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, 23 May 1994, part 2 Sender: Henk.Langeveld@Holland.Sun.COM Content-Return: Prohibited Precedence: junk --------------------- From: Argrath@aol.com Subject: Replies; jewel-bird Message-ID: <9405211521.tn350757@aol.com> Date: 21 May 94 19:21:29 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4097 Nick writes: >A while back, Martin wrote: >> I guess if you can't defend your position from within published material, >> you'll have to invent it. >And I still can't work out if this was a celebration of creativity and >imagination, or a sneering put-down. Gee, Nick, how do you mean that?. I hope those aren't my only two choices. How about interpreting it as a simple statement of fact? Or how about the following translation: "Gee whillickers, why didn't you say at the *outset* that you were making it up out of whole cloth, instead of claiming that it was derived from published works, thus causing us to spill needless electrons on the screen arguing over whether it was or not?" David Dunham: Would it be fair to say that your East Ralios Orlanthi are much like Dark Age Irish, at least to the extent that we can fill in some of the details with Pagan Shore? I agree that some more useful stuff would be nice to see on the Daily, as opposed to 'Tis/'Tisn't/'Tis. Although I think I've been doing my part, I'll keep on keeping on with the following, which I wrote when Mike Dawson thought he could get AH to do something along the lines of the old Plunder: The Jewel-Bird DESCRIPTION A hummingbird made of gems. It is ruby-throated, the green of its wings and head is emerald, the black markings and beak are obsidian, and the white of its body is white jade with green tint, all carved to resemble feathers. Its eyes are clear diamonds. It is seven centimeters long, with a twelve centimeter wingspan. It weighs about 60 grams. ORIGIN This was the work of a Second Age Arkati craftsman named Wilchia. He lived and worked most of his life in the court of the king of Handra. He made several of these birds for his patron, who gave them away as gifts to foreign potentates. As a result, a jewel-bird could turn up almost anywhere. KNOWLEDGE Stories of the Marvelous Jewel-Bird, and the sorrow it has caused, are popular in some parts of Maniria. In the most common version of the story, the bird caused kinstrife which ended with a king and his six sons dead, and the kingdom in ruins. A blind troll then makes off with the bird, but does not know its command word. A few people know that there is more than one. Yelm, Yelmalio, and other solar cultists see the bird as blasphemous. They may try to free the spirit in the bird, believing that it must be a bird spirit. POWERS The bird is primarily a toy. It is said to banish grief and despair, but that is not always true. It delights those who can appreciate it. It annoys people who can only think about the waste of magical resources going into something trivial. The bird has a brass frame inside, enchanted to hold a bird spirit. A command word activates the bird, and causes it to fly. Due to the restrictions in the enchantment, this is the only magical effect that can occur. One cannot target spells against the spirit without putting a hole in the bird first. When someone says the command word, the spirit in the bird casts its spells. Animate Brass makes the bird flap its wings as fast as a real hummingbird would, but the bird flies through use of the sorcerous Fly spell. The spirit sees the world through a Sight Projection. The spirit has INT 13, POW 18. It knows its three spells at 95%, and knows none of the sorcerous manipulation skills. It acts just like a real hummingbird, and has a tendency to wander away if it can. In the stories about it, this is how the trouble starts. There is another spirit in the object, in a POW spirit binding enchantment. It has POW 18. PROCEDURE Make a brass frame and put a magic spirit and a power spirit binding enchantment on it. The magic spirit should know Animate Brass, Fly, and Sight Projection. Then craft a king's ransom worth of gems to look like feathers and attach them to the frame. Then make a user restriction on the binding enchantment so that no one but the enchanter can use it, and "attack" and "target" conditions that cause the spirit to cast its spells when someone speaks the command word. Link the magic spirit enchantment to the POW spirit enchantment. --Martin --------------------- From: ddunham@radiomail.net (David Dunham) Subject: RQ questions Message-ID: <199405220130.AA01918@radiomail.net> Date: 22 May 94 01:30:10 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4098 >From: habowman@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Hal Bowman) >I am a humble neophyte who is now totally lost about what has >happened with RQ. Instead of bothering the experts on this list with my >naive questions, could someone tell me where I can write for answers to >really basic rule and culture questions? So you'd rather bother experts not on the list? No seriously, ask them here, we all might be illuminated. I'm not sure what you mean by "happened with RQ." It's a game by Chaosium, published by Avalon Hill (who just put out a cheaper, one-volume printing of the rules). Most of the discussion on this list is not actually about RuneQuest, but about Glorantha, the world associated with RQ. (Nothing forces you to play RQ in Glorantha, and there are several supplements set in Fantasy Earth or generic settings.) >From: JAJ@roadnet.ups.com (JAJ) >My question is: How do your campaigns build up your PC's skills, magic, >personality, history, etc. while PLAYING (adventuring and living) and not >mainly by bookkeeping (training, apprenticeships, and the like)? We always spent a lot of time training. You can bring some element of play into this unplayed time by using the catchup tables in RQ Cities (those are my tables, even if Midkemia forgot to give me credit). I see nothing wrong with abstracting large amounts of time and just playing out the interesting bits. --------------------- From: WALLMAN@VAX2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (Close friend of Little Elvis) Subject: scholar/gamer debate fodder Message-ID: <01HCM7O3QHEQ00B5FO@VAX2.Winona.MSUS.EDU> Date: 21 May 94 17:13:56 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4099 > From: fletcher@u.washington.edu (Brent Krupp) > I will end this ramble, but also let me encourage people who agree with > Devin to *not* use email, but share your feelings with the list. If there > are a bunch of 'lurkers' out there who have been intimidated into > ssilence by the impenetrable Gloranthan scholar discussions, please let > your voice be heard. Okay, I also agree with Devin. RQ has become a slippery slope. I also will also stick my neck out and say that the daily is sometimes unrecognizable as a discussion group about a game and its world. I have exchanged email with people who also wish the daily was simply more useful. Anyone get the Chaosium digest? It does not have long discussions of "How do people really become initiates of Cthulhu?" or "Is the Shub-Niggarath worshipped in India the same Shub-Niggarath worshipped in England?" And yet, people play the game (in great numbers). In the end we are PLAYING the game. Do scholarly discussions help PLAY the game? For a minority only I think. Do not brush off a request for useful discussion as a request for game mechanics discussion. I like theories. If they help me PLAY the game. I like sociology/mythology talk. If it helps me PLAY the game. I do not think I could persuade anyone to PLAY the game by having them look only at scholarly discussions on Glorantha. Ed It seemed like a Wallman@vax2.winona.msus.edu good idea at the time. --------------------- From: isaac@twics.com Subject: A Proposal for Ralios... Message-ID: <0097ECFD.28E534E0.34@tanuki.twics.com> Date: 22 May 94 04:15:54 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4100 Hi everyone, me again. Thanks for all your replies on Ralios and High and Low Sorcery ... it was a great help to get a few pointers. Something occurred to me about the nature of Ralios in particular, and the West in general - I don't know whether anyone will agree with me, but there seems to be a tendency to attempt to force Ralios - and Safelster in particular - into a kind of "Renaissance / Italian" mold. To me this seems rather a shame, especially as it seems to entail a large amount of rationalization of the essentially Gloranthan nature of the land to make it "fit" into a setting which doesn't really seem to spring all that naturally from the social and geographical background. Maybe this is a general tendency in RuneQuest of late, equating Glorantha with the real world, but it does seem rather to water everything down... With that in mind, I wonder if the following might not prove food for thought for a re-appraisal of the Safelstran (and possibly even Ralian / Seshnelan) "reality". It's just a proposition, so please feel free to lay into it with gusto. I just thought a fresh approach might be liberating... A Modest Proposition for Safelster - In the centre of every Safelstran town and village stand two things : a church, and a fort. Essentially they serve the same purpose : to make the people do as they are told. Everyone who has ever tried to exercise control over any part of the Safelster region has come up against the same problem : geography. Throughout the entire area of the vast tracts of land which are subsumed under the name "Ralios", from the mountains in the farthest east to the ocean in the farthest west, there are no major geographical barriers, no obstacles to transportation and travel. Any society that tries to oppress its workers (read : peasants) has found that those same workers have a tendency to simply up and leave, to abscond. If they don't like the way they are being treated, they can just as easily find somewhere else to leave. From the earliest times, Safelstran societies have had to cope with this problem. As a result, two major tendencies can be observed. The first of these is the tendency to decentralization; in areas of greatest freedom of movement - noticeably the eastern reaches of Ralios - societies tend to be clan-based, and extremely individualistic. The second tendency is one of control of the population by fear and force - physical as well as spiritual - which is most noticeable in the "western" societies of the Safelster region. Thus the fort, and its spiritual equivalent, the church, form the most typical features of the Safelstran community. The presence of a powerful, authoritarian body of soldiers in a community has a profound influence on its society. Authoritarian structures breed an authoritarian mindset, with individual initiative being quelled, and a tendency to react to direct commands and orders being strengthened. A major proportion of the Safelstran "lower classes" consists of typical "oppressed peasants": they do as they are told by their overlords, and their priests tell them that to do so is God's will. The ideal Safelstran society (by which I mean the one proposed by the "western", Rokari-based world view) is, however, far from the reality. The four castes of Noble, Wizard, Warrior and Farmer are all well and good in theory, but the past few centuries since the fall of the oppressive and militaristic Kingdom of Jorstland have seen the rise of a growing entrepreneurial class bringing wares and luxury goods from the fashionable west and generally encouraging the trade which has become the lifeblood of the Safelstran city-states since the old kingdom's collapse. Many of the upper classes are in debt, and the number is growing. In response to this, many states have taken drastic steps such as arbitrarily declaring nobles' debts null and void without compensation, as a result of which leading merchant families have begun to group together for mutual protection against such excesses. The Free City of Wexten may be an example of one such community which has been established in reaction to such authoritarian rule. The balance of power in the early 17th century is a delicate one. ***** Just a thought. Any comments, anyone? Thanks for reading! Cheers from distant Nippon, Gary (Gary Newton / Isaac@twics.com) --------------------- From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk (Alex Ferguson) Subject: Cults, metals. Message-ID: <9405222152.AA07766@keppel.dcs.gla.ac.uk> Date: 22 May 94 21:52:04 GMT X-RQ-ID: 4101 Martin Crim: > Gee, maybe I missed it because I've only been following the > Joerg/Alex clash of titans since early March, but no one has > mentioned the best counter-example yet to Alex's insistance on > one god to a cult: the Tusk Riders. Their cult explicitly > worships three different spirits. Gah, what such insistance? Have I called for the Seven Mothers to be abolished? In any case, note that the Tusk Riders claim to worship one entity, it's merely them nasty GLers who did the cult writeup who say differently. What I claim is that people don't worship (in a committed way, as opposed to in a "lay membership" fashion), all of a pantheon, or anything much like all. Rather, I think most people worship one god, or in some cases, a "tight group" of local significance. This is why I think the existing model of initiation is preferable to Joerg's. > Alex "Quotation Marks Anonymous Founder" Ferguson objects to the > use of the word selenium for the lunar rune metal. Might I ask > that you please suggest a better term? I merely pointed out that it connoted the wrong moon. What do you want, one that "sounds like" an earthly metal, one that suggests the Red Moon, or what? I use "Silver", myself, for "the lunar rune metal", though I found the idea of an "extra", specifically lunar metal being discovered/invented by crazed Pelorian metalurgists amusing. After all, who says the association between elements and metals is an absolutely fixed thing, rather than a product of habit and tradition? > Alex also notes my cleverly-disguised element-rune connections, > and says this should "only [be] the case for those cults which > are 'advanced' enough to have a need for it, and magically > significant enough to provide the capability." Yeah, that was > kinda the idea. It seems clear to me that you don't have to be > as advanced to use lead, since it has a lower melting point. You did much the same with _every_ element, though, and Xiola Umbar isn't really high up the "need for" list, is she? > Re: exarchs in steel plate > I don't have any trouble with this, myself, given China's > historical advantage in technology over the West. Not in iron armour, they didn't. Anyway, I was quibbling with the cult, not the culture, as I said. Why would an exarch do his own enchanting, even if he really _did_ want iron armour? Alex.