(Message rqd:15) Return-Path:Received: from Holland.Sun.COM (sunnl) by homeland.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04148; Thu, 15 Jul 93 17:16:09 +0200 Received: from glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM by Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1e) id AA24606; Thu, 15 Jul 93 17:15:53 +0200 Received: by glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA13157; Thu, 15 Jul 93 17:15:14 +0200 Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 17:15:14 +0200 Message-Id: <9307151515.AA13157@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM> From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 15 Jul 1993, part 1 Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily) Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM Precedence: junk Status: O 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 RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM. Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld) --------------------- From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried) Subject: RuneDeck etc. Message-ID: Date: 14 Jul 93 17:21:59 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1280 Greg Fried here. Paul: Surely not ALL sex takes place through Uleria. Just ask Thed.... A very good example of a deity stealing another deity powers, or horning in on her mana-territory. ----------- Boris: So many excellent ideas on RQtarot! Where to start? OK. I agree that a nice touch would be to vary the Power rune sequence upon the significance of these to the different elements. I thought your proposed sequences were good. I wasn't sure about why some elements "overcome" the Power rune you placed in the ten spot (Fire - Stasis?). I would refrain from associating deities too closely with the number cards of the Minor Arcana. The Minors, at least as I understand them are meant to be just that: minor! They pertain to the day to day questions and concerns of life. As far as the imagery of these cards is concerned, I think using the animal associated with each element (reptiles - Earth; bugs - Darkness, etc.) would be a nice touch. Gloranthan Go Fish: "Do you have a 3 of Bugs?" "No! Go fish!" I think the RW Motherpeace deck does a good job of depicting the daily-life aspect of the Minors; I don't like conventional decks that just show eight swords, nine swords, ten swords, etc: nothing to associate the imagination with. The daily like imagery would depend on the local culture the deck comes from. The Motherpeace deck is a good starting place for matriarcharl Earth cult decks! GOOD idea that the Lunar deck would interpret Thane as Outlaw, making Storm an outcast (the Orlanth Outlaw card would look like a Duck in the Lunar deck!). Darkness could interpret Beast AS Ghost: this isn't too far off for Zorak Zoran, who in my campaign is the shadow of the Sun -- the Darksun. And I really liked your suggestion for the Majors, using Condition and Form runes plus Power runes (with just the Conditions?). Law + Stasis = Spike is a lovely notion! I interpret the Tower card (= Spike card....) as revelation/insight/apocalypse (which in Greek meens the lifting of the veil). The Spike gets shattered, just like the Tower in the RW tarot. I think Law+Motion could = Justice: justice as law applied to changing circumstances. Dragonewt as Hermit isn't bad! Maybe make it simply the Dragon card. Dragons DO live apart from the would, dreaming their lonely hermit dreams. Perhaps also an equivalent for the World card? The image of the dragon biting its tail (Chaoseum!) is a powerful symbol of the cosmos: cycle of life, reincarnation, dragonewts! Plant as Lovers seems good. Primordial, unreflective fertility. (Hey! We all remember puberty!) Man as Hanged One/Initiation is also good! I think of humans as the preeminent beings who are initiated into the mythic world of Glorantha. Humans are both a part and apart of and from Glorantha. As far as I am concerned, this is why human influence on Nowtime Gloranthan history is so pivotal, and why the Elder races never quite feel at ease with them. The Elder Races aare NATURALLY part of the mythical fabric of Glorantha. Humans change that fabric by being initiated (very broadly understood!) into it. Of course, these are my own mythopoeic ideas, but they fit well to my mind with the Man rune as Hanged One/Initiation. Non-human decks might interpret the Man rune as food card, alien card, interloper card, pretender card, imbecile card, etc. All in all: Kudos, Boris!! BTW, I use the RW tarot deck to play a game called Go Fate, instead of Go Fish. This is a fun, silly game, to be played with people with relaxed nogggins. Instead of getting three of a kind numerically, you need three of a kind conceptually. The point is to get rid of all seven cards originally dealt to you. You match cards together in your hands depending on concepts, then you ask another player, for example: "You got any Angry cards?" The player looks through his or her cards. If he or she can make a case to the other players that all accept that a card is "Angry", then s/he can fork it over to the player who asked for it! This is why you need a friendly, relaxed group, because it dependes completely on interpretation. If you think you have three of a kind conceptually, you need to persuade your fellow players that you do before you put them down. Cards with rich images are critical. If you ask someone for a card and they don't have any of your type, they say, "Nope, no cards: Go Fate!" This is a good way to learn the deck, and would work great with a RuneDeck. House rules evolve of their own accord with this game. GF out. --------------------- From: f6ri@midway.uchicago.edu (charles gregory fried) Subject: PC overpopulation Message-ID: Date: 14 Jul 93 20:49:56 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1281 Greg Fried here again. To the person with too many (15!) players in his campaign: This is my suggestion: INSIST that your players rotate GMing with you. This seems to me to be the best option if you are unwilling to boot players out of your circle. The rotoating GM operates within the SAME campaign that you have been running so far. You should run a few more sessions, encouraging players to play a lot of attention to the rules. Meanwhile, insist that anyone who continues to play tacitly consents to function as GM at some point. Then appoint one of you better players to design and GM the next adventure (lasting from one to many sessions) in the campaign. You can then run a character, perhaps a semi-NPC, and act as GM's "consultant" when things get confusing for the novice. Obviously, a campaign with rotating GM presents certain drawbacks as well as benefits. Campaign 'secrets' aren't so easy to keep. But this tactic might flush a potential GM or two out into the open, who will eventually draw off some of your players. Good luck! GF out. --------------------- From: tsl@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Tim Leask) Subject: Re: Dormal and Open Seas Message-ID: <9307142356.8238@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> Date: 15 Jul 93 14:56:41 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1282 I agree with David Cheng, I don't think the open seas spell has to be a sorcery spell. Paul (Reilly?) suggests that it should be because the closing of the seas was a sorcery spell. I disagree, consider counter magic and detection blank these are spirit and divine spells that clearly counteract the effect of sorcery. Who's to say that the open seas spell isn't in fact a great big detection blank for the ship so as to not trigger the curse. At the very least the similarity between Dormal sorcery and Western sorcery seems very slim. Just my $0.02, Tim ================================================================================ Department of Computer Science /*\__/\ "Money is something you have in University of Melbourne < \ case you don't die tomorrow." Parkville, Vic., 3052, AUSTRALIA \ _ _/ Gordon Gecko. Phone: +61 3 282 2439 \| -- e-mail: tsl@cs.mu.oz.au ================================================================================ --------------------- From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au Subject: Too Many Players Message-ID: <01H0KI08IN9E8WWCS2@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> Date: 15 Jul 93 21:05:14 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1283 RE: Simon Basham - Too many players I wouldn't like to try it, but Ken Rolston once played "The Garhound Contest" with 18 PCs! In nobody else wants to Ref (can't say I blame 'em), why not split your group in two and Ref them seperately. Rather than transplant one group to another region, play them both in Prax and get some rivalry friendly going - first group to get Balastor's Axe. This approach worked quite well in a Club Campaign I was once involved with, which at one time had over 20 players and 3 Refs running around the Yelmic Kingdom of Orontes, the prototype of SUN COUNTY. MOB P.S. A walktapus would explain Gimpy's magic stew-pot - I just wonder what they're really serving at all those "All you c eat" bistros and restaurants (Smorgys and Sizzler where I live)??? --------------------- From: mace@lum.asd.sgi.com (Rob Mace) Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 14 Jul 1993, part 1 Message-ID: <9307142133.AA16407@lum.asd.sgi.com> Date: 14 Jul 93 07:33:05 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1284 Paul R. writes: > > To Joerg and Rob: > > There are at least two models which might apply in Glorantha: > 1. Deities gain their power from worship and sacrifice, plus a relatively > small amount of native power and any stolen power. It is possible to > 'steal' another deity's worship (e.g., Sheng Seleris and the Red Emperor.) > This model might be used by the Malkioni in explaining the pagan gods. > > 2. The greater deities have truly tremendous power, independent of worship, > but are bound by the Compromise into using that power in set ways, except > where free-willed mortals summon the deity's power into the world through > sacrifice, or when directly confronting Chaos. Let me try to be clearer on what I am suggesting because it is far from number 1 above. The gods are real and have truly tremendous power. But their form can be molded by the beliefs of people in time and their ability to directly manipulate things in time is limited by the power sacrificed to them by their followers. > Thus (for example), EVERY act of sex, every conception of new life, etc. > is performed through the power of Uleria. Each such act is magical in > itself but people are so used to it that they have become jaded. Similarly, > each wind is caused by an air god, Flamal causes all plants to grow, etc., These are examples of powers not of gods. A god may embody one or more of these powers but these powers do not require a god to work. They work just as well in lands that are filled with atheistic sorcerers. > but because they are bound to set patterns of exerting these powers we > grow used to the miracles around us and call them 'mundane'. The gods > may not interfere directly in mortal affairs but instead use proxies like > Rune Priests, who exchange some of their own power to allow a bit of > their god's power into the world. > > This is, I think, a common model among the more sophisticated (barbarian > and civilized) theistic cultures. The gods are elevated to the status of > the prime movers of the world. No disagreement here. > Evidence for this view: The primal gods (Arachne Solara, Uleria, Trickster, > maybe Earth Witch, Hykim & Mykih, Horned Man, a few other examples) seem > not to need the usual cult structure to support the powers of their proxies. Gods don't need formal cult structures, they just need belief. > >look at the different versions of gods scattered > >around Generatela > > In model (2) this is explained by saying that gods have many aspects and > are bound by the compromise to not interfere in the Inner World unless invited > by mortals, so the aspect known locally to the mortals colors how the > god acts in that region. The variations go deeper then that. In some areas a god might be a mix of multiple gods from other areas. Or the powers might be quit shuffled. I think this goes beyond the many aspects bit. My basic thesis is that the compromise not only restricts what a god can do in time, it also binds a god to being manipulated by time. Actually it goes deeper then that into the rewriting of godtime. Basically Glorantha is a world were the world view of everyone that lives is correct. The sorcerers are right in their world view, the deists are right in theirs, the dragonnewts are right in theirs, etc.. More on all this later when I have time. Rob Mace --------------------- From: seh0@aberystwyth.ac.uk Subject: Arrggghhhh!!!! Message-ID: <9307151119.AA06939@deca> Date: 15 Jul 93 13:19:50 GMT X-RQ-ID: 1285 OK, folks, last message coming on...... It's been good having this e-mail account....alas it is no more. I graduate TODAY, and henceforth it is unavailable. I will try to pass along copies of stuff to those folk I promised it to....(Mark Buckley, Hannu Kokko, John Medway and others) but it may be a few weeks yet. Jobhunting is a priority right now. David Hall: I hope to send you Kargan Tor shortly....Adam also said a long time ago about our system for sorcery...I'll drop you a line surface mail in the near future. Nick Brooke: Keep fighting the Loskalm perfectionists....personally I think the society sounds suspiciously like that in 1984......note how the best farmers are passed into the soldiery so that the country is supplied food by the worst farmers...keeping the status quo while maintaining the illusion of a viable meritocracy..... Others: Too many things, but if anyone wants to contact me surface mail-wise, my address is: Stephen M Hunt 6 Balfour Terrace Linthorpe Middlesbrough Cleveland TS5 5HY Tel: 0642 825572 For the last time Better Red Than Dead