V.S. Greene wonders:
>I've been intrigued by the notion of a round Glorantha as proposed
>by Michael O'Brien's "Columbus Mercator". It strikes me as a rather
>interesting "alt.glorantha" that would allow for a rather radically different
>campaign while still allowing for most of the "truths" to remain.
>
>[goofy round earth stuff follows...]
>
>While this is just my babbling, I wonder if anybody has tried such a
>radically different campaign. Is "Columbis Mercator" from a campaign, MOB?
Columbus was an NPC in our original university RPG society's "Club Campaign", the progenitor of Sun County. Columbus was a member of the Free Educationists faction of the Lhankor Mhy temple. This meant he was pretty free with giving out otherwise hard-to-get info from the temple library to lowly oiks like PCs. In return, he'd subject you to a lengthy harangue about his pet "Round Earth" theory. The more you humoured him, the more likely he'd be to give you the information you needed.
I created Columbus (and gave him this name) because I could see a splendid irony in having a man who seeks to prove that the world is round, but unlike the RW Columbus if he did attempt to circumnavigate it he'd fall off! BTW, this is a great gag to share with newcomers, and gets across the essential weirdness of Glorantha very nicely.
Cheers
MOB And now, a particularly apt NfN:
As your captain (hopefully accompanied by your good self) sails beyond the Eastern Empire of Vithela, he will be caught up in the great encircling current of Sramak's River and *swept* around the far North of the world (where the River flows beyond Valind's Ice Palace) to reenter it along the Banthe Current. Thus he will have sailed off the Eastern edge of the world, around it widdershins to the North, and reentered from the Western edge. If his crew have successfully fended off the offended Altinae, Hollri, and other denizens of the Northern Edge of the Outer World, that is.
Alternatively, you could set your course along the Sky River, sailing up through Heaven itself to descend by the far side of the Sky Dome. Though in view of your heresies against True Light, I fear your course would be rudely interrupted by Star Captains incensed at your blasphemous rantings.
Light clearly "bends", tending towards its heavenly home. Rays of Light are akin to arrows or javelins. And the path of an arrow or javelin plainly curves downwards -- down and not up because the arrow is of a gross material substance and not of celestial light. An arrow enhanced by Speedart tends more nearly to the horizontal -- that is, adopting a flat path (I make this clarification because you, Columbus, would presumably assume the horizontal path to be curved!) -- as it is charged with more Light energies.
Even Dormal only sailed as far as Luathela. Your hypothetical captain would undertake a voyage many times as lengthy, and for what reward? Your own Academic renown? Your madness has taken you beyond the bounds of reason. I weep for a fellow sage sunk so low, and cannot help wonder what Sin against Knowledge brought the Brain Flayers to your cranium. Yet all the same, I wish you luck in finding a captain mad enough to take you and your fervid scribblings beyond the Eastern Edge of the World, never to return. With any luck, you could be departed before the Matriarch's Guard unman you for heresies against Our Broad-Bosomed Mother of the Four Corners.
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