>BTW- is there a common coinage? Or do sultanates and provinces mint
>their own? Perhaps they can mint copper coins, but not gold ones? Or
>maybe the Impire controls all the mints, but has them in several
>sultanates?
Perhaps they sell the monoplies to certain individuals who decide what coins to produce. Obviously these monopolies are under observation as printing seditious slogans on coinage ('Argentus Finkus?!? Who's he?') or debasing the coinage can be damaging for the empire.
> I'm not sure "right of appeal" has a DH translation. (Did ANYBODY
>mythic ever make an appeal past Yelm?) If you're a Yelmic magistrate,
>having the people in your court decide to make an appeal past your
>judgement shows a lack of authority and control on your part.
You're assuming that the Judge stands in the Court as Yelm. He is his representative and thus is not perfect (ie can be decieved by the Kazkurtum). Only the Emperor is.
>I hate to be a party-pooper, but did ancient empires really bother with
>populist propoganda? Isn't it a more modern thing? (Maybe they did -
>I'm open to examples.)
Well the Assyrians were pretty explicit about what happened to people who revolted from them and the number of people who were kissing their boots. Asoka had rock edicts put up all over his Empire telling everybody what a nice person he was (he had the Secret Police too). Darius has some nice inscriptions detailing how he overthrew his predecessor Smerdis as Shah of persia. And Ramses II has a distorted retelling of the Battle of Kadesh (ie a clash becomes an overwelming victory. A treaty signed reaffirming the Status Quo becomes an extension of Egypt's borders. But these are big examples of spin control. I'm not aware of lesser examples but given that many of these empires had some form of political police makes it propbable that they did.
>But does Galmour
>reather bother with spin control? The rest of Glorantha's communication
>moves little faster than the speed of a mule, so why should Glamour
>bother to manage information for distant, illiterate, non-voting
>populace?
Glamour deals with Big News. For instance if the taxes have to be raised to pay for another war in Dragon Pass, you can bet that the Ministry of Truth will be issuing instructions on how to minimize the disruption. Or if in the latest round of faction fighting, the Old Emperor has been murdered and his killer taken the Throne, the Ministry is going to be working overtime.
Me>>In any case, the practice is the same. Written Documents
>>drafted at the highest levels are sent to all offices
>>detailing the truth...
>Are we assuming ther LE knows how to make paper?
Er no. I was assuming oxhide scrolls and all that.
David Weihe:
>The Excommunication spell seems to be too powerful to be allowed. Unless
>I have misread the description, it seems that one High Priest could launch
>Excommunications at his or her rivals and effectively destroy them with no
>danger.
The rivals must have fallen into error first (ie become inactive or sacreligious) for the excommunication spell to work. That is why one can't excommunicate Illuminates.
>Given that excommunication didn't do anything in the Real World, except
>when fairly civilized people believed in the rightness of the act
>(nobody in Iceland or Germany panicked when the Pope and Patriarch of
>Constantinople did each other, and all each others' supporters, for
>instance) it seems to be overly powerful in Glorantha.
But the RW (Catholic) excommunication is not quite the same thing. It can be rescinded for a start and doesn't prohibit people from entering Heaven if they are virtuous enough to avoid going to hell. Whereas in a Gloranthan context, an excommunication pretty much damns you out of the afterlife of your religion as the tie between you and your god has been shattered.
If an Orlanthi were excommunicated by his High Priest and joined the Red Moon, he would not show up in the Halls of Silence. If a Pentan was cursed by his shaman and joined the Kralori, then he would not show up in the Pentan afterlife. The Malkioni do have a ritual of excommunication save that it's called a pronouncement of anathema (to avoid confusion). People thus doomed can still end up in Solace (Rokar and Hrestol are the best examples).
ObPedant: the Icelandic and the Germans weren't too upset because they followed the Pope in the Latin rites and not the Greeks. What happened here was a schism. The Greeks were abusing the rites of excommuincation to make cheap political points in Latin eyes. And vice versa.
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