> Lee R. Insley Re: Guerilla Warfare in Sartar and Prax
>
> Now, what do the Lunars do about keeping the clans in line. The
> obvious
> one is definately fear of military retribution. I, however, think the
> Lunars are much more clever and subtle than that. I have been toying
> with
> the idea that the Lunars will keep *guests* (hostages) from the
> clans/tribes major ruling families in their *care*.
>
I tremble to stick my neck out with all the, er, vocal, history nuts on
the list, but your idea seems cool with me. This type of hostage-taking
under the guise of "vacationing in the capitol" was a feature of the
Tokugawa Shogunate and was reputedly very effective. Furthermore, since
clan leaders were required to make annual pilgrimages to the capitol,
there was ample opportunity for clan rivalries to be expressed as
entourages of travellers met on roads, at bridges, at fords, etc.
>
> richard Re Blank Balstor (long)
>
> Still, I can't get away from the impression that this image of a
> non-cohesive do-what-you-like-with Glorantha is a smoke screen hiding
> a
> very beautiful clearly thought out logical cohesive Glorantha whos
> details are for some reason unavailable to most of us.
>
My suggestion is to just deal. You wondered if there was anyone who
really knew everything about Glorantha. This list contains many of them:
Sandy Petersen, Michael O'Brien, Nick Brooke, Peter Metcalfe, etc., and
none of their pictures agree. For example, in my recent question about
Divination, I found about about the political and interventionist Gods
of Nick Brooke's campaign, the lore-bound impersonal Gods of Peter
Metcalfe's campaign, and the Compromise-bound Gods of Panu Pasanen's (?)
(sorry!) campaign.
As far as consistency goes, I think you overrate it. Your players may
not care very much. Take, for example, the popular Star Trek franchise.
The stories are highly inconsistent with one another. Most people don't
care.
In regards to direct contradictions when you get
Gregged/Brooked/Mobbed/whatevered, it's usually easy to step around. Did
your players destroy the harpoon? Well, of course, someone will try to
think of a way to replace it. Did your players Chaos-bash in Garhound?
Well, the festival isn't held in Garhound; it's in-- lessee, Frayhoum!
Your players went to a thriving dwarvish community called Dwarf Knoll?
Well the hill with the statue on it is *another* Dwarf Knoll.
There seem to be several approaches to understanding Glorantha. One way
is to read every snippet of out of print material, go to all the
conventions, memorize utterly unapproachable* fictional resources (King
of Sartar, Glorious Reascent of Yelm, Entekosiad), and then somehow
resolve all the contradictions in the material. This is the Way of
Peter.**
Another way seems to be to read and use what you can and make up
whatever seems cool for what you can't find out about. This is the Way
of Sandy.**
I think Sandy's Way is easier than Peter's Way.
- (Mock quote) "And then great Ravakrishnashika led his people in
wars against the seven gods whose names we do not remember today and the
rivers filled with blood. Then some bad things happened."
- gross, unsubstantiable generalizations springing from nothing
more than
biased impressions gleaned from skimming the digest for the last
couple years.
>
- --
Chris Pearce
cpearce_at_selsius.com