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, 30 Nov 1993, part 2
Message-ID:
Precedence: junk
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From: eosgg@raesp-farn.mod.uk (Geoff Gunner)
Subject: Time and relative dimensions in Glorantha
Message-ID: <9311291706.AA07564@raesp-farn.mod.uk>
Date: 29 Nov 93 17:06:33 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2483
Sandy says: predictions are not fore-ordained. Hmmnn ... just lucky guesses ?
If the prediction is a genuine fore-seeing of events, then the events must come
about else it's not genuine. If it's not genuine, then it's just a guess.
So are all the bad guesses covered up ? ;-)
Anyway, I thought the point was: whazzisface found the map - a REAL item, not
a prohecy. Probably wrong about this.
As Gods-time is at right angles to temporal reality, there's a method of time
travel for you: Step into gods-time, move a short distance and come back out.
Hey presto, you've travelled in time. Of course, you can't predict how far you
go, but good old trial and error will win the day.
I don't know; the whole idea of time travel seems very suspect to me. And why
is it needed ? I can't recall any instances of primitive legends with REAL
time-travel (ie H.G. Wells stuff) - it's usually the passage of time is altered
as in the faerie hills (Rip Van Winkle). So I, for one, shall treat all
references to time travel as the ravings of a deranged worshipper of Arachne
Solara who's had one mushroom too many. And woe betide my poor players if they
treat any of the 'prophecies' as a Nice and Accurate statement of things to
come. I quite fancy having the Lunars duff Sartar, the dragon, and bring to
the world a third age of reason and enlightenment.
ps. Having just looked at Dave Cake's sorcery stuff off soda.berkeley, looks
quite tasty. Well done Dave.
Geoff. 'Down, little Drutt! That Drutt gets everywhere . "Pffsquuueee !"'
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From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: shipping; bending light
Message-ID: <9311291618.AA08339@condor>
Date: 29 Nov 93 16:18:39 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2484
___________
Nick Brooke wrote:
>Last spring, Paul Reilly mooted that the decadent mercantile Carmanian
>nobility of the West Reaches had developed insurance as an outgrowth of
>gambling
Sounds cool.
>From memory, freight by sea
>was quite astoundingly cheap in the ancient Mediterranean
Good, that's what I guessed. (The only thing against this is the relative
increase in risk from Gloranthan aquatic encounters which might bump up
the cost slightly.;-)
>If some ship-owner is charging too much for cargo, buy your own ship.
I did. It's definitely sound advice if you can afford it (especially if you
can get insurance:).
__
(About bending light rays to simulate a horizon)
>Simple: if you have a flat earth, but light bends upwards, you get exactly
>the same horizon effect as in the real world.
Hmm. To get the same effect as the real-world horizon (which, for the
sake of argument, we'll say has straight rays and a spherical surface) I feel
the path of Gloranthan light rays would have to follow a *Tangential* function
which tends to vertical as the distance between the observer & the target
approaches 1/4 earth circumference (hence you could never see further than
1/4 earth circumference in any direction no matter how high you went; and any
arbitrarily large flat plane would appear from high altitude like a sphere of
fixed diameter; ie. like the earth from space). [I think...]
If, on the other hand, the path of the rays was parabolic (which seems
more natural to me; didn't one of the grey sages compare the path of light
to the path of a arrow? ie. a parabola) then there would be some distortion
at high altitude. From the ground you probably wouldn't notice much difference,
but the higher you went the further you would see, and the range of vision
would increase *exponentially* without limit (unlike on earth, where the
range of vision eventually reaches a limit). Looking down on Glorantha
from a great height would be something like looking at your reflection in a
spoon: ie. strangely distorted at the edges.
However, if the area of Glorantha is much less than the surface area of
earth then you might not notice this peculiarity much (especially since you'd
hit the sky if you went too high). But I can't help thinking that the
appearance of tall objects (Wintertop, the block etc) would be distorted
also; wouldn't they appear as though the summit bent away from the observer
on the ground?
Of course, perhaps denizens of Glorantha would be used to such strange
perspectives and would consider this "normal".
[Writing a ray-tracing program to incorporate the functions above is left
as an exercise for the reader. I'd be interested to see the results.:-) ]
___
CW.
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From: GRAEME@SPVA.PHYSICS.IMPERIAL.AC.UK (Graeme Willoughby)
Subject: How to kill the Slimestone Gorp?
Message-ID: <9311291916.AA24422@Sun.COM>
Date: 29 Nov 93 18:23:00 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2485
Hi All,
(DORASTOR SPOILER ALERT)
I'd like to continue two recent threads by considering the Slimestone Gorp. We
have been dicussing the sizes of things and I'd like to ask if people think
that a SIZ of 10,000 is reasonable for this monster.
As a rough estimate I guess it is about 1 km x 1km in area and about 25m or so
high (I can be easily persuaded that it's about 50m high though). This gives a
volume of 25 million cubic metre. A size 15 human is (very roughly) 2m high x
0.5m wide x 0.25m giving a volume of .25 cubic metre. This means that the Gorp
is 100 million times more voluminous than a human (now you see why I chose
these particular figures). If, as was discussed here recently, a SIZ increase
of 10 points (or so) means a doubling of volume, then a bit of maths
[2^((SIZ-15)/10)) = 100 million] gives a SIZ of something in the region of 275,
which can round up to 300 in case my initial assumptions were a bit off.
Now 300 is quite small compared to the 10,000 originally given, and it makes
the monster much more vulnerable, as it will have something like 1/10th the hit
points listed. Whilst still formidable it will only need 50 or so hits with
Fire Arrow to vanquish it. This is not an impossible number - it shouldn't be
too difficult to find 10 or 15 people who have fire arrow, the hard part would
be to get them to go with you to slay the beast (but see below). I don't like
this consequence - I'd like to keep the enormous number of hit points for the
thing.
What do it's other characteristics mean? It has CON and magic points
in the many hundreds. I feel that with such a huge CON it would heal itself
very quickly - at least one point per 10 mins, probably one point per minute,
and I'm toying with one point per melee round - ideas please. With such
enormous magic points it would be immune to most magic and spirit attacks.
Why am I bothering with all this? Well, I'm thinking about a scenario where
the Slimestone Gorp make one of its (thankfully rare) journeys away from
Slimstone. It makes its slow, almost majestic, way around Dorastor. The entire
country is in panic - the gorp leaves a kilometre wide trail of devestation
behind it. As it passes over particularly rough terain or, in battles with
animals too stupid or too immobile to get away, it leaves "small" bits of
itself in it wake - SIZ 10 or so gorp of all varieties. It
replaces material lost in this way with things it's engulfed so it doesn't
loose SIZ or hit points.
It doesn't pose much of a threat to things that can move out of its way but
for fixed things (Hazard Fort, Poisonthorn Woods, Frog River settlements,
wherever) it can be a disaster. To combat this menace to all, unprecidented
alliances are tentatively being formed, (any combination of Ralzakark,
Poisonthorn Elves, Hellwood Elves, Renekoti, Mad Dog Templars, Platewalker,
Lunars, you name it the've been considered). Temporary cessation of
hostilities on all sides until the emeregency is over &c.
One particlarly enthusiatic Storm Khan, tired of the talk when there's action
to be taken, manages to cajole, bully or otherwise gain 15 points of shield
from himself and other Priests (mindlink helps here), gets his protection 10
from his spirit (hide of the bull? can't quite remember) so has 40 (!) points
of magical protection over his armour (probably another 12 or so). He then has
flame blade cast on two swords and Beserk on himself. Thus armed and armoured
enough to defeat a small army he launches himself against this Chaos horror.
Everyone, apart from a few doubters, feels that even if he doesn't detroy it
he'll give it something to think about. A few Lightning bolts are cast by the
Orlanthi at the beastie as a sort of encouragement, a Humakt lanches the fury
of her god at it, but the Sever Spirit does only 4 points of damage.
Within twenty seconds he has to DI out of there (SFX as appropriate).
Stunned, the locals stare into what may be thier doom. The gorp, not having
noticed the damage, moves sedately on its way (wherever that leads) ....
So continuing the thread about slaying "unslayable" beasties such as the Bat,
can people give me some good ideas on how to turn this into an ex-gorp? Or at
least do enough damage to drive it off? (I'd guess about 1/10 of it's hit
points in damage will make it pause).
It regenerates quite quickly (high CON) so that to kill it all
damage will have to be done in one short space of time.
I have several ideas already, gratuitous use of salamanders seemed reasonable,
as did draining its magic points enough for Sever Spirit to be useful (with a
tame vampire or a *huge* spirit). Fire arrows are quite good but you'd
need *many* of them.
Your ideas plase!
Graeme
(SPOILER FINISHES)
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From: fmoll@cix.compulink.co.uk (Frederic Moll)
Subject: Monkey Ruins
Message-ID:
Date: 29 Nov 93 19:35:36 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2486
One of my player has spot this name on the Prax map and want to know
more about it ? What infos are available about it ? Is it a good
place for baboons PC ?
Frederic (trying to give hard times to 2 baboons
brothers...)
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From: okamoto@hpcc90.corp.hp.com (Jeff Okamoto)
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 29 Nov 1993, part 1
Message-ID: <9311292229.AA25523@hpcc90.corp.hp.com>
Date: 29 Nov 93 22:29:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2487
> From: sullivam@mlc.lib.mi.us (Mark Sullivan -- Michigan Library Consortium)
> Subject: Wintertop, military org., PharAOh, etc.
> >>"1616 Mysterious death and disappearance of Pharoah;"
> OK. The Pharoah disappeared. Then where is the Pharaoh?
In one of Greg's old, old manuscripts, the Pharaoh disappears *twice*.
Once in 1614, reappearing in 1615, and then the second time in 1616.
At the time of his first disappearance, Greg believed the Pharaoh may
have botched a HeroQuest and "slipped forward" one year in Time.
I don't recall him ever saying anything about the second disappearance.
Jeff
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From: graeme.lindsell@anu.edu.au (Graeme A Lindsell)
Subject: Under the Ban
Message-ID: <9311300444.AA01719@cscgpo.anu.edu.au>
Date: 30 Nov 93 20:42:48 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2488
Sandy Petersen writes:
>Not an unreasonable speculation. This doesn't necessarily
>eliminate the possibility that the Closing might have sunk all of
>Fronela beneath the ocean without the Ban.
Are you certain that it was the Closing itself that was to destroy
Fronela? The Closing reached the coast of Loskalm in 925; Snodal
and co. instituted the Ban in 1499. I know that Zzabur was meant to
be "ever patient and powerful", but a near 600 year delay seems
a bit tardy. I've always thought that Zzabur was planning a separate
curse to destroy Fronela.
On a slightly related note, is Brithos under the Ban? The description
of what Dormal found when he searched for Brithos (mists and monsters)
sounds similar to what explorers of the Ban experienced.
I wrote:
>> - Though some people say predictive magic is impossible in Glorantha
>>due to the effects of Time, obviously the Gods and Heroes who are
>>outside Time can see the future with ease.
which isn't what I should have said: I don't think they can see
the future with _ease_. I agree with what Colin Watson said: that
the gods outside of time can't really tell when their information
is coming from. I suspect their understanding of worshippers
as individuals is a bit vague too.
What heroes can do is encounter heroquesters from the future or past
(as Ethilrist did in hell, I believe) and communicate with them. One
could argue (I suspect the God Learners did) that most heroquesting
is time travel to the past, in that the quester encounters the enviroment
of his/her god when the god was young.
>There's lots of predictive stuff in Glorantha -- the
>prophecies of the Hero Wars, for instance. The important thing is
>that these prophecies are not foreordained.
I agree. A few months ago someone (I think Paul Reilly) likened
Glorantha and the Hero Plane to a fibre bundle, with the mundane
plane being a slice through that bundle. There are a whole lot
of potential realities in that bundle - whilst there is only one
mundane plane on Glorantha there are many posibilities and many
futures on the Hero Plane.
>Big Gloranthan Secret To Be Kept From Your Players: Time-Travel is
>possible in Glorantha, but only one-way -- to the past. You can't go
>back to the future again. At least, that's my opinion.
Snodal travelled to the future: when he returned from lands of
the Altinae, only 5 years had passed for him, but 40 had for the
rest of Glorantha. This kind of time dilation can be considered
time travel, and seems common in some myth cycles.
I believe that you can go in both directions, but not predictably:
the effects you have when reaching your destination could change
the past and/or future you came from. (You can effect the past
in Glorantha: Minarian memory removals for instance.)
Graeme Lindsell a.k.a Graeme.Lindsell@anu.edu.au
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From: WALLMAN@VAX2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (Personal friend of Little Elvis)
Subject: to those playing in seshnela
Message-ID: <01H5WO8X52HU00117R@VAX2.Winona.MSUS.EDU>
Date: 29 Nov 93 19:34:25 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2489
Here is a proposition to anyone playing somewhere in the vicinity of
Seshnela, specifically Pithdaros. Disclaimer: I know nothing about
official Pithdaros other than what I say here.
OFFICIAL: According to the Genertela Book (p. 83) the land of Pithdaros is
inhabited by dark skinned people from Pameltela that arrive in 719 whose
descendents now wait for the day they will fight Gbaji.
PROPOSITION: Since Glorantha sometimes seems to bend over backwards trying
to fit in cultures with earthly equivalents, I propose the culture of
Pithdaros be similar to one of my favorite earthly cultures, the Rastarians
of the Caribbean. To me, it fits too well. They are strangers in a strange
land, they await an event of mythological proportions, and they have adapted
the surrounding culture to their own. Throw in some dread locks, metal drums,
slight alterations in Invisible God worship, and we be jammin, mon.
Jah Love,
Ed Wallman@vax2.winona.msus.edu
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