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 --------------------- 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 noteEkron: 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. --------------------- 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..