James Frusetta
>the problem I saw with randomness is when the Zola Fel fishies are turning
>over their unintelligent fellows to fisherman (quislings!), they might run
the >risk of turning over very young intelligent fish if it's a random
generation >process.
You have to look at things the way the fish do. All fish eventually die anyway -- some types even spawn once, then die. (Sure, all humans die, too, but not all human cultures are realistic about this fact.) Since the spirits are recycled, what does it matter if they die? Even an intelligent fish spirit will be recycled. Note -- I _do_ believe that intelligent fish/rabbits/whatever live a great deal longer than the others, and that they have other powers beyond simply higher INT. They are very magical beings.
The spawning of a special animal is marked, even if it occurred randomly. Examples:
Simon
>ost of the speculations concerning inteligent animals have been very
>humanocentric. Why would an inteligent animal be even remotely interested
>in human cults?
Agree. Intelligent animals are generally _born_ already magical and with special powers. An intelligent Zola Fel fish, frex, is considered a priest of the river god from the moment it is hatched. It probably already has some of the god's spells, perhaps as permanent abilities. Such a fish is certainly very unlikely to want to worship some other deity.
David Cake
>I still think intelligent animals should be rare and unusual
Absolutely. The "normal" number of such animals is quite probably around 1 per species, 1 per Land Goddess, or 1 per ecosystem, depending on the situation. Special cases exist -- Zola Fel, for instance, might have a half-dozen or more sapient fish.
David Cake
>But it would be cool if there was some part of Glorantha were intelligent
>animals were very common
My players once blundered into a part of Glorantha where no other people had been since the Dawn. There were intelligent animals of all types there - -- squirrels, frogs, foxes, rabbits, etc. Other stuff, too.
Peter Metcalfe
>the priestly class is insignificant in population terms.
In Glorantha, the priest/shaman/sorcerer is useful in many ways. Not only does he provide the same spiritual guidance as on Earth, but he also acts as a magic expert -- a person to consult when dealing with omens, curses, evil spirits, and so forth. He is also a teacher (of cantrips, if nothing else) and serves the community as a spell-caster (though not the only one).
I believe that "the priestly class" in Glorantha is far more numerous than on Earth. Certainly they pull their weight more than on Earth.
I believe that on the average, 2% of the adult Gloranthan population are full-time priests, shamans, or magicians.
A typical prosperous Gloranthan community has about 10% "poor" (1L/day), 90% "normal" (4L/day), and 1% "wealthy" (16L/day). If all the folk pay 10% in tithes/taxes, etc., this is nearly 100L/day, more than enough to support 2 full-time priests, a temple, and leave some over to go to the wider church hierarchy. Such as into a pool to buy iron stuff if the church ever gets itself a Rune lord.
Chris Lemans
>And can Chalana Arroy priestesses heal sick cows?
I don't think their spells distinguish between sentient and non-sentient. In old RQ they didn't need Xenohealing, and I don't think they suffer from the 1/2 Healing rule (i.e., Heal spells only cure 1/2 the hit points when cast on a creature that is of a different species.) Of course, a Chalana Arroy isn't obligated to preserve animal life, as she is human life. But if a mercy-killing was required, I doubt she'd be able to do it -- but would get someone else to perform the deed.
re: The Avenging Widow of Arthur Reyes
Ed Tonry
>Because her desire is to wipe out the rival clan, and not just kill the
>few who actually killed her husband, we must treat her as psychotic.
Nonsense. Just because she is violating the law (assuming that Orlanthi Law, as Icelandic, doesn't justify killing a murderer's kin) doesn't make her psychotic -- it just makes her an outlaw.
Presumably when she first kills a person who was legally guiltless of her husband's death, her own clan will either side with her and begin a war, or else they will disavow her, making her an outlaw. In case of the former, then if her clan and the enemy clan belong to the same tribe, the tribal king may try to mediate. If her clan and the foe are in different tribes, then the tribes in question have three choices -- try to ignore it (a common reaction); try to negotiate a truce or agreement, or for the two tribes to go to war.
A lot of this depends on the relationships of the two clans and/or tribes in the past, and how popular the avenging widow is. And how eloquent she is in clan moots. Certainly Orlanthi society has PLENTY of hotheads, and if her clan or her tribe has been longing to strike out at the foe in question anyway, then she might be just the excuse they needed. There are plenty of precedents in Orlanthi (and even Earthly) society for a single killing to give rise to a blood-feud, or a war.
So the avenging widow has lots of possible things ahead for her, depending on her GM & her own actions. She might become an outlaw murderess up in the hills, secretly supported by friendly clan members, she might start a feud, or she might even start a war. Maybe the central government will get involved (very likely if the two tribes start a conflict, unless it's resolved very fast). Her lust for vengeance sounds to me like one of those things that could either start small and end small, or trigger off an escalating disaster that eventually scars the lives of thousands.
Simon Hibbs
>In the real world, travellers used to adopt the gods of whatever land they
>visited. I imagine this would also be true in Glorantha.
Heathen travelers would actually figure out which gods in the new land were the "same" as in their old one, so that Thoth (I think) was considered to be Hermes by the Greeks. This process takes place in Glorantha, too, though it is often mis-viewed as God-Learnerism.
If a Humakti traveled to Umathela, and discovered that a local war-god, Enkidu, had vestiges of honor, and a sword + shield as his emblem, he would be likely to assume that Enkidu was the local name for "Humakt". The fact that Enkidu's swords are curved and that he is always portrayed as a skeleton might bother him a bit, but it might not. And if he traveled to the Pamaltelan interior, and found that no one used swords anywhere, but there was a war-god of the spear, named Vangono, who served the Righteous Chieftain, he'd probably attend Vangono's services.
Sandy
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