Thunderous Women

From: TTrotsky_at_aol.com
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 06:44:24 EDT


Jane Williams:

<<I'm beginning to get the feeling that there are two very different Gloranthas under
discussion here.>>

     I have to agree that this would appear to be the case, which is, in fact, what leads me to be less pessimistic than you appear to be...

<<Then we have the Glorantha Jeff describes, where OA is now known as OW (and has lost his storm powers), and all these women [with storm powers] have suddenly become impossible.>>

    It would seem that HW will use the term 'Orlanth the Warrior' rather than
'Orlanth Adventurous', so I think we have to concede that that's Greg's
preferred title at present. I think this falls under the category of
'Pointless RetCon', but its not a particularly naff one IMO. Maybe both titles
are used in different places. I can live with a few name changes*.

   That Wind Lords don't have wind powers any more is, I agree, rather more irritating (not to say downright peculiar) but we don't know whether that is part of HW yet or not. I suspect its simply Jeff's game, which, as you say, is entirely his prerogative.

    Non-shamanic women with storm powers being impossible seems to me to be rather ludicrous. While I can see the arguments in its favour, these are IMO outweighed by the contrary evidence:

  1. Some such people have been described in previous sources, as Jane and others have listed.
  2. No cult write-up for Orlanth I have seen says that they don't exist, while the corresponding Ernalda write-ups do mention that men can't become priests of that deity.
  3. That a culture of storm-worshippers would deny half their population access to storm powers (unless kolatings are a lot more common than seems to be the case) seems a bit bizarre, to say the least. They don't deny men earthrelated powers, after all - note the existence of Barntar and Nandan.

     Now, if it turns out that Orlanthi women access storm powers through some cult other than OT, then that's fine by me. But given that kolatings ought to pretty unusual people and women with storm powers shouldn't be IMO (no more so than Vingans, anyway) this would presumably have to be some cult of which we were not previously aware.

<< I have a horrible suspicion that the unpublished and unavailable things he keeps referring to may in same way reflect Future Glorantha.>>

    Let's hope not ;-)

<< If so, I'm opting out. Future Glorantha, with or without Hero Wars, can manage without me if it's going to be that restrictive and that different from what's gone before.>>

     I wouldn't go that far myself, but I can certainly see that if changes of this scale are being planned - especially ones that don't seem to make much sense - HW may be in danger of seriously annoying a number of longtime Gloranthan gamers. The presumption that Issaries wouldn't want do that is what leads me to suspect that the changes are rather less than seems to be being implied.

Forward the glorious Red Army (an equal opportunities employer)!

     Trotsky

End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #186

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