Literacy and Issaries

From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 14:40:59 -0600


David Dunham says:

>"Issarion clan?" This sounds like a clan of all Issaries members,
>which I don't think is what you mean. But I imagine even merchants
>who do much wandering have a home temple somewhere.

        I was thinking of a clan with a very large Issaries population that relied as much on trading as more traditional methods of prosperity (it's hard to trade if you raid...). I figure there might be one or two. If there is no such clan, there must be a temple that, presumably, supports a community of some sort.

>You've read my Bad King Urgrain story? (I believe it was in the most
>recent Convulsion booklet.)

        Alas, I have not.

John Hughes says:

>Yet there *is* a stream of trans-clan unity that runs through the heart of
>Heortling culture. Every adult male (and all vingans) have triumphed in 'I
>Fought We Won' during their Orlanth (male) initiation.

[much removed]

>Some Heortlings who have gone over to the Lunar way might draw comparisons
>with IFWW, but most, if they thought about it at all, would consider it just
>another false mask of Nysalora.

        Unity that seems similar but is mythically discreet....

Ian Thomson says

>Purely in my vision, I do see many Issaries traders, particularly
>Garzeens using some form of written language, probably a code
>with which one can convey simple ideas such as dates, places,
>commodities

        Why bother to have a universal system? This isn't a written system so much as very simple notation. I suppose some traders might use such a systen which they might pass on to apprentices or templemates, but I don't imagine it being widespread. There could be dozens of such systems, mutually unintelligable. My point (which I assume everyone is getting tired of hearing) is that Glorantha is a pre-literate world and many assumptions that we might make as inhabitants of a highly-literate world are misleading and false. I'm sure there must be a "confirm inventory" feat as well as a feat or skill "remember order" or "I've got what you need."

Peter Larsen


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