmail? (Chainmail doesn't take that much skill, but it takes lots of toil.) Lamellar? Plate?

>the ready availability of the repair spell, which increases
>equipment longevity

        IMO, Repair doesn't increase your total weight of metal. And the medieval ironworkers didn't throw away old stuff. So the total amount of metal isn't increased by Repair.

Peter M.
>Sandy has mentioned that the Sedalpists are derived from Old
>Malkioni. From this, I understand the Sedalpists were living in
>Umatheala and Fonrit and the Dawn? How did they get there? Were
>they enslaved by the Vadeli and fled south when Zzabur sunk the the
>Vadeli Kingdom?

        I believe that the Sedalpists came from the north, following the storm invasion, which followed the troll invasion. It's possible that they were refugees from the Vadeli. Or they could have simply been an old phoenician-like colony that stuck around after the Vadeli disaster.

Klaus O K
>How do sorcerers mix with theists in Glorantha?

        Uneasily, most places.

>There are sorcerers in lunar Riverjoin and solar Southbank

        You betcha. Riverjoin teems with Lunar magicians.

>Then there are those places that are Malkioni with worship of
>"pagan" gods thrown in. What would the status of a priest of a pagan
>god be in such a place? How do they fit into the
>talker/zapper/hurrah/drone system?

        Depends on the place. Among the Jonatings, the priests are just another peasant/Farmer occupation. Among the Stygians, the priests are generally considered Wizards, and replace the normal Wizard stock (i.e, you can't be a full wizard unless you're a priest). I don't know what the Carmanians do.

>There was some talk on this list some time ago about sorcerous
>resurection. How about sorcerous stat repair? If it is impossible,
>Malkionism is manifestly inferior to other religions.

        Really? Mightn't I argue: "How about long-duration spells maintained on other persons, damage boost, magic resistance, and so forth? Since theists can't do this, Theism is manifestly inferior to other religions. Why, their spells rarely persist more than a quarter of an hour!"

        "I can cast spells with 12-18 magic points in them. It's rare to see a spirit spell with more than 4. Shamans and their followers are puny compared to our might."

         "Don't worry, my son. You may have lost some STR from that horrible disease spirit before I could Dominate it out of you, but a nice Enhance STR spell maintained for the rest of your life [at a small fee], and you'll be good as gold."


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