Re: Openhandist Dwarves

From: Lightcastle <lightcastle_at_sympatico.ca>
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 01:15:17 -0500


Weird, I got a flood of digests I hadn't gotten. Stupid email. :(

Peter Metcalfe wrote:

> As always, it's more complicated than that.

Indeed. I expect nothing less. :)

> Nida was opposed to the
> Greatway participation in the World Council of Friends. However Greatway
> itself was then
> split.

<snip>
> In any case, the Winning
> Faction took over the dwarf places on the Council while the losers went
> home. The Winners
> were then assassinated by the Elves while the Losers contacted Nida and
> Arkat's Army and eventually sent an expeditionary force to Dorastor (while
> the Nidans stayed home).

So there was a faction of Dwarves who were involved in the various early councils, even if the "Orthodox Mostali" saw (and continue to see) no interest in associating with the other races.

> As for the EWF, that's more vague. The main piece of evidence is that
> Flintnail
> Hardeye wedded a daughter of Pavis. We don't know where Flintnail came
> from before this time and he is known not to be the Dwarf of Dwarf Mine, as
> that's Isidilian. More importantly, Pavis was not part of the EWF.
> There's a secondary evidence of the Sazdorf Ruins which was for an
> important dwarf in the EWF but there's nothing draconic about that.

> So a fair assessment of Dwarf involvement in the EWF would be that they
> traded a lot with it but they were not part of the EWF.

That's fine, works for me. I had something in my game that dated from at least the EWF, if not further back, and I thought it likely more Dwarven than Draconic. A trade good works perfectly well.

> They are Openhandists, not barking mad.

I would think that the central Dwarven authority might think those apostate dwarves broken and barking mad. :)

> More importantly Openhandists
> do not believe that the races should be unified. They believe that outside
> races can and should help help implement the Plan which is subtly
> different.

An excellent point. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the rationale for being on the council was that unified meant more orderly and easier to put to work in Plan-helpful ways.

> Secondly the Greatway Dwarves have had bad experiences with the World
> Council. They are not gung-ho on any rainbow coalition this time around.

> Lastly the Greatway Dwarves have finally managed to secure a truce with
> Nida with the rising of the Red Moon. They are not going to jeopardize
> that with madcap schemes of a fourth council.

That's fine. I wasn't going for a Fourth council. I was originally just trying to place Dwarves with respect to the EWF. It was only as I was searching that I noticed they seemed to be in on all the early councils.

Thanks for your help,
LC


End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 335


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