I think so too. War Clans obviously use the Warrior title (duh), but the Adventurous title may be in favour in some hippy-dippy peace clans (those few that have "Wind Lords" at all, that is), the occassional tribal cult structure, though here there may be some overlap with the "Lightbringer" aspect, and of course, Prax, which is our original source for the subcult, after all.
> [That Wind Lords don't have wind powers in HW].
> I suspect its simply Jeff's game, which, as you say, is entirely
> his prerogative.
I suspect not, but Jeff does tend to be a little... oblique about where the one stops and the other starts. (Assuming they do at any point.) However, to be fair, the facts of such nuances may not have yet been fully determined in any case.
> 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 (largely) agree. Of course, it may simply be a Hero Cult of O.T. (or of Vinga), rather than some notionally separate deity, which would seem horribly contrived.
My intuition is that Vingans are seen as no more than mildly odd, and entirely accepted, and must indeed be about 2-5% of the whole population, whereas female storm/thunder worshippers are seen as rather odder, not necessarily universally accepted, and altogether less common. (That is, that "thundering" is seen as being more characteristicly "male" than "fighting", which seems initially odd, but is not unsustainable by any means.) Which might just make them all the more fun to play, so let's not rule the possibility out.
> 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.
My sense is that there will probably be quite big changes, but that Greg will find a "way back", proving that any _major_ game-knackering apparent contradictions are only that, "apparent". Or at least, the latter is what I hope. (I have no inside dope on this, I'm just trying to extrapolate from Greg's track record.) If this turns out to be something like a "Nandan" to Vinga's "Barntar", then I wouldn't be astonished or appalled.
Note that I managed to not once use the word "Elmal" in the above paragraph. (Oops.)
> * - with the possible exception of Death Lords of Humakt... shudder...
And, I hear, "Storm Lords" of Urox? Someone has been hitting the Tanith Lee novels too hard, perhaps. ;-)
Martin Laurie, whose posting format is at least off the critical list (yeah, I know I'm mildly obsessing about this, mea culpa), says:
> Firstly, the world Jeff is commenting on is indeed the future of
> Glorantha.
While I don't argue with the basic point, the above sentence has a somewhat ominously "One True World" ring about it. (Perhaps the Sartarite equivalent of the notorious "No Dogs, no Blacks, no Irish." sign is "No Dogs, no Goats, no female Thunderous types."?)
> However, what has to be emphasised is that this initial
> package is not the end of the story. It is perfectly likely that
> any character can learn an ability in storm magic. So an
> OW or Vingan could do this and become very capable in it.
I find it slightly disconcerting that this is phrased as a HW Game Mechanic Attack answer, rather than a description of the game-world situation. But it's some reassurance, at least. I'd still like to know how the character comes about/regards/rationalises such add-ons, though.
> In the long run though, unless you are a Thunderous specialist,
> ie being Thunderous is your core characteristic by choice
And a key question is, is this "choice" entirely closed to women, i.e. of the "Hobson's" variety?
> HW is far _less_ restrictive than RQ ever was.
I don't think anyone was expressing concerns about the _game system_ in this thread. (For a change.)
Slan libh,
Alex.
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