Patriotic Varia

From: Erik Sieurin <BV9521_at_utb.hb.se>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 20:53:00 +0100


In no particular order (I have been accused of being a Chaos-worshipper) various comments on various questions:

Humakti Subcults:
I've long thought that the Durulz' love for Humakt (no, NOT Hueymakt, at least not when you play with Swedish players who are used to call Huey "Knatte" and Do Not Get The Pun) stems from the fact that the major threat to Durulz culture is Undead. All those swaggering little Swordrakes (so fun for wet-weather Trollball) are merely a bi-product of the need for anti-undead magics - most important the Turn Undead spell. Delectian constructs are often weaker magic-wise than physically (eg undead giants or giant fishes) - you have much greater chances Turning them than whacking them with your Shortsword. As a result, shrines in Duck territory teaches Turn Undead, not Truesword.

Special spells for vampire-slaying: Hm, here's one:

Embody Death Rune
1 pt Divine Spell
Touch, nonstackable, duration
A sword or dagger is in itself a Death Rune, and can thus be used to "ward" against vampires. However, the trouble is that while you are using it as a ward, you cannot fight with the %&%=A4# thing. This spell affects one weapon, which must be one of the Humakti cult weapons, and must be used by the caster. After you have used the weapon once to ward away the vampire, "strongly presenting it", it counts as warding against the bloodsucker until the spell ends, no matter what you do, as long as it does not leave your hand. If using it to fight the vampire you tried to ward against, that vampire will try to retreat, but is in no way hindered from fighting back while doing so.

This should be a more rare spell of the cult of Humakt as The Protector from Undead (which means, Swords are likely to have it where that aspect is important, Initiates are not).

Bronze Age:
My problem with "Glorantha is Bronze Age" is twofold: A, (the serious one) There are many cultures in Glorantha, most of which vaguely (but not aboslutely, this is fantasy) correspond to RW ancient cultures. Not all of those corresponding cultures are "Bronze Age" in any other way than "iron" being very rare or nonexistent. Many of them are Stone Age.
B, (the egotistic one) Out There many of you seem to associate Bronze Age with Heroic Greece or something like that; due to the blessings of the Swedish educational system, I associate it with the Scandinavian Bronze Age, which does not look very much like any Gloranthan culture I know of...

Godar/is/er/dhar???:
Just to confuse you even more linguistically, in Swedish (I'm patrotic today) I've seen the following terms: Masculine: One gode, many godar
Feminine: One gydja, many gydjor

And re: Wind Lords and Storm Voices, I've always considered them as both warlike, but in different ways: Wind Lords are primarily aggressive ("Hai, my brethren, lets raid the Yrvakings for their cattle!" "Aye!") while Storm Voices are protective ("We must be prepared to defend our fields against the evil Darkmen and their bad spirits! Bring your weapons, oh free carls of Orlanth!").

In combat, the role of Wind Lords is to act as prime heroes on the battle field ("I'll storm the Lunar standard-bearer and try to chop his arms off, screaming at the top of my head!") while Storm Voices produce magical support, usually from the nearest hill ("I'll call down a thunderbolt on the leader of the Yrvaking Clan - let's see how tough he is!").

Ulerian practices:
MOB _might_ be interested in the fact that "ficus" in Swedish is not only the term for a type of plant, it also means "faggot" in the meaning of "gay"... Thus I wonder what kind of Ulerian practices _really_ was in that document... :-)

Splitting the list:
I am on this list for two reasons:
1, I GM in Glorantha
2, I'm a Glorantha-dweeb who likes lots of meaningless details and scholarly discussions

I fully well understand that many people only belong to ONE of these categories, and would not protest much if the list was split into two versions, since I would not have more trouble reading both of'em. However, I would have a hard time deciding where my posts really belonged - it was hard enough separating the RULES and GLORANTHA list, but separating trivia (which might well be usefull) from good gaming material (which may well be fun dissecting).

Erik Sieurin


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