Glorantha Digest V2 #209

From: Nick Brooke <100270.337_at_compuserve.com>
Date: 16 Nov 95 03:28:16 EST


Back to Mark:

> Given that the Yelmalions are quite clearly farmer-hoplites, the
> Sparta connection there seems a bit weak

Yep: if you thought I was saying "Yelmalions ARE Spartans" I would plainly have been wrong. What I was hoping to get across was that the cultural attitudes of Spartans translate very well into Yelmalion behaviour, so that (for example) you can buy the Penguin Classic which includes Pausanias' collected "Sayings of the Spartans", or read Houseman's "The Oracle", or just have in the back of your mind a general feel for the kind of attitudes (stoic, laconic, disciplined) the Spartans maintained when you're running a Yelmalion character or scenario -- and you've got some added cultural depth for those people. Obviously there's no Yelmalion Krypteia (secret police devoted to knocking upstart peasants on the head), or voting by acclamation (in a Solar culture?), but this means those *institutions* can be pillaged for somewhere else -- it's the attitudes I was borrowing.

Forgive me for any confusion this caused. And you're right, Hanson is a must.

> I don't see the KoW as either paying their soldiers, as appears to
> have been the case with some Ottoman units, or having a land-based
> system like the timar fiefs, which strikes me as being a bit too feudal

When you think of Suleiman's march on Vienna, do you think:

i) Oh my god! The Ottoman Turks are coming, and they pay their soldiers. Not only that, but they have a land-based system of timar fiefs! We don't stand a chance!

or,

ii) Oh my god! The Ottoman Turks are coming, and they have a *vast*, well-organised army. They have more and better military equipment than we've ever been able to afford, the biggest cannon in the world, they're unstoppable in battle, and they're all fanatics ready to die for their infidel god! We don't stand a chance!

Me, I tend to number two. Dunno about the rest of the list.

And what about Mehmet's cannon used at the seige of Constantinople, eh? I was already warming to the idea of the KoW having cannon as a "secret weapon" -- think of the way Mordred uses them to shock effect in TH White's "Candle in the Wind": they're a very good symbol of the end of Chivalry and the beginning of modern warfare. One that the Loskalmi would HATE. (And the walls of Northpoint could do with a bit of bombardment).

Yours, heading for the first coffee of the day,



Nick

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