Bell Digest v931211p2

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
Organization: Lankhor Mhy and Associates
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Sat, 11 Dec 1993, part 2
Message-ID: 
Precedence: junk


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From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: re: RQ Daily
Message-ID: <9312101908.AA24840@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 10 Dec 93 07:08:25 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2612

Andrew Raphael says

>No, [gorp's] not an amoeba... They're described in River Of Cradles  
>as "like a bag of water without the bag".  Not even a membrane  
>holding them together...  Perhaps gorp are Chaos elementals?
"Chaos Elemental" What a great description! Thanks, Andrew.

>Is there a psychopomp for Humakti? ... Speculation: Humakt's  
>psychopomp is Eurmal.
I think Eurmal was acting more like a pander than a guide. I've  
always felt that Humakt's psychopomp was Humakt himself, perhaps in  
his guise as the Raven. 


Brandon Brylawski states: 

>a Light Son can go on the [Hill of Gold] heroquest with the  
>intention of defeating the Wind Lord and then the Death Lord and  
>otherwise changing the myth of Yelmalio for himself, but he takes a  
>grievous risk in doing so ... he no longer has any guidelines for
>what to do or what to expect. The quest becomes a "free heroquest",  
>wherein the quester may meet unexpected enemies, find unexpected  
>rewards, and get completely lost.
Exactly. 


DOOM is out! *whew* In celebration, I've decided to write a bit on  
the major land areas of the Pamaltelan savanna. First, a little note:

AGIMORI: technically, this word simply refers to the "negroid" race  
of Glorantha. Most are ordinary-sized (some are even pygmies), and  
there are plenty of highly civilized agimori (in Fonrit, frex). They  
DO descend from Lodril. The only agimori in central and eastern  
Genertela are the single tribe of Men-and-a-Half in the Wastes, so  
many folk believe all agimori to be seven-foot giants over-vulnerable  
to cold. The God Learners believed that the Men-and-a-Half represent  
the most pure form of the agimori, and that most agimori are  
descendants of bastardization with other peoples, hence their  
"degeneration" into ordinary-sized folks. It's hard to say what  
"other peoples" would have crossbred with the original agimori,  
though.

TARIEN
A dry desert-like land. Most of it is not as bad as Prax, but by  
comparison with the more fertile parts of Pamaltela, it is a  
wasteland. The life here is primitive and hard, with many dinosaurs  
and other monsters.

The further west you go, the fewer humans you meet, until at last you  
run out. If you get too far west, dreadful creatures from Hornilio  
sometimes are encountered. The slarge menace is ever-threatening.  
Over the last centuries, humanity has gradually been pushed further  
and further east in this area, as the dinosaurs and slarges press  
onward. From the south, chaos incursions from the Nargan are becoming  
more common, but so far are reputedly easily beaten off. The monsters  
might be growing in number, but not competence. 


The folk of Tarien are the least friendly of the Doraddi, but they  
are also the least advanced socially and technologically. Most live  
in family groups, rather than clans or tribes. This is no doubt  
because of the dry, coarse land they live in, and the marginal  
existence they lead. Some of them don't know about the Meeting  
Contest, and the common usage of lineages are more honored in the  
breach than the observance. The families are more male-dominated than  
among other Doraddi, though the new husband still joins his wife's  
family. Thus, even though men are more important for hunting and  
fighting, most folks value daughters more than sons (after all, a  
daughter will bring in a son some day). Marriage customs are  
generally non-Doraddi

JOLAR
This is the "classic" Doraddi land, and is a lot like the Pleistocene  
of East Africa or the American plains. Dinosaurs are still found  
here, but they are uncommon enough to be considered an interesting  
encounter, rather than a dire threat.

Along the northern part of Jolar, there is danger. Slavers from  
Fonrit, farmers and ranchers from Laskal, and elves from Mirelos all  
cause trouble from time to time. The Jolar Doraddi have learned to  
respond by banding together in large groups to fight off the  
intruders. This was first done in the ancient days against the evil  
Six-Legged Empire.

Many tribes of Doraddi live here, and their lifestyle is generally  
like that previously posted by me (around a month ago?) with the full  
array of Meeting Contests, lineages, oases people, female election of  
chieftains, etc.

Most people consider themselves Arbennan, but there are other groups,  
such as the Men-and-a-Half (relatives of the Praxian tribe, but less  
militaristic). The Arbennan Confederation is an organization of  
tribes, Jmijie vagrants, and families who all agree that the Kresh  
are a threat to the traditional Doraddi lifestyle, and must be  
destroyed, or at least rendered no longer a threat.

KOTHAR
Another "classic" Doraddi land, whose character has been altered by  
the presence of the growing Kresh "Empire". The Kresh ride in  
enormous wagons, and are permanently nomadic. Most people here are  
still ordinary Doraddi, though. 


Pretty much everyone in Kothar that lives near the Kresh has made the  
Agreement with the Kresh. Those who opposed the Kresh bounty have  
moved out. This agreement is different for every single tribe, oasis,  
or other grouping, but generally boils down to a ritual goods  
exchange in which the tribal chieftain can make certain demands from  
any Kresh wagon, and any Kresh wagon can make certain demands from  
the tribal king, but not at the same time. Hence, the agreement is  
rather altruistic for any given Kresh wagon, as they are often  
requested to give up goods to a tribe from which they are receiving  
nothing at the moment. The system works because the Kresh wagon  
master knows that some other tribe down the road will be giving up  
goods for free, having previously gotten a reward from some other  
wagon.

What pulls the wagons? Able-bodied humans! Everyone strong enough  
pulls the wagon for at least four hours a day. Most wagons support  
many people, and the bigger the wagon, the more prestige the  
wagon-master has when he encounters another Kresh master. Sometimes  
the wagons go in small groups, but single wagons are quite common.  
The individual wagons are quite enormous, a hundred feet long and  
forty wide, or even more. Some of the bigger wagons are jointed to  
enable them to move over rough(er) ground. 


The Kresh empire is extremely loosely-knit. There is no "emperor", at  
least not one known to any Doraddi. The origins of the Kresh are a  
mystery, as is the source of the wood used in their wagons. The Kresh  
claim to be as hostile to the jungle as any good Doraddi. 


ZAMOKIL: One of the last strongholds of the blues, those degenerate  
fragments of the Artmali Empire. Most of the people here in Zamokil  
are Doraddi, but there is a sizeable minority of blues. They live on  
oases or along river bottoms, and have a very complex society, mostly  
mysterious to the Doraddi. They are violent, and frequently engage in  
deadly feuds and knife-fights (the standard blue weapon is a magic  
stone knife, and every adult male has one), in which the factions and  
sides are ever-changing and completely incomprehensible to outsiders.  
However, they rarely kill outsiders. They are mostly  
horticulturalists, and to some extent survive on the bounty of the  
Doraddi, who see them as a responsibility to be shouldered. 


Zamokil is cursed by remnants of the Godtime (much as is Prax).  
Several magic roads cross it, ruined Artmali cities are here and  
there, and hideous beings from Sozganjio sometimes raid. Also, in the  
last few decades periodic onslaughts of near-mindless chaos monsters  
have been issuing from the desert. Fortunately, these chaos things  
seem relatively puny in battle. 





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From: Bruce.Baugh@f95.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Bruce Baugh)
Subject: King of Sarter/Pointers
Message-ID: <30752.2D08CAE0@puddle.fidonet.org>
Date: 10 Dec 93 19:01:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2613


Hello, all!

I'm just now getting around to reading of KING OF SARTER. I feel very very confident that it was not exactly neglected when it first came out. Does anyone have recommendations as to archive sites to look at?

(Short form reaction as of p. 60 or so: Ugh. But I'm willing to find that there are things I'm not considering.)

(Follow-up question: Will someone _please_ tell me that Jaldon Goldtooth isn't the Zelazny-esque motorcycler he appears to be?)
--  
uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!95!Bruce.Baugh
Internet: Bruce.Baugh@f95.n105.z1.fidonet.org

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From: gadbois@cs.utexas.edu (David Gadbois)
Subject: Re: Heroquesting on the Hill of Gold
Message-ID: <9312102012.AA08487@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 93 08:12:46 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2614

   From: carlsonp@wdni.com (Carlson, Pam)
   Date: 8 Dec 93 20:49:00 GMT
   X-RQ-ID: 2592

   As an old time RQ'er new to Glorantha, please excuse my ignorance,
   but this repeating your god's failures stuff confuses me.  Does the
   Yelmalian in the above example HAVE to lose?  Is he possibly
   capable of defeating the Wind Lord?  Does he simply choose to
   loose?  Is it considered bad form to win, thereby succeeding where
   one's god failed?  If he does win, may he keep his weapons and
   armor and use them against the Death Lord?

As I understand it, the heroquest at the Hill of Gold where the
quester: (1) gets armed by the Olanthi representative instead of being
disarmed; (2) beats up the Zorak Zorani (thus retaining fire instead
of losing it); and (3) does the fertility thing with Inora instead of
getting the cold shoulder; is an Elmal heroquest.

The hypothesis I had last year was that Yelmalio was created (or, at
least, linked into the Hill of Gold metamorphosized from something he
wasn't "before") by an Sartarite Elmalian hero who purposefully "lost"
the quest.  This was done in response to the Lunar invasion in order
to align themselves with the Solar elements of the the Lunar culture
perhaps so as to lessen Lunar aggressiveness.  (As you will see in
Home of the Bold, the presence of more tractable Solar types in Sartar
has allowed the Lunars to seek a diplomatic solution rather than
pursuing a scorched-earth policy as they have in the past.)

If this indeed the God-Learner explanation of the quest, then it would
do well to see what else Yelmalio (formerly an Elven diety, I think)
is doing around the Hill of Gold for some clues to what things were
like "before."

Mind you, this does not explain how the Yelmalians were around several
hundred years before Dragon Pass was a gleam in the Red Emperor's eye,
but, hey, that's Glorantha for you.

The Yelmalian quest being the way it is seems to be central to the
nature of the cult.  I am not sure if it would be even conceivable for
an Yelmalian good enough to be a hero to even try to win the quest.
This argument does not hold the other way around -- the Hill of Gold
seems fairly minor in Elmalian mythology compared to his role as the
servant of Orlanth.  So it is presumably easy (and the course of least
resistance) for an Elmalian to lose the quest, though perhaps it
required some effort to screw up so completely.

I also caught a glimpse of some Yelmic references to the Hill of Gold
in a draft of Greg's new book (I don't remember the particulars; wish
I had paid more attention to that bit), so expect for things to get
stirred up even more.

--David Gadbois

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From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Subject: Break that Sword!
Message-ID: <01H6CMMYYOO291X718@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 11 Dec 93 21:58:07 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2615


Andrew Raphael writes:

>You should kill the sword so you can take it to Hell with you.  Otherwise,
>Humakt's armourer will give your character new weapons when they arrive.

Hell yeah!  I like this rationale a lot!  Murph has now altered his will - 
break the sword boys!  Kill it good and dead!

I see a lot of dramatic possibilities here.  Humakti is set upon and killed,
by bad guys who steal his sword (its got all sorts of groovy matrixes or
some other reason why its very desirable to non-Humakti).  The Humakti's
comrades get after the bad guys so they can retrieve the sword, break it
and stick it in the grave, dead like its owner.  Otherwise their slain
pal gets a generic sword from Humakt's armourer.

Living Humakti would see it as their duty to retrieve lost swords of their
fallen comrades, so they can be properly killed. And they would hope that
their comrades would do the same for them when they die.  Unfortunately,
many such swords must be hanging as trophys over the mantlepieces of Lunar
generals, or in the treasure room of Zorak Zorani Death Lords.

Thanks Andrew, you've given me the germ of a new scenario!


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