From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 25 Sep 1993, part 1
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
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---------------------
From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: Lots of sense
Message-ID: <930924071500_100270.337_BHB41-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 24 Sep 93 07:15:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1814
Thom Baguley talks a lot of sense! I shal address myself to his letter.
> Fascinating stuff on the daily lately ...
Yup!
________
Issaries
> My recollection of the God Learner connection (I forget which sources)
> is that as one of their favourite cults they "seeded" it throughout
> Glorantha. No mention of any major changes.
We deduce the "major changes" from the parts of the Issaries cult that are
pure game mechanics making little sense in the world: spell trading and
universal tradetalk. You must remember that the God Learners were in effect
RuneQuest powergamers who rewrote the rules to suit themselves: anything in
the rules that shouldn't be part of Glorantha is a God Learner addition,
and rightly despised as such.
> That seems rather small potatoes for the God Learners. I suspect they
> just needed a very widespread trade network to support their empire.
That seems rather generous to the God Learners. I suspect any cult they
used was "tampered with" to make it fit their needs better.
> I suspect that Issaries was 'originally' (whatever that means in
> Glorantha) mainly/only a barabarian communication god only partially
> associated with trade.
Yep: probably god of tribal ambassadors who carry the words of the Kings:
vital social function whether you're trying to arrange a big raid, fend off
a war, negotiate for hostages or ransoms or compensation, etc.
> I also suspect that the GL 'favourites' may well have been less tampered
> with than others.
I disagree, purely on the evidence: Issaries and Lhankor Mhy look like game
constructs and not genuine Orlanthi religions, and both have been described
as God Learner favourites. Oh, on Lhankor Mhy:
: This immortal poem is a dragonewt chant and prayer which relates the
: creation of the world. The right-hand explanation are glosses to a
: human version of the poem made by a western scholar (probably a god-
: learner, hence a worshipper of Lankhor Mhy).
^^^^^
Source: WF14 p.14.
_________
Tradetalk
> How widespread is tradetalk? In Maniria I suspect that most traders and
> many well travelled/educated people (a minority) speak a little of it.
Enough to buy a meal or ask for simple directions to the nearest large
town?
> In any case it is definitely a very simple language with many regional
> variations.
Agreed, it should be. Probably, given 600 years since the downfall of the
God Learners, it now is. But remember that it was allegedly a single
language spoken (by some) across the whole Middle Sea Empire.
Written Tradetalk? Probaably about as good as airport signs and McDonalds
menus: you can do pictures of goods (about as well as you can draw), and
prices, but you can't write letters to your family and friends in it.
__________
HeroQuests
> I think the description in KoS makes it pretty clear that HQs start
> with ritual reenactment. This is the basis of most worship ceremonies.
> It seems fairly obvious that these ceremonies are low-key heroquests
> (though maybe not always so low-key e.g. during The Sacred Time). By
> the way ... with this definition the Garhound Festival contest is also
> a heroquest (and it can, reputedly, have very serious consequences for
> the locality). Maybe, anytime a Stormbull sets out to kill a chaos
> monster (or trap it under a big rock?) is also a heroquest... It seems
> to be a question of degree.
Yes. Everything you say above is true. Disagree about the big rock, though:
that's too much like planning. Delivering the Orlanthi challenge "Wandering
Sun, Jealous Uncle" (etc.) is a heroquest too. So is making a
Lightbringers' Greeting, or a Council Circle. For another heroquest
scenario, see Elder Races book p.111-116. I thought the Short
Lightbringers' Pilgrimage in KoS made it plain that the whole of this
magically-potent ritual is a costumed reenactment performed by the clan,
not just the start of it.
A simple reenactment becomes dangerous if anyone with a real grudge is
involved as a 'friend' in the Quest, or if actual foes participate. Due to
the nature of Gloranthan myth, the latter is more likely than it may seem.
Remember that when Orlanthi make a circle and build a wicker man in the
middle of it, they are reenacting the Summons of Evil myth (KoS p.81f);
remember, too, Elder Races p.115: "The attacks each year do not necessarily
have to be by the same type of foes. It may be dwarfs one year, trolls the
next, and chaos things the third. Such effects are the nature of Gloranthan
ritual and magic which necessarily draws its opponents from the world, but
not always from the same part of the world."
We see this vividly in the CHDP (KoS p.155): when Kallyr Starbrow attempts
the Short Lightbringers' Pilgrimage (and remember, she's a famous hero-
quester), "In the Conflict Phase, when normally a polluted icon is
destroyed, a blindingly armed Lunar warrior appeared, halfway through her
own sword-dance. The enemy was eventually killed, and the ceremony was
finally finished, but the damage was done..."
This "simple" LBQ uses the Summons of Evil myth to 'validate' destruction
of a scarecrow in mythical terms, but thereby lays itself open to real foes
taking advantage of the call. And, of course, the strength of the call in
the Summons of Evil will depend on the strength of the summoning clan, and
on what evils they have attracted the attention of, recently.
________________
Gloranthan Light
> I seem to recall a Gloranthan rainbow reference somewhere, but can't
> recall any details.
Rainbow Girl is a Praxian spirit messenger who carried messages between
Water and Light Gods, I believe.
__________
Other Folk
Sam Phillips seems to be talking about Mastakos Mover. And I agree with him
about MOB's sailless Moon Boats. Ptoo! Nya!
Simon Manning says, re: Western Tongues, "I think that the for the Brithini
we should think in terms of Greek and not Latin, 'cos the Latins were duff
at science, while the Greeks weren't half bad."
Ptoo! I say, the Romans were damn' good at Law. The Brithini don't come up
with new ideas any more: the Lunars do (so I give them Greek). The Lunars
also have Nysalor philosophers Socratising all over Peloria. And, how many
Greek-derived dialects can you think of to use in Seshnela, Ralios,
Loskalm, etc. that will have the same colourful impact on the
pseudo-mediaeval part of Glorantha as French, Italian, ur-Gothic? And
besides, with Stafford's effortless Classicism, these two languages are
mixed up all over the world. So Nya! And Ptoo! again. (But that's a nice
try, Simon).
And Cheers! to Ken for a polite response to my overly-lengthy reply on
Faith. "The root of all Gloranthan religion is in the propitiation of
spirits," eh? I'll think about this one, and get back to you.
====
Nick
====
---------------------
From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell)
Subject: Just some general replies...
Message-ID: <9309240806.AA23159@cscgpo.anu.edu.au>
Date: 24 Sep 93 18:07:17 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1815
Nick Brooke writes:
>BTW, anyone else spot the "Year -150" date for the LBQ on KoS p.270 ?
Yep. I don't think he has much evidence to back it up. I wonder
if Greg is moving away from the concept of the Dawning as the start
of everything. (Everything non-mythic, that is).
Maybe he wants some spare Time :-)
> OK, take Christianity from the mediaeval point of view. At the Dawning,
> Year One, the Old Faith existed (Old Malkionism). Then some guy has a
> vision of the Prophet and sets up a new religion which differs greatly from
> the original caste-ridden, legalistic religion (Hrestolism). And several
> hundred years after that there's a new and extreme form of dogmatic
> monotheism on the world stage, which claims the same roots as the original
> (Islam).
Judaism/Early Christianity/Islam, sure. I would see Rokari/Hrestoli as
less extreme: the one quote (What My Father Taught Me for Western soldier)
has a Rokari calling Hrestoli "fanatics", not unbelievers. I wonder if the
Jresteli destroyed so much of the different earlier faiths that the modern
sects have essentially the same theology.
One other major difference between the real world faiths and the Malkionists
is that there is still a very significant polytheistic presence, whereas by
(say) 1200 I believe the monotheists had all the Mediterrean countries -
correct me if I'm wrong. There is still the element of "well we disagree
on the fine points but we all believe in the _Real God_, not like those
pagans" when there are a lot of pagans.
> "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a God Learner"
"I have here the names of fifty prominent God Learners high in the
Orlanth Rex heirarchy."
> Me, I say Western script is Latin. But the modern Western languages have
> evolved from their pristine Classical Brithini roots. They now speak French
This means that literate people in the West do not write in there own
languages at all, but use Classical Brithini/Old Seshnegi/whatever it
is uniformly. Is the spoken version the language of the educated in the
West, replacing Tradetalk there?
So do the Church use this in their litanies/casting spells, or is this
an area of dispute between the sects?
From earlier:
> covered by any RuneQuest cult to date is the evolution through initiation
> to "different gods" that must take place in many normal characters' lives:
> from Voria to Ernalda to Asrelia for women, from a boys' god [Voriof?] to
> Orlanth for men. Like Yelm, but with different gods for different stages.
I wonder if the original Orlanthi progression may have been from "Voriaf"
to Orlanth to Lhankhor Mhy, with the LM's being the "wise tribal elders",
later being replaced by professional wise men as the Orlanthi became more
civilized. The requirement that all sages wear beards would then be a
survival from an all-male cult.
> This obviously happens, but has never been mechanically described).
The problem with the current system is there is no motive to make such
a change. Should your sacrificed rune-spells for one god change to those
of the next?
Ken writes:
> I would certainly celebrate an evolution of cults from wargaming mechanics to
> Pendragon-style trait and passions mechanics.
I'll join the party.
David Dunham writes:
>>From: gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell)
>> I think that the Western script may consist of pictograms built up of
>>the various God Learner runes we're all so familiar with.
>Yurk, another "runes are everything" theory of the sort I so dislike... I
>think this one falls apart since there are so many more pictograms than
>runes.
It's a pity that there are only 26 words in the English language then.
I see them using the runes as a symbolic alphabet to construct the
pictograms. I don't think "runes are everything", but I think the Westerners
might, given we're told they use them everywhere.
Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au
---------------------
From: s.manning@ic.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Western Lightbringers?
Message-ID: <9309241056.AA28529@milli>
Date: 24 Sep 93 12:56:01 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1816
I'll keep it short, or I'll ramble again.
I enjoyed Joerg Baumgartner (X-RQ-ID: 1811) entry and it is a good question; did
Worlath slay Ehlim. I don't know, but with regards to the lightbringers, the
published sources (CoT and Genertela) both make it clear that as far as the
Malkioni are concerned the Sun (Ehlim) was repaired/restored by Zzabur.
Joerg's mention of the Stygians, specifically the Aeolians, raises the
interesting question about Stygian myths. Since they are really on the boundary
between monotheism and ploytheism, the latter merely in the sense of many gods,
their faith is really quite interesting.
I'll stop there, or I'll lose my thread again,
Simon Manning.
P.S. Are the "mystery" religions in the Lunar Empire. The White Moon and Church
of Immortality are mentioned, but the latter is not described in any detail, and
are candidates, but are there any others? Also, what is the Church of
Immortality?
I'll really stop now.
---------------------
From: COR_HVH@KUNRC1.URC.KUN.NL
Subject: RQ-Con
Message-ID: <01H3C00PPI9C988EPV@KUNRC1.URC.KUN.NL>
Date: 24 Sep 93 15:26:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1817
A question not pertaining to Glorantha, but to the Real World (no tm as far
as I am aware).
I will be coming to RuneQuest Con in Januari and it seems kind of silly
to take a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam to Baltimore, do the Con and
fly right back. It would be nice to visit some other nearby places too,
say between Washington and Boston. Are any of you interested/willing/stupid
enough to put me up for a couple of days and show me the sights (and play
even more RQ than just during RQ-Con)?
Hans van Halteren hvh@lett.kun.nl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To a character on his way to certain death, due to the fact that he is
currently falling off a very high cliff: "Quick, convert to Orlanth and
ask for Divine Intervention!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------
From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner)
Subject: Whoops! Bit missed from my submission ...
Message-ID: <9309241608.AA10583@raesp-farn.mod.uk>
Date: 24 Sep 93 16:08:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1818
Sorry, folks - for those that care, I forgot on my modifications to the
steading rules that the final number should be multiplied by the skill being
used, so that's:
Units of food =
Hours worked x
( 3D10% + Method% + Land Fertility% ) x
Skill %.
Incidentally, method reflect the technology being used. It ranges from pointed
stick through wooden-bladed plough (the name for which esapes me), through
to metal plough. Degree of artificial fertiliser applied should be added.
Have fun in decreasing the land's fertility as the years go by.
Geoff.
---------------------
From: JARDINE@RMCS.CRANFIELD.AC.UK
Subject: Issaries, GLs and other Gods
Message-ID: <9309241516.AA25432@Sun.COM>
Date: 24 Sep 93 14:36:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1819
Ref: Is Issaries a GL construct (well I believe its true).
Here is a funny little idea that occurred to me while I was browsing RQ books.
1) In the second age the Fronelian God of communication was assassinated by
a group of Sorcerors, Shamans etc... This sounds like a bunch of GLs to me!
2) Why would a bunch of GLs target this god? Maybe it was not deliberate but
one of the famous *side effects* caused by their incomplete understanding.
3) What were the GLs doing that might have affected a god of communication?
Obviously they were doing some of their myth manipulation in this area.
4) What mythical manipulation do we suspect the GLs did in the area of
communication? ISSARIES!
Notes:
The above speculations work independently of whether the assassination
was deliberate or not. It could be that the Fronelan god of communication wouldhave blocked the spread, or development of the Issaries construct and had to be removed.
This assassination is said to have caused the closing of the seas. The Closing lead to the demise of the Jrusteli empire of the middle sea. Thus, the GLs might have inadvertantly triggered their own demise with their meddling!
Enjoy this heresy
-----
Lewis
-----
---------------------
From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: metal; intensity; Nature of the Spirit World
Message-ID: <9309241508.AA12772@condor>
Date: 24 Sep 93 15:08:21 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1820
Paul Reilly:
Your restrictions on making armour with Form/Set metal seem very reasonable
to me. Repairing armour is still rather easy if you can Form/Set it, but
I guess this is no big problem. It would mean that repairs to armour would
be cheaper (than in the Real World).
_____
Neil Shilladay:
Your modifications to sorcery Intensity seem fair enough if your players are
happy with it. However, I find the potential problems with sorcery are
usually derived from big Duration & Multispell rather than Intensity. Personally
I don't have a problem when sorcerers "drop the opposition with one lucky
roll" - everyone else gets the chance to be lucky (if they crit in melee
etc.) - why shouldn't sorcerers? And if a starting sorcerer wants to blow all
his MP on an Intensity 15 Damage Boosting, why not let him try?
After all, the PCs are supposed to win *most* of the time. Aren't they?
Well *aren't* they??
>SPIRIT COMBAT
>I always allowed the casting of spells at visible spirits, such as Demoralize
>or Befuddle, does anybody else do this ?
Yes, I allow this too. Befuddle, especially, is a good spell to use on spirits
(if you want to disengage). Demoralise might be good, depending on how the
GM treats it: since the spirit isn't in melee, demoralise won't affect its
chance to succeed in spirit combat; but it might scare the spirit into
disengaging.
Problem is, the spirits you most want to Befuddle/Demoralise are always the
ones least likely to be affected... C'est la vie. :-(
_____
Geoff Gunner:
Excellent ideas about the spirit plane:-
>And how do you visualise the spirit plane ?
...
>think about what happens when, say, a bunny rabbit dies. Terry
>Pratchett (why does the man have so many good ideas?) I think is near the mark
>with his 'morphic resonance' - the spirit starts off with it's former shape,
>slowly loosing it over time. Thus you have a spirit plane which looks like the
>real one, but subtly distorted. Vision doesn't go too far (attenuated spirits
>blocking out the view).
I really like this idea. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.
From a game point of view you can look at it like this:
When something living dies, its spirit discorporates. ie. it loses its SIZ
but retains the rest of its attributes for while...
All its remaining stats gradually deteriorate (at different rates).
So it retains APP for a while - new spirits on the spirit plane have an
appearance but no substance (SIZ). But the APP gradually deteriorates - I don't
mean the spirit gets uglier, I mean its appearance gets less discernable.
It also has STR, DEX & CON initially, but I imagine these deteriorate
rapidly after death - in a matter of days these are reduced to nothing
(hence your knackered stats after resurrection). They're fairly useless
in the Spirit World anyway.
POW disappears more slowly (say 1 POW per month?). Spirits who win Spirit
Combat can increase POW and offset their ultimate dissolution.
What happens to these points of attribute? They dissolve into MP which are
added to the general pool of magic on the Spirit Plane. (I guess the Sorcery
spell Tap works along this principle... except the sorcerer keeps the MP.)
The pool of magic on the spirit plane is the source from which MP are
recovered (by creatures with POW) after spells are cast etc.
So what's the upshot of all this? What does the spirit plane look like?
Well, it looks a bit like the "living part" of the mundane plane, only fuzzier.
Spirits of recently dead vegetation will appear as vegetation. They'll remain
fairly static 'cos they don't have the inclination (or INT) to bother moving
around. They'll be surrounded by a haze of older vegetation (which is fading).
Spirits of recently dead animals will look like living creatures. Initially
they may even act like living animals - until they realise that they can't eat
the grass (or each other).
Each area of the mundane plane is mapped onto the Spirit World:
The spirit plane around Jungles & Forests will be teaming with spirits (mostly
non-hostile plant spirits (POW Spirits?) and animal spirits (INT Spirits?)).
Around Deserts it will be virtually devoid of spirits.
Cities, too, will be fairly thin on spirits (the life/death turnover doesn't
match the rate in the countryside). A larger proportion of city-spirits
will be intelligent (and potentially hostile). Hence Shamans don't like cities
as a starting point for discorporation.
When something dies on the mundane plane, its spirit spontaneously appears
at the corresponding point in the spirit plane. (Maybe Ghoul spirits spot
these new spirits arriving, and pop out into the mundane plane to possess
the fresh corpse which is left behind?).
(BTW I reckon plant spirits would have about 1 POW for every 5 years that
they lived - so most plants have negligible POW; big old trees might have
100 POW).
Well that's about it. What do you think?
[Apologies if the above reads as incoherant gibberish. I had to get it all down
before I lost the thought. Didn't realise ther was so much to say.]
---
CW.
---------------------
From: mstrong@cix.compulink.co.uk (Mike Strong)
Subject: HeroQuests
Message-ID:
Date: 24 Sep 93 17:17:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 1821
In-Reply-To: <9309240516.AA15320@glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM>
Thom Baguley comments:
>Maybe, anytime a Stormbull sets out to kill a chaos monster (or trap it
>under a big rock?) is also a heroquest... It seems to be a question of
>degree.
Maybe, but in my opinion a genuine HeroQuest, by its very nature, ought
to be the stuff of myth and legend. For example, most people know that
the Yelmalion HeroQuest is to pay a quick visit to the Hill of Gold -
but this is just the public side of it; the HeroQuester, wanted by the
Lunars, will be trusted with some of the ultimate cult secrets, discover
that his journey must be by way of Doraster, that the Lunars are
withdrawing their regular forces from Sartar because of an unspecified
threat from the north, that he faces a shadowy opponent who can easily
penetrate the magical defenses of a Yelmalio temple, that he is,
unwittingly, the subject of an ambiguous prophecy, that to save Prax and
Sartar from destruction he must eventually help the Lunars, and that he
must single-handedly destroy the awsome forces of evil that the Lunar
armies cannot resist - even if it means sacrificing himself and/or his
friends.
Trapping a chaos monster under a rock just don't cut it...
Mike