Bell Digest v940125p1

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, 25 Jan 1994, part 1
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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.


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From: ngl28@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de (ngl28)
Subject: "PRAX AND HORSES (MOSTLY)
Message-ID: <5319*_S=ngl28_OU=rz_PRMD=uni-kiel_ADMD=d400_C=de_@MHS>
Date: 24 Jan 94 18:52:13 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2885

David Dunham in X-RQ-ID: 2875

>Joerg Baumgardner wrote:
>>Now the name Hyaloring seems to suggest Pentan or Dara Happan ancestry 

>I've never been able to make any sense of the names Greg's come up with --
>and I've tried. In King of Sartar and beyond, he's at least making some
>attempt, but it still seems to be whatever sounds cool to Greg.

One consistent approach is to include the names of gods or heroes in 
personal names. In this case: Hyalor Horsebreaker, cultural hero of the 
Pentans much the same way Waha is for the Praxians.

>>From: prhine@wam.umd.edu (Philip Rhinelander)
>>Do they really need to hop the 
>>pond back to Genertela just to refresh thier Rune magic?

>Yes, that's what the rules say. If they can't get to a temple, they can't
>renew. (Some "God Learner Equivalency" temples may work -- you could go to
>a Dendara temple to renew Ernalda spells -- but these are likely to be rare
>when you're real far from home.)

Unless they visit the Orlanthi tribes in Umathela.

But seriously: the same problem bugged me, too.

Sandy's notes on major powers give some excuse for worship of similar 
forces, but imply a certain God Learnerism (or naivity) on the side of 
the character.

This ties neatly with a recent question on the RQ4 list: which 
restrictions and duties are based on mundane hierarchy, which are based on 
divine will?

>>More basic to 
>>this question (I think) is the question of proselytism; what does the 
>>Compromise say about the ability of the Lightbringer pantheon to win new 
>>followers?

>This is what I see as a problem with the RQ3 temple size rules. It's very
>hard to go elsewhere and be a missionary. Maybe that's true for Glorantha.

I found an interesting remark in Cults of Terror or RuneQuest Companion 
that the early Theyalan missionaries went about and "woke" the deities (or 
their worship) among the peoples they converted.

On my own gameworld, I have a religion with missionaries very similar to 
that, contacting local spirits or deities to include them as saints in their 
rather pantheistic creed. They are somewhat illuminated in their tolerance, 
or at least Roman in their pursuits of including deities into their bigger 
picture. Maybe God-Learnerish, too (does anybody have a better adjective 
form of God Learner?).

Don't  the Lunar missionaries use similar techniques with their customary 
marrying of foreign gods?

Their philosophy of healing gods formerly not diseased remind me strongly 
of 1st Age Tanisor and Seshnela. Who said that Nysalor is dead? He just 
changed gender and colour and now rides a bat...

---------------------

Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 2876

>Joerg Baumgartner wonders:

>>How do you coordinate spell attacks to avoid multiple action against  
>>some of the attackers and letting others come unmolested?

>This is not a problem in a mass combat, in my opinion, though it can  
>cause trouble in a small melee. Take an example of 100 Yara Aranis  
>initiates casting ignite on 100 Pent archers. If the Yara dudes have  
>a reasonable amount of encumbrance and no greater POW than average,  
>only around 50% of the spells go off. If they're totally randomly  
>arranged among the targets, almost 40% of them will get hit with the  
>spell (some of them more than once), and that's enough to reduce the  
>harm done to the defenders, especially as the guys in the front with  
>the best shooting chance are the likeliest to get hit. 

OK, the numbers aren't that bad. On the other hand, otherwise sensible 
people have been known to run into heavy enemy fire shouting hurrah and 
getting shot, with perhaps 20% of them arriving at the opponent, but 
slaughtering them like sheep. (or all of them collapsing before...)

Only problem with ignite without special backup is that you get shot twice 
before these guys come into range. More often if they just stay outside 
standard magic and thrown missile range, as could and did the Mongols.

>In real military fighting, most attacks are without effect. [impressive 
examples deleted]

[Crimean War]
This is a very different style of fighting. No Fantasy or pre-firearms 
warrior would ever have thought of covering an advance or retreat with 
small missile fire (bows, slings). Neither would an archer who spent several 
hours on preparing his best arrows distribute these freely in the landscape.

Also, the desired result is not the kill, but the temporary crippling of 
the opponent, to use as slaves or sacrifices or to hold for ransom 
afterwards. Most actual killing occurred when the battle was decided.

>Also remember that not everyone has to be shot to break up an attack.  
>If 35% of a group of Pent nomads suddenly lose the use of their main  
>weapon, they'll be disheartened, and all but the best troops will be  
>fearful and less effective. A sudden charge by opposing cavalry, or  
>even infantry, may well send them into retreat. 

I like to think of them as similar to Scythian or Persian knights, quite 
heavily armored and equipped with sabres, lances or similar as well. 
Stirrups were an invention of the great plains, and the Praxian lancers 
need them as much as the horse nomads'. (Who was the hero who introduced 
them?)

>Remember, Biturian only cast a Market spell -- it will only do 1d3  
>damage to anyone it triggers against, hardly sufficient to dissuade  
>Biturian or the temple guards. The purpose of the Market spell at the  
>Paps was to act as an alarm, not to incapacitate or cripple the  
>trolls (note that they and their Morokanth allies were not even  
>slowed down by the spell). 

There is no damage mentioned, and other rule-specific effects are stressed 
as well. And a market spell used as trigger to release a ghost seems not 
out of possibilities.

Anyway, what I really meant to say was that city defenses and town defenses 
might be explained with spirits who receive worship as well as with RQ3 
rules enchantments. I like to think that 100 part time worshippers produce 
as much mana as the sacrifice of one point of permanent POW, if rules 
values are required. The two times seven times seve worshippers needed to 
regain (or cast?) a resurrection (without the Chalana Arroy priestess 
having to renew it?) in KoS gives a three times higher exchange rate, after 
all Resurrection is a three point spell.

>[I said]
>>>Horses are the Beast of Fire. The Galanini date from the First Age,
              ^^^ ^
>>I don't believe that.They are beasts of fire, yes, and as such  
>>related to birds, griffons and other celestial animals, but not  
>>particularly associated with fire.

>Perhaps I missed something in the translation. Could you say this  
>again, slower? They are beasts of fire and related to other celestial  
>animals, but NOT associated with fire?

Ok, so I jumped at the article before and the capital and singular of 
Beast. The only way the horse retained anything of fire is its temperament, 
even according to the Hippoi myth.

>>I have read a text (I think in Troll Pak) which stated that the 1st  
>>Age Theyalans overthrew the horse nomads of Peloria with the help of  
>>Praxian beast riders and Ralian non-Sun-worshipping horse riders.  
>>These latter can only be the Galanini.

>There can be plenty of horse-riding non-Sun worshipers. Tarsh exiles  
>ride horses. Malkioni ride horses. In any case, the Galanini do NOT  
>worship the sun gods in the same manner as the Pelorians or Pentans.  
>Their worship style would be no more acceptable to the Pure Horse  
>People than was the Dara Happan faith. 

I was inaccurate again: I meant horse nomads, non-sedentary peoples 
relying on their horses as essential to their way of life. Steal a knight's 
horses, and he still has his castle. Steal a nomad's horses, and watch him 
defend his tent...

>>IMO, the Praxian culture is a Hsunchen Culture with the specific 
>>addendum of riding and herding their respective phylum, and a  
>>tradition of a common earth-mother for the beasts.

>Wow. I can't agree with this less. I don't see any traces of Hsunchen  
>among the Praxians at all, and I don't believe they ever were  
>Hsunchen. Their animals are not their brothers, but their food. They  
>have a complex pantheon

Let me switch into God Learner mode:

The Hsunchen worship their beast ancestor.
Praxians worship the beast mother and her children (e.g. Sable-Founder, 
-Protectress), from whom they descended.

The Hsunchen worship the Hunter as main source of meat.
Praxians worship Waha for slain herd beasts, Hunter for slain game.

The Hsunchen propitiate or venere predominant local forces of nature.
The Praxians propitiate Storm Bull, Gagarth, and they worship Storm Bull, 
Zola Fel...

The Hsunchen worship a plethora of local spirits, summoned by the shamans 
at holy places.
The Praxians worship a plethora of local spirits, summoned by the shamans 
at the oasis altars in Prax. (e.g. Frog Woman)

Both practice ancestor worship to some extent.

Both consider outsiders as less than human.

Telmori consider their wolves as full members of their tribe. Praxians 
don't do so, since Waha's covenant made the herd beasts unintelligent.

Praxians were active participants in the Gods War.
OK, we lack reports about the Hsunchen activities then. Given the Basmoli 
Empire in Dawn Age Tanisor, they did, too.

The Praxians have a solid holy place in the Paps. (They inherited it from 
the Golden Age people).
The Basmoli erected Hrelar Amali. (They developed this themselves, or had 
Godtime experience with this. They built it themselves.)

The Praxians worshipped a whole pantheon in Godtime. These gods are dead 
now.
According to GL taxonomy, there exists a whole pantheon of beast ancestors 
who died during Godtime. Plus the Hsunchen acknowledge the local earth 
powers (proto-Grain goddesses, like Balazar Vyrope, or the goddess' aspects 
in tRathorell;a, Ramalia, etc.

Now where except in the covenant introduced because of the special power 
depletion in the Praxian chapparal do you see the great difference? Master 
Hunters and Khans are not that different.

God Learner mode off, flame-proof suit on.


>>While we're at it - how comes that Eiritha has no relation to horses  
>>in Prax, when other beasts clearly of the sky - the ostrichs - are  
>>one of her subjects/children.

>Why are ostriches one of her subjects? They're not part of the  
>Covenant, though some folk believe they were adopted into it later  
>on. I have my doubts about the efficacy of Release INT on an ostrich.  
>In any case, they're among the least sky-oriented birds of all. Just  
>because birds in general are sky entities doesn't mean they all are.  
>Roosters are Earth birds, hawks are Fire birds, owls are Darkness  
>birds, etc. Just as Horses are Sky beasts, Cattle are Storm beasts,  
>Pigs are Earth beasts, etc. 

Morokanth are darkness beasts - oops, creatures - according to Biturian's 
report from the Paps. Bison, aurochs and cattle surely are closely related 
Earth. Bolo Lizards are saurians, yet part of the covenant. And in the 
Pavis Common Knowledge booklet there is this picture in the wastes, where 
lots of beasts (including the zebra, a beast only quite recently adopted into 
the covenant) paid homage to Genert, a very conscious and intelligent act.

I really have problems with the reasons why Eiritha would not allow horses 
in Prax. She did so all the time between the Battles of Necklace Horse and 
Alavan Argay, and ever since Derek Pol Joni retrieved the Black Net, the 
horses are back in Prax, and thrive.

Is this all beast rider propaganda? The story about Joraz Kyrem's creation 
of the War Zebras mentions psychological reasons only.

---------------------

Jonathan Eyre in X-RQ-ID: 2877

>LANDS of DAWN/DUSK...

>Where can I find info about these parts of Glorantha? Are they one of
>the places where the Hero Plane touches the real world?

Luathela and the lands of Dusk are part of the Lightbringers' Quest and 
described sketchily in KoS. They lie in the outer world, and are already 
part of the hero-plane like Glorantha.

>If Lunars=Romans, Orlanthi=Celts, and there are other "Earth
>equivilant" civilisations (the Orientals on the East coast, whom I
>can't for the life of me remember).

Sorry if my insistence on Celtic Orlanthi or other parallels lead to the 
impression the cultures are parallels. They aren't, only some people like 
Nick Brooke and me find it convenient to picture certain traits in analogs.

>Are there Aztec/Inca/Toltec equivilents, and where are they?
>Pamaltela?

Quite recently the western part of the Holy Country has been accused of 
being Egyptian, Aztec, Minoan and several other cultures. Regions like 
Porthomeka on the border between Esrolia and Caladraland might actually be 
like one of these, and all are somewhat like all of these.

The Pamaltelan urban societies are either coastal, i.e. God Learner tainted, 
or extinct, stemming from the Artmali Empire. (Fonrit actually qualifies 
for both.) These pre-darkness Lunars had a culture little is published 
about. The Doraddi have only recently developed city-like structures, the 
wagon cities of the Kresh.


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From: guy.hoyle@chrysalis.org
Subject: RE: MOSTALI & MAL
Message-ID: <9401210801.A1251wk@chrysalis.org>
Date: 21 Jan 94 07:01:53 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2882


I'd be interested in seeing if there's some kind of historical basis for this
relationship, and when it occurred. Is there any kind of special animosity or
alliance between Mostali and Malkioni? 
   Another similarity I forgot to point out: both races share an almost
pathological dislike of biological reproduction.


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From: henkl@yelm (Henk Langeveld - Sun Nederland)
Subject: Re: MISSING DIGES
Message-ID: <9401240925.AA27972@yelm.Holland.Sun.COM>
Date: 24 Jan 94 11:25:48 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2883


_______________________
guy.hoyle@chrysalis.org
_______________________
>I also failed to recieve Part 1 of the 20 Jan Daily. Will/can this be reposted?

No.

It contained a "mailer-daemon" from some site.

My scripts try to prevent messages like these 
from getting out.

Unfortunately, this is done, *after* messages
have been allocated to parts 1, 2, ...

Cheers,

Henk
-- 
Henk	|	Henk.Langeveld@Sun.COM - Disclaimer: I don't speak for Sun.
oK[]	|	My first law of computing: "NEVER make assumptions"

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From: CHARTLEY%ESOC.BITNET@vm.gmd.de (C. Hartley Data Processing Division)
Subject: Diseases
Message-ID: <9401241543.AB21836@Sun.COM>
Date: 24 Jan 94 15:44:01 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2884


Hi all,

I've just made a classic mistake in the campaign I'm running and I'm hoping
you lot can help me out. One of the characters has contracted the Creeping
Chills (by foolishing pulling out a bucket full of infected slime from
a pit I had Broo breeding disease in).

The problem is that I didn't really work out the implications of this first!

Now he's managed to contract the hourly-loss level of disease (Serious ?)
According to the RQ III rulebook, this basically means he has to get to bed
(in the nearest Inn in this case) and  with a bit of luck he'll be ok
by tomorrow morning, maybe two or three CON points down.

If I understand these rules correctly they seem to be a bit over simplistic.
The three particular things that concern me are:

(1) It seems that just by lying in bed he'll soon make his CON role and
    thereby recover from the disease. No special diet, medicine, Chalana
    Arroy attention, nothing is required.

(2) His CON points don't return when he recovers.

(3) No need for recupperation is specified.

Now, I'm intending to play around with the rules a bit, but I'ld like the
opinions of others. I thought that for number (3), half a week per CON
point lost is not unreasonable.

Similarly, I reckon that half his lost CON points will eventually come back,
at the rate of one per week, for (2).

A consequence of (1) is that it's virtually impossible for diseases like this
to kill a character. Surely to get a disease in a Gloranthan type world should
be a big problem - life threatening. I therefore intend to rule that he
doesn't get a CON role to halt the disease until somebody semi-competent does
something more than put him to bed with a bowl of broth.

ALL comments gratefully received,

Chris.

End of Message

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From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Subject: Re: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 21 Jan 1994, part 2
Message-ID: <9401242113.AA03961@barren.dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Date: 24 Jan 94 21:13:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2886

From: Alex Ferguson.

> >Any bets on whether 1st/2nd age Carmania had Yelm/IG worship  
> >combined in this way? 

> There was no 1st age Carmania.

Okay.  I replace my bet on `2nd age Carmania'.

> >At least one city of the DH tripolis, or at a pinch, some other  
> >solar city in Peloria which has been lunarised.

> All the cities in Peloria are more or less lunarized. It's the Way.

Indeed.  But they aren't all originally Solar, no?  I'm looking for one
in which Solar and Lunar aspect coexist, and is either detailed to some
degree and is consistent with what I had in mind, give or take, or one
which is `blank', or 'to be determined'.

> >The White Moon cult.  ("But what are these guys _on_?")

> The White Moon, I believe, is more of a belief than a cult.

My understanding too, I was using the term informally, rather than in
the sense of RQ cult.  But what _do_ they believe (mythically: we know
they're peaceniks, but that's mainly political)?  And do they all believe
much the same thing, or are there lots of competing beliefs/heresies?

> >Pelorian solar military cults.  (i.e., not Elmal/Yelmalio.)

> Yelmalio, of course, is not a central Pelorian cult, but is only a  
> fringe religion.

Exactly.  But did someone mention a Pelorian `analogue'?  I thought they
did.

> Yelorna (specialized).

Does this exist at all in Peloria?  I'd have thought hardly at all, ties
with Yelmalio, and whatnot.

> I imagine that most Pelorian warriors worship Dendara or Lodril.

My use of Pelorian was mubee misleading here: I meant anyplace in Peloria,
not specifically Pelorian Farmer culture.  Principally, in fact, Dara
Happan.  How, very roughly, do people think patterns of worship would
have occured in the standing DH army, city guard, militia, etc, and by
extrapolation, how is this translated into their Lunarised successors?

BTW, does anyone know of a decent undigester which will cope with the
RQ-Digest format?  And/or, how about rejigging the format so that it _is_
undigestable, and what about automatically generating a preamble listing
subject lines within, and senders?  Maybe this would even encourage us to
use _helpful_ subject lines...  Nah.

Alex.

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From: eco0kkn@cabell.vcu.edu (Kirsten K. Niemann)
Subject: lost authors
Message-ID: <9401242129.AA07523@cabell.vcu.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 94 21:29:30 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2887

Sorry to take up everybody's space with this, but I have no recourse.
Clay Luther and Bryan John Maloney, please contact me with a new
email and snailmail/UPS address. Mail to your previous email
addresses bounced today.

So it isn't too much of a waste for everybody else, I thougth I would
nudge the readership with a reminder that I am soliciting articles &
art in general for Codex.

I am specifically looking for WESTERN material for #2, and FICTION
for issue 3. Any material should be strictly Gloranthan.

Thanks!
Mike
>|<

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From: malcolm109@aol.com
Subject: Cults at some FTP site!!
Message-ID: <9401241711.tn00085@aol.com>
Date: 24 Jan 94 22:11:26 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2888

Quite a while ago someone on the mail list posted a whole lot of cult
information to a ftp site. At the time I did not have full internet access so
I didn't pay much attention. Now that I do have access can someone please
e-mail me the ftp site and the file name(s). Thanks!!

Malcolm