Or out of hiding elsewhere. Some Karandoli had remained in Sartar, in difficult to access parts, or hidden among friendly people. One source states that Argrath spent his youth in the Starfire Ridges, probably with his foster-father Maniski the Stickpicker - IMO a (former?) Karandoli clansman still duty-bound to take care of his thane Venharl's son after Venharl's (apparent?) demise (and after a resurrection?).
IMG I like to keep the number of - successful - resurrections per year at less than 100 all over Old Sartar, making it a noteworthy news-item, much like a case of murder or a serious car accident nowadays. The old "Heroic escape" mechanic in Dragon Pass, which was reflected by the "Hell's Backdoor" quest for major heroes in the Super-RQ variant of heroquesting, might still work for heroic people, and given his upbringing in a place best reachable through the otherworld, Venharl might qualify for that. He still seems to have appeared in Greg's house campaign at the scene where the Humakti sword Erril Silksword gave birth to the invisible baby in a cave besieged by angry Zorak Zorani, around 1614...
IMO a lot of Karandoli members either remembered their former clan after joining another, and given the choice would return to a clan which worshipped their ancestors rather than foreign founders.
There are known cases where tribes or clans have sheltered friendly other clans over considerable time. When Dorasar founded New Pavis, he found survivors of the Zebra Riders living among (but not exactly part of) the Pol Joni tribe.
Peter Metcalfe:
> The event is said to have occured early in his reign (KoS p213)
That's from Colymar Book, the same source which implies that the Colymar entered Dragon Pass already in 1300 (and misleads Densesros to make that statement expressis verbis in CHDP).
>and
> Minaryth Blue confirms this by stating Argrath's election as having
> occured in 1631 and his acceptance into the Colymar in 1632. Thus I
> think the 1627 date implausible.
I side with Jane that his acceptance into the Colymar five years after an application after Sword Hill vastly outweighs poetic licence like "early in his reign", given that the official textbook for Argrath's history turned out to be the not too terribly exact CHDP gifted to Argrath in 1643.
> Michael Cule:
>>I think that P. is killed when the Lunars breach the defences.
>>And it is implied that Argrath goes to Hell to bring him back......
>>How come he is That Tough, I dunno.
I don't think that Pinchining was trapped in Hell at this time, but there must have been something which kept him.
Peter Metcalfe:
> I don't think it was a very tough quest. Notice how sensitive
> Garrath is when he leaves the cradle?
: 'Garrath cannot stay nor lead, for his services are required : elsewhere. If a player-character wishes to insult Garrath's : courage or honor by insinuating cowardiance, Garrath will : promise to remember that slur after he finishes tasks beyond : the understanding of the foolish. He and his bodyguard will : depart' : Pavis: Episodes p45
To me, this sounds like an example how to roleplay a honour-bond barbarian warlord rather than a definite character statement. This is a case of the demands of duty outweighing those of honour in priority.
> Any *real* Orlanthi who has just been called a coward would IMO smite
> the dog who slurred him thus.
The word "insinuating" doesn't really sound like calling him "coward" to the face. In that case, I'd referee-roleplay Garrath to let him punch the character in question square into the nose, smashing it, and then recite the text above. Not using any weapon, this cannot count as official response to the spoken insult, but adds a counter-insult.
> IMO Argrath's HQ to retrieve P. was dead easy while the PCs
> were busy dying the decks of the Cradle with their lifeblood.
Perhaps the HQ was easy, but IMO it was personalized, too. If Urrgh the Ugly was present (who brought him back? Compare the Dissolution of the Temple of the Wooden Sword, or Londra's character description in the library), who brought him back (from death or whichever heroquest place he had been trapped in)?
BTW, are there any Calypso- or Faerie-like amusement parks hidden in the Gloranthan hero plane where heroes go, forget themselves, and need PC HQ assistance to return to their duty? Apart from chasing blue wolves, that is?
Jeff Richard:
> Hey guys - noboby likes the Telmori! Nobody except a handful of sages
who
> emphasize that the Telmori were befriended by Sartar, that is. Do
> Sartarites normally embrace dark trolls on sight because great King
Heort
> (the spiffiest king of them all) befriended the Only Old One?
The only published Orlanthi definitely known to _embrace_ dark trolls is Aruzban Ironarm, and he doesn't exactly hug them out of friendship.
But you don't need mythic reasons to sympathize with the Telmori. All you need is live south of the Culbrea (for instance) and smile while you raid their cattle when they are off north to defend against Telmori...
Then there _may_ be memories from old wars where Sartartites and Telmori fought for the same cause, and helped one another out of a fix. Such incidents may have led to the fairly high number of Sartarite rebels ready to defend the Telmori against Jomes Wulf in 1607. In 1621, of course, these warriors would be toothless old men, at least 15 years out of their fighting prime...
> I suspect that Argrath was one of several war-lords running around
Sartar
> in the 1620s.
Around Sartar - if you include Pavis County, I guess that means Tarsh, Grazelands, North Esrolia and Heortland as well... And we still know next to nothing about the Sartarite Sun Dome Temple, and what little we knew about the Wintertop Exiles has been vastly expanded in Tarsh War (to three or four pages).
>Joerg asked:
>>What other warlords do you propose, Jeff? More Argraths? Including
>>Harvar Ironfist? Or other players?
> Yep, yep and definitely yep. Player character warleaders, too, I
hope!
> Player-character Argraths with any luck.
I don't know how people determine their characters' ancestry, but since I believe that a - however distant - blood kinship to King Sartar is necessary to become "an Argrath", this would need some attention. There are quite a few ways to get into Sartar's bloodline.
Totally unexplored is the family of Sartar's (only known) daughter, Yoristina. We know she lived with her mother among the Grazers, and probably she became a prominent earth priestess there. Perhaps even one of the early Feathered Queens of the Kerofini... When discussing Argraths with Stephen Martin and Jane Williams, I came to believe that Jandetin the Avenger is descended from Yoristina, but he need not have been the only prominent descendant.
(BTW, what prominent Grazers do we know around 1621? The current king; the Feathered Queens #6 through 8 (in various degrees of cult positions); Jandetin the Avenger; Karndoro the Leaper (probably already a chieftain); Penraltan the Killer (still a young warrior), the Wood-Hackers (also young warriors); the Grazer characters from Home of the Bold, David Dunham's author of the Visitors Guide to Esrolia, the Grazers from the Wyrms Hold scenario... Any more?
What about a collection of short NPC descriptions extracted from this digest? Anyone game?)
Descendants from Yoristina might also be found among the Vendref and among tribes in contact with the Grazer raiders, from extra-marital children, or from descendants of diplomatic marriages. I suppose that the earth priestesses attending the FHQ (among whom her successor is elected IMO) would make good matches for ambitious chieftains and nobles.
We know one extra-marital son of Sartar, Eonistaran the Sage. Since Eonistaran's son Dorasar was closer in age to Sarotar (Saronil's oldest son, who died in his late teens or early twenties in 1546) than his brother Jarolar, Eonistaran can't have been much younger than Saronil, if at all. Since the family tree which gives 1518 as Eonistaran's birth date lists Dorasar as the third son, I am inclined to make Eonistaran an older half-brother of Yoristina and Saronil. Sages tend to marry later than farmers and warriors...
Well, we know that Sartar had sworn no celibacy, so what is there to limit his extra-marital offspring to one son, apart failure to mention any which took no part in the succession? The article in RQ Companion implies that "an army of gentlemen" went south to Esrolia and elsewhere to hunt down the descendants of Sartar in 1603. This implies quite a large family to finish off, doesn't it? If Sartar was half as promiscuous as Odin on his visits in disguise, he will have left quite a few possible lineages among the tribes which may have led to PC Argraths.
Sartar's royal descendants seem to have been well behaved, as well, with extra-marital offspring limited to two mentioned in the Zin lists. Need we take this for a complete list, or is there a large number of potential heirs of Sartar around?
My favourite main source for other unaccounted-for descendants of Sartar is Onelisin Cat-Witch. If she had the morals of a cat (and we don't know any of the fathers of her three daughters (at least, and how many sons?), she and her descendants may have spread the royal lineage widely.
For some reasons female lineages, while a lot easier to prove genealogically, are a lot harder to trace. Which may be why they have been spared in the persecutions of 1603...
Urrgh the Ugly is rumored to be the offspring of a blasphemous union between a member of the royal house and trolls (or other spirits of darkness, perhaps a hag of the Troll Woods who as a nymph is perfectly able to cross-breed with humans, and may have been in the position to demand a child from a royal Sartarite heroquester). If so, that makes him one candidate to be an Argrath by my definition (lives in the right time, has tenuous kinship and gets prominent in key events of the early Hero Wars).
Jane Williams and Peter discuss Minaryth Blue's "Events of my Life":
> This may of course be unrelated, and just list events that happened
that
> year. Otherwise, we seem to have three options:
> 1) Min. assumed that everyone knew on whom they promised revenge and
> why, and so left it out. As he leaves out Kallyr's husband's name.
Which was known by everybody, of course...
> 3) Some later editor skipped a few items. While leaving in the bits
that
> prove CHDP to be deliberately misleading.
IMO the fragment "Events of my Life" is quite free of editing, or things like "Karendra binds her hair" would have been edited out, and politically problematic statements ("Harrek kills the Good Queen") have been left in.
Nick stated wrt the source of Urrgh:
> "Alebard's Quest", last reprinted in Tales #5. Urrrrrrrgggggggh
>is on the Cradle, too.
Who brought him back? And why the generous spelling?
Jane Williams
> Joerg refuses to be drawn into battle:
Do I? I'm perfectly happy to be beaten up from all sides as long as I may strike back...
>> I wasn't aware that I would appear as attacking Kallyr or
>> defending Argrath. She is fairly incompetent as
>> commander-in-chief, and he is a ruthless bastard - these
>> are the facts.
> Yes, and in previous discussions you've concluded from them
> that he is a more deserving and useful leader than she is.
Well, Argrath's policy reminds me of Winston Churchill's line rather than the peaceful, coexistence line of the previous government e.g. in the Czech annexations.
IMO Kallyr's "local solution" to the Lunar threat was doomed to perish within the generation. Argrath recognized that more decisive measures had to be taken, and was willing to pay the cost (well, have it paid...). Without Sword Hill, Kallyr's reign would have ended even before Harrek slew her. The Phargantites would have gained imperial support, and Kallyr's meagre troops and poor generalship would have made the second Lunar annexation of Sartar a walkover like the conquest of Heortland without even the need for a genius warleader like Fazzur.
> I still think there is a great deal more to rulership than
> simply being a warlord (ask Sartar),
Sartar was a successful warlord. I agree that there is more to it - for instance, one has to unite all local powers against the outside threat. A feat Argrath managed admirably where Kallyr even failed to get the Aldachuri support...
I also miss Kallyr's building project which would qualify her as a full prince of Sartar. Argrath at least started a Temple to the Reaching Storm according to CHDP, but of course the available sources may just have skipped this information.
> and that in any case we have next to no unbiased accounts
> of her battles to go on. She spent a lot of time fighting
> alongside Broyan, and at the end of that time had no trouble
> gathering troops for a fight in which she was known to be
> outnumbered. Either all Sartarites are idiots, or she'd
> acquired a reputation that CHDP doesn't bother to mention (I
> wonder why?)
The Sartarite rabble does remind me of the army of the first crusade - religious fanatics led by unresponsible priests willing to sacrifice the lot.
Nascent nationalist enthusiasm often helps form an army of rabble. Even Germany in 1848 saw its share of enthusiastic freedom fighters, only to see them beaten by hardened professionals, or dispersing when the momentum of the first excitement has worn off.
Crown Oaths
> *IF* Garrath ever took those oaths, I bet he read all the small
> print first!
Do we talk about the same Argrath who had to yield Tarsh to Mularik Ironeye for the statement that Mularik had saved his realm?
Argrath wanted the power, so he agreed to what he had to. Later would be soon enough to solve these problems, if they were any.
> The promise to the Telmori was to help free them of
> their curse, wasn't it? Well, he did. Dead wolves aren't cursed.
That's not the way Sartar's promises turn out, IMO, which is why I don't think this is a viable route of thought to follow IMG.
But then, my favourite idea, that Argrath would illuminate the Telmori in the true Nysaloran sense and not the Gbajian way of the Lunar Empire isn't too likely to find supporters, is it?
> After all, one junior initiate does not make a religion.
Read Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods". Astonishingly insightful, that book.
> Kallyr would have had to boot-strap herself up to priest
> level for Flame purposes, surely?
IMO there is just one "priest level" in the ancestral cult, that of the Prince.
>>> Keeping her word would over-ride politics and strategy.
>> And she lacks the sense of legalism displayed by Argrath in the
>> Mularik fragment...
> Quite! See what I mean about her ability to do all that he did? Not
> "couldn't", but "wouldn't".
Which is what makes Argrath the better ruler in the end, even if it took him four years of tolerating Mularik's misrule in Tarsh - probably the worst failure in Argrath's early reign (including the battle of Yoran).
> Dangerford:
>>>.. and to start with Fazzur himself was present.
>> To start with.... So, what's left is a deplenished Lunar battle
>> line led by uninspired officers thrust into charge by Lunar
>> treachery.
> Could be: it all depends on when you see Fazzur as leaving.
> Denseros seems to imply it was after the battle (and I would
> have expected him to report along the lines of "since Fazzur
> wasn't there..." given his biases). What other sources do you
> have?
Only those of the unofficial Fazzur fan club, i.e. my own thoughts.
Look at Fazzur's situation: he has been punished for his successes twice by the empire, but still had the support of his brother-in-law and (the second time around) king. He led the Tarshite troops against Sartar for his king, not any more for the corrupt empire. Then his king's son turns upon him even worse than the empire ever did. As I judge Fazzur, he will have called his trusted officers to him, and have ordered those troops who owed him allegience personally to accompany him home, as fast as possible. Probably cutting down a nosy follower of Pharandros en passant on his way out of the command tent.
>> Until she died, the battle had a definite sense of doom, didn't it?
> "Disheartened Sartarites.... outnumbered but held a good position..."
Disheartened - i.e. unmoved by her charisma.
> still, they held out until noon!
At Hastings, the Anglo-Saxons held out until late in the afternoon.
> And since Leika had some troops left to
> lead in a charge, they can't have been doing *too* badly.
Not quite. Holding a defensive position means assigning troops to places yet not under attack. Troops which cannot move into the main fight because doing so would invite a flanking attack. If these troops exchanged their favoured position for the advantage of the shock and impact of a charge, the position may be yielded (temporarily, or in the hope that the charge will take care of both problems).
Joerg Baumgartner (via Hotmail)
mailto:joe_at_toppoint.de
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #543
Powered by hypermail