Alex:
<< So lest this be entirely a producer-led exercise, does anyone want to throw
some Questions out? >>
Yeah, I think its about time you earned that huge sum of money you
Experts get paid :-). Most questions that occur to me are somewhat vague, but
hopefully the following are sufficiently specific to be answerable without
writing the entire Kralori book first:
- Gods of Glorantha states fairly specifically that an Exarch is a governor
of one of the eight provinces of the Empire. But the Genertela Book seems to
imply there are rather more - the Seven Bridges have their own 'minor'
Exarchs, for example. I assume from this that there are ranks within the
Exarch structure, with the lower ranking ones having relatively specific
functions. Correct?
- Is Seven Dragon & Wisdom the only 'Archexarch' or are there others? If not,
does his title imply he is the second most powerful person in the Empire, and
(perhaps) that he runs the Empire in those interregna when nobody is on the
throne? Is this individual a god, or 'just' a powerful hero?
- We know that a Kralori citizen will remain within their social class for
life, only marry within it, etc. But the mandarins are appointed by
competitive examination, so how does this apply to them (I believe MOB may
once have written some stuff on this, although I can't find it at present)?
Are they supposedly taken from all classes, with peasants only ruled out by
their unfortunate inability to write, recite history and compose poetry about
the philosophical implications of the lotus blossom? Or is it officially
restricted to certain classes? Once they are mandarins, where do their
children and wives stand and who can they marry (I'd imagine they still count
as members of the original class of the mandarin, but I may as well ask
anyway).
- What sort of status do merchants have? AFAIK, merchants were pretty low
status individuals in the RW orient, and the fact that they're allowed to
travel abroad and be contaminated by ugly smelly boorish foreigners would seem
to support the contention in Kralorela too. I mention this as it is different
to the sort of high(ish) status merchants tend to get in most fantasy
settings, and indeed elsewhere in Glorantha.
- The Kralorelan dragonewts apparently swear fealty to Godunya. What does
this mean from the human POV and what is the relationship (presumably they
don't answer to the exarchs, do they?) Of course, I wouldn't dream of asking
what the relationship is from the dragonewt POV [*] but I note that the
dragonewts on Fanzai are said to generally ignore the Kralorelans so to what
extent is their 'fealty' meaningful?
- Zombie galleys. They're cool. Where do they come from?
- I get the impression that even the thieves are very hidebound and
traditional in the Empire - even restricting their activities to the
officially mandated time of night. There are also thief gods in the Eastern
Pantheon, according to GoG (of course, it could be talking about Teshnos,
Vormain or one of the Eastern Isles). So are these thief gods actually
official in some way? Even if they are, it would still be the duty of town
guards to arrest their followers, of course, but I could see some kind of
acknowledgement of their existence within the pantheon and even of the
necessity of their existence as a moral lesson or some such. I would also
imagine that Kralori thieves are very organised (tongs are mentioned) and
would take a dim of view of 'freelancers' and thieves who appeared to be
- -gasp!- insufficiently reverential of the proper traditions and codes of
behaviour.
- Any chance you'd be interested in any stuff I could write on Shan Shan
hsunchen? Hey, I had to ask :-)
[*] "Seventeen ricebowl bathroom apricot", I expect.
Forward the superior Kralorelan Army!
Trotsky