Bell Digest v930922p3

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Wed, 22 Sep 1993, part 3
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM
Precedence: junk

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)

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From: glidedw@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Donald Wilton)
Subject: Gleanings of Obvious Knowledge, statement one:
Message-ID: 
Date: 21 Sep 93 09:00:06 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1778

Lord Sagon, Sorcerer of Lost Brythos, older than your god (certainly):

It seems that those of you who pester my apprentice Donald have failed to
understand the true meaning of "god cults." Cults exist to both exacerbate
and try to heal the difficulty of the initiate and common people, in
dealing with the natural result of the prevalence of Magick. Gods don't
exist as people, but as expressions of natural forces and the fearful or
ecstatic desires of the masses. Spirits occur in a natural fashion, and
evolve intelligence, in a spirit fashion, having nothing to do with our
definition of intelligence. This enables them to provide a focus for our
desires, when we give them the means to deal with magic, power and
fulfilling our desires, they do so. ZZZabur may have the means to tell you
whether or not the spirits develope into something other than initial
parasites. I feel that this explains the loss of Brythos, and where it
went. If so, it would explain the Power required to move that land.

Initiates of cults are getting what they want, rather than perceiving
reality. Gods are powerful spirits, who grew out of vain desire, for what
on Brythos, we called "the impossible free lunch, for somebody always pays
for it." You can't have your religion cake, and eat it, while simply
expecting no price, for the emergence of another cake. The responsibility
of Power is lost on those who have Dieties. This explains the damage of
chaos, those who give nothing of their effort, and take.

I enjoyed instructing those of you who have failed to understand in the
past. I realizet hat you may take time to adjust, but that's been true of
the simple folk, of cultures as diverse as the Lunar, to the Orlanthi. I
know that given suffient data, we'll all agree on the reality of the
nonentities of the gods, and the future remains bright!

Invisible God Who?



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From: glidedw@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Donald Wilton)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 21 Sep 1993, part 1
Message-ID: 
Date: 21 Sep 93 09:35:51 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1779

Lord Sagon, Sorcerer of Lost Brythos, older than your god, (certainly):

Selling enchantlments form the simple folks makes great economic and
magical sense. doing so relieves them of the burden of magical, and
therefor political power. since sorcery is the only expression of
existence consistent with the evidence, reducing the capability of spirit
worshippers, makes good tactical sense. Buy from them at every
opportunity. You will often find Shamans who will sell items of
incomparable value, for mere gold. A shaman will live with very little in
the way of cultural refinements, costing no more than 5 gold pennies per
year. This means that each one can be convinced for the cost of a single
Whell, to sell a permanent enchantment in an object, of a Spirit of Power,
averaging 15 MP. This is a good buy.

We as sorcerers never sell enchantments. Enchantments created by sorcery
do not require the continuing existence of the caster, which alone
explains the continued attacks on private property, byt the thieving
elements of the Ralian culture. If I leave my house, some busybody, with
no value for privacy, private property or self reliance, will come and
steal my enchantments, often for mere matrerial gain. I will have to hire
some of those disreputable scum soon to retrieve a small object. I don't
know why anybody would want to take my Palsy 15, 39, 8, Multispell 12 gem.
do they know how to use it? No, they do not. I have only used it on the
average Chalana Aroy, to keep them from setting up one of their noisy
hospitals 3 times in the last 25 years. Do I not have the right to peace
and quiet? I can sell healing as cheaply as they do, and I don't require
noises to nonexistent spirit things, to do it. Bother then damn lot of
them all. I'd been saving the 500 gold Wheels for other things. I ask all
of you new apprentices if you think I should mention that they'll raid a
hospital of this annnoying female? I think not. Getting rid of this Healer
pest seems good enough, and I'm sure that they'll rejoice to gain greater
knowledge of reality in the bargain. 

I will provide all of you with the usual spells needed to deal with the
nasty odds and ends who guard these noxious places. I have the means and
the power to give you a Damage Boosting 8, Duration 15, and a spell
resistance 9, Duration 14. This should give you the means to accomplish
the task. payment can include other spells, if you provide MP for it.
Given the possible socially (but no doubt temporary) stigma from the
uneducated, I can give damage resistance 20, Duration 21. This comes form
another of my enchantments gained from another sorcerer, who alas, made
the mistake of trusting a religoid. Mistakes pile up in the real world.



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From: glidedw@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Donald Wilton)
Subject: God learner heresy of sorcery
Message-ID: 
Date: 21 Sep 93 10:00:04 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1780

Lord Sagon, Sorcerer of Lost Brythos, older than your god (certainly):

The God Learner heresy, lay not in seeing all of the silly religions for
what they are, but rather in thier use of them. GL made use of the power
in wateful manners, taking without making any distinction between the
useless existence of dieties, and the natural self regenerating flows of
magic. The destruction of the natural flows, creates the illusion of large
amounts of power, while reducing the amount of mana available for a long
term basis. While with my immortality spell I can live out the time of low
magic, I prefer the alternative. While immortality will get you through
times of low mana, it's no fun when surrounded by these vain barbarians.



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From: glidedw@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Donald Wilton)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 21 Sep 1993, part 3
Message-ID: 
Date: 21 Sep 93 10:09:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1781

Lord Sagon, Sorcerer of Lost Brythos, older than your god (certainly):

yes, we can take shaman souls into a matrix.

So what?

You have to assume that we want to!  If I do that, then I have to want
access to spirit spells, and inherent in my existence, my view of the
world, is a disdain for spirits. I can't convert the shaman to sanity, and
the presence of his spirit in my personal aura, could affect how I think.
If I wanted spirit spells cast, I'd be crazy.  If I want MP, I use a POW
spirit I have caught.  What use do we have for capturing shamans?  Pretty
soon, a party of adventurers shows up, and life gets annoying.  Why would
I want that?



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From: pete@slough.mit.edu (Pete c/o Tom Yates)
Subject: Secret of the God Learners
Message-ID: <9309220135.AA21530@Sun.COM>
Date: 22 Sep 93 01:39:29 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1782

	Since the secret of the God Learners seems to have been a topic
during my involuntary absence from the Net...

	I was always under the impression that the secret of the
God Learners was that they played RuneQuest. After all, don't they
possess "RuneQuest sight"? 8^>}

								-->Pete
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Maranci                                          Malden, Massachusetts
pete@slough.mit.edu      or      rune@trystero.com      or      rune@ace.com
"If you don't want to kiss Duke Munchkin's ass, you can pretty much kiss
your own goodbye."  -- Traditional NERO saying (spurious). 8^>}
 

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From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham  , via RadioMail)
Subject: Re: Reactionary Orlanthi
Message-ID: <199309220202.AA08192@radiomail.net>
Date: 22 Sep 93 02:02:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1783

>From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell)
>The Tales of [Orlanth's] actions 
>during time show him (and the priests who 'interpret his actions) as
>essentially reactionary: all innovations (Gbaji, the God Learners, the
>EWS, the Lunars) are evil. This seems very odd for a god whose attributes
>include rebellion and change.
>
> My question: is this reactionary stance real, or have other innovations
>by the Orlanthi during time been accepted into his mythology ie by
>Heroquesting?

Sartar and Argrath were both masters of the Change rune... E.g. Sartar
welded tribes into cities, Argrath welded them into armies capable of
fighting the Lunars.


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From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway)
Subject: talk dat trademan talk
Message-ID: <9309220511.AA03754@hp0.zycor.lgc.com>
Date: 22 Sep 93 05:11:44 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1784

>>  From: jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu
>>  Subject: TradeTalk
>>  X-RQ-ID: 1700
>>  
>>  I treat Tradetalk as a pidgin, which is DIFFERENT from one large region to
>>  another.  For example, there is a Tradetalk of Prax/Wastes, which is based
>>  on Pavic.  This TradeTalk is mostly used to communicate between the various
>>  Praxian tribes (who all speak different languages) and the river valley folk.


The regional Tradetalk sounds quite fine, but if it is an Issares creation,
which they deliberately spread, there should be significant common threads
between regions ( like French French, Haitian French, Fr. Guayana French,
whatever the hell cajuns speak, etc. ). Maybe tradetalk skill should be 
halved if in another region?


>>  However, Trade Talk is very limited in scope....


Agreed. This is a quick and dirty language for merchants, not emissaries and 
ambassadors.


>>  From: davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au (David Cake)
>>  Subject: Tradetalk
>>  X-RQ-ID: 1753
>>  
>>  Well, if Issaries/Tradetalk is really a God-Learner innovation, then it 
>>  probably spread everywhere they did - for a start every major coastal city in
>>  Glorantha.


But it's probably gone native/evolved separately since way back then, 
especially where the Closing and/or Syndics Ban has cut off areas for 
hundreds of years.



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