> Seems to me that Simon and Nick (and perhaps others) use the term "nature"
> to mean "Glorantha in the Golden Age".
Absolutely not. To take only the most obvious examples, there were no winds or rains in the Golden Age, the sky was golden not blue, and the sun hung motionless in the centre of Heaven, neither rising nor setting. Nobody, AFAIK, would nowadays refer to this situation as "natural".
> Allow me to suggest that somehow we *DO* find a better term for that -
> Glorantha Law ain't that bad.
I disagree, for oft-rehearsed reasons. "Law vs. Chaos" appears in so many other Fantasy worlds, and does not IMO convey what's happening here. For just one thing, EVERYTHING in Glorantha would be "Lawful" unless it was Chaotic. Not very meaningful, eh?
> Given this, does that mean Orlanth is an enemy of nature? :-)
Dara Happans have no problems associating Orlanth with Darkness and Chaos as enemies of the mythic Golden Age world order. The Lunars can honestly blame Orlanth for the near-destruction of Glorantha in Godtime -- and the doctrine of "Orlanthi Responsibility" makes it hard for the barbarians to dodge the rap. "We broke the world, then we saw it was our fault and helped patch things up a bit..." -- not the most inspiring rallying-call.
And (an old favourite of mine), anyone else remember the consequences last time the forces of Storm and Barbarism destroyed a heavenly body ruling over a great Gloranthan empire?
> For those who comment that Chaos is too easily used as a strawman bad
> guy, I suggest that you run Lunar characters.
Yep, very enjoyable for plenty of other reasons too. Or run Orlanthi up against non-strawman, non-Chaotic Lunars -- killing the innocent missionaries, relocated settlers, charity workers, children, etc. might give even a Storm Bull pause for thought.
___
Ian wrote a proposal for a bring-back-the-Pharoah scenario.
Lovely stuff! I particularly like the Hero Plane version of the Holy Country being the land-without-a-Pharoah for so long -- suffering from not having him, rather than (just) being the countries as they were before Belintar came along and integrated them. The Lunar refurbishment of Belintar's palace/pyramid is also good fun -- I suggest, though, that this be *in* the City of Wonders, rather than some other location. (Though if you want the latter, the Esrolite Necropolis springs to mind as a suitable place).
Have a look at Simon Bray's story about the City of Wonders in "Ye Booke of Tentacles" #1 -- evocative stuff from a Lunar pilgrim's POV, moving through the City on the Hero Plane.
> My sense of adventure is greatly dispersed by looking up rules, charts
> and stats, calculating modifiers and keeping track of various numerical
> details. Combats are life-and-death situations and could generate lots of
> suspense, but in RQ they often deteriorate to endless series of parried
> attacks and keeping track of numbers on the character sheet.
I agree completely. What's more, this is just the burden when you're playing the game. Writing up a scenario or powerful character for RuneQuest becomes an immense burden, given all the number-crunching required -- the most professional products have errors right through their stats, while tough NPCs need stats and defences like the Coders to ward off inadvertent vulnerability to unexpected forms of attack.
Given that HW will allow players to run characters comparable in ability to the Coders but with *far* less number-crunching, I'm all in favour of the rules-lite, narrative-focussed approach. It's the natural way to tell good stories, after all. (How many of the Gloranthan stories told at RQCon contests have sounded like RQ combats described in loving detail?)
Regards, Nick
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