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, 29 Mar 1994, part 1 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk 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: Administrator@ed.gov Subject: Message not deliverable Message-ID: <9402287648.AA764870519@ed.gov> Date: 28 Mar 94 13:01:59 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3425 Received: by ccmail from Sun.COM From henk.langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM X-Envelope-From: henk.langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Received: from snail.Sun.COM (snail.Corp.Sun.COM) by Sun.COM (sun-barr.Sun.COM) id AA00831; Sun, 27 Mar 94 23:16:32 PST Received: from Holland.Sun.COM (isunnl) by snail.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04411; Sun, 27 Mar 94 23:16:22 PST Received: from glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM by Holland.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1e) id AA29395; Mon, 28 Mar 94 09:16:17 +0200 Received: from aft-ms.Holland.Sun.COM (aft-ms-11) by glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (4 .1/SMI-4.1) id AA07364; Mon, 28 Mar 94 09:15:17 +0200 Received: from glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM by aft-ms.Holland.Sun.COM (5.0/SMI-SVR4) id AA14769; Mon, 28 Mar 1994 09:15:05 --100 Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 09:15:05 --100 Message-Id: <9403280715.AA14769@aft-ms.Holland.Sun.COM> 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, Mon, 28 Mar 1994, part 1 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk Content-Length: 14242 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: Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.xerox.com Subject: My Stab at Nothern Prax and the Shadowlands Message-ID: <_26-Mar-94_17:40:02_GMT_.*.Guy_Robinson.sbd-e@rx.Xerox.com> Date: 26 Mar 94 17:40:02 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3417 After some gentle encourage from Sandy Peterson here is what I would make of Northern Prax and Adari. I will attempt to answer my own question. River of Cradles as an the timimg of my campaign I would say that the activities of the Lunars has taken away the better land from the control the Praxian Nomads, driven them into the scarcer areas treacherous to all but animal nomads. The trolls would hold their niche as the Lunars are more interested in consolidating their hold on the human dominated areas of Glorantha and hence rewriting the common mythic background that they share with the threatened Orlanthi culture. Dramatically the Lunar Empire will the unseen monster that threatens all but is rarely seen. Not only have they attempted to drive the Praxian Nomads against the Trolls and Adryami but they are also supplying Sallow Root (my invention) to Arkati's Dark Empire. Sallow Root is a plant which when dried and smoked rewards the user with great eloquence and inspiration at the cost of an associated drain of magic points. This quickly leads to addiction and weakening of the orginal effects unless the addicts starts to sacrifice POW while under the influence. This is having a catastrophic effect on the Dark Empire as money floods from it's coffers to pay for the Root and it's brightest and best are often left after an addiction to Sallow Root as apathetic street litter. The players come from this culture, which I am using as a distant sorcerous culture, and are part of a caravan designed to root out the Sallow Root supply by whatever means possible. They have a carte blanche responsibility although they are accompanied by adminstrators and quartermasters. I envisage Adari to be to major trading place between Uz and humans. Here I will place Sartarite rebels seeking to petition the Uz to fight the Lunars in the midst of a city dominated by humans but run to appeal to the the tastes of the Uz. From Northern Pax will come Animal Nomads who might become covertous of the Valley of Flowers within the Shadowlands due to increased pressure on the meagre plains of Prax. I envisage that the caravan might seek to explore down to the Dead Place that seems to be a marsh within Prax into which seasonal rivers run. I think Prax could be a weak point, especially if I can manage to run the Shadowlands work well, venturing into Prax could be anti-climax. Regards -- Guy Robinson -- --------------------- From: argrath@aol.com Subject: Classification Systems Message-ID: <9403261329.tn144526@aol.com> Date: 26 Mar 94 18:29:27 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3418 I just came across a great classification system in Walter Anderson's _Reality Isn't What It Used to Be_, where he quotes Jorge Luis Borges, who in turn cites a taxonomy of the animal kingdom from an ancient Chinese encyclopedia: (a) animals that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance. Take that, Linnaeus! The point is that classification systems that appear bizarre to us are "natural" to others, and presumably vice versa. In Glorantha, a classification that puts bats with invertebrates is appropriate, because they're all Darkness animals. Likewise, snakes and pigs are earth animals; birds and horses, Fire animals; and so on. Anderson also mentions Gould's essay "What, if Anything, is a Zebra?" He might also have mentioned, but hasn't up to the point where I've read, that some biologists now put humans in the same genus with chimpanzees. Linnaeus himself declared that he knew of no generic (i.e., genus-level) differences between humans and chimps. So our culturally-accepted categories make no sense from a cladistic view. All of which is just my two cents, but in Glorantha, we should remember that different people will have different classification systems, based on principles that make sense to their society. BTW, 22 people have asked for the Hykimi files, and they should be in the soda.berkeley archives now. Next time, I'll just send the whole thing in pieces over the Daily--it'd be less work. --Martin (argrath@aol.com) --------------------- From: argrath@aol.com Subject: Identity and Essence Message-ID: <9403262318.tn155582@aol.com> Date: 27 Mar 94 04:18:56 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3419 On identity: Always bear in mind the caution that appears in several places in published sources, to the effect that the names of gods given are the most commonly accepted ones. Where are Calyz or Furalor in GoG? Or for that matter in Glorious ReAscent? To the extent that names are standardized across cultures at all, it's because of God Learner attempts to systematize. Like all attempts to impose a pattern on our perceptions, every pantheon fails to explain something and probably contains inconsistencies and paradoxes. I _like_ having contradictory and competing mythologies. Of more weight, to my mind, than the identity of Lux/Arraz is the identity of Yelm. We Orlanthi always thought that Orlanth killed Yelm, and everything from before Glorious ReAscent stated that. Now we find that Oralanatus killed Murharzarm, not Yelm, but that Yelm disintegrated because of his son's death. My Lhankor Mhy friends tell me that this is just a Dara Happan rationalization, based on their belief that Yelm was unkillable. Their research, from speaking to those who took part in Heroquest rituals reenacting the Contests, shows that Orlanth killed the Emperor in his aspect as the Bad Sun. My personal opinion is that Greg Stafford is consciously making Glorantha a constructivist universe, where reality depends entirely or almost entirely on the viewer, and it is unknown and possibly unknowable whether there is an underlying God's-Eye Truth. This is not the case in Mike Dawson's Glorantha, however. Mike wants a universe that has a single Truth knowable by the GM. I think a subjectivist universe is much more interesting. Greg Fried asks: >Can't tigers and lions interbreed? And Sandy Petersen replies: > Yes, but the offspring is not fertile, and can't produce >further offspring on its own. I hate to nit-pick (all right, I love to nit-pick), but a tigon and a liger can crossbreed to produce a litigon. I'm not making those names up. The litigon is a rather ill-tempered beastie, but I forget whether the news report of its birth and first year or so of life said whether it was fertile. Barriers to natural cross-breeding do exist, even where tiger and lion range overlap (or overlapped--both ranges are now much diminished). Does that make a species? It depends on your definition. Some species (and subspecies and "race") lines are invisible, while others are more or less clear. Many lines (and the concepts themselves) are rather fuzzy, however. Speaking of fuzzy logic, did anyone else take special note of one of Greg Stafford's answers at the Lore Auction? He said, "An Orlanthi 'yes,' which means 80% yes." That's pure fuzzy logic--which, for those not up on abstruse mathematical developments, is a legitimate field of math now, with applications in robotics and elsewhere. Appliances with fuzzy logic circuits are popular in Japan. Sandy goes on to say: >Of course, Telmori can mate with other humans and produce normal >offspring, too. If he says so. I would think this would not be widely known or believed. My Orlanthi friends think of Telmori as wolves in the shape of men, not as man-wolves. Mating with one (even in man form) would be bestiality, which is taboo and criminal and yucky. In rationalist terms, this is because Telmori have wolf essence. Speaking of essence, did anyone else see the article in today's papers about genetic engineering's effects on kosher and halal laws? A coagulant for making cheese, which uses a pig gene, was held to be OK for making kosher food (despite the prohibition on pigs AND the prohibition on mixing meat and milk), but not OK for halal (Muslim food). The kosher authorities held that the gene lost its pig essence when it was copied to a bacterium. There were several other examples. "Does existence precede essence? Or what?" --Cherry Poptart --Martin Crim --------------------- From: drcheng@sales.stern.nyu.edu (David Cheng) Subject: Cheap Dragon Pass Minis Message-ID:Date: 27 Mar 94 23:35:21 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3420 I don't know about you international readers, but here in the States we're finally getting over "dinosaur fever." Jurassic Park, Barney, etc. are now receeding from the consumer markets. Along with all the hoopla, many toy stores stocked up on dinosaur toys. I have noticed these are now being sold at great discout, just to clear the shelf space. Remember that Dragon Pass is literally overrun by dinosaurs. One could make the argument that every major Dragonewt area is surrounded by those misled newts whose spiritual development has become perverted or misled. Dinosaurs make good encounters in a Dragon Pass campaign. Think of the damage a small herd of Brontosauri could inflict on a poor PC's crops... Anyway, if you're looking for cheap plastic dinosaurs, check out your stores now. --------------------- From: cryptomatt@aol.com Subject: Impalas & Leaping Message-ID: <9403271954.tn172740@aol.com> Date: 28 Mar 94 00:54:45 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3421 The Gloranthan Beastiary says that the Impala can leap up to 9 meters in a single bound. Obviously this distance is only for unencumbered Impalas. Here is the question for all you praxians and impala experts... How far, if it all, can an impala leap while carrying a rider? I think that a rune magic leaping spell would be an appropriate goal for an Impala tribe hero quest. -Matt Thale --------------------- From: marks@slough.mit.edu (Mark S. c/o Tom Yates) Subject: Plentonius the Wise Message-ID: <9403280445.AA21461@Sun.COM> Date: 28 Mar 94 04:46:19 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3422 Nick Brooke: >Also note that the Gods Wall identifications are those made by >Plentonius: only an arch-conservative Dara Happan would both >know them and assume them always to be correct. Me, I doubt the >published identification of some of the most prominent figures >on the Gods Wall. If you have a problem with anything in the >Glorious ReAscent, try thinking your way through it: why does >Plentonius want to say it that way? Indeed, that's the only way one can make sense of some parts of Glorious ReAscent. I might quibble with with the description of Plentonius as an "arch-conservative". I see him acting more creatively, he's trying to put together a sort of mythic ideology for the Khordavu dynasty. The "walkers" need to legitimise their usurpation of power from the "Sons of the Sun". Glorious ReAscent does for the Dara Happans what the Aeneid did for Augustus (albeit for higher stakes). Of course, much of the creative reinterpretation of myth might have already been accomplished by the Ten Princes. Also - don't tease us Nick - which Gods Wall identifications do you think are incorrect? I enjoyed Peter's Duck Tower story as well as both Jesper's and David's take on Humakti in Fronela. My own Oranorians don't worship Humakt, with Valkyries, Orlanth, and Eurmal taking his place in myth. Jesper's description of a openhandist merchant dwarf was really amusing as well. Mark Sabalauskas --------------------- From: robmh@aol.com Subject: On the "race" and "species" issue Message-ID: <9403280129.tn181028@aol.com> Date: 28 Mar 94 06:29:36 GMT X-RQ-ID: 3423 The tendency to call other sentient species "races" is so widespread (in the only places it could be widespread, science fiction and fantasy) that I believe it reflects a deep assumption about the proper way to conceive of other sentient beings. The most virulent forms of racism deny that certain groups of people are human at all. Subconsciously, gamers and writers demonstrate certain basic assumptions of respect/equality by consistently mislabelling other intelligent species as other races. Since humans have no peer-species on this planet, we have no pre-set patterns for conceiving of non-human sentients as other species. Try saying this out loud: "The Elven species, the Dwarven species, the Troll species, the Klingon species." To consistently begin to refer to other sentients as separate species may require deep rethinking of some basic assumptions. One of which, of course, is to consistently think of your own type of lifeform as a species; the phrase "the human race" slips easily off the tongue, but "the human species" sounds a bit off, doesn't it? --Rob Heinsoo ---------------------