> the occasional trollkin is born in a single birth to a troll mother. =
Nah, nah, those are "small dark trolls", not "trollkin", aren't they? Just ask their doting mothers...
________ _______
On Eugenics and Defects, etc.
My Glorantha will continue to have a quotient of Daft Old Men and Idiot Children and people who were Born Blind, etc., whatever the PC techies arguing the toss end up deciding, so I'll sit this one out.
"Cripples off the starboard bow, Mr. Metcalfe!"
Someone (Peter Metcalfe, I think) wrote that being in the Lunar College of Magic is like being in the Army. I think it's more like being in college, actually. You're working through a largely set and traditional course (though with opportunities to pursue your own special interests), having to pass various hurdles (exams, practicals, illuminations, etc.), impress tutors from sundry disciplines and backgrounds, make new friends,=
study, cram fast enough to get through, ransack libraries, borrow or stea=
l
notes from your peers, write "learned" tracts about subjects you barely
comprehend... and, of course, serve your practical sabbatical year with
the Army (from which the College receives some generous funding).
So, make friends, enjoy life, read banned books, abuse your privileges,
bum around the cafes of the Left Side of Glamour, talk loftily about the
scrolls you read last week, live in a squalid squat with like-minded fell=
ow
students, fall in love for the first time, free yourselves from the
shackles
of conventional morality, and find out who you really are. (The
Illumination
classes are particularly good for this!). You can also dabble with fringe=
activities, not directly related to your studies: sporting clubs,
historical
societies, debating groups, religious movements... the choice is yours!
Students join the College from all kinds of backgrounds -- though many wi=
ll
be the kids of the wealthy urban elite, there are scholarship programs fo=
r
cases of particular merit. They drop out for all kinds of reasons, too...=
drug-taking, failure at exams, caught breaking the rules, falling in love=
at an inconvenient moment, conscientious objection, joining a weird sect =
or
heresy, crossing your tutor, criminal misbehaviour...
And when you're through at the Minor Classes, you'll graduate from the
College and can look forward to a profitable career as an accredited
Lunar Magus (perhaps working for the government, or for one of the noble
houses or Satraps, or for a temple, or private employers, or on your own)=
=2E
Unless you remain (as a "post-graduate"), in the Major Classes, delving
still deeper into the mysteries of Lunar Magic...
You don't *really* think the Hero Wars will imminently break out, do you?=
That would be a *real* shame: the current student body would probably be deployed en masse behind the front lines, while older graduates would be dragged back into service as reservists: something they *never* expected to happen, when they signed for their grants from the Ministry of Peace.
::::
Nick
::::
PS: "Tarsh War" has the Comet Seers as a unit of Lunar Chronomancers whic=
h
forms up after seeing the Comet which portends the start of the Hero Wars=
=2E
YGMV.
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