Kajabor, Fronela, Dawn Population Expansion

From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 98 00:02 MET DST


>Chris Bell writes:

>>In CoT it mentions that deities and mortals feared Kajaobor more than
>>death because Kajabor caused annihiliation so complete that an entity
>>destroyed by him (it?) was often destroyed so completely that not even a
>>name or any memory was left

Mark Buckley
>This does make me wonder how anyone in Glorantha therefore knows that
>this is the power of Kajabor?

I wondered about this, too. Perhaps the key phrase is "often": probably fragmentary memories of some gods destroyed by Kajabor are left. The fragmentary memory could be the god's existance because he came to the battle.

Fronelan Malkionism:

Peter Metcalfe:
>>>AFAIK the Dualistic nature of Malkion comes later as the Magi found
>>>that Sorcery could be used for Evil Purposes. [...]

>Estrekor's doctrine became incorporated into Carmanos's
>theology. At the time, there were no evil sorcerers and the
>Carmanians were more concerned with the Dark Spolites.
[...]
>The crisis came when the Carmanians found that the magic of
>Idovanus, the Good God, could be used for Evil Purposes. Hence
>the reappearance of Malkion in their mythology.

Then in a dualistic nature, as both Evil Lord of Matter and Good Wizard? From the text in Enclosure it appears the doctrine which deals with Malkion as different from the Creator, and as evil, came up during Estrekor's lifetime.

"At the time, there were no evil sorcerers" - this after the conflict against the evil God Learner sorcerers was still fresh in Syranthir's companions?

Fronelan Malkioni care about the nature of the Creator:

>They didn't care because they had no way to investigate it. But
>once the means of investigation were provided by the God Learners,
>then it became a matter of some importance.

So you say that the Fronelans were awakened from ignorance about the nature of the Creator, and belly-wise disagreed with the Jrusteli?

We are speaking about the Logicians, people who claim to be able to describe all of the universe with their methods.

Theyalan effect on public health and fertility:

>>>I don't think the medical care available to the average Orlanthi
>>>is all that great.

>>Compare it to the medical care available to the average mediaeval
>>farmer, then. The availability of magic removes some of the threat
>>of tetanus, at least.

>And the medical care goes little or no way towards ensuring the
>longetivity of the average farmer in rural areas. A farmer is
>working out in the fields and has an accident which requires
>urgent attention. So there's a healer in town a few days away.
>He's still going to die coz he's got no cellphone to call for
>attention nor does he have effective transport to get him there
>in time. Healers are much more useful in urban societies because
>those factors are absent.

I didn't claim that casualties due to injuries disappear, but it is a clear fact that there is medical care. There are healers who walk around and prevent diseases from growing into epidemics.

If a healer is around when such a rare lethal (though not immediately so) injury occurs the lethality could be stopped by the healer.

>>I was taking into account that harvests were "not so good" during the
>>Grey Age. Farming seems to have been fairly abandoned during the
>>Greater Darkness - the youth of Heort the Swift doesn't exactly sound
>>like much farming to me.

>Nevertheless there were farmers among the Heortlings at the
>Dawn. And farming gives significantly higher population
>distributions than does hunting/gathering (10:1 is the general
>rule of the thumb).

Yes, there were farmers among the Heortlings - but farming alone wouldn't have sufficed to bring them through the Darkness. I doubt farming would have yielded much. A lot of effort would have had to go into supplementary activities to feed them.

Comes the Dawn, farming suddenly gives the yields it is supposed to, and additional activities can be channeled into improving infrastructure.

IMO the survivors up to the Dawn had seen if not a steady decline then at least no visible improvement of the living conditions. Whatever growth they may have experienced during the Grey Age stemmed from cooperation between the species rather than really improved living conditions.

>>There would have been a transfer of ideas as soon as contact was
>>established. The recipients I had in mind were e.g. the Entruli
>>tribes of Maniria, like the Ditali.

>But the transfer of ideas alone is not enough to make the early
>Dawn Ages into a land of milk and honey with 3% growth for 200
>years.

It isn't just the people whose mortality rate goes down and whose fertility increases - their cattle, sheep, and grain do so as well. I expect tripled yields after the Dawn compared to Grey Age. (Grey Age brought back agriculture, which probably was impossible during the Greater Darkness.

>>There wouldn't be many full healers, but there surely would be an
>>increase in lay healers after her missionaries spread lightbringer
>>worship, wouldn't there?

>To gain any of Chalana's healing magics, one needs to take a vow
>of not to kill. Thus I fail to see how there can be lay healers.

To gain any of Lhankor Mhy's magics, one needs to take a vow of not to lie. I fail to see any Orlanth Lawspeaker really doing so.

You still have associate magics in Glorantha.

>The shamans and wisewoman would know healing magics but most
>gloranthans had them at the Dawn.

The Ernalda cult does have powers over fertility, and may have a healer specialisation which, while far from as powerful as CA herself, may provide adequate basic coverage for all but the most unlucky mishaps.

>>"This is how Bless Crops works!" should make a difference...

>I don't believe Bless Crops prevents famines outright

Me neither.

>and Bless Crops would not be unique to the Heortlings.

Bless Crops would be known to some of the agriculturalist societies at Dawn, but they still knew the old, pre-Darkness forms of addressing their deities. Even the fairly sophisticated Ralians of Hrelar Amali altered their techniques of worship towards the more effective Theyalan model in the long run.

>>They cooperated. To mediaeval as Gloranthan farmers, keeping out the
>>wild weeds was a major trouble. Now, if the Aldryami cooperated, this
>>part of the work wasn't necessary.

>Which would require an elf to be living near a farmstead and
>co-operating fulltime. I hardly think this is realistic.

Tarndisi is a fixture in Colymar lands, and should easily be able to control the tributary vally towards the stream. She could help harness the newly abundant fertility of the land, and probably did for the local Orgovaltes.

LMs:
>Their effectiveness in reducing slaughter in modern day Sartar
>gives me grave doubts that this was so. And we've all seen how
>effective the Orlanthi Lawspeakers were in thwarting the Immolation.

They delayed it by several years, no mean feat. The Icelandic sagas are full of lawsuits going slowly bad, but the alternative would have been direct, genocidal slaughter of one of the parties, genocidal slaughter of the perpretators in revenge, and a strong war between the avengers and the perpretators' further kin.

>>>I strongly
>>>doubt that any technology the dwarves have can improve the plight
>>>of the average farmer to any meaningful degree.

>>Need I say Alchemical Transformer?

>Which does what exactly? Turn the local creek any color you want?

Check RuneQuest Adventures #5, the Dwarf inlay. I suppose the Transformer "boosted the Bless Crops rituals" by providing magical fertilizer.

>>>I seriously doubt that such a population explosion [3% for 200
>>>years] would have occured.

>>So the Dawn Orlanthi were less fertile than the modern Pakistani?

>Even the modern Pakistani are not capable of sustaining 3%
>growth for 200 years. One might look at the reasons why it
>is so difficult to reach a 3% growth rate.

The modern Pakistani don't live in a vast, under-populated fertile land. Granted that fertility returned only slowly after the Dawning, but large numbers of people who had inhabited the land prior to the Greater Darkness had disappeared.

>Seriously, a significant proportion of the labor of your average
>Orlanthi is involved in repairing and replaced the deteoriation
>in his home, fences, fields and so forth. A replacement rate of
>5% in the infrastructure would be expected (I'm using the rule-of-
>thumb 10% for industrial uses and halving it). Any work in
>expansion would be on top of this replacement.

Make it 10% for repairs, and 10% for expansion. Against this stands an increase in productivity by a factor of at least three, if not higher, so that labour previously going into agriculture now could be applied to infrastructure. In other words: people got the relief from the daily struggle for survival and could specialize on their crafts once more.

>A growth rate of 3% means that the Orlanthi would have to work
>significantly harder to provide for all the new mouths (ie building
>new homes).

Not in the first years. Work load was significantly reduced since the harvest sufficed to feed the people and did not have to be supplemented by gathering (e.g. of thistles or other such food-replacing stuff) and hunting as before.

As population grew, resources began to limit growth. By 100 ST, growth would have slowed - as I stated. It still would have been greater than in the 1600s.

>This is above and beyond the backbreaking labor
>involved in bringing the little 'uns into the world. At some
>point, they are going to get sick and tired of the work involved
>and not produce as many kids.

While worshipping O&E rather than Eurmal?


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