Bell Digest v940311p2

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, Fri, 11 Mar 1994, part 2
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk


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

From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: Elmal vs Yelmalio, again, and heretic thoughts about Sartar
Message-ID: 
Date: 10 Mar 94 22:39:06 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3288

Elmal and Yemalio, 
or 
How my campaign has an identity problem

Stephen Martin states in his article "The Cold Sun" in the RQ-Con 
booklet that the Sun Dome temples of Prax and Sartar had been around 
only for about 60 years.

While I still wonder how the Templars' phalanx techniques had survived 
in the hill-barbarian clans, I'll accept that the deity named Yelmalio 
in e.g. Griffin Mountain probably was Shargash, and was worshipped by 
some of the elves of the Elder Wilds as well, as specialist warrior 
against the trolls. It were these warriors who invaded the Greylands in 
the early Second Age, and they erected the 15 or so Sun Dome Temples.

(Nick, who is the sun god of the hill barbarians in Carmania?)

When Monrough and his fellow heroquesters reformed Elmal into Yelmalio, 
the Lunars happily supported this Dara Hapan influence in Dragon Pass 
(and Prax), and adopted and furthered it (through minor heroquesting) 
along their border. This heroquesting must have affected the Elves and 
Balazarings as well, but seems not to have traversed the Rockwoods.

This makes the God of the Cold Sun of Heortland doubly interesting, 
after Harvar Ironfist had suppressed Elmal worship in northern Sartar 
in his 1611 campaigns. He doesn't seem to have affected the Colymar 
Elmal clan, and I doubt he'll have had any influence in Volsaxiland 
other than pushing Elmal-traditionalist refugees there, where they were 
appreciated as troll-hating colonists on the border to the Kitori.

Apart from Monrogh's original heroquest, no further transformation had 
been made here, so that there was a border of reality similar to the 
Nysalor/Gbaji border pushed forward by Arkat in the First Age. South 
and west of this border, no schisma had occurred, along the border, 
things became fuzzy.

How fuzzy exactly?

In the initial stages of my Heortland campaign, I have a Dragon Pass 
Sun Domer NPC who has taken service at the court of a Heortlander 
Ealdorman as specialist to deal with defensive tactics against trolls 
and chaos from the footprint, kind of a military adviser like all the 
cold war contingents in Africa. His son, a PC, is about to be initiated 
together with the other local boys in what begins as a temple walk 
heroquest.

Among the Hendriki, religion is a fuzzy affair. Ever since they had 
aided Arkat to overthrow the Iron Vrok, they had adopted some semblance 
of western culture which the superheroe, but more so his wizard and 
knight companions from Seshnela, had brought with them. (By this time 
Arkat had already joined the Humakt cult and relied less on personal 
sorcery than on divine magic.)

These 1st Age Hrestoli taught their allies, the Hendriki, some basics 
of chivalrous horsemanship, castle building, and most of all they 
taught them about Solace and the prophets, Malkion and Hrestol.

Their meritocratic caste system and the Vingkotling and Heortling 
society differed only slightly, and when some wizards were initiated 
into the secrets of Orlanth, and some Orlanthi priests and lords into 
wizardry and knighthood, the Aeolian Church of Heortland began to take 
shape.

The average Hendriki would be hard put to define where a normal cult 
starts and where the church ends, too interwoven are the two. This 
might not have been so true for the settlers in Dragon Pass, who might 
have been traditionalists who wanted to breath air free of foreign 
influence. I suspect the same for the 1st Age Seshnelan settlers in 
Jrustela, and I know this was the case for the Golden Horse People.

(Another case where I suspect retrospective kinship is the Colymar 
tribe's claim of descent from the Orshanti Clan in the Colymar Book in 
KoS, when in CHDP they are said to have entered Dragon Pass from 
Esrolia. King Sartar was a member of this Clan of the Hendriki, and to 
have one's founder come from the same clan naturally gives more 
prestige. A case where this worked the other way round seems to be 
Argrath's acception into the Colymar tribe.)

The immigrants into the Quivin lands from Hendrikiland settled into 
towns, probably like Runegate, while others settled in solitary steads. 
(This reminds me a bit of the Danelaw settlements in Anglosaxon 
Yorkshire, where one could find Danish village names and Norwegian 
stead names, reflecting the different style of settlement in the 
respective home countries. Similarly I'd expect Hendriki to settle in 
towns and settlers of the other main tribes of Heortland, e.g. those 
living on the eastern slopes of the Storm Mountains, settle in solitary 
steads or in hill-forts.)

The place-name Wilm's Church smacks of Malkioni, doesn't it? I think 
that the kingdom of Sartar is less typical Orlanthi than we tend to 
believe, with all its sun, darkness, death and possibly even Invisible 
God worshippers than say Aggar or Talastar. (Of course Hendrikiland is 
even less typical with its cnihts and episcopoi...)


But back from Sartar (which offers the most documentation about 
Heortland) to Heortland itself.

RuneQuest Companion told us (before sorcery was part of the rules) that 
the majority of Heortling and Esrolite farmers worshipped Barntar the 
Plowman. It doesn't tell us how they do so, whether in purely theistic 
or in Stygian manner. (How could it, at that date?)

It is a bit more complicated to assign the fitting magic system to the 
various characters. Using RQ:AiG, I rule that the more rural or peasant 
the background, the less are the differences to Sartarite Orlanth 
worship; the more urbanized or adopting western practices, the more 
Malkioni they are.

Aeolian wizards doubtlessly use sorcery and a few divine spells (in 
place of Saints, or together with Saints' blessings. The differences 
between a Malkioni Saint or an Orlanthi cult hero or minor deity are 
small, anyway), and cnihts would use Hrestoli knights' sorcery as well. 
On the other side, I have a Kolating assistant shaman and an Odayla 
hunter, both so rural that they follow ordinary cults and use spirit 
and divine magic. What really gives me trouble are the townspeople who 
have ready access to all three types of magic. Should they be able to 
learn all three types? (MOB set something of a precedent with his 
Thurla Trader Prince(ss) from his Hut of Darkness scenario, TotRM 9. 
Only I'm not too sure whether Hendriki townspeople should be as God 
Learner as western Manirian Trader Princes.)

Maybe I ought to penalize people who want to use both spirit magic and 
sorcery by reducing their spirit casting chance from POW*5 to POW*4, or 
increasing sorcery spell difficulty by one level, depending on what 
they learned first. (RQ3 has no difficulties for skills, but lesser 
casting chances for sorcery than RQ4. There one might penalize 
Intensity and the other manipulation skills with -10% to chance of 
success.)

What do people think about all-round magic users, i.e. people with 
memorized divine, spirit and sorcerous spells? Would they rather accept 
matrix users of all varieties?


Back to the Elmal-Yelmalio schisma, or rather its non-existance south 
of the Marzeel River. Will the Sun Domer from Sun Dome County recognize 
Elmal as the old-fashioned, suppressed former religion of the 
Alda-Churi, or will he accept it as a cruder, but nonetheless valid 
version of his own creed (similar to a Sun Domer visiting Balazar)?

I'm inclined to rule the latter, so that he'll let his son participate 
in the local initiation rite, and round it up with a later pilgrimage 
to the real Sun Dome Temple. I'm not yet certain when he will get his 
gift and take his geasa.

Proposals?


So much for the practical consequences of the Solar schisma on a 
campaign in its starting stages.

Any help is appreciated.

-- 
--  Joerg Baumgartner   joe@sartar.toppoint.de

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

From: jdegon@vega.iii.com (Jim DeGon)
Subject: Gagarth Cult.
Message-ID: <9403110647.AA03680@enrico>
Date: 10 Mar 94 14:47:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3289


Where can I get info on Gagarth the Wild Hunter of Prax?  Besides
these tidbits, I have seen nothing:

1> I think Gods of Glorantha has some info, but that source is never
much help.  Effectively Gagarth is the destroyer.  It gives the impression
that
he is the landbound equivalent of Gloomshark I think.

2> Martin Crim's tribes article proposes a permanent shrine at Moonbroth.

3> RQ-Adventures' Block issue(#3) says that Gagarth guards the east of
Prax(Wastes?)  for Stormbull, warding off chaos.
 
How does a Gagarth band start?  How to join one?  Do they use a multitude
of
Praxian animals?  If one initiates to Gagarth, and successfully DI's does
the
Wild Hunt show up and kill _everyone_?  Are Stormbull and Gagarth
associated?


Additionally, what information is there on the multitudes of spirit cults
in
Prax.  Basic skeletal raison-d'etre 's would be useful in building your own
spirit cult structures.  Has anyone built an expanded Prosopaedia which
covers
these cults?

I suppose much of this information may have been published, but is
certainly
not available to the average RQ newcomer.  Sadly, the Praxpack I have read
about in digests-past will never materialize.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Jim DeGon

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