adventuring/roleplaying women & bows, Death in HW from Pam Carlson on 1998-10-02 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: Pam Carlson <carlsonp_at_wolfenet.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 22:55:27 -0700

As for Dara Happan women, I didn't exactly try to prove that playing Dara Happan women is barrels of active fun. THey could feature prominantly in a political type, stay at home campaign, which is similar to many of the scenario ideas Sergio suggested for female PC's. But since most gamers enjoy a roistering, far-flung romp*, it would be nice to have some culturally believable female roles for that sort of thing.

Of course, in Peloria you could always play an initiate of one of the lunar - -oriented cults, many of which are a haven for women seeking non-traditional roles. And I am not certain about the worshippers of Orania (sp), who I think is the sister of Polestar. Perhaps they are somewhat active in public. And lower class women are of course free to wander about. They could be actresses, musicians, physicians, thieves, priestesses or acolytes, merchants, even bandit queens!

In fact, in a civilized/urban campaign, where the PC's are not all farmer/warriors, the lower strength and size of women is not really a detriment to being an adventurer. One could play a female river boat captain who worships Oslira, with impressive skills in 'swim', 'swear', 'navigate', 'bargain', and 'gut with fishknife'.

BTW - Kevin - excellent point about the ubiquity of bows! But keep in mind that the Mongols used their bows mostly at short range - 30 to 50 meters. THey would ride up, shoot, and ride off. I'm not sure about the Poles, (though I'd love to find out).

Pam

Believe it or not, the SFC main campaign - Jeff's Taming of Dragon Pass /1617, has finally ceased to focus on farmers and instead feature wandering adventurers. Actually, we're stilll the same bunch of loveable Varmandi carls and huscarls, just now we've been outlawed after killing King Blackmor, (it seemed the thing to do at the time), and are on the run from the Lunars. A lot of Lunars.

Oh - and you CAN die in Hero Wars. Just fight somebody with lots of mastery (like Count Julan), and fail while he gets a big success with a 30 point bet. Poor Dan McClusky's Uroxi was atomized by taking a 90 point hit.