Now there's a discipline whose time has not yet come ...
| > Would someone like to supply me with the *universally* *accepted*
| > measurements for:
| >
| > a) the radius of the Sky Dome
I agree completely with Pete Nash on this one---the Sun Dome is a hemisphere that encloses Glorantha. So the radius is half the diagonal of the lozenge.
| > b) the position and path of the Sun
Again, I agree with Mr Nash's estimable description---a semicircle centred on the centre of Glorantha and just smaller than the dome itself. This is obviously how it moves in the real world, so I don't see why Glorantha would be any different. :-)
| > c) ditto for the Red Moon
I think it should be modelled as a red sphere a few miles above Glamour, as V R M L is unlikely to do bendy light properly :-). If V R M L is programmable, it should be possible to put it in the right position (roughly) for any scene with a given viewpoint.
| > d) heights of all significant mountain ranges and other features of
| > interest.
Although I doubt there are many measurements of the heights of mountain ranges, we do know that some of them are sleeping dragons; so they should have roughly the same profile, though obscured with smaller peaks and other bits of terrain.
One of the strange things about the large-scale maps of Glorantha is that they show little evidence of divine activity. At smaller scales, one of the fascinating things about Gloranthan cartography is the history manifested in the landscape: the Paps and Agape, the Good Canal, the Block, the circular Glowline around Tarsh, Dragonewt Roads and so on. There's not much of this at the level of the Lozenge as a whole (Magasta's Pool and the Gates of Dawn and Dusk are exceptions). Why not?
I think some mountain ranges, seen in the distance from the right angle and in the right light, would suddenly strike the unwary adventurerer with a very nasty shock indeed. There's a picture in an early Wyrm's Footnotes of this kind of scene.
| Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 16:31:10 +0800
| From: David Cake <davidc_at_cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
| Subject: free will
|
| jonathan_at_doves.demon.co.uk
| > 'Everyone knows that mortal beings have free will?' Nah ... they are
| >just persuaded by certain high-level components of their nervous systems
| >that they have free will, in order to account for the otherwise
| >inexplicable things that they do all the time.
|
| High level components of their nervous system? Surely their spirit
| is involved here somewhere? And what about all those free willed being
| without nervous systems, hey?
My comment was a R W troll, really. Basically, I don't think it's true (R W) that 'Everyone knows that mortal beings have free will', though everyone hopes so.
| Never make the mistake of thinking that real world philosophical
| positions make any sense in Glorantha.
I wouldn't!
Here are 2 other questions for those who enjoy these things ... Why is the sky blue? Why is grass green?
:-)
| And for that matter, I don't have a lot of time for this sort of
| argument in modern philosophy either, as I consider it fundamentally a
| confusion of terms - whatever 'free will' is, its fairly pointless to
| define it in such a manner that no one ever has it.
On the contrary! For example, 'purple' is defined in a perfectly sensible way, but no-one _is_ it. Free will might be the same. We don't know. I agree about philosophical arguments though---but science seems able to approach these questions, and is starting to do so.
| For that matter, what free will in the heroquest sense means (as
| opposed to the philosophical sense) may be somewhat better defined. I think
| it means something along the lines of 'may attempt to change ones own
| nature', which live human beings are certainly capable of to some extent,
| though there are limits.
Absolutely. This is true in the R W too, but 'Heroquesting' is a bit more subtle, that's all. The great achievement of Glorantha is in it's mythic relationship to the real human condition. (I fink.)
| >If Yelm is directly overhead in
| >Sog City only a shot time after it is in Boldholm, then the Dome (and the
| >distance between the Gates of Dawn and Dusk) is quite large, but if Local
| >Noon in Sog City is noticably later in the day (to someone from Someplace
| >Else) then that would indicate a smaller Dome.
This is ?Demosthenese? way of measuring the circumference of the earth: by using the difference in the length of the shadows of vertical sticks of the same length in Alexandria and Athens (I think---they have to be on the same line of longitude, in any case) at noon, you can measure the circumference. You don't need a good clock, because noon is at the same time on the same line of longitude. It doesn't work in Glorantha because the world's not round.
| Jonathan Coxhead:
| << Why would it have a horizon?>>
|
| a) because the light bends
| b) cos Greg says so (not much of an answer, I know, but technically
| true
Oh well. We can always try to see what it would be like if it didn't have a horizon, I suppose, even if it really does ...
| Richard Develyn
| 1) There's this androgynous thing wondering around the place. Does that
| exist in The Glorantha.
"Androgeus". Accept no other spelling! I wonder why she isn't mentioned in _King_of_Sartar_ (except briefly), as she's obviously important.
| 2) There's mention, I can't quite remember where, of a Valkyrie. I think
| it's the mother of one of the heroes. Is that in Glorantha now?
Mother of Gunda the Guilty, I I R C.
| That's all I can think of for now. Maybe one of you Grey Sages would
| like to say a word or two about the applicability of this game to modern
| Glorantha.
I like to think of it as the foundation on which it all rests: if something can happen in _Dragon_Pass_ or _Nomad_Gods_ then it can happen in Glorantha. Not that I'm claiming to be a grey sage in *any* sense.
/| Jonathan Coxhead Philips Semiconductors
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