Re: Ian on Nick on Ian

From: Nick Brooke <Nick_Brooke_at_compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 09:10:05 +0100


___
Ian lamely ripostes:
>> "The biggest difficulty I have with Ian's worthy attempts at a "Cult
>> of Deezola" has always been the amount of irrelevant metaphysical...
>> What does any of this have to do with Queen Deezola?"

> Its speculation
> I'm sorry, did I miss somewhere that I wrote
> THIS IS TRUTH? :)
(Aside: Oh, how I wish Gloranthan newcomers *wouldn't* always bite off the Big Questions -- Secret of the God Learners, True Nature of Illumination, Identity of She Who Waits / Arachne Solara -- and then get distressed when old-timers politely point out that these were written up to be Mysteries.)

You put it in a Deezola cult writeup as an unembroidered statement. This suggests that it's (a) relevant to the beliefs of the Deezola cult, and (b) accepted as truth within that cult. Now you say it's fallacious and irrelevant speculation, and I was wasting my time reading it.

A cult writeup is different to a random act of philosophical self-exposure on the Digest: it's meant to be somehow "finished". Which means that a random and incoherent cult writeup that includes irrelevant speculations, peculiar mechanics, meaningless statements and bizarre leaps of faith can only benefit from a good session of constructive criticism.

>> "Is this *really* what you think the Deezola Cult believes?
>> Or is it just what Ian believes, placed inappropriately in a
>> Lunar cult writeup for lack of an alternative outlet?"

> Inappropriate indeed had I been intending that the write-up was an
> infallible piece of official lore, however reasonably appropriate for
> a piece designed to include as much info as possible for people to
> peruse and use or ignore at will

Like which other cult writeup that springs to mind? You're a hostage to your format, Ian.

> Fantastic, tell me more, or please give me references so I can do the
> search myself. I don't know any of these things

You mean you tried writing up the cult of Queen Deezola *without* reading the public-domain material on the Seven Mothers that you can download free of charge from www.glorantha.com (Mythos and History of the Seven Mothers, Zero Wane History of the Lunar Empire)? That explains a *LOT*!!!

>>> All Seven Mothers cultists in Prax are under the command of Governor >>> Sor-Eel in matters of security,

>> "Completely meaningless and irrelevant."

> Nope, suits fine the purpose I have for the write-up.

Bizarre. Does this mean that your Lunar cult members are generally assumed *not* to be law-abiding, unless you stress in their cult writeups that they oughta listen to the local head honcho?

> Poetry annotation criticism
> What's wrong with being bizarre

Nothing, if it's deliberate. Does your copy of the Orlanth cult note that not all people who can jump are cult members? Would any sensible person assume that all poets everywhere are Deezola cult members?

>>> The Initiate gains +10% in their weapon of choice, and will commonly

>>> only ever carry a large weapon of this type...
                      ^^^^^

>> "Utterly bizarre. What the heck do you think this cult is for??"

> Well, excuuuuuuse me! :)

"Bizarre" would be a cult of ambassador/diplomats who gained mondo weapon skills and magic and always carried around their favourite weapons.

"Utterly bizarre" is a (ditto) who always carry around *outsized* versions of their favourite weapons. (The long shortsword. The heavy light mace. The hand-and-three-quarters sword. The three-handed spear. The glaive-guisarme-volgue-bartizan. The mind boggles).

> negotiators, ambassadors, peace makers, deal doers...

Still bizarre.

OTOH, we know that in Ian's campaign the Lhankor Mhy and Irrippi Ontor sages are a reliable source of Resurrections, so maybe it's appropriate that his ambassador/diplomats get better weapon gifts than many other fighting cults. :-)

Nick
:::: web: <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Nick_Brooke>


End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #4


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