If you e-mail me directly, I can give you some of my ideas on how to make a smooth running and MGF Alkoth campaign.
Martin was right - Enclosures I & II are your best source. Also, GROY and Fortunate succession are good for the Dara Happan/Yelmic feel.
The model I use for Dara Happa is not Rome, but ancient India. Think of bright colors, crowded streets, goods from afar, exotic plants & animals, fertile marshes, and strict classes of priests, warriors, and farmers. Add to it an ancient, earth based pantheon overlaid with a patriarchal solar philosophy (almost like the Vedic deities on top of, yet blended with, the older Dravidian ones), and it provides a good analogy. A few Persian -type influences from Carmania top it off.
Alkoth is a bit different. Much of Dara Happa confines fighting skills and arms to a small segment of the population, as they usually fear an internal rebellion more than outside threat. Besides, the real strength of Dara Happa has always been its immense magics. In Alkoth, however, fighting and contest of every sort is valued by Shargash, so much of the population is capable of forming an army. This gives the city a bit more egalitarian feel, because most citizens respect each other as warriors, or fellow children of Shargash. Because much of what advancement and reward exists in Alkothi society comes from winning contests, winners of street sweepers' race get the best contracts), work avoidance in not quite as well developed in Alkoth as in the rest of DH. These factors have contributed Alkoth's long survival, and its success on the combat field, and its commanding position of the southern Oslir valley.
Because Alkoth is literally perched over an entrance to the underworld, where many of the city's patron deities dwell, it has never been much interested in conquest. It will support most of the endeavors of the emperorers of DH, (as long as they recognize the importance of Alkoth to the empire), but it is rarely interested in far-flung, territory aquiring ventures. Shargash dwells in Alkoth, Shargash is the greatest god in the world, so why go anywhere else?
Most of their neighbors view this as a Good Thing. (Except when times are tough, when the Alkothi leave their city to raid for food - often for people.)
THe whole Shargash scene is not so bizzare if one considers how multi-facited Shiva, Kali, and many of the other Hindu deities could be. (Or, at least our modern Western conceptions of them, however inacurrate they may be.) Glorantha takes it a bit to extremes, but that's the fun of it.
Pam
carlsonp_at_wolfenet.com
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