Re: Various Questions About the West

From: Nick Brooke <nick_at_etyries.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 06:00:40 +0100


Ian Cunningham wrote:

> I'm thinking about starting a Heroquest game this summer, based out of
> the Castle Coast. Which is notoriously under-detailed, even for the
> West.

My material on the Castle Coast (written for RuneQuest, should be fairly portable, Greg Stafford recently asked me to rewrite it for HeroQuest but for Fan Publication Policy related reasons -- among others -- I couldn't find either the time or the inclination) is at:

http://www.etyries.com/malkioni/chivalry.htm

And here's my $0.02 worth for the rest of your questions.

> 1) Are there still Hsunchen in Sehsnela? I've read the Issaries page
> on the Hsunchen, but I'm not entirely clear if there are still Basmoli
> hsunchen in the region - are there even /lions/ still in Seshnela?

I think that if there are any left (and certainly there won't be any mighty nations or powerful tribes), they'll have been driven to the wilder fringes (like the Castle Coast). None showed up in the old "Genertela Book". The Seshnegi have been picking on lions for fun since the Dawn of Time, so I doubt there are many left. Maybe the King has one in a zoo? (Maybe there are pretenders on the Castle Coast who do so too, for the same reason?).

> 2) What are your thoughts on krjalki saints? I know it'd be completely
> unthinkable in Rokari Seshnela, but the old-style Hrestoli on the
> Castle Coast seem a lot like the type to never throw away a Saint.

It would be a good mindfuck for the Rokari, so I can't see why not. (In "How the West was One", we had the Church of Syanor in some confusion as to whether deeds were done by e.g. "Prince Jonat and his faithful Bear Companion" or the hsunchen shapechanger Prince Jonat, which might be a fun line to take here (if there are doubters on the fringes). Androcles and the Lion -vs.- Androcles *the* Lion :-)

> 3) Do we ever find out WHY the Luathans destroyed old Seshnela? I've
> got my own game-related theory, but I was wondering if I'd be
> contradicting any established in game reasoning.

I don't believe we do know that (yet), other than that the local Aldryami say they came to "save the earth goddess from the abuses of the God Learners" (G:IttHW p.41). This would be one of those 'Nam era, "We had to shatter and sink the earth goddess in order to save her" strokes of tactical genius). But we don't *know* that the Aldryami are right. The Luathans at the Castle of Purple Shadows in Old Seshnela are said to be a primarily military colony (Anaxial's Rooster p.206).

> 4) And moving south, but staying in the West - the Timinits of
> Jrustela? The online sources I've been able to find aren't clear as to
> their intelligence level. Are they low-but-still-human intelligence,
> clever ape level, or normal intelligence and just very primitive?

I think there are Timinit species at all of those levels, and others besides. (Part of the tragedy of the ones that only live a day is that they're as intelligent and cultured as humans at their best, IMO; OTOH, you'd also probably want to have hive-mind Timinits, individually dim but *collectively* extremely crafty).

> If a ship's crew were crazy enough to take, say, a Spider Timinit on board
> - would it be more mentally suited to being a ship's mascot, or a cabin boy?

Depends on what your game needs -- it could be either. (They vary).

Cheers, Nick


End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 82


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