Orlanthi bows, dice, dead godlets

From: Jane Williams <jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 09:08:01 +0100


If I understand all these technical discussions, one of the problems being put forward for Orlanthi using bows is the effect of the wind. In the RW I can quite see this (I remember doing target archery with a very light bow.) But in Glorantha - remind me, who's the god of the wind? How do you think the Orlanthi version of SureShot, Speedart etc. work?

Use of dice for Bargain: I now run traders in two different campaigns. And I use that Bargain skill a lot. For individual deals, yes of course we role-play it to at least some extent. After all, I can't physically see the bit of armour I'm trying to buy to say it's tacky, or in last year's style, and I can't peek into the trader's tent and deduce that he's a fanatical flyfisherman and conversation on that subject will drop the price. But my Bargain skill can. But when I'm off to spend a full day in disposing of the wagon-load of assorted spices, dyes, ribbons, beads, wine, pottery, and decorative beetles (with cage!) that I picked up on the last trip, and exchange them for supplies for goods for the next one, there's no way we're going to role-play the whole thing.

On Berenneth, Jeff says:
> Now, Berenneth's gods were either dead or too weak to protect him - I
> think they were early casualties of the Storm Age.
Sure. All he had left was memories, and perhaps a few protective or specialist spirits that had been gods once. Like, as you say, the horseriding  magic. But who were the rest of them? Just because we don't know much about them doesn't mean they don't exist: it just means we're free to make them up, as long as they fit the evidence. And if one of them happened to be a protective spirit for, say, newly-adult women who had not yet taken on the responsibilities of marriage, I can find uses for that. Come to think of it, while these gods were defeated and reduced to minor spirit status, I wonder who they were related to, before? Maybe they have surviving family? (Who might not acknowledge them, of course). All this stuff is FUN, not something to just dismiss! (I wonder where that fire-controling spirit in the hearth came from? A former, now captive, Solar deity?)

Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/


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