It has always been my assumption that the High Priest of the Crimson Bat cult is known in Imperial circles as "the Bat Man," and wears a crimson version of the Caped Crusader's costume. Even the happy serendipity that the famous chest symbol can be seen either as a bat's outline on an oval field, or as a gaping, fanged maw, seems appropriate here...
Comics can be fun. I'd be tempted to use Frank Miller's cult of "Sons of the Batman" (from "The Dark Knight Returns") for Lunar Army chic: full-facial Crimson Bat tattoos, and the like. Would probably fit well into a "Mad Prax" Glorantha game, such as certain Antipodeans have been known to run. (MOB, you reading this?).
___
Pam remembered that "someone mentioned that China and Egypt are better examples
of static
cultures than early modern Europe". For China, I'd recommend anyone should go
out and buy or borrow one of Robert Van Gulik's "Judge Dee" novels, based on
traditional Chinese detective stories set in the seventh century AD. I learned
about them from a post on this list, and would be delighted if someone else
could do the same.
Vraiment! Revolutionary (and post-revolutionary) France is another hotbed of ideas for how to Lunarise fuddy-duddy old Dara Happan society... One for the radicals who didn't get their way, perhaps. But remember: the Lunar way is the way of Perpetual Revolution (just as the Orlanthi way is one of Rebellion). Isn't someone who plans a revolution against the Empire merely acting more piously than his fellows? Ever wonder why the Lunar high command don't want to deploy that deified revolutionary leader, the posited Superhero and Demigod Yanafal Tarnils, in the Southern Theatre??
Maybe I play the wrong kind of games, but these thoughts have come up with a practical bent. The Seven Mothers, as well as missionaries, are/were revolutionaries. The settled Empire they founded does *NOT* want their influence let loose within it. Now do you see why they're most commonly found in the unassimilated frontier regions?
The "official" answer, I understand from Stephen Martin, is that good old Greg Stafford has recently made a "final" decision on this. To quote from a recent letter of Steve's, Greg's opinion is now that
: The Moon itself can be seen from all of Glorantha, geography
: permitting. The phenomenon described in Cults of Prax was
: apparently in regards to the Glowline and/or magical vision
: of the Moon.
This gels with Sandy Petersen's accounts, posted here earlier.
To which I would add that, based on conversations with Greg this January and before, the Red Moon visibly goes through her phases both within and outside the Glowline (or many Lunar doctrines would not make sense inside the Empire!), but that there is some difference in way the Moon appears within the Glowline. Possibly a halo/ moon-ring/ corona effect around the Black Moon? Possibly the black face of the moon is visible in the daytime sky within the Empire, invisible outside? The answers to these questions are as yet undetermined.
But I'm aware there are die-hard RQ2 Death Commandoes out there who still want the Moon to be solidly Red within the Glowline and quite invisible beyond it. Hey ho.
All Hail the Reaching Moon!
Powered by hypermail