Here's my chronological understanding of Glorantha. This from a group of
computer
science college students, perhaps not fully understanding the deep
significance of
post-moderism or the works of Joseph Campbell. And yet, we were far more
"with-it"
than your typical group of gaming con munchkins.
Late '70s: All that existed was RQ1. It made tantalizing references to
this great
world called Glorantha, yet all we had was the cult write-up for Orlanth.
Early '80s: RQ2 available. This added the map of Dragon Pass. Some
more
fortunate people had the White Bear, Red Moon boardgame, which provided more
actual
Gloranthan background than the entire RQ2 book. With the addition of Cults
of Prax,
we now had some clue that there were actual cultures here, with well defined
religions.
(OK, maybe the map was in RQ1, I forget...)
And yet, nobody I gamed with knew that Orlanthi had Celtic / Viking clan
structures
(one suspects that this was "discovered" by Greg in his Chaosium house
campaign).
Looking at the map, one sees cities and towns, connected by roads. Based on
the
previous experience rules added to the back of RQ2, one would assume that
guilds
existed. In fact, the whole thing looked vaguely like your generic mideval
fantasy
world. Since you could just buy spells by paying the requisite cash as
described
in the rules, this idea of adventurers requiring support from their
clan/tribe did not occur
to us.
Likewise, I never considered Prax to have "clans", whatever that means.
Like
Brian, we assumed they were tribal, and vaguely like Native Americans
(except white
skinned) Lacking the requisite bachelors degrees in anthropology now needed
to
understand Modern Glorantha (as fully revealed by Greg to his chosen few),
we made
do as best as we could. Sure, you can point out all the references in Nomad
Gods,
however, I never even saw a copy of it until about five years ago.
As for the campaign materials in Dorastor / ROC, those were essentially
post-RQ3
revisionism. I'm not saying that is a bad thing (in fact, ROC was a very
good thing).
But to understand Brian's earlier comments, you have to have the right
historical context.
Dorastor was one of those mythic RQ suppliments that was going to come out
"anytime now", along with MOLAD and Cults 2...
To head off any possible flames, I eagerly await the new Hero Wars material,
and in no
way consider the abysmal lack of knowlege we possessed in the RQ2 days to be
a
good thing...
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #519
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