Curtis Shenton had written:
>>First there was Rashoran. I'm not sure if his teachings survived
>>past the Dawn.
> His teachings didn't survive past his murderer --
>Ragnaglar. Though he did manage to talk to a couple of gods and give
>them some sort of mystic insight before his vanishment. (Humakt was
>one, and the Emperor of the East -- Metsyla? -- was another.)
Uleria was another one. I'm suprised you mentioned Metsyla as the Kralori myth about him mentions an Eagle Phoenix. Was Rashoran the Eagle Phoenix?
> The Kralori have a mystic type of magic which involves
>meditation. I'm perfectly willing believe that their entire system
>of magic is based on some version of illumination.
I strongly agree. For those of you who were wondering about my mystic stuff mentioned (nay, praised) by Nils Weinander (BTW the check is in the mail) on the RQ-rules list, I had based the powers of enlightened mystics upon this principle. Unfortunately, I tried to hang everything upon the principle (such as Dragon Magic) which in hindsight was not a good idea. Furthermore I'm not too happy about some of the mechanics so I've put it to one side for now and decided to wait and see if any more brainwaves strike me.
Ralf Engels:
Speaking on the reasons why the Kralori and the Fethlon ELves don't like each other.
>Also some deep running conviction of
>treachery committed by the ones against the others during difficult times
>might be involved.
The Kralori haven't helped matters one bit by founding the Province of Wanzow (to accomodate 'settlers') in historical times (during the reign of Emperor Yanoor) and who knows what atrocities the False Dragons Ring might have perpetrated in their efforts to expand their boundaries.
>So why do the elves get along so well with the Teshni?
>...
>humans and elves live in a kind of symbiotic
>relationship, where the humans and their semi-nomadic slash & burn
>agriculture (at least in inland Teshnos away from the river basins)
>provide an important part of the elven life/death-philosophy/-cycle.
As the Teshnans were conquered by the God-Learners, I feel they would have been forced to switch to the plow in order to pay their taxes. The Teshnans could still commemorate the old slash-and-burn traditions by some agricultural fire burning ritual (like a Wicker Man).
>This last bit IMO explains the comparative scarcity of (permanent)
>urban settlements idicated in the G:CotHW-book,
I prefer to explain the scarcity of urban centres by harsh taxes to support the decadent slothful lifestyle of the rulers. As a model, I can point to the byzantine empire who around 800 AD had such an 'enlightened' tax system that cities became uneconomic institutuions and an Arab Geographer cites only four cities in the whole of Anatolia. Presumablely the port cities of Teshnos are able to break even from maritime commerce.
>as every few decades or
>generation of local rulers the Teshni go out building a new and pompously
>decorated city in the jungle, while abandoning the old one, just because
>of mythological reasons (I think, tentatively, that I remember some book
>saying that the Mayas did this in their jungles on Yucatan), inaugurating
>"a new era".
The Mayans primarily abandoned their cities because the slash-and-burn agricultural techniques depleted the fertility of the soil. The Aztecs did do urban renewal although they hardly abandoned their own cities. However I like the imagery of a jungle city as explaining Zanozar. The God Learners when they enslaved all Teshnos within their vile clutches and &etc, abandoned the proud city of Zanozar in favour of a coastal site. When the Vile scum-suckiers recieved their just desserts, the people of Teshnos journeyed back to Zanozar to find the City still standing although infested by jungle and inhabited by Monks of Zitro Argon. So they make the monks the new rulers of Teshnos to maintain a link with the past.
End of Glorantha Digest V1 #277
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