7 seasons?

From: Michael Raaterova <michael.raaterova.7033_at_student.uu.se>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 21:25:15 +0100


Erik (who has forgotten the importance of blank lines):

>Michael R:
>> The big problem is to decide if the Gloranthan year consists of the usual
>> four seasons (spring/sea; summer/fire; autumn/earth; winter/dark) and an
>> extra, non-RW, storm season, or if the gloranthan year follow the
>> traditional seasonal progression, but split up in five parts.
>If you think of the year's seasons as divided up by the solar events,
>five seasons seem strange, yes. But the RW Same speak about
>themselves as "the people of seven seasons" - there are certainly
>other things than the state of the Sun which are important.

As Glorantha is primarily a game setting, i want to keep things like seasons pretty simple. If i would have to come up with a new way of conceptualizing the year cycle it would take too much time from everything else.

I am used to thinking in four seasons, so that's the way i think of the Gloranthan year. That said, what are the seven seasons of our samer?

>> Another, intertwined, problem is whether the Runes of the calendar have
>> actual impact and actually shape the year or are just nifty, though
>> ultimately arbitrary, ways of keeping track of time.
>I seriously doubt that the guys who invented the calendar would do it
>arbitrarily - there IS connection between various Holy Days we know
>and the runic names of the weeks and seasons. That doesn't mean it is
>100% accurate description of the fluctuations of Mana/Life
>Force/Breath through Glorantha, but they sure ain't just arbitrary.

What i meant was whether the Runic Calendar *causes* the year, or if it is merely a(n arbitrary) description of the make-up of the year. The use of the word 'arbitrary' signifies that the description is one of many possible descriptions, not that it doesn't correlate with the seasonal progression.

Anybody have any RW examples of cultural year-cycles not based on spring-summer-autumn-winter?

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