Re: Dragonslaying alynxes from the mountains of Mars

From: David Dunham <dunham_at_pensee.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 09:57:09 -0800


To add to my Glorantha-Con report, the convention was graced by the arrival of the excellent Tarsh War (a free-form with lots of background material) and the handy Meints Index, as well as their authors.

Now on to that backlog of Digests...

Simon Phipp wrote

> Alakoring was a Priest of Orlanth, a god
> who fought Dragons many times in the GodTime. Alakoring must have had
> access to Dragon-Fighting HeroQuests and obviously used them to
> destroy Drang

This is of course true, but I postulate that Alakoring didn't kill every dragon himself. It could be he simply taught others the heroquests. And surely he had some useful tactic. But I think there was a special magic involved, that others could use.

Steve Martin wrote

> is it possible that the smilodons mentioned in Gloranthan
> Bestiary are actually a very large breed of alynx?

Given their rather different dentition, I suspect not. BTW, an alynx made a cameo appearance in one of my dreams recently. It was a large, medium-grey cat, with long ears and a lighter grey face and underbelly.

David Cake wrote

> Yanafals almost certainly did not worship 'Humakt'. But he
> almost certainly worshipped a Carmanian god that a Manirian (or Provincial
> Yanafali) would recognise as being a lot like Humakt, and that a God
> Learner would almost certainly think was the same guy.

Heck, in our world Herodotus said the Scythians worshipped Ares, and Herodotus is hardly a God Learner kind of guy. Since Humakt is *THE* god of death (as everybody knows), it's inconceivable there's another one, so of course the weird Carmanian version is the same god.

Joerg Baumgartner wrote

> The War between the Giants and the Dragons was a war between mountain
> ranges, or maybe another word for Gloranthan (plate?) tectonics. IMO its
> beginnings are long predating any life on the surface. The end may have been
> a different matter, but what humans may have witnessed it must have been
> fresh to the world.

Nice. Note however the Galanini myth in The Book of Drastic Resolutions [p.11], where Urtiam raised up the Rockwood Mountains to save the Galanini from their enemies the Feldichi.

Stephen Lucek wrote

> I am working on a version of magic rules for
> RQ, so that I may use the Pendragon rules for Glorantha. POW, magic
>points and
> all that seem very artificial after experiencing Pendragon

You might want to check <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/pdp.html> first. But yes, I'm interested. I chose to use POW and MP so that I could use all the standard cult writeups pretty much as is.

> I would imagine that the clan chief, who in a warlike society (or one in a
> dangerous position) would be the mightiest person in the clan.

You have never played "Orkarl's Bull," Jeff Richard's and Neil Robinson's mini-LARP. When I was the chief, I think I came in next to last. In Chicago, the chief was outlawed by his own clan! Chiefs do have a fair amount of power, of course, but they can't just order people around.

Later, you use the numbers to prove that smaller cults don't exist at the tribal level; they require a tribe. Only, it seems less likely that the priest is itinerant, and more likely that members of different clans meet on a seasonal basis.

Andrew Bean asked

> Does anyone know of a source (or have an opinion) on what the Malkioni
> priests said about the rise of the Red Moon. I imagine it started out
> very small and far away but has steadily appeared to get bigger and
> closer as the Lunar Empire conquered Carmania and extended its influence
> to Riverjoin/Eastpoint??

I don't think the moon has moved or grown. However, its brightness and appearance have changed over time. One of the most notable changes is if you live in the Glowline, which I think creates a crimson corona around the moon (which still has visual phases).

David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein


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