>1) Just who are the Black Fang & what do they do? (My take was that they
>are the 'unofficial' law enforcement arm of the Pavis cult).
The Black Fang assassins are mentioned briefly in Gods of Glorantha. Although I think it has been suggested on the Digest that they are part of the Pavis cult, I find this to be wholly unnecessary and un-MGF-like. They first appeared in RQ, first edition, and the Cults of Terror version of Krarsht gave the Black Fang cult a degree of association with Krarsht.
They are a band of assassins who worship one Black Fang, a legendary bandit during the Troll Occupation, who raided humans and trolls alike. Although Black Fang is little more than a ghost, his followers gain some Divine Magic, apparently through the existence of some unnamed deity worshiped by Black Fang when he was alive. The special spell they can learnis Shattering, a 1 point Divine spell which works like 4 Disrupt spells all going off at once, IIRC.
Note that the fairly widespread (in southern coastal Genertelan Orlanthi lands) Thief Cult of the god Lanbril does not have any direct relation to the Black Fang Brotherhood, though there are indications Black Fang was a Master Thief of that cult when he was alive.
There are rumours that Black Fang was part-troll, but these have never been proven. At least one source claims that a large part of his power was gained from a magical ring he owned, created for him by some shaman that he later killed (of course).
Bonus points to anyone who can cite the source of Black Fang's ring, BTW. Hint: it ain't listed in the MIG (Meints Index to Glorantha).
Gim Gim the Grim is a Lunar agent in Pavis who is rumoured to be a member of the Black Fang cult. However, this ain't a guarantee that he is -- Griselda is so rumoured as well.
Jim Chapin has written some fiction about Gimgim, which I believe he has started work on again. You might want to contact him for his ideas.
Finally, note that later myths (from King of Sartar) seem to turn Gimgim into some demonic figure -- he was apparently a pretty scary and ruthless guy.
Klyfix says:
>so I'll just assume that all those times folk got accused of "God
>Learnerism" or times when a Monomyth-based assertion was shot down with
>something along the lines of "But the Dara Happens say.." all happened
in >bad dreams.
I think you are missing the point. When I discount something in the Monomyth by referencing something in GRoY, I do it when I am talking about Dara Happan myths or society. The Monomyth IS an excellent source. However, ANY regional source is usually going to be moe accurate and authoritative when dealing with that region's myths.
So yes, you are right -- we have shot down the Monomyth many times. But you have to take such assertions on our part IN CONTEXT. Or you will get flamed by a bunch of people, as happened the last couple of days.
A last note, people who find me offensive please skip this part.
I tried and tried, but I cannot ignore Danny Bourne's comment about his Grazeland submission. Yes, he dealt with Greg beforehand. And yes, Greg and Chaosium were inexcusably remiss in responding to Danny.
However, I feel inclined to point out that the material Danny submitted had a number of very obvious Gloranthan errors in it, to the point that the entire History section was, IMO, useless, and one of the scenarios was completely beyond any possibility of salvaging.
Also, keep in mind that the badly-presented response Danny did receive was sent at the time when Chaosium was dealing with Avalon Hill to change ownership of RuneQuest forever.
Stephen Martin
ilium_at_juno.com
- -----------------------------------------------The Book of Drastic Resolutions
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #296
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