I don't think anyone wants the KoW as the Ottomans. What Nick was arguing for is that the KoW is like the Ottomans As They Were Perceived By Their Foes.
You mention the Timurids, and as I mentioned earlier, facets of the Timurids can genuinely be used as a basis for much of the KoW's activities. They were bad news and no doubt about it.
Jonas Pope
>I have no use for the Enemy Threat (capital E, capital T) in my
>Glorantha. Other RPGs are full of enemies who are nothing but
>cardboard cutouts or represent 'Ultimate Evil'
I think then, that you are depriving yourself and your players of one of the more interesting roleplaying possibilities available.
I absolutely agree that other RPGs have way too much of the "Alignment: Evil" critters who are A-Okay to kill at will. They are totally unbalanced in this regard. In Glorantha, even the broos and scorpion men have a life, and some of the really bad guys are portrayed quite sympathetically. For an example of same, look at the Morocanth, gross monsters who _eat_ people and turn them into animals, for Pete's sake, yet they're portrayed evenhandedly.
That said, the fact that other RPGs have way too much of this stuff does NOT mean that Glorantha should not have any. There are useful gamemaster weapons in having a totally evil society somewhere in the world. Every single person in the Kingdom of War is imaginary. We don't need to care about their feelings. The ONLY purpose that the Kingdom of War -- or any other society in all of Glorantha -- can serve is to be a foil for the players; your friends and gaming companions.
To list a few: 1) It can be used to give handy moral lessons to theplayers. If they see KoW soldiers torturing prisoners to find out information, they may not want to use that technique in the future.
2) It can be used to set up cognitive dissonance for the players. If the players realize that they are becoming more like the KoW, angsty situations can be set up for cool character interaction.
3) It allows you to have a foe that not only the PCs, but even the _players_ need feel no regrets upon offing. Sometimes that's useful.
4) It sets up a monadic terror -- a one-dimensional thrust that has a particular fear all its own. Consider THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. One reason this film was so terrifying was that there was no way to deal with Leatherface. He didn't want your money. He didn't want your virginity. He just wanted to hit you on the head with a sledge, chainsaw you into riblets, and barbecue you. He was so purely evil that he had an aura of innocence. He never gloated over his victims twitching on meathooks. He was a man of action, a blue-collar worker, and he got right down to business. This movie, generally recognized as excellent (it was even shown in MOMA on display), would have lost impact if Leatherface had been portrayed three-dimensionally. You got to see his older brothers doing all kinds of natural things, feeling bad about killing, or being sadistic. The contrast helped set off Leatherface, in the same way that conventional villains like Rathori bandits or dwarfs can be used to set off the KoW's purity of horror.
In summary, the KoW is useful as it affects players. If a PC in an RPG finds that he has cancer, the cancer is implacable, obscene, mindless. But the PCs reaction to the disease can be interesting and fun for all.
Sandy P.
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