There are two extremes in the handling of nonhumans; In one end there is an utopian interspecies bliss withcomplete understanding. Even if it would not be unlikely and unrealistic, it would be rather boring. Seems also extremely rare.
In another end is a typical AD&D approach where most NPC races are automatically Chaotic/Neutral/Lawful Evil. I consider this also very boring but it is rather common.
One of the strengths of Glorantha is that it is not, unlike very many other fantasy worlds, overtly dualistic as a whole. Sure, humans are afraid of trolls and for a good reason. But trolls are not AD&D orcs who can hunt and kill for no other reason than having Alignment called Chaotic Evil. They are raiding the homestead because they are *hungry*! Or for other comprehensible reasons.
However, I have seen scens where the only purpose of a nonhuman NPC - usually troll - is that the PCs can kill him. With all due respect, I think that using that NPC for a purpose of gaining experience checks for combat skills is just as stupid as killing orcs for a sole purpose of collecting experience points.
IMO it is a waste to use a nonhuman (uz, aldryami, mostali, whatever) merely for combat encounters without a very good reason. If a troll clan begins to regularly raid especially the area your clan holds dear, fight them all right - but I think that the roleplaying part of the scen should include finding what the heck is going on (And you have my permission to call this "problem-solving"). But if the only interaction between humans and trolls, for example, is combat you just as well go back to dungeon-bashing.
However, making nonhumans more "human" - for what it's worth - goes beside the point. If you want a character that behaves like a human, use a human character. Interaction of any kind - combat included - with a Mostali factory, Troll caverns or elf forest should not be like a walk throught a Central Park. I do not want to run and roleplay scens where they behave like 20th-century humans.
And I do think that what makes trolls what they are is that they are *nocturnal*, period. And even if they were mellowing flower-power dancers (which they are not) they should be nocturnal.
I also think that behind every kind of social system, there is a reason why it was formed like this. Biological, sociological, magical, whatever. Calling it stupid just because you do not understand why, tells more about your perceptions that about the background.
(There; got it out of my system)
BTW, Chris claimed that:
>Sergio writes
>> Look, putting
>> trolls to dark places is like imagining monsters under your
>> bed in the night. And like thinking that the abandoned house
>> is haunted. So usual, and, somewhat boring.
No, he did not. That was Panu.
Nick Brooke
>You mean like committing genocide and killing gods, the way those
>classic GDQ modules end up? Sorry, Glorantha's not written to be that
>kind of world.'
Poor choice of words, I'm afraid, Nick. I presume you were referring to AD&D approach where PCs kill truckloads of orcs and goblins and kill gods to get their treasure. Yet another way to gain XP.
To note, I do not dislike Mostali. I think that the expression of "world machine" in themundane planer actually refers to the Mostali society as a whole. They consider themselves to be the most important p art of the world - just like m,ajority of the human societies, Uz and Aldryami. Every Mostali is a part of the world machine and their overseers try to make them "well oiled".
I also think that if they want somebody to replace sprockets, they build a Nilmerg which are far easier to create; Average mostali do have some ability to design but, from the modern point of view, it is limited. Iron dwarf is able to repair his musket, for example, maybe even "personalize" it but would not start adding touch-triggers, scopes or (gasp) rifling. "Don't fix it unless it is broken" is probably originally their phrase.
(I do think that dwarves could have some kind of crossbow sights - reportedly Chinese had one for theirs. I also think that different Dwarven regions have different technologies - muskets of Nida, cannons of Dragon Pass, hand grenades of Greatway, to list those I know of)
Mostali are technologically superior compared to the rest of the Glorantha, that's true. However, even IRW the technological or even the numerical superiority does not mean everything, warfarewise. Besides, once they were stuck to a certain troops tactics, other species surely invented numerous ways to counteract it. So Nidans (and others) increased their defenses instead of relying on offense.
Mostali technology is not exactly Industrial Revolution. They do have steam engines IMG, but of Newcomen variety (first steam engines from 1700's that were so massive they were mainly used to pump water from mine shafts), not James Watt. And I am not sure they would have Difference Engines, for example.
Mostali are the masters in the world of material mechanics. That also makes their worldview very mechanical. In a "religious" sense, World Machine is probably Mostali version of, say, Cosmic Axis Mundi and exists in the God plane.
This mechanistic world view includes the "magic ecology" and does not resemble 20th century materialism. Shamanistic spirits - which malkioni see minor devils - are to Mostali like what a diode or a transistor is to a modern electrician - just part of the machine at large - and spells are what software means to a human computer programmer.
What is wrong with the world machine ? It does not work like they want, that's what.
I remember reading somewhere that mostali nod when Red Moon rose and said something like "exactly in schedule". I think that "repairing a world machine" is a Mostali version of HeroQuest; Lunars send troops to fight Valind, Mostali send repair and recovery teams to "restore the balance" - for what it's worth...
Also, in the original Krarsht writeup (in Cult of Terror) Mostali do, in occasion, meet krarshtkids underground but that dwarves prefer harder materials (granite, marble and basalt) and krarsthkids live in "softer" ground.
Quack, Quack,
Death to Argrath
Vesa "Aku" Lehtinen
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #357
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