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, Tue, 02 Nov 1993, part 2
Precedence: junk
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From: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu (Loren J. Miller)
Subject: AOL Discussion: Written Languages
Message-ID: <01H4SRC2PB6M8Y5LA2@wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: 1 Nov 93 05:50:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2169
America On-line RuneQuest Chat
June 9, 1993
Logged by Loren Miller (Ekron)
Part 3: Written Languages
WRITTEN LANGUAGES
Gray: Languages...
Some thoughts.
Written forms -
Darktongue - lumps, bumps, rough spots.
Stormspeech - Swirls, jagged runes
Pelorian - cursive script
Sartarite - runic
Dara Happan - Cuneform
Kralori - ideograms
Any thoughts?
Ekron: Is dara happa a river valley? That would control
who would use cuneiform
Gray: Dara Happa's civilization clustered around river
valleys. So it might make sense.
Ekron: Stormspeech has its own script?
Gray: In RQ2 it did...
Ekron: Sounds suspect. Why would Orlanth the lord of wind
want to write things down?
PRHarmaty: I don't feel Stormspeech should be written. The
oral tradition thing.
Gray: Why do Sartarites, an oral culture, have a written
language?
Ekron: Dara Happa sounds good. Pelorian okay. Sartarite
too. So too Kralori. I don't agree about
stormspeech.
Gray: I'm not sure myself.
Ekron: The druids forbade people to write things down. If
the orlanthi are based on celts they might have
similar rules
Gray: OK, scrap Stormspeech.
PRHarmaty: The norse had a written language, but they prized
their memories. Scalds were much admired.
Gray: Firespeech?
Gray: That has a written form.
Ekron: Stone speech would be the only one I would go for.
Gray: Brushstrokes, charcoal?
PRHarmaty: I believe that Scandinavians make better models for
Sartarites.
Gray: Earthspeech should be carving.
Gray: Paul, I agree.
Gray: Seaspeech?
PRHarmaty: Their government and politics are nearly perfect
matches.
Gray: Patterns of objects?
Ekron: Sartarite can be a script. I just don't know about
Stormspeech. Sartarite is cool by me
Koribouros: That about wraps it up for me guys, see ya.
Gray: Western - Latin?
Gray: Take care, then...
Ekron: You don't need a ton of scripts, since any script
can be used for any tongue
PRHarmaty: The reason Runes look the way they do in our world
is that its damn hard to CARVE swirls / scripts.
Ekron: Write stormspeech in sartarite if you want, just
don't show it to the wind voice.
G Bailey: what about Mostali?
Gray: Mostali - probably lots of 01010100100111s
G Bailey: "digital"?
PRHarmaty: The Mostali use printing presses. At least that's
what I vote for.
Gray: Takes them a year to read a long note
Ekron: Mostali probably write in Helvetica 11.
PRHarmaty: Disagree. Gothic, Mostali's gotta write in Gothis
sometin-or-other.
Ekron: Helvetica is a gothic font. But Gothic is cool too.
Gray: Letter Gothic. It's monospaced.
Ekron: Variable spaced fonts are octamonist heresy. So are
differently sized fonts, and italics. Every
sentence looks the same.
PRHarmaty: I mean that weird stuff the Guttenberg bible's
printed in.
Ekron: What? a mostali who would want to read that
beautiful font? The old bibles were set in what we
call German Black Letter fonts.
Gray: Scripts should probably be culturally based - ie
Pelorian, Theyelan, Dara Happan, etc.
P Michaels: Wahy about Auld Wyrmish?
Gray: Auld Wyrmish was an invented language, so probably
whatever was popular back then.
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From: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu (Loren J. Miller)
Subject: AOL Discussion: Lunars, Brithini, Delecti
Message-ID: <01H4SRBLX5KO8Y5LA2@wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: 1 Nov 93 05:50:35 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2170
America On-line RuneQuest Chat
June 9, 1993
Logged by Loren Miller (Ekron)
Part 2: Lunars and Brithini and Delecti
LUNAR ANALOGS WITH REAL WORLD PEOPLES
Ekron: What are the lunars like? Ancient greece? Persia
under the Seleucids? Rome?
Koribouros: Rome is closer, I think. Yelmalians are closer to
Greek.
PRHarmaty: I think the Lunars are more like the Greeks.
Gray: I personally like Roman/Persian for the Lunars, and
Greek/Persian for the Dara Happans.
PRHarmaty: The Yelmalians could easily ave the same Greek
model. Alexander wasn't an expansionist? Greeks
didn't own slaves? The key for me is BRONZE age
culture.
Koribouros: True, but if the Romans hadn't acquired iron...
Gray: Alexander was Macedonian, not really Greek...
Koribouros: Quibble, quibble :)
Ekron: They are still fighting over that name, Ollie.
Gray: Kori, Right...
PRHarmaty: Sound weaks to me. Napoleon was Italian.
Gray: Well, the Greeks strike me as more unitarian
religiously, which seems better suited for the Dara
Happans.
Ekron: So what do the lunars look like? Do they resemble
the Pentans, who must be Mongol lookalikes. What is
the lunar descent? Which empires spawned them?
Gray: The acceptance of other religions by the Lunars is
very Roman, as is their expansionism and practice
of slavery.
Koribouros: Of course, the Yelmalian buildings seem to have a
strong Early Middle East flavor, a la Babylonia,
etc
Gray: Lunars are Pelorians mostly, a people once native
to that region.
Ekron: What do pelorians look like? Do they look like
Orlanthi? Like Italians?
Gray: The lowland Pelorians were invaded by people from
the East (Dara Happans), then the West
(Carmanians). Pretty mixed by now, I would think...
Ekron: Orlanthi are gaulish/celtic, I think
Koribouros: The use of blue woad would imply so.
Gray: Or Scandinavian?
Ekron: Okay, if the Orlanthi are gaul/celts, the
Carmanians are who knows what, and the Lunars are
romans, then what do westerners look like?
PRHarmaty: Maybe there just isn't a clear 'best' choice for
modeling any of the Gloranthan cultures.
Koribouros: The "stereotypical" caucasian European?
Gray: Maybe American stereotype even...
Gray: Or British...
Ekron: stereotypical caucasian europeans descended from
romans, celts, and a bunch of others
Koribouros: Point taken, but I meant more along the lines of
stereotypical Feudal culture.
Gray: Well, if you look at it in terms of where the
cultures started.... We know there was once the
Kingdom of Logic to the far West, and that these
are descendants of the Brithini now.
Koribouros: Yes, but with the Closing... you'd get wierd social
developments... The kingdom of war, for example.
Talk about extremes.
THOSE NUTTY BRITHINI
Ekron: Maybe the brithini could be kind of like the
Melniboneans... The ancient precursors of
civilization who once crushed the world in their
iron grip and then lost interest
Gray: More British - Sir Ethelrist is supposed to be a
Brithini. And he comes across as very British. The
opposite extreme was the Empire of the Sun to the
East, which seemed Assyrian/Babylonian at first.
Ekron: I'm just trying to see how it all fits together, it
seems like a weird patchwork. Like you can see
through to the sources behind the world
Gray: Right - I think you'd be better off trying to
figure out who the precursors of these people were,
and possibly work from there.
Ekron: I thought the Empire of the Sun was like Imperial
Japan. I didn't see Sumer/Assyria/Babylon in it
Gray: Now part of it is...
Koribouros: Or China, rather...
Gray: Before it looks much more like Sumer
Gray: (I'm talking prehistory here).
Gray: Before Time.
Ekron: Who changed the course of the culture from
Babylonish to Tang Dynasty?
Gray: The death of Yelm had a lot to do with it.
Gray: After he died his kingdom fractured into many
subkingdoms.
Gray: The Brithini claim that all other races of humanity
are actually descended from animals that tried to
emulate the Brithini.
Ekron: The everybody is a Hsunchen theory...
Gray: That's what the Brithini claim.
Gray: They say the Kralori are just Dragon Hunchen with
pretensions...
Ekron: That's a workable method of finding cultural
patterns. Who do they claim descended from what
animals?
DRAGONEWTS AND ALDRYAMI OH MY
PRHarmaty: How about them Dragonewts? Lets get a group
together and ask them the meaning of life.
Gray: Om.
PRHarmaty: Can't quite make the Dragonewts fit into any mold.
G Bailey: we know the Dragonewts are weird. What I think is
weirder is elves.. they're plants.
MnM House: I played a Dragonewt in a game once. The mind set
needed was most entertaining.
Koribouros: Its tricky, all right.
Gray: Even the Dragonewts seem to have distinct cultures.
G Bailey: We can draw upon what we know of reptiles and all
the dragon stories, but
Koribouros: Do tell.
Gray: The Dragon Pass ones are very advanced, the Ralios
ones more primitive.
G Bailey: intelligent moving plants is something never seen
on earth.
G Bailey: (that we know of)
PRHarmaty: Aint it great.
Koribouros: Ah, but a dragonewt head on your wall gets all the
babes, say pro RuneLords.
PRHarmaty: Who would think playing an elf character would be a
good idea? In a pinch the party saute you.
Ekron: Dragonewts are like the things from Land of the
Lost. They even have pylons. Just run away from
them and don't let them hurl you through time
DELECTI THE NECROMANCER
MarkDragon: A question before I go..About Delecti, he is a
hero, but is he a Rune Lord Priest of Vivamort?
Gray: Hard to say - I've heard both from Chaosium
(Delecti)
MarkDragon: Is he Choas?
Gray: No, he is not alive and not dead.
Gray: Which is why the dragons left him alone in the
Dragonkill War.
MarkDragon: So he is not a vampire?
Gray: Vampiric, but probably not a traditional RQ
vampire.
Koribouros: ...which are troublesome enough just by
themselves...
Ekron: I thought Delecti went through bodies just like the
Pharoah. I think he's like a spirit that possesses
a series of bodies. A very powerful spirit that
doesn't have to wait for a challenge to attack
Gray: He was an old EWF bigwig that specialized in
necromancy.
PRHarmaty: Look. The guy aint dead but he aint alive either?
You need a better reason than that to bury him?
Koribouros: Good point.
Gray: His swamp (Upland Marsh) has sections of it that
are not earth and not water - just this wierd gray
stuff..
MarkDragon: But what runes beside Undead does he follow then
Gray: I think he's more a researcher than a worshipper.
He develops experimental undead. Grafts one dead
thing to another and reanimates it.
Koribouros: The new improved model U-X1 Zombie!
Ekron: Hmmm. I would still play him like a necromancer who
became a possessing spirit rather than a mad
scientist who puts bodies together
MarkDragon: Ok thanks for the info, my players will be passing
by his Swamps and I wanted to get a feel if he
cared..
Koribouros: My condolences to them...
PRHarmaty: How good can he be? This Delecti guy's gotta be
chaotic. The dead aint suppose to walk the earth.
Gray: Tell that to the Zorak Zorani.... Me smash...
MnM House: For answer to this one we have to go the source
Greg Stafford and let him have the last word
MnM House: Time presses have to go now. Bye.
Koribouros: Bye.
Gray: Ekron, I think your description of him is correct,
he just likes to experiment.
Ekron: Remember, no more "one true world". No more being
gregged. Now you can do it too
PRHarmaty: By the way... I think the Irrippi Ontor guys are
research scientist without morals.
Gray: The EWF was much into grafting...remember the
centuars .
Koribouros: Yuck...
Ekron: I thought they took the centaurs apart? Made them
from hsunchen?
PRHarmaty: I figure they're willing to try anything in order
to increase their knowledge.
Gray: I think they also put them together. The God
Learners did a lot of that sort of thing too,
particularly in Pamaltela, where entire species
were created by them.
---------------------
From: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu (Loren J. Miller)
Subject: AOL Discussion: Elf Culture, Misc
Message-ID: <01H4SRCJ42JO8Y5LA2@wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: 1 Nov 93 05:51:18 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2171
America On-line RuneQuest Chat
June 9, 1993
Logged by Loren Miller (Ekron)
Part 4: Written Aldryami, Elf Culture, Misc questions
WRITTEN ALDRYAMI AND GENERAL ELF CULTURE
P Michaels: Aldryami?
Gray: Carving in bark
Gray: That's the Saw Tooth Korvan dialect...
Ekron: I bet the aldryami have papyrus or something
similar
PRHarmaty: Carving??? Nay, never. The bark would form itself
into ridges without harming itself.
Ekron: They probably write in an ornate copperplate style
of script and everyone signs their name like John
Hancock. Elves illuminate their shopping lists with
gold leaf
PRHarmaty: Re; Knot writng... couldn't elves use weaving of
vines to transcribe their language?
P Michaels: Perhaps Aldryami is grown onto a special leaf with
various pigments?
Gray: Pigements sounds good for written Aldryami
Ekron: Elfs probably have a complex language formed from
turning leaves, etc. That way they can leave
dissertations in the woods
Gray: Might be a living written language. I can't see
them killing plants to write on them.
Ekron: Elves probably can write notes too. Maybe they
adapted somebody else's script to their own needs
G Bailey: they could use dead wood, or maybe reeds that are
about to die?
P Michaels: Not killing, but maybe pigments plus other
biochemicals.
Gray: Maybe, not sure. Need an Elfpak desperately. I'd
center it around the Pamaltelan jungle elves -
they're quite bizzare...
Ekron: You still need to describe the genertelan elves,
since most people will only encounter them
PRHarmaty: Why should they communicate in the same fashion as
other races? Why write?
Ekron: When you need to communicate with someone a long
way away, writing helps. Also writing was
originally used to keep accounting records.
Unless elves have perfect, racial memory they'd
want to write once they heard of the idea
G Bailey: What do the elves account? Except by storytelling.
Ekron: Even elves have to account for things: How many
bows are in our forest? How about the next one
over?
PRHarmaty: You seem 'hung up' on the word write. I'm just
saying that elf writing doesn't have to look like
writing to anyone else. A pile of leaves in the
forst could speak volumes to an elf.
OGF Azhrei: maybe not writing, but symbolism....
Ekron: Boy was that a confused metaphor (Paul)
Gray: I'm impressed too...
PRHarmaty: Troll books should look like Braille. elf 'books'
should look like part of the landscape.
Gray: I think the elves can communicate from forest to
forest in some magical fashion.
G Bailey: the "grapevine"
Gray: An elven testament might be a tree grown by a
'scribe'
P Michaels: I agree with the non-verbal communication. Perhaps
special pheromones or pollen carried by wind
PRHarmaty: Gray... exactly. Touching the bark could convey a
word of info to an elf.
Gray: I think that makes them a bit more interesting.
PRHarmaty: The same applies to Trolls or Dragonewts. Humans
just don't see the value in the stuff these other
races treasure. What is it we miss?
Gray: Ok, how about spoken languages. Some have heavy
nonverbal components.
Draconic (scent), Darktongue (sonar)
Those should be very difficult for humans to learn
or master.
Ekron: I think Draconic should have a psionic component
too. Maybe a Mindspeech spell could pick up on it,
just a little
Gray: Spoken Aldryami should have such a component as
well. Elfsense? Can sense emotions somehow, I
believe
P Michaels: I agree. Ever read "the secret life of plants"?
P Michaels: Since we're on elves, has anyone thought much about
their physiology?
PRHarmaty: No. It kind of makes me uneasy to think about.
P Michaels: I know about the flower/genital thing, but what
about digestion, musculature, etc...
Gray: Well, at least with trolls you have animal and
human models. Elves are much harder to make sense
of.
P Michaels: true
Ekron: Walking venus flytraps. Like something out of Ren &
Stimpy: Marooned
Gray: Digestion - they eat vegetation. How do they digest
it?
Gray: Symbiotic fungus lining their insides?
G Bailey: can they get nourishment from the sun?
Gray: No, they're not really green.
OGF Azhrei: who says they digest it.... why not ( to borrow a
BORG term) assimilate it?
P Michaels: Maybe they don't break cellular structures down.
but absorb other plant cells directly into their
bodies.
Gray: Well, even a fungus, which absorbs material, still
breaks it down first.
OGF Azhrei: hense different elf reaces for different types of
flora in the area... :)
G Bailey: doesn't the venus flytrap have fluids to digest an
insect?
Gray: Yes.
Gray: Also, if they have man form, presumably they eat in
a similar way.
G Bailey: do elves eat insects? or stricly veggies?
Gray: They are normally vegetarians strictly, but
Gray: renagades have been known to eat meat.
Gray: Fungus can do both, thus the suggestion.
P Michaels: I'd say they can eat meat, but it affects their
motabolism negatively and they still need plants
for nourishment
Gray: Right.
Ekron: It's hard to reconcile the Tolkien image with the
walking plant one
Gray: They're not even close to Tolkein elves.
G Bailey: what color is their blood? green, white?
Gray: Sap. Whitish, I guess
G Bailey: or could vary according to the species.
Ekron: Which predominates? Tolkien or plant? In other
words, could elves be perceived as variant humans
or are they walking plants? If they have the human
rune it isn't as cut and dried as we seem to be
saying. Maybe they're humans with cultural ties to
plants?
Gray: There is some variation by species - the fern elves
are pretty far from human.
G Bailey: "cut and dried" to an elf is fightin words!
P Michaels: Perhaps the human form rune means more about the
form of the mind than the form of the body.
Gray: Or both. With wood bones and sap for blood, there
will be some drastic differences. Also brown elves
hibernate for the winter.
Gray: Any general questions?
G Bailey: what color is a troll's skin?
Gray: Gray to black.
G Bailey: ah, good. I did paint my minis correctly.
P Michaels: Don't forget to proudly show off any streatch marks
on those Uz! They're marks of beauty, and signs
of the "darkness within"
Ekron: Do dwarves have stone bones and salt for blood?
Gray: Only the original mostali. Most of the ones alive
now are cheapo flesh knockoffs. I'll bet they have
a lot of calcium in their bones nonetheless
G Bailey: so they're also part of the problem of the World
Machine?
Gray: Yes, I think that's one of the ironies. Another is
that they may be fixing the machine that no longer
runs the world...
G Bailey: but then, all "good" dwarves will stop existing as
the last fix of the WM.
Gray: My favorite Mostali legend is that they were behind
the rising of the Red Moon - they now plan to cause
it to roll across the sky and fall to plug the hole
in the oceans that drains all the water out.
(Magasta's Whirlpool)
Gray: And if you buy that, I have a Kralori bridge to
sell you...
P Michaels: Gloranthan Noah time?
Ekron: I like the other one that says that when the white
moon is reformed the world will be fixed.
Presumably the blue and red moons would be combined
with the (green) unknown moon full of elves and
together they'd add up to white.
G Bailey: or would it be made when seven cheesemakers got
together?
Ekron: The seven mothers are seven cheesemakers in
wisconsin
P Michaels: Perhas the green moon was existant in the Green
Age, but was eaten by the Blue Moon.
Ekron: I think the green moon is hidden somewhere. maybe
the trolls ate it?
Gray: Good theory. Urp.
G Bailey: hehehehe..