Mongols, Vikings and Pent from richard on 1998-01-21 (Glorantha Digest Vol 05)

From: richard <rad_at_nwpeople.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 14:35:40 +0000

Peter Metcalfe's suggestions about Bija sounded absolutely wonderful - thank you very much. I'll try to work some of that through and post on here. i'm also grateful for the email suggestions I've received.

I would like to suggest a few things about mongols and Pent (apologies for mistakes in my Earth history and Gloranthan ignorance):

It seems to me that Pent really ought to be a more interesting place than I have hitherto worked out. Not only did they successfully invade the Lunar Empire in the past, they're about to have another go now.

Now the idea that a civilisation could mount such an assault 'on a shoestring' - so to speak - doesn't seem right to me. The Pentians must actually be quite rich in order to equip their armies, and given the lack of natural resources in Pent this wealth must have come about through trade.

Now I believe that ties in with the mongol parallel well. If we have a similar situation with Kralorela and our own Far East, then maybe there is a thriving spice industry taking place through Pent. If the Kralorelans have exotic spices then I'm sure there'll be an enourmous market for them in the Lunar Empire.

The Pentians, being half Kralorelan, could deal successfully with the Kralorelans in the east (though I know little of the kingdom of ignorance). Much better than the animal nomads who, ISTM, get told by the Kralorelans to bugger off at that one little pass in the mountains to the east of the Wastes.

So there could be spice caravans trecking across Pent, with some rich Khans raking off the profits in the middle. Following the parallel with Mongolia a bit more, there could be a Xanadu (or two) - centers of art and learning - with some lunar Marco Polos travelling back and forth. There wouldn't be much chance of the lunar empire trying to extend the glowline to any of these places - so apart from providing an invasion at the start of the hero wars it needn't affect them.

Given the Battle of the Nights of Horror, but the apparent resurgeance of the Pentians, there could be both old ruined Xanadus and new thriving ones. Lots of possibilities for adventuring.

One last thing, of course, there would have to be a fairly strong Trade God in place.

So how about it? Spice Caravans, rich horse nomads dressed / armoured in all sorts of foreign gear, beautiful new cities full of scholars from around the world, haunted ruined cities full of forgotten artifacts from around the world, and so on.

Richard