Martin Crim
>Although some of the Vronkali have a violent, mystical
>forest-fire ritual, most Aldryami hate and fear fire. So, we'll >get some
>conflict (the stuff stories are made of).
I've been reading an article in the August issue of Discover about how the
Indians in California used fire to encourage the growth of oaks. According to
the article, the absence of such fires will result in the forest being
dominated by conifers. Such fires were supposed to be set in the fall when
the "cool temperatures and high humidities produced low-lying fires that
burned out deadwood without harming the trees." They also destroy certain
pests, such as weevil and filbert worms, and prevent the growth of oak
competitors. This suggests to me that it would be the brown elves rather than
the green elves who have a forest fire ritual, and that it would be a
realtively gentle one rather than a violent one. Well, gentle from the point
of view of the brown elves. The greens might still think it's violent.
>Aldryami LIKE climax forests.
Probably only the aldryami whose "source plant" does well there like climax
forests. The other types might start complaining in the council if the climax
regions started to take up to much of the forest. So the conflict that Martin
mentions may be between different kinds of aldryami as well as between humans
and aldryami.
Mark Mohrfield
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End of Glorantha Digest V3 #39
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html