Delecti and his rituals

From: rmeints_at_e-mail.com
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 17:26:59 EDT

Hello,                                                                          
Subject: Delecti and his rituals                                                

Some have put forth the theory that the ducks control the marsh and are         
responsible for its maintenance...                                              

King of Sartar makes it pretty clear that Delecti's pale skinned dancers        
and their rods of power are what creates the Marsh and expands its borders.     
Both the Lismelder and the ducks try to thwart these plans for expansion        
but they are often unsuccessful. My theory is that Delecti uses some            
rituals he lifted from Korang the Slayer, and the rods of power are             
symbolic of the wounds caused by his spear of slaying.                          

As for the ducks...                                                             

Far be it from me to stifle anyone's creativity. I certainly wouldn't enjoy     
seeing ducks played only in a very narrow stereotypical way. I also don't       
care whether they are PC's or NPC's. I mainly would use them as colourful       
NPC's, but then again I would do the same with most of the elder races.         
I guess that what I am trying to avoid is making ducks too mainstream.          
(pun intended). Most people would rather tease/fight/roast a duck instead       
of befriend it, just like they would most other elder races, just like          
most elder races would treat humans. Post modern acceptance of multi-           
culturalism doesn't really exist in most of Glorantha (although it can          
if you want it to.) Translation: most races don't get along, and don't          
really have any desire to, even though we would find that racist and            
rather sad by modern standards.                                                 

Remember, many of the visitors to Boldhome thought it was cute that the         
ducks were given their own zoolike habitat. The ducks called it their           
embassy, but to most it was a fun zoo exhibit. I'm sure many passers by         
tossed bread into the water in an attempt to feed the silly creatures. :)       

As for Uncle Scrooge...                                                         

I'm sorry if many of the Gloranthaphiles don't have access to what Carl         
Barks wrote and published for Disney, but I wouldn't worry about missing        
much as to how it applies to Glorantha. Other than the general picture          
of what a duck would look like, there isn't much more of the analogy            
that's used. I only brought up the point to let people know where Greg          
got his initial inspiration. What WE do with it from there is mainly            
up to us.                                                                       

A few thoughts about undead...                                                  

Delecti makes his undead to last, and they only VERY SLOWLY rot away, or        
slowly fall apart. Be careful about destroying them thoroughly, or the          
pieces may be collected (or find their way home) and be stitched back           
together to form a weirdo/disgusting hybrid.                                    

As for dragonewts...                                                            

The dragonewt zombies were taken out of the cycle of rebirth, otherwise         
the reborn ones would spend eternity trying to regain their skins. I            
imagine there is a ritual that could be done to return them to the cycle        
of rebirth, but I like to believe that the dragonewt zombies in the             
Marsh chose to be there to escape the cycle of rebirth. Not every one           
of the whole race likes the idea of rebirth. After a 1000+ tries some           
of them must get tired of the whole thing and be game for something             
else. Thus, they give up and head for the marsh, where they have heard          
of the legend of Dragonewts that die, but don't get reborn.                     

Take Care,                                                                      
Rick Meints, Education, Training & Development, 8-737-2126                      
Mobile: 0976-686-454           Internet: RMeints_at_e-mail.com                     

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