Peter Metcalfe
> Re with Ralios, I think the battles between the cities are more like
> each army manevuers for a good position until one gets trapped into a
> hopeless postion and surrenders. This is what from what Sandy told me
> about the 15th century Italian city states duking it out before the
> french came along. The French when tricked into one of the 'hopeless'
> positions, refused to surrender and instead charged taking the other
> army by suprise. Result: a stream of French Victories...
Actually, I can believe that this is what made Bailifes the Hammer such a crushing success. Current affairs in Ralios seem to be a lot more bloody - at least that is the impression I got from HtWW1, and these are the impressions Ingo Tschinke, Christian von Aster and I are going to meld into our Ralian freeform for German RQ-Con '96. (This time the characters are planned to go out in March, the convention will take place in June, in a castle close to Frankfurt am Main.)
> Seshnela is not chivalric like Loskalm IMO.
Funny - I'd have phrased this vice versa. (In fact I did, on the digest and in Codex 3.) Having played a Castle Coast character in HtWW1 gave me the impression that Seshnela and Kustria (right across the border) is the most romantic chivalrous region you can find on Glorantha. It is here that I stage some troubadour traditions as for the Katharian crusade age Languedoc. Like courteous love - I still have to write the affair between a certain famous Seshnegi knight-captain and a young married noble-woman from Pasos, taking place before the breathtaking scene of Pharaonic Nochet.
The Castle Coast knights (did Nick publish their HtWW1 church write-up?) are the most impractical and code-of-conduct obsessed bunch you can find, with the possible exception of the Kustrian tournament knights. In case of the CCers, this has yielded extremely skilled individuals and a pronounced failure to produce a coordinated field army, with non-chivalrous soldiers positioned in crucial positions where honour might be earned, or knights relegated to inactive roles. (According to HtWW1 I assume that the CC still has a separate soldier caste and a (somewhat) meritocratic knight caste.)
The Kustrians use the tournament grounds as a means of democratic elections (among the chivalrous class), if I understand the short entry in the Ralios chapter of the Genertela Book correctly.
Anybody who plays in Safelster or who has written up background for any of the cities, please contact me, or put your stuff on the digest. Ingo, Christian and I still solicit other peoples' ideas for "The Rise of Ralios", our upcoming freeform.
> The lords of the land
> (Tanisor, Nolos, Pasos, Azilos etc) are becoming increasingly
> desperate in violating the chilvaric code and caste strictures to
> gain a military advantage. Thus they are more likely to make efforts
> to study what the Art of War more than the Ralians (That is until the
> Ralians get a taste of the new Seshnegi style of Warfare and begin to
> fight accordingly). This is part of the coming horrors that mark the
> Hero Wars IMO.
As I sad above, this sounds more like the impact Bailifes had on the Ralian city states when he conquered most of them.
Current (1615-1625) Seshnegi advances into Ralios are dragging a lot more than Bailifes original campaign, and political infighting in Ralios has been brutal already when Argin Terror's mother was widowed.
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