Bronze Age, Ancestors

From: Nick Brooke <Nick_Brooke_at_csi.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 09:13:05 -0000



Keith writes:

> Only extremely isolationist cultures would be free from any other
> ancestry apart from Grandfather Mortal.

Or Wild Man, or Old Man, or First Man...

The God Learners tried to tie it all together neatly. But "extremely isolationist cultures" are the ones they couldn't wangle, generally speaking.

>> Renaissance-level society as the highest level of culture they have >> any familiarity with (Lunar Empire, Ralios)

> Personally speaking I think renaissance level society is too advanced
> - we're in the Bronze Age.

Not really. You can't keep on ignoring the abundant evidence of advanced material culture in favour of a one-liner from the first-edition of RuneQuest (which didn't even mean what it said it did back then!).

Glorantha is an ancient-through-mediaeval world where "bronze" is the main metal in everyday use and "iron" is the magical supermetal available only to heroic figures (and some special cultures). That's not the same as a "Bronze Age World".

Mind you, the great thinkers of the Renaissance thought they had brought about the "rebirth" of Classical civilisation (dat's wot it meenz), so there were plenty of folk in RW "renaissance society" who'd be delighted to learn they were living in a sophisticated version of the ancient world. This is how I try to treat the West (to spare my failing brain) when I think about it from a central-Genertelan viewpoint.



Thomas replied to me:

>> Worshipping someone *else's* ancestors is rather silly

> It may not be so silly to worship someone elses ancestors.

Excuse me. I misspoke. Worshipping someone else's ancestors *as if they were yours* is rather silly. Worshipping powerful beings that will protect you, isn't.

> If it was the case that a spirit would take all loyal worshippers,
> and would offer decent protection wouldn't it be worshipped.

Yes, but Ancestor Worship generally describes the situation where a spirit will only accept worship from and grant protection to its descendents. Saying that "Not all citizens of Pavis are descendents of Pavis, so that can't be true!" doesn't really prove anything, except that few people would cite the Pavis cult as an example of Ancestor Worship.

> To say no encourages increased "nationalism" which is good for role-
> playing differences; to say yes allows greater flexibility but reduces
> the unchangeable bits between peoples.

Why do you want this "flexibility"? Does your Praxian character have no access to weird special tribal spirit-cult magics of his own (which the Sartarite PCs might want to gain access to)? I am kinda unhappy that "adoption by Sartarites" is seen as desirable by the Praxian character's player. Being Praxian can be great fun. Being a second-rate adopted Sartarite; dunno.



Robin Mitra writes:

> Imagine a LM-sage sitting beneath an apple-tree ;-) or better
> a bookshelf when suddenly a book falls on his head. And he wonders
> why.

"Bloody apprentices!"

:::: Email: <Nick_Brooke_at_csi.com> Nick
:::: Web: <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Nick_Brooke/>


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