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From: RuneQuest-Request@glorantha.holland.sun.com (RQ Digest Maintainer)
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Organization: Lankhor Mhy and Associates
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Reply-To: RuneQuest@glorantha.holland.sun.com (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Tue, 04 Jan 1994, part 1
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Resent-To: appel@soda.berkeley.edu
Resent-Date: Thu, 06 Jan 1994 02:49:14 -0800
Resent-From: Shannon Appel
X-RQ-ID: Intro
This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's
world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest
format.
More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found
after the last message in this digest.
---------------------
From: Paul.Baker@mettav.royle.org
Subject: From: Tom Zunder [commentary + bbs plug] (fwd by HL)
Message-ID:
Date: 2 Jan 94 17:21:24 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2719
This mail was forwarded by my wonderful sysop from the wonderful Tavern BBS!
Tom Zunder here. I've been moving all around the UK, changing jobs, moving
kids schools, buying houses, selling houses, living in rented houses, and NOT
been playing RuneQuest!
I've been disconnected from all newsgroups, echoes, mailing lists, etc,
BUT I've still accumulated this one. I shall indulge myself in a little
random commentary.
Sandy said much on Pamaltela;
Love the Pamaltela stuff, like to hear Praxian stuff. I liked the
marriage patterns. I guess a book on mythic Africa would come in handy
here?
*************************************
Nick sez;
>I'm still a closet believer in rolling 1D10 for DI for almost anyone who's
>in God's good books, including all Rune Priests and Lords..... etc.
I feel that a good DI alternative would be the ELAN system that was in
Stormbringer but got dropped in Elric!.
One has a DI % which goes up by 1% per annum for an initiate, 10% per
annum for a RuneLord, and possibly 1-10% for acolytes/priests/favored
initiates. On a successful DI you lose a % off your DI % equal to the
die roll.
If you wanted to avoid mechanics you can say that all cult members get
1% per annum, but that other cultists can % for doing cultic acts. So a
Yelmalio might get a few% for a quest against Zorak Zoran, a Thanatari
might get a few% for garrotting a Lhankor Mhy.
Priests would obviously get % for pastoral duties, RuneLords for
military service.
It's a bit experience point like, but it could be a good mechanism for
encouraging culturally accurate role-playing amongst some players.
****************
Mr Petersen (Sir) sed;
>I feel that Glorantha is probably the most accepting of females of any
>roleplaying world made. Look at the various pantheons and arrays in
>GoG.
I agree with you, but was surprised at how little you played up the
possibilities for female roles. The Earth pantheon seems female and
dominant in many places, Esrolia and Tarsh foe example. The Lunar
religion allows a vast array of roles for women. Orlanthi culture is so
Californian as to be a caricature, and the only problem that I could
have with some of Glorantha is that it can lack rigidly patriarchies.
Of course with Yelm, and a medieval Christian analog for Malkioni, that
can no longer be a problem!
I like to think of many Gloranthan cultures in transition from
matriarchies to patriarchies. Although I fight shy from the final
analysis, since I think that we cannot presume that Glorantha is Earth.
After all, what would an Esrolian, Tarsh, Troll, Lunar alliance do to
the patriarchial world of Darra Happa and Sartar?
************************
Colin Watson wonders:
>I wonder what a God tied to both the Law *and* Chaos runes would be
>like?
Sandy replies:
>Hmm. How about Ompalam? Technically, he's not chaotic, but neither is
>Malia. Or how about Urrquong, guardian of the gate of Chaos?
I think Ompalam is not only not chaotic but strikes me as potentially
very lawfu l. I think he is incorrectly classified, unless his slavery
is based on deception. I cannot see an overt reason to make him
chaotic. Again, unless his cult is actually evil or corrupting, it
could be regarded as a decent and upright institution.
I would like to know more of Ompalam.
**************************
Chaos and Cthulhu
As a seperate note, I'd like to ask Sandy how much of Cthulhu or the
Dreamlands has crept into his RuneQuest Glorantha gaming? Obviously CoC
stuff makes good chaos things, as it does in Stormbringer/Elric! but
what other cross fertilisation has gone on in your games.
Game style for example. Do you run CoC style games but in Glorantha?
""The Lhankor Mhy sage Drusilla Unknowable Horror Hunter was today
found impaled on a chaotic spear of coral in the Tarsh Square of
Nochet. Eldritch runes and a strange smell of sulphur were dismissed as
inconsequential by the Babeestor Gor Mistress of the Maran Gor Quarter
Militia.
"This was obviously a fishing accident.." she stated.""
************************
Sandy sez (is this like Simon says?);
"The game rule reason for it is that not only is it tough to become a
Rune Lord, but once you're one, you generally get crappier magic than
priests or acolytes. The DI makes up for this. I always play with this
rule. It's also a way to distinguish between important cults and weeny
cults (like Krarsht)."
I noticed and liked the way that cultic power varies, that one can join
an odd cult and it may be weaker. It reflects the power of the cosmos,
not game balance (spit!).
*************************
Nick sez of the Malkioni remnants in Nochet;
"I use them like the early Christians in Rome ('round about Nero's
time): good for rioting against or persecuting, and with oodles of
secret converts and recognition-signs."
I used my version of Third Eye Blue similarly and also had a emigre
community of Esrolian patriarchalists exiled to Sun County. They were
accepted as fellow followers of male power, but were then persecuted to
hell by the Yelmalions.
****************************
"All this Pharoah/Pharaoh thing is silly. I really wish all concerned
would get a spell checker. There is no excuse for the continued
misspellings. "
Pharoah? Oh yer mean the Faroe? Him an the Oanly Ole Un? I dunno, what
with him and Earnelda priestesses and the Marron Gor lot, a furmer
likes mee ain't gott too much tyme fer speling. Nat to tok of mee od
axxent...
There is a good reason for mispellings and that is to recreate the feel
of a world with no rules on spelling, no spell checkers and widely
divergent languages and accents. We need more Gloranthan source
material which is actually mispelt and wrong. I say, more multiple
spellings and confusion please!
*****************************
Medway sed of Vinga;
"That got shot down when I mentioned the possibility of a connection a
while back. Apparently the view was that she was an Adventurer, not an
Avenger, though I believe Nick suggested that the cult may have
originated in a defend-the-homestead form, rather than adventuring
form."
I think KoS implies an Avenger role for Vinga. Widows dying their hair
et al.
****************************
Sandy sez;
"re: Yelmalio troublesome geases The main Darkness cult in the Lunar
Empire is the Blue Moon, which Yelmalio cultists holding the
appropriate geas would no doubt cause trouble with."
But Yelmalio is fortunately a southern Pelorian cult on the fringe of
the Empire in which its members tend to keep themselves to themselves
or hire as mercenaries. The Blue Moon trolls are at the top North West,
and are a secretive troll society that keeps itself to itself. No real
problem I would have said.
Any Lunar would make sure they kept them apart. Also if we acept that
cults are different in different places, Lunar yelmalio cults may view
the Blue Moon as a Light cult? (Blue Light) Or Yelmalions in the Empire
may tend to not receive that geas?
As I've suggested, hardly a problem.
*************************
Nick sez;
"no evidence that "the Lunar formation is LESS flexible compared to the
Dara Happan or Sun Domer formations", "
I'm not a DP player so I don't use that as my benchmark but I have no
problem with a Lunar tactical flaw caused by mythical logic which
causes a military probem. The Sun Domers may well be more flexible
troops, that's why they have a good reputation as mercenaries. Since
cultures traditionally do many things for illogical reasons, let's go
with 7x7 for Lunar units. 10 for older Darra Happan units, 8 for
Yelmalio. The Yelmalio forces may be (as a military society) have a
much more tactical than mythical view of this.
**********************************
Womyn
I like this spelling a lot for a fantasy world. I also think a Female
TOTRM would be fun, Londra of Londros where are you? I think we should
institute more female characters in RQ products. Vega was a bit odd in
Sun County, but valiant. What we need are appropriate female heroes.
And, let us not forget, Glorantha is where Griselda lives!
**********************************
Having just sat and read oodles of Daily I realise how much we try to
rationalise and understand Glorantha, to relate it to Earth archetypes
and images. This isn't wrong but it is flawed. Glorantha is a mythic
world and in mythic worlds things behave very oddly. Light bends,
mountains are both huge and small, one can jump from a mountain to a
moon which is also the floor of a crater in another land. A planet can
fly across the moon, but it might be a dragon, and the dragon may have
risen from beyond the horizon or been a range of hills. The Block may
be huge and seen for miles, or it may be said to be so. Glorantha isn't
rational and as such we can have fun trying to understand it, but as
such we are just God Learners struggling to eventual disappointment.
With such happy and fun thoughts I leave you to ponder on rewriting all
those odd Orlanthi cults that exist in the Empire into their Pelorian
forms and to ponder on the 101 names that those gods/archetypes must be
known by. After all is Orlantius Orlanth, or do we just think he might
be?
*********************************************WONDERFUL NEWS!*********
If you are a modem using UK based role-player then you'll be delighted
to hear that the Tavern BBS on 081 445 6514 is now holding a rpg file
section, as well as receiving the NeST role-playing echo and intending
to get FANTASY.281, a well known FIDO echo with rpg. In addition the
Tavern carries REC.GAMES.FRP.MISC as a freely available message base.
The Tavern offers Internet access for fido style points for #5.00 a quarter.
I persuaded Paul Baker, the sysop of Tavern, to clear out his system
and add an rpg area. Could all of you with rpg files, programs or text,
help me by ringing up and uploading to the system.
For those of us who are dialup in the UK this could be an excellent
storage site for rpg material which normally is only Internet available
or from the US.
Tom
**************************************
Bye!
---------------------
From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
Subject: re: RQ Daily
Message-ID: <9401031750.AA05151@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: 3 Jan 94 05:51:21 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2720
Pam Carlson notes:
>Why would only chaotic or evil deities accept human sacrifice? Some
>native Meso-Americans practiced it, and I've never heard them
>described as "evil".
I have. It's hard to defend human sacrifice as practiced by the
Aztecs. They were engaged in a gradually-accelerating cycle of ever
more sacrifice, ever more "flower wars" to obtain sacrifices, etc. If
the Spanish hadn't come, the Aztec theocracy would probably have
self-destructed anyway, I feel. (This is not to be construed as a
defense of the Spanish occupation of Meso-American, which I believe
to be an atrocity even beyond the Aztec dominion.) Many of the plains
indians practiced human sacrifice to the Morning Star, and even used
the dime novel tradition of primarily killing young maidens (captured
from enemies). Most native americans practiced gruesome torture in
one manner or another. Of course, so did the Europeans. And Chinese.
In fact, the first nation to officially denounce judicial torture was
the U.S.A., as nearly as I can make out, though a number of European
states had pretty much abandoned it by the latter part of the 18th
century.
This is a bit off the point, of course. Back to Glorantha.
I'm sure that a number of deities (not considered "evil") have
special sacrifice rituals, but I also believe that these rituals are
regarded by many of their followers as a sort of "dark" side. Look at
the Earth cults. Maran Gor probably hosts a human sacrifice every
holy day, but she's not "evil". I suspect that such sacrifices are
rare for Ernalda, not because the earth doesn't demand sacrifice, but
because Maran Gor is the officiator at them. At Earth high holy days,
I expect all six major earth deities are present and all participate
in everyone's rituals. Except maybe the Voria priestesses get locked
in the closet or something during the bloodiest parts of Babeester
Gor's rites.
>One thing I've always admired about RQ is it's "greyness".
Strenuously agree with this one. I'm currently writing a short
scenario for TSR (at their request), and I find it appallingly
difficult to assign alignments to the characters. Is the obsessed
madman who maintains a facade of loyalty to his cruel master Lawful
Evil? Or what?
>Morokanth use humans as food animals.
I've read articles by Morokanth-sympathizers who claim that the
Morokanth only eat "herd men" and regard it as murder to eat a "real
man". IMO, any aversion the Morokanth might have towards eating
humans is minimal. It's obvious that the only difference between a
herd man and a "real man" is a Rune spell: why waste the spell?
>Probably the only person in the Western World who watched "Star
>Wars" and wondered about the billions of reasonably happy people who
>must be living in the Empire
Now, Pam. The same holds true for life under the Ming Dynasty, the
Nazi occupation, and Emperor Caligula. Almost any structured society
permits the existence of a fairly normal life within its confines,
unless it is so destructive that it self-destructs (like the Tai-Peng
rebels, Timur-i-leng, or the late-period Aztecs).
Jeff Okamoto writes:
>By itself, Illumination is not "evil".
I'd like to hereby denounce Jeff Okamoto in front of the entire RQ
Daily. He's clearly Illuminated himself, and thus is no proper judge
of whether it is a good or bad influence. I can only point out that I
know for a fact that in playing RQ, he frequently, without coercion
of any kind, runs sorcerers.
YARA ARANIS:
There's been a lot of discussion on how Yara Aranis is effective
against the horse nomads. Paul Honigmann suggests that horses are a
necessary element of strategy against the Pent nomads. John Medway
suggests that they ride Sables, or use some other mobility magic.
I have no idea what they do, but I'm as willing to speculate as
anyone. I'd like to suggest that historically the best defense
against cavalry was highly-trained infantry, ideally heavily armed
with pikes. There has been some discussion in the RQ Daily about just
how the Lunar troops are armed. What if the Yara Aranis troops are
the guys that have lengthy pikes in columns or phalanxes, and the
other Dara Happan troops are more along the classic greek model --
shorter spears, held overhand.
Another possibility is that Yara Aranis teaches the Lunars how to
build palisades and effective forts in Pent. It's unlikely that the
Pent nomads have very effective siege techniques, aside from trying
to burn down wooden walls or attacking with shaman spirits. If Yara
Aranis is able to provide protection against at least the more
"horsey" spirits the nomads can send, and has spells to break up the
nomad horse advantage, this might be enough for her to be an
effective war goddess.
I bet she teaches the infantry to carry crossbows. They'll be plenty
good against the typical horse-archar tactic of riding up, firing one
volley, then galloping off -- you'll be able to reload your crossbows
in between attacks. Of course, the special Pent bow magic, like
Pureshot (Golden Bow), Sureshot (Golden Bow and Hunter), Firearrow,
etc. may make their arrows as effective as your puny medium
crossbows, but what the heck.
>> the cult has been very successful against the Pentans, so it must
>> have some key advantage(s). I imagine the main one is metal
>> armour.
I don't see any reason the Pentans can't have metal armor. The
Mongols, Hsiung-nu, and Uighurs all had it. Note that the nomads have
managed to defeat the Lunars in open battles despite Yara's actual
presence, so she's far from a panacea.
>If the Pentans don't use shields, though, they would really
>take it on the chin from other cavalry,
Give me a break. I can't imagine a warlike cattle-herding people that
would NOT have excellent shields. Even Pacific Islanders had shields.
>>TWOSWORD: like bladesharp, but works on two swords simultaneously.
I don't see how this proves particularly helpful vs. horse nomads.
It's almost a non-sequitur of a spell. It would be better for a cult
like the Hellswords, or Jar-Eel's followers.
MAGIC ECOLOGY OF YARA ARANIS
Despite the fact that I know little of the cult except what is
published and available to everyone, I DO know what Yara Aranis' two
unique Rune spells happen to be: one is TERRIFY HORSE; 1-point
reusable, temporal, nonstackable, cannot be resisted (but can be
dispelled). The other is some kind of anti-archery spell, the exact
nature of which escapes me. Break Bowstring? Ignore Arrow? I don't
know. It was written down once, but it's in storage, and I can't
remember. In any case, no doubt the RQ Daily can come up with a
better spell than we had then. I hereby throw it out to you guys.
What's the anti-archery spell of YA?
Now, picture the Pent nomads (I dislike the barbarism "Pentan")
following the classic dichotomy of nomad peoples; units of lancers
plus groups of mounted archers. This was part of the Mongols'
principle of success; bring up the lancers so that the enemy will
bunch up for defence, then hit 'em with volleys of arrows. If the foe
disperses to limit arrow hits, have the lancers charge into the
thinly-spread crowd. It's a sort of Catch-22. Of course, the Pentans
are probably not as advanced militarily as the Mongols, but they
probably have at least figured out this simple trick.
So, a defending group of Lunar infantry (probably backed up with some
cavalry), has to worry about lancers and archers. Terrify Horse is an
excellent defence against a mounted charge -- even if only one guy in
ten in the defending group can cast it, you've just turned 10% of an
attacking mass into tons of panicked flesh freaking out, trying to
break away, running crosswise through the other horses, knocking them
over, screaming, lowering morale, etc. It's certain to gravely impede
any charge, if it doesn't break it up entirely. If you have cavalry
of your own to quickly take advantage of the disorganized state of
the enemy, you can really trash them.
Now, when the horse archers come in close, you zap'em with the
anti-archery spell. Whatever it is, it should be able to protect most
of a defending group from the archers for at least a volley or two.
If the archers have to linger longer than that to affect the
infantry, they'll be vulnerable to returning crossbow fire (or
whatever the infantry are equipped with), or (once more) a
counter-charge with medium cavalry could cause them grief.
I believe that YARA ARANIS is an example of a common phenomenon in
Glorantha -- a highly useful cult that isn't particularly good for
adventurers. Terrify Horse won't do you that much good if you're a
group of six guys suddenly charged by another group of six guys.
Sure, one of the enemy horses will veer off until he manages to cast
Dispel Magic, but it's not that big a deal. And if you manage to stop
one of them from using missiles on you with an anti-bow spell, he'll
just draw his sword and lay into you. These specialized spells are
great for wartime, but only so-so for adventuring.
Thus, you end up with an interesting cult that kicks butt and
conquers land, yet which the PCs can frequently beat in hand-to-hand
combat. A classic case of Gloranthan Magic Ecology.
---------------------
From: jjm@zycor.lgc.com (johnjmedway)
Subject: "protect" ? !
Message-ID: <9401031910.AA13841@hp0.zycor.lgc.com>
Date: 3 Jan 94 19:10:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2721
From: okamoto@hpcc101.corp.hp.com (Jeff Okamoto)
X-RQ-ID: 2713
>>
>> Although this will sound Lunarish, I see Arkat and Gbaji as two sides of the
>> same concept. By itself, Illumination is not "evil": it is a new way of
>> ...
>> ability makes that being "good" or "evil". If they choose the "Dark Side"
>> and become amoral, then they are Gbaji. If they choose the "Light Side"
>> and protect, then they are Arkat.
You call what that yahoo did "protect"ing? PROTECTing??????
He made one of the bigger messes so far when he destroyed the wonderous
creations of Nysalor. History leads credence to the suppostitions that
it was Gbaji who walked away from that final battle. Arkat had become
Gbaji to destroy Nysalor.
From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
X-RQ-ID: 2715
>>
>> DANFIVE XARON: a cult of repentence and toil. A person accused of a
>> ...
>> missions in wartime. Not a PC cult, really.
Um, I have two of them among the PCs in my current game.
There are plenty of losers among PCs as well as NPCs.
From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
X-RQ-ID: 2716
>>
>> A "Glorantha overview" has already been released. I think the next
>> release will be _Strangers in Prax_.
"Glorantha overview" == ?
You mean the old box, here. Right?
From: malcolm109@aol.com
X-RQ-ID: 2718
>>
>>
>> If anyone is interested in seeing this I can post it to the digest.
>> It contains a whopping 466 names!
Please. Or if others don't want it, please send a copy to me. (address below)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| john_medway@zycor.lgc.com | Landmark Graphics Corp | 512.292.2325 |
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