Bell Digest v940131p4

From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Mon, 31 Jan 1994, part 4
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From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
Subject: Various
Message-ID: <9401302126.AA00250@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu>
Date: 30 Jan 94 21:26:58 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2948

Subject: Descent of Praxian Man
(This got bounced due to a typo, but here it is again - Paul)
Sandy writes:

>The Praxians don't descend from Eiritha. Their beasts do.

  Uhh... I thought all Khans had to have at least a trace of blood from
Waha, and thought Waha was the son of Eiritha and Storm Bull.


  Please give the correct geneaolgy for Waha.

  Thanks,
Paul Reilly

-------------------
  Paul Reilly, replying to Alex Ferguson.

>Yanafal Tarnils:  what _is_ the structure of this cult?  I've seen more
>cult rank titles than you could shake a fist at:  Rune Lord, Iron Lord,

  We've always called them Scimitars - this seems so obvious that I will only
comment if asked.

Replying to Boris:
>  discussion, there have been several references to "Hrelar Amali".  Could

  Hrelar Amali is referred to in the Genertela Book of the Glorantha Box,
either in the Seshnela or Ralios section, under 'Places of Interest'.  It
is a holy site of Earth cults, I believe, and a ruined city.  I think that
the ruins glow at night (I think this is official.)

  -------------
Replying to Malcolm:
>  Does anyone else think that Shargash is Umath and/or Orlanth?  After

  Interesting question.  I think that they are originally separate, then
many of their stories got conflated.  Umath and Orlanth both appear under
cognates of their Orlanthi names elsewhere in GRoY.

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

Replying to johnjmedway:

  The Lunar Magic requirement is that you must be an Initiate of the
Red Goddess.  The cult requires that the Initiate be Illuminated, be
approved by the Examiners, and be either a Rune Level of a Lunar Cult,
or be a Master of either two or three (I forget) Ritual Magic skills.

  These stringent requirements protect the Goddess from being adversely
affected by inferior worshippers.  Look what happened to Zorak Zoran ---
he used to be smart.

 -----------
  Replying to Brian J. Maloney:

  Good comments on Humakt.

  In our campaign Humakt varies all the way from the Honorable Warrior
of Sartar, to the Inexorable Death of the North, to the sore-covered
Son of Mallia in Karn Ramal.  (That last is where Chalana Arroy is also the
sister of Ikadz...)

  Look at Earth history for weird variations of gods in various regions and
times.  Compare the Creator of Bogomilism to that of Catholicism, for 
example - both under the Christian umbrella, which must be VERY wide.

  Support locally variant deities!

  On the other hand, I do like to think that deities have some underlying
reality - they can be influenced by their worshippers, but in some sense
we are seeing different aspects of the SAME beings.  If the Gods are 'just
stories' I would rather play on Earth.

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

  I always assumed Pure Horse tribesmen hunted game and gathered plants as
well.  The Great Hunts of the Mongols are sucha  part of their culture that
I didn't want to deny the Pentans the same excitement...

>  1) Can illumination be reversed? Un
  I don't think so - not without wiping out the memories of the person, at
least.  I think Illuminates have access to fundamental insights, the question
is whether they can handle this.

>2) Do people know that they have been asked a riddle right away or do they

  Certainly not, in the story in Cults of Terror - Oddi the Keen, a Storm 
Khan, doesn't realize what has happened to him until much later.  I don't
know about the current material though.  You are right, it is more logical
if people DON't necessarily know, given stuff we've been told about Riddlers
secretly 'corrupting' people.  However, that could all be Orlanthi/Wakbothi
propaganda.

>3...

  I don't think most Illuminates want to 'infect' others. 
> This seems to suggest that Illumination has an origin more basic
than that of Arkat and Nysalor

  Definitely.  Yelm is Illuminated before Nysalor (I think) and Rashoran
Illuminated Uleria, Humakt and Yelmalio in GodTime.  Of course, Yelmalio
didn't even exist in GodTime, nowadays - I'm so confused.

---------
Reply to Joerg:

>Zzabur
>is on record as saying that all non-Brithini humans are descended from
>animals

  What is the source on this?  I submitted this to TotRM and was told that
this was not the case, according to Greg.  Then they published it anyway
in Notes from Nochet...

  Also, the original (Earth) source, me, quoted a source that said that
MOST humans were animal descended.  The Tribes of Law and Chaos were 'real'
humans and included the ancestors of the Brithini and the Vadeli (Law) as
well as Ogres (Chaos), among others.

  Theyalans are descended from cattle and sheep Hsunchen in this scheme...

Great post, Joerg.

---------

  On 'Celtic'  Orlanthi:
  I tend to think of them as a bit more like the Heroic Hellenes than Celts.
They have their own cities (Boldhome, etc.) and certain other features as
well.  I will go into this another time.

-------

  Running out of time - all for now
Paul reilly

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From: eco0kkn@cabell.vcu.edu (Kirsten K. Niemann)
Subject: Bison founder vs Sun  Dome
Message-ID: <9401310404.AA16063@cabell.vcu.edu>
Date: 31 Jan 94 04:04:34 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2949

Robert McArthur (Mcarthur@fit.qut.edu.au) wrote of the comparaison
between the protective spirits of the Sun Dome compared to the Bison
Founder.

I do not believe that in this case you can get any really meaningful
comparison out of the the cross-system matchup. Since I wrote the
section on the Sun Dome's defenses, I thought I would explain why.

First off, NOmad Gods is a bazillion years old, and not a reasonable
source for mechanical data on Glorantha as it has now evolved.

Second, as the writer of that section of Sun County, I certainly did
not look to Nomad Gods for a sense of stat balance. (see the above
reason) Instead, I used the combination of RQ stats and historical
notes to try to (in part) explain how & why the Sun Dome temple
survived for so many years with so little help from the outside
world, and so many nomad enemies.

It was also important to provide refs with an example of just why PC
should not consider knocking off any temple bigger than a shrine.

When I think of how the Spirits of the Directions of the Sun Dome
defeated the Bison Founder, I do not think of a single spirit combat
between the largest spirit and the Founder. The spirits of the Temple
are much better organized than the shamans of the Bison people. They
all worked together to defeat them. One of the spirits probably
possessed some important Khan in the chief's retinue, and forced him
to stab the chief in the back. Another probably obably attacked the
support shamans, etc.

Also, I did not mention how many of the bison tribes had gotten
together to summon the founder. It might have been a single tribe,
now couldn't it. THe Sun Domers were unified in the defense o ftheir
temple, however.

The question to draw from that section of Sun County was: Is this
really a reasonable way to protect a temple, and can I use it as a
model for designing temples in other places? As the writer, my
immodest opinion is that, yes, it is reasonable to think that the Sun
Dome or a comparable temple would have been defended this way.

In fact, the one place Ken edited my work was where I had listed the
EXACT amount of POW available to the GM for assignment to "other"
enchantments for the temple's defense. He loves generalization and
vaguesness, and changed the defined number to some line like " a
number of" . I was trying to show what a temple would accrue over a
year, taking into account failed enchantments, theft, purges,
vandalism and so on. Then I multiplied by the number of years the
temple had been around. It came up with a big number.

Don't mess with established, old temples!
M >|<

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Date: 30 Jan 94 20:25:47 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2950

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