re: Humakt, 6-Leggers, guilds

From: David Dunham <dunham_at_pensee.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 10:37:35 -0800


If Humakti love death so much, why do they swear mighty oaths to protect chieftains and kings? Surely the death of a king would be even better than the death of a peasant, so they'd be happier to just off the ruler!

Wounds aren't death. Just as Humakti don't go around merely wounding people, they have no general reason to avoid healing their own wounds. There are of course many specific reasons (geases), and many Humakti, like Simon Hibbs, reason that they should follow all geases even if they haven't sworn to.

BUT, a wounded Humakti is unlikely to be able to fulfill his oath as a housecarl. So most Humakti will be a bit more reasonable about this.

Now, Humakti might be more difficult to heal than the average person. And in the PenDragon Pass game, they have a reduced chance of creating offspring. But initiation rituals aside, they're still live human beings, and pretty much fit that norm (black T-shirts and metallic dentistry aside).

While I confess I'd forgotten the specifics of Hon Hoolbiktu, and don't deny that he was mighty instrumental in hastening the downfall of the Six-Legged Empire, he doesn't seem on a par with the rebelling Cosmos that struck back at the mainstream God Learners. Either there are more disasters I don't know about, or maybe the Six-Legged Empire wasn't as bad as the Middle Sea folks?

Sandy's article at
<http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha/pamaltelanGods.html> certainly suggests that the Six-Legged Empire engaged in "god learning" of Pamaltelan deities, but did so differently than the mainstream God Learners. Note the entry for Duala: "The God Learners originally tried to equate her with Voria, in their fumbled attempt to turn Pamalt's Necklace into an Earth pantheon. The Six-Legged Empire decided that Duala was not quite the same as Voria, and then they were able to deal with her effectively."

Richard Develyn wondered

> RQ2 had a section on Alchemists Guild, Free Sages, Thieve's Guild,
> Horsemasters Guild, and so on. RQ3 doesnt. What is the situation with
> guilds in Glorantha? In particular, I'm interested in Alchemists

My take on this is three-fold:

  1. These guilds were in large part to give previous experience. RQ3 has a different approach to this, so the guilds weren't needed.
  2. The Sartarite cities are in fact much smaller than was implied in RQ2, and these extensive guilds probably don't exist in most cities. In particular, I wouldn't expect Thieves Guilds in most of the cities on the RQ2 map -- the cities simply aren't big enough to warrant an organization of thieves (to say anything about even a handful of full-time thieves). A few cities, such as Jonstown or Boldhome, might have rudimentary guild structures. (And huge ones like Nochet certainly would.)
  3. Alchemists in particular didn't really make RQ2 more fun. You'd get that dreadfully boring Blade Venom or other poisons.

I suppose there's also

4) RQ3 is generic, and guilds aren't.

So I think guilds were dropped as being not too typical of Glorantha (and certainly not Sartar or Prax), and hardly a standard model for a generic culture.

David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com> Glorantha/RQ page: <http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha.html> Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein


End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #453


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