Stephen Martin:
>And Tales #8 is not an authoritative source -- the notes used to compile
>that article were very sketchy, and a fair amount of detail was added by
>the Tales crew.
<sigh>.... is Steve cranking up his obsession about things having to be "authoritative" or "official" again?
For the record, this article "Gods of Terror: the Deities of Chaos" was based on notes freely supplied by Stafford himself. The only "detail" we added was turning Stafford's Godlearner-overview-style notes into a document by a Gloranthan scholar. We did this by stating that the material came from the notebook of one Baldrus the Black Reader of Nochet. Obviously, we could have left it as it was.
Steve is not privy to the internal editorial processes of the Reaching Moon Megacorp. Here is the "fair amount of detail" added by the Tales crew:
David Hall wrote one new bit, a boxed bit at the start - "The Doctrine of Baldrus the Black Reader: the classification of chaos is necessary for the final triumph of Law over Chaos. For once we have documented all forms of chaos, however multifarious and however small their differences, Order will have prevailed and Chaos will have ceased to exist. This I have pledged my life to, and those of my disciples". [Hey, I wonder how many disciples old Baldrus goes through in a semester?]
And I wrote two others, both introductions to the main body of text by
Baldrus -
"This is what I learned about chaos, sitting at the feet of the broo shaman
Olduvai (whose master Three-horned Tel Halaf was the disciple of shamaness
Anahita, who fought before Time alongside mad Ragnaglar, and later,
alongside Thed.")
and, for the bit at the end:
"More chaos deities, gleaned surruptitiously from the journal of my late pupil-master the venerable Gemithsos as he napped in the long summer afternoons, and who, on his death-bed, ordered that all his papers be burned on the pyre with him."
The rest of the article (a good 90%) is pretty much straight from the pen of Stafford himself.
>Even if we do accept this article, it is only one scholar's viewpoint,
>and I don't see any other evidence that Ompalam is chaotic to
>support it.
We *deliberately* made it appear "less authoritative" by turning it into a native Gloranthan document. Tales of the Reaching Moon does not pretend that anything it publishes is "official" or "authorised", but we certainly hope that what we produce is "useful", "fun" and will add to your understanding of Glorantha and the games you play there...
>>People who think a Gloranthan RPG, RQ or otherwise, is
>>first and foremost iin Glorantha, are cheating themselves, IMO.
With the greatest respect Steve, this is of course, utter bollocks. While Stafford may have invented Glorantha stories to pick up girls (see GCon II Convention Book or Questlines), I pose the question: in the intervening decades has it been his succession of hit fantasy novels that struck a chord in the hearts of its fans (Tolkien, anyone?) or the RPG RuneQuest that has kept Glorantha alive?
Glorantha's primary audience has always been gamers (because it is a fun place to game in), and until Stafford (or someone else) develops these novels/ films/ computer games/ cartoons/ spin-off action figures/ Burger Baron Happy Meals(tm) so it will remain.
Someone wanted to know:
> Quick poll - how many people read every article in every Digest? Most
> of them? Some? Do a quick page-down through the ToC and hit "delete"
> unless they spot something that looks promising?
Anyone unhappy about the abundance of scholarly esoteric anthropowanking should do what I do, which is quick skim of the Digest looking for those tender morsels of interest. Even better, post yourself, and ask the sort of questions *you* want answered!
Though I usually do a quick skim, there are several posters who I will always stop to see what interesting things they've come with up, most notably the Nickster and Mr Metcalfe (I loved your recent "Tooth Fairies" schtick Pete!).
Tal Meta asked:
>How many supplements for RQ3 got crushed because he (Stafford) later
>changed his mind on certain points after giving authors the go-ahead
>based on their original synopsis?
The only one I can think of is, tragically, "RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha", and that probably could have been avoidable if certain people involved had been batting on the same side insteading of pursuing their own agendas.
michael a pastorello pondered:
>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.
Something very much like this popped up in 'Notes from Nochet' a while back, which I will repeat below just for you!
Cheers
MOB
[XXIX.13-45] During the last year I have travelled extensively through the forests of Western Maniria collecting and cataloguing samples of wild herbs. My most bizarre find though had nothing to do with woodland plants. Near the edge of the great Arstola forest I found a small community of friendly and hospitable farmers. These people were refugees from the country of Ramalia. They offered me free food and shelter during my time with them, whilst I carried out my research in the fringes of the Arstola. What is remarkable about these villagers is that they worship an unborn god, whom the call "the messiah". They believe that on the day he is born, the heavens will signal his coming by the appearance of a new star. Part of their ideology decrees that they should not use magic, and that if they have faith in their god magic cannot affect them. This I discovered to be true one day. I tried to heal a girl of the settlement who had injured her arm in a fall. Although she said it was no use - her lord, the messiah, would watch over her arm so that it would heal naturally - I was compelled to try to help her, and almost passed out after repeatedly casting my healing magic. Any disciple of this cult can be recognized by the rune they wear on their clothes and jewellery. It looks like three entwined law runes, which symbolizes the new star. Shamash Greenhand, wild sage.
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #308
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