Where is it that people get the idea that it is somehow "natural" not to want to kill your neighbors? There certainly is NO real-world precedent for Long-Term peaceful coexistance of substantially different peoples. Either they homogenize and become a single "group", or they end up hating each other. Even in modern America, where it is Extremely politically incorrect to be a bigot, Most people are. The Blacks hate the Whites who hate the Mexicans... the Liberals hate the Conservatives who hate the FemiNazis who hate the Bible Thumpers who hate the Gays who hate the White Supremicists who hate the Blacks, oops! and I'm back where I started. And ALL these people are Americans. All these people are HUMAN.
There is no reason that individual PC's of different species cannot find a reason to get along, but there is absolutely NO reason to believe that different species could happily coexist any more than the Palestinians and Israelis.
I, as a Player, am FOREVER trying to come up with excuses to play a troll PC (in Seattle even -- gack!) I am a huge believer in Multi-Species games and groups. I like the Idea of a stalwart band of friends flying in the face of convention and normalcy. I don't however like the Idea that My Uz ZZi could take his Yelmalion buddy to the worship ceremony without consequences. The point is to find a way for the charecters to become friends Despite the environment of prejudice and hatred. Not to create completely unrealistic, pipe-dream, hippy-trippy peacenik, "We Love You, Monster Hero!" cultures for the sole reason of making life easy for my PC. Where is the STORY in Romeo and Juliette if their families were FRIENDLY???? I play Magic the Addiction when I want 2d chars and a (literally) cardboard world. I play in glorantha to explore a "Real" fantasy world.
In Glorantha, Trolls really DO want to eat your babies. They might choose not to, for any number of reasons... but they really, really know deep down inside that you would be extremely tasty with Orange Sauce (and no splintery beak either). I don't much like MY RW neighbors... and They don't want to eat me. There are Very good reasons for a human to hate the eldar races, and RW humans have PROVED that they need little or no reason to hate.
Why I hate the:
Uz: um, they think I'm FOOD! they're ugly, and they smell
funny.
Aldrayami: They think I'm fertilizer. They think that my carefully
ploughed field would be somehow easier to harvest with TREES growing in
it...
Mostali: They want me to shut up and turn this crank... all
day, every day, untill I die. See Greg's article "Why I Hate the Dwarves"
for more info ;-)
DragonNewts: They stand stone-still for 300 years, then they march backwards around my house 3 times, give me a completely ordinary pebble, and carve wierd runes into Uncle Ralph...
Broo: EVERYONE hates THEM ;-) Newtlings: Well, it's hard to hate someone with such a yummy tail... Newtlings are OK. Ducks: Stinky cigars, you can't understand a word they say, they always spit when they talk... (but good with Orange Sauce) Merfolk: Arrogant Bas##rds keep sinking my ship if I don't throw allthe best cargo overboard...
Making the Elder Races all chummy would completely destroy any semblance of "realistic" psychology that they might have. Thats fine for D&D, but it's not (at least IMO) right for glorantha. The beauty of glorantha is that all the "monsters" have a context. You simply won't find 45 BugBears with no food standing around in a 40' by 40' room, on the off chance that an adventurer might come by. Even the evil NPC ZZ Death Lord has a Mommy who Love(s/d) him.
I'm dreadfully sorry if this topic has been done to death, but true to my trollish nature, I find that beating a dead horse makes the meat just that much tastier...
Humans in the RW have proven utterly Incapable of Peacefully Coexisting with Other Humans... WHY would they be able to Peacefully Coexist with <Insert Elder Race>?
NOTE: Glorantha DOES have Black Elves, who get along reasonably well with the UZ. But that is definately (and deservedly) the exeption and not the rule. (and might just be an artifact of nobody bothering to give the poor 'shroomies any real thought ;-)
</Silly Rant>
my apologies to anyone offended by either my waste of bandwidth, or my interpretation of RW history and current events...
danm
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #342
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