Loskalm

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_quicksilver.net.nz>
Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 13:30:05 +1200


Jeff:

>True - I'm just pondering how the Loskalmi learned how to make
>articulate plate armor.

I believe it was part of Siglat's Dream and stems from the armour of the Altinae which Siglat might have remembered from his youth.

> >But if the Loskalmi had advanced agriculture then they could support
> >more people in towns and the like rather than the 10% figure that
> >we've all been quoting since whenever. This would give Loskalm
> >more towns, cities and the like as well as a prowess far beyond
> >its 2.2 million population base.

>But why have such a high urban population? Although there are
>urban farmer occupations, they are a deviation from the ideal. I mean
>what kind of a knight does a tinkerer make?

No, they are not. The caste now called farmer is the caste originally known as citizen. In the earliest mythical times, the caste of citizens explored, wrote, made things, thought deeply, spoke and swam but the one thing they did not do was grow food for others to eat.

That came later when the degeneration of the Cosmos meant that the Malkioni could no longer live by thought alone but had to have their daily bread as well. Consequently most of the citizens became toilers of the soil and the very name of the caste became synonymous with farming.

Now the Malkioni (even the Seshnegi) know all this and thus know that the urban sophisticated farmer caste that lives in a city and crafts exquisite chalices of gold is far closer to God than the lice-infested oik cutting oats in the fields.

Hence a high urban population would be a sign to Loskalm that they are on the right track.

> >Again I disagree. Their entire society is advanced because of the
> >transformations that Siglat wrought during the Ban. Part and
> >parcel of their meritocratic ideology is their concern for farmers
> >because all Loskalmi overmen were once farmers. Now if they
> >didn't use their knowledge to benefit the farmers but shoved it all
> >into military research and development (during the Ban!), that
> >wouldn't look very good in their own eyes.

>Why? Is material comfort and higher production the goal of the
>Hrestoli Ideal?

Yes. A key measure of how real the Ideal is the closeness of their society to the mythical times of the Land of Logic. And since in those times, life was good it follows that the Loskalmi must strive to make the life of their farmers and townspeople good. Having Loskalm as a society that devotes everything to war production defeats that goal.

--Peter Metcalfe


End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 156


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