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Date: Sat, 26 Jun 93 17:15:09 +0200
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From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 26 Jun 1993, part 1
Precedence: junk
Status: OR
The RuneQuest Daily and RuneQuest Digest deal with the subjects of
Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha.
Send submissions and followup to "RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM",
they will automatically be included in a next issue. Try to change the
Subject: line from the default Re: RuneQuest Daily... on replying.
Selected articles may also appear in a regular Digest. If you
want to submit articles to the Digest only, contact the editor at
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Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor:
RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld)
---------------------
From: staats@Athena.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 25 Jun 1993, part 2
Message-ID: <9306251717.AA08961@m1-142-11>
Date: 25 Jun 93 17:17:37 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1175
Henk,
I'll be in Europe from June 27 till July 21. Please suspend my
subscription to the Daily between now and then. Thank you very much!
In service,
Rich
---------------------
From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 24 Jun 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9306252129.AA03677@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 25 Jun 93 21:29:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1176
Let me support Graeme on sorcery in the Lunar Empire.
Etyries Initiates are specifically allowed to know sorcery; some of
them must learn it. I would guess that Irripi Ontor would allow it as
well (and have weaker Rune Magic than Lhankor Mhy.)
I tend to think of the Lunars as much like Persians. The correspondences
go like this:
Yelm's Empire --- Sumerian-like (this is so obvious, look at myth of An and
Enlil)
Dara Happan Empire - Babylonian
Carmanian Empire - Assyrian
Lunar Empire - Persian
Orlanthi:
Tarsh, Aggar, etc: Ionian Greeks in cities like Miletus under Persian
Rule
Sartar & Heortland: 'Free' Greeks (except they lose for a while)
Argrath: Vaguely Alexander-like
Note the Red Emperor's personal cult has a rather Oriental flavor (here
Orient in the ancient sense of Persian, etc.) rather than a Graeco-Roman
flavor.
- Paul
P.S. I sent Adam the Ogre and Quaking Vine stuff, people need not send him
100 copies.
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Orcs, Ogres, Sun Gods and Earth Gods, God Learners
Message-ID:
Date: 26 Jun 93 14:30:03 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1177
___________________________
Greg Fried in X-RQ-ID: 1166
>>>
to Michele Finelli:
If it's orcs you want, they figure prominently in the RuneQuest Gateway
publication Griffin Island, available from Avalon Hill. Orcs are simply
not part of the OFFICIAL GLORANTHAN mythology. They are a creation of
JRR Tolkien, not Greg Stafford. There's no reason you can't fit them
into your own version of Glorantha, though. Perhaps as a tribe of
Trolls who willingly gave themselves over to Chaos.
<<<
Well, on my RQ-campaign world (not Glorantha) Orcs are the blasphemous
product of enforced Elf-Troll interbreeding, creatures neither of light
nor of darkness, thus gaining immunity to iron, but losing the ties to
both their ancestors' Runes. (Elves BTW are no vegetables, but
descended from twilight nymphs, an opposite to hags, who are darkness
nymphs with some importance in troll descent. The Aldryami were always
too cute for my taste, I prefer the tree spirits from Vikings for
humanoid plant life.)
>>>
to Steve G:
>I know nothing about Elmal. (Is there a god Yio too?!)
The short answer is "go read _King of Sartar_". To elaborate, Elmal
was a thane of Orlanth's, who guarded his homestead while he quested to
restore the Sun. His cult was that of an obedient guardian spirit of
light, a solar cult tamed to accepability amongst storm people. Later,
the Orlanthi Elmal was identified with the elves' god of last light,
and other Solar myths from the north. KoS is very revisionist, claiming
that the Yelmalio cult didn't exist until ~1450ST (compared with its
activiy in Prax c800ST mentioned in _Cults of Prax_ - or even the
post-KoS published _River of Cradles_).
<<<
A solar cult tamed ... Good description.
Still I'd say that Elmal is Yelmalio Stormfriend, who followed his
former enemy Orlanth south after their hill of gold duel and never met
Zorak Zoran at Bikhy. He the wed one aspect/daughter of Ernalda and
defended the court of Storms against chaos.
As an aside: The female Earth goddesses seem to have no regard fr
generations. I finally got a chance to look into the RQ companion and
learned that Argan Argar wed Esrola, not Ernalda; still he figures as
husband protector in Melisande's Hand. So I tend to agree now to a
reply I got some Dailies ago form Nick Brooke: "Esrola=Asrelia". The
three aspects of Earth, virgin, mother and crone, benevolent or
malevolent, seem to be impersonated by many entities who are female
deities of the Earth.
What happened to the male Earth deities, by the way? There is mention
of two of them in the legends: Genert, who died fighting chaos, and
Molandro, who led the combined forces of chthonian powers against Yelm
in a contest for the rule of the world, and was subdued by means of
magical intruments. Oh, and Mostal and Stone, of course. But I'd figure
that there must be more; maybe Barntar is one of them included into the
Orlanthi pantheon. Lodril seems to have displaced some, but there must
be more plow-gods. Who are they?
>>>
Other attributes of Yelm are of healer and harpist; I presume that
there are different cults to carry those, if they are of importance to
your culture?
<<<
E.g. one aspect seized by Yelm is Arroin, the grandson of Glorantha,
son of some unknown deity (Aether?) and Chalana Arroy?
And why the harpist? The harp, Harana Ilor, is said to have been
introduced by Umath in old Orlanthi tales. Yelm later seized this, and
used it against Umaths son in a contest of music, yes, but did he
create it? If Stasis wasn't aligned with Stone (thus with Earth), I'd
assign it to Yelm.
____________________________
Paul Reilly in X-RQ-ID: 1167
>>>
> Does Glorantha have room for more Sun gods other than Yelm?
There are many examples of Gloranthan deities who have 'children' that
are aspects of themselves. The Earth Goddesses may be considered as
aspects of one goddess. Yelmalio is also an aspect of Yelm. In some
cults this is quite explicit, in others it may be implicit. Thus the
Dara Happans worship the Sun of Time as one Aspect of the Eternal Sun;
your Islanders worship Yalem as Yelm's son. I really don't see any
conflict here.
<<<
And there is the Yu-Kargzant (sp?) of the Grazers, which differs
greatly in cult requirements etc. from Dara Happan Yelm worship.
>>>
It also makes sense for the White Moon to be in the Underworld. She is
born in Godtime, is sundered. Her blood is spilled and soaks the earth
that later becomes the Red Moon (leaving the Crater). Her body is
sundered, part hangs on as the half-dead Annilla, parts crash to earth
as the Blue Moon Plateau and other areas. Her spirit (White Moon) goes
to the Underworld. It's a reasonable mythology, not consistent with
what I think, but Gloranthans don't have to be consistent with each
other.
<<<
I'd have expected some place in Slon with signs like "Do not trespass,
Moon under construction" :-)
Seriously, I don't see any Lunar connection in Peloria before the
construction of the Red Goddess other than the Blue Moon Plateau. The
colour red in the Redlands is attributed to the bloodletting there
between the Dara Happans and the Pentians. I don't know where the Red
Goddess got her colour. Maybe by conquering the Crimson Bat?
_______________________
Finula in X-RQ-ID: 1169
First of all: I liked the general idea about the ogre society a lot,
there are a lot of ideas in it I used for an ogre society on my own
gameworld. The carnivore unable to produce some necessary proteins
himself is an idea fitting very well into my ogre-only society. They
are in some ways a copy of the Fomorians in old irish sagas. They rely
on sacrifices by conquered human primitives, and had once ruled over a
large barbarian people in alliance with elves, too. In those good old
days they had sacrifices aplenty, but when the Vikings arrived in their
rear, the empire faltered.
Their religion consists of sorcery and demon summoning, i.e. atheism.
>>>
More on Ogres
I agree that the biology stuff is not necessary for an Ogre writeup for
RQ. It's in there because I wanted people to see that they actually work
from a sociobiological viewpoint. There is a niche for them in the real
world. They could actually exist.
<<<
I disagree - the biological bit is not necessary for Glorantha, ok, but
it makes up wonderful possibilities for other worlds, e.g. mine.
There's more to RuneQuest than Glorantha only...
>>>
They have physical disadvantages which go along with their
specialization. Yes they are stronger, but stronger means that they have
less flexibility in their arms. They are set up more like a chimps arms.
Very good at pulling something towards itself or tearing apart but not so
good at throwing. (Hence the crossbow is favored) The shoulders are
muscle bound.
Humans are far better at long distance running. If the Ogre can't win in
the first 200 yards, he isn't going to. They are designed to lie in wait and
spring rather than running something down. They are all fast twitch
muscle.
<<<
That's the kind of reasoning I'd like to see in rpg supplements, a
sound combination of fantasy and natural sciences.
____________________
Rog in X-RQ-ID: 1174
>>>
Am I mistaken or is there a very good chance that The God-Learners might
have managed to break the great compromise from "the inside" and be waiting
to jump back into time?
<<<
My very uneasy feeling. When the compromise stroke back, and all the
mundane plane crept up to them, why not risk emigration to the hero
plane? I doubt that Jrustela sunk in just one day. There might even be
some archipelago somewhere to the west where some of the Jrusteli
cities were moved, copying the efforts of Zzabur with the main part of
the Brithini Islands.
>>>
On the subject, when one refers to "The God-Learners" doing all these
nasty evil understanding the cosmos type things who does one actually
mean, the ruling council, their "scientists", everyone around at the
time?
<<<
>From the description of the machine war in KoS I'd say that meant are
the scientists and magicians, and made responsible were these plus the
rulers who allowed or even furthered this, and the populace which
embraced these wrong ways.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de