In general I prefer all these "messy" problems to exist, and to have normally easy solutions so as not to interrupt game flow. So if my players drink bad water, they'll get the runs: but in town, or in any "normal" life, this just isn't a problem. You drink weak beer, not water. Or whatever. But you have to acknowledge that these "humans" are human, or they'd be even harder to play than dragonnewts.
Toilet paper: the solutions suggested so far sound good to me. I'd just note
in passing that:
1) the Romans apparently used a sponge on a stick, at least in the
twenty-seater lavatories found in the remains of their camps
2) no way would the River People of the Zola Fel pollute the River like
that! Ordinary people who just live on a river without worshipping it, yes.
Menses:
Well, most of the people on this digest are male, so I can see why they
aren't too familiar with the problem. No doubt there are lots of
male-specific problems that I'm not familiar with, so no complaints there.
For your information, guys: the symptoms vary from one subject to another, and from one month to another. Anything between no pain, just a slight fever, to Marion Anderson's description of "... a red hot poker impaled in your guts for anything up to three days at a time." Always thought of it as a barbed dagger myself, but the concept's about right.
I can't comment on the reduction in problems after childbirth, but it seems likely. Incidentally contraception in the form of "the pill" is often prescribed to reduce the problem: it certainly worked for me. A hormonal effect, maybe?
Levels of fitness affecting it: yes, probably. There's an old Pelican book I picked up called "Coming of age in Samoa" (Margaret Mead) that describes a "modern primitive" culture, and a survey of the women in that tribe found that they had never heard of menstrual pain so severe as to stop them from working. Almost all experienced some discomfort, but nothing much by our standards. OTOH, my own experience is that the time when I was fittest (in college, cycling everywhere) was also the time when I had the most trouble. Maybe it applies to cultures but not to individuals?
I like Sandy's spells to control the problem, but his description of one
just isn't on:
"mild pain, such as that due to headache, menstrual cramps..." Sandy, if it
was always a mild pain, we wouldn't be worried. (Well, not _that_ worried).
Make it a spell specifically for that pain, not the others, and you're there.
But the minor spells idea that seems to have come out of this is great. All the trivial, non-adventuring stuff that real people actually use. Hang on, though: the Roolz say there's a limit to the number of spells you can remember? How about this: each clan/household/tribe/ whatever has matrices for these spells engraved in a suitably important place, with the condition that any member of the <group> can use them? So as long as you're in main-stream society, yes, you've got DeLouse, Cure Snore, and so on, but as soon as you go off adventuring, you lose access to them? The equivalent of our losing access to the light switch when camping, really: trivial, but annoying. (Also possibly deals with part of the debate on mass-produced magic items from the Rules digest: there _are_ lots of magic items, they're just irrelevant to adventurers.)
Pain Spirits attracted to blood: I love this idea! So _that's_ why wounds hurt! And it's why you can roll against CON to ignore them, too. Don't give me all this nonsense about nerve-endings, this is Glorantha! And Comfort Song clearly sends pain spirits away: rather like those ultra-sonic devices that work on rodents. Now: why do bruises hurt? Darkness spirits? Hangovers are obviously the work of abused alcohol spirits: what about dehydration headaches? Hmmm: does imbalance between the Elements attract pain spirits too? (NB: for this argument, Chaos is NOT an element.) Lack (or excess) of Earth (food), Water, Air, and Fire all cause pain and eventually death. Imbalance. Got to be. Can anyone tie this lot down to the medieval ideas of choler, phelgm, and the rest of it? We could have a ready-made medical system here.
Disadvantaged PCs:
I'm quite happy to accept that all PCs have 20:20 vision, no allergies, no
weak bladders (or normal female ones) and if female, are among the lucky
ones with no real female problems. OTOH, I also let players design their own
stats rather than rolling for them: if you allow STR 3, why not short sight
as well? Both are unplayable. A point to remember: in a non-magical
primitive society, seriously disadvantaged children just didn't live to grow
up. Short-sighted kids fell off a cliff, or whatever. Asthmatic ones were
taken out by their first cold. Haemophiliacs died of their first grazed
knee. To what extent this would apply in Glorantha I'm not sure, but a
problem that doesn't show up until puberty wouldn't be weeded out like this.
Childbirth as painful:
Not many PCs are going to go for this option, surely? But if they do: by all
means fudge lethal die-rolls, but don't trivialise the experience. I'd agree
with Ian Gorlick's comments on the risk levels involved, but even if the
birth takes place with full clan back-up, the supportive rituals and so on
could add a lot of game-play. Birth with no support beyond the party should
be survivable by means of Heal Wound and similar to stop the bleeding, but I
doubt if the child would survive.
Also, the Orlanthi acknowledge the childbirth path as a HeroPath at the same level as being a warrior: different, but just as painful and risky. If their (normal) women took no risk, just hung around the farm doing the washing, they'd have a lot less respect.
On the rules front, I seem to remember one of the many Rolemaster supplements had a childbirth table: not sure how well it would translate, but the ideas may be useful. I've heard of a Women In Gaming web-page with suggested rules mods (probably for AD&D) on it: I'll have a look and report back if it's useful. And, of course, if anyone wants it.
Contraception?
Drugs with that sort of effect have existed for millenia in the RW (we just
didn't tell the men about them, esp. after Christianity took hold). I'd be
surprised if Glorantha didn't have the same sort of thing. Not 100%
effective, of course, but a help. But would they use it? Remember, these
people take their religion seriously: an Ernaldan being told that fertility
is a Good Thing will take even more notice of that than a Catholic will take
of the Pope. (No offence meant to devout Catholics, but I reckon the
existence of Divine Magic spells makes a difference). I can see
contraceptives being available, but illegal in most societies (except for
those women where childbirth would be fatal, perhaps. Or fatal
_and_unsuccessful_!). If you want infertility, you join a cult that gives
it: I believe Babeester Gor does this, and my version of Vinga certainly
does. I'd guess female Humakti aren't all that fertile either (all that
Death!). Female Issaries or Lhankor Mhy cultists I'm not sure about: I can
see pregnancy seriously inconveniencing either, but I can't see the cult
helping them out. Ideas? How do other GMs handle this? As a player I don't
have the problem: APP 7 causes others, but not that!
Dates, details
Paul Honigmann says of detailed research:
>- - You will get very frustrated spending ages researching details (most
>of which you'll never need and the players will never find out).
Or you could, like me, have an enormous amount of fun doing just this. And
coming up with theories that take in _all_ the contradictory facts. (OK, so
they're wrong, but they're fun. My explanation of how the orphaned (and
only) Argrath was adopted at age 10, thus having two perfectly genuine but
separate family trees, has yet to reach my web page: but it's on the way.)
This was how I really got into Glorantha: reading King of Sartar and pulling
it apart. Just remember that _any_ document on Glorantha was written by
someone who lived there; and whatever their pretensions to objective
reporting, they will be both biased and misinformed to the extent that makes
their facts fit your theories. Now explain _why_ they were biased that way,
and you've got a whole new line of research!
BTW, in a quick reference to the original question Paul was answering, did anyone else find the Cradle scenario to be vastly disappointing after tracking it down? It seems to be a linear monster/Lunar-bash, with all the fun action taking place off-stage. Where did Garrath go to retrieve the Golden Wheel Dancer? How did he know what to do? What _is_ the Giants' reproductive cycle, and why did it re-start? I'd much prefer to have the PCs in on all this lot, and relegate the cannon-fodder role to NPCs, but the background doesn't seem to be there.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jane Williams: jane_at_williams.nildram.co.ukStart of a Web site at: homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/janehome.htm
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