From: michael a pastorello <pastorel_at_pdnt.com>
Imagine if a non_magical god sprang up in this world a la christianity, where miracles are attributed to him but the believers forsake their magic in order to put their trust and faith in this new god.
hmm... this one would be tricky to pull off, but loving lost causes as I do ;-) I can't help but try to fit it in...
PROBLEMS:
1) Magic is real and powerful in glorantha... anyone who gives up magic
is likely to get thouroughly slaughtered by their neighbors.
2) We ain't heard of it yet. It's usually easier to detail something
that we know exists in cannonical glorantha than to create something
entirely new...
3) (someone will come up with others ;-)
SOLUTIONS: (hopefully)
1) If religious societies can survive in the real world that renounce
violence (real and powerful ;-), then it is certainly Possible for a
magic-less society to exist in G. The easiest and most common solution is
the Hypocracy Method -- "Though shalt never use magic, except to kill those
foul magic-using heathens." The other possibiliy might be to have it as a
tiny, isolated cult (like certain Hindu sects??? or isolated christian
monasteries)
I'd be tempted to make it some sort of White Moonie cult in the center of the Kingdom of War... kinda the extreme's thing. With this huge concentration of whacked-out war magic on the borders, and a funky pacifist-anti-magic movement in the heartland. (and if anyone complains, you can always have the army turn back on your cult to recreate the "official" KoW) anyone who uses magic could be "banished" to the army...
2) It'll have to be isolated if you want to keep it "official"... either really tiny (mebbe a "Life of Brian" kinda bunch a nuts chasing after some unlucky schmo) or somewhere culturally isolated (the central KoW)
of course, you can do anything you like in "your" glorantha, but I've so far found that the painful process of fitting my own harebrained schemes into the official version is always worth it...
3) I have no solution for problem 3 ;-)
It could be argued that such munchkinism is a sign of vitality and mass appeal, but if Glorantha were supposed to have that sort of mass appeal, it would be football (of whichever objective variety you wish ;-). and not a role-playing game. I believe that TSR and WOTC have cornered the market on munchkin games, and that the only chance that Issaries inc. has is to provide a "thinking person's" alternative to "My Chaotic Evil Dwarf Paladin puts your castle in his +12 bag of holding and uses his halberd and vorpal mace to kill your 1200 orc henchmen!!!"
Glorantha's depth and reality is unparalelled in the gaming industy. To throw that away just to get a larger QUANTITY of gaming suplements set in glorantha would be horrible. There is enough material in glorantha to create any number of games of any level. But I for one would hate to see it become yet another cardboard backdrop for cheesy Tolkein rip-off adolescent power fantasies.
On a more "constructive" note, I would like to see an assortment of "Culture
Packs" With setting, char generation, myths and scenarios specific to the
particular culture/region. You could have a "Sartar" game, a "Praxian
Nomad" game and so on. Each game should work by itself, but share enough
mechanics to cross over into the other regions. This would give newcomers a
"one truth" overview of the world (from the point of view of the protagonist
culture) while allowing the overlap and clash of belief that makes Glorantha
so beautiful and rich.
These "Packs" could also be rated by "complexity" with the easier to
understand and play cultures (Sartar, Sun County, and Praxian Nomad ?) as
"entry level" offerings, and successively more advanced offerings for people
more accustomed to the world (Lunars, Trolls, Holy Country, (chaos??), etc)
I think that the continued reprinting of the KL cult ;-) would be offset by
the convenience of having the "correct" information for the region/culture
you are using close at hand. I am much happier with my 4 KL cult write ups
than I am with my complete lack of the Gloranthan Bestiary.
That my 2 bolg...
eat what you like and leave the rest for the trollkin.
danm
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