> One never hears of the Lunars (or Argrath) sending troops to Fronela
One might if one followed a Lunar plot from "How the West was One". We had a force of crack Full Moon Corpsmen deploying down the Janube by Moonboat, to further Artaphaestos' desire to become the first Imperial Satrap of Arrolia. But that's not the point: following the analogy, one never hears of the WW1 British, French or Germans sending troops to Bosnia, though that's where it is said to have started.
> Where is there a connection between Fronela and Dragon Pass?
People alleging one are talking on the mythical level, where (like chaos-theory butterflies) "everything connects". The fact that pure, unchecked War exists somewhere on Glorantha sends reverberations through the cosmostructure. There is a throbbing EVIL in some distant land, which is landing us here in the shit. Now, maybe the KoW is just another manifestation of the general tendency of everyone in Glorantha at the end of an Age to get up and fight. But maybe it's something more...
The Hero Wars aren't just Argrath vs. Moonson (resulting in the Lunar/Marxist synthesis of Argrath/Moonson?); they're Glorantha Today. Pull back and focus.
> As you may have gathered, I don't much like the bellator's style of play.
> From this stems most of my objection to the 'pure military' version of the
> Kingdom of War.
Ah. Well, look at it this way: just as the God Learners are taking the piss out of DnD 'powergaming' grab-the-magic-item types, so the Kingdom of War can be used to take the piss out of 'pure wargaming' types. (And my writeup of Loskalm's Hrestoli Idealism takes the piss out of the "Lawful Good Kingdoms" we're all familiar with, from Gondor to Helden). Given that these people (God Learners, Warmongers) are said by many *within Glorantha* to approximate world-destroying ultimate evil, they may have a salutary effect on unenlightened players...
As you'll have seen from my Stalinist/Trotskyite/Ingsoc Lunars (with their "safe, cheap and clean" Chaos Power, and dreams of perpetual cyclical revolution), and my Nazi/McCarthyite Hrestoli (cf. Tales #13 and Digests passim), I think a dash of twentieth-century analogy can pay dividends in designing Gloranthan settings. If only to lend us recognisable concepts and slogans which have some resonance in our gaming ("Strength Through Joy" has more overtones to most people than "No Erastianism, No Prelacy"). [If you ever read the Fomorian episodes of Pat Mills' "Slaine the King", you'll have seen how he transposes Thatcherite economic rationalism into the creed of the Fish Demons of Ancient Ireland, most happily]. Maybe I'm wrong: it works for me, is all.
As for the culture of the KoW, I'm not sure we should detail one (beyond what can be gathered from observation of their forces on the march). They are intended to be a Big, Bad Evil, not a realistic and sympathetically-detailed culture. You don't send ambassadors to the Kingdom of War; you don't trade with it; you don't travel there on relief missions, or wander through it on your way somewhere else. We should probably see as much of its culture as we do of Sauron's Mordor.
So by all means we should learn about their military etiquette, and chain of command, and uniform styles (I think they are likely to be uniformed, anachronism be hanged!), and practices on occupying new territory (so we can give refugee PCs and eye-witnesses information on what happens) -- we may even want to know more about the background, costume, manner etc. of the Warlords who run the show, and how they get their act together. But puh-lease, no KoW coffee ceremonies or "What My Father Told Me" pieces. This is NOT player character country. This is the Land of War, Death on a Horse, the Black Forest at the corrupted heart of Fronela. Nobody here gets out alive.
(Now, where in Glorantha do we take the piss out of those 'Storyteller' and 'Roleplayer' gamer types?)
Yes, RuneQuest Adventures Fanzine did a whole issue centred on the Block, including exactly the kind of maps and information you're looking for, as well as scenarios and encounter charts and how to get there and the like. All written for playability. Someone who has the details to hand should tell you what issue and how to order a copy.
> I picture the Rokari as believing they purified their old ways, while I see
> the Hrestoli as believing that they turned _from_ the old ways to the new.
Yep, this all fits. The Hrestoli, of course, would then say that their reformed 'new' ways were adopted on the Explicit and Incontrovertible Instructions of the Great Prophet Hrestol Himself, as vouchsafed to Saintly King Siglat, so yah boo sucks to Rokari types everywhere. And the religious wars rage on...
> I think the Rokari phase of Chivalry started somehwat earlier. Ulianus
> III founded the Tournament State of Kustria, after all.
True enuff; I was writing from memory. For contemporary Rokari knights' views of historical Rokari chivalry: Ulianus = Good King (seven feet tall, won wars in Safelster, enemies all terrified of him); Vikkard = Weak King (empire crumbled, cringed in his throne and died of a surfeit while watching too much television). Think of Edward I and II (as seen in Braveheart), though with chivalry strapped on -- a way of life for the first, an amusement for the second. OK?
> My guess is that Chivalry arose as a philosophy out of Castle Coast as a
> 'return' to the 'old ways'
Agreed. But there were Chivalric 'old ways' in Tanisor, too: I was trying to see how modern Rokari deal with these, and to explain those recent Tournaments arising from what I see as a thoroughly unromantic and unchivalrous land. And, of course, giving player character 'chivalrous' Rokari knights a chance to feel good about themselves (so I didn't tar them all with one new-fangled brush).
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