Alex and I continue to debate Flying Orlanthi Map Makers:
>> Until the Montpelier brothers, number of humans that could fly = 0.
>
>OTOH, number of humans that could climb a mile or so up handily placed
>mountains, quite large. I don't believe that you'll on a regular,
>quotidian basis find people with access to magic that's orders of
>magnitude _more_ useful for mapping purposes, who have nothing better
>to do with their Sacred Magics than impersonate the Ordinance Survey.
>
While I certainly will appropriate "quotidian" as a new useful word, the
rest I'd disagree with:
1) mountain people - you're right. However, the number of people who can
climb up a mountain AND see much further than the next (usually immediately
adjacent and commonly opaque) mountain: rather small. Those that can are
usually on an island. Not much to map. But of this amount of people, you
find that indeed, they DID draw "panoramic maps" (i.e. what you are talking
about) - you can find such things as far back as Homeric art.
2) proportion of fliers who would be doing such a thing: I have two
arguments for this. Firstly, only in our era (where maps are everywhere)
could it be even suggested that maps aren't that important. I think that's
a late 20th Century mindset. True, historical populations were much^3 more
static. But those that did need to travel, needed maps desperately
(generals, merchants, and pilgrims, to name a few). Second, Glorantha is,
by every measure, a magic-RICH place. They use magic for practically
everything. I think it's even suggested (in the RQ3 magic book?) that an
alternative Gloranthaspeak for the generic spell Disruption is "Kill Rat".
If they use magic to kill rats, I imagine they'd spend some of those
renewable magic points on making maps.
Frankly, I don't even remember exactly what we were talking about to start
this thread. I agree that you don't have a Orlanthi priest tethered
10,000m up making landform surveys. But they would have very accurate maps
of the things that were important - gross geographical features, politcal
boundaries, roads, bridges and fords, cities, "danger areas", etc.
>
>Mystic vision I see as rather a different case. Yes, you should be
>able to use it for such things, but I doubt it's 100% reliable by
>any manner or means either.
I don't recall if Mystic Vision is exactly the spell - I don't have my
magic book and my group has added so many custom spells that I'm not
certain the spell even exists in Canonical Glorantha. Aha, wait - (Sense)
projection. That's what I meant. Please forgive this Alzheimer's
victim-in-training. Mystic vision (that's the one that lets you see into
the spirit world?) would indeed NOT be helpful.
- -Steve Lieb
styopa_at_iname.com
steve_at_necadon.com
http://surf.to/styopa