Keith wonders if we have any model for pavic architecture. IMHO we have:
medieval Rome.
Maybe since me and my players live there, it was just natural for us to
stage Pavis that way but, based on what I've read, Rome in the middle ages
had exactly the feel of Old Pavis: a great expanse on land surrounded by
great and broken walls but sparsely populated, a lot of mysterious ruins and
occult tales, people who lived in huts between the foundations of the great
temples of old, and included columns and statues salvaged from the ruins in
the construction of their miserable buildings. It looked like and old and
decaying forest overcome by fungi and parasites.
Most of all, remember the hills! And the colors are the same of the books' cover, so again it came natural for us. Demons lived under the pagan temples' ruins, and ghosts haunted thecatacombs. Many old tombs guarded ancient evils, like the one in this story which I think is eminently suited to be adapted for Glorantha.
The Legend
- ---------------- Pope Silvestro II was a sorcerer. He sought immortality in many depravedpractices, but never found it. He eventually found a secret passage under an old pagan tomb and discovered and underground palace with many strange mechanical devices. There he learned how to summon the Devil and he commanded him to tell the receipt for immortality. The Devil feigned surrender and told him how to achieve his desire. He granted him to live as long as he would not celebrate Mass in Jerusalem. The evil Pope thought to have outwitted the Devil but it was not so.
One day, he led a procession from the church of St. John to the church that hosted a piece of the True Cross. Too late did he realize that the church's name was St. Mary in Jerusalem, and as soon as the Mass ended, he died. What became of his soul, though, nobody knows, since he may have repented in the last seconds of his life.
The moral is that nobody is smart enough to deal with the Devil. There is another moral, form the Christian POV, which is the infinite forgiveness of the Lord, but this has less to do with Glorantha than the rest of the story.
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