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, Thu, 31 Mar 1994, part 3
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk
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From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
Subject: Egg on my face
Message-ID: <199403310301.AA04933@panix.com>
Date: 30 Mar 94 17:01:59 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3462
argrath@aol.com (who is NOT Mike Dawson) writes in part:
R>Carl Fink writes: "argrath@aol.com (Mike Dawson) writes in part:"
R>This is particularly funny in light of the fact that I talk about
>Mike's views in the post Carl quotes. To my knowledge, Mike has
>never talked about himself in the third person.
>[Emily Litella voice:] "Never mind."
Feel free to throw a pie at me the next time we meet. Sorry.
In GRoY, the Genert figure is described as "The Spear Shaper".
Apparently he was lot like Pamalt, whose Rune is a stylized spear.
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From: argrath@aol.com
Subject: Drugs to golf
Message-ID: <9403302215.tn278216@aol.com>
Date: 31 Mar 94 03:15:20 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3463
MOB points out:
"Islamic nations across the world have proscribed alcohol for
well over a thousand years before the Opium Wars. Does this
count as a "drug" in your book?"
It's a drug, all right. Hmm. All right, give me TWO examples...
Seriously, though, it doesn't have quite the same "feel" to it as
hazia, does it? Hazia is more of a marijuana/LSD analogue, or
like that green stuff the Yanomamo blow up each others' noses.
Also, the Muslim prohibition is religious, not secular, while
hazia is presented as a secular prohibition. I'd like it a lot
more if it were as you suggest, a religious thing for the
puritanical Sun Domers. But even then, most of Glorantha is
Bronze Age, and the rise of Islam is medieval. I'd see the
prohibition of a formerly popular drug as being a possible issue
in the West, maybe.
What does public drunkenness have to do with salt mines? Were
they unable to make margaritas until recently?
Loved your (Gloranthan) drugs, MOB, and your "beyond the pale"
stuff.
Colin Watson:
What's the difference between a reality that was always "there,"
but was unknown before you entered it, and a reality called into
being by your attempts to exit your old world?
There is no there there.
--Gertrude Stein, on Oakland.
Jim Lai says, re: my deliberately overstated comments on drugs:
"Isn't that overstating things a bit? My impression was that
opium was outlawed because it caused too much capital to leave
China, as well as making the masses lethargic: practical reasons
without resorting to some anti-drug morality. This same
reasoning has led to bans on gambling. Economics. ..."
Actually, Great Britain forced the opium trade on China as a
means of avoiding the tremendous drain on its capital (especially
precious metals) from the tea and pottery trade. And that was
the nineteenth century, wasn't it?
Loren Miller's golf idea is priceless.
"If you can't say something nice, say something surrealistic."
--Martin
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From: raphael@research.canon.oz.au (Andrew Raphael)
Subject: Re: Gloranthan ball games
Message-ID: <199403310404.AA07544@mama.research.canon.oz.au>
Date: 1 Apr 94 00:04:17 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3464
MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu (Loren J. Miller) writes:
>I think American Football has too many rules to be anything at all
>like Trollball. I don't know if Rugby has fewer rules. Somebody else?
I'd always assumed trollball was a parody of American football, with
all its armour & helmets.
The Baboons could play Australian football, where you can't run with
the ball. Baboons have to run on all fours, after all. Australian rules
has been described as monkeys copulating with a football, after all.
MOB seems to be a Victorian, so unless he's in the Anti-Football League,
he should know all about it. :-) I'm from Sydney, & therefore ignorant
of the game.
>> Polo would be a Pentan game, possibly as popular among High Llama
>> riders and Grazers.
The Afghans play a polo-like game using a headless calf as the ball.
That sounds like the Pentan's style.
>Save Hockey for people who live in a flat and icy land.
Hockey, played on a grass field with sticks & ball, not ice hockey.
>> Any suggestions for assigning a baseball/cricket clone?
Baseball & cricket have been around for centuries. Ignoring the
Cooperstown myth, baseball descends from British stick & ball games.
There's an article on this in a Steven J Gould book. Cricket would
imply an agricultural society with a wealthy class able to take 5 days
to play a game.
>Maybe we could introduce baseball as an aldryami game?
I find it hard to imagine Aldryami playing anything, but if they do,
archery would be the thing. Gymnastics, maybe?
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From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham)
Subject: fun & games; Ralios
Message-ID: <199403310445.AA05053@radiomail.net>
Date: 31 Mar 94 04:45:32 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3465
Why is everyone so eager to transplant Earth games (and largely Western
games) to Glorantha? Shouldn't they have their own unique and fun games,
like Trollball or the lacross played from horseback that Loren Miller
suggested?
I started looking at Ralios recently, and am having some trouble with the
geography. I can't locate the following places listed in Points of
Interest:
Borin (is this the kingdom labelled Belstos on p.73?)
Surkorion
Tara (and its cities Rhianoos and Tareos)
Wexten
A lake is either Lake Bakeel or Bakan Lake.
Are there any maps other than the one in Genertela Book?
I'm surprised that Valantia was repopulated by Lankst and Surkorion
tribesmen, since it's in the middle of Otkorion lands.
Does anyone have any info on Ralios they've come up with? I've been unable
to find anything by scanning the stuff I've archived (not being a real
Internet guy, I don't know if it's available somewhere).
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From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
Subject: Re: Stephen Martin, Man of Mystery
Message-ID: <940331073607_100270.337_BHL23-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 31 Mar 94 07:36:08 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3466
Nick here. This is getting confusing. The world shifts under my feet...
Loren said, re: Stephen Martin,
> He was at RQ-Con after all. I met him there and he seemed a
> reasonable fellow.
This was another RQ-Con in a parallel dimension?? (Twilight Zone noises).
Stephen couldn't make it to RQ-Con. I met him afterwards, and he didn't.
Guess you can work that out from his mail: he's similar in person. Great
Gloranthan scholarship, though: I love his work (I volunteer to retype it
when a good submission comes in), and am aggrieved we've not been able to
print more of it.
Shannon then attempts to clarify things:
> As a side note, Steve wasn't at RQ-Con, though he did attend the last
> Convulsion.
No he didn't. He'll be at the next one, though. We shall get police crash
barriers to segregate him from Oliver (and the rest of the attendees)
Stephen said re: Glorantha products:
> RAG is the first RuneQuest product that Greg has actually read through
> since Elder Secrets or possibly Sun County. Contrary to popular belief,
> he did not even do more than glance at Dorastor. He trusts Ken Rolston,
> Nick Brooke, and a few other people enough that he has seen no need to
> review the RQ products closely. I convinced him that this was not the
> case...
Rightly, as I had nothing whatever to do with Sun County, Shadows on the
Borderlands, or Dorastor. My sole contribution to River of Cradles was a
night's intensive work at the last Convulsion. If Greg's former hands-off
attitude was because "RuneQuest is safe in Nick's hands," then *maybe* I
should get to see them. This fundamental misconception pisses me off, now
that I've learned of it. I'm not saying I want to read through Avalon Hill
Gloranthan products -- I don't have limitless free time. But I don't want
people imagining I'm responsible for them. Especially for Dorastor.
====
Nick
====
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