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, 06 Apr 1994, part 3
Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM
Content-Return: Prohibited
Precedence: junk
---------------------
From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
Subject: No Moon in Spirals
Message-ID:
Date: 6 Apr 94 05:43:40 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 3525
Nick Brooke dervishes in X-RQ-ID: 3504
> I asked Her, and She told me that some sects of Lunar Dervishes dance in a
> wildly whirling spiral dance. This is the path on which the Goddess Herself
> trod when She "danced her last dream upon the face of the earth". When they
> finish spinning around and inwards, they're in a state of Balance or Lunar
> Consciousness (it only *looks* like frothing insanity), and you can get
> oracular answers from them. If you're ever in the marketplace and see the
> spiral-dancers starting inwards, make sure you're not caught in the middle:
> it can sometimes get pretty confusing and frightening. But it's worth
> hanging around to hear what they say when the frenzy is on them at the end.
Strange that a devout Lunar follower will perceive Orlanth's spiral in a
circular waxing and waning. Report to the Examiners, citizen. (Paranoia TM
is one form of Madness, isn't it?)
The other famous dancer of the Empire was Hon-eel, known for her lascivous
performances among the nobles of the Horse Lords. Dances figure prominently
in a lot of heroquests. Is dancing a heroic ability?
While we're at it: what are Uleria's dances?
Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 3507
> Martin sez:
>>The fact that Zorak Zoran was the major war cult of the First
>>Theyalan Council. Unlikely if Humakt had been around, but it
>>explains why a later-emerging Humakt cult is so anti-ZZ.
> It is also possible that the early Humakt cult was not
> anti-ZZ. I find it easier to believe that cult attitudes changed over
> the years than that the cults themselves altered.
Zorak Zoran was the popular wargod of the late First Council, which
had one human member, Yudam-aryam, known from the myth of Harst/Spare
Grain, if I am not mistaken. (The name similarity to Aram-ya-Udram,
in Elder Secrets in the Bloody Tusk write-up said to have been a
human member of the EWF council, and later founder of the Cult of the
Bloody Tusk, seems to be a confusion of First Council and EWF, like in
the Gloranthan history in the Dragon Pass rules (in other words, an
earlier, now outdated concept, much like 2nd Age Yelmalio). If so, it
says on p.99 in the Elder Races Book:
"when the Long Night ended and the Empire flourished, the people, who
were mostly tillers of the Earth back then, became complacent and
belligerent." So the Earth goddess sent Gouger, who was defeated by Aram.
The Long Night sounds like the Greater Darkness before Time, so Aram is
likely to be a First Age character, and the Empire the Theyalan Council
rather than the EWF.)
I don't think the early Theyalans were dominated by Orlanthi. The hill
barbarians had to be gathered all over the Barbarian Belt by the Theyalan
missionaries (proof from published sources for Talastar and Wenelia). The
Earth cults seem to have been more powerful then than today, at least in
Dragon Pass. I think the Shakers' Temple was built in that age, and the
Ivory Plinth as well, if the above is correct.
In Troll Pak we are told that the trolls effectively shielded the other
members of the First Council from conflicts with the Pelorian Lowland, so
ZZ's preeminence as First Council wargod might stem from lack of contact
with the enemy for Humakti.
Cults of Prax gives 35 S.T. as possibly first incursion of Humakt
worshippers into Prax. The God himself had been there before: Who do
you think was the "Death" who fought Orani (Orani's Mistake: the dead
place in Sacred Ground, on the Nomad Gods map) and was tricked by
Tada (who had buried Eiritha under the Hills) when he came for the
Goddess?
>>When the Humakt cult was casting around for its history ("we know we
>>left it here someplace"), it naturally seized upon Arkat as
>>prestigious member.
> But Arkat betrayed it and stole its secrets. Surely they
> aren't happy with that aspect of Arkat. Also certain features of
> Arkat's story (like the Unbreakable Sword stuff) are quite
> Humakti-specific.
This seems to be a likely starting point for the conflict between
the two death cults - jealousy that the other took their major hero
(Arkat "Humaktsson"!) led to animosity between the rivals.
David Cheng in X-RQ-ID: 3509
> Charles Morehouse (the guy who ran his MoLaD game at RQ-Con) has a
> pretty good idea for Gloranthan Chess.
> Each pantheon is represented by a set of pieces. Each set has
> different movement rules associated with it. So, not only do players deal
> with the complexity of the turn-by-turn moves, they also agonize over their
> original choice of pantheon to play. Natrually, some pantheons are said to
> have advantage over others.
While this is hardly chess any more, it reminds me off an old computer game
where a white wizard led the forces of light against a black sorcerer
leading the forces of darkness, where the unicorns shot from their horns
and the ogres clubbed them...
Each pantheon: the major pantheons of the Elements? Plus Aldrya and Mostal?
Dragons? Chaos? The Lunars?
Maybe one version of the game originated in Carmania after the battle of
Castle Blue...
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
---------------------