I don't know if it was the elementary shamanic channeling exercise, the eight hours of jetlag from the UK catching up or the sixteen pints of beer, but Nick left off a product from his list of Gloranthan Goodies which is available from the Megacorp: Questlines.
This was the 80 page fundraiser book for RQ Con Down Under (January 1996), and limited copies are still available. Like Enclosure, Gaul and General Roan-Ur, it is divided into three parts. "On Snakepipe's Edge" features material to run a campaign in Far Point. "Prax(is)" looks at different ways we can approach Glorantha, including a (different to Enclosure) MGF piece by me and Peter Metcalfe's "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lurve the Crimson Greg". "The Other Bit" features Glorantha gaming stuff including Chaosium cult writeups of Hunter and Trickster, maps and population figures for Sartarite tribes, myths, fiction, and more. Plus there's Bloody Jeff on the back cover!
Questlines is available for UKP 8.00 from your local Megacorp representative.
Cheers
MOB
[XXIX.1345.Gerallon/p3*]
As long as I remember anything about my life, I had lived in a little hut on a mountainside. Far from here. I lived with my mother, a gentle woman, a cripple; she had in her youth worshipped Deezola. She had been a Healer woman, and she still followed many of the beliefs of that tender goddess.
People from the valley would sometimes visit my mother, who traded the medicines and poultices she made for the necessities of life. I was required to hide out of sight at such times. When I was old enough I began to hunt for us. She warned me not to approach the village in the valley. Of course, I wanted to know why. At first, she was reluctant to tell me, but finally she admitted that she feared I would be killed by the people who lived there. Why? Because others of my kind killed the people of her kind.
I was about sixteen winters strong when she told me the whole story. In her early adulthood she had been taken by a gang of broo. She was raped and subjected to monstrous acts of cruelty. I will not elaborate. She was later rescued but, as a Healer, would not kill the broo-child that was literally eating her from inside. Her family, high nobles in the land of Lunars where she came from, pressured her to destroy it, but she refused. So, they resolved to eradicate the shame with or without her consent and she fled. That broo-child she was carrying was me. She bore me alone on the mountain. She almost died that night, and the injuries she sustained crippled her for life. But she loved me all the same.
We were very happy together. When I grew older, I spent a couple of days on my hunts. I sometimes saw the people of the valley on my travels, but I avoided them. I never went to the village, though I would sometimes stare down at it from a nearby rise.
But then, I met a girl...
*note: this is the third part of a story submitted to Tales so long ago I have lost the author's name. The english language version here was substantially polished from the original submission by me; I think author might have been Finnish or Swedish. I've put it up here because it is unlikely it will ever be published in the zine but I think it is good 'un (and I spent quite a while working on it at the time). It would be great if I could get in touch with the author again.
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