Stephen Martin: The problem is that when two Blues have children, the children only have a 1/6 chance of being Blue -- they could just as easily be Red, Green, Purple, Yellow, or Orange. It's actually worse even than Stephen implies here. Yousee, the numbers of the tribes vary according to some weird internal cycle, not understood by the Teleans themselves. At any given time, one or two tribes outnumber the others by some amount. In addition, this cycle somehow responds to external stimuli - if one tribe's numbers drop too low, then the other tribes begin having children of that color more frequently to make up for it. Thus, everyone still remembers the bad hurricane of a hundred and sixty years back which nearly exterminated Purpletown, which was right in its path. The next year, almost 4/5 of the children born were purples.
Hence, it's rather obvious why the six tribes don't fight and try to kill one another. It would be senseless. Hate, oppress, and attempt to impoverish one another, yes.
>There are also yellow elves and dragonewts on the island,
though I don't
>think the humans have much to do with them.
The humans don't worship or fear the non-humans. They interact with them as much as might be expected. Thus, the dragonewts sometimes hunt the humans, and the elves trade with the humans.
In the first and second ages, Teleos was the Pirate Island, its coasts inhabited by the most aggressive, skillful, and daring pirates Glorantha has ever known. Even worse than the Wolf Pirates (except for the fact that they weren't led by a superhero). They had a Pirate King and special ports for different kinds of loot. One entire city was nothing but brothels.
They were HOSTILE to the God Learners, and the Eastern Seas Empire.
The Teleos Pirates were not all Telean natives; pirates from all over the world congregated there. In those days, the Teleos folk did not exhibit the appalling prejudice that they now display, and folks of different skin colors intermarried at times.
Of course, the Pirates only ruled the coastlines - little is known of what went on in the interior during earlier times. When the Closing came, Teleos' pirate culture was naturally destroyed, and it's possible that some other destructions came as well, because there is certainly no trace of the pirate towns or names left. The current inhabitants have no recollection of there having ever been pirates on the island, and scorn the notion that miscegenation ever took place between the skin colors, despite the historical evidence.
Some non-Teleans are rather glad that Teleos is so messed up culturally - with their island's excellent strategic position, their vast natural resources, and their history; perhaps a unified Teleos would once again be the terror of the seaways.
Teleos is a jungle island, and has always been that way. Some of the jungle trees make excellent wood for boatbuilding, and even today, the very best Haragalan ships are made of imported Teleos lumber.
Stephen Martincould read, they could write, they had religion, etc. They built monuments, cities, etc. They were certainly not primitives, but I agree that their civilization was not as technically impressive as the Kralori or Lunars.
>The Teleosians, even when they were pirates, never had a high
level of culture, IMO. It depends on what you mean by a "high level of culture". They
Stephen I supposing that each tribal area has at least one major ruin.Of course, the ruin's name should imply a different color than the tribe who inhabits the area. Thus, we could have the
Emerald Ruin in the Yellow tribal area, Lilac Hill in the Red area, etc.
I think that there are a number of ruins, and that their number has nothing to do with the tribes or their boundaries. However, I do like the idea that the ruin names always differ from the tribal ones. That's brilliant.
>I don't think these ruins date from the Second Age
"civilization" of the
>Teleosians, but from pre-Time.
I don't think the Teleans, nor anyone else know when the ruins date from. Probably some date from the Godtime, others from the First or Second Age.
> Can't we have at least one Gloranthan land which is not
populated by dinosaurs?!?!?!
NO NO NO. ALL Gloranthan landmasses MUST have dinosaurs!! Well ... maybe Jrustela doesn't have to have them.
I do not believe that the Teleans mutilate dragonewts. However, I do believe that some of them domesticate the brighter or more docile breeds of dinosaurs that inhabit the island. No doubt Genertelan observers misinterpreted this as dragonewt-breeding.
Simon Braythe plains of Prax. What more could you ask for?
>> Sandy has deprived me of most of my favourite animals eg.
the Camel,
>> Giraffe, Antelope, Zebra.
Nonsense - Antelopes, zebras, high llamas all exist on
>> In response to Sandy what about Litoperms such as
Thoatherium the > pseudo-horse, >Macrauchenia like a camel with a trunk
and the bulky Toxodons?
Litopterns seem very much specialized and South American to me (and Toxodon isn't a Litoptern, of course), but I can't imagine why they couldn't be found in Pamaltela. Suggest placing them in the Maslo area.
>Of the Rhino family do we find the horse like Moropus in
Pamaltela?
I thought I explicitly mentioned Chalicotheres. If not, I am now. (Moropus is one species of Chalicothere.)
>> As for > hippopotami I am keeping them swimming in the
Garguna River if it
>> kills me, > there is nothing more terrifying than Hippo
hunting for my Fonritan
>> players.
For what it's worth, there were a huge number of extremely hippo-like animals in the past. Keep your hippos, by all means, but you can add shovel-tuskers (Ambelodon), hippo-like rhinoceri, placodonts(!), and truly enormous crocodiles to the rivers. I'm sure that Deinosuchus and Phobosuchus are known (they were 15-20 meter long crocs that thrived about 80 million years ago).
>
>> I take it that their are some pretty nasty predators in
Pamaltela. > The > Sabre Tooth I know of, >Midget Slashers probably take
down plenty, as > do all > those freaky chaos beasts. But what >others
exist?
Here is a partial list of the non-dinosaur predators: large monitor lizards (up to 12m long), hunting spiders (up to 1m long), constrictors (up to 40m long), creodonts, hyaenodons, that awful flesh-eating horror from Mongolia named Andrewsarchus (I think), raboons (large carnivorous primates), bear-dogs, cheetahs, lions, tigers, wild dogs, at least three species of large flesh-eating rat (from the jungle), dragons, wyrms, stoorworms, hydras, crocodiles, alligators, etc.
>
>Are primates common? I think so, small apes, baboons, Gorillas
in the > mountains, perhaps >even some of the really nasty prehistoric
primates >
* I
I think primates are reasonably common. Not as numerous as in the East Isles, where "monkeyherd" is a typical occupation, but still fairly widespread. In fact, I rather expect to find giant intelligent baboons here, just like in Prax. Different species, maybe (hamadryas? Mandrills in the jungle?)
Oliver Berneutz >> Speaking of herd men it strikes me that the closest you'd get to herd > men >> in the RW are RW baboons. They're similar ecologically I suppose, but notin their herd structure.
>> perhaps the morocanths have bred > aggression out. Not a chance - they actually rely on herd man incombat.
>They couldn't possibly be monogamous because the > morocanths don't allow all the male >calves(?) to grow up.
The morocanth don't allow all the male cubs to grow up (I prefer "cub", not "calf" for herd men), but the ratio isn't as bad as it is with the ungulates of prax. Since the males are larger and more aggressive than the females, they're better for some combat purposes, and we know for a fact that the herd men are not an important part of the morocanth diet.
>Herd men don't have > the natural weaponry a baboon has
Herd men are larger, stronger, and more aggressive than baboons. Though they're probably not as aggressive as humans. The belief that baboons are extremely aggressive is a false impression created by the fact that they'll fight or threaten back if threatened instead of running away.
> >> I don't agree with Sandy about them being long lived.I know it's not > an > obvious >connection but my feeling is that along with the curse of > fixed > intelligence you get a >reduced lifespan.
Well, I'm holding out for a long lifespan for herd men. I don't see the problem here - bison, high llamas, and sables live 30-40 years. What's the big deal for a herd man surviving until 50-60?
>> I would imagine that freeing a bison's intelligence might increase > their > lifespan
>> as well. 30 years isn't long enough? * I think I ------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #146
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