Runic metals and elemental associations (part II)

From: Mikko Rintasaari <rintasaa_at_mail.student.oulu.fi>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 05:06:02 +0200 (EET)

Let's continue. (In the meanwhile there was an interesting development. Apparently the original RQ-1 gave tin as the metal of Air. This is exactly how it looks when one tries to fit the later material together. Nice.

So what is the use of all this, besides giving guidelines to materials used in enchanted objects?

I already mentioned vastly preferring the neatness of one metal to one element. The runic/elemental system and mythical logic of Glorantha is one of the key elements that made me fall so deeply in love with her, and the few quirks that have appeared into the scheme along the way are rather jarring.

We have Gold as the elemental metal of Fire/Sky, yet suddenly we get offered Tin as a second metal of the Sky. As explanation we seem to get the myth of lightning, and the metal is attributed to Dayzatar.

Dayzatar, of course, is about as non-martial as a god can get. An aloof skygod that managed to avoid the war of the gods alltogether, yet somehow this is supposed to be the source of lightning. This was a very strange approach to the elemental logic anyway, with lightning attributed to the gods of fire, instead of storm. I wonder what was going on in the author's head(s). Of course this is immediately remedied in the story. The Fire gods lost their lighting and only the storm gods wield it now.

I suppose it's obvious I vastly prefer the myth of Yavor Lightning to the myth of Lightning Boy. Lightning is about as clearly an aspect of storm than anything can be in the human mind. The myth of the Lightning Boy was an anomaly, going against almost everything else known about the Gloranthan gods of Storm and Fire.

***

There seemed to be some confusion about what I said on the properties of bronze. There indeed is a passage to be found that claims Umath is either the last first of the young god's or the last of the old. It's pretty clear which is the case though.

Glorantha has five true, or original, elements. Fire, Darkness, Earth, Air and Water. These five can be arranged in a circle, where each always dominates the next and is dominated by the previous one. If Umath had been a young god, and Air was not a true element, it wouldn't fit into this progression.

The Lunar element, with the metal silver, doesn't fit into this primal circle of elemental powers. Moons and lesser celestial bodies came later, and the lunar element neither dominates nor is dominated by any of the primary five.

When I claimed that bronze is a remarkable metal, I meant it in the sense that the young god's are remarkably different from the primal powers. They don't have the earliest god's raw elemental power and purity, but they have resourcefulness and resilience. Much like bronze, which is more resilient than the metals of copper and tin combined, but lacks the elemental purity (i.e. isn't a runic metal).

***

But this is actually a good place to demonstrate some of the benefits of clarifying all of this up.

It's not just metals we can link up to the elements. In the elemental logic of things each element (or tribe of god's for the theist view) has it's own defining characteristic. This is easy to handle in RQ, and even easier in HW / HQ. (All the above also taken from published sources)

Element RQ Characteristics

Darkness  Pow	Soul, primary emotions(fear,hunger,stubbornness)
Water	  Dex	Quickness, nimbleness
Earth	  Con	Resilience, growth
Fire/Sky  Int	Intelligence
Lunar	  Cha/	Charisma, attractiveness, glamour
	  App


Those familiar with the Chaosium version of Nephilim, can easily see how this works. And one can see it at work in the elementally oriented peoples of Glorantha. Heortlings are strong and physically oriented, Dara Happans are highly organized and intellectual, and so on…

Lots of nifty things to play with. I also like, and continue to emphasize, the fact that pure runic metals inhibit magic that is not of the correct rune, and enhance magic of the same power. Any HW Narrator can quickly think of ways to implement this, if she find's herself running a campaign where such details are of interest.

Personally I like having Gray Sages and the like in my Glorantha, and also there's a lot of colourful magic items about. I'm also setting up a campaign around a school of sorcery. Glorantha has always had the strength of internal consistency. This is a chance to clarify up a corner that has been pretty much forgotten.

Finally there's the important question of MGF, as ably championed by MOB and Nick Brooke. We gain nothing by attributing tin to an obscure sungod. The only thing anybody ever seems to have used tin in published sources since RQ-1 seems to have been more or less tied with lightning, and the myth of Yavor lightning resolves this matter much more neatly and incidentally more playable (I like the cult!) than Lightning Boy ever did. MGF. We gain an elemental association table for Glorantha that makes sense without intricate explanations and convoluted myths. We've always known that an axe sacred to an earth god is of copper, and a dagger or trident of a triolini is of aluminium. Trolls use lead and Dara Happans are crazy over gold. So let's return Tin where it belongs, as the metal of the Storm. This also let's us attribute Silver back to the Lunars, and let the Yelornans squabble over it with them.

***

Since John Hughes asked for it, I'll go over Iron in a bit more detail too.

Iron is special. The mythical history seems to suggest iron came about in the time that Death was released into the world. The masters of Iron are of course the mostali, and in their stories the Iron Dwarves were created as weapons of war. Iron in it's raw state inhibit's the use of all magic, and also slays elves and trolls, giving credibility to the mostali claim to the origins of the metal.

In RQ-2 everybody was trying to reach a mastery of at least one rune (well, aspiring heroes were anyway. Those that amassed enough power mastered the rune of magic, those with enough fighting skill, the rune of mastery.

In theory enough of any skill appropriate to the god the character worshipped was appropriate, but aside from Chalana Arroy, all Rune Master's ever seen were weaponmasters.

Gaining Runelord status gave one the ability to enchant iron equipment for personal use (or other rune metal, if worshipping an elemental deity).

Personally I think the elemental association of Iron is Death. This fit's rather neatly. The mostali mindset is extremely materialistic, and the new "poison metal" iron is their way of dealing with the new power that entered the stage of the War of the Gods. This being Glorantha, nothing of course is, or at least stays, that simple.

God's touched or in possession of death end up with iron. Humakt is of course a prime example. Urox is known to have iron horns, and so on.

[I handle iron like this:] (Detail and personal preference)

[In it's raw form it's the metal of death. Hard to work except for those commanding powers of death (humakti smiths for instance). Iron also resist's enchantment since its nature is to eat (kill?) magic. When an enchanted manages to enchant iron to steel, it has been saturated with power. Then we see the dramatic chance between iron and steel. (This takes a lot of magic, or considerable skill if doing it the mostali way).

Steel, or enchanted Iron no longer interferes with magic, but as I run it its effect against elves and trolls is diminished. I find it more sensible to assume that the effects are related, one rising from the other. Since unenchanted iron is the metal of death, it doesn't hinder death rune magic. No doubt most of the magic of the iron dwarves is of this nature. Also humakti are able to use swords of raw iron without their killing magic suffering from it. As I run it, enchanting the iron to steel halves the effect it has on elves and trolls (or rather, aldryami and creatures of darkness)]

I could still talk about the other elemental associations. Gems and other materials, but maybe I'll wait and see what kind of a storm this already raises.

Here's the full table, to avoid confusion:

Darkness	Lead			[Pow]
Water		Aluminium/Quicksilver	[Dex]
Earth		Copper			[Con]
Fire/Sky	Gold			[Int]
Air		Tin			[Str]
Lunar		Silver			[Cha]

Death		Iron




	-Adept

PS. If somebody can send me a scan or other version of the relevant part's of RQ-1 I'd be very grateful.

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