Jeff Richard:
Really enjoyed your down-to-earth post about cattle loans. Remind me
to post my Issaries subcult of Pods, Patron of Travelling Butcherers
and Gelders, sometime.
Aldryami and plants:
I recall reading that Aldryami forests react as "a single organism"
somewhere.
Now, I certainly agree that Glorantha aint Earth, but using Earthly
analogies can be amusing. And on earth, various ecological types
(coniferous forests, deciderous forests, etc) seems to be "fighting"
each other.
Lets assume that Scandinavia really was a part of Glorantha, and here
you will have the history of Aldryami over here:
In the beginning, just after the Darkness, S was a cold and lonely
place, frozen tundra, and the only Aldryami living there was the kin
of bushes and arctic weeds; the only "elves" where the kin of the
arctic birch, and otherwise the land was covered with hardy runners,
pixies and sprites, as well as the goblins of the bogs and the fields
of lichen, upon which the reindeer hsunchen and their animal kin
lived and wandered.
But as Valind withdrew, Brown Elves entered the land: the elves of
oak, birch, lime and aspen. They built vast, peaceful kingdoms,
which each winter went to sleep, guarded by the hardy Green Elves of
the yew and juniper against the Hollri. They drov ethe poor tundra
Aldryami away further north from Yelms light. First they tried to
stop on the mountains, but soon the hardy pine Aldryami came and
hunted them away.
This was like a second Green Age, though more Hsunchen entered the
land and settled it - but they were confined to small areas, cowering
at the power of the Green King.
However, what is good may never endure. Two danger entered the land:
Theyalan beliefs entered, and the humans began to clear away the
forests with Oakfed and his power.
Furthermore, from the east the merciless spirits of another
coniferous tree entered. They wanted all the light for themselves,
and fought a victorious war against the brown elves. Soon, the
evergreen tyrants stole all light from the land, with a few
exceptions. They could not reach their hardy cousins, the pine elves,
on their dry, high moors. They could not resist the gerilla war of the
hardy aldryami of the tundras. They could not enter the swamps and
bogs, stalked by goblins as well as the elves of the willow and yew.
The strongest oaken kingdoms survived. In the south, the beech elves
had a tyrannic rule similar to the eastern intruders, and they would
not be crushed.
And some of the meek spirits of the decidous forest survived. Their
elven warriors where all killed, but they instead became subjects of
the humans. Thus the wild apple tree, the rosebush, the blackthorn, the birch and
the lime tree survived, as well as the "cute" sprite and pixies of
meadow plants. But they became slaves to the humans, sacrficing
themselves or their children as food for the humans or their cattle.
Sure, the humans would sacrfice to the dryads of the glens, but it
was nothing like the respect they held of old, when oaken forests and
pine-filled moors ruled the land.
Thus, I think Aldryami representing different ecotopes fight amongst themselves, though they may unite against trolls, dwarves, humans or chaos. These fights take decades and are mostly invisible to the human eye. The elves use the magic of the elements to change the environment for their competitors, send animals against them, fool the humans into irrigating or draining the land......
In a similar vein, many mushrooms live in symbiosis with plants. The
Voralans of those mushrooms are of course allied to the Aldryami of
those plants.
Other fungi, however, are parasites living on plants,
and they may be sent by trolls against the Aldryami, or may go on
their own intiative, being vicious thieves and murderers. Sometimes,
the Aldryami hire them as assassins and send them against enemy
Aldryami, or against human crops.
Thirdly, some fungi convert dead plants and animals into earth,
taking a meager part for themselves. Their Voralans are the
Untouchables (talking Hindu castes, not Prohibition movies) of the
Aldryami forests, taking care of offal and burials that no sane
Aldryami would touch.
Erik Sieurin
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