Alex sends a quarrelsome email, validating himself as a Glorantha fan:
>> Understanding that, my feeling for Aldryami are that in a very simple
>> sense, they are communal beings. That is, they don't share a group mind or
>> such nonsense, but they are intimately connected at a lower level, if you
>> will. For example, within a given ecosystem (the term "forest" is
>> generally too limiting) Aldryami recognize each other and know on an
>> empathic level information about each other.
>
>The term 'forest' strikes me as being spot on. Counterexamples?
>That nit aside, I agree with you, and so far as I know it concurs
>with such 'canon' (or at least, consensus) exists on the topic.
>I don't think one need necessarily get too het up about what the
>'mechanism' for this empathy is in order to agree that it appears
>to operate (doubtless Gloranthan scholars have a fine time arguing
>about that very point, though). I suspect, though, that their
>empathy is directed primarily at their eco--, ahem, their forest,
>though obviously other elves at least count as part thereof.
>
I only felt that forests could be a subset of ecosystems, since Elves of
various types don't necessarily inhabit only "forests"
Other examples: blue elves in kelp beds, red elves in tropical swamps,
black elves in mushroom patches. IMG there are Aldryami wherever there is
plant life that's been there for a while. Hell, my players were more than
a little surprised to encounter what they called "khaki elves" in a
badlands area well northeast of Corflu.
>
>> In this they are a curious analogue to the mostali - where the
>> dwarves work for the World Machine, elves are the agents of fertility and
>> growth.
>
>An immensely weak analogue, too. Not only is mostali behaviour quite
>different, it arises for different reasons, too. One might just
>as well say 'Glorantha fans are a curious analogue to the mostali,
>in that they are agents for drinking large quantities of beer at
>Conventions, and sending quarrelsome emails'.
Well, duh, the behavior is different.
I wouldn't say it's *that* weak an analogue, though i wouldn't build a
bridge on it:
1) both have a prime purpose - trolls don't, humans don't, dragonewts don't
(that we can figure out)
2) both operate communally in pursuit of this purpose - individualism is
strongly discouraged or absent
Are there many races that share these traits?
>> This was one of
>> the great achievements of Errinoru - he somehow overcame the intrinsic
>> self-centeredness of various elven groups and got them to redefine their
>> "home" as encompassing all of them. Kind of an Elven Tito, if you will.
:)
>
>More of a Elven 2nd International, perhaps...
>
So you're saying somewhere in Sog City there was a former comrade of
Errinoru who was found with an icepick in the back of his noggin?