>>IMO yes for the city folk only. The Countryfolk would be initiated
>into the 'Lodrili' Pantheon.
>
>Yelm and Lodril are in the same pantheon. The cities and the countryside
>depend on each other. To assume they are completely seperate cultures
>is ludicrous, IMO.
In the writeup of Lodril in White Wolf it says "The cult of Lodril fits within a cpmplex of deities, often of local importance. This pantheon, called in Genertela the Pelorian farmer religion..." it then sets up the holy days and says that the same holy festivals are followed in Teshnos and Pamaleta but using different deities.
The description of the holy days seems to imply that Lodril is the head of this Pantheon with deities such as Yelm and Dayzatar having a peripheral role. This is Lodril as worshipped by the peasants in the fields. The Dara Happan Yelm and Dendara cultists would not worship Lodril and would only see the deities of his pantheon as minor deities in their Yelm and Dendara dominated system. The two are different pantheons but both are worshipped in Peloria.
>The way I see it, in Peloria, Yelm is a ruler diety [as 'he'] was
>chosen by the goddesses as the "best of the men's gods", and given
>the power of rulership over them.
Yelm was the ruler because Aether gave him that portion (or rather he exchanged the portion with one of his brothers). Yelm is the ruling god because he was created to be the ruling god by Aether. Maybe the goddesses ratified the claim in the matriachal areas, but in Dara Happa they don't give two hoots about what the Goddesses think, I am afraid.
>The Lodrili Priesthood is *suppressed* (because anybody
>who knows or has access to Rebellion is a dire menace to society) save
>for a few priests who are closely guarded.
Maybe, maybe not. Sheng Seleris was dethroned when the Lunar Empire rose up against him using the powers of Monster Man and the Gorgorma cult. Here, the peasants themselves were oppressed and they were helped to defeat the oppressors by Lodril Priests with the Rebellion (or Summon Monster Man) spell. That is one reason why the Lunar Empire does not oppress its peasants any more.
Bad Gamers:
In our group we (allegedly) have one such person. He (allegedly) assumes that his bonuses are included in his skills until he writes a new character sheet, then assumes that bonuses are added afterwards, then decides to include them to make things easier (allegedly). Apparently, he makes POW gain rolls just by looking at dice, increases his skills at will and scores critical hits at will (allegedly). All these accusations come from another player and have regularly been said for the past ten years or more.
What we did for a long while was to have all experience attempts rolled in the open at the end of the gaming session so that everyone can see.
Anyone who continually rolls dice so that no-one knows whether the roll is the correct one should be told by the GM to roll them again. Any time you are not sure that a dice roll is genuine have it rolled again. Any dice roll which is out of sequence does not count and is therefore irrelevant.
At the end of the day, the GM controls the game, not the players. If your GM wants to reroll then the dice are thrown again, if he wants all experience rolls to be made individually and in the open then so be it. After all if they complain, they can have a go at creating a scenario and putting everything together, then they will see how difficult it is.
We also had a player with illegible dice who would roll them and announce a critical. However, each time we checked by getting close to the table and reading them at a certain angle so that the light shone in a certain way, we found that he was ALWAYS right. Why don't you accidentally lose his dice and buy him some new ones?
David Crim, on the same subject, says:
> There's no hope for scum losers like that. Kick him out of the gaming
group
> immediately if you want to save the group. Otherwise, he'll ruin the group
> for everyone.
A little harsh, methinks. The only way this will destroy a group is if everyone else feels slighted by it. Any player who is so stat-oriented that he actually cares whether someone else is adding a few percentage points to a skill has a serious problem, in my opinion. Why not just play for enjoyment?
Regarding the player who (allegedly) cheats in our campaign - this player is a cornerstone of the campaign and is the main driving force behind many of my ideas. Getting rid of him, or indeed anyone in the campaign, would destroy it as we are such close friends. It is better to turn a blind eye to these things. (By the way, I don's actually think he does half what he is claimed to do, but there you go).
Brian Curley had a different slant with a cheater who flipped the 10s dice around:
> - - e-mailing him telling him that I saw what he did and warning him not to
> do it again.
No, speak to him face-to-face if you are going to confront him.
> - - confront him the next time I see it (I tend to watch him very closely
> now).
Better to see him after the session, or during a coffee break or whatever.
> - - asking him, the first time he rolls d100, which is his 10's digit and
> make sure he never changes it.
This should be standard practice with every player in RQ (it is in our
campaign). (One player occasionally said "lowest high" before he rolled the
dice but he often had a sudden attack of being picked on by the GM straight
afterwards).
> - - asking another player to put him on the spot when he sees him do it
> ("Hey... wasn't the other one your 10's die before?")
This would work, but after the twentieth time, he may catch on.
> - - asking him not to pick up his dice until I confirm his roll (I'd
> probably have to do this with all the players to be fair)
If this causes bad feeling in your campaign then bring in the ruling. Once
again, you as GM should take the lead in how play is carried out. If it
causes a bust up, then tough, although you should be able to manage the
situation quite happily with your own ground rules.
Someone (I can't find the reference, but you know who you are) asked for info on Thunderbird:
When Orlanth and Yelm were young, they had many contests. One contest resulted in the creation of two Bird Spirits in Prax - Thunder Bird and Sun Hawk. The judge in the contest was a Bird Spirit called Raven who judged in favour of Orlanth. Sun Hawk was so enraged by this that he chased Raven from the field. This is why Raven defeats Thunder Bird (he judged the contest), Thunder Bird defeats Sun Hawk (he won in the contest) and Sun Hawk defeats Raven (he chased him off).
There is a writeup of the Three Feathered Rivals cult in one of the old Different Worlds which has a couple of Thunder Bird spells, I believe. Also, Tales of the Reaching Moon has a Spirit Cult description in one of their excellent Praxian issues. I have also seen a description of the cult on one of the Web Pages, but haven't a clue which one.
Thunder Bird, Sun Hawk and Raven are three counters in the Nomad Gods game set in Prax and are Bird Spirits which can be summoned to help the tribes. They cannot come within ten hexes of their superior Rival, as explained above. In the 2nd edition of Nomad Gods, there is a Condor Spirit who follows a similar pattern but is defeated by all the Rivals, but I am not sure how he fits in.
Hope this helps.
Convulsions
Have just had a thoroughly enjoyable Convulsions, thanks to all concerned, especially to the comittee for their hard work.
Thanks also to everyone who said such nice things about Dragonclaw Miniatures and who bought the figures. Although I am not part of Dragonclaw, I know everyone concerned and Steve, the designer, was very touched by the support and encouragement he had. He was very reluctant about coming to the convention as he thought it would be full of wierdoes and was pleasantly surprised how nice and how normal people were. There may be a possibility of running another Gloranthan Wargame at other conventions if people want to see one (and if we can persuade Andrew to donate his figures and game boards again).
All going well, we will be putting the Wargame Rules on my Web Site in the near future, when Andrew Harding has written them up, so watch that space.
Once again thanks, we really enjoyed running the wargames and the reaction they got.
This has turned out to be quite a long mail, but I am sure you won't mind.
Cheers
Simon
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #58
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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