>FWIW, part of the thinking behind the Seleric Verses is the heretical
>notion that the later Red Emperor, Doskalos, was present in the Year
>Zero, as Doskalos, who assisted the Seven Mothers, became the lover
>of Teelo Norri / Rufelza, and was subsequently the first terrestrial
>ruler of the First Blessed sultanate ("some lover of the goddess, we
>can't be bothered to name him", according to the official history).
I was under the impression that the First Sultan was driven mad at the first battle of Chaos and became the Mad Sultan. Doskalos IMO came later. In support of this, I shall point out that a) it was Jannisor Moonchaser and not the Lunars who managed to entrap the Mad Sultan and b) Doskalos never returned from the Mad Sultannate.
David Cake:
> I think the young warriors (Vangono types) express some of their
>excess aggression by attempting truly heroic feats of hunting, killing
>titanotheres and such. When they do so, the whole tribe gets to eat for
>days.
Surely it would be the Rasoulti Hunters who attempt these feats of derring-do rather than the Vangono?
>>> I don't think the Vangono are at anything like the stage of
>>>wholesale plunder yet.
>>The Kresh caravans have been burning since 1613.
> I'm sure its happening - but I don't think its routine. Most Kresh
>wagons are unmolested, most Vangono have never participated in the burning
>of a wagon, many chiefs are still unconvinced that the Kresh are a real
>threat (though obviously many are). The situation is extreme tension, not
>war.
Well the Vangono are getting something from somewhere to make their increased prestige and the rapid formation of the Arbennan Confederation understandable. Merely asserting the existance of ethnic tensions to be the cause of current situation and the coming war, I find more than a tad improbable. I believe that a warrior of the Arbennan Vangono are more likely than not to have looted the Kresh Wagons as of 1621. The flashpoint has been already been reached by the formation of the Arbennan confederation - the war is in a sitzkrieg phase at the moment.
>>Even the Vangono are likely to
>>leave behind burned wagons. So why would the Kresh blame the
>>Arbennan Confederation for the complete disappearance of their
>>caravans?
> Because all the Kresh know is that wagons disappear and don't go
>back. If (as you argue) some wagons ARE burned by the Vangono, and some
>disappear, then the Kresh will assume that they simply never found the
>wreckage of some. Or at least, some Kresh will assume that, even though
>others might talk about mysterious disappearances.
So the Kresh are not going to war with the Arbennan Kingdom for looting their caravans but instead over the fate of the missing caravans which they don't know the cause of? Somehow something doesn't add up.
>>Why? What is so special about Doraddi society that the chieftain
>>can do [keep the Vangono in check] better than any other society
>>in glorantha?
> The majority of social and financial power that isn't held by the
>chiefs is held by old to middle-aged women that hate warfare, who half the
>Vangono are married to, and the other half are trying to impress (in order
>to make a good marriage). These women are not pleased by anything that they
>think is likely to lead to retaliation against the tribe (and probably not
>even that pleased by the Vangono coming back with money, either, as they
>like holding the purse stringe).
Ptooey to your utopianism! If you want a sickly-saccharine-sweet society where the system of checks and balances between the various parts of society never breaks down, then that place is not in glorantha IMHO.
If the Vangono share the booty with the women (as implied in ToTRM#11), they are giving them scented perfume, kitsch trinklets, pet runners, red ochre, talcum powder and many other things besides. Given that the Kresh reprisals has so far been bugger-all (mainly since their wagons are less mobile than the fleet Vangono warriors), I fail to see why the council of women will be upset about the antics of the Vangono warriors. More probably they would encourage them on further raids so they could get more goodies.
If and when the Kresh reprisals come, the main result will be to harden the attitudes against the Kresh rather than cause the women's council to despose the chief and sue for peace. After all, the propoganda of the Vangono has been _verified_. By undertaking reprisals against the Arbennan, the Kresh have shown themselves to be very bad people (from the Arbennan PoV). Thus the Vangono war efforts will be redoubled.
The idea that the Council of Women is somehow in tune with the Cosmos and philosophically opposed to War belongs in the trashcan. The Uz who are more feminist and have been raided by outsiders more times than the Doraddi are see nothing wrong with attempting to eat outsiders whenever they can.
>So I think that would make many Vangono
>reluctant to do anything without some tribal backing. But I'm sure that
>some Vangono either set off to raid anyway, or manage to convince enough of
>the tribe that it is a good idea.
Good grief, the Doraddi society is not a command economy where everything has to be permitted by either the chief or the council of women before it is attempted. If someone does something that brings good things to the tribe, then he is encouraged to keep on doing it. If he does something bad then he will be discouraged or kicked out of the tribe. The idea of a bog-standard Vangono Warrior being passive in tribal matters, I find somewhat ludicrous. Even the Doraddi don't like the Vangono in peacetime...
Clay Luther:
Me>>What the God Learners routinely
>>did and are villified for is something completely different. They
>>put Gods into procustean beds and chopped heads and legs out of
>>them to make them fit their idea of how the world should be.
>>How would Rufelza find this useful in her quest to discover
>>herself?
>Hmmm...but isn't this what she did to herself? Did she change herself
>to fit into the world or change the world to fit her, or both?
Discovery of oneself (which the Red Goddess did) is not the same thing as consciously deforming the world to fit oneself or oneself to the world (which the God Learners did).
>For example, would there be a Red Goddess if there had been no God
>Learners? If there had been no Gbaji?
Yes to both. She wouldn't have the same mythology as a result but she would still exist. The God Learners and Gbaji are not essential components of the Red Goddess just as much as the French Revolution is not essential to the Russian Revolution.
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #64
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