<< In Glorantha of course, sea captains can simply use two (or three) compasses to locate their position, so sea travel should be much more reliable than it was in our ancient history. Long sea voyages out of the sight of land would be possible with a reasonable degree of safety, although perhaps not common. >>
Interesting point about navigation, I guess the problem would be finding two (or three, if unable to use another indicator, such as the Red Moon) compasses pointing to widely varying locations, since an ocean journey is pretty long. Wouldn't do to have a pair pointing to (say) the Block and Pavis, when you're trying to find your way around Fonrit. This would limit the accesibility of this technique, since the construction of the compasses is likely to involve some moderately powerful magic.
Since one of the few (only?) 'known' examples points to the city of Pavis, I'd suggest that they can only be made by priests of city gods - or other deities identified with specific locations. Patron saints of cities might be able to supply a similar enchantment in the West. Dormal doesn't fit this description, which has the useful (from the game point of view) effect of making compasses relatively difficult to obtain. To make long sea voyages you'll want your compasses to be keyed to locations quite a long way apart. Firstly you're going to have to visit the places in question, then convince both sets of priests/sorcerors to make you the items, which, since they may have widely differing religions may not be too easy.
Therefore, at least as far as long sea voyages are concerned, such compasses are not going to be easy to obtain or in wide use. This makes them quite valuable - as much as the ritters/ocean charts needed to use them accurately. Room for an interesting scenario or two in a sea-based campaign, I'd have thought.
Pete N mentions gamers using systems other than RQ to run Glorantha. I thought I'd just add that I'm one of them, using my own system which is a mixture of GURPS and Pendragon, with a few ideas of my own chucked in. Has anyone else tried any other systems and found them particularly good/bad?
All hail the Reaching Moon
Trotksy
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #390
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