I never said anything about it either way, you are the one assuming things simply through absence of comment. You are right I didn't say "BTW he doesn't kill healers" but I figured that as I've made it clear that he only kills those who fight back or can fight then I felt it was unecessary. He doesn't have any moral qualms about killing _anybody_ because death comes to all. He has what he considers professional etiquette and that is what controls his action. He isn't a Makla Mann subcultist though.
>But if it really upsets you Martin, how's this:
It doesn't, it was merely wrong given the character of the NPC.
>"She was a mere woman - so what? Onslaught had killed them before;
>it was usually cheap, quick and easy, and did something to quench the fire
>in his loins, the fire he was forbidden by his god to put out. My how he
>loved to stab them with his big, big sword! This one had the temerity to
>tell him, Onslaught, that... "
So now you infer he's some sort of pervert? This is getting ridiculous. He is celibate by choice, he thinks it makes him a better fighter as well as being a rejection of fertility. He has focussed all energy on his trade, which is why he's so damn nasty at it. I presume you knew this and this comment was directed, as with Nick Brooke, at me for what you see as my "penis-extension" characters. What is it with these thinly veiled attacks on my sexual activity? Can you not win a debate without slander or are you so childish and immature that you have to poke fun at people rather than debating the issue? Stop insulting me and _ask_ me what I mean! Having read your stories and enjoyed them, though its not my Glorantha you write about, I find it amazing that someone of your ability has to sink to this kind of purile schoolboy crap.
>Of course, now that we've seen Onslaught's stats (did you get excited
>writing them out Martin?), it's obvious that the Coders singly or together
>ain't got a hope in hell of taking him out (or for that matter, even
>scratching him) and it was presumptuous of me to write such a far-fetched
>tale.
The stats have been long written and to me it was merely an excercise in making the stats fit the persona so no, it didn't "excite" me. Yet again you show your maturity and composure with such comments. Did it excite you writing out the wonderfully honourable Count Julan because you clearly have a paladin fetish or am I jumping to conclusions on little data like a certain other person I could mention?
>Holy shit! Are you in need of a serious humour transplant or what?
>Nope, which is why I got such a kick out of the 'Hard On' story a few Digests
>back - now there was a genuine piss-take on the whole mega-thewed hero
>scene.
I'm sorry you don't get my sense of humour but some do, some don't. Thats life. To say one form of humour is "genuine" or not is purely subjective and based entirely on your own point of view (as is mine) so lets just agree to disagree on that one.
>Have you ever heard of parody?
>Hang on a bit, one minute you're claiming Onslaught is parody, cheap
>and cheerful, not to be taken seriously, the next you're writing about
>how you've "thought long and hard about this... little explored area of
>Glorantha and wish to explore it", with many paragraphs of sombre
>theorising following on after this, eg:
Look, parody is holding up to ridicule something serious by the use of overexaggeration etc. I invented Onslaught and thought deeply about it but make no mistakes, I can laugh at my own inventions. If you can't then there is something wrong with you. I know that many people find the character offensive, I do to in a way. To express that horror at my own invention I parodied it with the "Holiday Humakt" stuff as a bit of fun. I have said this several times already that the holiday humakt stuff was meant to be a joke but the other conversations were not. I prefer to lighten any issue that becomes too serious with humour. Sorry you don't like that or my humour.
>"...Humakt was a God but Onslaught was a man. How much harder for
>the man is it? IMO its devestating. Humans are naturally gregarious
>and interactive but if you were Onslaught what wold you have? Only
>despair. How to suppress that despair?..etc, etc, etc..."
Martin:
>I find your comparisons to AD&D to be both massively unfair and
>odious in the extreme.
>Having waded through Onslaught's stats, which are surely *way* too long,
>detailed, lovingly described and deadpan serious to be possibly taken as
>satire...
Not as long and detailed as your Coder stuff which you obviously laboured long over with such loving detail......ah but you did that so thats alright. I'm afraid I like writing stats, its a product of a wargaming early background and an accountancy career. Perhaps I do go over the top at times but its just a vice, I like to be totally thorough, we all have them and its not fair to make assumptions about a person on things like that. Though "fair" doesn't seem to be in your vocabulary.
>...I confidently assert from my first posting, "the character himself seems
>to me to resemble the blandest sterotype of your 25th, 33rd, (99th?)
>level Fighter (Lawful Evil of course) rather than a 'real' Gloranthan".
Really? LIke Argrath or Harrek or Jar-eel or half of Dorastor or the Red Emperor? I guess it would be okay to post stats on those folk (if anybody could be chewed to spend several years on making up new rules for them all) and doing stats for your Coders was okay too. But its not okay for anyone else to do it?
I suppose you were objecting to his capability? Well I thought about it and it seems to me that anybody who spends nearly thirty years constantly fighting and warring, much or that time spent without sleep to allow more time and having been on several heroquests, that they would be good at what they do. Don't forget I also use RQ2 5% blocks for skill increases which makes a difference. He is still vulnerable to concerted magical assault and three good priests of the Red Moon would take him down with little difficulty. Certainly Deville, as I've written him, could on his own. The scale of his power is measured against the losses he has incurred elsewhere. Count Julan is not as tough but is a better _human_ he can do much that Onslaught can't and ultimately he could _command_ enough men do finish Onslaught if he didn't do it personally.
Martin again:
>If you disagree with my point of view, then please say so, as is
>your right but don't brand me before you know who I am or what I mean.
>Martin - "AD&D throwback teen terror" - your words, not mine. I merely
>expressed an opinion that Onslaught and his Big Sword adventures reminded
>me more of the ADnD(tm) universe than anywhere on the Lozenge we all Know
>and Love. They still do.
So whats Harrek then? He makes Onslaught look rather small and pathetic. Excuse me because I thought that RuneQuest was a fantasy game with heroic figures abounding suffereing great victories and great tradgedies. There nothing wrong with having power in Glorantha and there are many who do, the biggest crime is to have power without roleplaying it, the gaining of it, the cost of it and the holding of it. Personally I like to run games of epic scope, its not for everyone but neither are their campaigns for everyone. Stop trying to force a MOB world view on me, I'm not trying to do that to you, merely expressing my opinion.
>I apologise if I have unnecessarily maligned you. I only have what you
>post to the Digest to go by, and I'm sorry if I have consistently missed
>either the rapier subtlety of your wit or the deep, cathartic nuances of
>your serious exploration of the human condition, whichever it is meant to be.
Obviously you don't apologise because you've done it far worse in this post. Please keep your insincere apologies to yourself. When you can talk without attacking me personally (I am still at a loss as to why you are doing this-have we been enemies in a past life or something that causes this onslaught? Pun intended) I'd love to debate with you.
Kevin Rose made some good points about cultural differences and their effect on Humakti and how there is no "one true way". This is how I percieve it and this was one motivation for the much maligned Onslaught because I wanted to present an alternate Humakti to my players who invariably saw Humakt as a paladin god. I thought this was nuts and so countered it.
Kevin
>The basic problem with the Humakti is that there are no real limits as to
>what they can do. It's all cultural. A group of humakti can be bloody
>handed butchers who can't be told from ZZ without a score card, skilled
>duelists for money, or honorable disciplined warriors. Humakt doesn't
>care. The basic requirement is that they must be willing to kill and
>willing to die. As long as the senior Sword belives he is following
>humakt properly, it's OK.
This is how I see it in a nutshell, well put.
>So why don't we abandon the "true humakti" discussion and try defining
>how Humakt is worshiped in different ways.
Something I've been trying to do for a few digests now!
>Regarding the slaying of healers: Look at the lead cross heroquest. It
>is banned in Sartar due to the tendency of the humakti to go on a killing
>frenzy against chalana arroy, who pervert death by resurecting people.
This is true and shows that nothing of life is really sacred to Humakt. He is Death and his followers consider it with the same reverance that christians think of the ten commandments, possibly greater actually. Certainly many have died for those 10 laws, for a death god, how much worse would it be if someone was actually perverting death by reversing it? Sacrilege!
Mike Cule said Onslaught "killed without thought to consequence" which sounds rather like Humakt killing Grandfather Mortal to me. When has Humakt ever shown much thought to consequence? His warriors are not really thinkers, they are heros. Its been repeatedly commented that they make poor generals in Orlanthi society being far more prone to suicide charges, last ditch stands etc than a sensible general would like.
Jim Chapin also commented on this issue saying that if Storm Bulls and ZZs exist as well as Sword Broo, then why not Onslaught? This is true. Onslaught is one end of the spectrum, Count Julan and Arreth are at the other and such diversity is what its all about.
BTW the mention of the SAS I made was someone elses opinion, I to thought they might not be talkative because he was an outsider but it was _his_ view of them that fascinated me. How did the soldier see the SAS? I thought the parrallel between them and his view and Orlanthi and their view of Humakt was pretty strong and interesting.
Martin Laurie
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #516
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
Powered by hypermail