I would love to see more Gloranthan sourcebooks, too. According to Rob H., there is hope on the horizon!
>On Shargashi: What happens to a Shargashi who becomes Illuminated?
Would this be a Bad Thing or a Good Thing?
A thoughtful question - and one being considered by Dennis, Martin and myself this very week!
Remember, being illuminated simply means that you are capable of comprehending more than one world-view, not that you have automatically decided to play fast and loose with cult restrictions for personal gain. An illuminate can (and often does) still act quite traditionally.
In short, I think that in the seventh wane, there _are_ some illuminated Shargashi. (Shargash himself is prob illuminated - David Cake provided some of the evidence for that in a recent post. An illuminated Shargashi might be a little less predictable. (S)he could chose whether to go beserk or rationally decide whether this particular person, village, or beastie needs purifying.
Bad or good? I think that to the outsider, being whacked by an illuminated Shargashi would feel little different than being whacked by a traditional one. It might seem easier to reason with an illuminated Shargashi, but no less dangerous.
>Would a Gloranthan sundial differ much from a RW one, and would the
Yelmies use them?
Differences? That's one for the digests' math-nuts. But I can easily see the Yelmies using them - one of their last official state funtions was to keep time, if I remember my "Fortunate Succession" correctly. I imagine sundials would appear as everything from small, portable bronze disks, to huge fixed, golden disks, to giant gardens, full of flowers and birds, with large, gold spires as the shadow-casting-thingies.
The Dara Happans have always believed in time - they have no "time imposed by the compromise" myth. To both the DH's and the Lunars, time is symbolic and significant. There has always been time, and Yelm is its master.
STARTING/ GM'ING NEWBIES Stephen L has some good ideas about storytelling in campaigns.
A few years ago I reffed for some Glorantha newbies, (but longtime roleplayers). I totally skipped handouts as a way of presenting culture, as I dislike them as a player. Instead, I made them all be young Praxians, ignorant as mud, but proud. I gave them the "what my father told me", which they liked because it was short, in character, and contained simple ideas they could easily spout during roleplaying. ("Chaos - DESTROY", "Let's raid those Morokanth cheats!") I told them to think of themselves as living much like American plains Indians. That was easy for them.
As we played (which we got to right away), I told them a story per session, to give them some of the mythology painlessly. THe first session was their initiation ceremony, which involved them going into a trance and having a big adventure on the spirit plane. They saw Prax during the Green Age, met their ancestors, fought their enemies, and witnessed the killing of Genert. The "enemies" were actually spell teaching spirits, so when they woke up, they had some new spirit magic.
Now, all in one session, they had happily aquired a good bit of historical background, a lot of character motivation, and an appreciation for the magical ecology of Glorantha. As the campaign wore on, I told a story per session, (shamelessly stealing from published Gloranthan sources - like the beggar's story of the "Battle of Moonbroth"), and had them witness wierd events, like ancient, ghostly armies marching across Prax in the second when the sun sets. This peaked their curiosity.
The players came away with a great appreciation for the uniqueness of Glorantha's background, and the high quality of the fan produced material. However, they didn't stick with Glorantha because of the system. They disliked RQ because it didn't offer enough rules to reflect intricate combat. Last I heard, they were busy converting "Sky Realms of Jorune" to the HERO system. Takes all kinds...
Pam
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