If there can be Humakti sword broos in Dorastor, Onslaught can certainly
exist. And if Storm Bulls and Zorak Zorani exist in Gloranthan society,
then Onslaught can survive too. I made the point awhile back when someone said that people
like many PCs ready to die for minor insults to their honor or to risk
their lives for a small possibility of gain did not exist in the modern
world that most game players live in the college-educated areas of the
advanced world. In the ghettos of my city or most American cities there
exist people just like the player characters. In the West Africa that
Robert Kaplan has written about recently whole societies exist in a state
fragmented enough for Twilight 2000, let alone Glorantha!
By the way, Nick B., wasn't it you who ably pointed out a few months back
the difference between insulting you personally and insulting you in
character? A good rule, good enough to be used by you too! (unless you
have some special knowledge as to other's private parts or their opinion
about them!)
My own favorite take on the nihilism of war and war-like societies is
a brilliant short story by Don Hawthorne, "The Face of the Enemy," in
Volume II of the War World series edited by Jerry Pournelle.
I like fiction about Glorantha, and have been doing my best to contribute
fiction to this line myself. Martin's characters tend to be a bit singleminded
and bloodthirsty for my taste, but I have no doubt that such characters
exist. So I hope he keeps writing, and I hope that everyone else does too.
If Glorantha is a plural world, as everyone keeps saying (sometimes it is
a bit too plural for my taste, bordering on subjectivism!), then let the
thousand flowers bloom! Jim Chapin
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #515
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html