In a sense yes. Since we are humans ourselves (at least I am and I suppose
people writing to GD are. But now I think about it, I don't know if you are
some type of cthuloyd monster or the creation of strong AI by the computers
of the Pentagon...) our references are human societies. And since we never
crossed with non-human cultures, we have to try to invent them based on
what we know, our own.
It happens that I believe that humans share more then they usualy
aknowledge with non-human creatures, so IMO it doesn't seem to be a big
problem here.
The real question is somewhere else: does the writer developing a non-human
society have the creative skills to generate the suspention of disbelief
that attracts so much people to fantasy?
>>- Quantities of stupid and ADD-like creatures were thrown in below-average
>> packs like Elder Wilds.
You'r right, I confounded Elder Secrets with Elder Wilds.
Jeff Richard:
>> [Me:] I could find RW similarities, but those were not imediately >> apparent: I could compare DP to Greeks vs. Persians; to Greeks >> vs. Romans; to Celts vs. romans; to Visigonths and Franks vs. >> Moors (1).
Jeff, the key word in your comment is Inspiration. There is a very thin line between creative inspiration and uninspired copy.
> Do you find it odd that the large number of English Glorantha-philes draw
> upon the Roman Conquest of Brittania as a source material?
> However, to understand a Gloranthan culture, people tend to make
> parallels with cultures and histories that they can draw on for ideas,
> style and, frankly, as a short-cut in trying to organically develop a
culture.
I plainly agree with you IF you are talking about players and GMs. I was talking about people developing a game and fictional (the order can be reversed) setting.
Let me give you some examples:
The former version of the Lunar Empire was a mixture of romans and
arabians. The present version is only based on ancient Persia.
Before, nomads combined greek with non-greek elements. Now they are
basicaly dark age peoples.
I think that in both cases G got poorer. Why? First let me state that I
plainly agree with peter metcalfe when he says:
> Secondly to mitigate this alternate earth trend, it is sometimes
> useful to mix and mash two or more RW cultures to describe a single
> gloranthan culture.
When you are working with a single culture your tendency will be to draw as much analogies as you can between that RW culture and your fictional setting (in Kralorela people dress like Chinese, have a political organization modeled on China, eat rice, and even drink tea...).
Supose that you follow Peter's advice. You are combining several elements
from disparate cultures into a single and harmonius new culture. Supose
that instead of basing the Lunar Empire on ancient Persia, you would base
it on the next elements:
- - Romans for the management of an empire that integrate a lot of disparate
peoples.
- - Persians for the central government and people (with persian titles et
all.)
- - Indochina for state and religious architecture - - Egypt for military practives - - Pre-colombian Central America for private mores (food, dress, etc.) - - Arabic for names
> As an inhabitant of the Iberian Peninsula, you could also draw upon
> the Napoleonic occupation for inspiration and analogies to the Lunar
> occupation.
It never occured to me this paralel between G and the RW. Thanks for the idea.
Nick Brooke:
> I disagree with *huge* tracts of the guff that Peter, Joerg,
> Stephen, Sergio, Martin, the False Davids, and various
> others may post. But I'll defend to the death their right to
> post it. If we can't indulge ourselves talking about Glorantha
> here, then where the hell can we?
Message received (and accepted. I'll try to comply to your recomendation *in the future*).
Best,
Sergio
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