<<In a Glorantha panel at Tentacles the question arose: Why are the Lunars so less successful than the Romans concerning the amount of land conquered? The there presented POV was, that the Lunars have their own trouble with the wanes. This considering unsatisfactory IMG, I thought until now, that the reason was their use of scimitar and thus their inferior strategy.>>
I think that the reason, as someone (Stancliff?) pointed me in the past about an altogether different subject (canal building) is more simple: Romans were real, had no magic and lived in a material world (like Luisa Ciccone was used to). Lunars live in a magical world, driven by forces beyond the mortal means (how rethoric!). So the conflict, wathever his reasons and his visible means (armies, conquest, generals and rulers) is ultimately decided by magic and by the gods. The Lunars can't be as effective as the Romans were because their Goddess is not a match for Orlanth. She is powerful, backed by countless cults, chaotics and solar pantheons, but she has not the power to kill Orlanth. So, even if her generals win some battles, by Orlanth's power the dead can be resurrected, the weapons are substituted by magics, the dragons and the giants can help the rebels and so the military might is vanified. Why bother, then, if the Lunar Army is more or less effective than the Roman one? The most effective Roman Legion would have been equally crushed by Gonn Orta, much like the Marble Phalanx.
I usually encourage RW/Glorantha comparisons, but perhaps I begin to see why this kind of parallels in envised by many of the Digesters.
Ciao
Gian
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #540
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