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, Wed, 09 Feb 1994, part 2
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From: ngl28@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de (ngl28)
Subject: "MORE WOLF PIRATES
Message-ID: <5361*_S=ngl28_OU=rz_PRMD=uni-kiel_ADMD=d400_C=de_@MHS>
Date: 8 Feb 94 18:48:36 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3058
Joerg's thoughts on Wolf Pirates and real world pirates - part 2
Still working on the Vikings issue of Free INT, I ran across a few
historical or mythical precedents to the Three Step Isles settlement.
As usual, comments and ccorrections are highly welcome.
(A fictional source might be "The Walrus and the Warwolf) by Hugh Cook)
Vikings (and the Ygglinga are Glorantha's answer to Vikings) sometimes
settled in towns on unfriendly shores, soometimes founding the towns, too.
Several coastal cities of Ireland were founded this way, in the Normandy
and in England they took over whole kingdoms. But sometimes they just
founded piratical bases, often in accordance with the natives, who knew
that predators don't hunt directly around their lair.
Two of the most successful bases were Dublin in Ireland, and the Jomsburg
on the Baltic Sea. The role of the Vikings of Dublin is protrayed e.g. in
the boardgame Britannia, and outside of the area I work upon. The
Jomsvikings feature prominently in several Sagas.
One Saga tells us that the Polish King Boreslaw Chrobry, whose father had
conquered the Pomoranes, a Slavic tribe inhabiting the coastal lands between
Oder and Wisla, invited a Viking warband led by one Palnatoki, who had
raided Ireland and Scotland before. Palnatoki took the land grant and built
the Jomsburg, a legendary structure with a fortified harbour. This
structure probably belongs into the realm of legend, but fact is that in
Wollin there was an important and fortified port city where Slavic and
Viking inhabitants coexisted, and from where famous raiding expeditions
and military ventures were launched.
As Nick Brooke pointed out, the Jomsvikings were known to fight like
bastards, and to have strange rites and laws among themselves.
Arabian and Spanish merchants who wandered this coast, as well as christian
chroniclers, described the people of this area as "ruled by a council of
Elders" (read: powerful and influential individuals, such as proven
captains) who successfully held their own against encroaching neighbours.
The situation of the Vikings in Dublin could have been described in similar
words...
The covenant of captains founded by the Wolf Pirates after Orstando Black
Wolf had led them to Three Step Isles sounds similar in structure. There
was a port built by a group of settlers that consisted mostly of warriors,
who had been effectively outlawed in their home country (although highly
regarded, as some outlaws declared such by foreign authority tend to be)
and who had severed their ties to kin and motherland by entering the
covenant.
At first, they were a Viking warband with a permanent base, raiding the
Manirian coast like the great army ravaged western Europe around 880. Their
sleek wolf ships (read: Viking dragonships, but not to be confused with
Waertagi city-dragonships) still are their trade mark, and the prow-head
magic invented by Orstando will keep these vessels popular.
Note that a similar settlement exists on the tip of the Seshnelan
archipelago on Ginorth, which is controlled by the efforts of the Nolos and
Pasos navy now. These Wolf Pirates might have stronger ties to Ygg's Isles,
since they live closer to the land of their forefathers.
During the years of their activity, however, the pirates from Three Step
Isles attracted more and more local (Manirian) ships and forces into their
fleet. They attracted political refugees from the turmoil of war in the
Holy Country, and possibly also disowned nobles or merchants from the
Handran League along the Mournsea.
This influx of dissatisfied Manirians changed their organisation something
from Orstando's covenant, and had not Harrek taken over leadership and
initiative around 1618, the development which had started then would have
gone further.
In King of Sartar we meet Mularik Ironeye, a Wolf Pirate who is said to
come from Seshnela, and who is entertaining knights as his bodyguard.
I'm somewhat intrigued by this character, who at first look seems ill
fitted in a society of Vikings. Since I am preparing a campaign settled in
Heortland (I'll discuss some of the background here soon), where knights
from Seshnela played a prominent role for a few years, I developed parallel
theories about Mularik and the spirit of Wolf Pirate organisation around
1620.
Genertela Book tells us that Richard the Tigerhearted, an adventuring
knight from Tanisor in Seshnela, seized the opportunity after the deaths of
both the Pharaoh and the King of Heortland in 1617 and led a company of
Seshnegi knights in conquest of the Hendriki lands. I'll keep the
implications of the collision between the immobile Rokari caste system and
the freedom-loving Hendriki society for a later posting, but there was
generally little love between the monotheist, caste-oriented Rokari and the
egalitarian, almost meritocratic mix of Orlanthi and early Hrestoli/Arkati
believes which formed the Aeolian church of Heortland. However, the
invading Seshnegi succeeded and held the land for almost four years, before
Fazzur Wideread and the Lunar Provincial Army, backed up by units of the
Heartland and Cavalry Corps, invaded Heortland and drove Richard and his
followers into hiding.
My theory is that some of them left the country which had little to offer
them under Lunar rule, and led by a lieutenant of Richard, Mularik Ironeye,
set sail to Three Step Island and joined the pirates there.
Although acknowledging Harrek's leading role, the council of captains had
gained a lot of "civilized" members. Rebels against the leading Handran
families were joined by disgraced Trader Princes and now landless Malkonwal
nobility, and complemented the rough Ygglinga bunch of captains.
This situation reminds me of another historically important organisation of
pirates, the Vitalien-brothers or Likendeeler (translates as "equal booty
pirates" or egalitarians), a band of pirates who for more than thirty years
threatened Hanse shipping, beginning with a successful blocking of the
Channel between Dover and Calais for merchant ships, preferredly harassing
the Hanse cogs from Hamburg, whose leaders had insulted and outlawed their
best known captain, Claus Stoertebeker. This individual, a minor noble from
around Hamburg, had ties to the Frisian chieftains, led a pirate kingdom on
Helgoland before the Elbe mouth for a while, and worked also politically
against the Hanse league, for instance when shipping food (in old German
"Vitalien") into besieged Stockholm, or plundering Visby, an important
centre of the Hanse league in th enorthern Baltic Sea.
Helgoland was at that time an island of maybe 20 km in diametre. It got
its name from a (legendary?) heathen holy site there (some people even
think Atlantis was there...). The Frisians, although superficially
christianised already under the Karolinger dynasty, kept a lot of
heathen customs in the backwaters of their fens.
The Likendeelers' fight against the Hanse was doomed from the beginning,
but for a while they posed as serious a threat to the league as did
Kingdoms like Denmark a few generations before them.
Their name alone justifies comparison with Orstando's covenant of captains.
The fact that individuals like Mularik were attracted by the rules of Three
Step Isles gives further parallels, and the coincidence of the Helgoland
Kingdome before the Frisian coast, and Three Step Isles before the Manirian
coast, allows more comparisons.
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From: watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk (Colin Watson)
Subject: Fooling all of the people some of the time...
Message-ID: <9402081751.AA24745@condor>
Date: 8 Feb 94 17:51:14 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3060
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Chris Johnson asks some questions about Illusions:
> o Can an Illusion be used to overcome/fool restrictions on a magical device?
> i.e. can an Illusion of being a dwarf allow you to use a magic item that
> has the restriction, 'usable only by dwarves'?
This obviously depends on how the magical device senses its user and tests its
conditions. Standard illusions only affect natural senses (vision, hearing,
darksense etc.) and I don't believe magic items use such mundane senses
to vet their users. "It looks like a Dwarf; it smells like a Dwarf; so it
must be a dwarf"... I don't think so.
I think it works more like a Sense(substance) spell. (You can have an illusion
which looks, feels, sounds etc like gold, but a Sense(gold) spell will show
it's not gold.)
> o Can you create Illusions of runic association?
I'd say you probably can, but it would require a new spell (not one of the
standard illusions - we're trying to fool magical detection here, not natural
senses). The spell would have to change or mask the runic quality of the target
to confuse magical detection.
> o Cult associations?
> o Other associations (apprentiship, family, royalty...)?
> o Can an Illusion mask any of these associations?
> o What would be the Power range (POW for Divine, MP for spirit,
> intensity for Sorcery) for these kinds of illusions be?
New sorcery spell "Phantom Aura":
low intensity (<5) masks against Detect Magic or Detect Substance
eg. this would give illusionary gold the runic quality of real gold.
mid intensity (10?) masks against Detect Enemies and abilities
such as Sense Chaos;
high intensity (15+?) completely changes your aura in some respect for the
duration of the spell (which is sufficient to overcome the specific
restriction of one magical device).
eg. to give you the runic quality of a Zorak Zoran initiate so you can
use ZZ-specific items, enter ZZ temples etc.
Tricksters might have access to a divine spell which gives similar illusionary
aura effects. 1 point for low intensity effects; 2 for mid; 3-4 for high
I don't think it's appropriate to have a spirit magic version.
NB. the above idea came completely off the top of my head so it probably needs
some revision. In principle I think a sufficiently powerful and elaborate
illusion should be capable of convincing anyone of anything... at least for
a while.
___
CW.
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