Kitori,Kitori,Kitori

From: kone_at_xsite.net
Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 17:59:15 -0700


>Why don't we take another poll -- who would like people to at least make
>an effort to distinguish between their own ideas and material, and
>someone else's?

I for one appreciate everyone's recent efforts, not only to answer my questions, (the time you took to give thourough, thoughtful answers is gratefully noted. Thank you!)
but also throughout the digest to make note of the source being referred to/from. I don't care to change anyone's digest, and I'm not suggesting a ban of OOP info based material; I just wanna play too, eh? As you might have noticed, Arthur & I are really into the troll woods, and so we've devoloped some material for this area, which we're happy to swap & share with anyone...but it is frustrating to have one's ideas dismissed as contradictory without the offended source being mentioned- so that one might stand corrected rather than being merely shot down. I guess I agree with the above, in that the distinction is contained in the plea, "source, please!"

as for Esrolian Marriage
What I was actually groping twards with imagining AA & Esrolia to be the "first Esrolian marriage" was that their union might serve as the template for the marriage union as an institution among the Kethalans, and typtify the ease at which the darkness and earth forces bond here. I understand this as the real strength of the Kethalans, and it's what makes them so much fun for me to play.
>

>>>Carolyn, Arthur
>>>Without knowing much about it, it seems to
>>>be a Summer Husband, fertility festival. Since Esrolia and Argan
>>>Argar's marriage was the first Esrolian Marriage (I imagine),

>Joerg on Esrolian Marriage
>>Not quite. She had Faralinthor before, and before that and through all
>>the later events Caladril as well (the Argan Argar myths in Troll Gods have
>>a situation where Lodril "does terrible burning things to Asrelia", which
>>other people read "had hot sex with Esrolia", and where Argan Argar
>saves the land goddess). I don't know whether there was a storm husband
>>between Faralinthor and Argan Argar, but that is most likely.

Stephen
>Since Storm Bull is given as a Husband-Protector of Ernalda in some
>places, I had always assumed that Storm Bull (or one of his sons, natch)
>was a "Year-Husband" of Esrola at some point in the Darkness.
>
>This may have been _before_ Faralinthor, actually -- the myth in RQC
>about how Umath saw Esrola and Faralinthor together, and killed them, may
>actually originally be that Storm Bull saw the two together, and overcome
>with jealousy for his former wife, slew the two lovers.
>
>As for other children of Argan Argar and Esrola (besides the Only Old
>One), some of Greg's old notes for MOLAD mention a Black River which is
>also their child. I don't recall which river it was, certainly not the
>Styx.

Carolyn & Arthur again
This was our mythic take on the Year Sons. . . The people there [In Esrolia and/or Caladraland] were all scared [During the Darkness], all of the Earth's husbands, Magasta and Orlanth, Storm Bull and Yelmalio, had left her to adventure. The people there, believing this to be a cyclical and natural event, evoked the ritual of the Year Sons. The ritual was a great lottery in which a male sacrifices himself to the power of the Earth to appease her and hope some guarantee that she will return fertile.

        The Year Sons agreed to great power, but could not stand the cosmic stress of Earth Protectorate, and expired every few years. Taking pity on their sorry plight Argan Argar annexed the folk of Caladraland and all the land that would be Esrolia. As is common for all Kings of the Land, he married the earth in a fashion named after that country. Though he was lord, the Year Sons rite was allowed to continue. Argan Argar was only one new husband where many were before.

I'm still digesting the new info, I don't see immediate incompatability with our version of later "Esrolian Marriage", as to how Esrolia's prior marital experience and whatnot, I'm still chewing it...BTW, what is MOLAD?

Stephen Martin
>Trolls who
>live in these woods presumably do not have big underground cave
>complexes, at least so I imagine. They live within the shade of the trees
>themselves, which are so dense that not even enough light gets through to
>frighten the trollkin.

Without any info to the contrary, we make this same assumption, that the Troll Woods is not full of caves. The few small caves & grottos that do exist in our Kitori are kept as shrines/ exclusively ritual spaces. So with trolls hearding bugs, in addition to the indigenous fauna, something's gotta balance the big eaters, eh?

>How else could the trolls manage this without the help of elves? Now, I
>could accept these elves as troll slaves (like the elf in the Grubfarm,
>in Trollpak/Into Uzdom), or I could accept that the original spirit of
>peace between elves and trolls might still survive in this little,
>isolated patch of forest.
>Unless the trolls worship some sort of elf-troll half-breed hero?

I have no argument against any of these three possibilities, except that I'm not sure they're necessary. If both the dark powers and the earth powers have the same view of masculine/feminine power/task balance, it just seems natural to me that the earth cult knows Aldryami are good (maximize plant fertility in general) for the forest, and the earth cult(mom) says "don't mess with them elves, just leave them be", then Kitori in general will avoid them, which isn't difficult. I don't know about any peace between the trolls & elves. They never fought before they ever met? I can't picture them hanging out together on purpose. Any ZZ/adventerous trouble seekers who choose to attack Aldryami will either die horribly (and thus re-inforce the *Avoid Aldryami* taboo) or succeed, and later be encouraged to take-up adventuring, move into a ZZ fort/enclave (we call this a "Tok") or otherwise find some more appropriate outlet for that aggression.

In our game the ZZ Toks are bare patches of ground, where loads of warrior types live, train, and worship. They have lumber covered burrows for shade. Aldryami & the rest of the Kitori both avoid them, as they are brutal butch. Toks function as a fort in the event of serious raiding, or "war-time" i.e. whenever the situation is so dire that the females are willing to consider the males ad-hoc in-charge, at which point the Toks go from being off-limits to being public tribal refuge. (My Kitori bugheard character would think the Toks were squalid, not to mention nasty with *fire*, while the ZZ's think of the Toks as palaces.)

I do have some resistance to half-breed creatures on general principal. IMHO, once a bloodline has the man, beast, or plant rune associated with it, only horriffic ammounts of magic should cause them to be cross fertile. The notion of half-elves inspired me to leave-off learning *other games* and just make up any old thing I wanted...The universal cross-fertility of Broo was one of the first things that sold me on Glorantha, it just seems mythically correct to me that cross-fertility is *monsterous*. OTOH, you didn't actually suggest a troll/elf in the same sense as a "half-elf", so maybe you have something else in mind? There are magical "half-breeds" in the sense of griffins, centaurs could be "halfbreeds" of a sort, and then there are adopted human/trolls...
I just don't think Kitori need much mediation beyond the earth cultists engineering avoidance between groups which would fight, and fostering co-operation through strict control of resources. The Aldryami could be slaves, but IMG they're independant contractors.


End of Glorantha Digest V4 #447


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