Will Tales of the Reaching Moon still support RuneQuest - I hope so. However, I feel that supporting two games, one which is your own and one which is dead will be too much of an effort, so I doubt that we will see RuneQuest support. Shame, really.
Now, to get more Gloranthan material, I will have to buy the new game and supplements, the wargame/skirmish rules and supplements and the boardgames and supplements. Is it worth it, I ask myself. Perhaps not. Once again, a shame.
Even if I do buy these things, I'll probably convert them to RuneQuest as that is the game I am most familiar with - I don't play RuneQuest in another world nor do I play other roleplaying games in Glorantha.
At the moment, I am seriously toying with the idea of giving up Glorantha and RuneQuest completely - too much change, not enough personal flexibility.
Several people have commented on my comments on Shamans being power-hungry, saying that real world shamans are not like this, or that they are called.
Well, I wasn't talking about real world shamans, certainly not the "Hey man, like I'm a Shaman....." New Age types who can get people to partipate in "Shamanic Experiences" for a hundred dollars each or who can arrange for Spirit Consulations or Spirit Healing, once again for the exchange of large amounts of money.
I was talking about Shamans in Glorantha. These people _actually meet_ the spirits and it is dangerous. Some of these spirits will rip your soul apart without even trying. Shamans must be able to fight off these spirits - especially when they are the shamans of tribes with powerful spirit enemies. These Shamans will try to become as powerful as they can, as quickly as they can - nobody wants to be weak in a nasty world, and there is no nastier world than the Spirit Plane. I would contend that any Shaman would try to learn the rituals/spells needed to give him the edge in Spirit Combat or Spirit Interactions as he will not want his soul ripped apart or bound by an enemy Shaman or Spirit. If anyone can give me a reason why a Shaman would not want to protect himself or make himself powerful enough to fight off the nasty spirits, could they let me know as I would be fascinated to hear their reasoning.
In Glorantha, most Shamans are called because they are favoured by their culture's Horned MAn equivalent - the old chestnut about the baby chuckling when the First Shaman peeks at him in the cradle. In real life, as far as I know, many shamans were called because they were crippled or were abnormal in some way, being touched by the spirits. This could equally well apply to Glorantha, especially when the injuries are caused by a totem animal (as in Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear where The Mog-Ur was injured by a Cave Bear as a child, having been born deformed).
Cragspider is mentioned by Tim Ellis - I thought people had given up on her, glad I was wrong.
In Wyrms footnotes 6 it gives a potted history of her and says that she became an avatar of Arachne Solara - Thans to Daniel Fahey for giving me the reference which I could not remember.
Tim argues that Cragspider was not born a troll but was originally a nymph - Hooray! At last someone who I agree with. Personally, I think she was a Hag born on her mountain who became powerful in the Secrets of Darkness and then Fire, becoming a troll throught he Ritual of Rebirth and only becoming a Drak Troll because of her Firey nature.
Unfortunately, I am no nearer to gaining any more insights into her nature than when I first asked the question.
Simon
Powered by hypermail