From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer) To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest) Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 25 Oct 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 RuneQuest-Digest-Editor@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM. Send enquiries and Subscription Requests to the editor: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Henk Langeveld) --------------------- From: JLROGERS@utkvx.utk.edu (Jim Rogers) Subject: Pantheons & Producers Message-ID: <01H4GM66PXZM8Y8MKV@utkvx.utk.edu> Date: 23 Oct 93 14:39:04 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2091 Gang, Just a few quick reactions. X-RQ-ID:2075 Loren Miller on Pantheons v. Monotheism. Cheers for Loren! Right on the nose!! I'm going to institute the pantheonic view of Gloranthan worship immediately, and begin proselytizing immediately. St. Jim, at your service. N.B. I also think that there doesn't have to be one [GL] master set of pantheons, to be stamped on Glorantha for all. In fact, pantheons might change from place to place. I.E., Urox might fit into the Orlanth pantheon for Dragon Pass, but why in Ralios, necessarily? Or Pamaltela? Perhaps his place might be decided on the views on the importance (or knowlege) of his victory over Wakboth in various parts of Glorantha. Create all sorts of interesting things for player adventurers to experience, no? BTW, did everyone else notice that most of the cults _already_ had notions of this in place via subcults and friendly / associate cults? X-RQ-ID:2078 Sandy Petersen on Humakti v. population data. Sandy, while I generally agreed with your answer, I almost choked on your statement "All city-dwellers are effectively non-producers. . . The Orlanthi of Sartar are not a subsistence economy." What are you, some kind of primitive agrarian socialist! :-)= I must assume that (1) you really didn't mean that; (2) you meant, that they didn't produce agricultural products (where do you think most of the non-agricultural products come from, eh?); (3) The Sartari economy must be producing a surplus, to afford cities and "non-productive" population of any sort. I'm going to avoid, somehow, a lecture on civilization and economies. I am going to chalk it up to temporary insanity, which occasionally happens to even the heroes of RQ like you (everything G.S. says is wrong, indeed!). No XREF MOB on his great victory over the dirty-word pols and bureaucrats. Tip up a last one for all of us struggling for education vs. the creeping tide of bureaucratic control and political skullduggery. Talk about non-farmers producing something of value - an educated populace! Now, get back to work on the Pamaltela issue! :-)= Pax, Jim R. --------------------- From: 100116.2616@CompuServe.COM (David Hall) Subject: Humakt & Indrodar Message-ID: <931023112019_100116.2616_BHJ32-1@CompuServe.COM> Date: 23 Oct 93 11:20:20 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2092 Howdy, Here's my tuppence worth on the Humakti in Sartar debate - one close to my heart. I really like Geoff Gunner's idea of a Humakti cutting off him or herself from their kin as part of initiation into Humakt. This is what happens in my campaign when someone joins the Temple of Indrodar (a local Lismelder sub-cult of Humakt). When Corwen (from Tales #6) joined up we had a full clan funeral for him - everybody was there mourning his death. The funeral pyre could be seen for miles around. Though I did feel sorry for his widow and kids. This symbolic death and cutting of from kin is vital for a worshipper of Indrodar. It allows them to make a complete break and join their new family of Swordbrothers at the temple. They also have the liberating knowledge that they are already dead. Humakt is such a single-minded deity that I can't see them fitting seamlessly into the farming and herding culture of the Orlanthi. Surely their initiation must lead them to cut themselves off from kin, farming and herding (life), to concentrate on weapons and warfare (Death). Though this new emphasis is in the service of the culture, usually. Where do Humakti worship? Humakti in the household and bloodline: I don't believe that Humakti can function at this level. This is the level of the farmer, herder, and craftsmen and women. The basic family group. Humakti in the clan: I can see Humakti operating here, as specialised warriors/protectors. Probably, in some clans the Clan Chieftain's Housecarls are a Humakt temple. The only way to become a housecarl in this sort of clan would be to cut yourself off from your household and devote yourself to your clan and death (i.e. get initiated into Humakt). It's likely that these housecarls would worship a specific Hero cult with spells suited to the local clan needs. In such a clan Humakt (or the Hero) would have a very important role in the clan's religious life. However, not all clans would operate like this, some might have exclusively Storm Bull Housecarls instead. Or housecarls might join a specialised sub-cult of Orlanth called Orlanth Deathdealer (maybe with spells similar to Humakt). In these clans Humakt would have a lesser role to play, and he might only be appeased and not actively worshipped. Humakti in the tribe: This is also a place where Humakti can operate. In the Lismelder tribe people who wish to join Indrodar cut themselves off from household and clan and devote themselves to their temple and the tribe. The temple here also has a strong ecological reason to exist - the proximity of Delecti's Marsh and the hordes of undead. Ecological reasons for a deity's worship are very important in Glorantha. Humakti in the cities: I have to say that there can't be many. I believe that the cities of Sartar do not have a permanent city guard, just a part-time militia officered by a few full-timers. The main defense of Sartar's cities are the tribal confederations that surround them. As an aside, I really have problems with the idea that every city in RQ has a temple to Orlanth, Humakti, Storm Bull, Chalana Arroy, Zorak Zoran, Lhankor Mhy, Donander, etc, etc. There has to be a strong reason for each temple, and its size. In a peaceful Sartar city (built on craft guilds and trading) there isn't much call for a temple of the God of War and Death - maybe no call at all. Or the sort of temple in a city might be a small affair with a decrepit old Sword and a couple of full-time militia commanders. In peacetime people would go to the temple to appease Death, not worship it! In wartime you would find more people joining, but not many. In this situation I really like Loren Miller's idea of asking for blessings from the god. City-dwellers who didn't want to join Humakt, but needed his aid in a war, could worship as lay members and sacrifice for one-use spells. This is how the Indrodar temple works in Lismelder lands - on Humakt's High Holy Day (Indrodar's Deathday) anyone in the tribe can sacrifice for Indrodari spells - though only 1 point ones. This doesn't mean that they only worship him on that day - all tribesmen and women worship him every Orlanthi holy day - or at least think of him, or appease him. This is something that the clunky mechanics of RQ can't cope with. I say that Indrodar's Temple is a large Humakti temple. But RQ says that because there are only some 50 - 80 Swordbrothers it's not even a minor one. This is tosh. It means that for some deities, i.e. Minlister, Heler, Donander, Issaries & Indrodar, you will never get enough worshippers together (1,500 - which is three Sartari clans, or one small city) to have access all the gods magics. The only way around this is to count worshippers per pantheon of deities, and not per god. So, in Lismelder lands Indrodar is, by definition, worshipped by everyone who worships the Orlanth pantheon. The tribe is 4,000 strong which give me a Great Temple - if I want to define it as being that big. Worship, as Loren Miller points out, has to be based around broad pantheons - not the chinese menu monotheistic approach that Cults of Prax (and all the cult-write ups) tend to suggest (and as Sandy Petersen pointed out in his Tales interview). But I digress! Humakti in Sartar: The best example of this would be The Household of Death. They cut themsleves off from household, clan and tribe to serve the Royal House of Sartar. I also don't believe that the Princes of Sartar ever had standing armies - it's too civilised a view of Sartar for my tastes. The only groups approaching a standing army would have been the Prince's own royal bodyguard, and the Household of Death. I reckon no more than 1,000 at its peak in 1602. Humakti outside of this: Mercenaries. These are Humaki who must have cut themselves off from household, clan, tribe, and probably country. As such, they are surely the rarest type of Humakti found since they have no cultural link. Only found in war zones, where there are rich patrons. Individuals. Even rarer still, probably travelling on pilgrimage or heroquests from a home base. I don't think you can have lone Humakti operating outside of a temple structure - there has to be a reason for being temporarily away from your temple. How many Humakti? I tend to agree with Geoff Gunner on the percentage of Humakti in Sartar, though I would put it at 1 - 2%. I think this is because it is a specialised religion requiring great devotion and personal sacrifice Storm Bulls. I'm not so sure about Storm Bullys. I used to see them in a similar way to Humakti. They were portrayed as specialised Chaos killers in Cults of Prax. Since only fools go off to seek out chaos there probably wouldn't be a flood of people volunteering for it! And it might be hard to be a go-getter chaos-killer in a household/clan environment. However, the emphasis on Storm Bulls in Sartar seems to be away from chaos-killing and toward the drunken berserkers of Viking Saga's. In this case Storm Bulls would be far easier to fit within a clan and tribal structure. The religious emphasis would be on killing clan enemies (and chaos) when it came to them - not the Praxian (River of Cradles) emphasis on actively seeking out Chaos wherever it is (which effectively means having to leave the clan and tribe). I do like the idea of Storm Bull being different in Sartar as compared to Prax (it has to be as the two places are so different), and taking away all or some of the need to kill chaos is a great way of doing it. Should the Sartar Storm Bulls have the skill of Sense Chaos at all? Or the spell Impede Chaos? Probably not, these would be replaced with local spells for local needs! Though I'd keep Face Chaos because we are still talking about the Storm Bull. Heresy, or what? Cheers, David Hall --------------------- From: rowe@soda.berkeley.edu (Eric Rowe) Subject: Sisters of Inspiration Message-ID: <9310240908.AA11361@soda.berkeley.edu> Date: 23 Oct 93 19:08:55 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2093 In Apple Lane the character Pramble is a dual initiate of Ernalda and of the Sisters of Inspiration. Any one have any more information on this organization/cult? eric --------------------- From: henkl@yelm (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland) Subject: Re: RQ Daily Message-ID: <9310241606.AA25047@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM> Date: 24 Oct 93 18:06:12 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2094 Sandy writes: >Is it just me, or have the RQ bulletins gotten significantly smaller >over the last week? Well, most issues this week were just one or two parts long, while a couple of three part issues in a week is normal. One explanation would be that we haven't seen Nick Brooke or Paul Reilly much this week. They probably have mundane obligations to fulfill... But we don't depend on them to keep the Daily busy, or do we? Some time back we saw some dicsussion on RuneQuest lite. Now what do you all think would be the smallest possible set of rules capturing the spirit of RuneQuest? Would a Two Page RuneQuest be possible? -- Henk | Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun. | My first law of computing: "NEVER make assumptions" --------------------- From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham , via RadioMail) Subject: Detection Range Message-ID: <199310241951.AA15317@radiomail.net> Date: 24 Oct 93 19:51:54 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2095 What do people think about the range of spirit magic detection spells? In the one hand, it makes sense that Detect Enemies have a 55 metre (average POW*5) range -- it can be used to determine if the people you're talking to mean harm. On the other hand, I gave out a Detect Antelope matrix, which I thought would be a cool item for a hunter. It turned into a laughingstock in my campaign, because if you're that close to an antelope in Prax, you can probably see it. (Yes, I suppose it could be lying down in the grass, but how often do antelopes do that? And you still have to practically walk into it.) David Dunham * Software Designer * Pensee Corporation Voice/Fax: 206-783-7404 * AppleLink: DDUNHAM * Internet: ddunham@radiomail.net --------------------- From: timp@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Tim Posney) Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 22 Oct 1993, part 1 Message-ID: <199310242346.AA10283@extra.ucc.su.OZ.AU> Date: 25 Oct 93 19:46:12 GMT X-RQ-ID: 2096 >>From: timp@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Tim Posney) >>Subject: how to use the tar file that occurred in the digest today > >You left out step 0: have a Unix system (luckily, this is a mailing list, >so not all of us have to :-) Acutally whilst I use a unix box to read mail I did all the processing using a dos box. (I'm a sucker for punishment, but I do pay by the hour for access) There are good copies of most of the utitlities you need available for public use. If there is enough interest I'll post them to soda.., but they are all ftpable from simtel etc. I think there will be more cases where people want to send non-ascii stuff and uuencode is the best way to do it. regards tim